To be fair, the Harry Potter game this game is directly descended from was semi-notorious for having just about the worst Kinect support of the entire launch lineup.
To be fair, your face! :x
Seriously though, was it that bad? Fraggle, was Potter Kinect terribad?
"The game had been delayed twice; the budget had been increased twice; and it had ballooned to a size where it was going to have to be a pretty incredible success in order to be worth the investment that it was taking to get it done," Hirshberg said of United Front Games' open-world reboot of True Crime. The ambitious sandbox title had been announced two years earlier in as high-profile a way as there is in this industry: live during the Spike Video Game Awards, a show that's more notable for its announcement trailers than it is for its awards.
I asked him why, after going so far as to show it to the press at E3, it had taken the company that long to realize True Crime wasn't a game that it was interested in releasing. "That wasn't the case the day True Crime got greenlit," he told me. "Just a few years back, there was room for a lot more titles to find an audience of scale." For Hirshberg and for Activision, it all came down to the quality of the title. "The finished product was not going to be at the top of that genre."
That's not to say that True Crime was going to be a bad game. Hirshberg praised the game's Hong Kong setting, and its action-heavy mechanics. At one point he paused. "The only reason I'm hesitating isn't due to lack of transparency," he said, bringing up that T-word again, "it's due to respect for the people who were making it who I think are incredibly talented and really brought their all and I don't want to say anything to disparage their efforts." He continued, "That's a super-competitive genre with some of the world's best games in it," alluding to Rockstar's best-selling Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption games. In a world that's dominated by a handful of major brands, Activision is looking for deeper engagement with fewer titles, a lesson that might be familiar to anyone with access to sister-company Blizzard's playbook.
Bizarre Creations
I pointed out that Activision just released, with an awkwardly small amount of fanfare, Bizarre Creation's last game, Blood Stone, a Bond title that nobody would argue was at the top of the crowded and competitive third-person action genre. "Fair enough," he said. "The Bond game was a completely different level of investment and level of time than True Crime. There's a different economy at play with licensed characters, because there's a built-in fanbase for people who love James Bond." Where Bond had a chance to succeed with Bond fans, True Crime "was playing in one of the biggest genres in gaming" and doing so without the safety net of a popular license. Notably, Activision still has a large slate of licensed games in the works, including Spider-Man, X-Men, Wipeout, Transformers, and Family Guy – all titles that Hirshberg says benefit from a "built-in passionate audience."
But Bond wasn't what prompted Activision to close the studio, after spending 90 days unsuccessfully seeking a suitor. "The thing that Bizarre is best at and what they're known for and what their signature is is in the racing world," Hirshberg said. "And the decision had as much to do with our assessment of what was happening to the racing genre as it had to do with anything specific to Bizarre. We just didn't think that was the best place for us to put our competitive energies. The racing genre had shrunk, pretty precipitously."
This phenomenon wasn't exclusive to Bizarre's last racing game, Blur, which failed to find what Hirshberg calls "a meaningful audience." "It was a big investment," he said. "It was a big investment in marketing. And sometimes you pour the chemicals into the beaker and nothing explodes." Like True Crime, the problem with Blur was that it wasn't going to topple the top games in the genre and, even if it did, that market is shrinking. "There are these big, very well established franchises that we would be competing against, fighting for a shrinking opportunity."
Guitar Hero and DJ Hero
After publishing the first Guitar Hero in 2005, Activision found itself at the center of what would become a massive business. In just a few short years, the Guitar Hero brand had become one of the biggest names in entertainment so the decision to put it on hiatus, canceling the year's games in the annualized (some would say over-annualized) series, was genuinely shocking to the game's fans, both current and former. The first thing I asked Hirshberg about was if we could expect to see the "Hero" brand relaunched. "All we did was cancel the games that we previously announced were going to come out in 2011," Hirshberg explained. "The Hero brand is still incredibly powerful and potent. It's one of the best known entertainment brands in the world."
So what's the goal for bringing it back? "If we can generate meaningful innovation and meaningful reinvention, we will bring it back," Hirshberg said. "But what we couldn't afford to continue doing was putting out iterative improvements of the same idea because that idea had run out of gas in the marketplace."
From a peak of more than eight 'Hero' games in 2009 to zero in 2011, Activision's decision showed a tremendous amount of resolve. But why not simply reign in development, focus on a few games, and keep the brand alive? "If they had been more moderate investments, I think we would have been able or willing to continue fiddling with the dials or experimenting but they weren't," Hirshberg said. "Those games had peripherals that needed to be manufactured – guitar-shaped controllers, drum-shaped controllers. Those games had 70 or 80 licensed songs as part of them, and celebrity likenesses that needed to be paid for, and music that needed to be paid for. They were not inexpensive games to make in any way."
