• 5Jul 12

  Why the games industry is going to eat its own head.

  The games industry will eat its own head, and here's why...

  I've worked in the games industry for a while now (Acclaim, THQ and Capcom) but i dont think it's been in such a bad state as it is right now.
  The main issue being that the economy has turned to slag but also the uprising of iPad and mobile, death of the real market place and peoples general tight fistedness because of the first issue.
  
  Now days peoples have the same power of a ps1 or even a ps2 on some more high powered mobile devices, but it's now a difficult situation as once was £35 is now just £0.69p.
  You'd be amazed how tight fisted people are, as the iphone market place is rated by games that are good but also by how many people buy them. So if a titles £0.69p against something that's £2.99 you can bet your bottom dollar that people will flock to the £0.69p title. So the £2.99 title falls off the chart and is never heard of again. But when we look back some 20 years ago titles where £7.99 on tape, looked totally retarded, developed by just 3 guys in a smelly room. For some ipad games you'll have a group of up to 20 and on top of that a horde of people creating a engine! And its 1 tenth of the price!
  
  Why where we more happy to buy those titles against the digital £2.99 titles on sale today?
  And what will happen?

  1. Digital VS reality
  
  People are far happier to spend money on solid goods against digital items. Once upon a time kids would go mad for a £50 neo geo cartridge. Now because of digital form its available on Mame floating in the digital libraries.
  And for me I prefer knowing that if i lose the data i don't have to rely on the networks to fish something out. It has value, it's tactile, it's solid, it's there!

  2. Shops had a presence, but not any more
  
  It's just not the same any more shopping. The digital domain has claimed the life of GAME store and other stores.
  Digital is now the market place and the real world market place is no longer the market place.
  Big food stores like Tesco Asda and Sainsbury have also taken a chunk, only releasing titles from big companies and under cutting prices from small game stores and even they sell online.

  3. The quality keeps going up.
  
  Infinity blade was a revolution in visual design for ipad, but most companies could never keep up in engine systems or graphics. And it was a surprise to know that it made more money than gears of war after development cost.
  So what happens when people want more and more quality? The price of development goes up while revenue goes down with the price of development.
  If a title fails to sell it will no doubt lead to the death of a company. A recent article on the internet at another game site pointed to the many deaths of companies made through Activision. Radical / Bizarre / Redoctane / Budcat, the list goes on and on... All deaths from big titles that under sold with big overheads.

  4. Micro transactions and the death of fair play and full purchases
  
  Micro transactions are starting to worm their way into the system. Crytek recently announced that they were going to develop free to play titles along with EA. But is this going to lead to titles where people will pay to get ahead, instead of using skill?
  
  5. Live streaming
  
  The Streaming side again affects solid sales; you simply call up the data from the cloud that's streamed. But with so much power the people will expect the universe and companies will have to do more. But there's a trade off with speed, light speed might be fast but when the data's coming from the other side of the world and electrons need to be fired round a server and back, you'll find your reactions are slightly slower, plus there's the worry of network speeds and video compression which fluxuate at different times.
  
  6. Finally economy
  
  With so little money sloshing about and banks with massive holes in their systems and economies collapsing. Companies will find it harder and harder to find the dough to start up projects.
  
  So the future...
  
  - Big titles that take more people
  - Titles that need to make more money to keep the company alive.
  - Titles sold for pennies
  - Tedious micro transactions for everyone everything!
  - Rich people get the better game perks.
  - Companies eating their own heads.
  
  ..what we can do
  
  - Companies need to create different premium charts for App stores £2.99 / £5.99 / £10.99 and above, people only buy from the chart and with everything being 69p higher price titles never get a look in.
  - Develop titles that allow users to unlock everything with just one final purchase that are fair (£20).
  - Limit micro transactions to visual alterations and map pack, nothing that damages fairness in compitition.
  - Companies need to reuse assets and make the best of what they have make the best of development assets.
  - People need to understand that they need to pay for things, not too much, but at least pay!
  
  

  • Posted Jul 5, 2012 5:12 am GMT
  • Category: Games
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• 8Jun 11

  Nintendos new quest for world global domination

  Well its that e3 time again and everyones waiting for the guns to come out among the big 3 console developer, for the guys to show the chips and metal.
  And this time microsoft simply shrugged and points to something they baked last year, sony points to something they've already announced and label it and nintendo introduce a ipad, wait?! no the ...um... wii U

  I can see where nintendo are going with this - effectively its an expensive controller, cheaper ipad with a current gen console (its basically a x360 people - its even got a simular GPU) mind you we get allot out of the old microsoft console these days with COD and GOW, it still does impressive things. and if epic get involved to port the engine to wiiU we could see allot of the same with the new wii console.

  The biggest problem i had with nintendo is that they didnt inspire with the presentation with anything new game wise, its like having a great artist forget about fine art and use simple pictures and crayons opting for a copy of a disney picture they once saw. While microsoft and sony continue to push their consoles to the limits creating almost real worlds...
  where's metroid to match halo where's mother4 to another final fantasy! wheres something brand new and damn right amazing!
  
  Another issue nintendo have is that they have completely failed to woo developers, they actaully have a distaste for lesser companies, violent ideas and unproven houses, this is actually because nintendo have had a choppy time in the past working with licenses with other developers outside japan.
  But this causes allot of hate amongst developers its like a rich child saying you cant play with us because your not rich enough and only allow you round once your parents have completed a credit rating and check you dont take drugs.
  And this explains why there are so few 3Ds and wii games while there are nearly 100 games coming out every week for the ipad - ok maybe only 15 are any good of that 100 but thats actaully more than the total number of 3ds games that are actually on our shelves since launch or the total number of wii games that have come out in the past 3months in the uk.

  so my words for nintendo is this.
  Make friends, give developers a hand, obviously expect great presentation and gameplay but dont castrate them for not having enough money. They might look a bit poor and they use someone elses engine, but remember valve? - they are worth 1.5billion now and they started off as moders (dont think i recall them ever making a game for nintendo - yet)
  
  and whats with that name? cant they call it something better than wii-U, put 'on' between that and you've got something wrong.. its too childish even for kids. Stop making stupid names! They didnt call the titanic the big TUB!
  
  you might disagree about my venom over nintendo and feel nintendo are better than ever, but this is just my outbust folks, and i just wish they could do better - DO BETTER NINTENDO.

  • Posted Jun 8, 2011 6:37 pm GMT
  • Category: Business
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