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

[SuperBiasedMan]

Yeeeesss.

... I still need to go try play Deadly Premonition again.

[Henroid]

I'm not surprised. And nobody else should be when, over the next year and a half, a lot of previously XBONE exclusives get pushed onto other platforms.

[eot]

I wouldn't mind the Halo collection, although I doubt we'll get that one.

[natellite]

I'm so happy about D4! I love Swery and I want to support his projects but the prospect of buying an XBox for a $20 downloadable title... well, the math didn't work out. This is great.

[Justin Leego]

Amazing thanking of Obama there.

The Konami thing, as a result of all this KojiPro brouhaha I learnt that Konami operates a number of gym complexes in Japan. Guess they've got other things to be getting on with!

[Twig]

I'm not surprised. And nobody else should be when, over the next year and a half, a lot of previously XBONE exclusives get pushed onto other platforms.

I'd love for Sunset Overdrive to come to PC but I doubt it has even a chance since Insomniac.

[Justin Leego]

howdoyoudeletepostsusingmobileview

[natellite]

Amazing thanking of Obama there.

The Konami thing, as a result of all this KojiPro brouhaha I learnt that Konami operates a number of gym complexes in Japan. Guess they've got other things to be getting on with!

 

Yeah, that's actually Konami's main business, as far as I'm aware. Health clubs and pachinko parlors.

[Henroid]

Ouya? OH YEA- oh wait actually it's oh no.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/ouya-must-find-buyer-quickly/?utm_source=310EI&utm_medium=RSS

 

Ouya, the Android-based video game console, is in trouble. After failing to restructure its debt, a leaked email from Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman obtained by Fortune revealed the company is in dire need of a buyer if it hopes to keep moving forward.

 

Even with the company’s $10 million investment from Alibaba in February and $15 million in investments from one of its funding rounds two years ago, Ouya still needs to recover an unspecified amount of investor capital. In order to do so, Uhrman explained in the email that Ouya, the company’s Android microconsole that shares the company’s name, still holds value, even when compared to the competition.

 

“We believe we’ve built something real and valuable,” wrote Uhrman. “I continue to read the tweets and emails of our fans who play OUYA every day, and our catalog is now over 1,000 apps and 40,000 developers. We have the largest library of Android content for the TV (still more than Amazon) — hells ya!”

 

With this value, Ouya hopes to recover investor capital through its agreements with Xiaomi and Alibaba, which will see Ouya’s library make its way to Xiaomi and Alibaba boxes in China. Unfortunately, the report insinuated that Ouya tripped a debt covenant. In other words, Ouya reached the point of no return financially, forcing the company to quickly find a buyer.

 

In the email, Uhrman hopes that interested parties would step up by the end of April, which is just a couple of days away.

 

Ouya officially launched in 2012 on Kickstarter, positioning itself as a way to play Android games on your TV, hence its Android microconsole classification. The console shipped to Kickstarter backers and became available to the masses in 2013, but it received a rather lukewarm reception. Unfortunately, with competitors like Razer, Nvidia, Amazon, and even Google, Ouya’s future doesn’t look bright.

[natellite]

I was looking for an Ouya a little bit ago because the prospect of a cheap emulator box didn't sound like the worst thing in the world, but, like... I couldn't find one. The internet came up with a few people ebaying theirs for extortionate amounts, but nothing on Amazon or Best Buy or anything. Talk about failing to live up to expectations.

[Lu]

Are you looking for an alternative? 'Cause I think what's missing in your life is a Raspberry Pi 2.

[Merus]

Aaand Valve cancels Paid mods. Well that was quick.

 

Valve seem to be under the impression that they're able to have an equitable relationship with amateur mod developers. (Bethesda are under no such illusions, I'd wager.) Fact of the matter is, those two companies are going to hold control over the mod scene.

 

What happens when a game with paid mods integrates a paid mod into the base game?

What happens if a mod grows popular enough that people are buying the game just for the mod? Can the mod creator demand a bigger cut?

What recourse do mod owners have if the developer breaks the game or makes their mods non-functional?

 

Like, Valve has always been comfortable with pushing out the work they're responsible for out onto their community to do for free (with the prospect of getting paid if Valve like it, and of not getting paid otherwise) but this is just a goddamn minefield.

[Twig]

What happens when a game with paid mods integrates a paid mod into the base game?

What happens if a mod grows popular enough that people are buying the game just for the mod? Can the mod creator demand a bigger cut?

What recourse do mod owners have if the developer breaks the game or makes their mods non-functional?

These all sound like questions that could easily be answered down the road, and also have answers that should be acceptable to any reasonable human being. 

 

But, as evidenced by this whole situation, PC gamers are not traditionally reasonable.

[Gaizokubanou]

Human brain isn't logic machine so appealing to vague idea of 'reasonable' sounds unreasonable

 

Unreasonable-ception.  Bam.  I just went to the cheesy pun land.

[Merus]

These all sound like questions that could easily be answered down the road, and also have answers that should be acceptable to any reasonable human being. 

 

Given that questions like these led to the foundation of the labour movement, I'd quibble with your characterisation of them as being 'easy'.

[Gormongous]

These all sound like questions that could easily be answered down the road, and also have answers that should be acceptable to any reasonable human being.

 

I love you, Twig, but if no answers are obvious now, they're not going to become obvious once everyone has a lot of money invested in the system.

[natellite]

Given that questions like these led to the foundation of the labour movement, I'd quibble with your characterisation of them as being 'easy'.

 

It is true that Samuel Gompers was widely renowned for his Naruto Total Conversion mod for Skyrim before he went on to be the president of the AFL. I think Zinn dedicated a whole chapter to that.

[Dewar]

Ouya? OH YEA- oh wait actually it's oh no.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/ouya-must-find-buyer-quickly/?utm_source=310EI&utm_medium=RSS

Wait, how can they have 40,000 developers but only 1000 apps? What are they counting as a developer? Anyone who has ever expressed interest? Anyone who downloaded the SDK?

[SuperBiasedMan]

Is that their extention of the idea that everyone with the device has access to the sdk?

[Eric]

Each app took 40 people to make duh

[Gatazhk]

It's hard enough sorting through the flotsam and jetsam of game releases on Steam, can you imagine having to decide if some Skyrim mod is worth $5.00 all the time?

 

This isn't an OK idea, not without extensive refinement, to the point where there is a lenghty process gone through before any mod could even begin to be put up for sale.  Jake seemed to be the only person getting this on the podcast last week.

 

 

[Spenny]

It's hard enough sorting through the flotsam and jetsam of game releases on Steam, can you imagine having to decide if some Skyrim mod is worth $5.00 all the time?

 

When you're taking 45% you can absolutely afford to do this.

[itsamoose]

This isn't an OK idea, not without extensive refinement, to the point where there is a lenghty process gone through before any mod could even begin to be put up for sale. Jake seemed to be the only person getting this on the podcast last week.

As far as steam is concerned, you'd basically be asking mod developers to go through a cert process that the people developing the game don't even have to. Honestly I don't see why this is such a bad idea, basically everything bad about it exists in every other online marketplace. For example I could write a custom Facebook app, which is really just a UI mod for Facebook. Same thing with custom web browsers, rootkits, PDF viewers, etc. I suppose the exact percentage is a point of contention, but in any circumstance where multiple parties are involved that number is going to be low. Even for regular game sales valve takes it's 30 percent, but it's not like the remaining 70% all goes to the developer. In fact, most of it probably goes to the publisher/funder if not all of it, which is then paid out to the devs based on whatever the contract states.

Sure there are problems with the system, but I don't see those problems as being unique to the system. It's nice to talk about what should work in theory, but in practice there are often more things to consider.

[Henroid]

I haven't done this in a while, but the April 2015 NPD info is in. Here's the NeoGAF thread on it (first post with all the data): http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1046440

 

The biggest thing to happen is the XB1 finally topped the PS4 in sales in a month, and it saw a boom of 63% YOY. I'm not exactly high on the XBox this gen, but I'd rather it succeed since competition tends to drive people trying. MS is, of course, going to use this as a springboard for "fuck yeah we're awesome." Curious to see if it plays into their messaging at E3 this year.

 

Sony's comment on April 2015 sales is more or less, "We still lead in cumulative sales, whatever."

[Zeusthecat]

I haven't done this in a while, but the April 2015 NPD info is in. Here's the NeoGAF thread on it (first post with all the data): http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1046440

 

The biggest thing to happen is the XB1 finally topped the PS4 in sales in a month, and it saw a boom of 63% YOY. I'm not exactly high on the XBox this gen, but I'd rather it succeed since competition tends to drive people trying. MS is, of course, going to use this as a springboard for "fuck yeah we're awesome." Curious to see if it plays into their messaging at E3 this year.

 

Sony's comment on April 2015 sales is more or less, "We still lead in cumulative sales, whatever."

 

That NPD report only covers the US correct? If so, I'd be curious to see global numbers for all this stuff. Definitely surprising though that even with Bloodborne releasing, XB1 still managed to outsell PS4.