ACSIS, you're beating a dead horse now. Go start a new thread if you want to continually debate the merits of permadeath - it's not really relevant to this thread.
Tencent Holdings Ltd., China’s biggest Internet company by market value, bought a majority stake in Los Angeles online-game publisher Riot Games Inc.
The transaction is expected to close within 30 days, Riot Games said yesterday in a statement. While terms weren’t disclosed, a person familiar with the matter said the companies were negotiating a price of more than $350 million. The person declined to be identified because the terms are private.
Think of how many ordinary game studios would be valued at 350 mil. Harmonix went for $50...
Say you're on the internet and you have a lot of users. Each user on a website is worth at least $1000 right?
Dotcom bubble 2.0 is in its 11th hour.
The Cheezburger guy just got 30-35 million in venture cap. Granted his sites are now more than just cats but wow. I want him to lease an office building in Seattle and put Cheezburger on the side of it.
I thought we were debating the fundamental conceptual flaws in MMORPGs ^^
Well, unless part of the argument is "and it'll affect sales in this way," then yeah, an extended discussion on that doesn't really fit the thread.
Anyway, the Chinese will soon buy us all.
China's biggest Internet company, Tencent, has reportedly acquired a majority stake in Los Angeles-based Riot Games for the sum of $350 million. Tencent has already acquired a number of other Western properties, including Crytek's free-to-play FPS and Take-Two's NBA 2K Online, and also runs the QQ messaging service, boasting over 600 million-plus users. Riot makes League of Legends, the free-to-play DotA-style multiplayer title, and has said it will stay in Los Angeles and continue to "aggressively" hire through 2011.
This deal likely won't affect the day-to-day of League of Legends (or any other titles Riot has under development), but given Tencent's contacts and assets in China, Riot will likely get a lot of help in spreading its games to players overseas. The transaction is still subject to regulatory measures, but is expected to close within 30 days.
* 11. SCEA has leave to serve a subpoena with a shortened response time on
PayPal, Inc. for information concerning the accounts of Defendant Hector Cantero
(“Cantero”), Defendant Sven Peter (“Peter”), Defendant Doe 1 Bushing (“Bushing”),
Defendant Doe 2 Segher (“Segher”) and “kakaroto,” for a response within five days after
service.
* 12. SCEA has leave to serve a subpoena with a shortened response time on
Twitter, Inc. for information concerning account holders Cantero (“marcan42”), Peter
(“bl4sty”), Bushing (“gnihsub”), Segher (“pytey”), and “KaKaRoToKS,” for a response within
five days after service.
* 13. SCEA has leave to serve a subpoena with a shortened response time on
Geeknet, Inc. for information concerning Slashdot.com account holders Cantero
(“marcansoft”) and Bushing (“bushing”), for a response within five days after service.
* 14. SCEA has leave to serve a subpoena with a shortened response time on
Kickstarter for information concerning account holder Bushing, for a response within five
days after service.
* 15. SCEA has leave to serve a subpoena with a shortened response time on
Github.com for information concerning account holders “hermesEOL,” “kakaroto,”
“kmeaw,” “waninkoko,” and “grafchokolo,” for a response within five days after service.
* 16. SCEA has leave to serve similarly targeted subpoenas with a shortened
response time to any third party who SCEA learns may be involved in the circumvention
and/or offering to the public, posting online, marketing, advertising, promoting, installing,
distributing, providing and otherwise trafficking in any circumvention technology, product,
service, method, code, software tool, device, component or part thereof that circumvents
the technological protection measures (“TPMs”) in the PlayStation®3 computer
entertainment system (“PS3 System”), including but not limited to the Elliptic Curve Digital
Signature Algorithm Keys, encryption and/or decryption keys, 3.55 Firmware Jailbreak,
dePKG Firmware Decrypter, Signing Tools, root keys and/or Fail0verflow tools, and/or any
other technologies that enable unauthorized access to and/or copying of PS3 Systems and
other copyrighted works that are accessible through or compatible with the PS3 System,
for a response within five days after service.
* 17. SCEA has leave to serve similarly targeted subpoenas with a shortened
response time to any third party who SCEA learns may have knowledge of the
circumvention and/or offering to the public, posting online, marketing, advertising,
promoting, installing, distributing, providing and otherwise trafficking in any circumvention
technology, product, service, method, code, software tool, device, component or part
thereof that circumvents the TPMs in the PS3 System, including but not limited to the
Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm Keys, encryption and/or decryption keys, 3.55
Firmware Jailbreak, dePKG Firmware Decrypter, Signing Tools, root keys and/or
Fail0verflow tools, and/or any other technologies that enable unauthorized access to
and/or copying of PS3 Systems and other copyrighted works that are accessible through
and compatible with the PS3 System, for a response within five days after service.
* TL;DR list of people that Sony is targeting:
* Hector Cantero (Marcan)
* Sven Peter
* Bushing
* Segher
* kakaroto
* kmeaw
* waninkoko
* grafchokolo
* to any third party who SCEA learns may be involved in the circumvention and/or offering to the public, posting online, marketing, advertising, promoting, installing, distributing, providing and otherwise trafficking in any circumvention technology, product,
service, method, code, software tool, device, component or part thereof that circumvents
the technological protection measures
to sue the internet, yes. Do our conversations about the initial presentation in this thread count as marketing, advertising, or promoting? We could be next!
Oh and cloudeagle, do we really need your little comments breaking up articles every paragraph? It's irritating.
I'd be happy to if there weren't so dang much information in each and every one of those paragraphs.
So? Is it that hard to save your comments until the end? Interrupting it like you do is nothing but obnoxious.
As is calling other people's comments "little," but hey.
At any rate, looks like I've learned something valuable: never, ever use the word "deets" again.
So what, you think one sentence comments are huge? Because I'm pretty sure they're little and thus, pretty un-needed.
Look, if you really think so highly of your opinion that everyone has to read your colour commentary then go ahead. But f you think we're smart enough to read and understand it ourselves, then what exactly is the point of doing it?
Someone is posting his opinion in a discussion forum? GET OUT!
I like how nobody can agree on what casual means. CoD is casual depending on the phase of the moon.
That's because it's just a stupid vague word, it's not the fault of those using it.
Also because people are using a binary set of terms for three groups. Everyone needs to switch to the terms "foul-mouthed teens," "soccer moms and their children," and "basement-dwelling nerds."
And sure, it's really stereotypical, kind of tongue-in-cheek and not completely accurate, but so are the existing terms. People use casual and hardcore in place of "soccer moms" etc. because they think they're being more descriptive and dodging stereotypes, but it's still obvious what they mean while simultaneously being confusing/obfuscating and causes terminology arguments.
If you mean teens, say it. CoD isn't casual, it's a foul-mouthed teen game. Wii Sports isn't casual, it's a soccer mom game. Demon's Souls isn't hardcore, it's a basement-dwelling nerd game.
Using direct language is anathema for some people. If they do that, they can't hide behind the euphemisms when somebody calls them out on their not-as-clever-as-they-thought Us vs Them argument. It especially allows them to be vaguely broad in categorising everybody else as 'not me'.
And sure, it's really stereotypical, kind of tongue-in-cheek and not completely accurate, but so are the existing terms. People use casual and hardcore in place of "soccer moms" etc. because they think they're being more descriptive and dodging stereotypes, but it's still obvious what they mean while simultaneously being confusing/obfuscating and causes terminology arguments.
If you mean teens, say it. CoD isn't casual, it's a foul-mouthed teen game. Wii Sports isn't casual, it's a soccer mom game. Demon's Souls isn't hardcore, it's a basement-dwelling nerd game.
Those terms seem just as bad as the other ones to me. They're basically just mainstream, casual and hardcore.
As I said the last time this discussion was brought up, I think the terms are fine. Stop thinking about the audience or whatever and think about the game mechanics. Complicated mechanics and a steep learning curve? Hardcore. Simple mechanics and easy to jump into? Casual.
Yes, but some people use different interpretations of those words which are equally valid - some refer to a casual player rather than casual mechanics, or a player who considers himself hardcore because he plays games with hardcore blood and gore versus the one who actually is hardcore due to enjoying hardcore game mechanics. No one clarifies what they mean, either. That's why referring directly to the audience targeted by a game is far easier to understand at a glance, and in most cases, easier to agree on.
And sure, it's really stereotypical, kind of tongue-in-cheek and not completely accurate, but so are the existing terms. People use casual and hardcore in place of "soccer moms" etc. because they think they're being more descriptive and dodging stereotypes, but it's still obvious what they mean while simultaneously being confusing/obfuscating and causes terminology arguments.
If you mean teens, say it. CoD isn't casual, it's a foul-mouthed teen game. Wii Sports isn't casual, it's a soccer mom game. Demon's Souls isn't hardcore, it's a basement-dwelling nerd game.
What type of games are for married guys with kids? Or hot gamer chicks?
Drunk college party games? Oh wait, we have good examples of those on YouTube.
That's what it meant for the longest. It was pushed constantly by gaming sites defining them as that. They were thrown out there as elitist terms. Hardcore gamers being better than casual gamers.
PSP Marcus was the what it all came down to. PSP was marketed as this do-all device and had "core" games for the real gamers. So here's this kid playing it.
5 years ago when teens told me they were hardcore it meant they listened to bands like AFI. Now it means they have an HD console.
We really have become a soft bunch of people.
I should add something to the discussion here. Casual and hardcore are meaningless when it comes to video game fans talking about games. They both over simplify by trying to put everything into one of two categories. We have the term genre which we can break down into a bunch of different types of games.
Marketing and PR departments will use their stupid cookie cutter terms. When we tell someone about a game we use genres because those actually give other people an idea of what kind of game they will be playing.
Then again, it seems like the market itself has divided itself up into casual and hardcore, haven't they? I mean, the average PS3 user and the average Wii user tend to have quite different tastes.
While there are problems with the terms, the video game market has expanded greatly into new territory, sucking in people who don't necessarily want complex game experiences. There's nothing wrong with trying to note that, I think.
Then again, it seems like the market itself has divided itself up into casual and hardcore, haven't they? I mean, the average PS3 user and the average Wii user tend to have quite different tastes.
While there are problems with the terms, the video game market has expanded greatly into new territory, sucking in people who don't necessarily want complex game experiences. There's nothing wrong with trying to note that, I think.
Going with the assumption that the average PS3 user has different tastes than the average Wii user; that doesn't make the average PS3 game hardcore and the average Wii game casual.
Many people would want to put Facebook games in the category of casual. Yet I had to listen to months of managers at work talking about Farmville and showing off their farms. They were not playing those games in a casual way. They were fanatical about checking it every chance they had.
Also, casual /= simple; yet, simple games that people like to play are constantly pointed at as for casual players. Simple and fun games are mass market games that grab lots of people because they are simple to get into but have a curve if you want to try and max them out.
My 4 year old can play Angry Birds and so can I, but we play them with different goals.
To connect it with different media. Nicholas Sparks and James Patterson are not writers for the casuals. They are writers for the mass market and they do push out a lot of unoriginal books but the PR and marketing is not about books for the casuals.
Neither do we talk about movies in that matter by pointing out the next Michael Bay movie as a movie for the casuals. We say hey look another guilty pleasure, no plot, explosive filled, movie!
Casual shouldn't be used by video game media and it certainly shouldn't be used by us. You want to define a game then define what genre it is and what you do in it. Don't just undermine a game by saying it is for the casuals. That doesn't provide us with any knowledge about what it is.
And with that way too long post, which probably jumps around too much, I'm going to go play some video games while I wait to watch the Super Bowl with the rest of the country. F the Stealers (typo on purpose)
Then again, it seems like the market itself has divided itself up into casual and hardcore, haven't they? I mean, the average PS3 user and the average Wii user tend to have quite different tastes.
While there are problems with the terms, the video game market has expanded greatly into new territory, sucking in people who don't necessarily want complex game experiences. There's nothing wrong with trying to note that, I think.
Going with the assumption that the average PS3 user has different tastes than the average Wii user; that doesn't make the average PS3 game hardcore and the average Wii game casual.
Many people would want to put Facebook games in the category of casual. Yet I had to listen to months of managers at work talking about Farmville and showing off their farms. They were not playing those games in a casual way. They were fanatical about checking it every chance they had.
