I heard Brad Shoemaker on the Bombcast griping that EA made it a total grind as well to get through PVZ2, like you clear all the levels of a board, but to go to the exit to the next board they tell you "GO EARN MORE STARS BY REPLAYING LEVELS!".
Which would be fine if you were earning them all along but the ability to even GET the stars doesn't even show up until after you've completed them all. So you're literally forced to play through everything 2-3 times to earn the stars to move on. Or you can just pay.
Yeah it is super slimy. And apparently a very common tactic in FTP. BUT HEY IT IS THE FUTURE.
Development teams get shoe-horned into sequels, and games of that series become all they are known for. (With a few exceptions.) The top creators in the field end up leaving their companies, because they feel stifled by the sequelitis that their publishers force on them.
CliffyB left Epic because he didn't want to be stuck making Gears of War for the rest of his life.
Peter Molyneux left Lionhead because he wasn't interested in being part of a Fable factory.
Will Wright left Maxis because he wasn't interested in churning out mindless Sims sequels.
Bungie software broke away from Microsoft because they wanted to explore other ideas besides Halo.
Not that I disagree, but Maxis doesn't even make The Sims anymore. The Sims Studio does. Will Wright was on for The Sims 2--though I'm not sure if he departed Maxis before or after The Sims Studio came into being, since I'm not sure when he left Maxis at all.
Will Wright left in 2009, after Spore.
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Development teams get shoe-horned into sequels, and games of that series become all they are known for. (With a few exceptions.) The top creators in the field end up leaving their companies, because they feel stifled by the sequelitis that their publishers force on them.
CliffyB left Epic because he didn't want to be stuck making Gears of War for the rest of his life.
Peter Molyneux left Lionhead because he wasn't interested in being part of a Fable factory.
Will Wright left Maxis because he wasn't interested in churning out mindless Sims sequels.
Bungie software broke away from Microsoft because they wanted to explore other ideas besides Halo.
Not that I disagree, but Maxis doesn't even make The Sims anymore. The Sims Studio does. Will Wright was on for The Sims 2--though I'm not sure if he departed Maxis before or after The Sims Studio came into being, since I'm not sure when he left Maxis at all.
Will Wright left in 2009, after Spore.
That sounds right. The Sims 3 came out the same year, and it was announced that Maxis wouldn't be handling it a good time before that, obviously. In that case, EA took the franchise from him (and/or Maxis), rather than him leaving it. Given how Spore turned out, perhaps for the better,
Regarding PvZ2, I think the model is fine. The challenges to get the stars are very different from the original levels, you're not really playing anything 'again'.
That said, the purchases are far too expensive. A single flower costs more than the original game. If they dropped the prices I think they'd see a surge in revenue.
I've played the shit out of the game and I dropped £2.49 to get the blue flower that snares. Worth it, in my opinion.
The Last of Us is a new IP. A new IP released on old hardware. Proof that a new IP is just as likely to succeed on old hardware as new.
That's not really sound logic. TLoU is a new IP released on old hardware. That's proof that a new IP succeeded on old hardware; not that it's "just as likely" to succeed on old hardware as new. For every TLoU there's plenty of new IP's that just don't stick.
I think the point everyone is making is that the "risk" associated with a new console doesn't necessarily stack with the risk of a new IP. The fact that the competition is slimmer in terms of fewer games, not to mention that few devs will have a full technical grasp of the console's capabilities, gives the devs a lot more leeway in terms of just trying something out. In a way you get to kill two birds with one stone -- it's risky to try a new IP, but it's a smaller pool of games and a smaller install base (and generally pretty hardcore gamers in general as early-adopters) so you get a lot of interesting feedback and opportunities that you might not get 3 years into the lifecycle.
On top of that, TLoU is probably not the best example to make here because Naughty Dog isn't your average-caliber developer, and TLoU is just a great game. Naughty Dog has street cred for making great games, and as mentioned that goes a long way. Unfortunately the hype train is picking up way less steam if some no-name dev puts out that exact same game.
You're probably right that 2014 and 2015 will be amazing years for video games. But not because of the release of new IPs necessarily, rather because that's when the majority of "first entries" to the new hardware will be released.
