Where the iPod took existing technology and improved upon the form factor and the marketing of portable digital music players, the Touch and iPhone have changed the landscape of the portable casual gaming market. Not all applications available for download in the Apple Application Store are videogames, By my calculation there are just under 8000 video game or video game related apps on iTunes. This level of competition for these “casual” games means that prices are driven not by the quality of the product, after all any game made by a large company can be made at a lower development cost at a small developer, but by the prices set by competitors for similar games.
This level of competition is limited in console and high end PC “hardcore” because of the high cost of development for those games, meaning that those games that have the highest budget (on average) bring in a higher return in investment. In the Apple App Store the opposite is true. The games with a smaller development team can sell their product for a lower price and still get more return from their investment than what a larger company with a larger budget could manage. The big advantages for larger companies are brand recognition and revenue for advertising. Despite these advantages there are some concerns with the business model the folks at Apple have already established as evident in this article by the New York times:
“The next breakthrough in gaming is not going to be in hardware,” Yoichi Wada, president of a top Japanese game maker, Square Enix, told Game Show participants. “It’s going to be in how to create a successful business model.”
“As a platform, the cellphone has the biggest potential, because everybody owns one,” said Kazumi Kitaue, chief executive at another game maker, Konami Digital Entertainment.
“We are going to move away from a market where it’s the hardware that fights against each other,” Mr. Hanamura [president of the Tokyo market research company, Enterbrain
] said at a recent presentation. “We are going to be moving to an era when different software stores fight against each other.”
“The quality of cellphone games is varied, and you couldn’t play many of them for hours,” said Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony’s games development arm.
“Will a company be able to operate completely on these games? No,” Mr. Yoshida said. “After all, we’re talking about the kind of games people make sitting in a cafe with a laptop.”
The first concern expressed by these Japanese giants of gaming is quite simple but still rather “frightening” because it means that companies will have to completely change their business models in order to compete in the video game industry. The transition of hardware being the main selling point of video games, to software driving the market. We’ve already seen evidence of this shift by various companies; download services like Steam and Impulse, even companies that are tackling the biggest issues of performance versus software such as OnLive, GaiKai, and now Full Circle. All of these services are geared toward the digital distribution and how people pay for and play games, all on the PC.
Personal computers are the future of video game consoles. Let me explain; it is evident that multifunctional is becoming more important to consumers as evident by the success of smart phones such as the iPhone, it is also evident it is possible to take a low end PC or laptop and using software optimization or a broadband connection to stream from a different PC to achieve the same high end gaming that consoles deliver. So it will become possible, through software, to develop a unique hardware/software combination that delivers the function of PCs, the portability of smart phones, and the ability to play high end “hardcore” games all on the same system. Sony already has a decent candidate to fill that role in the Vaio P series. Something small enough to be carried around but large enough to act as a small laptop if necessary, and best of all it already has all the necessary software and hardware to run a service like OnLive, GaiKai, or Full Circle. Now all that’s missing is cell phone service and a docking station for an easy transition of using it as a multifunction device to playing video games on your high resolution monitor or HD TV. So in the end the solution will be, in my opinion, not purely software as the gaming industry is leaning towards.
There soon will be working software that can span the bridge of portable and high end gaming and with it will come this piece of hardware that is able to bridge all functions of a PC, netbook, smart phone, and video game console because of this software. One problem would still remain with software/hardware setup. The cost of making high end games, and the competition of making low end games. I cannot imagine the business model that would solve this. I imagine that Microsoft and Sony already have their own solutions to the cost vs. function problem but I’m also afraid that those solutions will be focused heavily on the old infrastructure of video game consoles and not all purpose devices. After all, why would they sell you a all purpose device when they can sell you a zune/walkman, high end PC, video game console, and cell phones that perform the same functionality that you want with the profits that they want? In the mean time Apple will continue to lightly hold the reins of their application producing giant while counting the money they’re making from the “casual” audience in the other.
9.23.2009
The wise men
Listeners of the podcast I produce called of Dice and Men may notice in a couple weeks that I haven't posted a new recording of the guys and I flimflamming about pen and paper games. I've had a falling out with my gaming group making it impossible, at this time, to determine whether or not the recordings will continue in the future. So for this month at least, there will be no post and in the future those on the broadcast or the format itself may be changed. These things happen and unfortunately even when the evidence was staring me in the face I refused to prepare a contingency for the inevitable, which amounts to bad planning on my part. I wish I could promise that Of Dice and Men will come back and be better than ever, but in my heart I feel that I could never find such a great bunch of guys to work with again. C'est la vie.
9.21.2009
Slow As Sunday Full Circle
Originally featured on GamingNexus.com
Forgive my lateness. I spent most of Sunday recovering from a very busy Saturday.