Also, casual /= simple; yet, simple games that people like to play are constantly pointed at as for casual players. Simple and fun games are mass market games that grab lots of people because they are simple to get into but have a curve if you want to try and max them out.
My 4 year old can play Angry Birds and so can I, but we play them with different goals.
To connect it with different media. Nicholas Sparks and James Patterson are not writers for the casuals. They are writers for the mass market and they do push out a lot of unoriginal books but the PR and marketing is not about books for the casuals.
Neither do we talk about movies in that matter by pointing out the next Michael Bay movie as a movie for the casuals. We say hey look another guilty pleasure, no plot, explosive filled, movie!
Casual shouldn't be used by video game media and it certainly shouldn't be used by us. You want to define a game then define what genre it is and what you do in it. Don't just undermine a game by saying it is for the casuals. That doesn't provide us with any knowledge about what it is.
And with that way too long post, which probably jumps around too much, I'm going to go play some video games while I wait to watch the Super Bowl with the rest of the country. F the Stealers (typo on purpose)
Well, then how should we differentiate between games that are marketed at different types of audiences? Yes, some casuals play hardcore games and some hardcore play casual games. But the fact that you and I play Angry Birds and enjoy it doesn't change the fact that the game is casual as can be.
Besides, the terms are being used by the industry itself. As recently as last week Sony said they'd be going after the "casual" market with the Not-PSP2 in a couple of years. Like it or not, it's part of the new terminology in the industry, and is used by the people who make the games themselves.
And while video game snobs like us have used "casual" as a slur, the term as used by the industry itself isn't. It's generally applied to relatively simple, easily accessible games. What's wrong with that? Not a darn thing.
While I agree that there are problems with both "casual" and "hardcore" as far as their meanings go, there's really no other terms out there that work better as descriptors of the different types of marketing targets AND are widely used by the industry as a whole. Trying to use a different term when every other publisher/developer uses "casual" just confuses the issue. The matter, no matter how much we insist the semantics could be better, is out of our hands.
Besides, Hollywood already has a term for Michael Bay movies. They're "blockbusters" or "popcorn movies." And those books you mentioned are "mass market" books. Different terms for different industries, but the goal is the same: to describe the intended audience.
I don't get why people debate over terms like 'casual' and 'hardcore'. I think it's just a matter of people being upset about their favorite games or themselves being labeled under one of those terms.
Casual gamer refers to a person who enjoys gaming casually. They aren't committed to gaming as a whole, certainly. That is a useful definition. It has nothing to do with being loud-mouthed, obnoxious, or if you live in your parents' basement or not.
Call of Duty, Madden, World of Warcraft, and Wii appeal to a lot of people who enjoy gaming casually.
People who aren't very experienced with video games probably won't understand or enjoy Demon's Souls very much.
And the terms can be useful when analyzing marketing or sales potential. For instance, I think Sony's stated plan of not going after the casual market with the Not-PSP2 until it's been out for two years is a horrible one, because by then the casual market will have been trained to expect there's nothing on the system for them.
Is there overlap among casual and hardcore? Sure. But the categories on other media overlap all the time. What do we call the Paranormal Activity movie? An indie? A blockbuster? Horror? Mainstream? The looseness of the terminology isn't restricted to vidja games.
5 years ago when teens told me they were hardcore it meant they listened to bands like AFI. Now it means they have an HD console.
We really have become a soft bunch of people.
I should add something to the discussion here. Casual and hardcore are meaningless when it comes to video game fans talking about games. They both over simplify by trying to put everything into one of two categories. We have the term genre which we can break down into a bunch of different types of games.
Marketing and PR departments will use their stupid cookie cutter terms. When we tell someone about a game we use genres because those actually give other people an idea of what kind of game they will be playing.
So you're saying that instead of using vague terms to classify games, we should use other vague terms to classify them differently. Because really, how exactly do you classify something like Portal? FPS? Puzzle game? Both? If anything I think genre definitions are the outdated terms, simply due to the fact that genre blending is become more and more common.
Again, I like my definition. I'm not saying casual games == completely simple and no learning curve. Any good game has a learning curve otherwise they're basically just novelty games, play for 5 minutes and quit. But the successful ones also don't have the same sort of steep learning curve most hardcore games do. Dual analog controls alone seem to baffle a number of people.