I guarantee you that we are going to continue seeing more sequels than new IPs in this next generation of hardware, simply because Activision/EA/Ubisoft/Sony/Microsoft/Take 2 are all a lot more likely to bank on a sequel than on a brand new, untested idea. It's business, not creativity that wins in this industry.
I have a feeling that most of the breakout titles this next generation are going to come from indies and small publishers.
Agreed. Especially since the biz has gotten remarkably more risk-averse since the launch of the last-gen. Everything has to be an absolute smash-hit, and so you can't risk doing something too different. Mid-tier games have almost died off entirely. No one wants to take a risk on the Wii U.
And that launch list for the PS4 and One is downright unnerving. True, there's very little crap, but there's very little that's not the same goddamn thing we've been seeing for the last five years. Other than the indies and a lot of Sony's first-party stuff, we're seeing none of the crazy experimentation we got with every other generational transition.
Personally I'm getting less and less interested in AAA stuff, and I don't think it's because my tastes are changing.
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
this next generation will come to be defined by the emergence of things like the Oculus Rift, not the new generation of consoles.
The xboxone and ps4 are great, but they are just refining something that's been done in more or less the same way since the NES thirty years ago.
The Rift and other techs like it are truly showcasing something revolutionary, and it's one of those rare cases where that word isn't just a marketing buzzword.
Huh. Not only is GoG awesome for it's DRM-free distribution. Now they've added transparency to their indie dev terms.
We are also disclosing our revenue share--a 70/30 share, as is industry standard--unless we offer you an advance on your royalties, in which case it's a 60/40 share until we have recouped the cost of your advance. There's been some speculation on the part of developers in the past as to what it is that we offer indie devs, and we wanted to make sure that was clear up front. We've invited some of our indie dev friends to talk briefly about the experience of putting their game on GOG,com, and here's what they had to say:
I didn't know that they actually acted like a publisher with their advance on on royalties business.
Also, in two totally unrelated news items, I'm debating whether to be a guinea pig and buy some Zeboyd games for my Kindle Fire HD and see if they work or not. Meanwhile, I suddenly understand why app sales on iPhone are so much higher than Android sales even though Android marketshare is so dominant.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Isn't 70/30 the breakdown of what Valve takes via Steam?
Isn't 70/30 the breakdown of what Valve takes via Steam?
Yeah, GoG says it's "industry standard". But I don't think other publishers talk about it directly and we learned this stuff from a few devs with loose lips. Maybe I'm wrong.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Isn't 70/30 the breakdown of what Valve takes via Steam?
Yeah, GoG says it's "industry standard". But I don't think other publishers talk about it directly and we learned this stuff from a few devs with loose lips. Maybe I'm wrong.
Well yeah, usually business details aren't disclosed (even if they seem relatively harmless). I guess GoG disclosed this info because Steam's details were known and they wanted to let devs know that their platform is just as fair in its profit splitting.
Speaking of GoG and transparency, did you guys talk about the GoG interview back in July. I was out of internet contact at the time.
Get a load of some of these quotes. It's like talking to an actual human being and not "Head of Marketing and PR".
Trevor: We see pirates as our competition, we don’t see Steam as our competition. Because our goal is to be as close to the ease of use as a torrent tracker, where the process for finding a game on a torrent tracker is your search for the game name, you download it, you play it, that’s it. In our case, you search for the game name, you pay for it, you download it and you play it. And you really can’t subtract any of those steps and still have a legit enterprise happening here.
...
Trevor: Our official position is, “Treat these games like you used to treat these games.” I have some games I loaned to a friend back in 2004 and JOSH! Yyou still have my CDs! So I can’t play the game. You know, basically, if I’ve loaned the game to a friend, I can’t play it. And so your buddy’s like, “Man, I haven’t heard about Rollercoaster Tycoon, can I try it out?” we’re cool with you saying, “Sure, let me give you a thumb-drive with it, uninstall it when you’re done and let me know so I can play it again.” Because at that point, you’re treating it like a CD in the days of yore when you had to have the CD to play.
...
GON: And it seems to be working. But I have two final questions, both of which come from friends of mine. The first one is “Where the #%$@ is X-Wing vs TIE Fighter”?
