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

[Ucantalas]

A true hermit, a man separated from the human contact for 27-years, a man who expected to die without ever speaking to another person.  That man...played Pokémon occasionally because he stole a Gameboy.  Somehow that single fact is the most surreal part of this story to me.

 

Edit: Crap, I actually meant to put this in the random thought thread.  Oh well, I'll just leave it here.

Wow, that was an amazing read. Amazing to hear how about how he lived... and kind of sad, in a way.

[Henroid]

Gamasutra managed to sneak some business news in (well, broader-speaking business news) before the week closed out. It seemed slow this week.

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224003/Report_Most_US_smartphone_owners_rarely_download_new_apps.php

 

A research firm found that smart phone users rarely pick up new apps. They tend to find a few they really like and then just stick with them. It isn't like a constant cycle of picking up apps when someone is done with them. Which is understandable given that not every app type is a video game. This has some pretty damn big implications for video game makers though, because it brings into question how to get your app picked up in the first place, and maybe there should be investment in your one app for the long term. Shotgunning a bunch of apps (I dunno who does this, but I'm sure it's 'easier' to do on this platform than making traditional video games) is not the way to go.

 

Also there's a pie chart. Everyone loves pie charts!

 

[Bjorn]

Well, that seems to gel generally with my experiences.  Whenever I replace a phone, I tend to go on an app binge of updating stuff and finding new apps, and then don't look at the app store again forever. 

 

Though, the sheer raw numbers of phones out there means that the heavy app downloaders, ~11 percent for 4+ a month, still account for a user base of some 20 million you can appeal to in just the US domestic market.  Last stats I saw said between half and two-thirds of Americans had smartphones. 

[SecretAsianMan]

It makes sense to me.  Unless it sucks, gets broken, or becomes unsupported, once you find an app you like there's not a lot of reason to go looking for a replacement.  I'm somewhat obsessive about updating the apps I have, but I rarely go looking for new ones.  It's like Bjorn said, my biggest binges are when I get a new device.

[SuperBiasedMan]

How I usually approach smartphone games is either a specific recommendation of a game that I try out and then delete if it doesn't grab me or else I get a humble bundle, download a bunch of the games from it and try them all out, again ditching the ones that aren't drawing me in.

 

So that makes perfect sense to me, one game I've had on my phone for months now is this puzzle game about bagging groceries and it's still got levels for me to beat. Actually I have a few games I meant to recommend/gush about, do people just use the iOS thread for android games or is there some an android one that's gathering dust?

[SecretAsianMan]

is there some an android one that's gathering dust?

 

Yes

[Henroid]

Hello Monday. Things I'm seeing on Gamasutra:

 

Gamefly is dropping its digital distribution service. This surprises me because it was a very Netflix move when they picked it up a couple years ago, and I thought it would secure their longevity. They've sold it off to a company in Taiwan but are still operating it for the moment. Long live physical discs and the US Postal service!

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224088/GameFly_is_getting_out_of_the_digital_distribution_game.php

 

The rumors of Google buying Twitch are only half-true; it isn't Google, it's Amazon. According to the Wall Street Journal, later today an announcement will be made about this. It's still a one billion dollar deal. The implications of the purchase are definitely changing, but I don't know how. When the rumor was centered on Google I was being that guy saying, "Oh of course Twitch would have a content ID system now." I dunno what Amazon ownership will mean.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224090/Now_Amazon__not_Google__is_rumored_to_buy_Twitch.php

 

And my -favorite- story is that Sony is shutting down Playstation Home in Asia. Because I had no idea that shit was still operational.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224015/Sony_sets_a_date_to_shutter_PlayStation_Home_in_Asia.php

[Dewar]

Being owned by any large company comes with an increase in lawsuits, so it still makes sense they'd go with content ID.

[JonCole]

I kinda read the Gamefly move as this -

1. At the end of last generation, they tried to diversify - editorial + digital sales in the face of console sales numbers kinda tanking and PC taking off.
2. Editorial was hard and not very lucrative, they tried making a mobile app-based emag thing and it didn't take off. Kill that.
3. Hey, Gamefly is like Netflix right? Redbox is doing pretty good! Let's do movies too!
4. Huh, PS4 is selling like gangbusters and we don't sell any preowned PS4 games because there is essentially no shortage of demand? Double down on discs, whoo!
5. Hm, digital is also hard because Steam rules and we're fourth or fifth string after them, Amazon, GOG, Humble, GreenManGaming, etc. Ditch that.
6. ??? - let's buy USPS???

[Professor Video Games]

Being owned by any large company comes with an increase in lawsuits, so it still makes sense they'd go with content ID.

 

Also why they went with a third party system instead of Google's.

[Apelsin]

 I dunno what Amazon ownership will mean.

 

Only games by Amazon Game Studios are green-lit for streaming. All other developers need to purchase a license.

[Wordherder]

Interesting news about Gamefly giving up digital, considering the future is supposed to be digital. Well, an eventual future.

