I wrote an article on David Perry’s wiki about where the money goes in the games industry. It explains in details and in simple terms all of the many source of income and costs involved in selling a top-quality next-generation videogame, from the cost of developing the game itself to the money gained from selling strategy guides.
If you’re interested on the business aspect of games, I think you’ll find the article very informative. You can read it here.
Gamespot reports on a presentation by venture capitalists Stewart Alsop and Gilman Louie in which they discuss the “next billion-dollar opportunity in gaming“. Their point of view is that the next big thing in gaming is a better usage of the internet and a development model closer to TV than to movie-making.
It seems these venture capitalists believe gaming needs more creativity:
“It fundamentally revolves around new gameplay,” Louie said in closing. “Without new gameplay, shinier and shinier graphics will reduce and evaporate larger and larger amounts of shareholder value.”
An interesting interview with Kathleen Gasperini, a marketer specializing in understanding youth culture. Her expertise makes her understand very well people 13 to 25 years old — still the core market for videogames. From the article:
A 15-year-old today in North America, for example, is much different than a 15-year-old was five years ago. […] They don’t just expect control of their entertainment, they create it themselves. Very DIY culture.
Not about videogames per se, but insightful nevertheless.
Atari’s having terrible financial problems. Bruno Bonnell, CEO and Chief Creative Officer was quoted as saying (emphasis mine):
The Atari brand has stood for innovation and pioneering spirit for more than 30 years. As Atari executes on its strategic objectives, we must recapture what made Atari an iconic brand. During fiscal 2007, we will focus our efforts on established franchises, new major motion picture licensed IP with significant marketing campaigns, online products and titles for portable devices.
“Innovation” and “pioneering spirit” — you keep using these words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
(via Intelligent Artifice)
Nintendo recently anounced its newest branding effort to reach casual gamers: Touch Generations. The brand will cover games on the DS for people with little or no gaming experience, like Brain Age, Tetris and Nintendogs.
The use of the word “Generation” in this brand baffles me. It would be fine if it aimed at a specific age group, probably a young adult crowd who can relate to being part of the new generation. Yet, this brand is tied to Nintendo’s efforts to reach outside of this group, to reach younger and older gamers alike. Using the word “generation” in a brand that doesn’t target a specific generation is strange indeed.
That’s probably why they use “generations“, plural. But then, if they’re not targetting a specific generation, why use that word? It doesn’t relate to anybody in particular, they could have used the word “everybody” and it would have been just as specific (although I can see why they didn’t go with “Touch Everybody”…)
Nintendo makes cool hardware and games, but they need a new branding team…
Somebody once told me that game design docs don’t cover 90% of what makes a game fun. He was right about that. He also said that this made design docs worthless. He was wrong about that. So what good is a design doc for anyway?