Trevor: You know, LucasArts is a company that we would love to sign. I want TIE Fighter, the straight TIE Fighter and the fact that you like X-Wing vs TIE Fighter over TIE Fighter — or your friend does — pains me because TIE Fighter is objectively a better game as far as I’m concerned.
TIE Fighter is one of my, say top five games of all time and it doesn’t work in Windows 7, I can’t do anything to make it work. I could, I suppose go to our Build Masters and you know, bribe them, and say, “You guys know how to do this, I have my CD here and you know how to do this to make this game work! Do you magic, make me a master build! I’ll, I don’t know, pay you in cookies or more likely in vodka, because of Poland.” You know, I’m sure I could do that.
But regardless, getting those games, you know, getting Grim Fandango, Full Throttle — Full Throttle was the reason why I owned a motorcycle — these sorts of things from LucasArts would be phenomenal. Why don’t we have them signed? Because of Reasons, that’s why.
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If he understood about Tie Fighter then he would be kidnapping the families of the Build Masters and threatening to kill one at random for every month until Tie Fighter is released. Perhaps some families of key Disney executives would have to be included as well.
Forget this cookie/vodka nonsense.
In short, if you haven't added Poland to the State Department list of terrorist supporting countries then you aren't really trying.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited August 2013
I always get weirded out when people declare a game is "objectively better" than another, because the merits you judge it on have to change a lot.
Edit - Hey getting back to Ballmer - a lot of people (including me) have gone "ha" at the stock market reaction to his retirement announcement, but I have a question! What did Microsoft's stock look like when Ballmer was announced as the next CEO and what has the stock history been for the company over his tenure?
Their stock fell from near $60 to the $30-$20 range, then stayed there through his tenure. The biggest drop seems to be during the Vista days.
I am curious as to how the Ballmer retirement is going to affect the re-org that was announced last month. Are they going to go through that just to have another re-org when a new CEO comes in next year or is this just a transitional workforce reduction phase so the new guy doesn't have to be the one sending out the pink slips?
The combination of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 launches later this year might make for the biggest combined launch the gaming industry has ever seen. During a second quarter earnings conference call today, GameStop CEO Paul Raines referred to what's coming later this year as the "largest console launch in history."
GameStop president Tony Bartel provided some additional, albeit unspecific, information about the console launches. He indicated allocations from Microsoft and Sony both "are much stronger than last launch," and while he didn't cite the specific number of consoles that will be available at launch, he said they are "exceeding [GameStop's] expectations" and that GameStop "expect(s) a significant increase in launch day quantities versus the last console launch."
Later in the call, a question was asked regarding the possibility of seeing better-than-usual shipment numbers of the new consoles during their first year of availability. Bartel responded, "I think there's a lot of optimism that that will be the case. That being said, it's very early in the production cycle."
GameStop is continuing to offer a "first-to-know" list for both consoles that informs customers of when additional systems become available for pre-order. Bartel noted there are 1.5 million people on the list for PlayStation 4, while there are 700,000 on the list for Xbox One. Keep in mind these numbers don't reflect the number of people to have already successfully pre-ordered either system.
GameStop isn't the only one with evidence suggesting this year's launches will be big. Amazon pre-order records were broken back in June following E3 -- day-one pre-orders for PS4 and Xbox One were said to be "nearly two times that of all video game sales on Black Friday last year."
Assuming that the first-to-know list watchers all get a next generation system within the launch window, that would give third parties about 2.2 million potential customers out of the gate. Throw in PC gamers and there's little doubt that the triple-A platform trinity will be disturbed much this cycle.
Their stock fell from near $60 to the $30-$20 range, then stayed there through his tenure. The biggest drop seems to be during the Vista days.
I am curious as to how the Ballmer retirement is going to affect the re-org that was announced last month. Are they going to go through that just to have another re-org when a new CEO comes in next year or is this just a transitional workforce reduction phase so the new guy doesn't have to be the one sending out the pink slips?
Only if the new CEO wants a new re-org, I guess. But that would just cause everyone to lose confidence in the new guy.
I'm sort of amazed there are that many One preorders given the price and, well, a lot of other things that have been happening with the system (though things have improved drastically post E3).
Of course PS3 to One orders are probably about 2 to 1 in most places, I would guess.
