Strategic Game Consulting

Nimblebit vs. Zynga

2012-01-27T09:45:00.000-08:00

First, the background, and let me quote Industrygamers:

Last week, Zynga launched Dream Heights on the Canadian version Apple App Store. NimbleBit, developer of the iOS hit Tiny Tower, noticed that the game looked really familiar. In response, NimbleBit’s Ian Marsh posted the following image via Twitter yesterday.

Second, some thoughts:
One way to think about Zynga's game, given the assumption it is the exact same gameplay just with different art direction, is what does it cost to play? If I want to get a certain amount of enjoyment out of it in a certain amount of time, how much would I have to spend? Then ask the same for Tiny Tower. Then one game might be a better "value" to the group of consumers who are actually willing to spend. Or maybe they are exactly the same? Sure, many people don't spend any money on these games but a small % of users of these types of games do indeed pay, and some pay a lot.

If someone could show the "value curves" for each game are roughly the same, then the next question might be "Where do you want your money to go? Zynga or Nimblebit?

Third, a legal opinion, also posted on Industrygamers which I paraphrase:

What Zynga did was legal. And the Nimblebit crew knows it.

Finally, closing thoughts:

Nimblebit's 3 man crew's best recourse is based on the following assumptions:

1) They appear to be more creative than Zynga's 2,789 (or however many) people are allowed to be, at least for this game.
2) They also appear to be much, much more, ahem, nimble
3) They have vastly smaller overhead than Zynga
4) This (https://s3.amazonaws.com/nbpromo/dearzynga.jpg) was brilliant at creating more awareness of Tiny Tower. Not everyone appreciates its sardonic nature, but it helps put Nimblebit on more people's radar and screams "David vs. Goliath"...and most people will root for the underdog, especially given Zynga's reputation.

So...Nimblebit: just keep doing what you do best as I'm sure you've already concluded.

Angry Birds: the 9th key to Success

2011-09-27T10:24:00.000-07:00

Today on IndustryGamers there was an article about the 8 reasons it was a success. While all the reasons were valid, the biggest missing reason had to do with the game itself: how they made it addictive. Yes, it is fun to destroy wood/glass/etc. structures with flying birds, but the key to making it playable, i.e. accessible, was that it reloaded so easily.

If you didn't like how your level was going, you could reload it at any time by hitting the reload button in the upper right at any time. There was no long pause or animation or other sequence to get in the way of retrying it. Given the trial and error nature of the game, this was essential. Other games could learn from this. The biggest offender was a "core" game called Too Human:

Every time you died a Valkyrie would come down from the sky and take your body up to Valhalla. The sequence was just long enough to make deaths very frustrating as it took a while to get back into the action. And in an action type game such as Too Human, that was really, really annoying.

3D stereoscopic gaming is still the meh

2011-07-29T10:23:00.000-07:00

Some recent comments from EA CEO John Riccitiello about 3D stereoscopic gaming reflect on what I, and many other people have thought about the subject since CES 2010:

"Frankly, we have not seen a big uptake for 3D gaming. We haven't seen a big uptake for 3D televisions in the home, at least not yet. And we're not here trying to drive the market, we're here to react to what consumers are looking for."

And I still agree with this sentiment. 3D stereoscopic gaming is terrible. Watching 3D movies at home on a TV is terrible. Watching 3D movies in the theater is terrible. Yeah, Avatar was a good implementation of 3D...I guess. And I have an Avatar BluRay that is not 3D. I like it so much better than the 3D version I saw in a store once. When new movies come out in 3D, I immediately decide not to see it, even if I really like the trailer/concept of the film, unless I can find it in 2D.

So to everyone at the 2010 3D gaming summit who was talking about how gamers would flock to 3D gaming and that marketing would convince them to like wearing glasses, I am one core gamer who is not buying into it. And I don't think I'm the only one...

And by the way, it's not just the glasses. It's the 3D. I'd rather watch TV in 2D, play my games in 2D, see my films in 2D.

kthxbai

E3 2011: Sony's booth

2011-06-10T14:56:00.000-07:00

E3 2011 wrapped up yesterday afternoon in Los Angeles. I was there all three days and in between various meetings I managed to see a fair amount of product. In no particular order, some reactions and some photos:

1) Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft had essentially the exact same booths as each had last year. Last year (and maybe the year before?) I was able to get a tour of Sony booth and get hands on time with most of the games.

2) Played the PSVita...or as i like to call it "the Vitamin." In fairness to Sony, I liked it a lot. Now it just needs the content so it doesn't repeat

3) Played Uncharted 3. It is a must buy.

That's all for now. More later...

Homefront: It grew on me. Seriously.

2011-04-14T23:19:00.000-07:00

So I finally got around to finishing Homefront. And yes, it didn't take very long at all. General word is that the SP campaign is around 4 to 5 hours or so for most players, making on average a bit shorter than Modern Warfare 2 or Black Ops. There has been a lot of talk about this and I won't wade too much into that suffice to say that I agreed it felt kind of short. But I thought the last two Call of Duty games were kind of short.

But the more important point is that the game did grow on me. Yes, I was a bit harsh on it in my previous post, and I still think those points are valid, but I have to admit I enjoyed the SP campaign. It got much better at the end, even though I still thought the voice acting and writing was generally not as good as it could or should have been, but even with that there were moments that I really liked. For example, near the end, the Hopper character says something like (and I am paraphrasing): "I can't believe you're not dead. That's like the 5th thing you've fallen off of and lived!" In context I found that very amusing and some much needed comic relief. So +1 to the writer. But anyway, I got used to the slightly dated but still very acceptable graphics and in a way grew to like it. I still felt the run speed was too slow. I got an interesting opinion from someone saying I didn't know what I was talking about on that one, but I stand by my point.

The last mission was actually pretty good, but it ended so abruptly and it actually left me wanting more. Perhaps even a sequel. See, there is so much possibility with the setting. A few years ago I was in San Francisco for a very sunny and beautiful Memorial Day weekend. My wife and I walked all over and had a great time. Like any game designer at heart I kept thinking, "How cool would it be to set an urban war game in a hilly city like this?" It made me think back to my Day of Defeat days designing my map dod_switch just because of the hills.

But anyway, I think the premise and setting have a lot of room for sequels. With some improvements to the gameplay and writing/acting, I think Homefront could become a real franchise with a loyal following.

Also, Homefront wasn't exactly a launch failure. According to today's directional data from NPD, Homefront was the top selling game in the US in March after Nintendo's Pokemon Black/White games. That ain't bad.

Wii 2 announcement speculation

2011-04-14T23:03:00.000-07:00

Recently much-a-do-about-stuffing has surfaced around Wii 2. Many posts on IndustryGamers of late have taken up the discussion. Even my colleague David Cole of DFC Intelligence got in on the comments. In the discussion Arvind Bhatia at Sterne Agee was very clear he thinks Nintendo should launch its next console for this holiday to protect market share. True, Nintendo could certainly use a big shot in the arm. Obviously I am biased in that I share in David Cole's opinion but I do think Jesse Divnich at EEDAR does also make the very logical point that the Wii was announced 18 months before its Nov 2006 launch at E3 2005. We could likely see a parallel announcement here or some time after E3, and maybe E3 will be that big price cut some are calling for. In any event, I don't think Wii unit sales will fall off a completely off a cliff this year even if they are down from last year. There is a lot of focus on year-over-year comparisons and unfortunately NPD no longer releases hardware unit sales data to the general public. But aside from the general wind in the air we can infer where March Wii numbers ended up. Thankfully we have a record of NPD's Wii number for March 2010 of 558k units. Today Microsoft was kind enough to announce Xbox 360 US sales for March at 433k units. So the Wii's March 2011 number must have been south of 433k which is a considerable decline year-over-year. In that sense you could say the sky continues to fall on the Wii. On the other hand, the Wii is still selling and given it's "less core" or "more casual" or however-you-want-to-say-it focus makes me think it will indeed still sell fairly well come holiday 2011, especially if there is that rumored price cut coming.

But here's the interesting question about a Wii 2 launch for 2011: what about 3rd party? The first reaction to that question might be "what about it? Third party support on Nintendo consoles have generally been poor anyway." While true that the Wii has not been the gold mine for typical 3rd parties (excluding brands like Activision's Guitar Hero in its big years or Ubisoft's Just Dance) that one would hope the massive install base would foster like it had for 3rd party on the PS2 (like Electronic Arts in the first half of the last decade), a Wii 2 release for holiday 2011 would signal that Nintendo is punting on 3rd party support even more than it did on Wii. That is unless 3rd parties have known about it for a while now and have been super secret in not letting news of it leak. Normally you would think a 1st party would give some heads up to its 3rd party "partners" they have a new system coming 3rd party can support the lineup at launch. The 3DS had decent 3rd party support for launch with the best stuff coming from outside Nintendo. As of today Amazon's rank order of the 5 most popular 3DS launch titles is listed below:
1. Super Street Fighter IV 3D - Capcom
2. Pilotwings Resort - Nintendo
3. Ghost Recon Shadow Wars - Ubisoft
4. LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars - LucasArts
5. Ridge Racer 3D - Namco

The #1 game was 3rd party, as were 4 of the top 5. So I just don't see Nintendo completely punting on 3rd party for the Wii 2. And given we haven't heard any leaks about a Wii 2 until now, I tend to think 3rd parties don't know much of anything about Wii 2 specs and couldn't have much of anything ready for the it come this fall. So that leaves a few possible conclusions:

1. Nintendo is launching the Wii 2 this fall and is punting on 3rd party because they won't be able to get anything of substance ready for it in time.

2. Nintendo is launching the Wii 2 this fall but it will really be a Wii HD and the game development won't be much different than it is for the current Wii except maybe it supports some kind of hard drive or larger flash memory and possibly has higher resolution output. That's more of a Wii 1.5 or addon and wouldn't that be like Sega 32x? Wait, how did that go?

3. Nintendo will launch the Wii 2 after this fall, likely for holiday 2012.

The safe bet is on 3, but maybe Nintendo knows something we don't. After all, despite the complaints they receive about 3rd party performance on their systems, you can't argue with the success of the Wii and DS over the years.

Homefront

2011-03-15T23:49:00.000-07:00

Here is my initial impression of Homefront based on playing about half an hour of the SP campaign. Making games is hard and I hate to be too critical of Kaos and THQ for their efforts but Homefront has problems. The recent Medal of Honor game also had problems, but I actually enjoyed that. I'm afraid I'm not enjoying this game as much as that which is sad because I like the premise. Still, I do think I may end up liking better than my initial first impression because I've heard it gets better later. So in other words I'm willing to give it a chance. That said, let's get into this game...

1) The intro movie is basically what we saw at around E3 last year. Good premise. It's basically recycled Red Dawn with a modern spin of North Korea instead of USSR being the invaders. On this I'm sold and since E3 I have been quietly excited about Homefront. Then I played the game...

2) The first thing I notice is that the graphics and art design feel dated. The lighting at night feels...like a late era Xbox or early Xbox 360 game. Someone of more technical knowledge can confirm or refute this. Maybe my cataracts and eyeball arthritis are acting up again or my kid slipped the cat's ear medicine into my coffee this morning. I'm playing the 360 version. No clue of the PS3 version is any better or worse in the graphics department. Interestingly, I've been reading actual reviews from real games journalists such as in the current issue of OXM saying "the visuals are laudable" which I am not sure how to interpret. Put it this way, IGN got it right imo when its review read "Homefront isn’t ugly by any stretch of the imagination, but it looks rather bad if you place it next to the likes of graphics-pushing titles such as Killzone 3 or Crysis 2." I would definitely agree, but it's also not quite on par with Modern Warfare 2 or Black Ops. Still, this doesn't kill the game by any means but it just kind of stands out since shooters are known to be pushers of high end technical graphical achievement. I've received some emails about this regarding Borderlands and how Gearbox copped out by changing that game to cell shaded art style. But the art in that game worked very well and complimented the thin story's humorous tone which worked well. In Homefront the graphics don't stand out but they're not so terrible as to ruin the experience. There. I've said it 3 different ways about the adequateness of the graphics.

[spoiler alert]
3) The initial tone is heavy handed. I give Kaos points for making it consistent at least. There is no stupid attempt at inappropriate humor (more on that later) in the middle of a sequence where a 4 or 5 year old crying and screaming boy watches the NK army execute his parents...and then he goes to grab their bodies to see if they are alive. It's supposed to be heartbreaking and make you angry, which I guess it does... But the problem is that even moments like this somehow feel recycled. It's like they want to force you to feel a certain way. I know it's just a game, but something about the opening just doesn't work. This is a vague criticism and I will say no more other than it made me angry at Kaos and the writer for putting in there in the first place. Sorry for the vagueness but if you play it you will probably understand...or completely disagree. Yoo make the call.

4) Too often control is taken away from the player or movement is artificially restricted so a "story" moment of dialog can be done. I admit that many, many games do this including some great games but the use of it here just did not work. Why? It's because the writing and voice acting were disappointing. The story concept is fine...no problems there...but the actual dialog such as "I'm getting too old for this shit" and other cliches stuck out too much. (Was that supposed to be a funny line? Cause I laughed at how cliched it felt.) Again, this would not be the first game to have bad or less than good writing and not all good story based SP games have good writing. I liked the first Far Cry but hated the writing and dialog. But in this game the combination of weak acting and weak writing with taking control away from the player at times to deliver it all was not fun. I wanted to skip through any dialog moment as fast as possible. Conversely, a game like Uncharted 2 is much better in this department, or a game like Borderlands which has barely any story has much better "little" moments. (Ahem...Mikey where's my $2 royalty check for plugging your game?)

Very early on in the game there is a point where you walk through a "safe house" type area. I think this area was shown at E3 last year or around then. You can walk, but you can't run. It feels like you are moving in molasses as you walk around to generally lifeless characters who deliver more dialog moments. A Bioware game this is not, but this brief section was not enjoyable. It actually made me care less about the characters.

5) The actual character models, along with the art design, feel dated. The animations feel dated. Further there are many graphical bugs with character models and collision detection.Often characters will take cover against a wall and except the bounding box or something is off and the character is partly inside the wall. Or a dead enemy on top of a broken wall falls down through the wall in a Red Dead Redemption on PS3 buggy type of way. Again, this is not the first game to have such problems, but along with everything else it just sorta piled on to the mass of issues.

6) As for gameplay, it did not do anything really interesting. You can use a robotic car called "GOLIATH" that drives around on its own mowing down enemies. You have a the ability to target pre-assigned (read: scripted) enemy trucks and locations to blow up with the robot car's rockets. Except this seemed buggy in that I could not get it to fire when I wanted once I thought something was targeted. It did not make me feel powerful or a badass. I suppose this was my fault for not knowing how to do it, but seriously if I have to think that hard for a weapon like this then it's a problem. I don't recall being confused in Halo or Call of Duty games about how to use something. It might have been because I was too lazy to figure it out. But the reason I was lazy was because I had a hard time holding my interest because of issues #1 thru #5 on my little list so far.

But the big problem with the SP campaign is that it feels like a corridor shooter with semi-big chambers where you kill continually spawning enemies until either you destroy XYZ objective or a certain amount of time goes by. That's not all bad but so far it seems like it is all there is. I really should play the whole campaign before I pass too much judgement on the game. As I said I hear there is a cool sequence in the second half...

7) Bottom line...it's the combination of dated gameplay, dated graphics and weak writing/voice acting that made me not care and not get into the game as much as I wanted to. And I'm saying this after playing the first 30 to 45 minutes of the game. They want you to feel like you are a ragtag group of rebels taking on a superior invading force and through sacrifice and pure will of effort you will overcome the bad guys in that true American can-do spirit! But it just doesn't come together...at least not yet. Honestly, it feels like they wanted to make an updated Red Dawn type movie more than a game.

However...

I'm still willing to give this game a chance because my gut is telling me I may actually get used to it and enjoy it. More to come on this one...

GDC 2011

2011-02-28T18:55:00.000-08:00

I will be moderating a panel at GDC again, and again the event will be hosted by LiveGamer. You can read about it at the Live Gamer blog. According to the image below from LG's site the event is called "Beyond Credit: Localized Payment Strategies for Global Business."

Details from LG's site as well:

Europe is a key market for game developers. However, due to the difficulties in reaching the many individual markets, European customers have been largely underserved. One major challenge is understanding the diverse payment options for digital content and how these options vary by country. The content providers that understand and tackle payment issues country-by-country are the ones likely to be most successful in Europe.

Live Gamer GDC Session: Beyond Credit: Localized payment strategies for a global business

During this session, key findings will be shared that highlight which payment methods drive the most revenue in Europe for online game publishers. Best practices, success and failures and how to best set up a global-local payments strategy will be discussed.

When: Thursday March 3rd
Where: Moscone Center 1:30pm PT (RM 309)
Presented by David Cole, DFC Intelligence, Analyst
Moderator: Jeremy Miller, DFC Intelligence, Analyst
Panelists:
- Nima Pourshasb, Live Gamer, VP Corporate Development
- Carsten van Husen, Gameforge 4D, CEO
- Ralf Wenzel, Skrill Holdings, COO
- Linus Menden, Big Point, Head of Finance

Sony's NGP

2011-01-28T12:45:00.000-08:00

Official site as of now: http://us.playstation.com/ngp/

Some coverage at IG: http://www.industrygamers.com/news/john-carmack-says-ngp-is-a-generation-beyond-smartphones/

Basic info courtesy IG at http://www.industrygamers.com/news/sony-reveals-its-next-generation-portable/:

External Dimensions: 182.0 x 18.6 x 83.5mm (width x height x depth) (still tentative)

CPU: ARM Cortex-A9 Quad-Core

GPU: SGX543MP4+

Screen: 5 inch front OLED multi-touch screen (16:9), 960 x 544, 16 million colors, OLED

Controls: Rear touch pad. Directional Pad, Dual analog sticks, two shoulder buttons, four face buttons, Six-axis motion sensing system (three-axis gyroscope & three-axis accelerometer), Three-axis electronic compass.

Cameras: Front camera, Rear camera

Sound: Built-in stereo speakers & microphone

Connectivity: 3G, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth 2.1

Games will come on a brand-new Flash-based storage medium, with UMD being sidelined for this generation. No price or specific release date for the system was given, though Sony expects the system to be out in Japan this holiday season.

My take is that this could potentially be the portable hi-def gaming system I've been waiting for due to the processing power and the dual analog sticks that makes console style action and shooter games realistically playable. I never liked SOCOM etc on the original PSP, and the virtual shooter controls on iPhones is totally meh. The price may be an issue since many are speculating that it will be at least $299 which is a lot for a handheld...but imagine being able to play games like Uncharted wherever you want? Definitely something to think about despite that this system is unproven as of yet. And there are other issues around software cost for portable games, actual battery life, how rugged/durable it will actually be, will the optional 3G be worth it or even effective and etc.

Call of Duty: Modern Price Warfare

2010-12-26T21:43:00.000-08:00

In the last days before Christmas I spent a lot of time checking out retail stores just to see how the feeding frenzy was going. By the activity at the stores I visited, I'm willing to bet December sales will be very strong in the US, not to mention the online data I'm seeing. One particular thing I noticed, first at Best Buy, was that Black Ops was on special for $49.99 while last year's Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 2, was still selling for $59.99. Normally when a big annualized sequel release the prior year's game drops in price if it hasn't already. The Black Ops discount was only a temporary price break, and it's not exactly like the game wasn't selling so it needed the drop to induce purchase. In fact, Black Ops is actually on pace to outsell Modern Warfare 2 (mainly due to the immense brand equity Black Ops inherited, but also due to the marketing and the game itself...it's really good) so lagging sales was not the reason for this discount.

And of course I checked out my local Target later that day because in the past it often has the same discounts going as that its Minnesota neighbor does.

To my surprise Black Ops there was not selling on the cheap. So much for my theory that what Best Buy does Target does the same. Perhaps the retail planners fell asleep at Target, or else Activision boondoggled Best Buy into the discount and shnerfluggined Target.

Whatever the back story, if you are any kind of core console gamer who doesn't already have Black Ops, seeing it for $10 off at Best Buy is a fairly compelling snicker snack O_0! My prediction is that Black Ops will crush again in December.

Call of Duty: [Insert movie tribute here]

2010-11-23T15:02:00.000-08:00

Like roughly 15 million other people this year, I got a copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops. As I was hopping for the game is great. It is certainly the best Treyarch made Call of Duty game its developers deserve kudos for their efforts. Recently there has been a lot in the news about Activision, EA, Infinity Ward and Treyarch, mostly around Activision filing a large lawsuit against the former heads of IW and adding EA itself to the lawsuit earlier this month. But I'm not going to touch that.

Spoilers Ahead

Instead I'd rather point out a few small details I noticed from the single player campaign in Black Ops. But first let us just acknowledge that many games take inspiration from film. After all, film (and television) are much older entertainment mediums and I have yet to meet a game designer, programmer, artist or producer type who doesn't watch TV or go to the movies. Back in my design days I thought a lot about modern WWII media, mainly Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers, and wondered what locations and settings from those works I might somehow include ina level I was designing that hadn't already been done in a previous WWII game. The beach scene in SPR, along with the entire film, was a huge inspiration in Medal of Honor: Frontline. The same movie's climactic battle in "Ramelle" was inspiration for several Day of Defeat levels including the Merderet map, named for the Merderet river that the bridge in the Ramelle scene crosses.

But the key point here is that for gaming moments to resonate with moments from film or television, the details need to be fairly close. Recently in a discussion with a marketing person at a games publisher, I learning about his idea for where their game concept should go, and how it would really resonate with a recent popular movie.

"So in what ways would it resonate?" I asked. The answer I got back was, "Well they both have strong military themes." And that was it. That's like saying The Sims resonates with the TV show Friends because they both feature male and female characters. When I pushed him to be more specific, he hadn't thought it through. No kidding. So for him all I could offer was some remedial advice, and I used Call of Duty: Black Ops as an example.

Call of Duty: Fight Club

FYI, this is a spoiler if you haven't played the Black Ops singleplayer campaign all the way through. Don't say I didn't warn you. Anyway, in the game you play as Mason (voiced by Sam Worthington...say what you will about his American accent in the game...)

where most of the game is played in his flashbacks during his intense interrogation. In

his flashbacks he speaks of Reznov, a Russian he met in...Russia (it's a long story) but the point is that Reznov appears throughout the game. Near the game's climax in one such flashback Mason and Reznov are infiltrating some secret base to find a holder Nazi from WWII plotting some awful scheme (in now the 1960s) involving bio-chemical warfare and Reznov is about to kill the Nazi, even though the Americans need him alive. Well, let's just say that it gets revealed that Mason had actually been brainwashed long before to dream up this Reznov guy in his head. Reznov didn't exis

t even though Mason totally thought

he did, and during the game the player had no real reason to believe he did not exist until that moment. When it was revealed in the game, my first thought was that it was pretty much a rip-off of the movie Fight Club. I wasn't too bothered by this obvious not to one of my favorite movies, but it didn't really feel that fresh even though I thought it was an interesting move for a video game story to have a twist of this level. As I said, the idea itself isn't that original and how it landed in Black Ops didn't have the same punch as in Fight Club, probably because it is a video game and it's not as easy to get emotionally invested in the characters. Overall, I commend Treyarch for it.

Call of Duty: The Abyss

Remember, there are spoilers so if you one of the 17 people on earth who didn't buy Black Ops, I am about to spoil a small part of the game.

Near the end of the single player campaign you and yo' crew get in fancy wet suits and dive under water to some secret underwater base that, get this, is under water. The picture to the right shows a screencap from the trailer of the underwater base. It even has a moonpool inside where you enter that is right out of the James Cameron underwat

er film The Abyss. I can't find a good image of the set from the movie, but it's in there. Instead please enjoy this picture of a pretty good LEGO mock up I found. When in doubt, express your idea in LEGO to get people to say "wow that is cool."

Borderlands now on my top 10 all time games list

2010-11-11T13:20:00.000-08:00

Last October when Gearbox's Borderlands game came out I of coursed added it to my Q4 list games to play. I know some people in the studio (even worked with them indirectly in years past) and have had a lot of respect for Randy's operation ever since Half-Life: Opposing Force, which today I think is the best expansion pack ever. I really liked Borderlands but I had so many games on my list to play over the holidays it fell off my radar after I got to about level 17 or 18. The single player campaign is definitely much longer than most FPS, and since this was a true FPS/RPG hybrid in an MMO style looting/XP points setting, there was all most too much gameplay.

So for almost a year I kept telling myself to go back and finish it. When the GOTY edition came out, I grabbed it since it at all 4 DLC packs included.

Today I just finished the game over lunch. While I never once played it in the much lauded coop mode (online or splitscreen) it has pretty much earned a spot in my top 10 games of all time. This is up there with Half-Life, Quake, Star Wars Tie Fighter, Mercenaries (the first one on Xbox/PS2), World of Warcraft, the first Call of Duty and I'm not sure what else. I'm pretty biased for shooter games....and my full top 10 list is not exactly clear to me.

Still, Borderlands' pseudo-cell shaded art style is just so refreshing, and combined with the huge number of weapons, excellent sound design, combat ballistics...it really is something unique. And let's not forget the humorous slant on all the writing. The story isn't the deepest thing in the world and I actually like it that way. The experience just felt so right. Anyone into shooters at all must play this game.

UPDATE:

As for the humorous slant, lots of video games try to work in comedic elements. The old LucasArts adventure games like Full Throttle and Escape From Monkey Island were masters of it. The new LEGO games, though kid focused, have humorous bits in them all over. Mercenaries was another game that I thought got the humor just right. Borderlands gets the humor, but it's not just in comedic lines or jokes. Here's what I mean: In the game I found the

claptraps a bit off at first, as I felt they were Gearbox's attempt at forcing me to laugh. But then something funny happened

after a few levels into the game. I actually laughed at a claptrap. I think it was the first time in Fyrestone I noticed the claptrap dancing. By then I was into the gameplay and art design enough such that everything about the game was growing on me. So what clicked?

What clicked was that even though neither the story nor the characters were particularly deep, the characters had attitude. Lots of attitude. This includes the claptrap. They were exceptionally voiced (for a video game anyway) and their writing was totally ace. For example, a downed claptrap that could offer you a side quest to fetch it a repair kit for a reward would whimper and say things like "I'm leaking oil" in a way that was simultaneously pathetic and endearing. I found my self wanting a plush claptrap toy for my daughter like the way my friend at EA has a plush weighted companion cube from Portal.

I have more to say about Borderlands, but Mikey at Gearbox just outed me for not ever having tried co-op, so now I have to try that. More to come on this...

Sep 2010 NPD wrapup

2010-11-07T16:38:00.001-08:00

Once again I've been busy, so my monthly wrapup of NPD is late again. And like last month NPD is no longer releasing unit sales of the top 10 games, instead only the rank of the top 10 but now cross platform. Here is what NPD publicly released about Sep 2010:

1) Total industry (hardware, video games software, accessories and PC software) came in at $1.22 Billion, an 8% decline over Sep 2009. Here's how that broke down vs. Sep 2009:
2) Hardware dropped 19% to $383 million
3) Software dropped 6% to $614 million
4) Accessories grew 13% to $180 million thanks to the launch of the PlayStation Move

A few thoughts...

First, for months I have been talking about the top 10 concentration, i.e., the % of monthly sales the top 10 games represents...each month. In short, this percentage been increasing, meaning the top games are taking up a larger share of an overall contracting retail software business. Said another way, the top games are getting a larger share of a smaller retail pie. Because NPD is no longer reporting the top 10 unit sales, we can't discuss that here anymore. But given that some publishers like to boast what their initial sales are for big titles, we can get good

directional indicators of the monthly concentration ratio that we can discuss. For for Sep 2010, Halo Reach helped up the top 10 concentration ratio...big time. We know from Microsoft that Halo Reach sold over $200 million worldwide at retail in the first week of release. That implies over 3 million worldwide week one units. From past analysis of the Halo franchise, sales skew heavily to the US and UK where the 360 is strongest and shooters do very well compared to other countries with good per capita console penetration rates. Also, Halo Reach released on Sep 14, 2010, so if it did over $300 million in the first week, it for sure did more through the rest of the month. However, Halo is one of those games that core franchise fans usually run out and buy in the first week, so I'm willing to bet worldwide sales the rest of Sep were maybe another $100 million. Continuing my gorilla math, let's peg worldwide Sep Halo Reach sales around $400 million, with roughly have coming from the US. I'm willing to bet it's more like 55%. In any event, that puts US sales around $200 to $225 million for Sep. Let's call it $225M. Recall NPD reported video game software was $614M for the month. That means over 1/3 of industry sales in Sep were from Halo Reach.

Roughly 1/3 of US video game software retail sales in Sep 2010 were from Halo Reach.

Wow...Halo Reach is the September gorilla.

As for the rest of the year, you might think Call of Duty Black Ops will be the next big gorilla and take 50% of all Nov 2010 sales. It might, but there are a lot of good games coming up this holiday and since 50% of retail sales occur in Q4 typically, it's possible we might see a nice holiday season since consumer are hungry for good content this far into a console cycle without any new hardware.

Before you scream "Kinect" and "Move" at me, those aren't new platforms. They are sub-platforms akin to the Wii Fit. While Wii Fit was a blockbuster product for Nintendo, 3rd party publishers hardly saw any return from it. It did not become a new standard for 3rd party software in sports, fitness and...um...weightlifting (?) categories as some had predicted it would. Instead it became a big cash machine for Nintendo and another piranha in the tank for 3rd party to compete against. I view the Move and Kinect in this light, particularly the Kinect.

The issue with the Kinect is that it has no real killer app, nor is it easy to find good uses for it in core traditional games. It will be good for casual Wii type content and fitness / dance. Beyond that it is going to struggle. At least the Move can actually be adapted for shooters, action and even sports games, similarly to how Wii controls have been adapted. But the Kinect is going to struggle to be relevant to shooter gamers who like holding controllers. For example, can the Kinect distinguish between a 30 and 45 yard pass in a football game? If all you needed to do was make a throwing motion, would the Kinect auto detect where you want to throw to? If you were to play a football game on Kinect, wouldn't you want to get that level of simulation in the throwing game? Could you ever play a real game of Madden with Kinect?

What this means to me is that Kinect is an energizing new subplatform to the Xbox 360 that will generate a lot of initial excitement due to Microsoft's massive $500 trillion launch budget. (It's trillions right?...oh...divide by 1 million.) But beyond holiday 2010, the real challenge for Microsoft is to keep consumers buying software and encouraging 3rd party to develop games people actually want to play that make sense with the non-controller controller.

In the long run, Sony has a more favorable subplatform to develop traditional content for with the Move, but it still has a challenge to convince consumers that motion gaming on its new subplatform worth it when they've already done a lot of that business on the Wii. Is Wii type content in HD worth it? Certainly Sony's Kevin Butler adds are trying to position it as "it only does everything" along with their overarching campaign for the PS3. I have to give both Microsoft and Sony credit for their marketing efforts, as it seems both subplatforms will sell very well this holiday.

Finally, I'm now more optimistic about Nintendo that I have been in previous months. Without looking into 2011 and the 3DS, here's why I feel that way:

1) Mario 25th anniversary bundle at $199 that includes Wii Motion Plus, Wii Sports Resort and New Super Mario Bro Wii. This is a very compelling for consumers who have not yet bought a Wii who are thinking about it. The effective marginal cost the packaging on New Super Mario Bro Wii.

2) Donkey Kong Country Returns comes out in late November (US/EU...JP release is Dec or Jan). Personally I am more excited about this than Kirby's Epic Yarn simply because somehow I played a few of these DK games on my old GBA SP while I never once played a Kirby game. For the core Nintendo fan, DKCR is another great 1st party reason to play some Wii.

3) Next is Goldeneye 007 "reimagination" on Wii. I have the game. The graphics are crap compared to any PS3 or 360 game. The enemy AI is crap. The Wii-mote controls are fine I suppose, but still not as good as a standard PS3 or 360 game. But it has this retro appeal even though I never once played the original N64 Goldeneye game. I just wasn't into console games in the 90's. (Yes really.) But I get the appeal of the product. There are plenty of existing Wii gamers who also play shooters and other core games on their 360s/PS3s that should have room for some retro gaming in their budgets. Of course, Activision's big marketing efforts will help generate the necessary nostalgia for it. It's not going to outsell the best Wii 1st party games, but it should crush just about all other Wii 3rd party stuff, except perhaps #4 below.

4) Just Dance 2. Dance is hot. It's the new casual fad after fitness and of course guitar before that. The first Just Dance was a big seller with a big marketing campaign. Just Dance 2 could be bigger if Ubisoft markets it right.

So what am I getting at? First of all, for months I've been talking about the increasing monthly concentration ratio of the top 10 titles per month, underlined by Halo Reach in Sep 2010. This means the top titles are taking a bigger chunk of retail dollars and the smaller titles are getting squeezed out. In other words, consumers are going after the biggest / best / most well marketed / biggest brands they already now / etc. And they're flocking to those titles faster. Maybe consumers now have better information at their fingertips so they are more aware of what they'll like and what they won't. Or maybe the big dawgs simply know how to market better. What's clear is that you can still make money in the retail games business, but crapware simply won't cut it anymore. Yeah, we've known that for years, but do we need any more proof than now?

Aug 2010 NPD wrapup

2010-10-13T14:53:00.000-07:00

If you recall last month I was a little late on my wrapup of the July data. It's been a busy September (now October) but I finally have a little time to get to it. One thing to note now, NPD will no longer be publicly releasing unit sales of the top 10 or even top 5 titles. That's kind of a bummer because it lets us do some interesting quantitative analysis. NPD will also no longer be publicly reporting monthly hardware sales. That's an even bigger bummer. That said, here is what they reported for Aug 2010 with some data that was released:

Top 20 titles ( with ~ units data that was revealed):

1. Madden NFL 11 Xbox 360 ~ 900k

2. Madden NFL 11 PS3 ~ 900k

3. Super Mario Galaxy 2 Wii ~ 124k

4. Mafia II Xbox 360

5. New Super Mario Bros. DS

6. New Super Mario Bros. Wii Wii

7. Mafia II PS3

8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360

9. NCAA Football 11 Xbox 360

10. Wii Fit Plus Wii

11. Just Dance Wii

12. Red Dead Redemption Xbox 360

13. Pokemon SoulSilver Version DS

14. Madden NFL 11 PS2

15. NCAA Football 11 PS3

16. Wipeout: The Game Wii

17. Mario Kart Wii w/Wheel Wii

18. Dragon Quest IX DS

19. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 PS3

20. Mario Kart DS DS

Industry Gamers had a nice quote from NPD analyst Anita Frazier:

"Last August, we didn't see as big of a sales gap between the first and second best-selling games," added Frazier. After Madden NFL '10 last year, we had both Wii Sports Resort, and Batman Arkham Asylum, which both sold over 500K units in August 2009. This year the top 10 games sold 3.3 million units as opposed to 4.1 million for the top 10 last year."

I guess that's true, but my assumption is she means the top 10 cross platform titles. Anyway, based on the May 2010 released Super Mario Galaxy 2 selling 124k units, I'm a little bummed Mafia II sold less than that on both the 360 and PS3 (based on the order of the list above). This basically means that for Mafia II in the US, it will likely sell less than 1.5 or 1.6 million units total across both platforms for its full life cycle. That's a little scary, as worldwide that means it might sell 2.7 million units when all is said and done? (More on that below.) It might even sell less. Let's assume 2.5 million units worldwide. Further, assume the weighted average wholesale cost is around $40 after taking into account eventual price drops discounting. Subtract out roughly $12 / unit in 1st party royalties. That leaves about $28 to Take 2. $28 x 2.5 million = $70 million.

On paper, $70 million in nominal net revenues after royalties over life of products sounds pretty good for a relatively small title. So how much did Mafia II cost to develop? It was first announced in Aug 2007 at Leipzeig GC and was developed by Illusion Softworks that became 2K Czech. So that puts the dev cycle at at least 3 years, but most titles aren't announced until they are at least 6 to 12 months into development. In that case, assume it took 3.5 years to develop the game, or 42 months of dev time.

So what was their burn rate per month? We'd need a lot of info on that, but we can guess at the average number of staff working on it over those 42 months and the average cost of each of those staff. So by that "gorilla math" I'm going to guess the burn rate on development was $500,000 when factoring in all the payroll, overhead, indirect labor and other associated costs. At 42 months that's $21 million in development costs. If the average burn rate is higher (yes, even accounting for ramp up and ramp down) and the length of development was actually more than 42 months, then this cost could easy go above $25 or $30 million. Or maybe it was lower.

But point is, the game still needs to sell through roughly 2.5 million worldwide units through its life to gross $70 million at retail. Can it really get there? While the revealed data above does not tell us Mafia II's exact month 1 unit sales, we can infer at most on the Xbox 360 that it was 124k units. Let's assume on the 360 it sold 120k units and on the PS3 it sold 110k. units. That's 230k unit in month 1 in the US. For a lot of core genres, including Action and Action/Driving-Hybrid, the US is typically 50% to 65% of the worldwide market for 360 and PS3 games. Let's assume it's only 50%. That would imply the worldwide month 1 sales of Mafia II were about 460k units (230k US + 230k International).

