The Sandbox

Need a break from the bad news on Wall Street? Our buddies at Kotaku are cavorting with pixies and pixels at the Tokyo Game Show this week. Check out the coverage of cool - and sometimes mystifying - new peripherals hitting the market. I'm intrigued by this bulky chatpad for the Playstation 3.

The snap-on keypad takes a stab at bringing fast 'n easy text messaging to game worlds. Yeah, you can also just chat on your headphones, but then again - why not this? Texting is such an integral part of our communications culture now, I'm actually kind of surprised that more game developers aren't bringing it into their worlds. In the future, I'd like to see more convergence between online behaviour - texting, social networking, etc. - in traditional gameplay environments. This would not only enrich the experience but maybe pull in newbies.

Ah, those industrious hackers - what will they think of next? Maybe - a Lilliputian computer monitor made from a Sony PSP! Yes, indeed. Check out this bit of ingenuity, courtesy Kotaku. A gamer hacked his Sony PSP so that he could use it as a PC screen. Do not ask why. Just be impressed.

Here's an interesting look at the culture and industry of independent videogame development. Between the iPhone and digital distribution services such as Xbox Live Arcade, there are more and more opportunities for indie game makers on the horizon. But will this rival the golden age of PC games - when companies like id Software (Doom/Quake) and Origin (Ultima) hit the scene? The difference now is that developers can reach a much wider audience. The old PC game underground was still relatively geeky. But the distribution ecosystem of the major consoles - including the Xbox 360, Sony's Playstation 3 and Nintendo's Wii - reaches a broader demographic. The mobile market makes the reach even wider. What will the Doom of the iPhone generation be?

Where do videogames go to die? If they're in the UK: the National Videogame Archive. Gamasutra reports on this new initiative from Nottingham Trent University and the UK National Media Museum, which one scholar describe as "an important resource for preserving elements of our national cultural heritage. It will not only be a vital academic resource to support growing disciplines in videogame studies but will also be something that the general public can fully engage with."

The UK has been at the forefront of ludology - the academic study of videogames, and it's nice to see this latest initiative to preseve game art and culture.

"I" as a prefix == old and busted.
"I" as a suffix == the new hotness.

[via Kotaku] Much like the Canon XTi and XSi cameras, where "i" might "improved, marginally", so the Nintendo DS has an updated version, the DSi, going on sale in Japan for $180 this November 1st. Thinner now without the old GBA slot, or "Guitar Hero Slot" as I identify it now, and with a 3mp camera, the DSi's main desireable feature is the larger screens. One hopes they're better, as well, but given Nintendo's penchant for cheaping out on hardware that is just good enough, I don't have high hopes.

I do expect Nintendo to do something utterly amazing with the camera, though: give them a new input device, and they'll give you a new game genre. That's why I love Nintendo.

Interesting story in Gamespot about a new study. The study finds that giving gamers specific goals to accomplish boosts sales: "On average, games that included more than 30 achievements sold three times as many copies as those with 30 or fewer in-game goals. Developers are apparently picking up on the trend, as the first three months of 2008 saw more than 60 percent of Xbox 360 games released with more than 40 achievements, compared to 52 percent for all of 2007 and 42 percent for 2006."

To me this is like the old Pinball Paradigm. With each smack of the ball, you get immediate feedback in the form of ringing bells and flipping scores. I actually think videogames could have even more achievements than they do now - so that newbie players in particular feel a great sense of accomplishment.

One side note: what does this study say about sandbox freeform games - like Grand Theft Auto? Yes, there are missions in GTA, but what about all the players who simply like joyriding around?

EA is dealing with a class-action lawsuit over Spore, and its inclusion of SecuROM copy-protection software. SecuROM is a separate program that is installed without telling the user, which prevents the game from being reinstalled more than N times, and it prevents perfect CDR copies. Many games, like Bioshock, Hellgate: London, Command & Conquer 3, Mass Effect, and Crysis Warhead all use SecuROM, although Spore appears to be getting a stronger backlash than the others.