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
I'm sort of amazed there are that many One preorders given the price and, well, a lot of other things that have been happening with the system (though things have improved drastically post E3).
Of course PS3 to One orders are probably about 2 to 1 in most places, I would guess.
Nobody knows. Or at least nobody is saying.
That said, while there were units for preorder, the ps4 and XBO, post online reversal announcement, were trading back and forth for the top spot on Amazon.
The simple answer is the winner at launch will be the company who makes the most consoles, as both are likely to sell out. The PS4 is looking to have less issues regarding manufacture, so I expect it to sell more.
It's in the months following launch that will prove telling.
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Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I'm sort of amazed there are that many One preorders given the price and, well, a lot of other things that have been happening with the system (though things have improved drastically post E3).
Of course PS3 to One orders are probably about 2 to 1 in most places, I would guess.
Nobody knows. Or at least nobody is saying.
That said, while there were units for preorder, the ps4 and XBO, post online reversal announcement, were trading back and forth for the top spot on Amazon.
The simple answer is the winner at launch will be the company who makes the most consoles, as both are likely to sell out. The PS4 is looking to have less issues regarding manufacture, so I expect it to sell more.
It's in the months following launch that will prove telling.
Yeah. I figure it won't be till after the holidays before we see which one is actually selling the best and not just how many they could ship out. (My bet will be the PS4 because cheaper usually sells better)
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
I hate all this talk of breaking sales records on pre orders, to be honest.
No shit this gen is going to break pre-order counts from last gen. Last gen was 8 YEARS ago. The gaming industry has exploded in that time - even moreso than it exploded in the PS2/Xbox era.
Gaming is a massive industry, followed by tons of people worldwide, and is part of popular culture on a ton of different levels. The numbers are just going to keep going up.
Not to mention that there were supply constraints last time, PS3 with the blu ray diodes and 360 with its motherboard stuff (I think). They aren't touching bleeding edge tech this time; of course they'll have better luck getting a good number of systems out there.
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Well, actually, that depends on which rumors you believe.
Isn't 70/30 the breakdown of what Valve takes via Steam?
Yeah, GoG says it's "industry standard". But I don't think other publishers talk about it directly and we learned this stuff from a few devs with loose lips. Maybe I'm wrong.
Well yeah, usually business details aren't disclosed (even if they seem relatively harmless). I guess GoG disclosed this info because Steam's details were known and they wanted to let devs know that their platform is just as fair in its profit splitting.
I'm actually surprised that we know these numbers for Steam (being privately-traded and all, they're not under the same pressure to disclose numbers that GoG would be). I've always appreciated GoG's approach to DRM--unrelated, but given how much smaller they are, being more transparent than Steam isn't hard, I imagine.
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Speaking of GoG and transparency, did you guys talk about the GoG interview back in July. I was out of internet contact at the time.
Get a load of some of these quotes. It's like talking to an actual human being and not "Head of Marketing and PR".
Trevor: We see pirates as our competition, we don’t see Steam as our competition. Because our goal is to be as close to the ease of use as a torrent tracker, where the process for finding a game on a torrent tracker is your search for the game name, you download it, you play it, that’s it. In our case, you search for the game name, you pay for it, you download it and you play it. And you really can’t subtract any of those steps and still have a legit enterprise happening here.
...
Trevor: Our official position is, “Treat these games like you used to treat these games.” I have some games I loaned to a friend back in 2004 and JOSH! Yyou still have my CDs! So I can’t play the game. You know, basically, if I’ve loaned the game to a friend, I can’t play it. And so your buddy’s like, “Man, I haven’t heard about Rollercoaster Tycoon, can I try it out?” we’re cool with you saying, “Sure, let me give you a thumb-drive with it, uninstall it when you’re done and let me know so I can play it again.” Because at that point, you’re treating it like a CD in the days of yore when you had to have the CD to play.
...
GON: And it seems to be working. But I have two final questions, both of which come from friends of mine. The first one is “Where the #%$@ is X-Wing vs TIE Fighter”?
Trevor: You know, LucasArts is a company that we would love to sign. I want TIE Fighter, the straight TIE Fighter and the fact that you like X-Wing vs TIE Fighter over TIE Fighter — or your friend does — pains me because TIE Fighter is objectively a better game as far as I’m concerned.
