Microtransactions – We’re Doing It Wrong
For years, the game industry has talked about microtransactions. How it might be the savior of PC gaming. How it can “monetize” customers to the full potential. How it will widen the installed user base.
All these things might be true, if only it would be implemented properly.
What I’m Working On
Posted by Ilucide in Uncategorized on April 28th, 2010
Hey. We quasi-announced what I’m working on the other day. Hooray! More information in the months ahead, but for now, the information is right here: Trion Worlds announces SyFy action MMO.
On Film
Posted by Lyndro in Uncategorized on April 21st, 2010
It has always amazed me how similar the birth and growth of the video game industry is to the the birth and growth of film. For example I think there is a pretty solid parallel between the growth and consolidation of some of the bigger development houses and the introduction of the Studio System. Some of the more heated discussions about video games, violence and ratings in particular, resonate this relationship better than others. This is why I find Ebert’s Games Can Never Be Art article to be fairly ironic.
Taxation and Incentives
Posted by Ilucide in Uncategorized on April 13th, 2010
In a recent blog post on Freakonomics, Justin Wolfers talks about cherry-picking income distribution statistics, and the relative distribution of wealth in the US. Later in the article, he goes on to say that the top 0.5% (those above $632k annual income) earn 19.3% of all income. What I’m curious about are the incentives here.
Apple is Smart
Advertising these days is damned costly. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 blew 5x its production budget on advertising. Avatar spent $150 million on advertising. Apple themselves spend north of 450 million a year on advertising. But Apple gets a lot more advertising than they pay for. Every major news source is covering the iPad launch. They all covered the iPhone launch as well. The reviews are favorable, though somewhat without a target for the device’s role. So how does Apple get this much coverage on a product that no one has figured out exactly what use it’s going to fill?
Worthwhile GDC talks, Day 2
Posted by Ilucide in Current Events, Games on March 12th, 2010
Sid Meier stresses the importance of player psychology
I’ve long thought that a psychology degree is vastly more important to a game designer than anything else they could study, including computer science. Sid Meier goes on the record talking about player psychology, and how it’s much more important than mathematics and data. It’s interesting that this is almost the exact opposite viewpoint that RA Salvatore espoused yesterday at his worldbuilding talk. This may be one of the few talks arising out of GDC 2010 that I really wish I’d been able to attend.
Epic’s Mark Rein believes in AAA titles
No shock here, but one of the things that I hope more development studios eventually realize is what he says about tools. I’ve watched so many projects build unique engines from the ground up, only to neglect their tools. And then, studio execs and producers wonder why the game isn’t shaping up as quickly as it should… Well guys, it’s because nobody thought tools were important. They back-burnered them until it was way too late, and now your artists and designers are coping with issues that would have been solved if you’d gone with an off-the-shelf solution.
Rein: Part of the argument that traditional development is doomed is that its budgets have been increasing — but according to Rein, better tools mean that AAA development costs can decrease, not ramp up annually, keeping it a viable proposition.