And to reply to the point Sporky brought up, just work backwards from my definitions then. Consider someone that prefers playing hardcore games a hardcore gamer and the same with casual.
Wouldn't trying to classify game players into discrete categories work against us? By that point, devs and pubs would only use it to make games to appeal to whatever market they think they need to reach.
The last thing I want is another screed from some Treyarch developer telling me it's my fault they couldn't make the game they wanted because they were told to make a game that appealed to the 'hardcore' or 'soccer moms' or 'Furies' or whatever...
It was bad enough when Epic Games caught flak for stating that making games for the Wii wasn't what they wanted to do.
Gamecube hardcore? I don't remember that. I remember Kidtendo.
Under the industry definitions of "casual" and "hardcore", casual players are the ones who play the most popular things. That gen, it was PS2. Xbox and Gamecube were the "underground" scene, thus making the people who partake in their gaming libraries "hardcore".
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Zeboyd Games Development Blog
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
Think of how many ordinary game studios would be valued at 350 mil. Harmonix went for $50...
Dotcom bubble 2.0 is in its 11th hour.
my twitter | my youtube
The Cheezburger guy just got 30-35 million in venture cap. Granted his sites are now more than just cats but wow. I want him to lease an office building in Seattle and put Cheezburger on the side of it.
Well, unless part of the argument is "and it'll affect sales in this way," then yeah, an extended discussion on that doesn't really fit the thread.
Anyway, the Chinese will soon buy us all.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/02/04/reports-chinese-online-giant-tencent-acquires-majority-stake-in/
First Source
Download the legal docs.
Sonys suing the internet?
to sue the internet, yes. Do our conversations about the initial presentation in this thread count as marketing, advertising, or promoting? We could be next!
edit: Aww, you fixed it.
Someone is posting his opinion in a discussion forum? GET OUT!
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
I blame permadeath :P
Twitter
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
Just think back to how nice and civil discussions about the merits of various video game systems were before casuals came and mucked it up.
If 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend', who would be the friend?
That's because it's just a stupid vague word, it's not the fault of those using it.
Also because people are using a binary set of terms for three groups. Everyone needs to switch to the terms "foul-mouthed teens," "soccer moms and their children," and "basement-dwelling nerds."
If you mean teens, say it. CoD isn't casual, it's a foul-mouthed teen game. Wii Sports isn't casual, it's a soccer mom game. Demon's Souls isn't hardcore, it's a basement-dwelling nerd game.
Those terms seem just as bad as the other ones to me. They're basically just mainstream, casual and hardcore.
As I said the last time this discussion was brought up, I think the terms are fine. Stop thinking about the audience or whatever and think about the game mechanics. Complicated mechanics and a steep learning curve? Hardcore. Simple mechanics and easy to jump into? Casual.
What type of games are for married guys with kids? Or hot gamer chicks?
Drunk college party games? Oh wait, we have good examples of those on YouTube.
Casual - Nintendo
Hardcore - PS3/360
That's what it meant for the longest. It was pushed constantly by gaming sites defining them as that. They were thrown out there as elitist terms. Hardcore gamers being better than casual gamers.
PSP Marcus was the what it all came down to. PSP was marketed as this do-all device and had "core" games for the real gamers. So here's this kid playing it.
We really have become a soft bunch of people.
I should add something to the discussion here. Casual and hardcore are meaningless when it comes to video game fans talking about games. They both over simplify by trying to put everything into one of two categories. We have the term genre which we can break down into a bunch of different types of games.
Marketing and PR departments will use their stupid cookie cutter terms. When we tell someone about a game we use genres because those actually give other people an idea of what kind of game they will be playing.
While there are problems with the terms, the video game market has expanded greatly into new territory, sucking in people who don't necessarily want complex game experiences. There's nothing wrong with trying to note that, I think.
Going with the assumption that the average PS3 user has different tastes than the average Wii user; that doesn't make the average PS3 game hardcore and the average Wii game casual.
Many people would want to put Facebook games in the category of casual. Yet I had to listen to months of managers at work talking about Farmville and showing off their farms. They were not playing those games in a casual way. They were fanatical about checking it every chance they had.