TIE Fighter is one of my, say top five games of all time and it doesn’t work in Windows 7, I can’t do anything to make it work. I could, I suppose go to our Build Masters and you know, bribe them, and say, “You guys know how to do this, I have my CD here and you know how to do this to make this game work! Do you magic, make me a master build! I’ll, I don’t know, pay you in cookies or more likely in vodka, because of Poland.” You know, I’m sure I could do that.
But regardless, getting those games, you know, getting Grim Fandango, Full Throttle — Full Throttle was the reason why I owned a motorcycle — these sorts of things from LucasArts would be phenomenal. Why don’t we have them signed? Because of Reasons, that’s why.
haha, I love this. He could be a PA forumer - "because REASONS"
Gentlemen! by Lucky Frame is a popular indie title for Android tablets, iPad, PC and Mac that has players swap gravity, chuck knives, and send homing pigeons at one another in local multiplayer deathmatches. It has garnered critical praise and the Android version has been downloaded more than 50,000 times - unfortunately, as of four days ago, only 144 of those downloads were legitimate, while the rest were pirated.
Yann Seznec, director of Lucky Frame, shared the disparaging data via a Gamasutra blog, where he tried to decipher why things went south. The largest group of pirates, Seznec found, came from Russia and China, where "... most of these pirates probably exist in a commercial ecosystem where the Google Play store does not even exist, and it doesn't occur to them to buy any games from there at all."
Seznec also pointed out that the game had some unlikely competition - South Korean singer Psy's hit, "Gentleman" - that made the game difficult to discover thanks to a flood of apps which hoped to capitalize on the song's viral success. The whole story is a bit heartbreaking, and Seznec wrote that for the moment, he doesn't have much of a conclusion to make, but that he and his team have a lot to learn going forward.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Gentlemen! by Lucky Frame is a popular indie title for Android tablets, iPad, PC and Mac that has players swap gravity, chuck knives, and send homing pigeons at one another in local multiplayer deathmatches. It has garnered critical praise and the Android version has been downloaded more than 50,000 times - unfortunately, as of four days ago, only 144 of those downloads were legitimate, while the rest were pirated.
Yann Seznec, director of Lucky Frame, shared the disparaging data via a Gamasutra blog, where he tried to decipher why things went south. The largest group of pirates, Seznec found, came from Russia and China, where "... most of these pirates probably exist in a commercial ecosystem where the Google Play store does not even exist, and it doesn't occur to them to buy any games from there at all."
Seznec also pointed out that the game had some unlikely competition - South Korean singer Psy's hit, "Gentleman" - that made the game difficult to discover thanks to a flood of apps which hoped to capitalize on the song's viral success. The whole story is a bit heartbreaking, and Seznec wrote that for the moment, he doesn't have much of a conclusion to make, but that he and his team have a lot to learn going forward.
I'm not getting what I'm supposed to feel bad about here. He made a small-time game with no publicity that almost nobody bought, and it got pirated a whole helluva lot in places where the only way to get the game is piracy.
Only thing I see as "heartbreaking" here is another dev with no reputation putting out a game and being surprised when it doesn't bring all the amazing money they'd assumed it would.
The numbers there are also pretty useless, as only the Android version is reported. If the game made a similar number of sales on the Apple products, then the piracy is thoroughly and completely irrelevant.
Gentlemen! by Lucky Frame is a popular indie title for Android tablets, iPad, PC and Mac that has players swap gravity, chuck knives, and send homing pigeons at one another in local multiplayer deathmatches. It has garnered critical praise and the Android version has been downloaded more than 50,000 times - unfortunately, as of four days ago, only 144 of those downloads were legitimate, while the rest were pirated.
Yann Seznec, director of Lucky Frame, shared the disparaging data via a Gamasutra blog, where he tried to decipher why things went south. The largest group of pirates, Seznec found, came from Russia and China, where "... most of these pirates probably exist in a commercial ecosystem where the Google Play store does not even exist, and it doesn't occur to them to buy any games from there at all."