First OnLive, then GaiKai, Spawn Lab's HD 720 and now Full Circle from MechaWorks are products that seek to take existing technologies and apply them to gaming with new twists and features. OnLive maybe the best funded and first to get real attention this year but now that it has successfully reopened minds that were once closed due to the not so distant dark days of the phantom menace , OnLive has unofficially opened the doors to re-imagining video game consoles and services.
Full Circle is a software service somewhere in between the HD 720 and OnLive that offers some promise. Like the HD 720, Full Circle connects any PC or Mac with a broadband internet connection to "sync" video game consoles or more powerful PCs so they can be played remotely. Unlike the HD 720's software, Full Circle opts for a shutting down of the OS so that the full potential of a computer is used while the software is running. This is to allow the Full Circle software to run multiple applications on up to three screens, allowing for web browsing, video games, and even blu ray movies to be played simultaneously. Full Circle is meant to replace your console, the software acting as platform to launch games, so that you could have one dinky little netbook that could allow you to do all your gaming in HD, on multiple screens, and run other applications to boot.
This all sounds too good to be true, but stacked up against the seeming impossible small latency that OnLive claims to have achieved, the ease of use of GaiKai as a simple website application, and the power wasting of having to run a console plus additional hardware for the HD 720, FullCircle couldn't be in better company.
Forgive my lateness. I spent most of Sunday recovering from a very busy Saturday.
First OnLive, then GaiKai, Spawn Lab's HD 720 and now Full Circle from MechaWorks are products that seek to take existing technologies and apply them to gaming with new twists and features. OnLive maybe the best funded and first to get real attention this year but now that it has successfully reopened minds that were once closed due to the not so distant dark days of the phantom menace , OnLive has unofficially opened the doors to re-imagining video game consoles and services.
Full Circle is a software service somewhere in between the HD 720 and OnLive that offers some promise. Like the HD 720, Full Circle connects any PC or Mac with a broadband internet connection to "sync" video game consoles or more powerful PCs so they can be played remotely. Unlike the HD 720's software, Full Circle opts for a shutting down of the OS so that the full potential of a computer is used while the software is running. This is to allow the Full Circle software to run multiple applications on up to three screens, allowing for web browsing, video games, and even blu ray movies to be played simultaneously. Full Circle is meant to replace your console, the software acting as platform to launch games, so that you could have one dinky little netbook that could allow you to do all your gaming in HD, on multiple screens, and run other applications to boot.
This all sounds too good to be true, but stacked up against the seeming impossible small latency that OnLive claims to have achieved, the ease of use of GaiKai as a simple website application, and the power wasting of having to run a console plus additional hardware for the HD 720, FullCircle couldn't be in better company.
9.18.2009
When did losing become precious?
I was playing Super Smash Bro.s Brawl with my girlfriend tonight and she kept getting upset that I was setting the computer opponents difficulties up to high. I'm pretty good at Smash Bro.s, I've been playing the series since the original, so Renae never wants to play against me head to head because try as I might she gets upset. If I screw around and don't take the game seriously she gets angry and if I take it series I mop the floor with her avatar and she gets even more upset. Her complaints were loudest when the cpu controlled fighters beat us both before the end of the match and we had to watch the end of the fight play out with no input of our own. I realize now that the reason why she got upset with me then was that my meddling was causing her to not have any fun. I set the difficulty up so high in the first place because I like a challenge, and just fighting her meant there wasn't much of any. So I called her a sore loser and wondered why she was so upset. Maybe one of the reasons why Rock Band and Guitar Hero are so successful is that players can set their own difficulty challenge without interfering with the other players. Maybe I'm just so used to being beaten by a smarter, faster computer that I don't care about failure anymore.
9.13.2009
Slow As Sunday: We Hardly Knew Ye
As Featured on GamingNexus.com
Death comes to us all, at one point or another. I've always said, I'd like to die once before I go, just to see what it was like. In death we live on in the memory of our loved ones and the records kept in the ever expanding history of the human race. Those memories are filled with what we did in life, what we revealed of ourselves publicly and privately, and, of course, our achievement points. When I kick the bucket it is my wish that the priest read the list of my video game accomplishments as though I performed them in real life. Nathan was heroic and daring, on the planet of New Mombasa he wiped out entire battalions of brutes with reckless abandon and the world was a safer place for his bravery. In Azeroth Nathan slew thousands of boars to clothe and feed those who needed the gooey bits that resided in the creatures' remains. His gear was epic and as a healer saved many a party from wiping.
It may seem ridiculous, but there are those who are still alive who are most famous for, and will be remembered for their video game prowess. So will there come a day when it is social acceptable to have your achievement points etched into your grave marker? Maybe, but it would be a long time before that social evolution took place. More likely would be the creation of internet shrines, websites where the scores of the dead are immortalized and honored. When visiting do make sure your antivirus software is up to date. Greatness isn't contagious but Trojan viruses are.
