The Business Side of Video (Space) Games EXCLUSIVELY ON IDLE THUMBS

[Bjorn]

The cost and logistics of building that system are still prohibitive though.  Wireless HDMI alone is still relatively expensive to incorporate into a device.  And cooling would be a major factor.  You can build something like a 360 into a portable form factor, but it's going to run really hot and eat batteries like they're Coco Puffs. 

[Frenetic Pony]

The cost and logistics of building that system are still prohibitive though.  Wireless HDMI alone is still relatively expensive to incorporate into a device.  And cooling would be a major factor.  You can build something like a 360 into a portable form factor, but it's going to run really hot and eat batteries like they're Coco Puffs. 

 

Nah, relative power isn't too hard. Upcoming SOCs like the Tegra k1 are already available for purchase for upcoming devices and already outclass a 360 or PS3 with a proximate 5 watt tdp, and that's at 28nm. A custom designed SOC on 20nm should be able to double the silicon involved (probably with lower clockspeed). Considering price for the CPU and GPU aren't going to be nearly as much of a factor as in a typical phone SOC it should be doable. Combined with a few gigs of lpDDR4 and 802.11ad, assuming the spec will be ready by then, out to a packed in HDMI adapter shouldn't be too hard. A hundred more or so than the usual phone, and you don't even have to have LTE or whatever for the lower end. Should help with battery life and price all considered.

 

Of course Nintendo's hardware designers are, or at least for the Wii-U, idiots. They'd need to replace their entire staff, and actually have solid third party developer support with proper debuggers and a good online service and etc. So unless drastic changes behind the scenes have taken place its all of a pipe dream for Nintendo to pull something like that off. But someone could do it.

[Merus]

They'd need to replace their entire staff, and actually have solid third party developer support with proper debuggers and a good online service and etc.

 

I think people are only starting to realise how deficient Nintendo has historically been in this area - not one of their consoles has had state of the art tools or middleware. The GBA line is the exception, mostly because the few developers working on it rolled their own and started selling it to others, and the GBA/DS/3DS has stayed consistent enough. This wasn't so much of a problem until the PS2 era - Sony wasn't much better, but they were better and more responsive to developers, and their first party developers would share code - but expectations changed when Microsoft came in. Tools are Microsoft's bread and butter. Visual Studio was the gold standard for a decade (and still is excellent), and the Xbox worked with it. No-one rated Microsoft initially, but when it became clear that they were in it for the long haul, they were sticking around, and that they'd go hard for middleware vendors like Epic, getting things working first on the 360 became an attractive option, because it was usually less work.

 

Nintendo's hardware design is usually pretty good, but many developers increasingly want to insulate themselves from understanding the hardware.

[Bjorn]

Indie dev Jason Rohrer ran an editorial a few days ago about how Steam sales are ultimately bad for everyone and destroying everything we love. 

 

I feel like his entire argument is built on a set of flawed assumptions, depends too much on an outlier like MInecraft and ignores data points that would be inconvenient to his argument. 

[Gormongous]

Indie dev Jason Rohrer ran an editorial a few days ago about how Steam sales are ultimately bad for everyone and destroying everything we love. 

 

I feel like his entire argument is built on a set of flawed assumptions, depends too much on an outlier like MInecraft and ignores data points that would be inconvenient to his argument. 

 

When I read it a few weeks ago, I felt that Rohrer made some good points about trends and values, but ultimately his argument was predicated on a need for Steam sales not to be the future of selling games online. So yeah, I totally agree.

[Zeusthecat]

So the latest Dead Rising 3 patch is apparently 13 GB.

 

http://kotaku.com/13-gb-dead-rising-3-patch-raises-questions-about-gaming-1505219529

 

That's pretty fucking huge especially considering the size of the base install.

[tegan]

the patch is actually a copy of the first Dead Rising.

[Bjorn]

Yo dawg, we heard you like Dead Rising, so we put some Dead Rising in your....

 

 

I'm sorry.

 

 

Not really.

[Merus]

Indie dev Jason Rohrer ran an editorial a few days ago about how Steam sales are ultimately bad for everyone and destroying everything we love. 

 

I feel like his entire argument is built on a set of flawed assumptions, depends too much on an outlier like MInecraft and ignores data points that would be inconvenient to his argument. 

 

I didn't find it particularly convincing. Steam sales also allow people who don't have a lot of disposable income to be able to afford games without pirating them, which is healthy for the industry. It's a somewhat democratising force, because the games that seem to win most in Steam Sales are indie games, that have a problem with exposure more than anything else. (Between this and the Castle Doctrine nonsense, I'm getting this weird feeling that Rohrer lives in a bubble.)

