Call of Duty: Modern Price Warfare

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]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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...

1. 300 worldwide Apple stores in 10 countries...coming soon to Spain. Bueno!
2. 120 million iOS devices shipped. That's iPhone + iPad + iPod Touch devices.
3. Activating 230,000 iOS devices per day. Would love to see how that number fluctuates on a daily basis. Does not include upgrades. Interesting.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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!
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. New iPod shuffle coming .... at $49. Sounds nice.
10. 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.
11. 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...

1. 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.
2. 1.5 billion games and entertainment apps have been downloaded onto iTouches.
3. 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.
4. 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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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.