Seznec also pointed out that the game had some unlikely competition - South Korean singer Psy's hit, "Gentleman" - that made the game difficult to discover thanks to a flood of apps which hoped to capitalize on the song's viral success. The whole story is a bit heartbreaking, and Seznec wrote that for the moment, he doesn't have much of a conclusion to make, but that he and his team have a lot to learn going forward.
I'm not getting what I'm supposed to feel bad about here. He made a small-time game with no publicity that almost nobody bought, and it got pirated a whole helluva lot in places where the only way to get the game is piracy.
Only thing I see as "heartbreaking" here is another dev with no reputation putting out a game and being surprised when it doesn't bring all the amazing money they'd assumed it would.
The numbers there are also pretty useless, as only the Android version is reported. If the game made a similar number of sales on the Apple products, then the piracy is thoroughly and completely irrelevant.
This just in, not every indie developer becomes independently wealthy.
I hate all this talk of breaking sales records on pre orders, to be honest.
No shit this gen is going to break pre-order counts from last gen. Last gen was 8 YEARS ago. The gaming industry has exploded in that time - even moreso than it exploded in the PS2/Xbox era.
Gaming is a massive industry, followed by tons of people worldwide, and is part of popular culture on a ton of different levels. The numbers are just going to keep going up.
Well you say that like the growth of console gaming is to be taken for granted, but should it? I recall multiple times on previous industry threads where posters predicted that the Wii U wasn't a unique situation and that the XBO and PS4 would flounder just like it. There's also the long view of mobile devices and FTP games descending on "traditional" gaming as we know it like a pendulum blade.
In that context, I think it's a good thing to be reminded that, at least for now, there's a strong interest in the new consoles.
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Yeah it is super slimy. And apparently a very common tactic in FTP. BUT HEY IT IS THE FUTURE.
Will Wright left in 2009, after Spore.
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That sounds right. The Sims 3 came out the same year, and it was announced that Maxis wouldn't be handling it a good time before that, obviously. In that case, EA took the franchise from him (and/or Maxis), rather than him leaving it. Given how Spore turned out, perhaps for the better,
Good job getting defensive about something dumb.
That said, the purchases are far too expensive. A single flower costs more than the original game. If they dropped the prices I think they'd see a surge in revenue.
I've played the shit out of the game and I dropped £2.49 to get the blue flower that snares. Worth it, in my opinion.
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I think the point everyone is making is that the "risk" associated with a new console doesn't necessarily stack with the risk of a new IP. The fact that the competition is slimmer in terms of fewer games, not to mention that few devs will have a full technical grasp of the console's capabilities, gives the devs a lot more leeway in terms of just trying something out. In a way you get to kill two birds with one stone -- it's risky to try a new IP, but it's a smaller pool of games and a smaller install base (and generally pretty hardcore gamers in general as early-adopters) so you get a lot of interesting feedback and opportunities that you might not get 3 years into the lifecycle.
On top of that, TLoU is probably not the best example to make here because Naughty Dog isn't your average-caliber developer, and TLoU is just a great game. Naughty Dog has street cred for making great games, and as mentioned that goes a long way. Unfortunately the hype train is picking up way less steam if some no-name dev puts out that exact same game.
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Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
Agreed. Especially since the biz has gotten remarkably more risk-averse since the launch of the last-gen. Everything has to be an absolute smash-hit, and so you can't risk doing something too different. Mid-tier games have almost died off entirely. No one wants to take a risk on the Wii U.
And that launch list for the PS4 and One is downright unnerving. True, there's very little crap, but there's very little that's not the same goddamn thing we've been seeing for the last five years. Other than the indies and a lot of Sony's first-party stuff, we're seeing none of the crazy experimentation we got with every other generational transition.
Personally I'm getting less and less interested in AAA stuff, and I don't think it's because my tastes are changing.
The xboxone and ps4 are great, but they are just refining something that's been done in more or less the same way since the NES thirty years ago.
The Rift and other techs like it are truly showcasing something revolutionary, and it's one of those rare cases where that word isn't just a marketing buzzword.
I didn't know that they actually acted like a publisher with their advance on on royalties business.
Link
Also, in two totally unrelated news items, I'm debating whether to be a guinea pig and buy some Zeboyd games for my Kindle Fire HD and see if they work or not. Meanwhile, I suddenly understand why app sales on iPhone are so much higher than Android sales even though Android marketshare is so dominant.