But if the Guitar Hero series is described as iterative improvements of the same idea, surely the critically praised DJ Hero series provided some of that reinvention. "That game found an even smaller audience than the Guitar Hero stuff," Hirshberg lamented. "Even with all the things you said: rave reviews, real innovation, one could argue more relevant, more contemporary music." After two successful back-to-back launches, active DJ Hero development, including DJ Hero 3DS, was canceled.
Hirshberg pointed out that while some of the tracks may not have been as expensive to license, others were – he singled out Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Eminem, and Jay-Z – and each of the game's songs included two tracks, mashed up. "The fact that we now have two different pieces of music in one track, it now almost kind of doubled. Not the dollar amount of licensing, but the number of songs that needed to be licensed in order to just execute the idea of the game," Hirshberg explained. The DJ Hero series "had every opportunity and it didn't succeed. At the end of the day, we've got to take a clear-eyed look at that."
***
While discussing Activision's new, narrower focus on a handful of titles, Hirshberg brought up a favorable comparison: Apple. "Being willing to say 'no' to a lot of cool opportunities does allow companies to focus on the opportunities they do decide to do more intensely and with more success," Hirshberg said. That means increased investment into fewer titles, a recipe that Hirshberg insists doesn't mean the company has given up on innovation; instead, Activision is simply giving fans what they want. "If you look at the top 10 games, not only are there only 10 of them generating the industry's profits, eight of them I think are sequels. Gamers didn't learn that from gaming companies; gaming companies learned that from gamers."
For Call of Duty, innovation is being brought to the franchise in the form of Elite, something Hirshberg calls "one of the biggest gambles and biggest innovation investments the company's ever made." For Guitar Hero, and the rest of the 'Hero' games, that means a hiatus until it can generate "meaningful innovation." In the case of Blur, "the world doesn't need another racing game and they told us that resoundingly," Hirshberg said. "Through no lack of expended effort or expense, that was their response."
And as for True Crime, as well as the rest of Activision's titles (outside of the licensed games business) Hirshberg declared, "We only want to make the games that we think we can make better than anyone else." The result of that ambition should mean better games, as consumer-friendly an ambition as any. For a house reducing the numbers of games it's releasing, a mistep can be disastrous. When you're one of the biggest names in the business, the decision to take fewer risks may be the biggest one of all.
So... why didn't they just tel Bizarre to go make something else, again?
Also, the Guitar Hero brand at this point is about as potent as an 85-year-old man who has worked his entire life at an unshielded X-ray factory.
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
Some of that interview seems reasonable, and some of it just seems like retarded Activision logic. CoD Elite is "innovative"? Really?
What's amusing though is that the interview is very telling about how already their "all big budget games all the time" strategy is backfiring on them. Seriously, does it really take a genius to see that another open world sandbox game is just going to be a tiny drop in a gigantic ocean? Especially without a recognizable license (or the RockStar name) attached? It took them two years of pouring money into True Crime to see this? I don't care what he says, the genre was oversaturated even before that.
Blur is a great example of a game that would have greatly benefited from a discount price at launch. Put it out at $40 or even $30 and actually sell the game and get some word of mouth going. It wasn't going to compete at full retail price - he's right, the driving genre is too congested for that.
Guitar Hero is an odd one though - you don't really have to put out new instruments each round - let your competitor do that and just be compatible with them. Or even better - go the Just Dance route and make a Wii only, super family friendly version. Something like Band Hero/Lego RB with Miis all over the place and really recognizable music. Heck, I'd even buy Cartoon Hero filled with cartoon theme songs or some real odd variation of the theme... (Movie Theme Hero, TV Theme Hero, etc).
There are always ways to sell an idea, I think Activision has a hard time knowing how to handle non-blockbuster games.
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Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited June 2011
Blur had two things going against it: It was part of a genre that is heavily saturated and didn't have the big name to give it some heft (also what killed Split/Second) and it had an advertising campaign that I honestly think worked very much against it.
I'd hardly call it dick waving given it was an incidental reference rather than "WE SOLD THIS MUCH LOOK HOW COOL WE ARE."
...incidental dick waving, then?
