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[Industry] Everything is awesome and everyone is doomed.
Nosf
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
No idea what the etiquette is, so just cut and paste of the last one's first post. All credit to 'Death of Rats' for the format.
Welcome to the Video Game Industry Thread! Where we discuss the business-side of video games and NOTHING ELSE.
THE RULES
This thread is about the industry. Business. It is not for you to get into a long debate about how the controls in Kid Icarus were so terrible. You CAN touch on broad reasons why a game failed to sell (crowded for that genre, it flat-out sucked, etc), but getting into minutia over games is a no-go. Video game announcements are also off-limits unless there's something notable (struggling company spend a ton on it as a hail mary pass).
Do not fanboy over a console/developer/etc. You are free to criticize a console or company, but getting irrationally defensive over your pet piece of hardware will be punished.
Stay the fuck on topic. This will be dealt with more harshly in here than in other threads because it tends to get out of control more often.
This is not a thread for every scrap of industry news. Sexism in the industry? Social issue: give it another thread. Gaming journalism sucks? Journalism is not the industry: discuss it elsewhere. This thread has a bad habit of being a black hole that sucks would-be threads into its event horizon. We need to focus here and let other news topic get their own threads.
VGChartz makes up shit. Do not post VGChartz.
Top Ten lists are link-baiting crap and should not be posted with the exception of sales figures.
Take care when linking anything with stats and information. Try to make sure the article properly cites figures.
Do not get into pedantic arguments. An old favorite is whether or not casual games should be covered here (spoiler: yes). A more recent one is what is meant by AAA (short answer: no one cares). This shit derails the thread and we don't need a page of discussion on what "free-to-play" really means. Get embroiled in this shit at your own risk.
Report people you think are violating rules. Calling them out just derails the thread and it might get you in trouble for stirring shit up.
This thread is still for fun! Enjoy yourself.
With that said lets meet the players!
Founded in 1946, Sony entered the gaming business through a bit of corporate revenge involving Nintendo and a botched CD peripheral. Prior to that, Sony was dabbling in just about every other type of electronic entertainment doodad: TVs, radios, sound systems, and so forth. It was probably inevitable that Sony would dip their toes in the games business, but Nintendo ushered that along by snubbing Sony in the mid-90s when the two had a deal making a CD attachment for the SNES. Feeling bitter about the ordeal, Sony went on to make the Sony Playstation, changing the market forever. The success of the first Playstation was in part due to Nintendo's own stubborn attitudes, but there's no denying that Sony's first console offered quite a bit, and its successor (the Playstation 2) officiated Sony's spot as the new ruler of the market. Sony, however, would eventually fall prey to their own hubris. The Playstation 3 was something of a misstep, being overpriced and plagued with issues here and there. A catastrophic hacking issue didn't help matters. While down, Sony isn't out of the game by any stretch of the imagination, and did manage to recover a bit of lost ground towards the end of the last generation. Well, for their consoles. The PSP and Vita are shaping to the latest trophies adorning Nintendo's skull throne.
Not just the only western company here, Microsoft is the only console provider that isn't Japanese. Founded in 1975, everyone knows about Bill Gates and his magic Window devices. Towards the turn of the millennium, the company decided to try its hand at the video game business. Coming after the quick fall of Sega, there were many skeptical of the market's ability to support three competitors, but Microsoft hulked out and brute-forced its way onto the scene with deep company pockets and very high-end tech for its Xbox machine. Oh, and this little exclusive title called "Halo" didn't hurt none, I'm sure. By embracing a hobbyist demographic with smooth online capabilities and the latest shooty gun titles, Microsoft not only found its way onto the market, but even narrowly beat Nintendo. Although all is not rosy, as the company has had...difficulties finding a warm reception in the East (we're talking old-school Game Boys outselling the Xbox back in the old days). The follow-up act, the Xbox 360, entrenched itself as a solid competitor in the last generation, and Microsoft is looking poised to have its turn at top of the heap if Sony and Nintendo don't step up their game.
There are three things to know about Nintendo: they are the oldest company here, the longest company in the business here, and are the crazed artiste of the group. Founded in 1889 as a maker of playing cards, towards the mid and late 1900s they shifted to toys and, eventually, video games. Their home console, the NES, took the world by storm, in part thanks to the video game crash of 1983 wiping out all the competition. I mean like, ALL of it. We're taking a 90+% market share here. Nintendo ruled most of the 90s with an iron fist, which bred bitterness among the third party companies that had to play ball with Nintendo. This allowed rivals such as Sega to become a much more appealing alternative to control freak Nintendo, ultimately culminating with Sony hosing Nintendo in the fifth and sixth generations. In the seventh gen, however, Nintendo embraced the casual crowd with the reveal of the Wii. Utilizing simple motion controls and a horde of mostly shit mini-game compilations, Nintendo's plan to convert non-gamers into flailing nerds was a resounding success. Kinda. While initial sales were immense, and definitely enough to make Nintendo Giant of All, it's looking like retaining this casual demographic is going to be a sticking point if the Wii U's flaccid sales are any indication.
