RPGs: Stop Making Bad First Impressions 
Is Hitman's Next Target Assassin's Creed? 
Why Kotaku Australia Should Never Work With Children... Or Robots 
Three Words I Said To The Man I Defeated In Gears Of War That I'll Never Say Again 
New Doom 3 For Xbox 360 And PlayStation 3 Supports Head-Mounted Displays 
Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land Gamasutra has an interesting — if dry — analysis of a variety of sales figures from Nintendo’s investor presentation. While targeted towards a particular audience, the variety of graphs and pie charts illustrate what’s going on in the global marketplace: handheld and console sales, as well as first- and third-party software sales, shed light on how Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are doing across the board. Of particular interest are the figures on the European market, which tends to be difficult to get a grasp on:
Gene Hoffman, CEO of Vindicia (a billing and fraud protection company), has some words of wisdom regarding the headache that is billing and payment for MMOs — be they the more ‘traditional’ subscription model or the free to play model. Obviously, there are benefits and downsides that come with each model, and companies are constantly trying to negotiate a balance between profit and player happiness. Even the vaunted subscription model comes with its own problems and a variety of structures within that model:
Leigh Alexander has a nice piece up on what she calls the “dysfunctional family circle of game industry, game media, and game consumer,” focusing on the whys and wherefores of the ‘hype cycle,’ hot (sometimes misleading) headlines, and a culture of jaded consumption. There’s been a lot of talk of the problems of game ‘journalism’ lately, but Leigh’s piece is particularly well-written and reasoned. Are we dealing with a chicken or the egg question?:
A gold farming/money laundering ring in South Korea has been accused of moving somewhere in the neighbourhood of $61 million from Korea to China (with the help of real money transactions). According to PlayNoEvil, they made false purchases to a Hong Kong paper company to move the money, which is what eventually led to their arrest. In addition to the ring leaders, an additional 11 people were arrested:
Are video games the movies of our current economic slump? In an article wittily titled, “In Tough Economic Times, Video Games Console”, NPR writer Laura Sydell explores the similarities between the growing popularity of video games in mainstream culture with the movie boom that occurred during The Great Depression in the 1930′s, at time when a weary nation turned to nickel theatres to escape the grim realities of the economic climate. She compares the relatively steady sales of movie tickets to the ever-expanding gaming market, with software sales up 43 percent from this time last year. David Riley of the NPD Group says part of the reason video game sales are rising and movie ticket sales aren’t is that a movie only lasts a couple of hours — it gives you less “bang for your buck. The difference, obviously, between a movie and a video game is the amount of time that you get,” he says.
With gas prices rising and some of the nation’s largest financial institutions in dire straits, more and more non-gamers are finding that video games are an excellent way to distract themselves from real-life issues. Anyone else find this slightly ironic? We’re they just making fun of us for doing the same thing a couple years back?
It’s alright, general public. We hold no grudges. Come, sit next to us, take up a game controller, and we’ll ride this thing out together.
Compared to a lot of esoteric ruminations on game design, Ernest Adams’ little essay on ‘the dao of game design’ is remarkably grounded and to the point. The question of how to make a game that players — not just the designer — would want to play is an obvious one; perhaps more obvious is the fact that a designer needs to know what they’re trying to convey (though, considering the muddled end products we’re sometimes presented with, perhaps some designers don’t pay enough attention to the ‘message’):
In totally unsurprising news, China’s game market continues to climb — numbers just posted for the second quarter of 2008 show an 11.2% increase over first quarter, and a nearly 66% increase from the same quarter last year (!). In terms of market share, Shanda leads the pack with a 17.9% share, with other big companies hovering below that.
The current market is estimated to be worth 4.43 billion yuan (around $US 645 million), and with no predicted slowdowns, one wonders what we’ll be seeing this time next year (or even fourth quarter of ’08). And with companies like Perfect World making a foray into Western markets, we’ll just have to wait and see where China’s industry is heading long-term.
China market: 2Q08 online gaming services valued at 4.43 billion yuan [Digitimes via GamesIndustry.biz]
Ian Bogost has an interesting editorial over at Edge Online entitled ‘The End of Gamers,’ a title which he admits doesn’t really capture the main argument: “["The End of Gamers"]is lurid but might not capture the main argument of the piece, which is more like “Things People Do with Games”. Much of his point is that other media has a wide variety of applications, and isn’t shoehorned into a few limited types of uses (‘entertainment’ vs. ‘serious’ and so on). Bogost isn’t arguing for ‘games as art’ or ‘games as useful’ or anything else, just pointing out that some perceptions about the industry start to break down when one considers the wide range of applications current games can have:
I’ve read a number of thought-provoking pieces over at Only a Game, and this week Chris Bateman has a meditation up on Nintendo, the ‘mass market,’ moving away from games, and what this could spell for the industry at large. Is it really all it’s cracked up to be? Unlike most of my favourite essays from Bateman, this one is pretty short and digestible — he points out that aggressively pursuing the ‘mass market’ (casual market) is working out splendidly for Nintendo, but he wonders if aggressively targeting that market inherently means moving away from games. And what about the industry at large? Well, that’s not so clear:
Over at the Escapist, they’re taking a look at the future of gaming — Hal Halpin, president of the Entertainment Consumers Association, looks at a number of ‘maybe, maybe not’ predictions with his own take. Ranging from the mundane (‘Game prices will go down!’) to the political (‘Things will get better once gamers become politicians!’) to the industry-focused (‘Publishing structure is stuck in a rut and won’t change!’). It’s a fun read with some good points on the present and future directions of the gaming industry. On the publishing structure, Halpin has this to say:
