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

[tegan]

"Cool party of fun guys" sounds like something Dan Ryckert would say.

[Griddlelol]

Nintendo have apparently said they're planning to make gaming apps for smart phones.

Fuck. I didn't expect this.

[Sno]

If i'm remembering correctly, it was quite some time ago that Nintendo announced their intent to create mobile games as sort of a gateway, try to keep their IP in front of eyeballs and upsell people on the way more awesome experience they could be having on real Nintendo systems.

 

Granted, then what happens if the gateway games don't gateway anybody, and are instead just themselves hugely, phenomenally successful.

I guess we'll see.

[Griddlelol]

I'm all for more people buying Nintendo products, I'm just not sure I trust Nintendo not to screw this up. They're good at games, they're bad at pretty much everything else.

[Henroid]

From what I see they're having other companies license Nintendo IPs to make mobile apps. So Nintendo is getting a slice of the pie that people want to pay for, but still gets to retain their cred if games go wrong, via "But WE didn't MAKE that one."

[Tanukitsune]

Wasn't the Pokémon puzzle fremium game offensively overflowing with in-app purchases?

 

We can expect a Zelda game where you need gold rupees to purchase special items and pay 5$ for a pack 500 golden rupees. :\

[Henroid]

Nintendo, I suspect, will have enough pull to demand mobile app makers to not do extremely abusive things of that nature.

[tegan]

Nintendo, I suspect, will have enough pull to demand mobile app makers to not do extremely abusive things of that nature.

 

But they put it in their own game already.

 

Project NX is an odd announcement. I suspect it'll either be Nintendo trying to achieve parity with the PS4 and Xbox One (which is, I feel, risky but ultimately necessary) or, less likely, a smartphone with buttons.

[Griddlelol]

I want a nintendo themed CCG. I think my world would implode and I'd become one of those whales people talk about.

 

 

[N1njaSquirrel]

that would be cool, and possible too, given that Nintendo started off making Hanafuda cards. Plus they could just use the SSB theme to go with it! 

 

Although Pokemon cards are still a thing, which is Nintendo owned, right?

[tegan]

Although Pokemon cards are still a thing, which is Nintendo owned, right?

 

Yup, owned by Nintendo and produced by Creatures. It makes money hand over fist, has terrible power creep, and has a barely-functional free-to-play digital version on PC and iOS that has some nice integration with the actual cards.

[N1njaSquirrel]

Jeff Minter has been bullied by Atari's lawyers so that he can't release TxK on any other platform (it's currently only on the Vita), as it's too close to Tempest 2000, a game he made for Atari. Fucking nuts. His full explanation can be found here: http://yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=85897

 

I would quote particular parts, but it's all worth quoting.

[Sno]

That's quite a bother. I'd really like to play TxK, but i am never going to own a Vita.

[Zeusthecat]

So is Dragonball Xenoverse any good? I keep seeing articles pop up about the character customization and how great it is but can't seem to find any decent reviews that actually talk about whether the rest of the game is any good. I've always secretly been hoping for a good Dragonball Z game and haven't really played anything since the first Budokai game since I hadn't heard anything favorable about anything that came out after that.

[Twig]

It plays almost exactly like Budokai and I like it a lot! If you don't like Dragon Ball (TWO WORDS) I don't think you'd like it. There's a giant bomb quick look.

 

I made a blue Piccolo named Kazoo, so that's pretty much one item off the bucket list.

 

This seems like the wrong thread, though.

[Zeusthecat]

Yeah, I meant for this to go in the random thought thread but I picked the wrong thread with a parenthetical in the title. Thanks for the response though, sounds like I'd like it.

[Ben X]

As I tweeted earlier, Atari just need to sit there quietly doing nothing until 2019 so their logo appearing in Blade Runner isn't weird, then time to die.

 

Here's an interesting interview with Al "Leisure Suit Larry" Lowe about, amongst other things, Sierra getting fucked by a hostile takeover.

[syntheticgerbil]

Did anyone ever touch on this stuff in the 90s? The most I remember is ordering the Space Quest Collection from the catalog after the buyout and the return address saying "Cendant." Then it later became Havas I think. Googling what he said, he wasn't making shit up even though the whole things reads as pretty vague.

 

I'm surprised how on the money he is about a lot of the changes, but I am confused why he called Warcraft a RPG since he was around for Warcraft's rise. Maybe he meant a different game title and got it mixed up?

 

Kind of miss the guy. Sucks he only recently just worked on a remake of one of the weakest Larry titles instead of something new and it sucks Paul Trowe screwed him out of money. Glad they didn't linger too much on Trowe though, that stuff he was up to is gross and bizarre.

[Bjorn]

That was a super interesting article, thanks Ben!  I guess I knew bits and pieces of a lot of those stories over the years, but had never seen them stitched together in one place. 

[Dewar]

Jeff Minter has been bullied by Atari's lawyers so that he can't release TxK on any other platform (it's currently only on the Vita), as it's too close to Tempest 2000, a game he made for Atari. Fucking nuts. His full explanation can be found here: http://yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=85897

 

I would quote particular parts, but it's all worth quoting.

 

Man, if I ever got Notch rich, I would waste my money buying a couple of lawyers and having them randomly grab cases like this and fight all the way to the end, no settlements, just to see what happens.

[Ben X]

Man, if I ever got Notch rich, I would waste my money buying a couple of lawyers and having them randomly grab cases like this and fight all the way to the end, no settlements, just to see what happens.

 

That's an ace idea. I'd also hire a super-skilled white-hat hacker and have him basically be Internet Batman, taking down all the nasty hacker and doxxer assholes out there.

[Justin Leego]

2K's policy of sale-pricing Borderlands [Number] GOTY at less than Borderlands [N] Season Pass is an aggravation - especially as the Season Pass doesn't contain all the bits and bobs that'll be poured into the GOTY package. It's taught me not to buy Borderlands [New & Shiny] before it's available as a GOTY package, heavily discounted, on sale.

 

What's the advantage? Is it just being able to inflate the number of copies of Borderlands [N] as price-sensitive fans will more likely buy the GOTY package, or is there more to it than that?

 

That was a wonderful interview, by the way, Ben. Thanks!

[Henroid]

Okay so this isn't video games really but I did want to share the news with folks: Gen Con LLC, the company that owns and operates Gen Con, is threatening to move the convention from Indiana unless the governor does something about the shitty "religious freedom" bill passed in the state that will allow businesses to Jim Crow it up against same-sex couples. Should be noted that Gen Con is the biggest thing, annually, to come to Indiana, bringing in tons of money.

 

http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/24/8285287/gen-con-threatens-the-governor-it-will-leave-the-state-over-indianas

[Henroid]

Blizzard is suing a company that ripped off one of their games, and that company is suing another one claiming the 3rd company stole from the 2nd.

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/239626/Blizzard_sues_a_studio_thats_suing_a_studio.php

[Dewar]

I remember seeing Heroes Charge on Giant Bomb and thinking it ripped off the Blizzard art style pretty hard. It's awesome that it turns out it a rip-off of a rip-off of Blizzard's style.