Death comes to us all, at one point or another. I've always said, I'd like to die once before I go, just to see what it was like. In death we live on in the memory of our loved ones and the records kept in the ever expanding history of the human race. Those memories are filled with what we did in life, what we revealed of ourselves publicly and privately, and, of course, our achievement points. When I kick the bucket it is my wish that the priest read the list of my video game accomplishments as though I performed them in real life. Nathan was heroic and daring, on the planet of New Mombasa he wiped out entire battalions of brutes with reckless abandon and the world was a safer place for his bravery. In Azeroth Nathan slew thousands of boars to clothe and feed those who needed the gooey bits that resided in the creatures' remains. His gear was epic and as a healer saved many a party from wiping.
It may seem ridiculous, but there are those who are still alive who are most famous for, and will be remembered for their video game prowess. So will there come a day when it is social acceptable to have your achievement points etched into your grave marker? Maybe, but it would be a long time before that social evolution took place. More likely would be the creation of internet shrines, websites where the scores of the dead are immortalized and honored. When visiting do make sure your antivirus software is up to date. Greatness isn't contagious but Trojan viruses are.
9.12.2009
Went to see a real fake Rock Band
Dark Side of the Moon is a Pink Floyd tribute band made up of Ohioans from around the state. Tonight, at their performance at Screamin' Willies, I sat and listened with closed eyes to the melancholy wail of the guitar blending in with the punctuations of singing and drums that make up the mostly instrumental stylizing of Pink Floyd, and I contemplated. I was trying to figure out why anyone would want to make a simulator of the inside of a dingy bar where you control the characters on stage as they played music that only a dozen of the patrons actual came to listen to, instead of just to drink. That's when it clicked; music rhythm games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero aren't bar simulators, but band simulators. As I watched the lead singer, the bassist, the guitarist, and the sax player jam and really get into the music (I couldn't see the drummer very well) I realized that those smiles on their faces, the way they moved around the stage, even the way they visibly relaxed when a song was finished, those were the same things I experienced when I play Rock Band 2. The fun doesn't come from pressing corresponding colored buttons to gems falling down a path on the screen. I have fun being a part (a very small part) of the spirit and driving force behind a song, as a make-believe member of the band. Now I wonder why others have a hard time seeing the same thing.
9.09.2009
Football, not football
Before heading out to a bar to catch the US vs Trinidad world cup qualifier, my friend Sean and I played some FIFA 2005 on his old Xbox. I had a blast playing the game, but at first I was frustrated by my team's lack of control over the ball and their inconsistent passing. Then I watched the match tonight, and realized that the video game was a fairly accurate recreation of real life football. Sometimes players lose control of the ball, sometimes they make a bad pass, and more often than not they miss the goal completely when attempting a scoring shot. All of these things happen in FIFA 2005 and in the context of it being a sports game, these "mishaps" are right to be included in the gameplay. From a professional video game player's perspective who doesn't know much about football these little foibles seem more like unresponsive controls and simple minded AI non-player characters. This leads me to the conclusion that simulators, which most sports video games fall under, lean more towards realism than fun, which might explain why they have such a limited audience. One thing is for sure, I'm going to get better until I beat Sean at his own game.
Slow As Sunday featured on Gaming Nexus.com
Here was this weeks Slow As Sunday column featured on GamingNexus.com
Dear Cryptic, I scoffed when you announced the lifetime memberships promotion at a whopping $200 for Champions Online. Then my jaw hung slack when the life time memberships sold like hot cakes. Then the promotion stopped and the game was released and then the launch day poo storm hit and the forums exploded with bug reports and complaints. Funny thing is that some "lifers" as they're called in the Champions Online forums we're fairly level headed about the whole predicament. The really funny thing is that the folks at Crtl+Alt+Del answers a common question in forums in a way that Cryptic could not. What convinced those gamers to sign up for the lifetime subscription anyway? A lifetime subscription is cheaper than paying for a monthly subscription fee once a month, if you play the game for more than a year, but Champions Online isn't going to last forever, and on the off chance that it does, you will probably get bored with the game and quit at some point. To make matters worse Cryptic sold the lifetime memberships until the day before the game launched. This left anyone who didn't get into the beta testing a big dilemma to decide if they want to pay $200 for an unproven MMORPG or miss out on the potential savings. Joining a new MMO is a risky business for most players because if the MMO cannot garner any support and build up a community of players then virtual worlds can become barren ghost towns in a matter of months after launch. Who would want to be stuck with a lifetime subscription to a MMO that has massive but no multiplayer? Not me. Whoever tries this pricing scheme next please only sell 4-5 year subscriptions with an option to extend at a reduced rate if the game lasts that long. It would be more realistic while leaving the option open to continue saving if the game does make it past it's 5th year anniversary. Also please offer the 4-5 year subscription option open to players within the month of the game's release. It will take you that long to patch a lot of the bugs you and get your game running the way it should, and you can build up a larger, more solid community base during that time. Lastly, give the people who payed hundreds of dollars to play your game free In game content, always. If that option isn't economically viable, then at least give the people who ponied up exclusive in game content, and keep giving them more exclusive content, that way you can keep you base happy.