Founded in 1996, Valve is a private company and owner of the largest digital distribution/poverty creation device, Steam. They're up here because they're perhaps the one thing besides World of Warcraft that's been proving doomsayers about the PC market wrong for a good decade now. Numbers on Steam's control of the market are harder to suss out because of their private nature, but it's estimated that Valve has at least HALF of it. Valve is also looking to potentially become the fourth player in the console market with their proposed Steambox. Right now it's hard to say if this is really meant to compete on the same level as the big three, or just a cheap way to play most of your Steam library, but those of us who have dumped whole paychecks into a summer sale know better than to underestimate Valve. steam steam lol indeed.
All text from last OP.
Welcome to the Video Game Industry Thread! Where we discuss the business-side of video games and NOTHING ELSE.
THE RULES
This thread is about the industry. Business. It is not for you to get into a long debate about how the controls in Kid Icarus were so terrible. You CAN touch on broad reasons why a game failed to sell (crowded for that genre, it flat-out sucked, etc), but getting into minutia over games is a no-go. Video game announcements are also off-limits unless there's something notable (struggling company spend a ton on it as a hail mary pass).
Do not fanboy over a console/developer/etc. You are free to criticize a console or company, but getting irrationally defensive over your pet piece of hardware will be punished.
Stay the fuck on topic. This will be dealt with more harshly in here than in other threads because it tends to get out of control more often.
This is not a thread for every scrap of industry news. Sexism in the industry? Social issue: give it another thread. Gaming journalism sucks? Journalism is not the industry: discuss it elsewhere. This thread has a bad habit of being a black hole that sucks would-be threads into its event horizon. We need to focus here and let other news topic get their own threads.
VGChartz makes up shit. Do not post VGChartz.
Top Ten lists are link-baiting crap and should not be posted with the exception of sales figures.
Take care when linking anything with stats and information. Try to make sure the article properly cites figures.
Do not get into pedantic arguments. An old favorite is whether or not casual games should be covered here (spoiler: yes). A more recent one is what is meant by AAA (short answer: no one cares). This shit derails the thread and we don't need a page of discussion on what "free-to-play" really means. Get embroiled in this shit at your own risk.
Report people you think are violating rules. Calling them out just derails the thread and it might get you in trouble for stirring shit up.
This thread is still for fun! Enjoy yourself.
With that said lets meet the players!
Founded in 1946, Sony entered the gaming business through a bit of corporate revenge involving Nintendo and a botched CD peripheral. Prior to that, Sony was dabbling in just about every other type of electronic entertainment doodad: TVs, radios, sound systems, and so forth. It was probably inevitable that Sony would dip their toes in the games business, but Nintendo ushered that along by snubbing Sony in the mid-90s when the two had a deal making a CD attachment for the SNES. Feeling bitter about the ordeal, Sony went on to make the Sony Playstation, changing the market forever. The success of the first Playstation was in part due to Nintendo's own stubborn attitudes, but there's no denying that Sony's first console offered quite a bit, and its successor (the Playstation 2) officiated Sony's spot as the new ruler of the market. Sony, however, would eventually fall prey to their own hubris. The Playstation 3 was something of a misstep, being overpriced and plagued with issues here and there. A catastrophic hacking issue didn't help matters. While down, Sony isn't out of the game by any stretch of the imagination, and did manage to recover a bit of lost ground towards the end of the last generation. Well, for their consoles. The PSP and Vita are shaping to the latest trophies adorning Nintendo's skull throne.
Not just the only western company here, Microsoft is the only console provider that isn't Japanese. Founded in 1975, everyone knows about Bill Gates and his magic Window devices. Towards the turn of the millennium, the company decided to try its hand at the video game business. Coming after the quick fall of Sega, there were many skeptical of the market's ability to support three competitors, but Microsoft hulked out and brute-forced its way onto the scene with deep company pockets and very high-end tech for its Xbox machine. Oh, and this little exclusive title called "Halo" didn't hurt none, I'm sure. By embracing a hobbyist demographic with smooth online capabilities and the latest shooty gun titles, Microsoft not only found its way onto the market, but even narrowly beat Nintendo. Although all is not rosy, as the company has had...difficulties finding a warm reception in the East (we're talking old-school Game Boys outselling the Xbox back in the old days). The follow-up act, the Xbox 360, entrenched itself as a solid competitor in the last generation, and Microsoft is looking poised to have its turn at top of the heap if Sony and Nintendo don't step up their game.