I'm fairly certain "WE SOLD THIS MUCH LOOK HOW COOL WE ARE" is dick waving. That doesn't make it untrue, but dick waving is dick waving.
If this is about the quote I'm thinking of, IIRC he (Jason Holtman) never said that sales figures don't matter. I think he said it wasn't important to know how everyone else was doing so much as how you're doing, and whether that's working out for you and the trends related to it.
EDIT:
Is this the one you're thinking of, or is there another one I'm missing?
To clarify, are you holding back digital sales numbers because your partners don’t want them public, or because you don’t want them public?
JH: We wouldn’t have many partners if we took their sales data and released it to everyone. Their data is their own and between us.
But the point is it’s not super important for a publisher or developer to know how well everyone is doing.
What’s important to know is exactly how your game is doing – why it’s climbing and why it’s falling. Your daily sales, your daily swing, your rewards for online campaign number three. That’s what we provide.
Steam updates sales info every few hours. And that can be so much more useful than a standard weekly retail chart.
With the weekly charts, or even the monthly charts, everything more or less looks the same. I bet we could predict next week’s chart with great accuracy.
With Steam, you’re given new data several times each day. With real-time information, people can see exactly how effective their marketing campaigns are just hours after they hit.
I mean, I don't think he ever said they're never going to release information for their games. They've already done that previously.
No, that's the one. Granted, they're talking about Steam and not individual games, but it still chafes. Especially since they refuse to put an overall dollar/sales amount on total Steam sales.
Blur had two things going against it: It was part of a genre that is heavily saturated and didn't have the big name to give it some heft (also what killed Split/Second) and it had an advertising campaign that I honestly think worked very much against it.
Oh split second, what a great underappreciated game.
Blur had two things going against it: It was part of a genre that is heavily saturated and didn't have the big name to give it some heft (also what killed Split/Second) and it had an advertising campaign that I honestly think worked very much against it.
Split/Second was also not that amazing. Wow, it's like a less polished Burnout whose novelty in races wears out after one race.
There are always ways to sell an idea, I think Activision has a hard time knowing how to handle non-blockbuster games.
Given that their stated mission is to exploit what sells, it shouldn't be hard to suspect that they don't know the proper amount of dick waving to use for any game that isn't likely to be played by everyone.
There are always ways to sell an idea, I think Activision has a hard time knowing how to handle non-blockbuster games.
Given that their stated mission is to exploit what sells, it shouldn't be hard to suspect that they don't know the proper amount of dick waving to use for any game that isn't likely to be played by everyone.
True. They seem to think every good idea is a blockbuster to throw cash at too. "Grown up Mario Kart? Great idea! Here's a AAA budget - we'll make millions!" is foolish when the gameplay mechanics of Blur scaled down would have been a perfect XBLA game.
Then again, this is the company that thought GH Van Halen would sell...
I'm still curious as to how well the new Spyro and its mountain of associated plastic crap will sell. My vidja game instincts say probably not since the brand has been pretty well run into the ground over the years, then again I'm always baffled by what the little rugrats will adopt.
Split/Second was also not that amazing. Wow, it's like a less polished Burnout whose novelty in races wears out after one race.
Heh, this sums up perfectly my research on whether or not I should look into S/S. Half love it, half think it's mediocre. I tried the demo and wasn't impressed, but then Joystiq (who I normally agree with) said it was better than Hot Pursuit, which I loved. When I cash in my free PSN+ month I'll be sure to check out the hour long trial, but the difference of opinion on S/S surprises me.
I'm still curious as to how well the new Spyro and its mountain of associated plastic crap will sell. My vidja game instincts say probably not since the brand has been pretty well run into the ground over the years, then again I'm always baffled by what the little rugrats will adopt.
Kids are pretty forgiving. My son loves the Spyro character based on playing the PS1 games at my mom's house when he visited her. He traded in the DS version though because it was too hard (it was a terrible game). He would be excited for this one except we got rid of the Wii. Given it is using a camera it's too bad they couldn't have done a Kinect version as we would have bought that...
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Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited June 2011
Spyro will never reach the heights Insomniac brought it too again. I miss those days.
Then again, this is the company that thought GH Van Halen would sell...
I'm pretty sure they didn't. At least not with how they 'released' it.
Obviously, not doing it would've been the better choice, but it can't have helped that it was let loose at the end of the worst glut of music rhythm games ever seen. Oddly excluding a significant era of their career was also an odd move. And it also couldn't have helped that the songs that aren't VH were mostly chosen by Wolfgang and had absolutely no real connection with the band unlike what they did with Aerosmith and Metallica.
They dropped it like a turd in a bus station bathroom.
Granted, when they started development on the thing the instrument music game genre hadn't yet imploded, and I'm sure their contract with Van Halen kept them from being able to cancel it outright.
But lord, Activision's stupidly huge 2009 Hero release schedule was one of the easiest to see indicators of doom I've ever seen.
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Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited June 2011
GH: Sammy Who? was a travesty for this huge fan of the band. The game was only half done, it excluded my favorite era of the band (Up yours, Sammy is awesome), and like was mentioned, the extra songs were randomly selected by stupid Wolfgang and his iPod.
I got the game for free, and even I felt cheated by it. I've played through it once, and I've had it since before it was officially released. Ugh....
Well, one of the few remaining sectors that Google has yet to conquer, gaming, will be Big G free no longer. The tech giant is looking for a product manager to man a new property called Games at Google. Obviously, with just a job posting to work with, details are scant, but we can tell you that the gaming platform will boast some social features -- an area where the Goog has struggled mightily. What don't we know? Just about anything else. Will it be a Game Center-like feature for Android phones? Or, perhaps, a web-gaming outlet for Chrome built with help from the folks at Zynga, who Google quietly partnered with back in the summer of oh-ten. Regardless, we're waiting with bated breath to find out when and where we'll be able to order hits in Mafia Wars next.
GH: Sammy Who? was a travesty for this huge fan of the band. The game was only half done, it excluded my favorite era of the band (Up yours, Sammy is awesome), and like was mentioned, the extra songs were randomly selected by stupid Wolfgang and his iPod.
I got the game for free, and even I felt cheated by it. I've played through it once, and I've had it since before it was officially released. Ugh....
It could have been good had they encompassed both versions of Van Halen (I'm not a big fan of Sammy's solo stuff, but loved his stuff with Van Halen) and put in some solo projects instead of Wolfgang's choices. It would have been cool to have stuff like Yankee Rose, Skyscraper, A Little Ain't Enough or even California Girls mixed in.
The other thing from that Gabe Newell interview that slipped through the cracks apparently is that Valve is very pro-WiiU, so I'm guessing we'll see Valve developing for the platform once it's out. Probably just ports rather than games that take full advantage of the hardware though.
Split/Second was also not that amazing. Wow, it's like a less polished Burnout whose novelty in races wears out after one race.
Heh, this sums up perfectly my research on whether or not I should look into S/S. Half love it, half think it's mediocre. I tried the demo and wasn't impressed, but then Joystiq (who I normally agree with) said it was better than Hot Pursuit, which I loved. When I cash in my free PSN+ month I'll be sure to check out the hour long trial, but the difference of opinion on S/S surprises me.
Take Split/Second like this: It's a night on the town with the guys eating your favorite junk food and staying out until 5 a.m. It's fun, crazy, and does exactly what it sets out to do in the short time you want to play it.
I put a good ten hours into the game and played through most of the tracks, having a blast the whole time. The game really clicks on that first track (the airstrip) when you (or someone else) manages to activate the "Big Event" causing the plane to crash while you're on the tarmac, making you weave and wobble your way through the debris, just barely getting around that engine coming off the plane as you drive underneath its wing. It's like a Michael Bay movie turned into a game, just don't have any thoughts otherwise and you should enjoy it.
To be fair, the Harry Potter game this game is directly descended from was semi-notorious for having just about the worst Kinect support of the entire launch lineup.
To be fair, your face! :x
Seriously though, was it that bad? Fraggle, was Potter Kinect terribad?
Yeah I heard that it gives your dick cancer in it's face so I stayed away.
Um...
No idea man, the reviews were atrocious so I never played it.
Was thinking the other day; the stupid terribad cheap party game HD remake I'd like to see with Kinect support...
Rumours suggest big-money swoop could be made by Zynga, EA or DeNA
Seattle HQ'd PopCap Games is on the verge of a $1bn acquisition, according to TechCrunch.
The technology and investment site says tipsters have told it the lucrative deal will see the firm snapped up by another gaming giant - a move that would come ahead of the casual games leader's planned IPO.
TechCrunch names Zynga, EA and DeNA as the most likely suitors.
So what of the potential suspects?
Facebook games leader Zynga has been on a roll of acquisitions, picking up all sorts of talent and teams globally as it marches to become one of the biggest gaming firms in the world.