 

Though part of the problem may be that the non-PC platforms more or less have digital under monopoly by the manufacturers, and while Steam isn't a true monopoly, it may as well be.

[Professor Video Games]

How about there's a monthly fee to stream out games but it's free with Amazon Prime?

 

More realistically, ad free viewing with Prime?

[JonCole]

I could see for instance some certain amount of highlights being available to regular people and then if you want full access to someone's archive you need to be a prime subscription. Or yeah, no ads for Prime. Or maybe quality options being available to Prime users.

 

Edit: It's confirmed now.

[Henroid]

Who likes patent trolling!

 

Some company named "Capcom" is suing Koei Tecmo over an infringement. The original source of the news is Japanese and the details aren't exactly known, but the patent in question has to do with the distribution of additional content for video games (in other words, expansions or DLC).

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224170/Theres_a_patent_battle_brewing_between_Capcom_and_Koei_Tecmo.php

 

On a more serious note about Capcom though, oh how the mighty have fallen.

[Henroid]

Via NeoGAF via something else:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=882863

 

The XBox One Kinect will be available stand-alone this October for $150, making it $50 more expensive than the original SKU. I guess it's a punishment tax for doubting the awesomeness of the Kinect. Meanwhile MS hasn't done shit to sell it as a product this year.

[Wordherder]

...see, I had thought Microsoft had improved under Nadella (and it really is, as Windows 9 reportedly sucks much less) but the company has this bizarre blind spot when it comes to Kinect. They're extremely enthusiastic about the technology behind Kinect -- and it really is awesome in the abstract -- but they've done precious little to do things new and useful with it.

 

Is Kinect 2.0 THAT expensive to manufacture, or are they just being greedy?

[Dewar]

It's pretty standard for a bundle deal to have a discount over buying the parts separately, so I don't know why people would expect anything less that $150.

 

There's some pretty powerful tech in that thing, from various articles I've looked at, it seems like $150 is probably still a loss. It's not just a couple of cameras, there's chips in there to pre-process the data to take some of the load off of the console itself.

http://bgr.com/2013/07/15/microsoft-kinect-costs-xbox-one/

 

All that said, it is a really cool piece of tech that MS is pretty uninterested in pushing, but with the reaction people had to it at launch, can you blame them? I was really hoping that it would take off with the new generation and them removing it from the box has definitely soured me on buying an Xbox One.

[JonCole]

This seems like a silly thing to say at this point, but I seriously would have been more interested in the Xbox One if they didn't 180 on anything at all. DRM, go for it. Kinect mandatory, sure. Indie self-publishing, great! Family share, perfect.

 

I guess hindsight is 20-20, but man is the Xbox One a boring heap of tech as it is. After all of this, they're #2 and PS4 is lead platform for third-parties. Was it worth it? I honestly can't believe they could have been worse off than they are now.

[Dewar]

I was happy with the DRM changes and leaving the rest alone personally, but I could have lived with the DRM as long as digital game prices followed the price structure of physical games more closely (in other words, not seeing 2 year old games still up in the $40-$60 range.)

[JonCole]

Yeah, but I'm buying most of my console games digitally at full retail or with slight discounts anyways (granted, I don't buy a ton vs PC where I'm always seeking discounts), so even if they weren't as reactive in price as Steam I'd probably still be okay. I dunno, with that stuff my money was not really where my mouth was.

[Bjorn]

All that said, it is a really cool piece of tech that MS is pretty uninterested in pushing, but with the reaction people had to it at launch, can you blame them? I was really hoping that it would take off with the new generation and them removing it from the box has definitely soured me on buying an Xbox One.

 

That's kind of blaming the audience, which feels unfair.  It's not like Microsoft made sure that there were a couple of killer, OMG games to demonstrate the power and versatility of Kinect v2 at launch, and then continued to release interesting games over the next 6 months.  The first Kinect had games like the Gunstringer, Child of Eden and the DoubleFine stuff, several of which came out within the first year.  It seems like if MS was serious about Kinect being successful, they would have been paying for the people who made good Kinect 1 stuff and really got it into making more good stuff for Kinect 2.

[Bjorn]

The Dreamfall guys stepped right into hornet's nest unintentionally.  They offered a competition through which a few fans could get their music included in some role in the Dreamfall game, winners would be unpaid and have a credit and a thank you in the game.  Twelve hours later, they canceled it after getting a ton of criticism for trying to solicit unpaid creative work.

[JonCole]

Huh, almost like what I was saying was wrong in the Feminism thread re: TFYC.

 

As it turns out, giving people "exposure" is total bullshit.

[Twig]

Given that they almost immediately cancelled it in good faith... I wish they hadn't cancelled it, since it appears to have been in good faith. I dunno, seems kinda dumb to me to get angry over something like this. I know there's a risk of devaluing the art when people Give Away their hard work, or even sell it for less than it should be worth, but ehhhhhhhhhhh I don't know. If what they say is true, that the soundtrack is already complete, blehhhhhhhhhhh.