 

I think it's valuable to keep in mind the power of your closest fans. I worked on a game that had the unusual business model of having a free 'demo' that contained all of the tools for authoring custom levels, and made a central repository where they could be shared freely; what we found was that younger fans, and cash-strapped fans, leaped onto this 'free' material, and became part of the community through their levels. When they had disposable income, often they chose to buy the 'full' game as a sign of appreciation for all the fun they'd already had.

[Professor Video Games]

I feel like the aggressive sales that are common now are a pretty tricky situation for devs. Why buy a game for $60 when it's going to be $40 in just a month? Or $20 a little after that? At the same time, if sales are flagging or even worse, were never good in the first place, what is there to gain by keeping the game at full price? The time between release and these discounts is definitely something that could be looked at a little more closely.

 

I think his plan of having early adopter discounts is fine, but he's ignoring the fact that there are people that either can't afford to buy games at full price or have no interest in certain games/genres at their full price. He's going to miss out on these sales entirely. I think a more rational approach, if he hates the whole flash sale/deep discount structure, is a more gradual and permanent price drop over time. After a year or whatever is appropriate, drop the price by half, then half again a year later, etc.

[Zeusthecat]

King is trying to trademark the word 'Candy' as it pertains to video games and clothing.

 

http://www.gamezebo.com/news/2014/01/20/king-has-trademarked-word-candy-and-youre-probably-infringing

 

I get that generic words can be trademarked under certain circumstances (e.g. Apple) but do they really have any ground to stand on laying claim to a single word from the title of their game? And what about all the games with the word 'Candy' in the name that predate Candy Crush (Candy Land being a big one that comes to mind)? I would think that a lot of companies could argue that they already have common law trademarks established in numerous areas and I would think this would provide some protection. But I guess I don't know how that would work given that this shit is all on the internet and not really tied to a geographical region.

[Professor Video Games]

I am prepared to donate money to the Candybox legal defense fund if necessary.

[Dewar]

I feel like the aggressive sales that are common now are a pretty tricky situation for devs. Why buy a game for $60 when it's going to be $40 in just a month? Or $20 a little after that? At the same time, if sales are flagging or even worse, were never good in the first place, what is there to gain by keeping the game at full price? The time between release and these discounts is definitely something that could be looked at a little more closely.

 

I think his plan of having early adopter discounts is fine, but he's ignoring the fact that there are people that either can't afford to buy games at full price or have no interest in certain games/genres at their full price. He's going to miss out on these sales entirely. I think a more rational approach, if he hates the whole flash sale/deep discount structure, is a more gradual and permanent price drop over time. After a year or whatever is appropriate, drop the price by half, then half again a year later, etc.

 

I certainly don't buy all that many games at release anymore, but I think I spend about the same amount each year on games now as I did five years ago, just spread around a lot of smaller or sale-priced games instead of a $60 blockbuster every month. The real debate is how many customers are you getting who would never buy the game until it was sale-price, versus the number of customers that would have bought it full price, but now wait for sales. I think banking on gamer impulse buys from people who wouldn't normally purchase your game is a winning strategy. Impulse control problems abound in our hobby and the US populace in general.

[SecretAsianMan]

King is trying to trademark the word 'Candy' as it pertains to video games and clothing.

 

http://www.gamezebo.com/news/2014/01/20/king-has-trademarked-word-candy-and-youre-probably-infringing

 

I get that generic words can be trademarked under certain circumstances (e.g. Apple) but do they really have any ground to stand on laying claim to a single word from the title of their game? And what about all the games with the word 'Candy' in the name that predate Candy Crush (Candy Land being a big one that comes to mind)? I would think that a lot of companies could argue that they already have common law trademarks established in numerous areas and I would think this would provide some protection. But I guess I don't know how that would work given that this shit is all on the internet and not really tied to a geographical region.

 

How do you response to trademarking "candy"?  With a trolling game jam of course.

[Zeusthecat]

Oh dear lord.

 

http://kotaku.com/candy-crush-saga-makers-go-after-the-banner-saga-for-1506188958

 

Da Fuq?

[JonCole]

Next thing you know, they'll sue Sega for having a name that sounds too much like Saga and they're "riding the success" of the Saga franchise.

[Bjorn]

Well this is looking like it's going to backfire gloriously for them.