DeNA, meanwhile, has been slowly pushing out from its Japanese heartland into the West, acquiring Ngmoco and scoring a number of key Western mobile games for its free-to-play Asia mobile Mobage network.
And EA has made no secret of its plans to become a 'digital publisher', recently relaunching its EA Store as the Origin download service. It has twice made major moves to tap into the casual market PopCap has helped define; firstly by creating a label just called Casual (now known as EA Play), and more recently buying social games firm Playfish and setting up the EAi division to look at online and mobile games. It also owns the Pogo.com casual site.
For any of the above, PopCap and its slate of popular IPs, almost bullet-proof company brand and expert skills would be an idea addition to its business.
Develop understands that EA specifically entered early buyout talks with PopCap in 2006, but the negotiations never progressed fully.
PopCap owns a number of studios and offices around the world - including its Dublin studio, recently nominated for a Develop Award - and is known for casual games hits such as Bejewelled, Peggle, Plants vs Zombies, amongst many others. The firm was founded in 2000.
Valve doesn't strike me as a company that would spend a BILLION dollars on an acquisition. (I'm not even sure they have a billion dollars in capitol to spend. Steam is successful, but not THAT successful.)
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
I'm not saying that it is a realistic scenario based on scientific study of the econo-political structure of the companies in question.
I don't think I've ever seen a video game company attract so much of a potential offer from so many different companies.
I'm just relieved Zynga's out of the running.
But really, the main suitors I think would be Google, Amazon or possibly that random Japanese company. I don't think anyone else could really afford them, and I'm not sure Apple would do something like this.
Come to think of it, Google is working hard to set themselves up as a gaming house. They've recently tried very, very hard to market their Chrome browser by touting free [redacted].
I think that Little Battler's is going to sink like a rock while Zelda is continue a slow burn for years outside the top 20. However, OoT is simply not going to be the the system seller. And I'm going to reiterate my doubts that another 2D Mario or a Mario Kart game would be either. Nintendo needs to find its Brain Training / Wii Sports or it is going to lose tremendous market share to Android/iPhone apps.
Steins;gate performed very well for an ADV game. The game has very positive word of mouth in Japan despite a small advertising budgets. Usually when such games reach 20K units they are considered to be very successful. Makes me we'll ever see a commercial release of Umineko Chiru.
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To be fair, your face! :x
Seriously though, was it that bad? Fraggle, was Potter Kinect terribad?
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And then the lamp breaks.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/22/activision-publishing-ceo-eric-hirshberg-on-true-crime-bizarre/
So... why didn't they just tel Bizarre to go make something else, again?
Also, the Guitar Hero brand at this point is about as potent as an 85-year-old man who has worked his entire life at an unshielded X-ray factory.
What's amusing though is that the interview is very telling about how already their "all big budget games all the time" strategy is backfiring on them. Seriously, does it really take a genius to see that another open world sandbox game is just going to be a tiny drop in a gigantic ocean? Especially without a recognizable license (or the RockStar name) attached? It took them two years of pouring money into True Crime to see this? I don't care what he says, the genre was oversaturated even before that.
Guitar Hero is an odd one though - you don't really have to put out new instruments each round - let your competitor do that and just be compatible with them. Or even better - go the Just Dance route and make a Wii only, super family friendly version. Something like Band Hero/Lego RB with Miis all over the place and really recognizable music. Heck, I'd even buy Cartoon Hero filled with cartoon theme songs or some real odd variation of the theme... (Movie Theme Hero, TV Theme Hero, etc).
There are always ways to sell an idea, I think Activision has a hard time knowing how to handle non-blockbuster games.
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If this is about the quote I'm thinking of, IIRC he (Jason Holtman) never said that sales figures don't matter. I think he said it wasn't important to know how everyone else was doing so much as how you're doing, and whether that's working out for you and the trends related to it.
EDIT:
Is this the one you're thinking of, or is there another one I'm missing?
http://www.mcvuk.com/features/925/INTERVIEW-Steam
I mean, I don't think he ever said they're never going to release information for their games. They've already done that previously.
Oh split second, what a great underappreciated game.
Split/Second was also not that amazing. Wow, it's like a less polished Burnout whose novelty in races wears out after one race.
Given that their stated mission is to exploit what sells, it shouldn't be hard to suspect that they don't know the proper amount of dick waving to use for any game that isn't likely to be played by everyone.
True. They seem to think every good idea is a blockbuster to throw cash at too. "Grown up Mario Kart? Great idea! Here's a AAA budget - we'll make millions!" is foolish when the gameplay mechanics of Blur scaled down would have been a perfect XBLA game.
Then again, this is the company that thought GH Van Halen would sell...
Heh, this sums up perfectly my research on whether or not I should look into S/S. Half love it, half think it's mediocre. I tried the demo and wasn't impressed, but then Joystiq (who I normally agree with) said it was better than Hot Pursuit, which I loved. When I cash in my free PSN+ month I'll be sure to check out the hour long trial, but the difference of opinion on S/S surprises me.
Kids are pretty forgiving. My son loves the Spyro character based on playing the PS1 games at my mom's house when he visited her. He traded in the DS version though because it was too hard (it was a terrible game). He would be excited for this one except we got rid of the Wii. Given it is using a camera it's too bad they couldn't have done a Kinect version as we would have bought that...
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I'm pretty sure they didn't. At least not with how they 'released' it.
Obviously, not doing it would've been the better choice, but it can't have helped that it was let loose at the end of the worst glut of music rhythm games ever seen. Oddly excluding a significant era of their career was also an odd move. And it also couldn't have helped that the songs that aren't VH were mostly chosen by Wolfgang and had absolutely no real connection with the band unlike what they did with Aerosmith and Metallica.
They dropped it like a turd in a bus station bathroom.
But lord, Activision's stupidly huge 2009 Hero release schedule was one of the easiest to see indicators of doom I've ever seen.
I got the game for free, and even I felt cheated by it. I've played through it once, and I've had it since before it was officially released. Ugh....
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http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/22/games-at-google-revealed-in-job-posting-takes-a-stab-at-social/
Yeah, "social" games aren't going anywhere.
It could have been good had they encompassed both versions of Van Halen (I'm not a big fan of Sammy's solo stuff, but loved his stuff with Van Halen) and put in some solo projects instead of Wolfgang's choices. It would have been cool to have stuff like Yankee Rose, Skyscraper, A Little Ain't Enough or even California Girls mixed in.
Take Split/Second like this: It's a night on the town with the guys eating your favorite junk food and staying out until 5 a.m. It's fun, crazy, and does exactly what it sets out to do in the short time you want to play it.
I put a good ten hours into the game and played through most of the tracks, having a blast the whole time. The game really clicks on that first track (the airstrip) when you (or someone else) manages to activate the "Big Event" causing the plane to crash while you're on the tarmac, making you weave and wobble your way through the debris, just barely getting around that engine coming off the plane as you drive underneath its wing. It's like a Michael Bay movie turned into a game, just don't have any thoughts otherwise and you should enjoy it.
Yeah I heard that it gives your dick cancer in it's face so I stayed away.
Was thinking the other day; the stupid terribad cheap party game HD remake I'd like to see with Kinect support...
California Games.
Other likely buyers include Valve, Google, and Apple.
Zeboyd Games Development Blog
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
Amazon has released every PopCap game for Android for free in the Amazon App store that theyre trying really hard to push.
Theyre the only ones I can think of with a BILLION to spend that wants in on this digital game stuff.
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I wonder how much Zynga would force Popcap to bastardize their games in order to fit their business model.
Yeah...EA's already been throwing money around like crazy so I doubt they've got that much to just blow either.
I could see Amazon or Zynga maybe.
I don't think I've ever seen a video game company attract so much of a potential offer from so many different companies.
I'm just relieved Zynga's out of the running.
But really, the main suitors I think would be Google, Amazon or possibly that random Japanese company. I don't think anyone else could really afford them, and I'm not sure Apple would do something like this.
Come to think of it, Google is working hard to set themselves up as a gaming house. They've recently tried very, very hard to market their Chrome browser by touting free [redacted].
And of course, the big question, did OoT drive 3DS sales?
SOURCE: Stolen shamelessly from GAF.
I think that Little Battler's is going to sink like a rock while Zelda is continue a slow burn for years outside the top 20. However, OoT is simply not going to be the the system seller. And I'm going to reiterate my doubts that another 2D Mario or a Mario Kart game would be either. Nintendo needs to find its Brain Training / Wii Sports or it is going to lose tremendous market share to Android/iPhone apps.
Steins;gate performed very well for an ADV game. The game has very positive word of mouth in Japan despite a small advertising budgets. Usually when such games reach 20K units they are considered to be very successful. Makes me we'll ever see a commercial release of Umineko Chiru.
Considering how more people think this is idiotic than actually dislike Angry Birds, you can stop doing this. It is neither funny nor clever.