In the long run, must console games sell about 25% of their units in the first month. If this ends up holding true for Mafia II, then it's projected LTD sales would be 1.84 million units. Hmm...that's a lot less than 2.5 million. At 1.84 million the $70 million gross at retail becomes $51.5 million. Assume the game cost $25 million to make. That leaves $25 million for worldwide marketing and GS&A and all other publisher overhead. Doesn't leave much of a margin.

Of course all of the above is gorilla math, but you can see that indeed the rising cost of development one of the major issues of our industry. Even if my numbers for Mafia II are all way off and in actuality it was much cheaper to develop the game than my estimate indicates, there are still plenty of games where that kind of cost is not unrealistic that will the same mediocre sales. That's a major problem, as it essentially implies that the only viable game content in the industry now are the mega hits like Halo, GTA, Call of Duty and the likes one one end and cheap products on iPhone, Facebook and value games on video game consoles.

Doesn't that make you smile? :-)

More on Halo Reach...quote on Industrygamers.com

2010-09-27T09:53:00.000-07:00

I'm still playing Halo Reach though I haven't had time to play the MP component yet. I'm sure I'll get trounced at first but then start holding my own after a while, at which point I'll likely move onto another MP game on console just because I have to keep playing lots of games. That said, Halo Reach is by far my favorite Halo game. Without spoiling it much, I liked the small nod to Battlestar Galactica in one sequence where you fly the fighter in near Reach orbit defending capital ships. The voice chatter over the comm is pretty cool and borrows somewhat from BSG. I suppose that's more military common speak, but I'm not a military guy and the feel of it was just right. Anyway, another small reason to play the game.

Meanwhile, I was quoted recently on Industrygamers.com about whether the Halo franchise has peaked. Essentially the question is if another developer an step in and make future Halo games for Microsoft that will be as good or sell as well as Bungie's Halo games. My essential answer is no. It's going to be tough to fill those shoes and even another good developer will not be able to reproduce the exact same magic that went into Bungie's efforts.

I made a reference to Treyarch making Call of Duty games (CoD 3 and CoD: WaW) that weren't as good as Infinity Ward's games. That doesn't mean Treyarch is not a good developer. I didn't like CoD3 that much, perhaps because I was sick of WWII in Europe / France games by that time and I felt the game was a little too intense, i.e., it didn't have the right pacing that an Infinity Ward game has. However, I really liked World at War, Treyarch's second CoD game. It's really hard for another developer to come into a brand with super high quality that it did not originate and make something better. WaW used the much improved tech from CoD4:MW and the multiplayer was great.

Anyway the real point is that I'm looking forward to Black Ops due out Nov 9. Yes it is set in the Vietnam era (right?) and despite few shooter games in that setting and none getting it right, not even BF:Vietnam (it was basically BF:1942), I think this game is going to be good. Will it score in the 90s? Don't know. Don't care. I just think the potential for something like this is high and it's not a crawl-in-the-mud type Vietnam shooter. It appears to have at least a taste of the magic IW created in MW1&2 judging by some of the sequences I've seen, so I've got high hopes. I know there was a ton of controversy this year over Activision's handling of IW, but as far as Black Ops goes, I still hope that stuff didn't distract Treyarch's dev cycle on the game and that it comes out well.

Halo Reach update

2010-09-22T10:06:00.000-07:00

I forgot to post that a big part of why this game is selling well is

not just the fact that it's a Halo game, but Microsoft is promoting it heavily, such as running TV spots during NFL games in the US, one of the last bastions of where live TV gets TiVo'd at a lower % so that consumers have a higher probability of watching the commercials. I didn't even like the Halo Reach commercials that much from a creative standpoint, but for a game like this it is more about mass awareness among the near-core and non-core shooter player base on the 360 platform than it is winning a Cloe for creativity. It's 'bout reach people. Audience reach. Halo audience reach.

Meanwhile, that wasn't the only thing going on during Halo Reach's launch week. When I went to check out Target I found that the store was offering a $20 gift card purchase of Halo Reach, except they were sold out resulting in many sad pandas for sure. But that wasn't all. Target was giving away $20 gift cars for Halo Wars (the real time strategy game on Xbox 360), Halo 3 and the last Halo game, Halo 3: ODST. That's a lot of discounting on a lot of Halo.

But then I went to Best Buy. Sure enough, they had Halo Reach

0n hand. At first I was bummed Target didn't have it because who couldn't put a $20 gift card to Target to good use? Was I really going not get the $20 gift card and buy it? After reading how much people liked Reach over ODST I decided I should just get it. To my pleasant surprise Best Buy was offering the same deal: a $20 gift card with purchase. YES!!!! Later that night I saw a TV spot advertising as that fact. And on the Best Buy website they were making the same offer. Oops...I should have done my research first.

But thinking back to Target, I noticed that the retailer was offering $20 gift cards with purchase of Mafia II and Red Dead Redemption, both Take 2 Interactive games. Across two major retailers, who both happen to be HQ'd in Minneapolis, there is a very similar discounting strategy going. Best Buy probably planned it first since it national TV spots ready when Halo Reach launched. For Target to match that it wouldn't take much time or effort to print up placards for in-store display. The problem for them was that they didn't have the same quantities Best Buy had, and that's probably a lot of lost sales. I often hear that such discounting is really a bad strategy for retailers because they actually generate negative margins per sale with the gift card, but in reality the gift cards get the consumer back in the store and buying more. Further still, I'm also thinking that the retailers themselves, and not MSFT and TTWO, funded these discounts.

Halo Reach

2010-09-16T14:50:00.000-07:00

Halo Reach went on sale worldwide on September 14. As the defining brand of the Xbox consoles, it's no surprise that in the first 24 hours Microsoft has confirmed that US plus Europe sales were a combined $200 million. Given the starting price of $60 for standard copies and then higher prices for collectors editions, legendary editions, ultra epic editions, 2 Brutes 1 Spartan editions, the general consensus is that this represents around 3million units in a day. And on one platform. The last mega blockbuster like this was Modern Warfare 2 that released Nov 10, 2009. Back on Nov 11 Activision confirmed MW2 sold 1.2 million units in the UK alone in the first day (cross platform). The US + Europe total was estimated around $500 million in sales for the equivalent period. So no, Halo Reach might not be as big as Modern Warfare 2 obviously, and it might not be as big as Modern Warfare 2 on Xbox 360 alone. But so what. I'm not exactly a big Halo fan, but it is nice to see that one of the few games this year expected to be blockbuster actually become a blockbuster. It certainly won't save the US retail component of the overall industry from its likely full year decline vs. 2009, but it is definitely welcome news that the game has sold well.

For me, I got a copy and while it does look and feel like past Halo games, somehow this is my favorite of all them.

Game Center goes live today...

2010-09-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

I'm currently updating my iPhone 4 to get the new Game Center. I'm wondering if this is going to transform my use of iPhone games. Stay tuned...

New Apple live event today

2010-09-01T10:12:00.000-07:00

So I am not at the Apple event going on (right now as I type this) but I'm keeping an eye on it on a couple different live blogs. I'm going to bulletize a list of takeaways...here we go...

300 worldwide Apple stores in 10 countries...coming soon to Spain. Bueno!
120 million iOS devices shipped. That's iPhone + iPad + iPod Touch devices.
Activating 230,000 iOS devices per day. Would love to see how that number fluctuates on a daily basis. Does not include upgrades. Interesting.
iOS4.1 comes out today. Fabulous. Mostly bug fixes it seems. Good. Available next week and it will be $10. Just kidding it's free.
Game Center. Remember that? I blogged about it months ago and have been waiting for its release ever since. GC supposed to allow multiplayer, have leaderboards and achievements like Xbox Live. It will also do friends lists just like in XBL or PSN, but if you are lame and have no friends it will do matchmaking for MP games. Pretty cool. No more news on GC for now other than it supposedly ships with iOS4.1. Very interesting.
They announced iOS 4.2 (um...before 4.1 comes out? Okay....) 4.2 is iPad focused to allow multitasking, folders and Gamer Center to run on it. And wireless printing. ZOMG! 4.2 available in Nov. Boo!
AirPlay. Allows you to stream audio and video to other devices. Sounds like my CrappleTV that is actually no longer crappy since it finally works...and works pretty well at that.
And the big talking point for today seems to be the iPod. 275 million iPods sold to date according to jobs. I'm guessing the average iPod owner has owned more than 1 iPod in their life...maybe 1.2 or 1.5 iPods on average? In other words, less than 275 million people have owned or currently own an iPod. Still...is that 200million ppl? 250million? 150million? Any way you slice it that is a lot of people.
New iPod shuffle coming .... at $49. Sounds nice.
New iPod nano will be as small as the shuffle (roughly speaking) but will feature a multitouch interface like an iPhone. Sweet. And 24 hour battery life. Disclosed some other stuff on the nano but who cares.
iPod Touch. It's now the best selling iPod it seems and he's talking a lot about games.

So now let's break off and talk about iOS gaming and iPod Touch and stuff...

More iPod Touches (i'm going to call them "iTouch" to save typing time...you get the idea. Apple, please don't sue me I own over a dozen Apple products) like how more iTouches have been sold than Nintendo's DS and Sony's PSP have sold combined.
1.5 billion games and entertainment apps have been downloaded onto iTouches.
New iTouches will have same improvements the iPhone 4 has...retina display, A4 CPU, iOS4.1 with Game Center (that I assume ships next week for iPhones and iTouches), front facing camera and Face Time.
Available next week. 8gb model $229

And there was some other stuff about Ping, dubbed Facebook and Twitter meets iTunes.

Jul 2010 NPD wrap up

2010-08-31T14:45:00.000-07:00

I've been busy all month so I'm a little slow to get to the July results that NPD publicly released, but here it goes anyway:

And the other data released for July (vs. July 2009) includes:

Total industry sales fell 1% to $846.5 million
Software sales fell 8% to $403.3 million
Hardware sales rose 12% to $313.8 million
July YTD sales fell 8% to $7.51 billion

July 2010 hardware unit sales (compared to June 2010):

DS sold 398.4k vs. 510.7k
Wii sold 253.9k vs. 422.5k
PS3 sold 214.5k vs. 304.8k
360 sold 443.5k vs. 451.7k
PSP sold 84k vs. 121k

Picking up from last month, let's look at an updated chart of 2010 vs. 2009 monthly hardware sales for current console platforms:

It's the same basic story, except that the 360 not only passed the Wii in monthly sales but it also passed the DS. The 360 did pass the Wii back in Feb of this year, but never by this much of a margin. Looking at 2010 sales another way, we see a better picture of the monthly sales this year:

That's all I have for this month on looking at the public NPD data as I am coming down with a nasty sore throat and really need to get some rest...more to come soon.

Double Rainbow, all the way

2010-08-16T20:06:00.001-07:00

This past weekend I went up to Lake Arrowhead for the weekend with a bunch of friends just to get away and hang out...see some shooting stars at night, cook some good food...and yes play a lot of video games. Between rounds of Rock Band on one TV, episodes of South Park on another TV, the pool table and the incredibly awesome fooz table, I kept hearing my buddies make laughing references "double rainbow all the way" or something. Or it was "TRIPLE rainbow!" I had no idea what they were talking about until they showed me this video on youtube which they had all discovered well over a month before:

At the time, I laughed so hard I almost had a panic attack. Maybe it was the nice keg of Newcastle Ale we had tapped into, but damn that was hilarious.

This doesn't really have anything to do with video games, but over the course of the weekend while playing Rock Band, fooz, poker or just cooking and hanging out sure enough someone make a joking reference to the video.

I haven't found any references in a game yet, but somehow I'm expecting it to happen over the course of the next year.

Jun 2010 NPD wrap up

2010-07-21T16:30:00.000-07:00

Only two weeks after the delayed May data released the June data came outmaking my already extra busy July extra-er busy. Here is the data NPD publicly released:

Other data for Jun they revealed below with comps from Jun 2009:

Total industry sales fell 6% $1.1 billion
Software fell 15% to $531.3 million
Hardware sales grew 5% to $401.7 million
Accessories rose 6% to $169.6 million
June 2010 YTD sales were down 9% compared to 2009, whereas May 2010 YTD was down 9% (so a slight improvement over last month)

Hardware sales compared to May 2010:

DS sold 510.7k units vs. 440.8k units in May
Wii sold 422.5k units vs. 334.8 units in May
PS3 sold 304.8k units vs. 154.5k units in May
360 sold 451.7k units vs. 194.6k units in May
PSP sold 121.0k units vs. 59.4k units in May

Since we are halfway through 2010 reported sales let's take a look at the console hardware numbers NPD has freely released since the beginning of last year. The picture below is a bit blurry but it gets the point across. It shows monthly NPD unit sales from Jan 2009 through June 2010 with the years side by side by each console. This is a fairly common way of looking at year-over-year hardware sales.

In 2009 the 360 was growing its lead on the PS3 until Sony dropped its main SKU's price to $299 in October. While it still finished the year behind, the PS3 did start catching up month-over-month and even outsold the 360 in Dec'09. In 2010 the 360 continued to beat out the PS3 each month but the gap compared to 2009 wasn't as nearly as large. The positive story for both consoles is that through Jun 2010, YTD sales are ahead of the same period in 2009. The 360 is 19% ahead and the PS3 is a very robust 42% ahead. A big part of the PS3's growth is not so much because of Kevin Butler and big 1st party releases like Uncharted 2 and God of War III, but because of the Oct 2009 price cut. This brought many core consumers on board that had been waiting, while the core SKU of the 360 has been essentially $299 for two years now. Thankfully that old 360 core console is rapidly fading away at a discount, but it is because the new 360 slim debuted at E3 in June...but at $299. So effectively, despite having a great new SKU, the primary 360 console appealing to core consumers is still $299. The big caveat is that in addition to getting a 250g HD (compared a tiny 20g HD in the original 360), the slim has built in Wi-Fi. So you don't have to pay an additional $100 for the Wi-Fi adapter.

Below is another (slightly less blurry) chart showing 2010 YTD sales growth over 2009 YTD. No, that is no optical illusion; the horizontal axis is not downward sloping. Wii sales growth has been negative all year while the other two have been positive, making the axis appear slanted. The chart tells you that the PS3 is still benefiting greatly over 2009 thanks to the price cut. Come October, though, it may struggle to maintain such high comparative growth numbers. The 360, without a price cut last year, has had much lower growth until June with the uptick coming from the slim as mentioned above. But many of the 360 hardware units sold in June were replacement units or of the old model's inventory being sold at a discount, i.e. the old 20gb model that was so prone to the RROD. (My first 360 was repaired twice, then it was simply replaced. Thanks Microsoft! At least the customer support people in India were actually very helpful and nice on the phone about it.) Michael Pachter of Wedbush had a pretty good summary of the situation at IndustryGamers but that article didn't have a chart to explain it so I thought I'd add my two cents to it.

Pachter believes that the 360 hardware sales will start "plummeting" without a price cut, but that is generally the norm for consoles when they stay at one price level for too long. Thinking back to the prior generation, the PS2 and Xbox each debuted at $299, though the PS2 in late 2000 and the Xbox (and some other console called the "GameCube" from a company called "Nintendo" but I have never heard of either) in late 2001. Continuing our theme of blurry charts, below we see the last generation's monthly average hardware sales price (ASP).

Last generation, without a proliferation of different SKUs of each console, when either Microsoft or Sony cut the price the other had to follow soon after. Essentially the consumer had only one model of each platform and if one dropped its price it would have a clear sticker shock advantage over the other forcing a response.

But this generation both the 360 and PS3 had multiple different models making it easier to have a range of pricing options to communicate to the consumer. In other words, even if the core SKU of the 360 was priced at $299, having a barebones "arcade" SKU at $199 enabled Microsoft to say "you can get a 360 for under $200." Sony couldn't say this. What became apparent this generation, as evidenced by the many versions of the DS, was that game consoles (for home or portable) were no longer a one model affair. Back in the day there was a GBA and then a GBA-SP. That was it. Today there are 10-to-the-google models of the DS with about seven dozen 360 models and pi-squared number of PS3 models. All that confusion made for some oddball average sales price compared to last generations. Ironically, the Wii is the only console this generation to have a simple SKU plan with clear pricing.

Somehow in all this SKU confusion Sony, for better or worse to their hardware unit sales, managed to keep the the PS3 price at $399 and up until Oct'09, setting a record for the longest delayed price drop after a primary competitor dropped its price. Given how many, including industry analyst Michael Pachter and even myself, believe that Microsoft is going to have to drop the 360's price by this time next year to regain its sales momentum, an interesting question is what will Sony's response be? Then factor in the forthcoming Kinect and Move addons. Those aren't exactly cheap (generally $150 or $100 to existing platform owners...and more than $100 for some Move applications on PS3) and the price of entry for new consumers for the platform plus these accessories may be a deterrent (did anyone mention the economy, stupid?).

Where does this leave us? It leaves us expecting price cuts by mid 2011 or else things are going to get funky in Microsoft-town...and Sony-town.

May 2010 NPD wrap up

2010-07-05T10:49:00.000-07:00

NPD finally released the May 2010 data on July 2. So while America was off watching fireworks, I was thinking about the numbers. Here is the data they publicly released:

Other data for May they revealed below with comps from May 2009:

Total industry sales fell 5% $823.5 million
Software rose 4% to $466.3 million
Accessories rose 3% to $115.7 million
May 2010 YTD sales were down 10%

Hardware sales compared to April 2010:

DS sold 383.7k units vs. 440.8k units in April
Wii sold 334.8k units vs. 277.2 units in April
PS3 sold 154.5k units vs. 180.8k units in April
360 sold 194.6k units vs. 185.4k units in April

From a hardware perspective, it's safe to say the original Xbox, the GameCube and GBA are all legacy platforms with negligible software and hardware sales. The PS2 is still marginally important (comparatively, anyway) and the PSP, while really should still be relevant, has had iffy sales for a while. For simplicity, if we pretend the DS, Wii, PS3 and 360 are the best indicators of the video game hardware market health, how is it doing overall?

Nintendo DS

There's no question that the DS has been a success, and while no generation of video game systems has the same internal and external market dynamics we can still compare cumulative hardware sales. Having recorded ever publicly released piece of NPD data on the subject, here's a simple chart we can examine:

The DS's curve got to a higher point sooner in its life cycle compared to the GBA, so by this measure it was a more successful platform. That's not the entire picture but Nintendo's track record in the handheld space the last decade has been impressive, and early signs on the 3DS are looking very positive. When first announced, many people thought the 3DS would simply be an extension of the DS a la the DS Lite, DS Lite Xi, DS Lite/iX Ultra Premium, DS Sugar Free, DS Low Carb and the thousands of other configurations. But now it seems the transition from DS to 3DS will be more like GameBoy to GBA or GBA to DS. And like the DS, the 3DS will be have a good amount of backwards compatibility. Combined with all the new stuff, mainly 3D games without glasses, 3D photos and photo sharing, WiFi (and hopefully 3G like a Kindle...maybe? Pretty please, Nintendo?), the early signs are that the 3DS will eventually be a new blockbuster handheld. Oh wait, they'll be competing with iPhones and iPod Touches...and iPads. Hmm...well I wouldn't count Nintendo out just yet.