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Yeah, GoG says it's "industry standard". But I don't think other publishers talk about it directly and we learned this stuff from a few devs with loose lips. Maybe I'm wrong.
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Well yeah, usually business details aren't disclosed (even if they seem relatively harmless). I guess GoG disclosed this info because Steam's details were known and they wanted to let devs know that their platform is just as fair in its profit splitting.
Get a load of some of these quotes. It's like talking to an actual human being and not "Head of Marketing and PR".
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If he understood about Tie Fighter then he would be kidnapping the families of the Build Masters and threatening to kill one at random for every month until Tie Fighter is released. Perhaps some families of key Disney executives would have to be included as well.
Forget this cookie/vodka nonsense.
In short, if you haven't added Poland to the State Department list of terrorist supporting countries then you aren't really trying.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Edit - Hey getting back to Ballmer - a lot of people (including me) have gone "ha" at the stock market reaction to his retirement announcement, but I have a question! What did Microsoft's stock look like when Ballmer was announced as the next CEO and what has the stock history been for the company over his tenure?
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=MSFT+Interactive#symbol=msft;range=my;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;
Their stock fell from near $60 to the $30-$20 range, then stayed there through his tenure. The biggest drop seems to be during the Vista days.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
... so much for me playing Devil's Advocate.
Get rid of the guy. <_<
I am curious as to how the Ballmer retirement is going to affect the re-org that was announced last month. Are they going to go through that just to have another re-org when a new CEO comes in next year or is this just a transitional workforce reduction phase so the new guy doesn't have to be the one sending out the pink slips?
GameStop Expects Xbox One, PS4 Launches To Be Biggest Ever
Assuming that the first-to-know list watchers all get a next generation system within the launch window, that would give third parties about 2.2 million potential customers out of the gate. Throw in PC gamers and there's little doubt that the triple-A platform trinity will be disturbed much this cycle.
Only if the new CEO wants a new re-org, I guess. But that would just cause everyone to lose confidence in the new guy.
Of course PS3 to One orders are probably about 2 to 1 in most places, I would guess.
Nobody knows. Or at least nobody is saying.
That said, while there were units for preorder, the ps4 and XBO, post online reversal announcement, were trading back and forth for the top spot on Amazon.
The simple answer is the winner at launch will be the company who makes the most consoles, as both are likely to sell out. The PS4 is looking to have less issues regarding manufacture, so I expect it to sell more.
It's in the months following launch that will prove telling.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
No shit this gen is going to break pre-order counts from last gen. Last gen was 8 YEARS ago. The gaming industry has exploded in that time - even moreso than it exploded in the PS2/Xbox era.
Gaming is a massive industry, followed by tons of people worldwide, and is part of popular culture on a ton of different levels. The numbers are just going to keep going up.
I'm actually surprised that we know these numbers for Steam (being privately-traded and all, they're not under the same pressure to disclose numbers that GoG would be). I've always appreciated GoG's approach to DRM--unrelated, but given how much smaller they are, being more transparent than Steam isn't hard, I imagine.
haha, I love this. He could be a PA forumer - "because REASONS"
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I'm not getting what I'm supposed to feel bad about here. He made a small-time game with no publicity that almost nobody bought, and it got pirated a whole helluva lot in places where the only way to get the game is piracy.
Only thing I see as "heartbreaking" here is another dev with no reputation putting out a game and being surprised when it doesn't bring all the amazing money they'd assumed it would.
The numbers there are also pretty useless, as only the Android version is reported. If the game made a similar number of sales on the Apple products, then the piracy is thoroughly and completely irrelevant.
The last stock split was in 2003 (2:1 split), and the stock price went up around 3% that day.
This just in, not every indie developer becomes independently wealthy.
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
Well you say that like the growth of console gaming is to be taken for granted, but should it? I recall multiple times on previous industry threads where posters predicted that the Wii U wasn't a unique situation and that the XBO and PS4 would flounder just like it. There's also the long view of mobile devices and FTP games descending on "traditional" gaming as we know it like a pendulum blade.
In that context, I think it's a good thing to be reminded that, at least for now, there's a strong interest in the new consoles.