As a developer, I can understand the desire for using SecuROM: piracy is rampant, and there is a huge problem with lost sales as a result. But really, these days, there are enough folks out there trying to install their "helpful" software on my computer. The cruft that comes with a new OEM machine, the various media players out there that are ever more required for web surfing, all of the Internet Explorer toolbars that I apparently cannot browse without, download helpers, yadda yadda yadda. People have to protect their machines, and the last thing they need is yet another secret program that is doing Bog-knows-what in the background, contributing to overall system stability and speed in a negative fashion.

There are better ways to handle this. I'll be interested to see how the suit comes out.

Despite the rough economy, people are spending more money on online games. Xbox Live Arcade, Microsoft's online service, reports a 67% increase in revenues last month. There's addition cash on the horizon. Park Associates predicts revenues for online console gaming hitting $8 billion by 2013.

It's interesting to see the games the people are buying. XBL games like Geometry Wars (an Asteroids style shooter), for example, tend to be fast action, accessible, arcade style games - just the kind we grew up with in the 80s. So it makes sense that buyers are flocking to play them.

Jack Thompson has been permanently disbarred in Florida. Public chortling is not, I repeat, NOT polite. But it is very, very warranted, and really, go ahead and let go. It's not like it will faze JT at all.

Because according to him, "Now the fun begins." He's going to fight this all the way to the SCOTUS, if they'll let him, which I'm guessing they won't, because he's next-door to a loony.

I've expressed it before, and it's sort of a trite sentiment, but it's important to emphasize that this could not have happened to a more deserving person. Not because he hates games: lots of people hate games. No, he's deserving because he slanders good people whose profession happen to cause them to oppose him in court; he plays with the pain and emotions of injured people in order to pursue his own agenda; he abuses the court system and does not follow the rules that other attorneys follow; his paranoia causes him to try to destroy people who have done nothing wrong; and he's just such a jerk, on top of it all.

Thanks for the memories, JT.

As a former Rush nerd, I'm obliged to let you know that the Rush album "Moving Pictures" will be the next full album available for download in the Xbox 360 version of the game Rock Band.

Ironically, the most technically precise band in rock has been plagued by technical difficulties in getting their game on. First the band flopped trying to play their song "Tom Sawyer" on Rock Band when they were on the Colbert show. And then the Moving Pictures Rock Band transfer hit a snafu when being ported to the 360. But now fans can rest assured - the album arrives next Tuesday, though the real band may not be playing along.

Here's a long, in-depth piece on the opportunity for videogame development in India.

It's easy to assume that most teens are gamers, but now we have some stats to show just how widespread the medium has become

According to a report from Pew Internet & American Life, 97% of American kids age 12 - 17 are playing videogames. The study also found that the vast majority - 76% - play videogames with others, and 65% play with friends in the same room together instead of online.

I think this latter point gets overlooked. We hear a lot about innovations in online gaming, but, fact is, games like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Wii Sports have found success in an old school way: as Party Games. I herewith nominate this as a new genre of gaming. Let's define Party Games as games that inspire parties, and fill you with an uncontrollable need to invite many others to your house. Dance Dance Revolution would be another one. I'd argue that the old days of local area network competitions would qualify Quake as a Party Game too.

What's next?

Gamasutra has an interesting story about so-called "persuasive gaming." It considers how insight into the future of user-generated content might be gleaned from an unlikely piece of history: Kodak's "Brownie" camera of 1900.

Read more here.

Not long ago at a virtual worlds conference, I heard a speaker talk about Star Wars. His big idea: the first Star Wars movie was not just a movie. It was a guided tour of a virtual world. All the other Star Wars films, toys, games, books, costumes, etc, have merely been ways through which fans can further explore that mythological space.

Now that the six films are done, we're seeing the Star Wars story live on in games, as this Reuters story points out. The amazing thing is how, years from now, we will reach a tipping point: there will be more people who grew up in the Star Wars game-verse than in the film-verse. The films will be secondary.

Steve Jobs threw down the pixilated gauntlet at an Apple event this week, calling the iPhone the "the best portable device for playing games."

I've been playing around with iPhone games, and my favorite is Labyrinth - a mobile version of the old tilt-the-ball-through-the-wooden-maze game. The freshest thing about it is that, to play, you tilt your iPhone and the ball rolls along. Word is that this tilting mechanism will be employed in games like Spore. This is cool. It's bringing the sort of intuitive flow that the Wii remote delivered to the mobile space.

