Publishers

News

Video Game Ratings Board Lets Computers Do The Rating

5:20AM April 19, 2011 | Mike Fahey

Last year the Entertainment Software Ratings Board reviewed approximately 1600 video games prior to their US release, painstakingly poring over video game footage before arriving at a final decision. Starting today, the board is passing a great deal of that responsibility on to computers. More »


In Real Life

The Ginormous Flow Chart History Of Game Studios

11:30AM March 26, 2010 | Owen Good

Before Tecmo and Koei, before Square met Enix, before Namco found Bandai – this chart seeks to catalogue the history of game studios – spinoffs, mergers, acquisitions, defections. It’s also suitable for posterising on your laundry room wall. More »


News

North American Game Industry Employment Somehow Rose In 2009

3:20AM December 23, 2009 | Mike Fahey

According to the third annual Game Developer Census, game industry employment in North America has risen slightly in 2009, due in part to new Canadian studios and a rise in social and online gaming developers. More »


Work And Play: An Updated Peek Inside The Lives Of Gaming’s Greatest

2:00AM August 6, 2009 | Brian Crecente

More than a year ago we hosted a slew of photos showing off the work desks and gaming set-ups of the world’s game developers. More »


News

Rockstar Most Consistent Publisher, Ubisoft Least Consistent

6:00AM March 6, 2009 | Brian Crecente

Self-described Metacritic-expert Tim Sweezey over at GameQuarry.Com has a fascinating report up about the developers that are most consistent in publishing a certain quality of game.

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News

Five Ways Game Sites Can Improve

10:30PM January 21, 2009 | Luke Plunkett

Been to a game’s official site lately? You probably have. Probably noticed while there that it was a bit crap, full of useless flash pages and 320×240 “screenshots”. Here’s five ways to fix that.

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News

Publishers Basing Royalties On Metacritic Scores

4:00AM May 30, 2008 | Mike Fahey

Stephen Totilo of MTV Multiplayer continues his week-long look at video game review practices by exploring the practice of game publishers withholding certain bonuses and/or royalties if the game doesn’t achieve a certain Metacritic average. Basically a publisher agrees to finance the development of a game as long as the developer in these sort of situation agrees to Metacritic score limit stipulations that could theoretically see a low-scoring game that sells millions (any children’s licensed title really) hardly earning the devs a dime.

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Uncategorized

Which Publishers Can Think Globally, Act Globally?

5:00AM May 23, 2008 | Luke Plunkett

Games are a global business. After all, how many other industries could I work in where I live in Australia, work for an American-based company and can be read by anyone from Portugal to the Philippines at the push of a button? Not many. So it’s a shame that while information about games is truly global, the games themselves are not.

It’s a sad fact that most publishers just can’t keep up with the 21st century. Consoles, games, console services like Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network are advertised globally, on globally-read sites, and yet their actual distribution is delayed not just by translation, but by 20th-century ideas like staggered market regions and country-specific licensing deals. Which in the end means lots of people gets lots of games a lot later than other people.

It sucks. You hate it, I hate it, we all (especially the Europeans among us) hate it. So I figured it’d be interesting to take a look at the industry’s biggest publishers, look at their biggest games from the past two to three years, and see which companies are doing a good job of satisfying global demand for their product, and which ones…aren’t.

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