Nintendo Wii

We all know how Wii cumulative hardware sales have been crushing both the 360 and PS3, as well as how it has blown away the GameCube when comparing them at the same point in their respective life cycles as shown below.

There is also speculation that at some point that a backwards compatible HD version of the Wii may release, though Nintendo continues to deny it. And there is also the same old story on Nintendo about how 3rd party publishers can't hold a stick against Nintendo when comes selling big units of software. If we pretend that 2010 in the life of the Wii is analogous to 2005 in the life of the GameCube, then we might expect the next Nintendo console to launch in November 2011. If that isn't on the plan, then how long is the Wii intended to last? For long time the general message from all three console manufacturers has been that this cycle would be a lot longer than the prior cycle. If the GameCube was effectively 5 years, are we at the halfway point for the Wii? Are we 2/3 the way through? 1/3? I'm willing to bet we at minimum halfway through.

As for Xbox 360 and PS3? That's going to have to wait for another blog post on the June data...

E3 2010: 3D

2010-06-23T10:14:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest topics going into E3 was 3D stereoscopic gaming. In an earlier post I laid out some challenges facing 3D and after the show I feel confident that all of those points were validated, though to be fair these were not hard to deduce. At the show I was finally able to play 3D games, as well as observe others playing and I developed some distinct impressions and followup thoughts from my June 8 post.

Stereoscopic 3D generally still requires a 3D capable TV for it to work and that is still expensive. I did get to try out Gears of War 2 on a dev kit using an "aftermarket" 3D solution where the code was modified, allowing it to be viewed in 3D on a traditional HD television using glasses. This solution from Darkworks functioned, but wasn't that impressive. Darkworks also let me play Gears of War 2 in 3D on an actual 3D Samsung television (and using a different, more expensive pair of Samsung 3D glasses) which I admit did look much better. Still, the 3D did not make the game much more fun. While I did not expect any amazing console 3D gaming without glasses, it was still somewhat disappointing that no other company came out of the woodwork with a solution that could pull it off. Maybe at GDC 2011? Anyway, the best looking 3D console content was on an actual 3D TV.

Based on the above, Sony was generally the place to be for trying out 3D gaming. The first game I checked out was Sony's fighting game for the Move controller which, interestingly, was also in 3D. (This is what MBA students call "synergy.") I'll save the problems with that game and Move for another post, but the 3D took several tries to get working and once it did it failed to impress. I know the code was not final, but as someone with 15 years of martial arts training including many types of boxing, this game was a big let down and the 3D looked bad.

But the fighting game was the lowpoint at Sony's booth. After that disappointment I finally played Gran Turismo 5 in 3D. I must say graphically the game looked great in 2D, but what else would you expect from this franchise? The 3D looked crisp but it did not have as much punch as much as I would have wanted it to. After a few minutes I didn't notice the 3D anymore and I was actually wanting to play it in 2D so I could ditch the glasses and focus on the game.

By far the best looking game in 3D at Sony's booth was Killzone 3. For one, the 3D seemed to calibrate faster and function better once it got going, but that may have been due to the person running the demo station on the second floor of the Sony booth knew what he was doing. Killzone 3's use of 3D looked stunning, though again it did not immediately appear to have an impact on gameplay.

Also at Sony's booth I played a generic feeling racing game that actually reminded me the old Carmageddon (see picture in this paragraph) games on PC of the 1990s, else their take on Disney's recent Split/Second racing game. The problem was that there was so much going on the screen that the 3D effect actually felt distracting.The big takeaway from Sony's booth about 3D is that it works and while it may sometimes look really cool, it does not add much to gameplay. In some cases it was downright distracting. In all cases, you had to wear the glasses which was still annoying. I'm a little concerned that the quality of the 3D visuals may actually vary by TV manufacturer. I'm sure Sony's TV division is going to want SCE to push the message that 3D gaming on PS3 "looks the best on a Sony TV" even though that would be in conflict with the the idea that the PS3 should be hardware agnostic when it comes to which TV you use. While a traditional 42" HD 1080p TV from Samsung may have a slightly different picture quality from the Sony Bravia of the same spec, the functionality of the resolution and refresh rate differences (if any) should not be a material difference in what games look like on the them. With 3D, because Sony has so much invested in the technology, you have to wonder what the marketing message will be come later this year.

As for Microsoft, 3D was not part of its messaging or anything it presented at the show. The unspoken message is that the 360 can do 3D, but for now Microsoft is not focusing on it. That said, Crysis 2 will be 3D playable on PS3, 360 and even PC, so at least we know Microsoft will have a toehold in that market if nothing else.

As for Nintendo, that's coming in a future blog post.

The final takeaway about console 3D gaming: it's going to happen but it's going to take a while for highly compelling content comes out, particularly content that has 3D as part of the gameplay and not just as eye candy.

E3 2010 Aftermath...

2010-06-20T10:30:00.000-07:00

Now that E3 is finally over, I will be doling out sporadic blog posts about some finding, perhaps even posting some photos. It was an interesting show this year, probably louder and certainly more crowded last year. Two NBA Finals games at Staples (Tues and Thurs) made things even more hectic but it was still fun and, as with 2009, I'm glad E3 is back from the '07-'08 sham of a show it was those years. Topics I plan to cover:

Microsoft Kinect
Sony Move
Sony 3D
Nintendo 3DS
The new trend music games that won't save the genre
THQ's booth awesomeness (hint: 8 foot tall Space Marine)
EA's Star Wars MMO
Cloud gaming
Best and worst games I got to play

Crysis 2 in 3D

2010-06-14T23:03:00.000-07:00

So Crytek showed off 3D footage of Crysis 2 at today's EA conference. You can't see the 3D effect on the internet but at the conference some people were impressed. I'm glad to see some actual core 3D content announced, and it will be for 360 / PS3 / PC. That's great, but you still need to play with glasses and on console you'll need a really expensive new 3D capable TV, too.

Pre-E3 2010: The challenge facing 3D stereoscopic gaming

2010-06-08T23:47:00.001-07:00

The following is a list of reasons why I think 3D stereoscopic will be a disappointment in 2010 on consoles. The Nintendo 3DS is a different market segment that should actually do okay. Console 3D gaming will be closer to epic fail than win. There is simply no way it will be as revolutionary as the movie and TV industry PR departments would like to make us believe it will be, and this includes Sony despite it having won me over in the last year with the PS3 Slim, Uncharted 2, Heavy Rain, God of War 3 and Kevin Butler among other things. Let's get right into the list of reasons:

1) It's an expensive upgrade in a tenuous consumer economy. You mean I have to buy another new HD TV that's more expensive than regular HD flatscreen 1080p TVs? Seriously? Paying a little extra to see a movie in 3D at the theater is one thing. Shelling out another $2000 to have it in the home is another.

2) 3D movies are overrated. Yes, they do well at the box office and I am partly to blame. I saw Avatar in the theater 3 times, all in 3D. I admit I liked the movie, despite not caring deeply about the story or characters. But in watching the non-3D BluRay version I don't miss the 3D at all. The things I liked about the movie, mainly the action, art direction and the effects still look great. Yes I liked the 3D in the theater, but I forgot the i noticed the second and 3rd time I saw it the 3D gave me a headache. So then I went to Bestbuy and watched a 20 minutes of the Monsters vs. Aliens demo with the glasses. I think it was on a Samsung. Yes, the 3D functions, but it made the movie look worse. I actually thought the movie itself had solid animated crossover appeal that worked perfectly fine in 2D. The 3D implementation was beyond annoying. The movie looked artificially plastic, even ugly. I didn't find the 3D immersive...I found it distracting. 3D movies are hot right now and in the theater they make sense, but outside animation and CG films I'm distinctly bearish on them. But by that logic, wouldn't I want my games in 3D since they are by definition all animation and CG? No. No thanks. The industry has to prove how it impacts gameplay in a positive way. Every core gamer I have spoken to, especially employed men in their 20s and 30s with money has a highly skepitcal perspective on it and at best is saying "prove it" before they'll consider. All these studies saying people are curious about 3D does not mean willingness to spend on it. Of course we're all curious given how much hype has been generated by PR.

3) 3D uses more processing power. I won't get too technical, but its going to tax processors more to make games work in 3D, especially high end graphics showcases in shooter and action genres that appeal to that all important core gamer with a PS3 who is supposed to be an early adopter. This isn't necessarily a show stopper, but initially this will make it harder to engineer high end games in 3D, such as Killzone 3.

4) The glasses. I don't care what the producer of Avatar thinks, marketing is not going convince me that I should like wearing the glasses. Simply saying people accept glasses in the theater and have been wearing glasses for centuries does not mean they will be accepted for home TV/gaming.

5) The games this year are going to be marginal or irrelevant. Any new tech will take time to implement well. Even EA CEO John Riccitiello is bearish on high quality 3D games coming out this year. This has actually been true of motion control gaming on the Wii. Only Nintendo has really put out any great games on the Wii that use motion controls well but how much do you really need the motion controls? The Wii was a multi year fad, not a revolution.

6) TV industry PR departments are talking about how awesome 3D without showing any real proof from consumers. If this is true then whatever they show at E3 next week must be awesome. If they fail to impress at E3 then you know whatever they have for this fall will be terrible. I predict Sony will fail to impress us with the 3D. Not even the almighty Kevin Butler will save it.

7) Microsoft is barely making any waves. Yes they signed the deal with LG to have 1000 3D demos in stores in Korea. Outside of that, all they are saying is that they are looking into it and will have announcements later this year. But they have too much invested in Natal to distract themselves with 3D. Otherwise Microsoft needs to get its strategy in gear.

8) Current lack of standards in 3D implementations. This gets back to the glasses problem. If I buy a Sony 3D TV with compatible glasses (that are not cheap either) will those glasses work with a Panasonic TV? If my friends come over to watch Monsters. vs. Aliens on my Samsung, I'm going to need glasses for all of them and they can't bring their glasses unless they also have Samsung 3D TV.

Until I see something interesting in 3D console gaming at the show next week, I staying very bearish on this.

Why we love the post-apocalypse...in media

2010-05-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

Apocalypse is generally something to be feared. If faced with it, most of us would be terrified beyond measure. But there is something appealing about it as a setting in entertainment media, particularly in film in video games, the essence of which is that it represents freedom from drudgery and hopelessness in contemporary life.

That may seem a bit counter-intuitive, as apocalypse - or more accurately: post-apocalypse - implies living in a wretched world devastated by some kind of man-made or even natural disaster that renders the Earth as hyper-dangerous and perhaps even toxic. But that is not the whole story.

With apocalypse, there is a presumed background of anarchy that goes with the destruction of government and societal institutions. There is no pressure of work or career. You don't have to go to the dull cubicle hell every day. Your wealthier friends with better houses and fancier cars are suddenly on a level playing field. If you see your boss after the apocalypse, you can tell him to f-off with essentially no repercussions. Another angle on the appeal of apocalyptic settings for the jaded, disgruntled aspect all of us have somewhere within us is this sense that apocalypse is the universe's revenge on those in power in society whom we feel have screwed us over.

Picture it: every day you go to work and your boss treats you like a dog. He yells at you for being late. He reviews your powerpoint presentation and tweaks it, making it worse. Then when he presents it to the management team and they hate it, he says it was all your fault. Or if they like it, he takes all credit. When you complain to his boss, she looks back you like you're crazy and lectures you about your bad attitude and how you are not a team player. But when the bombs fall and society is devastated and somehow the three of you survive, you encounter them in the rubble and it is immediately known that their precious powerpoints and management meetings are worthless. Their unfair assessments of how you lack real talent and have zero growth potential are meaningless. In that moment you could exact any kind of revenge on them with no consequence. It is as if the universe crept up and said to your bosses, "Oh yeah? Well screw you."

Now this may be an extreme picture, but everyone experiences moments in contemporary life where they want to scream and lash out at the world. When someone dangerously cuts you off in traffic you curse them and give them the finger. When you are taking a walk around the neighborhood after dinner with your family on a nice summer evening and someone in her BMW with a her shitzu on her lap while simultaneously talking on the cell phone and smoking a cigarette rolls through a stop sign and doesn't notice you in the crosswalk, you wish there was a cop there to pull her over.

These ordinary moments of malaise against society build up in our inner beings, and the apocalypse provides a path for you to release the pain and frustration they bring. The apocalypse, while a horrible reality if we were ever faced with it, allows for freedoms we would otherwise never experience. Sure, it comes with death and destruction, disease and hellish scarcity of food and resources, but in those moments when you boss trashes your work, when you step in your neighbors dogshit on your lawn, when telemarketers call you for the fifth time during dinner, you start to think of fantastical moments of the worst possible revenge on these people that you would and could never do.

These are not pleasant concepts to ponder as revenge is ultimately self defeating, even if made possible by the apocalypse. The new age teachings of the 21st centry, such as in Eckhart Tolle's masterpiece A New Earth, teaches us all the trappings that such egocentric revenge condemns us to. But even if we are transformed beings who seek understanding, wisdom and communication between all, we still get those impulses that tell us we have been wronged when we get cut off in traffic, step in our neigbor's dog shit or have our powerpoint unfairly slammed because your boss has the emotional development of a preteen. Everyone has their limits of patience and escapist apocalyptic media transports us to a world where revenge is ours and we are free from the mundane tyranny of our lives.

In essence, this is why violent media and video games are so popular. It's not because people have a desire to cause death and destruction in real life, but rather because they know they can't. The apocalyptic setting empowers people to be survivalists and live off their wits. It is the great leveler of playing fields in life where the investment bankers and corporate executives and transactional lawyers no longer hold an upper edge that money gives them.

If you think about every shooter game you have played, all them have some context that allows for the player character to run around killing everything in sight. War is a good one, or alien invasion, or some other disaster where you are being pursued to the death. While such games have rules even within their apocalyptic settings, it is still that general sense of freedom from typical societal rules that is so empowering. This is the inherent appeal of most violent video games.

April 2010 NPD Recap. And the problem with the Wii...

2010-05-16T22:00:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday NPD released the April 2010 results data and below was the data they publicly announced:

For some reason NPD decided only to reveal unit sales of the top 5 titles of the month instead of 10. Maybe they were embarrassed at how low the lower half of the top 10 performed, but hey, they just report the data. How well or poorly sales do is not NPD's fault. The other standard tidbits they published for April 2010 (compared to April 2009):

Total industry sales fell 26% to $766.2 million
Software fell 22% to $398.5 million
Accessories fell 9% to $118.4 million
April YTD sales were down 11%

Specifically on hardware:

Nintendo DS sold 440.8k units (vs. over 1 million units in March)
Nintendo Wii sold 277.2k units (vs. 557.5 units in March)
Sony PS3 sold 180.8k units (vs. 313.9k units in March)
Microsoft Xbox 360 sold 185.4k units (vs. 338.4k units in March)

The gist of most headlines was essentially "train wreck" or "sales derailed" or "it's the end of the frakking world" and such. So what happened? Some analysts were baffled or even dismayed at these results. Several explanations were floated around, the first of which being that Easter came earlier this year so its annual bump was felt in the March sales data this year vs. April last year. That's at least partially valid. Another theory on the Nintendo angle was hardware shortages. I find that unbelievable because every Best Buy, Target, Fry's and Gamestop store I've been to all year always had hardware stock in. Always. If this far into the Wii lifecycle Nintendo can't manage supply, people should be fired. I guess some of it could be true, but again, I have never been unable to find a Wii at a Best Buy or Target or Gamestop in the last year.

I think the real issue was just there was nothing new and exciting to buy from Nintendo on its platforms. There hasn't been anything good released on the Wii since New Super Mario Bros. in November, and notice it was #3 on the April chart at 200k units. In other words, it's crushing new all new releases after November. March's Pokemon blockbuster releases on DS came in at #2 and #4 in April, which also explain the 1 million+ DS hardware units sold that month. Wii Just Dance is the only 3rd party game on a Nintendo platform to crack the top 10 and that was released back in November, too. The Wii 3rd party market used to be dominated by Guitar Hero and Rock Band. This just reiterates for the 1000th time that only Nintendo releases matter on its platforms, especially late in the cycle. Everything else that isn't Nintendo is either associated with Nintendo - as in Sega's Mario vs. Sonic Olympics game...it has a picture of Mario on the pack front and has Mario in the name - or is a fad.

Said another way...

...the only 3rd party games that will sell big on the Wii are fads genres: guitar, fitness, dancing and such.

To be fair, that's sort of the nature of Nintendo. You buy their platforms for the 1st party games like Mario, Pokemon, the occasional Zelda game, maybe even Metroid. You dip into the fad genres and the forget about them. After guitar games peaked in 2008, fitness games peaked in 2009, even though the vast majority of the fitness category was driven by Nintendo's Wii Fit and its balance board peripheral. EA did okay with Sports Active and there are some new entrants in 2010, but already year to date fitness is way behind mainly because the Wii Fit is down. It's old news.

What's going to be the fad genre on Nintendo in 2010 that's going to turn it around? Can anything turn it around? Price drops always help, but the thing has to sell software, both 1st and 3rd party, for it to continue (wait, resume?) to make big profits, even if the hardware itself is a profitable business.

So where does this leave us regarding the Wii? Rather describe the Wii platform as being dominated by casual gamers, I think a better term is fadfickle gamers. Yes, I'm making up a word. It's called "fadfickle."

fadfickle - a type of gamer who typically buys hardware and software as part of a fad. Once they get bored they stop playing and don't buy anything new unless it's part of a hot new fad.

The Wii is dominated by these gamers. They followed the guitar fad. A smaller portion followed the fitness fad. The bought the Wii in the first place because it was a fad and was cheaper than the 360 or PS3 and its software was, too. When it came out in 2006 "subprime" was not a well known word. Once the economy soured the probability of fadfickle gamers dropping two to four hundred dollars for various types of Wii bundles declined.

Compared to the 360 and PS3, the Wii is still the bestselling console month over month, however compared to YTD 2009, 2010 Wii sales are lower while both 360 and PS3 sales are higher, especially the PS3 thanks to the price drop.

What does this mean? The "core" gamer is still buying, but more on that later...