But I'm skeptical of the iPhone's ability to out-cool the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP. I'm a believer in the power of dedicated platforms. The DS is made specifically for gaming, and gamers like that. Plus, the DS generation is often too young for cell phones anyway. While the iPhone won't replace the other gear, I do see a terrific opportunity for indie innovation in mobile gaming. Is the next Doom an iPhone game?

We've all heard how Americans spend more money on videogames than movie tickets. But now there's noise that games are set to out sell music too.

This week, SPOnG quotes a honcho at HMV, the mega-retailer, who predicts that games - which now constitute 19% of the companies sales - could easily surpass music - currently 30% of sales - in the next two years.

I predict something else: That music games like Rock Band will continue to eat away at the music industry, so that you'll be able to play - and buy! - your music within the Rock Band world. It won't just supplant MTV, it will challenge iTunes.

[via Raph's blog] Dmitri Williams has just published his mammoth study of MMO players, specifically EQ2 players, by analyzing terabytes of data provided by SOE. Some of the results aren't what I would have expected.

Continue reading "MMO player demographics" »

And now from the Department of Shameless Plugs:

My big feature story on the making of Will Wright's new game, Spore, is now online and in print in the new issue of IEEE Spectrum. I've interviewed Wright many times over the years, so it was especially cool to get a behind-the-scenes look at Spore, which really is his ultimate game. The big question is: what next?

There's a lot of chatter online about the future of E3: the once might vidgame expo that has recently lost its pizazz. E3 used to be suitably bombastic - with bright lights, loud music, and, most importantly, hordes of gamers (well, actually game press members...) swarming the demos.

Then it all crashed. E3 kicked out the riff-raff, whittling down the convention from tens of thousands to around 5000 VIPs. And, yeah, it got really, really boring - not the word you'd associate with the medium. This of course comes at a blockbuster point in the evolution of the industry. Economic downturn? Vidgames are poised for their hugest year ever, estimated to earn around $40 billion next year - more than double the $17.9 billion of 2007.

Why not have a party worthy of the success? Now rumor has it that E3 is considering opening up the show to gamers, a move that would make a lot of sense. E3 needs to bring back the fun, and those who want to do business at the show will have to find the time/place.

The crackdown on videogame pirates continues - now, landing two guys in prison for dealing in underground games.

Last year, I wrote a feature for Spectrum magazine about Richard Thurman, a 35-year-old guy who made a lot of money in videogame gold. His business: creating auto-playing bots that would win - or "farm" - gold from massively multiplayer online games.

Now comes a study (87 pages!) estimating that this gold farming business is as big as a billion dollars. That sounds high to me, but maybe not that far off. And certainly this will only get bigger in the years to come as more (all?) games move online.

With all this talk about game piracy - which I was once told adds up to $3 billion in annual losses (a number that seems high to me, but...) - news comes that the big five game publishers are on the case.

They've reportedly asked ISPs for the IP addresses of 25000 suspected pirates. More here.

A comment that I would like to call out on the pirating entry:

"I think people copy games and the like is because the price is simply too much. Consider that if we paid $10-15 for the games instead of $90... The cost to produce a CD, would only be a couple of bucks, the companies that make the game would still make a heafty profit,<...>"

Seriously? So, in charging for a game, we're actually just recouping the cost of the CD blanks? I had no idea.

There are a lot of games going on in China besides the Olympics. According to a new report via GameIndustry.biz China's game market is up 66% since last year, and shows no signs of abating. But here's other interesting thing: look at the layout of the market share. Seems the action is spread evenly across the board, unlike in, say, the U.S.

* 1. Shenda: 17.9%
* 2. NetEase: 12.8%
* 3. Giant (formerly ZhengTu): 11.4%
* 4. The 9: 10.9%
* 5. Tencent: 10.5%
* 6. Sohu: 7.4%
* 7. Perfect World: 7.4%
* 8. 9You: 5.6%
* 9. NetDragon: 3.8%
* 10. Kingsoft: 2.8%
* 11. China.com: 1.7%

What do the creators of Doom and Gears of War - some of the most acclaimed shooter franchises - have in common? Electronic Arts. Seems the game industry's biggest publisher has been striking a bunch of deals including ones with indie darlings, id Software and Epic. What does it mean? Check out Edge's take here.