[Gormongous]

Oh dear lord.

 

http://kotaku.com/candy-crush-saga-makers-go-after-the-banner-saga-for-1506188958

 

Da Fuq?

Next thing you know, they'll sue Sega for having a name that sounds too much like Saga and they're "riding the success" of the Saga franchise.

 

The Kotaku article has a couple of sententious commenters reminding everyone that this is how trademarks have to be defended, but I really don't understand King's gameplan here. Just in the realm of video games, the word "saga" has been used by a Square franchise since 1989 and, while "candy" doesn't have a similar counterpart, there's still Candy Land, not to mention the million clothing brands that King claims are impeding a trademark that didn't exist until a few months ago. What's next, they initiate legal action against Crush soda?

 

So really, what's the outcome they expect? At best, they force Stoic to change their game's name, possibly preventing a few lost dollars on their various mobile platforms, in exchange for poisoning the goodwill of anyone who reads gaming news and doesn't have a heart that runs on crude oil and crushed sea shells? Is that really the cost-benefit analysis they ran? Someone smarter please help me out.

[toblix]

Next thing you know, they'll sue Sega for having a name that sounds too much like Saga and they're "riding the success" of the Saga franchise.

SAAAGAAAAAAAAAA

[Zeusthecat]

The Kotaku article has a couple of sententious commenters reminding everyone that this is how trademarks have to be defended, but I really don't understand King's gameplan here. Just in the realm of video games, the word "saga" has been used by a Square franchise since 1989 and, while "candy" doesn't have a similar counterpart, there's still Candy Land, not to mention the million clothing brands that King claims are impeding a trademark that didn't exist until a few months ago. What's next, they initiate legal action against Crush soda?

 

So really, what's the outcome they expect? At best, they force Stoic to change their game's name, possibly preventing a few lost dollars on their various mobile platforms, in exchange for poisoning the goodwill of anyone who reads gaming news and doesn't have a heart that runs on crude oil and crushed sea shells? Is that really the cost-benefit analysis they ran? Someone smarter please help me out.

 

My sentiments exactly. What's stupid about the whole thing is that they haven't even been granted the trademarks yet. By going through these shenanigans, they are probably just making it harder for themselves since they are putting a big spotlight on how ridiculous their claims are.

[Dewar]

The US trademark and patent system sucks. Remember when Bethesda tried to stop Mojang from calling their game "Scrolls" because it was so much like "Elder Scrolls?" Scroll is a hilariously common word too. If someone were actually to create a game that's trying to copy one of their Saga games and they protested the name, a lawyer from that other company could point at the Banner Saga as proof that the term is in common use and the trademark should be disallowed.

 

Still very dumb and probably a little over-zealous on the part of the lawyers, but it makes sense given the way the system is set up.

[Zeusthecat]

Still very dumb and probably a little over-zealous on the part of the lawyers, but it makes sense given the way the system is set up.

 

I don't know. I don't think trademarks are typically granted for such generic words and plenty of people have had their trademark applications denied in the past because it was too generic or already part of the common vernacular (and their trademark application for the word "saga" has been suspended since they went after Banner Saga anyways : http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2014/01/21/king-com-comments-on-candy-trademark.aspx ). Even with the fucked up trademark laws we have, I don't see King ultimately getting the trademarks for either of those terms. I think this is just them using bully tactics to get what they want since a lot of these smaller companies probably can't afford to go to court and contest their claim.

 

Considering everything I don't think this makes any sense at all and if there is anyone with half a brain in charge at King, they will realize this is doing far more damage to their brand then the "damage" that would have been done by these other "infringers".

[Dewar]

I doubt the people who play Candy Crush know who King are let alone anything about the "brand." All I'm saying is that being one of the biggest games out there is going to net you a lot of copycats, and once you make the decision to start fighting them, it can become an indiscriminate weapon.

[JonCole]

I was actually about to make a remark about how a trademark must be enforced actively to retain its power, but this Polygon story that just hit basically describes it for me:

 

http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/22/5335022/king-were-not-trying-to-stop-banner-saga-from-using-its-name

 

I'm no lawyer, but despite them not having an active trademark on "Saga" it's probably in their best interests to assert themselves in the case of Banner Saga. While they don't have a trademark on that specific word, they have a number of trademark on games with names styled "Something Something Saga" with which The Banner Saga intersects. That said, it doesn't make them look like anything but dicks to the public eye.

[Twig]

It may be in their best interest as trademark holders, but trademarks are stupid so their best interest is stupid!