Long live Kevin Butler

2010-05-05T22:10:00.000-07:00

With the launch of the Slim hardware update last September, Sony brilliantly updated its branding for the PlayStation 3 and perhaps for Sony Computer Entertainment as a whole. Fans and industry analysts have written at length about the Kevin Butler campaign spanning first party games and the new hardware itself, generally lauding it over the pompous launch campaign back in 2006 that featured, among other things, a crying baby and a levitating PS3 that were supposed to convince the masses to save up their pennies to buy it for its pure awesomeness. But the introduction of Kevin Butler changed all that. See below for its awesomeness:

Well played, Kevin. Well played.

What made this work was that Sony was able to make fun of itself while finally delivering the console at a price a broader range of gamers would accept. The brilliance was that Sony carried this highly accepted tone over to all its first party ads. The first major game to be promoted after the Slim launch ad above was the highly anticipated sequel: Uncharted 2.

For those who had played the first Uncharted game, the above ad resonated well because while the footage itself did not convey the game's excellent whit, the humorous story in the ad about the girlfriend thinking the game was a movie did. Perhaps that is a bit of a coincidence, but as new ads rolled out the offbeat humor Kevin Butler brought to them stayed consistent and gave the PS3 a new, pleasantly snarky vibe that made gamers rewind their TiVos. Even if the game being advertised, unlike Uncharted 2, did not have a wisecracking tone the ads still did. Sony successfully managed to tie all its first party games together, from God of War III to the new MLB game featuring Joe Mauer, inside the Kevin Butler mystique and make them work. It gave their ads stopping power, at least to the target market, and in this economy that's exactly what you want to do.

At GDC this year I had a chance to sit down with Sony marketing VP Scott Steinberg and ask him about Kevin Bulter. He assured me Kevin will be a central part of the PS3 marketing campaign throughout 2010 and presumably beyond. Personally, I can't wait to see what Kevin does next.

Digital Hollywood

2010-04-29T22:43:00.000-07:00

On Monday, May 3 I will be a panelist at the Digital Hollywood Media & Valuation Symposium at 10 am. Description of the panel below:

MEDIA VALUATION SYMPOSIUM will focus on how the painful recovery from the Great Recession is affecting broad swaths of the media & entertainment sectors, including revenue growth, public and private market values, sources of capital and which sectors are likely to recover first.

I'm looking forward to the panel as everyone else on it has a very extensive background in finance or entertainment business, though mostly not games. Still, should be a cool experience.

Mar 2010 NPD Recap

2010-04-24T10:27:00.000-07:00

To celebrate tax day in the US, NPD conveniently released March industry sales data and the usual websites (such as IndustryGamers) were kind enough to publish the basic results. To recap, here is the top ten from March 2010:As reported, here were key facts NPD released:

Total industry sales (HW+SW) grew by 6% to $1.52 billion. Nice.
Software sales grew by 10% to $875.3 million
Hardware sales fell by 18% to $440.5 million

And here is a reprint of what NPD released about March 2009:

Observations:
1) As with Feb 2010, no PSP title made it into the March 2010 top 10 titles. No surprise here and this will probably the last month I mention this.

2) March has become a key Pokemon release month.

3) Four of the Mar 2010 top 10 slots are PS3 titles, including two first party games (God of War III and MLB '10: The Show).

4) The concentration ratio (formerly "concentration percentage"...see last month's wrap-up) for March 2010 was 31% vs. 25% for March 2009. In other words, the 10 ten video game software title unit sales in March 2010 were 31% of total video game software sales, compared to 25% the year prior. Interestingly, March 2009 had a similar good showing from core titles, mainly in Resident Evil 5, Halo Wars and Killzone 2 whereas March 2010 had God of War III, Bad Company 2 and Final Fantasy MMXIII (or possibly just XIII). Combined with the lower showing for Wii games in general, this gives another indication that the core gamer is leading the growth in the games sector right now, especially without much noise coming from the guitar and music category of games lately.

5) As with March 2009, no Call of Duty game appeared in the top 10 for March 2010. This is important because is another small indicator that the now annualized Call of Duty brand, despite alternating between developers Infinity Ward and Treyarch, the sales decay curves are somewhat similar for each iteration in the series once out of holiday. Modern Warfare 2's first two months (Nov/Dec 2009) were larger than the launch of Modern Warfare, World at War and Call of Duty 3 combined, but dropped immensely in January and stayed flat into February. While sales of MW2 are now declining its still going to clear hundreds of thousands of units across all platforms for at least another month and have a long tail larger than just about every game this generation, at least until the next CoD game this fall.

But so what? This gets us to the bigger question of what is going to happen to the Call of Duty brand given what's happened with the Infinity Ward studio heads getting fired and then forming Respawn and subsequently attracting over a dozen of IW's key talent. Call of Duty is the one of the most powerful brands in the industry and each year millions of gamers buy it on that brand name (and supporting marketing) alone. The IW shakeup probably will not negatively impact Treyarch's Nov 2010 release in the series. We'll never really know anyway, but the big question is what happens to Modern Warfare 3 which most people assume the remaining Infinity Ward will release in November 2011. Without the core design team from recent Call of Duty games, the probability that the next game will be as good is slightly lower. It's not guaranteed to be bad, but those staff losses can potentially hurt. If Treyarch's game this year sells worse than World at War, the brand overall will lose some momentum.

However, the biggest obstacle the Call of Duty brand will face outside of organic brand fatigue will be direct competition, particularly from whatever Respawn creates. While it is possible Respawn could come out with a game for holiday 2011 to compete directly with Modern Warfare 3, it is more likely their first game will take a little more time to create given they are just getting their studio off the ground and are going not going to rush a game out. The risk for Modern Warfare 3 will then merely be the thunder Respawn will steal away when the announce something. Most likely Respawn and its publishing partner, EA...erm... Partners, will understand that given the current core gamer sentiment favoring Jason West and Vince Zempella and general vitriol for Activision over what has happened, they will have an easy time finding sympathetic and interested press to cover what they are up to in any and all ways. And when they do ship a game, consider that Jason and Vince have attracted the all the design leads from IW, some of whom date back to Medal of Honor and all them at least to Call of Duty 2. Given that this group of designers has yet to make a bad game and now they will have even more freedom to make the game that they want, there is a very, very strong chance it will be excellent. That is the biggest long term threat the Call of Duty brand will face.

Apple: the new 1st party

2010-04-09T09:38:00.000-07:00

Apple is now a de facto 1st party games publisher. While it is not the same kind of publisher as Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft, it is time we recognize it for what it is. Last week at the iPhone OS event at Apple headquarters, Apple CEO Steve Jobs reported that to date the company has sold 50 million iPhones and 35 million iPod Touches. Given that some of those sales were upgrades of earlier versions to later versions, and the fact that a small percentage of the audience actually owns both an iPhone and an iPod Touch, the total install base in terms of people is probably a little less than 85 million. Even if we are over conservative and peg the estimate at 80 million, that is still at least a highly respectable and at most a ginormous market.

But comparing Apple to the traditional "Big Three" 1st parties isn't exactly apples to apples. (Yes, I realize the pun.) iPhone games are largely lighter fare limited in features, depth, interface and graphics. You can't effectively play World of Warcraft, Mario or a Call of Duty game the way you can on a PC, Wii or 360/PS3 due to the interface, screen size and slowlness of 3G compared to a hardline. (WiFi is okay but not always availble to everyone).
From a financial perspective, despite having 80 to 85 million consumers as an audience, iPhone games simply don't generate upside scale the way a major blockbuster game does on a traditional platform.

However, iPhone games don't cost nearly as much to produce. That may change to a degree with the iPad, but until millions of gamers start buying the iPad, don't expect it to seriously increase the average cost of the collective iPhone/iPad game development cycle.

Take the Call of Duty: Zombies app on the iPhone. This is an excellent extension of the Call of Duty brand to another platform that in reality did not cannibalize sales of Modern Warfare 2. Unlike most non-free apps that sell in the $1 to $2 range, Zombies was priced at $9.99 since releasing on Nov 16, 2009 and for several months has been one of the most successful iPhone games.

Just how successful was this game? In a recent survey I worked on with DFC Intelligence we asked US, UK and EU computer and console gamers about game ownership and crossover with iPhones and specific apps. We found that 31% owned an iPhone or iPod Touch. (We'll just group them as "iPhone" from here.) Of those, 24% indicated they had purchased the Call of Duty: Zombies app. Since MW2 has sold roughly 15 million units world wide by now (quick, is it already up to 20 million?) let's take pause to do some estimates.

Pretend 31% of Modern Warfare 2 owners actually have an iPhone. (Seriously?) That's 4.65 million MW2 owners who own an iPhone. Hmm...really? Suppose 24% of them bought the Zombies game. That's 1.116 million sales to the MW2 audience. If this gorilla math is accurate, that's a gross revenue of about $11 million. If Activision gets 70% of that...we're talking nearly $7.8 million. How much did it realistically cost to make that game. I've played it. It's good. Is it worth $10 bucks? That's a matter of opinion it's definitely a successful product so besides having the right brand attached to it, it did something right.

But that's just gorilla math. Let's say the actual sales of the Zombies game were closer to 10% to 15% of the estimate above and Activision revenues were really closer to $1 million. Again, how much did it cost to make that game that had only one map in the original release? (Let's forget about the additional maps/content you can buy for the app.) Whatever the actual numbers are, there is a compelling business case for it as a product.

So for a brand like Call of Duty, releasing an iPhone version of your game that is intentionally less complex but still delivers some portable fun was a good idea. This is perhaps one of the best examples of a major game brand extending itself to the iPhone platform in a way that did not cannibalize sales of the console/PC games and in fact probably sold quite well to those same gamers who also own an iPhone.

All the time we have been talking about numbers, zombies and and gorillas, Apple was counting their monies. As has been suggested by Nintendo and others, it's not like Apple is going to pass Nintendo in gaming related revenues. If we think of the iPhone as a console, it will probably generate in the $100 million to $200 million in gross revenues per quarter in 2010. If that is actually to low an estimate, then we could guess the iPhone games software market on the order of $500 million to $1 billion for 2010. If actually high, then the annual total comes crashing down to around a quarter billion dollars. Either way, Apple is making money and so are successful developers for the platform. (Certainly not all iPhone game app developers are becoming the new rich.)

Nintendo, who has been openly critical of the iPhone and iPad as a gaming platforms, is definitely threatened by Apple simply by the fact that kids everywhere are getting exposed to iPhones and they are playing with them. (I've said this in past blog posts.) But that doesn't mean immediate doom for Nintendo. You still can't play Pokemon and Mario and Mario Kart on an iPhone in the same way you could on a DS. They are better experiences on Nintendo's platform simply due to the interface. But kids are playing with the iPhone for iPhone, not DS, gaming experiences. Many of these are throw away games where you play for 60 seconds, get bored and play something else. Or they are playing the same game 50 times in a row like the way my 5 year old nephew falls asleep while playing skiball on my sister's iPhone. It's the same game of skiball over and over but he doesn't care. Even if the games are more involved, they simply aren't as big of an investment in terms of time or money as compared to DS games.

And that's the threat to Nintendo, even if it forever has better games that are worth spending more money on. Apple is allowing for a dilution of gaming to simpler elements that, for better or for worse, is attracting consumer attention and dollars. Apple's total control over distribution and access to the iPhone market is staggering compared to traditional 1st party publishers of their respective markets. Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft all have to deal with retailers, disc manufacturers and beyond for their software businesses. Apple can do all that from their headquarters in California since their distribution is all digital. In fact, Apple is better suited to support its platform given it has a dedicated retail presence that already makes money without the iPhone software market.

If our definition of a 1st party is a company that manufacturers a hardware platform and controls what content can go on that platform while taking a percentage of every piece of software sold on it, then Apple must qualify. The problem some people have with this is admitting that these pieces of software are, in fact, games.

Apple's OS 4 and the new Game Center

2010-04-08T10:53:00.000-07:00

Engadget has the live feed from Apple's iPhone OS4 event and Steve Jobs revealed the iPad has sold 450,000 units through today. So it's going well. Also, 1/3 of all iPad exclusive apps are games just in case you hadn't heard. Of course that is a lower % compared to the iPhone, but it is the highest single category on the iPad. On top of that they announced Best Buy is out of stock and 600k iBooks have been downloaded with 3.5 million iPad apps downloaded for an attach ratio of 7.78.

As for the iPhone, the first news is that Apple is now reporting 50 million units sold since the initial launch and on top of that another 35 million iPod Touches have been sold. That's a big market for a device that can play games.

But the big news is iPhone OS 4 that should be coming out this summer. Lots of interesting things for both developers and consumers, however Mr. Jobs highlighted seven of what he calls "tentpole" features:

1) Multitasking. It was hard to see on the website how well this worked, but it was inevitable that Apple would do this since Apple's competitors are all embracing multitasking as an essential smartphone ability as this class of devices is a defacto mobile computer. For gaming, this is essential to be able to automatically freeze your game when you take a call or check an email and then go back to where you were in the game. For some games this isn't really a problem, but others would reset when you left the app. They highlighted background audio which is really more music, such as being to continue to play Pandora radio music when switching to other apps. Nice if you use your iPhone as an iPod for music, though for video I suppose you could hear the audio from it but since it is video you'd probably want to stop so you don't miss it when you switch away to check something. Then for voice over IP things like Skype will work better for free phone calls. Wait, it's a cell phone... Anyway, they then talked about background location so for example, if you are getting turn-by-turn vocal driving instructions from a navigation app you could be in another app and still hear the audible prompts. That's neat. There were a few more examples of how this will be a benefit, but let's move on.

2) Folder. This applies to the pages of apps you collect. Counting all the apps in my iTunes that I have taken off my iPhone but still own, I probably have 10 pages worth of apps. Maybe more. Folder will allow you to put groupings of apps into folders so you can group things like games, social networking, media etc. I have to admit that is pretty sweet to be able to organize my sea of apps and especially all the games.

3) Unified mail inbox. Not really a benefit to gaming, but you'll be able to organize emails by thread like in gmail and open attachments using actual apps instead of the mail viewer. There are some other things for mail as well. Pretty clever.

4) iBooks for your iPhone. Nothing revolutionary here. They're taking what they did for the iPad and putting it on the iPhone. Nice, I guess.

5) Enterprise. Basically there are some new features for enterprise use of iPhones.

6) Game Center. This is the big one. Essentially Game Center is a gaming social network within the iPhone game universe. Apple showed a slide comparing the iPhone to the PSP and DS for number of gaming/entertainment apps with iPhone at 50,700, DS at 4,321 and PSP at 2,477. Yes, comparing games between the portable consoles and the iPhone is not apples to apples, but Apple was obviously proud to point this out, even if some of those 50k apps include farting and paper tossing apps for 99 cents else free. The best way to describe Game Center is that it is like Xbox Live or PSN: you can invite friends, do matchmaking, see leaderboards and, yes, track achievements. Think about that last one. Remember the Xbox Live achievement gold rush back in 2005, 2006 and even into 2007? The fervor over achievement scores isn't what it once was, but it is still is important in online console communities. It's huge in Warcraft mainly because when you get an achievement everyone around you and everyone in your guild hears about it and you often get "gratz" messages to you. Indeed that is a little emotional boost that does a lot. How this will exactly work on the iPhone wasn't fully explained, but it is safe to say it will be a lot like Xbox Live achievements. Mark my words, this will have a big impact on the iPhone gaming market and Apple is very smart to do this.

7) iAd. This feature will be built into OS4 and will allow developers to integrate ads into their apps that when clicked on, don't take the user out of the app to Safari. It's because of that issue that so many in-app (and yes, in-game ads) don't get clicked on because you leave the app. iAd will allow interactive audio/video ads to appear and then close that don't take the user out of the app. So the ad displays entirely within the app. Apple will sell and host the ads and keep 40% of revenues generated from the ads. The ads themselves can be very interactive and allow users to make purchases from within the ad, making them more like apps within apps. Mark my words, this will have a big impact on the iPhone gaming market and Apple is very smart to do this.

Stimulate this!

2010-04-07T16:10:00.000-07:00

This week I wrote a column for DFC Intelligence that appeared on IndustryGamers the March 30 release of DLC for Modern Warfare 2. While predicting that the "Stimulus Package" map pack sales would be measured in multi-millions is like Lebron making a layup, it was nice to see that Activision itself verified that in less than a week it has already sold over 2.5 million units.

Thoughts on the iPad...

2010-04-05T16:09:00.000-07:00

I've been getting a lot of questions about the iPad, mainly asking me to forecast the date in which it will revolutionize gaming, reasoning that since the iPhone revolutionized gaming the iPad will certainly do it, too.

First of all, the iPhone did not revolutionize gaming. If anything, it legitimized mobile phone gaming because before it came along mobile gaming was at best a mediocre experience that few people in the US participated in and even fewer actually paid for. Sure, in Europe and Japan where cell phones have always been ahead of the US, mobile gaming was more popular but by no means was it a multi-billion dollar industry.

So the iPhone comes along and somewhere in 2009 the buzz about gaming on the platform reached to the point where consultants' heads started spinning about how may trillions of dollars per nanosecond consumer would spend on gaming apps. While it is true that of the nearly 200,000 iPhone apps ever created (current actual number is about 196k as of 4/6/2010), roughly half of them are games. But there is a ton of piracy on the platform and consumers aren't spending quite as much as we would have hoped, given that many of them only dip their toes in paid apps.

Let's put spending question aside and for now, focus on actual usage. The iPhone essentially allowed consumers to play games in all sorts of places that they simply could not before. Before you argue about the DS and PSP, think for a minute about the overlap of DS or PSP owners and cell phone owners. The former are mainly used by kids and teens, respectively, and they are less likely to own cell phones (erm...younger teens aren't as likely). For non handheld gamers, or at least those who don't carry their portable systems everywhere, you can bet they are much more likely to take their cell phones with them wherever they go. So by this rough logic the iPhone has allowed consumers to play games in places they normally had not in the past such as: waiting rooms, public transportation, weddings, funerals, piano recitals, board meetings, the 405 freeway in Los Angeles and most of all...on the toilet.

In other words, the iPhone is extremely portable and you'll take it everywhere anyway. And you can hold it in one hand and play with one thumb, even though most people hold it with one hand and play with a finger on the other hand.

The iPad, however, lacks the same degree of portability and physical usability due to it's weight. When I finally got to try it out over this week the 1.5 pounds felt much heavier than I had expected. Sure, it is way lighter than my laptop, but compared the iPhone it is much more cumbersome and really requires more strength to hold and operate. Along with the larger screen size, this makes the iPad a much different gaming platform than the iPhone, and that does not necessarily mean it will be better.

What it means is that gaming on the iPad will be somewhat different than on the iPhone. With that consider the following:

1) The iPad is less portable so you won't use it in as many places as your iPhone. Yes, you may take it everywhere but you simply can't use it in as many places.

2) Wi-Fi dependency and luxury class cost of 3G access (forget about the hardware cost of the 3G bersion) will inhibit use where internet is not accessible. Think of this as a constraint, not a line item veto. People will still take the iPad to wherever but not having internet access will make the device slightly annoying. This will make gaming on it just slightly, slighty annoying

3) iPad-only games better take advantage of the screen size and processing power. Can we get some clever 3D games and not just mostly 2D with 3D-esque games like on the iPhone? I'm not talking about 3D movie style 3D, but thinks like Doom and Quake 3D.

4) True first person shooters will still be pointless on the iPad, just like they are on the iPhone due to lack of buttons and physical controls. Sure you can hook up a wireless keyboard and mouse, but serioiusly, if I am going to game on it I'm not really going to want to do that since I already have a computer and I might as well play that RTS or MMO game on that and not the iPad.

5) RTS games, while requiring some retooling, might actually be interesting on an iPad. You'd need to rethink the controls but the top down mouse controls from the PC could be converted in some innovative touch interface. Blizzard, I'm looking at you to bring Warcraft III to the iPad.

6) While shooter games will probably still suck, perhaps 3rd person action games could be interesting on the iPad given the larger screen size might allow for enough screen area for innovative controls that are not possible on the iPhone.

7) Purse manufacturers will start making iPad friendly designs. One example: http://www.padster.net/padster___iPad_bag.html I don't know how this will impact gaming but it is worth mentioning.

Wii want a user community and stuff to do

2010-03-25T16:09:00.000-07:00

As a proud owner of all three current consoles I'm finding my playing time between them split 47.5%, 47.5% and 5%. Guess which one is the Wii percentage? And I'm serious about the my 360 and PS3 getting equal playing time. Right now I'm mainly playing Mass Effect 2 and God of War 3, two very high quality exclusives and I'm making a conscious effort to give both playing time. So gold stars for Microsoft (and I guess EA) and Sony.

But for Nintendo, you get a sad panda sticker. As a traditionally defined "core" gamer at heart - despite being a husband and father who does not live in his parents' basement - it is no surprise that I spend the vast majority of my console gaming on the big boys. Even so, I really wish I had more to do on the Wii though that doesn't mean more core games. By core I mean graphically sophisticated shooter, action and role playing games that generally appeal to gamers with a solid history of playing such content. Rather, I want cutesy, mesmerizing games with pretty colors. I really liked Super Mario Galaxy despite being unable to deal with its later, tougher levels. I really liked the Wii bowling - until it wore off. Last summer I loved Tiger Woods 10 with the Wii MotionPlus despite the blocky Wii graphics when displayed on an HD television. This past holiday my wife and I played four player New Super Mario Bros. with my cousin and his girlfriend. Of course my cousin and I were always the worst of the four since both ladies played the original Mario extensively in their respective childhoods where neither my cousin nor I had the original NES. (zomg!) I even bought Guitar Hero 3 for the Wii but realized I hated it because it didn't have Sweet Child 'O Mine from Guitar Hero 2 (for my 360) which was the main reason I bought it in the first place. I rented Boom Blox and, for serious, it was FUN! I even read news headlines and checked the weather on the Wii for the entire first week of owning it. And let's not forget the original Sonic the Hedgehog game I purchased online using Wii points or a credit card or whatever and then proceeded to play it once because some shit just doesn't hold up over time.

Despite really, reeaalllyyy wanting to keep dusting off my Wii, I'm caring less and less about it. The lack of real HD-ness doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that regardless of the lack of quality 3rd party games, there is no real online community for the Wii. Sure, the Modern Warfare 2 player base on both 360 and PS3 gets a bad name (esp. on 360) for all the foul language, racial and homophobic slurs, but you can always find a multiplayer or even coop match in most games. In other words, there is always something to do or something to see. I don't play as much online MP on my consoles, but I'm always cruising for the latest demos and even arcade games. On the Wii, I just don't care anymore about whatever mediocre content is there through the Wii channels.

So what does this mean about my desires for an online community on the Wii? I want some kind of fun, low intensity multiplayer experience, whether competitive or cooperative, that is a bright, cartoony, excellentlyer art designyer-ed, thingy-thing...to thing around with. I'm not even sure what I'm getting at. Give me a cartoony wooden crate to smash with a paddle in a bleach white Matrix loading program type environment whether I see other Miis playing around smashing their own crates. And let puppies and kittens emerge from those broken crates and leave adorable poops on the sterile white floor. Pets who emerge from my smashed crates are red and poop pink poops while pets who emerge from other Mii's crates are green and their pets are lime and they poop teal poops. I have to move around and dodge teal poops while other Miis must dodge my pets' pink poops all while we try to put black leashes on each others' pets to get them to stop pooping. Award sad panda points for touching teal poops and gold stars when your opponents touch your pets' pink poops. Add a round timer and you're done. This is a Wii multiplayer game that you could probably release as an operating system patch.

I don't know, give me something Nintendo. And more importantly, recall my cousin mentioned above. He lives a quarter mile away, has a Wii and somehow we have never connected to each others' Wii in any type of multiplayer or multiuser online environment.

To me, this is the biggest missing element in the Wii.

Free 2 Play, not just for games anymore

2010-03-19T21:35:00.001-07:00

In today's LA Times I read an article about how tiny amusement parks are drawing visitors while the big well known theme parks operated by major players like Six Flags and Disney are seeing declining attendance and revenues. In particular, the article says:

...tiny beach-side amusement parks along the California coast are reporting robust business and big crowds while most of the state's big theme parks have seen shrinking revenue.

Small, privately owned seaside parks, such as Pacific Park at the pier in Santa Monica, Belmont Park in San Diego and the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, don't have multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns or 3-D attractions as do Disneyland and Universal Studios Hollywood. But they boast something even more appealing to penny-pinching tourists: Free admission.

As a result, vacationers are turning to old-fashioned Ferris wheels and carousels over expensive, high-tech thrill rides.

So basically these smaller parks are free admission and you pay a ride at a time, a complete contrast to big parks like Disneyland or Universal Studios where you pay $60 or more for admission, another $10 to $20 to park and because you typically are not allowed to bring outside food (right?) you pay $4 per churro, $3.50 for a 16 oz bottle of Dansani, $9.95 for a personal pan pizza and $24.95 for a set a photo of you and your loved ones screaming while coming down the massive "waterfall" in the Jurassic Park ride. With any luck you can avoid paying bail for your older, balder and fatter son.

Ok, so all the extra and expensive things you pay for at a Disneyland or Universal Studios would be extra in a small park, too, so that isn't much of a difference except perhaps the grandeur and pricing scale. For the admission component, however, there is a huge difference between the small guys and the big guys.

The small guys are like Free 2 Play (F2P) games where the game is, yes, free to actually play it. You only pay for the extras like maybe access to higher levels or certain areas of the game or items and pets and weapons or chances to win a prize. So you can play all you want within the limits of the game and pick and choose what you pay for. Or you simply pay to speed up progression though different aspects of the game.

The big guys are like premium MMOs [cough]worldofwarcraft[/cough] where you pay to buy the game on DVD or download it, then pay an additional all-access monthly fee which typically ranges from $10 to $15. It can be a great experience but over time it gets very expensive.

F2P games can get expensive, too, but in a way the pricing is fairer. Lite users pay less while heavy users pay more. Though to be fair some heavy users never pay in some MMO games and some lite users pay to speed up their progression and ironically play for less time than the heavy users. Whatever the terminology, you pay as much as your are willing to based on your own needs. In essence it is a more accurate pricing model in that users pay for what they consume with more granularity. With traditional subscription MMOs the only consistent metric of play user is number of hours per period. A user who plays 100 hours in a month pays the same as someone who plays only 50 or as much as 200. (Note, if you or anyone you know plays any MMO for 200 a month you or they can no longer be killed because you cannot kill that which has no life...)

This is not an endorsement for F2P games. It's just that while the packaged goods video games business struggles with profitability, the F2P games in Asia are making a killing. Even Facebook games which make money using similar F2P models are starting to make money and the biggest Facebook game developers (Playfish, Zynga, etc.) are making a lot of money.

F2P models and traditional MMO models will probably peacefully coexist for a while, and it is unlikely World of Warcraft will go F2P anytime soon. If we go back to the F2P style amusement parks vs. Universal Studios and focus only on access to rides (and not parking or food or crappy memorabilia and highly flammable winnable stuffed animals for little Susie) we are left with paying per ride vs. paying a large entrance fee and ride as much as you want...or at least as much as you can stand reading "45 minute wait from this spot" signs for hours at a time. In other words, we're talking about F2P vs. the $60 one time fee for a typical high-end console game. And what I am saying is that eventually, the F2P games will start threatening the $60 disc based game market. It's not a question of if but when.

This isn't to say that tomorrow the retail publishing businesses of Activison, Ubisoft, EA and all their friends are doomed, or that the retail market is destined for total annihilation. It's just that these publishers are going to have to adapt in response as the F2P model gains further traction in Western markets.

Feb 2010 NPD recap

2010-03-15T21:55:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday while GDC was still going strong in San Francisco, NPD released February 2010 retail sales data. Per the usual Industry Gamers picked up the story and published the top 10 video game titles of the month courtesy NPD:

Hardware dollars sales were down 20% from February a year ago, while software was down 15% and accessories were flat. On the whole the month was down 15% from a year ago.

Below is a reprint of the top 10 from Feb 2009:

Observations:

1) No PSP titles made the top 10 in Feb 2009 or Feb 2010. Same story as Jan 2010 vs. Jan 2009.

2) No DS titles made the top 10 in Feb 2010, while Mario Kart and Super Mario Bros (both 1st party) made it in the top 10 in Feb 2009. Again, this is the same story as Jan 2010 vs. Jan 2009. And Feb 2010 DS hardware sales were 613k, slightly higher than Feb 2009. So despite selling a little more DS handhelds vs. a year ago, there were no DS titles in the top 10. Overall vs. Feb a year ago, DS software sales were actually down by 15%. Wait...DS hardware sales up slightly while software sales down by 15%. Ouch. Where are all those software sales going? (more on that below...)

3) Three Wii titles made the Feb 2010 top 10 vs. four in Feb 2009. No big deal there. But Wii titles ranked 2, 4, and 5 whereas in 2009 the ranks were 1, 4, 6, and 10. That's another indirect signal of Wii software decline besides the fact that total Wii hardware sales in Feb 2010 were only 398k, a huge decline from Feb 2009. Others have said and I will say it, too: the Wii needs a stimulus package or some kind of Nintendo bailout in 2010 if its business is going to pick up steam. Yes, there have been supply problems. But after all this time if demand is still that strong to outstrip supply, you'd think Nintendo would keep the retail inventory a little higher? What's up with that?

4) Next we get to the "concentration percentage" that I failed to coin when looking at last month. By that I mean, what percentage of total unit sales for the month were represented by the top 10 titles? In Feb 2009 the top 10 sellers by units represented 16% of total software unit sales. In Feb 2010, it rose to 20%. That isn't terribly concerning, however total software unit sales were down by 16%. Once again, the top titles are taking a larger share of a shrinking market. Still, we are in a worse economic climate for video game sales now than a year ago before the bottom dropped out so comps aren't exactly apples to apples...but still, it's a stat to watch.

5) Despite the brewing legal battle between Activision and the two Infinity Ward studio execs it fired on March 1, Modern Warfare 2 is still selling: 314k units on Xbox360 and 253k units on PS3, meaning MW2 on PS3 was 80.5% of the sales on Xbox360 for the month. In January 2010 the PS3 to Xbox360 ratio for MW2 was a similar 79%. Compared to other big multiplatform launches, this is a higher ratio. Good news for Sony.

6) Speaking of point #5 above, Bioshock on Xbox360 did 563k units, while on the PS3 version did not register in the top 10. That's a much lower ratio of PS3 to 360 units. Not so good for Sony.

Back to #2 above...
Where are all those DS sales going? Despite the general management declarations from both Sony and Nintendo, the iPhone and iPod Touch are defacto competitors to the PSP and DS. On Dec 31, 2009 in my last 10 years recap post I talked about how there was data showing iPod Touch app/game downloads spiked much higher than iPhone app/game downloads on Christmas day, indicating the iPod Touch was a big Christmas present. Beyond that data, I have been noticing more kids playing with these Apple systems and fewer playing with DS and PSP systems. That is not scientific evidence nor should it be misinterpreted as proof that the iPhone is eating into the DS/PSP market. Instead, I am simply asserting based on pieces of data I have seen plus my observations of kids around Los Angeles (and San Francicso...and Chicago...) that, in fact, the iPhone is starting to cannibalize the DS/PSP market. If you have supporting or counter evidence, please do let me know.

At VCON event at GDC on Wed Mar 10

2010-03-09T11:56:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow at GDC in San Francisco at Live Gamer's VCON event I will moderating a panel on "How to bring social functionality into traditional game design…and actually make it work" at 10:30 am. It's in North Hall Room 123 at the Moscone Center. I am very excited to moderate the panel because it will provide real insight from 5 social media and gaming experts who have been thinking about this topic long before anyone else had heard the term "social media" and much less "social functionality." The panelests include:

Amy Jo Kim | CEO | Shufflebrain
Kai Huang | Founder | Guitar Hero
Dennis Fong | CEO | Raptr
Dan Fiden | GM, San Francisco Studio | Playfish
Mike Verdu | SVP, Games | Zynga

In our 45 minute panel we will be discussing:

What do we mean by "social functionality" in traditional games?
What are examples of traditional games successfully implementing social functionality?
...and what are examples of failures?
Why implement social functionality? What could it do for a traditional game?
Do's and don'ts of implementing social functionality in traditional games
Where is social functionality in traditional games going?
What traditional publishers/developers are best positioned to take advantage of social functionality?

If you are going to GDC and interested in this topic, stop by VCON. You won't want to miss it.

PS. As of right now the agenda still lists my colleague, David Cole of DFC Intelligence as the moderator, and has me co-presenting a talk later in the day with him. It should say that I am moderating the 10:30 am panel and he's doing the afternoon presentation without me but it hasn't been updated on the Live Gamer site yet.

New Facebook Games Dashboard

2010-03-01T11:05:00.000-08:00

Back in January Facebook unveiled plans to launch a new games dashboard where "Users will be able to look at their games, see what their friends are playing and see recommended games by the site and publishers." That was not a surprising development given the growth of games on the site.

What is interesting is how Facebook will handle microtransactions for users buying virtual goods that was explained in a recent developer blog. Essentially, users will buy credits to use in games that work across all games. So rather than buy Farmville etc. goods directly from developers, users will pay with Facebook credits bought from Facebook. This virtual currency will be purchased using the same conventional social media buying mechanisms, i.e., credit cards, Paypal or mobile phone billings. Application developers will then received 70 cents of every dollar's worth of goods purchased within their apps.

I don't know what the exchange rate between Facebook credits and dollars will be, but pretend 100 credits costs 1 USD. If I buy a virtual good for 100 credits, the developer will receive 70 cents. Ok, so not rocket science.

Observations:

1) A 70% take is the same rate that iPhone app developers get on sales. I'm curious how Facebook came to their 70% number, though I admit I don't know what kind of take Facebook has been getting all along on app sales. My feeling is that 70% seems like a plausible number if you are happy with how developer payments work on the Apple App store. But Apple and Facebook, are different kinds of companies. Apple characterizes their 30% take of App sales as not a large profit center compared to the rest of its business. Facebook may view its 30% take very differently given the only other real revenue source is advertising.

2) Also mentioned in the developer blog above, Facebook credits will be available in 15 currencies. I'm curious, but will the relative price of those currencies fluctuate with the global currency market? If today $1 US gets me 100 credits, will it be the same price tomorrow if USD suddenly rises hugely against the Euro while simultaneously changing at a different rate against the Yen?

Let's assume once the Facebook Credits price is set in a real currency, it won't change frequently, if at all. Further, assume it stays constant within each of the 15 real currencies. In simpler terms, if a 10 year old kid in the US tells her mom she want $5 worth of Facebook credits for something, and then tomorrow those 500 credits will now cost $6 dollars, I would hope that savvy mom will wrinkle her eyebrow and says "wait a second..."

Going further still, could there be a Facebook type of FOREX market? A virtual currency exchange dealing in actual virtual currencies backed by real currencies...that could make your head spin. I can see it now: "Facebook FOREX for Dummies" ads all over the internet.

The only reason I bring up the multiple currencies point is due to the potential daily volume of sales on Facebook across potentially millions of daily purchasers doing millions of daily transactions. We're not talking about buying/selling of goods on Ebay that require shipping and relatively long processing and travel times. On Facebook it's instant and the boundaries between people in counties are virtually non-existent. Facebook will have to main a kind of firewall between users from different regions that use different currencies who would like to buy in one currency over another depending on the exchange rate. That's wouldn't be hard to do and I can only assume that Facebook is way ahead of me and already prepared to set that up. Again, it's not rocket science. And most people probably don't care too much about trying to find currency arbitrage opportunities via Facebook, much the same way people don't (and can't) on Xbox Live using the increasingly maligned Microsoft Points.

And since Microsoft Point prices don't change often, this table shows the current differences by region based on general exchange rates. Won't these need to change on Facebook since buying credits will probably occur at similar amounts as Microsoft Points.

Finally, what will be the consumer reaction and will it actually increase purchasing? Facebook says it will and also claims it will increase revenues developers net. We'll see.

Did someone spook Microsoft and Sony?

2010-02-24T09:45:00.000-08:00

Today both Microsoft and Sony released statements about how they plan to be cautions regarding their entry into motion control market for their consoles. Microsoft had this to say which I first read about on Edge Online:

“We are going to be really careful in the way we think about our portfolio for Project Natal. We want the first impression to be a great one, so we are not just going to dump products because we can. We are going to be very thoughtful about what we bring to market.”

Really? Are you simply trying to say you aren't going to put shovelware games on Natal? This is kind of meaningless until E3 when, assuming the Holiday 2010 launch holds true, Microsoft will have to unveil whatever software it has up its sleeve.

Meanwhile, Sony had this to say, which I also first discovered on Edge Online:

“Rather than go out and do a whole PR barrage to give everybody the 'happy, happy, joy, joy' news, we're going to show up and have a line-up of products to show people rather than having a lot of great statements to say, 'This is what's going to happen'."

Does this mean there won't be any PR for Arc compatible software leading up to its launch? Seriously, I doubt that is possible as Sony will have to unveil something at E3, again assuming a Holiday 2010 Arc launch.

The fact that both Microsoft and Sony are issuing cautionary PR statements on the same day - Sony's ironically discussing how they won't do a PR barrage for Arc - makes it appear as if (a) they hired the same PR firm that gave them both odd advice or (b) they have been spying on each other or (c) this is a crazy coincidence or (d) one of them released a statement and the other decided it needed a same-day response implying a brewing PR war which would defy Sony's statement about not doing a PR barrage or (e) they both have no good software yet and are trying to set the bar low for E3.

Thoughts on January 2010 Top Sellers

2010-02-21T16:23:00.000-08:00

If you saw the January Xbox 360 new releases forecast as part of the article on IndustryGamers in my last blog post...Mass Effect 2 was a bit off. My bad. Actually the model on RPGs works quite well, I just didn't run it quite right and now have fixed that so expect a return to better results like the one for Nov 2009.

Below is the table of January 2010 top sellers as published by NPD on IndustryGamers:

And next is a table taken from January 2009 top sellers as published by NPD on Edge Online:

Observations:

1) Half of 2010's top 10 are Wii titles, 4 out of the 5 published by Nintendo. So same old story about Nintendo topping the Wii charts. In 2009, 3 out of the 4 Wii titles were 1st party. In both 2009 and 2010 the single 3rd party Wii title was a Music/Dance game that sold between 150k and 200k units. But in 2009 the music game was Guitar Hero World Tour, whereas this year it was Just Dance. This does not prove the relative decline of guitar and rise of dance subgenres, but it certainly puts a somewhat significant drop in the evidence bucket of just that. Perhaps by the time Microsoft's Natal and Sony's Arc peripherals release for Holiday 2010, this year will be known as the one when dance resurged? Time will tell...

2) Zero PSP titles in 2009. Zeroo PSP titles in 2010. Is anyone surprised? But in 2009 there were two NDS titles. 2010 saw zero NDS titles. Neither the 4th quarters of 2008 or 2009 had major 1st party NDS launches, except perhaps Zelda Spirit tracks in Q4 2009. But the bigger issue is that NDS hardware sales in Jan 2010 were down by 17% from Jan 2009 with retail software down a similar %. Sure, digital sales on DSi could have made up some of that difference, but surely not enough. But here's the real burn with 2010's NDS software sales, the top 10 selling January 2010 DS SKUs sold more than the top 10 January 2009 DS SKUs. So the top titles took a larger share of a smaller pie on NDS. That's a bit scary for the handheld market, though if it is economy driven the question is will DS sales rebound if/when the overall economy rebounds this year?

3) Army of Two: The 40th Day, a sequel to a strong selling original IP, did not sell nearly the same amoun the original game did despite similar review scores (both low 70's). We've seen this lesson before, particularly with the True Crime series on PS2 and Xbox, that when marketing and other factors help sell a mediocre original IP it is very hard to sell more copies with the sequel unless you improve the game significantly. This isn't an iron clad rule with zero exceptions, but it is a pretty strong guideline. It should be noted that Mass Effect 2 (mid 90's), one of the top scoring games of this generation, outsold and outscored the original Mass Effect (low 90's) in their respective launch months.

4) Bayonetta, a well reviewed (upper 80's) core action game from SEGA that released on the same day as THQ's core action game Darksiders (low 80's) did not make the top 10. Even in core categories genres review score is never a 100% correlation to game sales. But word is Bayonetta sold much better relative to Darksiders and Army of Two 2 in Europe and Japan than it did in the US.

5) Finally, the top 10 of Jan 2010 sold about 3.6 million units while the top 10 of Jan 2009 sold 2.7 million units. That's an increase of 32%. Meanwhile, total dollars software sales in Jan 2010 (ie, all title...not just top 10) were down 13%. And total unit sales were also down 13%. So the top 10 total was up - waaay up - but the total sales for the month were waaay down.

Overall conclusions about 2010:
- Dance games will sell 8,000,000,000 units in 2010. Ok maybe not that many but the Dance subgenre of Music/Dance should be up over 2009 while pure Music games should be down. Not rocket science after what happened in 2009 but with Natal and Arc coming this isn't a dramatic prediction

- Sales are trending more hits driven with the core gamer driving sales. Also not a tough conclusion in the context of where we finished 2009.

- Speaking of core games, quality will matter even more than before as with games likethe EA/Bioware masterpiece Mass Effect 2. (I'm biased because I'm playing and loving it, and I generally avoid console RPGs like the plague.) Army of Two: 4oth Day sold relatively poorly as a sequel that did not dramatically improve the quality from the original. This point will be made clear when the February 2010 sales results come out in March showing how badly Dante's Inferno will have sold in its launch month despite EA's Superbowl, NBA All-Star game and overall TV ad budget. The ad did not fit the product because of the terrible music choice that may have resonated with 30-something women but likely not core gamers. And it was generally ill advised being placed in the Superbowl in the first place. The game itself, like both Army of Two games, was reviewed in the mid to low 70s. These days it's hard for a $10million+ US TV budget to save a game of that quality with no other intrinsic hooks/innovations around its premise/gameplay.

January 2010 Xbox 360 game usage...

2010-02-09T14:36:00.000-08:00

Today IndustryGamers put up my analysis (published through my DFC partnership) of January Xbox 360 game usage. It shows Electronic Art's Mass Effect 2 as being the #1 January release in terms of play on the 360, and hence we predict it will outsell all other new releases for the month by at least 6 to 1. January NPD data releases Thursday of this week, so we'll have to wait and see how accurate we were. Head over to IndustryGamers for the full story.

December 2009 NPD releases today

2010-01-14T11:15:00.000-08:00

Today NPD releases December 2009 US video game retail sales numbers, completing 2009's full year of sales data. By now it is clear that sales for the year will be down from 2008, but by exactly how much won't be known until the data releases. Predictions for the year-over-year decline are around 10% to as much as 15%. Whatever the numbers, it's fairly clear what's to blame, though the quantifiable impact of each of these may be a bit elusive and they are highly related to one another:

1) Recession. (It' the economy, stupid!)
2) Saturation of guitar controllers. This leads to sales revenue erosion as consumers opted for cheaper disk only versions of new music games and less of the big bundles. And music game sales at retail are down in general...
3) Slowdown in Wii sales compared to 2008. Another price cut is needed as the Wii sold like gangbusters to traditionally non-gaming consumers/households, pushed to the saturation point of this more casual market at $249 and then $199 price points. It has to cut again in 2010 to expand further.
4) Slowdown in infamous casual games. To some degree this means music games, however many traditionally core games buy and love music games, too. It's just that the traditionally casual consumer bought less of things like Ubisoft's Imagine brand and My Coach series and the pleathora of party games on the Wii...or much of anything else that wasn't Nintendo published.

Also, I have made some forecasts for a few Xbox 360 titles that launched in Dec 2009. This month I won't be releasing those forecast here (they are actually appearing somewhere else) but let's just say that I am expecting James Cameron's Avatar: The Game to have sold very poorly for being based on what will likely become the new king of global box office ticket sales. The game received mediocre reviews, and this is a real missed opporunity for Ubisoft. Personally I have seen the movie twice and will probably see it a 3rd time this weekend. It actually made me excited to play the game until I watched video reviews and talked to some people who hated the game despite loving the film.

Top 10 Gaming Trends 2000 - 2009, Top 10 predictions for next 10 years

2009-12-31T20:11:00.000-08:00

So it's the last day of the first decade of the millennium. Er...wait. The millennium actually started Jan 1, 2001 so the last day of the first decade would be Dec 31, 2010, but since we like years that end in 0, why not do a top 10 gaming trends of the past 10 years. In the 1990's, the biggest development in gaming was the advent of 3D (not the James Cameron presents James Cameron's Avatar...by James Cameron kind of 3D but the Doom/Quake 3D graphics kind). So what were the big trends and developments in the gaming industry from 2000 to 2009?

Here they are in no particular order:

1) Microsoft formally enters console gaming market (Nov 2001)
With the launch of the original Xbox by the largest business software publisher, video games increasingly got the attention of mainstream and business news outlets such as the NYT, WSJ and Forbes. While gaming still had the (mis)perception of being a teen male anti-social basement activity, Wall Street's sudden increased interest in the gaming business contributed to the blossoming of the industry in the first half of the decade. And when the industry maintained its growth through the 2001/2002 recession, the industry was dubiously dubbed "recession resistant."

2) Grand Theft Auto III (Launched Oct 2001)
A month before Microsoft unzipped the fly on the Xbox, Sony and Rockstar launched the biggest brand re-invention in the history of gaming. While GTA I and II had a good following, GTA III was the start of the action/driving hybrid genre and to this day is the genre's dominant brand. For a long time any other game that tried to copy its gameplay was dubbed a "GTA clone." Comparatively, early first person shooters after Doom were dubbed "Doom clones," though the genre grew so fast that new brands were considered new FPS games, not just clones. In the action/driving genre however, the "GTA clone" label stuck for a very long time since no other brand has been able to surpass it. GTA III set the bar for M-rated controversy, depth of story telling and cinematic writing and acting, particularly with 2008's GTA IV. The brand's impact on popular culture is clear, even if that impact has been portrayed as largely villainous and corrupting of youth. It has a huge global following today, though it does face challenges in terms of development costs and consistent revenue capture.

3) Sony's PlayStation 2 (Launched Oct 2000)
Unlike the Xbox launch in 2001, Sony's launch of the original PlayStation in 1995 didn't get quite as much mainstream media attention, though it probably should have since the PS1 was obviously in the top 10 gaming developments of the 1990s. But the PS2 was another huge force in the rising of gaming the last 10 years, and a major reason had nothing to with games. The machine played DVDs right out of the box. You didn't need to buy an extra remote (though many people did) as was required with the Xbox DVD player. Many people even used the PS2 as their first and primary DVD player. But the other thing Sony got right was games. Lots of games. Lots of good games. While the Xbox was mainly about the Halo franchise and some other shooters, the PS2 had huge successes in many genres. It was a truly mass-market platform and it established Sony as the king of gaming as well as provided the bulk of the corporate profits to the massive Sony empire.

4) World of Warcraft (Launched Nov 2004)
Back in 1999 when I worked in the CPG-food business as a financial database developer, one of my more senior colleagues was able to get two extra PCs in his secluded cubicle for "systems development." The I.T. guys didn't know one was outfitted with a high end Voodoo card so he could play games. The reason he did this was so he could play EverQuest as much as possible. I didn't understand why he was so addicted to it, as I was strictly a Half-Life / QuakeIII / Unreal Tournament gamer and the concept of role playing that didn't require fast reflexes and 3D spacial reasoning in the same way as a shooter did was about as interesting to me as Lord of the Rings is to my wife. But World of Warcraft changed all that. Its completeness of vision, depth, open ended story and beautiful art design finally snagged me some time in 2007, years after it launched. Today I have a level 80 toon who is now in semi-retirement.

Before WoW, a leading MMO (such as EQ) could sustain perhaps 400,000 subscribers, with a monthly subscription curve featuring a growth period that lasted roughly a 12 to 18 months, then stabilized for a few years, then slowly declined. After WoW cemented itself in the MMO landscape by late 2005, no other game could come close to its numbers and the typical MMO subscription curve fundamentally changed to (a) very rapid uptake as users flocked to the free trial followed by (b) very rapid drop off as a large portion of the users went back to playing WoW and (c) a long plateau period that had a gradual decline, ultimately leading to (d) closure of the game. WoW didn't just sustain more than a million subscribers, it sustained multi-millions in each of North America, Europe and Asia. Popular belief is that it peaked at around 12 to 12.5 million worldwide users, however the 2009 operator changeover in China led to a months long outage that definitely impacted the total. Even so, because subscribers in China pay only a small fraction of what NA and EU users pay, the profitability of the game for Activision-Blizzard hasn't been hugely impacted. In short, WoW redefined what an MMO could be and will probably be the permanent gold standard in MMO execution.

5) Transformation of PC gaming
This is a bit of a misleading trend because PC gaming has always been under constant flux given the constant growth of underlying hardware capabilities combined with its open architecture for indy, underground, mod, exploratory and experimental game design. It is also directly connected to a few of the other trends listed here. The biggest PC gaming sub-trend of late is the frequent squabbling about whether PC gaming is dying. Certainly retail game sales of box PC gaming product has been on the decline due to (1) growth of consoles in general, (2) more specifically the acceptance of shooters on consoles (thank you, Halo), (3) piracy and (4) digital distribution. But the decline of retail PC games sales does not mean PC gaming as a business is declining. World of Warcraft and most other MMOs are played exclusively on PCs and they generate huge collective revenues. Major PC brands like Half-Life now generate more revenues from sales on Steam than they do at retail stores. Downloadble PC gaming content provide more revenues, as well as virtual item purchases. Let's also not forget black market MMO gold farming; it doesn't contribute to publisher/developer revenues, but certainly it is a cottage industry on the fringe of gaming. See trend #10 below for more...

6) Nintendo's Wii (Launched Nov 2006)
By now it's clear that major gaming trends are often tied to platforms, which should make sense because what do we picture when someone says "video games?" We often think of the physical hardware we actually use. The Wii was the biggest transformation in terms of how we play and who played. It is not the first gaming system to feature motion sensing (remember the Nintendo PowerGlove?), it's just the first to matter. Perhaps it didn't exactly inspire Microsoft's idea for Natal, but it certainly proved you don't need to have ordinary controls to have extraordinary platform success. As for the content itself on the Wii, that's a different problem and as of now, Nintendo is per usual the strongest publisher on its own platform.

7) Rising Costs of Traditional Game Development
While blockbuster games like Halo 3, Modern Warfare 2 and GTA IV generated hundreds of millions (even billions) of dollars of cumulative global sales, they also cost up to $100 million each produce. And then there is the marketing cost. For MW2, the global launch budget was said to be over $200 million. The problem in the industry, particularly in the era of the PS3 and Xbox 360, is that the minimum quality bar for creating content for these platforms for traditional shooter, action, RPG and most other major gaming genres is now so high that an ever increasing number of games will not be profitable. They simply can't sell enough units to cover their fixed costs. Team sizes have grown, research and development has become more in depth, technology and infrastructure costs have grown accordingly, and then there are the licensing fees that so many publishers have to pay to get all those movie, music, TV and sports games made... There is a reason why there has been so much consolidation and publisher/developer closures. Back in the 80s a few people in a garage could build a complete game in a couple months. Now typical PS3 or Xbox 360 games take two years and a team of over 100 developers, and that's if everything goes smoothly which rarely ever happens.

8) Death of mobile phone gaming and birth of iPhone gaming
Early this decade when mobile phones in the US started getting color screens, big research firms made the tour through the mobile phone service providers with those graphs that said how mobile gaming would generate $186 billion per second per user and grow at 50% per year up through 2015. Okay, maybe not that much but all the arrows on the charts shown to industry executives pointed up, figuring that mobile phones would eventually saturate teens and everyone from Wall Street traders to soccer moms to high school druggies would play games on their devices. But what they didn't understand was that the devices were way behind the curve compared to devices in Europe and Japan where they were seeing higher mobile gaming penetration rates. And oversees much of mobile gaming occurred on trains and buses where commuters were actually able to play, whereas we're too busy driving and talking or texting rather than playing. Finally, there were too many phones with different operating systems, screen formats, keypad interfaces and other differences to make porting a game feasible. In fact, porting a game to a plethora of platforms (which were constantly changing anyway) cost more than actually producing games. Despite the problems, publishers like Electronic Arts made major moves in the space such as acquiring Los Angeles based mobile publisher Jamdat for $680 million in 2006. But mobile consumers simply weren't playing, much less buying, for all the reasons stated above. So much for the charts.

The mobile game industry transformed when in June of 2007 Apple released the iPhone. With a revolutionary touch screen interface that was actually easy to use, connected to iTunes and very slick marketing, the product delivered and essentially fixed every single issue of the fractionalized mobile handset market. By the end of 2009 roughly 130,000 iPhone apps have been released to be sold to over 30 million iPhones. Roughly one third of the apps are games with many more classified as entertainment apps with high crossover between them.

The iPhone will have a huge long term impact on gaming, though it may not necessarily compete direct with DSi and PSP gamers, or so the thinking goes. Initially most analysts believed the iPhone would be a separate market from traditional gaming handhelds which were mostly targeted at kids and teens. A sophisticated mobile device like an iPhone with Internet capabilities would be more than most parents would spend on their children. As a gamer and iPhone owner since Nov 2008, I believe I have personally spent at least $50 on a variety of iPhone games, some only 99 cents, some up to $6.99, and many that were free. Has it cannibalized my gaming on other platforms? Probably a little, though I don't know if it has yet cannibalized my spending on those other platforms. But there is data that suggests the download volume on iPod Touches was significantly higher than on iPhones on Christmas day and the day after, implying that the iPod Touch was a very popular gift this year. The buzz I have heard is that every kid now wants an iPod Touch (or in fact, an iPhone) mainly for the gaming capabilities. That alone implies the platform is an increasing threat to the DS and PSP markets. There is much more to discuss about what the iPhone has done and how it will continue to shape the market, but let's leave it at that for now.

9) Guitar Hero (Launched Nov 2005)
Top line gaming industry revenues grew significantly from 2007, even more so in 2008. On the hardward side, the majority of that growth came from sales of the Wii and DS. On the software side, almost all of the growth came from the Music/Dance games. The genre saw the single biggest two year growth of any genre in the decade going from less than $100 million in the US in 2003 to nearly $2 billion in 2008. Once dominated by the niche DDR games, Guitar Hero ushered in a new way to experience music that made simulated guitar accessible and enjoyable. Now everyone could get a taste of what it is like to be a rock star even if they had no musical talent whatsoever. Trust me, I fall into that category. While Guitar Hero's growth exploded and enticed a very worthy competitor in the Rock Band franchise, it was the original brand that tapped into the hidden rock fantasies of millions of gamers that created the phenomenon. I find it more interesting that it gave non-gamers a reason to take notice of gaming as medium to become something they are not likely to become in real life. This is the same thing "core" gamers experience in an RPG or shooter or a sports game or a racing sim and so forth. In essence, Guitar Hero helped to grow gaming by bring in more gamers who would have never touched a controller.

10) Digital Distribution
This trend was covered a bit already in #5 above. As stated, Steam (launched in Sep 2003) had a huge impact on PC gaming drawing the vast majority of digital distribution dollars. Developers that have published their games on Steam that are not Valve have suggested that Valve has such a stranglehold on the PC digital distribution market that Steam should really be divested from it to prevent a conflict of interest. While that may be debatable, the significance of Steam and other digital distribution platforms is not. PC gaming shelf space at retail has shrunk to very small levels. The big question is when and how this will impact the console market. Already you can buy arcade games, older catalog games or otherwise "small" games on Xbox Live, PSN or the Wii store...and even the DSi and now the PSPGo. Sure, only Xbox Live has had any significant success and it's possible the PSPGo may even "fail" as a platform. The problem with digital distribution on consoles is bandwidth and local storage size. With high end games consuming as much as 10 gigs or more (and maybe beyond the capacity of a single BluRay disc) storing all that data on console hard drives is a huge concern, not to mention the time it takes to download and the fact that not all consoles are connected to the internet. But multi-gig games such as Half-Life 2 or World of Warcraft are available in download only form on the PC with clever "background" download capabilities via Steam etc., so we know that it is possible on a console assuming the space issue is solved. The next decade is poised to see a viable hybrid model between retail and digital distribution for all platforms. And if we go back the iPhone, it is a defacto gaming platform with exclusive digital distribution because the bandwidth and storage issues were solved before the platform was even released.