Dear Cryptic, I scoffed when you announced the lifetime memberships promotion at a whopping $200 for Champions Online. Then my jaw hung slack when the life time memberships sold like hot cakes. Then the promotion stopped and the game was released and then the launch day poo storm hit and the forums exploded with bug reports and complaints. Funny thing is that some "lifers" as they're called in the Champions Online forums we're fairly level headed about the whole predicament. The really funny thing is that the folks at Crtl+Alt+Del answers a common question in forums in a way that Cryptic could not. What convinced those gamers to sign up for the lifetime subscription anyway? A lifetime subscription is cheaper than paying for a monthly subscription fee once a month, if you play the game for more than a year, but Champions Online isn't going to last forever, and on the off chance that it does, you will probably get bored with the game and quit at some point. To make matters worse Cryptic sold the lifetime memberships until the day before the game launched. This left anyone who didn't get into the beta testing a big dilemma to decide if they want to pay $200 for an unproven MMORPG or miss out on the potential savings. Joining a new MMO is a risky business for most players because if the MMO cannot garner any support and build up a community of players then virtual worlds can become barren ghost towns in a matter of months after launch. Who would want to be stuck with a lifetime subscription to a MMO that has massive but no multiplayer? Not me. Whoever tries this pricing scheme next please only sell 4-5 year subscriptions with an option to extend at a reduced rate if the game lasts that long. It would be more realistic while leaving the option open to continue saving if the game does make it past it's 5th year anniversary. Also please offer the 4-5 year subscription option open to players within the month of the game's release. It will take you that long to patch a lot of the bugs you and get your game running the way it should, and you can build up a larger, more solid community base during that time. Lastly, give the people who payed hundreds of dollars to play your game free In game content, always. If that option isn't economically viable, then at least give the people who ponied up exclusive in game content, and keep giving them more exclusive content, that way you can keep you base happy.
Back and better than ever
So what happened? Where did I lose my blogging way? I got a job, is the short answer. I'm back, and as you may guess this means that I am currently not employed. The benefit to you is that now I can once again return to the internet and bombard the world with my wit and wisdom on a regular basis. When I'm not writing for GamingNexus.com. Speaking of which my review for the Xbox 360 version of Wolfenstein just went up. The game I'm currently working on reviewing is Defense Grid: the Awakening, a XBLA title that took me many tries to complete it's dastardly designed levels, but ultimately took less than 10 hours combined game time to complete all the levels. I've been debating on whether to finish each level on the different play through styles included, but they're either too easy or too hard and don't change the map in anyway, so there isn't much appeal for me.
Since my release from the bounds of drudgery and pay-checkery I've found time to play a lot more Call of Duty 4 and Battlefield: Bad Company online multiplayer. Switching back and forth between them is kind of awkward sometimes, not because the control schemes are different, but because in Battlefield I perform well, and in COD 4 I don't do so well. My brother claims its the opponents I play against, he assumes everyone who plays Battlefield: Bad Company online is under the age of 10, and that's why I do so well. I like to think its because my style of play is more suited to Battlefield than COD 4. I like to be slow and methodical, flanking the enemy position, retreating and reloading and then going back to do it all again rather than the fast paced twitchy gameplay that COD is mostly comprised of. I'm still looking forward to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in November, but I might also be downloading 1943 to get my first person shooter multiplayer fix.
Since my release from the bounds of drudgery and pay-checkery I've found time to play a lot more Call of Duty 4 and Battlefield: Bad Company online multiplayer. Switching back and forth between them is kind of awkward sometimes, not because the control schemes are different, but because in Battlefield I perform well, and in COD 4 I don't do so well. My brother claims its the opponents I play against, he assumes everyone who plays Battlefield: Bad Company online is under the age of 10, and that's why I do so well. I like to think its because my style of play is more suited to Battlefield than COD 4. I like to be slow and methodical, flanking the enemy position, retreating and reloading and then going back to do it all again rather than the fast paced twitchy gameplay that COD is mostly comprised of. I'm still looking forward to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in November, but I might also be downloading 1943 to get my first person shooter multiplayer fix.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)