You may not care the China controls over 95 per cent of the world’s supply of rare earth metals, but you might want to. More »
Nintendo isn’t the only company seeing a jump in value after announcing that they plan to release a 3D version of their popular DS portable console. More »
The billion-dollar business of selling virtual goods in free-to-play games is more than just a financial windfall for companies like Playfish. A controlled economy with millions of active participants gives economists an entirely new way to model consumer behaviour. More »
Rumours can be powerful forces in the economy, as evidenced by an 8.1% rise in Electronic Arts stock today following unsubstantiated rumours that Microsoft was interested in buying the publisher out. More »
Financial publication Forbes takes a look at some of the things people are still willing to spend money on in the face of the recession, and of course, our favourite hobby makes the cut.
GameDaily reports that Michael Klotz, senior account manager at the NPD Group, says the video games industry is already feeling the effects of the recession.
The Montreal International Game Summit recently wrapped up, and keynote speaker David Braben of Frontier Development really took the industry to task on everything from the business model (broken!) to retailers (killing longevity of games!) to the ‘online myth’ of the next gen consoles. He makes some interesting points, though I’m not at all convinced of the veracity of some of them. Here’s his take on the retail model:
Despite declining stock value, Giant Interactive — the company behind the intriguing MMO Zhengtu Online, which is a mix of MMO, gambling, real money transactions, and gold farming — is still tearing up the Chinese market. Steve of PlayNoEvil has some interesting analysis up of some recent numbers, which have indicated the the average revenue per player has dropped to around $US66 (RMB 282). Giant is moving to encourage ‘steadier’ playing, instead of simply buying up cash shop items like there’s no tomorrow, so the drop was expected. Still, the money being made is pretty impressive for a domestic game (drop and all):
Dave Perry, founder of Shiny Entertainment, sat down with Valve’s Gabe Newell to talk about how to shoehorn your way into the industry — and what’s the industry going to look like in a few years, anyways? Are game degrees a waste of time? Is specialisation going to be the name of the game, as in film ? And how can you avoid shooting yourself in the foot when trying to get said foot in the door? On specialisation, Newell had this to say:
