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

[tegan]

My favourite crowdfunding endeavors are the ones that use Kickstarter as an elaborate preorder system for something that was going to be produced anyway.

[Barnastyz]

My favourite crowdfunding endeavors are the ones that use Kickstarter as an elaborate preorder system for something that was going to be produced anyway.

 

There are a lot of worthwhile things on Kickstarter, but there are also so many shady things that I'm starting to be turned off by the entire idea.

 

I dunno if this http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=528903 (millionaire, domain squatter mom uses her daughter as a device to trick money out of well meaning people) has been discussed here. But it's this sort of thing that I'm talking about. I know it's not incredibly common to do something as sleazy as this, but it shows that Kickstarter has no inherent quality control and that people should do some more research before they decide to back something.

 

It does bother me that people view backing a Kickstarter as an investment instead of a gift for something you'd like to see happen.

[Henroid]

There will always exist people who abuse and manipulate things to benefit themselves, just as there exists people who use those things as they are intended to be used.

 

I don't condemn Kickstarter over the few bad stories that come about because that would rob us of the good things that come of it. The way to fix things is to develop a way to punish the abusive people and retract what they did, rather than just say shut the whole thing down. As an aside, that's shit people say in United States politics an it drives me up the wall.

[syntheticgerbil]

As for that last thing, I think developers are entirely capable of making those calls themselves and do. I can only imagine that being funded directly by the fans brings its own brand of pressure. At the end of the day, when the game does come out, people are only going to care whether it's good or not. So it'd better be damn good!!

That's how I feel. One thing that people always seem to forget when some kind of media they've been expecting comes out is any delay. When you get this great thing, it feels worth it, and the audience generally never remembers any kind of late release after the following 6 months or so when the complainers finally find something else to gripe about. Then when new players who missed the game the first time around visit it years later, they are only seeing the product for what it is and will appreciate it as it stands in that moment in time. To me that's what Kickstarter should be offering the developers.

 

However I guess if you release a really shitty game that everyone hates and had delays in the process, people will remember all of it.

[Henroid]

I've gotta get into the habit of posting more things here to discuss with Idle Thumbs fans. Your folks' perspective on things is really cool (in that I'm too familiar with how other communities think about things in general, new is cool).

 

This bit of news isn't new, it broke like a day or two ago, but Stardock owns Star Control now, as if those names couldn't get any more confusing. Technically they have the trademark of Star Control and the materials for Star Control 3. Toys for Bob, whoever that is, owns Star Control 1 and 2.

 

Here's a source on that news.

 

Also Atari auction info.

Anyone brought up the results of the recent Atari auction?

Asset(s)-->Successful Bidder                
Backyard Sports Franchise-->Epic Gear, LLC    
Humongous Franchise, FattyBear’s Birthday Surprise, Math Gran Prix-->Tommo, Inc.    
Total Annihilation Franchise-->Wargaming World Limited
Battlezone Franchise-->Rebellion Interactive GamesLimited    
Master of Orion Franchise-->Wargaming World Limited    
Moonbase Commander Franchise-->Rebellion Interactive GamesLimited    
Star Control Franchise-->Stardock Systems, Inc.    

Emphasis is mine.

[Justin Leego]

Toys for Bob is the Skylanders studio, right?

e: and they created Star Control, of course. And Star Control II. But actually not Star Control III. Huh.

[Sno]

I've gotta get into the habit of posting more things here to discuss with Idle Thumbs fans. Your folks' perspective on things is really cool (in that I'm too familiar with how other communities think about things in general, new is cool).

 

This bit of news isn't new, it broke like a day or two ago, but Stardock owns Star Control now, as if those names couldn't get any more confusing. Technically they have the trademark of Star Control and the materials for Star Control 3. Toys for Bob, whoever that is, owns Star Control 1 and 2.

 

Quick Wikipedia search reveals Toys for Bob as the original developer behind the first two games. They make Skylanders games now.

I was never a huge fan of Star Control, but Stardock seems like a good home for it if they're going to make new games. (Which, considering the details around this acquisition, is the only way it makes sense.)

That Total Annihilation sale though, is... Wargaming World Limited... Is that Wargaming.net? The World of Tanks guys? They also happen to be GPG's new owners, Chris Taylor's company. (The designer of the original TA!)

That's potentially amazing news.

Moonbase Commander and Battlezone ending up at Rebellion are the other two really interesting things in there to me. Rebellion can be pretty off and on, but it could be worse. The Battlezone strategy games were really incredible, and Moonbase Commander is the kind of game that really needs to be on Steam, so hopefully they'll do right by those.

 

[Laco]

God, yes, Moonbase Commander needs to be on everything (preferably with cross-platform play).

Rebellion seems an odd match for strategy games, but apparently they do a lot of republishing, so fingers crossed.

[Dewar]

I really really liked Star Control 3. I never played Star Control 2, so I went into it without any preconceptions, which probably helped. I also really used to like Stardock, though my opinion on them has soured a bit over the years. I'm hoping that combo turns to gold.

 

Wargaming.net and Gaijin games are in a battle to make the best total war package out there. Having experienced both World of Tanks and Warthunder, they both have plusses and minuses, but neither company seems to have shown much promise in expanding beyond that sort of action MMO-ish type of game. It'll be interesting to see what they do with MOO and TA, but I hope they keep the eye on the ball and make the best Air/Land/Sea combat simulator they can.

[Henroid]

That Total Annihilation sale though, is... Wargaming World Limited... Is that Wargaming.net? The World of Tanks guys? They also happen to be GPG's new owners, Chris Taylor's company. (The designer of the original TA!)

That's potentially amazing news.

 

It seems weird to me. I don't expect anything to come of it. Right now the people that care about Total Annihilation are looking at Planetary Annihilation. If they did something with TA, it would have to stand out somehow while also retaining what made TA memorable.

 

They also got Master of Orion btw.

[Sno]

Personally speaking, i would be way more excited for a TA2 from its original designer, than i am for Planetary Annihilation.

 

They also got Master of Orion btw.

I saw that, i just have no history at all with that game.

[shammack]

What happened to the thread title? It no longer confuses me into thinking this thread is about space games every time I see it.

[Ucantalas]

What happened to the thread title? It no longer confuses me into thinking this thread is about space games every time I see it.

Oh good I'm not the only one who noticed this.

I don't pay much attention at the best of times, so I thought maybe I was just confused about Space being in the title before, so I didn't want to ask.

[Henroid]

What happened to the thread title? It no longer confuses me into thinking this thread is about space games every time I see it.

It stuck out to me as a time I tried to make a lame reference to a thing said on Idle Thumbs once. I couldn't live with it anymore.

[Sno]

So now it's boring instead of dumb.

[Lu]

What's in a name?

 

 

LETTERS!!

[Henroid]

So things aren't looking so hot for Microsoft. They announced that they're going to allow indie devs to self-publish on the Xbone, but the function will not be ready at launch.

 

Also not ready for launch is Kinect Sports, their sole in-house launch title meant for Kinect specifically.

 

This is not the console you want to early adopt, regardless of what type of "gamer" you are.

[Sno]

I don't know why you're trying to spin that like it's a bad story, Microsoft has shifted course hard and is trying to give people the things they want.

It's still a very uncertain future, we're absolutely agreed that it's not a console to buy at launch, but moves like these bode well for their future.

The Kinect Sports thing is quite a black eye though, and there's plenty of rumors that Kinect for XBO is still just a total mess.

[Dewar]

I'm still undecided, leaning toward PS4 at the moment, but it seems to me that where Microsoft is currently failing is poor messaging. I haven't heard Sony talking a whole lot about these sorts of features, barely anything about PS Move (if it even still exists,) barely anything about how indie devs will be able to self publish, and nothing about how downloadable games will license themselves on the PS4. One thing I can say about Microsoft is that they're being much more communicative, even if those communications could use a couple more trips through the speech writting corps.

 

What I think is silly is how pretty much all of the first release consoles are sold out already, when no one has any real solid details about them, let alone which E3 games are actually going to be release titles. It boggles my mind that people are willing to throw away that much cash on something that they don't even know the release date for.

[Henroid]

So Bobby Kotick is silent no longer. Activision Blizzard is making a huge play for themselves.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-07-26-activision-blizzard-goes-independent-as-kotick-leads-USD8-2-billion-buyout

 

Kotick and Kelly form separate investment group with Tencent as publisher also buys shares

 

Activision Blizzard is to become an independent company as CEO Bobby Kotick leads an investor buyout from Vivendi worth $8.2 billion.

 

The publisher of World of Warcraft and Call of Duty will buy 439 million shares from Vivendi for $5.83 billion. In addition, an investment group lead by Kotick and co-chairman Brian Kelly, will purchase 172 million shares worth $2.34 billion.

 

With Vivendi no longer a major stakeholder, Activision Blizzard becomes an independent company led by Kotick and Kelly, whose investment group also includes Chinese operator Tencent, Davis Advisors and Leonard Green & Partners.

 

"These transactions together represent a tremendous opportunity for Activision Blizzard and all its shareholders, including Vivendi," said Kotick.

 

"We should emerge even stronger-an independent company with a best-in-class franchise portfolio and the focus and flexibility to drive long-term shareholder value and expand our leadership position as one of the world's most important entertainment companies. The transactions announced today will allow us to take advantage of attractive financing markets while still retaining more than $3 billion cash on hand to preserve financial stability."

 

Kotick added, "Our successful combination with Blizzard Entertainment five years ago brought together some of the best creative and business talent in the industry and some of the most beloved entertainment franchises in the world, including Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Since that time, we have generated over $5.4 billion in operating cash flow and returned more than $4 billion of that to shareholders via buybacks and dividends. We are grateful for Vivendi's partnership through this period, and we look forward to their continued support."

 

Kotick's investment group will hold around 24.9 per cent of the company, with Kotick and Kelly investing $100 million combined of their own cash. Vivendi will continue to hold around 12 per cent of shares.

 

[Merus]

I am in no way concerned about Microsoft's furious backpedalling because it demonstrates that they realised their hubris before a product release for the first time in several years. Microsoft has A Problem with being honest about itself, which people whose opinions I trust suggest is a result of their performance review system, specifically that it grades on a curve.

 

I was surprised Activision Blizzard was not already its own company, although I'm hoping it doesn't backfire on them. Investors are nervous that Activision's strategy is basically musical chairs - create a mega-property, run it into the ground, by which point they'll have a new mega-property. Every time the music stops on one chair, they're assuming they'll have another chair to move to. For some properties, like Guitar Hero - the failure of Retro/Grade suggests that Activision's belief that rhythm games were a fad was probably the right call - this makes sense, but investors are going to be wondering where Activision would be if they'd pursued a more conventional strategy of trying to keep your IP valuable instead of deliberately strip-mining it - although I think that's what Blizzard is doing except they're being tainted by association. And the worst time to be spinning your company out into its own thing is when investors are wondering whether or not you're even going to be around in five years. They've noticed the shine's come off WoW, as competitors have finally realised that you can't compete with WoW by making WoW but with less content and most of the same problems. They've noticed the Call of Duty revenue slowing down, and they've realised that Activision doesn't have revenue streams so much as revenue wells.

[Roderick]

Revenue wells... Orson "Wells"? Wait a minute... are you suggesting that Activision Blizzard is...?

[Justin Leego]

...and Bobby Kotick...?

[Henroid]

I am in no way concerned about Microsoft's furious backpedalling because it demonstrates that they realised their hubris before a product release for the first time in several years. Microsoft has A Problem with being honest about itself, which people whose opinions I trust suggest is a result of their performance review system, specifically that it grades on a curve.

 

I was surprised Activision Blizzard was not already its own company, although I'm hoping it doesn't backfire on them. Investors are nervous that Activision's strategy is basically musical chairs - create a mega-property, run it into the ground, by which point they'll have a new mega-property. Every time the music stops on one chair, they're assuming they'll have another chair to move to. For some properties, like Guitar Hero - the failure of Retro/Grade suggests that Activision's belief that rhythm games were a fad was probably the right call - this makes sense, but investors are going to be wondering where Activision would be if they'd pursued a more conventional strategy of trying to keep your IP valuable instead of deliberately strip-mining it - although I think that's what Blizzard is doing except they're being tainted by association. And the worst time to be spinning your company out into its own thing is when investors are wondering whether or not you're even going to be around in five years. They've noticed the shine's come off WoW, as competitors have finally realised that you can't compete with WoW by making WoW but with less content and most of the same problems. They've noticed the Call of Duty revenue slowing down, and they've realised that Activision doesn't have revenue streams so much as revenue wells.

I don't see how A/B's move to become independent can backfire. It means they have more control over the financial overhead, and unless Kotick gets greedy to the point where he matches the megacorp Vivendi's greed, it shouldn't be a problem.

 

Activision has been real quiet this year for the most part, especially regarding the coming storm that was the PS4 / XB1. Now that popular support for one or the other has a much clearer picture they're likely going to start firing up their promotions for games in development. Activision's model may be to run franchises into the ground, and I would never give that the okay, but aside from this buyout they're doing for themselves they've had money in reserve for a while (though Vivendi's plan, up until this news broke, to cash out via forced dividend was going to bankrupt A/B).

 

It's all in the air right now and I'm pretty sure A/B has a foothold to continue doing business. We may even see things change, considering how bold their main competitor - EA - has been in announcing their plans. As well as how much EA is getting hated more for those plans.

[Dewar]

Heh, It's funny how EA hate ebbs and flows inversly to Activision hate. I missed what caused the EA hate to swing back around, unless this still has to do with the Sim City launch.

 

Speaking of Sim City, I wonder how well that game works these days.