Why Do We Care About Mainstream Controversy?
With all the outrage over the ‘No Russian’ mission in Modern Warfare 2, such as this embarrassing piece on Fox News, I wanted to briefly discuss the gaming community’s obsession with mainstream controversy. Why do we feel the need to defend ourselves from these criticisms?
News flash: gamers are no longer a minority. The videogame industry is one of the largest entertainment earners in the world. Videogames are no longer for children and teens. Most people play in one form or another. With the exception of Germany and Australia, very little of the ‘Western World’ has any history of media censorship.
What is everybody worried about? Just ignore it, videogames aren’t going anywhere. read more
Get Ready For Games in Installments
Electronic Arts just released their earnings, and they were disappointing to say the least. As a result, they’re firing 1,500 employees (something in the range of 15-20% of the company) in the next few months, and cutting 1/3 of their planned releases. Any game that doesn’t have the potential to sell 2 million units is cut.
These aren’t the dregs of their studios either; EA Redwood (Visceral Games), EA Tiburon, Mythic, Black Box and Maxis are being hit. This includes games like Dead Space, Dante’s Inferno, Warhammer, Henry Hatsworth and Spore. Furthermore, Electronic Arts bought Playfish for nearly $300 million, adding the company’s social gaming lineup to EA’s existing Pogo.com casual games service.
While I couldn’t care less about the fate of studio employees, I do care about the outlook for games, and this isn’t good. Electronic Arts tried to be creative and that screwed them, so now the road is clear: more sequels, more casual games and most importantly, low-risk incremental release schedules. read more
Games I Want: Uncharted 2
I’m not going to get into the reasons why I want Uncharted 2. Would it even matter? I’m going to buy it, you’re going to buy it; it’s the second coming of Jesus (he’s wearing a cloak made of pancakes this time).
Just in case you weren’t sold yet, however, check out the following Quick Look from Giant Bomb. read more
How Large a Threat to Traditional Handheld Gaming is the iPhone?
Apple announced Monday that more than 2 billion applications have been downloaded through its App Store. More significantly, 25% of the applications on the store are games, and 80% of the applications are free. The costs to develop for the App store are significantly lower compared to traditional handhelds as the games are far less complex, and the iPhone already has an install base over 30mm and that number is growing rapidly.
Is this a sea change in the industry in terms of where people are going to game, is this just a passing fad, or is it an expansion in the overall market? I’m going to analyze multiple questions on this matter and offer my conclusions on what the handheld gaming industry will look like 3-5 years down the road.