And now to the predictions for 2010 through 2019. These will be brief:

1) On the heals of #10 above, digital distribution will take off on console, aided by not only ever increasing roll out of broadband, but the advent of terabyte sized solid state hard drives for gaming consoles. This won't really happen until around 2014.

2) By 2011, on-demand gaming (Gaikai, OnLine, Otoy, etc) will deliver what it promises (at least for simpler games) but business models will be tough. Things like WoW and Call of Duty will face big technical hurdles that won't get resolved until a few yeas later, if at all.

3) In 2010 the iPhone will get accessories that make console like controls for FPS and Action games feasible. True cannibalization of traditional console gaming will follow though it won't be as crushing as some people fear.

4) More standardized development tools will emerge to help drive down costs and contribute to a true indy games movement akin to what happened to indy films in the last decade. This will be a slow process but necessary if the industry is to survive.

5) Natal will be very popular when it hits in late 2010, but it won't be as amazing as everyone thinks it will be. Sure it will be fun and offer new gameplay, but people will still want to play games using their existing controller. Take a lesson from Tony Hawk: Ride on that one.

6) Brazil and India will become huge mobile gaming markets once the iPhone and Google phones take off there.

7) HTC will become a strong second tier mobile platform behind iPhone by mid 2011. There will be a few solid games but iPhone will still be the mobile gaming platform of choice.

8) A movie based on a video game property will will a technical Oscar and at least a nomination for writing, acting or directing by 2017. (Wow, did I just predict that?)

9) World of Warcraft will slip to a mere 8 million global users by late 2012 and go flat at 6 million until 2014 when Blizzard has its next MMO ready.

10) A major presidential candidate in 2016 will have a history of playing online shooter and MMO games in the 1990s.

Best Bundles of Fun

2009-12-22T14:48:00.000-08:00

So 2009 is going to be a bad year for video games, at least relative to 2008. I'm sure other industries are playing tiny violins given the amazing overall industry growth since 2000 with CAGR since then somewhere close to 12 or 13%. Ok that number may be down by year end to something like 10% or less, but still that's not bad. In the long run (ie, hopefully 2010) things will turn up, even if an ever increasing percentage of sales goes digital and away from retail. We (DFC) made some interesting forecasts about exactly that.

Meanwhile, every holiday season retailers offer bundles of consoles and game products specifically manufactured by 1st parties. For example, this November saw the release of exclusive Xbox 360 Elite Modern Warfare 2 bundles that was coceived of in a partnership between Microsoft and Activision. This year also saw a PS3 Slim with both Uncharted and Ratchet & Clank games. The consumer is used to these official bunndles at specialty gaming and big box retailers like Gamestop and Best Buy.

Then there are the distribution retailers - meaning retailers that buy through distributors rather than directly from manufacturers - that make their own bundles. This means they get games, get consoles and somehow bundle them all together with shrink wrap, duct tape, glue or whatever. When the Wii was new, many mom and pop type retailers were selling Wii consoles with an extra Wii-mote plus five or six games for an incredible price of over $1000. That's like Ebay pricing. As time went on and the high markup aftermarket for next gen consoles died off, these absurd bundles disappeared from stores, too.

But all along some larger distributor retailers, particularly Fry's on the West Coast, continued with their own custom assembled bundles though with reasonable pricing where the bundle might actually make sense to buy. Best Buy, however, always went with the official manufacturer offerings and only offered the standard bundles.

That is until now.

In the days before Christmas in Best Buy I discovered all three 1st party manufacturers had custom bundles held together by big rubber bands. Each of the first party had at least one bundle and for Best Buy, this looked a step closer to the distribution retailer type "at store shrink wrap" variety of bundle. I'm sure Best Buy funded these and probably got official backing from each 1st party to do so, but it's just interesting that this is the first time I've seen the leading electronics specialty store do this. At the right you can see the Xbox 360 retailer bundle offering an extra controller which was also offered at other retailers. The only difference here was that Best Buy was throwing in a $50 Best Buy gift card. To most gamers or games shoppers this is as good as cash. Also notice that the start of the bundle is actually an official Microsoft manufactured bundle of an Xbox 360 console with two games, LEGO Batman and Disney's racing game Pure.

Next up is a Sony PS3 bundle. In the next photo we see a new PS3 Slim (120gb) combined with a second DualShock 3 controller, an HDMI cable and a Rocketfish PS3 Wired Headset...all for only $389.96. The flyer even tells you you will save $15. Hmm...that doesn't sound like the greatest of savings considering to really utilize this you would need (1) a high likelihood of a second person playing next to you, (2) a high definition TV with HDMI inputs and (3) a need to play online multiplayer games where you want to talk to the other players. So this implies the ideal consumer of this bundle is either (a) a sports gamer or (b) someone with enough money to have a good enough television to support HDMI or (c) someone who is really into online shooters...or possibly sports...again... In any event, would saving $15 persuade you to buy this bundle? If you are really a cost conscious PS3 shopper - and if you are considering buying one at this point in the PS3 life cycle you are a defacto cost conscious PS3 shopper - then you might take pause at reading how you can save $15 with the bundle and instead consider you could save more if you un-bundle what you don't need. If you don't ever play with anyone else in the same room on the same console, the extra controller is useless and negates value of the bundle for you right there. Or if you don't have an HDMI capable TV, same thing. The good thing about this bundle is that it would not be hard for Best Buy to simply remove the rubberband and sell the individual items as originally intended. If the items were shrink wrapped together it would be tougher but still not impossible. If this were a pre-packaged bundle in one box, Best Buy would be hosed.

Sticking with Sony, we have an "old school" PSP bundle. Forget the PSPGO, this bundle contains a PSP3000, a car charger, a travel case and a Rocketfish screen protector...all for $199.96. You save a whoping $12. Like the PS3 bundle, there are no games included. Hmm...another bundle with no games that includes a Sony system. If I am investing in a system for the first time, I'd sure want at least a game to play with it. Why would bestbuy not include any games? Maybe they figure you'll use the savings from he bundle on additional purchases, ie, the games?

Also interesting his how Rocketfish had a product in this Sony bundle like it did with the Best Buy's PS3 bundle.

Last up is Nintendo with a DSi bundle pictured below. In this rubberbanded-ed package you get a DSi, a case, a Rocketfish screen protector and a Rocketfish PowerPack...all for $195.96 which saves you an astounding $5. Seriously, Best Buy, is that enough value? And again, no games.

MMO deals to attract and new and lapsed players

2009-12-16T00:00:00.000-08:00

About a month ago I received an email from Blizzard to come back to World of Warcraft with a 7 day free pass. My cousin, who stopped playing WoW around the same time I did many months ago, received the same email. So no doubt Blizzard wanted us back, as they did with many other lapsed subscribers. This isn't surprising, as it's been done before and has some predictable rates of success.

But recently I became aware of a new twist in the battle over MMO retention rates. On Dec 14 Funcom announced:

"a unique holiday offer for its [MMO] Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. Anyone who downloads, registers, and starts playing the trial before January 1st 2010 will be able to enjoy all of level one to twenty – the entire Island of Tortage experience – without ever having to upgrade to a full account or pay a subscription fee. This unique Unlimited Free Trial campaign is only available until January 1st as a special holiday offer to anyone who wishes to experience the sexy and savage world of Conan."

Basically they are trying a type of freemium pricing where you can play the lower levels of the game as much as you want for free forever, but if you want to advance beyond a certain point you must subscribe.

Then on Dec 16 EA & Mythic Entertainment announced a "Warhammer Online Reenlistment Campaign" where, similar to the recent Blizzard offer I received about coming back to WoW, lapsed Warhammer Online players could come back to the game for 10 - count'em: 10 - free days of play with in-game rewards and "other" bonuses. But the big catch was that the reactivation had to happen between Dec 16 and Dec 23. As with Blizzard, EA/Mythic is hoping that for those who kicked the habit, a little free taste will be enough to get them back in the game indefinitely.

These "come back to WoW/WAR/AoC etc" campaigns aren't new in concept, it's just that three major games are all making offers around the holidays and putting out press releases about it. As far as I know, Blizzard is the only company running major TV ad campaigns in the US around its MMO game in general. The current WoW ad features a new Mr. T spot about his Night Elf Mohawk grenade. Also, these are different offers than the standard 7, 10 or 14 day free trial for new subscribers that MMO games generally always offer. These are different campaigns aimed at getting people back or hopefully addicted enough to unlimited low level play to go for the ultimate glory of reaching level 50 or 60 or 80 or whatever the level cap of the game in question is...while paying the monthly fee.

But for me, the kicker is that I tried the 7 day "come back to WoW" offer and a few days into I received a 60-day WoW subscription card to keep playing. Oh man, my wife is going to hate this but at least someone else will pay for the next 2 months of access. Maybe then I'll get hooked again and starty paying Blizzard myself? Time will tell...

Meanwhile, a truely double edged type gift is a subscrption card to your addicted friends who kicked the MMO habit. Maybe Blizzard and etc. should run adds like the following:

Got friends you only sort of like? Did they recently give up an MMO game? Why not buy them a time card to that game!!! Then when their loved ones yell at them, they can think of you!

Assassin's Creed: Among Thieves

2009-12-15T23:22:00.000-08:00

I finally got around to playing Assassin's Creed II this week. The first game in the series was a huge hit despite its low 80s metacritic and gamerankings score. It's not that composite average critical review scores always correlate with sales, but the game was a bit flawed in some ways and brilliant in others. I played that game for a few hours and I was one of the people who found it less enjoyable. The absurd genetic memory technology story angle made no sense to me and felt unnecessary to the point of distraction. The gameplay, an interesting mix of third person action, stealth and open world gaming, actually bored me to death after only a few hours. Perhaps I just didn't get the pacing, or maybe the distracting high tech story component just ruined it for me.
In any event, when I heard ACII scored in the 90s on metacritic/gamerankings and heard that some of the issues in the gameplay I didn't like were fixed, I became excited to play it.

But now that I'm playing it, the intro playable setup piece set in the present day is making me want to play something else. There are a lot of reasons why, but the main reason is the voice acting.

You play as Desmond Miles, a young man who is somehow connected to the Assassins of old who has these genetic memories like the guy in the first game...it's not worth explaining except he is voiced by none other than Nolan North, the same outstanding voice actor who voiced the voice of Nathan Drake's voice in the absolutely outstanding Uncharted series on PS3.

And he sounds exactly the same in Assassin's Creed II. Of course, Mr. North has lent his acting skills to many video games besides the Drake's series. But in ACII I kept picturing Nathan Drake every time the Desmond Miles character spoke, and when he dropped his frequent F-bombs I somehow felt disappointed that the general PG-13...er...T-rated adventure-romp fare of the Uncharted series was being polluted. And hence I simply got a bad vibe about ACII only 20 minutes into playing it.

The sad thing about the AC series is that what attracts me to the concept of it is being this baddass assassin in somewhat faithfully realized historical settings that haven't been explored much in video games. The Renaissance period of Italy has a certain Galilean steampunk potential that both Prince of Persia and God of War (and Uncharted 2) sort of allude to, but none of those games obviously fit. So ACII has this unique setting that has no need for the high tech, present day plot angle. If they had just done away with that I think the games would have been better.

But going back to Nolan North, his amazing work in the Uncharted series actually spoils his ACII performance for me.

What I really want to see is an Uncharted movie with actor Nathan Fillion playing the role of Nathan Drake with his voice dubbed by Nolan North. Below is Drake from Uncharted...

...and next is actor Nathan Fillion. I am obviously not the first person to suggest this but when the movie execs and the game execs meet, please do consider this option.
I am fully aware that this subtopic about acting/voicing Drake in an Uncharted movie has been discussed to death in many PS3 and Uncharted related forums on the internet, but I couldn't help but blog about this once I played ACII.

Bleeding at Blockbuster

2009-12-14T14:49:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend I popped into a local Blockbuster store on a terribly rainy Saturday. It was just after a workout class and I stunk, was sweaty under my jacket and outside my jacket was wet from rain. Inside the Blockbuster it was even more unpleasant as everything in this location was being liquidated. While the DVDs were disorganized, many of them without a case or in a generic yellow/white/blue Blockbuster DVD case, the state of the leftover games for sale was even worse. Everything was picked over and the 30% discounts off used games prices weren't worth it unless you just had to play NHL 2k8 or similar product.

But one thing caught my eye, The Beatles: Rock Band bundle on sale for $89.99. The common retail price had dropoped to $150 (down from $200 at launch in Sep this year). A ten year old kid and his mom were looking it over:

Mom: "Look at that price. We should get it."
Boy: "But if it breaks we probably can't return it here since the store is closing."
Mom: "It's 90 bucks. We're never going to find that price anywhere else. And they have it on Xbox."
Boy: "Ninety bucks is still a lot for a game."
Mom: "It's the Beatles."

Interesting role reversal from the typical mother/son video game shopping dynamic.

Anyway, it makes me wonder if at some point a similar fire sale will happen at GameStop due to eventual digital distribution. It killed most of retail music sales, and combined with Netflix/Redbox/etc. it should kill off Blockbuster entirely. Gaming is a different animal but we're all watching, waiting and prognosticating...

Discounts at Target

2009-12-11T22:39:00.001-08:00

I manged to sneak out to Target today for some holiday related shopping, and of course skimmed through the video game section. Interestingly there were "temporary" discounts on quite a few popular titles. First up are two very popular Xbox 360 shooters, Left 4 Dead 2 and Halo 3 ODST:

For shooter fans (who happen to buy their games at Target?) looking for something else besides Modern Warfare 2, this might pose a tough choice, else be the opportunity you were waiting for. Or maybe mom/dad doing holiday shopping will finally give in to their kid's demands...

Next wee see three price price drops in one image. First, UFC 2009 seems to have "gone on sale" dropping $20. Another THQ title in the lower right corner of the same image is the brand new MX Reflex, is also on sale but only discounted by $10. UFC is a great and very popular game, so maybe THQ/Target was looking for a large unit boost with the price drop. But MX Reflex already dropping to by $10 doesn't bode well, especially after mediocre reviews. Compare that to the "temporary price cut" on NBA Live 10 in the same image. Interesting.

Keeping up with the THQ theme, Smackdown vs. Raw 2010 was on a temporary price cut by $10. (See below). That's a lot of THQ titles "on sale" or on a temporary discount. Curious if this was THQ's channel management at work or Target's. Probably THQ's. Now it's not the biggest deal that several of THQ's titles are all on sale or a price cut but it just caught my eye while blitzing through the video game section. Hmm.....I'll leave some white space for you to think about that.

So now I will bridge beefy men in spandex to Tiger Woods via the next image below. As for the b.s. about him on every news channel 24/7, I don't care even if it's all true. Why? Because I have been under the assumption for years that most/all male professional golfers have mistresses in cities all over the country. Right? You mean they don't and Tiger is somehow unique? In this respect? Or is it just that Tiger has so many more mistresses than other pro golfers due to his billions of dollars and stranglehold on the #1 golf ranking in the world? Or is it just the bizarre way this came out? Hmm. I'd still watch him play golf...

Anyway, I actually received Tiger Woods 10 on Wii with the super awesome motion control plus attachment as a gift back over the summer. The game is the best golf game I've ever played. Tiger's current situation doesn't change that for me, though interesting it's on a temporary price cut at Target:

And last but not least, let's not forget Wii New Super Mario Bros. Wii...on Wii. As much as I enjoyed TW10 over the summer, WNSMBW...OW is my current Wii game of choice. Actually it's my wife's choice. It's the only game she'll play other than Wii Sports when we have friends over and she's actually way better at it than I am. She was a pro on the old SNES version which is somewhere in our house stuffed in a box in a closet. Her decades old skill at the SNES version translated very well, a much better match for her than Super Mario Galaxy which she found cute but too difficult. Anyway this game will probably have huge retail legs, regardless of whatever Yahtzee says in his generally accurate review which, as usual, is more entertaining second per second than the game itself.

But if the red box isn't enough to get it to scream off the Wii shelf at Target, the red tag "as advertised price" of the MSRP of $49.99 is there to remind you to simply look at this game and take notice, thereby getting it onto your purchase consideration set. Keep in mind this isn't a sale price, just a big fat flashing (not actually flashing) red neon sign (nor is neon) to get you to recall that Nintendo makes the best games on Nintendo platforms and if you have a Wii and you don't buy this game, you're going to to be stupid because it's probably the best Wii game of the holiday.

And the numbers are public already...

2009-12-10T17:02:00.000-08:00

NPD released its data to IndustryGamers already, and the news story is up showing top 10 titles for the month. Notice the totals for the Xbox 360 titles in the list, mainly Modern Warfare 2, and the forecast I published via DFC on IndustryGamers yesterday. (Both were 4.2 million.)

Today is data release day...

2009-12-10T13:50:00.000-08:00

So the NPD data was released today. I can't comment on my own forecasts until NPD publishes their top 10 to the general news sites, but to review my Xbox 360 forecasts for Nov 2009 check head back to Industry Gamers.

Some NPD forecasts for Nov 2009

2009-12-09T09:38:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow (12/10/2009) NPD releases Nov 2009 US retail data on video game industry sales. There is always great anticipation over what the data will show and many analysts give their predictions on software and hardware sales. For the first time I have issued my own forecasts (in conjunction with DFC and GamerDNA) of what some key new Xbox 360 titles will sell during their launch months. The big deal for November is the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 launch. Check out Industry Gamers for the exclusive story which contains the following:

Charts on reach of GamerDNA audience of top games on Xbox 360 around the MW2 launch, as well as the GTA IV launch back in Apr/May 2008 for a comparison.
Selective Crossplay analysis on Xbox 360 of MW2 with Left 4 Dead 2 and Assassin's Creed II in a few countries.
NPD forecasts for Nov 2009 Xbox 360 sales of key games launched in the month.

We'll see how my forecasts do, though I will only comment on the titles for which NPD releases public data on. Check back Friday!

The SGC blog is live...

2009-12-02T23:04:00.000-08:00

I've decided to start blogging about video games, the business of video games and related cultural thoughts about games. And expect some non-gaming discussions taken from the perspective of a 25+ year gamer.