There are three things to know about Nintendo: they are the oldest company here, the longest company in the business here, and are the crazed artiste of the group. Founded in 1889 as a maker of playing cards, towards the mid and late 1900s they shifted to toys and, eventually, video games. Their home console, the NES, took the world by storm, in part thanks to the video game crash of 1983 wiping out all the competition. I mean like, ALL of it. We're taking a 90+% market share here. Nintendo ruled most of the 90s with an iron fist, which bred bitterness among the third party companies that had to play ball with Nintendo. This allowed rivals such as Sega to become a much more appealing alternative to control freak Nintendo, ultimately culminating with Sony hosing Nintendo in the fifth and sixth generations. In the seventh gen, however, Nintendo embraced the casual crowd with the reveal of the Wii. Utilizing simple motion controls and a horde of mostly shit mini-game compilations, Nintendo's plan to convert non-gamers into flailing nerds was a resounding success. Kinda. While initial sales were immense, and definitely enough to make Nintendo Giant of All, it's looking like retaining this casual demographic is going to be a sticking point if the Wii U's flaccid sales are any indication.
Founded in 1996, Valve is a private company and owner of the largest digital distribution/poverty creation device, Steam. They're up here because they're perhaps the one thing besides World of Warcraft that's been proving doomsayers about the PC market wrong for a good decade now. Numbers on Steam's control of the market are harder to suss out because of their private nature, but it's estimated that Valve has at least HALF of it. Valve is also looking to potentially become the fourth player in the console market with their proposed Steambox. Right now it's hard to say if this is really meant to compete on the same level as the big three, or just a cheap way to play most of your Steam library, but those of us who have dumped whole paychecks into a summer sale know better than to underestimate Valve. steam steam lol indeed.
All text from last OP.
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Edit: Now everything is awesome.
not sure how it works with consoles, but with steam you can wait and see what and how much DLC comes out and then purchase the season pass, which in most cases ends up saving you a fair amount of money and avoids the ambiguity associated with purchasing it on release day. So it really doesn't have to be a bad thing...unless you look at it as buying content that should have been in the game to begin with.
Very much so and I love it when the season passes work for a game but there have been too many issues with season passes causing problems with the game (Gears of War 3) to hardly having any content worth getting the pass as a way of justifying the terms of creating content for a season pass (Aliens: Colonial Marines). Hell even good season passes like Borderlands 2 have had to also create additional content thats not included with the season pass as a way of trying to gain additional sales off season pass holders.
Its asking for the consumer to gamble money on theoretical idealism. If the game tanks then the dlc will end up sparse or non existent.
He basically bumped the thread today that was talking about his prediction from months ago with a "see I told you so" post and added a teaser message of "lots of new info next week about all this"
So stay tuned!
edit: Here's the post explaining everything so far: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=61320285&postcount=1
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
PM Me if you add me!
I dunno if this has been posted but:
engadget.com/2013/08/14/nfl-sunday-ticket-wont-be-on-playstation-this-season/
The NFL gets stingy about establishing who can watch their content and under what conditions and whatnot. So this is no surprise to me at all.
Microsoft might get a deal overall, but it'll probably be tied to an entire Windows 8/Windows Tablet/Xbone package system. Microsoft can deliver streaming NFL on more devices.
They have to convince the NFL it's worth it. My Sirius XM internet subscription package gets me access to everything on satellite radio except the NFL stuff - those are only available on subscription plans for actual satellite radio devices. Why is there a difference? Who knows, but the NFL doesn't just go, "OH MORE EXPOSURE DO IT."
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
Not necessarily. Patent law is completely fucked. Looking at it closer, I can't find evidence if him doing anything with this patent other than filing/suing for it.
Months ago, this American life had a special about these chucklefucks who had a patent on "podcasts" and are currently threatening to sue lots of podcasters for infringement.
Sega can't be happy with that. Though it was a year later port of an HD upscale for a series most people would have played on PS2 and PS3.
They could hav used that money instead to localize 5 or the HD release in the West and had far more sales than 1800.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
What surprised me the most here is that the 3DS isn't profitable. I thought it was a huge money spinner. With the WiiU doing so badly, and so close to their first ever annual loss... Ouch.
Steam: adamjnet
I don't know if you're being sarcastic here, but yes, this is exactly how the business works. DirecTV paid them something ridiculous like 4 billion for the exclusive rights to the Sunday Ticket. NBC pays them billions over X years just to carry one game a week on Sunday night..
And I'm guessing that 400 million dollar "unprecedented partnership" with MS ensured that Sony wasn't going to have the Sunday Ticket option going forward.
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
But it's exclusive to DirecTV, so the PS3 app was a nice (and surprising) option. I mean its 350 bucks for the season on both services but at least with the PS3 version you didn't have a monthly bill for satellite.
It's basically so you can watch games on your PC, smartphone, tablet, etc. Still not a bad idea if you have a HTPC or something.
Sure is a nice option. But, generally speaking, people had already bought into DirecTV for the package and people are unwilling to change no matter what. I'm sure you've experienced this.
Oh shit, that's pretty awesome then.
It was literally the only ala-carte option ever offered outside of the PC stuff, so it sucks that its gone.
Having them available on the consoles is awesome and much cheaper but these are the kinds of people that don't really shop around.
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
(I also had no idea)
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
Very odd that neither PlayStation nor Xbox will have it this year... maybe DirecTV has some kind of deal? Or maybe the NFL is getting annoying.