Also, casual /= simple; yet, simple games that people like to play are constantly pointed at as for casual players. Simple and fun games are mass market games that grab lots of people because they are simple to get into but have a curve if you want to try and max them out.
My 4 year old can play Angry Birds and so can I, but we play them with different goals.
To connect it with different media. Nicholas Sparks and James Patterson are not writers for the casuals. They are writers for the mass market and they do push out a lot of unoriginal books but the PR and marketing is not about books for the casuals.
Neither do we talk about movies in that matter by pointing out the next Michael Bay movie as a movie for the casuals. We say hey look another guilty pleasure, no plot, explosive filled, movie!
Casual shouldn't be used by video game media and it certainly shouldn't be used by us. You want to define a game then define what genre it is and what you do in it. Don't just undermine a game by saying it is for the casuals. That doesn't provide us with any knowledge about what it is.
Well, then how should we differentiate between games that are marketed at different types of audiences? Yes, some casuals play hardcore games and some hardcore play casual games. But the fact that you and I play Angry Birds and enjoy it doesn't change the fact that the game is casual as can be.
Besides, the terms are being used by the industry itself. As recently as last week Sony said they'd be going after the "casual" market with the Not-PSP2 in a couple of years. Like it or not, it's part of the new terminology in the industry, and is used by the people who make the games themselves.
And while video game snobs like us have used "casual" as a slur, the term as used by the industry itself isn't. It's generally applied to relatively simple, easily accessible games. What's wrong with that? Not a darn thing.
While I agree that there are problems with both "casual" and "hardcore" as far as their meanings go, there's really no other terms out there that work better as descriptors of the different types of marketing targets AND are widely used by the industry as a whole. Trying to use a different term when every other publisher/developer uses "casual" just confuses the issue. The matter, no matter how much we insist the semantics could be better, is out of our hands.
Besides, Hollywood already has a term for Michael Bay movies. They're "blockbusters" or "popcorn movies." And those books you mentioned are "mass market" books. Different terms for different industries, but the goal is the same: to describe the intended audience.
And before that it was
Casual - PS2
Hardcore - Xbox/Gamecube
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=102783
Style Savvy is the hardest of hardcore.
Casual gamer refers to a person who enjoys gaming casually. They aren't committed to gaming as a whole, certainly. That is a useful definition. It has nothing to do with being loud-mouthed, obnoxious, or if you live in your parents' basement or not.
Call of Duty, Madden, World of Warcraft, and Wii appeal to a lot of people who enjoy gaming casually.
People who aren't very experienced with video games probably won't understand or enjoy Demon's Souls very much.
my twitter | my youtube
Is there overlap among casual and hardcore? Sure. But the categories on other media overlap all the time. What do we call the Paranormal Activity movie? An indie? A blockbuster? Horror? Mainstream? The looseness of the terminology isn't restricted to vidja games.
So you're saying that instead of using vague terms to classify games, we should use other vague terms to classify them differently. Because really, how exactly do you classify something like Portal? FPS? Puzzle game? Both? If anything I think genre definitions are the outdated terms, simply due to the fact that genre blending is become more and more common.
Again, I like my definition. I'm not saying casual games == completely simple and no learning curve. Any good game has a learning curve otherwise they're basically just novelty games, play for 5 minutes and quit. But the successful ones also don't have the same sort of steep learning curve most hardcore games do. Dual analog controls alone seem to baffle a number of people.
And to reply to the point Sporky brought up, just work backwards from my definitions then. Consider someone that prefers playing hardcore games a hardcore gamer and the same with casual.
The last thing I want is another screed from some Treyarch developer telling me it's my fault they couldn't make the game they wanted because they were told to make a game that appealed to the 'hardcore' or 'soccer moms' or 'Furies' or whatever...
It was bad enough when Epic Games caught flak for stating that making games for the Wii wasn't what they wanted to do.
Gamecube hardcore? I don't remember that. I remember Kidtendo.
Under the industry definitions of "casual" and "hardcore", casual players are the ones who play the most popular things. That gen, it was PS2. Xbox and Gamecube were the "underground" scene, thus making the people who partake in their gaming libraries "hardcore".
Why would it be? It had the most niche games of the three.