Archive for the ‘duh’ Category

28% of people with internet access play games when bored.

Tuesday, July 10th, 2007

Next-Gen is reporting that over a quarter of the people that use the Internet go to an online gaming site now and again.

“With one in four Internet users visiting a gaming site, playing games online is extremely popular. The fact that these websites are pulling in over a quarter of the total worldwide Internet population shows what a global phenomenon gaming has become,” said Bob Ivins, EVP and managing director of comScore.

“The potential of the online gaming arena should be especially appealing for advertisers, as the average online gamer visits a gaming site 9 times a month,” he added.”

To be honest, I would have suspected that number to be far higher. It seems that every person I’ve ever worked with either professionally or in the computer lab was playing some stupid Flash game or other at some point, and especially when a project was due the next day.

Link! (Next-Gen)

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People who play games the most, buy the most games

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007

In a recent NPD study, the group discovered that those gamers that play the most (40 hours a week or more) are also the ones that tend to buy more games. This really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

“[T]he smallest section is the most hardcore of all. Although they make up just 2 percent of the gaming public, “Heavy Gamers” own an average of 2.8 consoles and 1.9 portables. They play a whopping 39.3 hours a week, mainly on the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, and buy a budget-busting average of 13.1 games every quarter–or roughly 4.5 games each month.”

I find it interesting that the article calls 4.5 games a month ‘budget busting’. I’ve easily eclipsed that some months, but my figure would include one current game and several bargain bin games. This study kind of implies that this mythical super-hardcore gamer subset buys 4.5 full-price non-budget titles a month. Kind of makes me think that I’m in my own demographic.

Link! (Gamespot via Kotaku).

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Some movies make terrible games

Thursday, June 28th, 2007

For some reason, I’ve been seeing a glut of articles telling me things that I either already know or are so obvious I should already know.

Case in point, Thomas Tull of Legendary Pictures offers this word of advice:

During his keynote speech on the second day of the Hollywood & Games Summit Tull said, “Not everything translates. Just because a movie comes out and does well, if there isn’t a good story or a compelling reason [to create a game], it is a very dangerous thing to take a brand, slap it on a box, and just say ‘Well, people will buy it.’

“If you rely solely on the brand itself, and not on the gameplay, I think that’s a mistake,” he continued.

“I have very strong feelings from the movie side… Making videogames into movies just because they have sold well is a pretty bad idea.”

I’ve played my fair share of movie tie-in games, and they’ve by and large been pretty crappy. Games like The Grinch and The Chronicles of Narnia were pretty terrible. I actually have tried to steer away from games based on movies as much as possible. Though things like the Half-Life mod for Underworld give me hope that somebody out there knows how to make a proper movie tie-in, even though the movie was pretty terrible.

Link! to article (Gamesindustry.biz).

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Educational Games not as fun as Non-Educational Games

Wednesday, June 27th, 2007

The Slate has up a rambling almost non-article where the Justin Peters bemoans the fact that games that are designed to be educational are not as fun as games where education is an added feature.

Any child of the 1980s and 1990s will remember Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing and Math Blaster Mystery: The Great Brain Robbery, games that promised to make skills acquisition fun. They’ll also remember ditching Mavis Beacon for something with guns as soon as their parents’ backs were turned. Making games educational is like dumping Velveeta on broccoli. Liberal deployment of the word blaster can’t hide the fact that you’re choking down something that’s supposed to be good for you.

I’m a child of the 1980s and I’ve never played either of those games, and I enjoy a good cheese sauce on my broccoli. So I’ll concede that he may not be talking to me.

He also posits some rhetorical questions such as: “Can a game still be called a game if it isn’t any fun?” Which, if you’ve ever played a game off of the $5 or under rack, you know the answer.

Though the article itself may or may not be the greatest in the world, it’s an interesting thought exercise.

Link! to the full article (via Joystiq)

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It’s easier to create a clone of a clone of a good game than something original

Tuesday, June 26th, 2007

GamesIndustry.biz is running an interview with Jason Kapalka, the founder of PopCap Games. Among other things he spells out what a visit to any site with a collection of little Flash games should tell you: People make cheap clones of existing games because it’s easier than coming up with something new.

The truth is that very few games are developed without reference to past games. There’s always going to be titles that build on a previous mechanic or game. But there’s a fine line between that and very bold-faced rip-offs that aren’t adding anything to the game and are just trying to make a quick buck. There’s games like that in the hardcore gaming market of course, but the problem in the casual space is that the investment in resources can be a lot less. So a three person studio isn’t going to build a knock-off of Warcraft. But they could crank out a clone of Bejewelled in a few months. The barrier to entry is a lot lower so you get a lot more of it.

He says a lot more slightly less obvious things. Certainly worth a read.

Link! to the entire interview (GamesIndustry.biz)

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Game consoles cost lots of money.

Wednesday, June 20th, 2007

Chris Buffa is a terrible writer; his latest article is no exception. I’m not actually sure what his point is, other than possibly that video game systems have always been expensive, and we get more goodies today than we used to, for fewer comparative dollars.

The article is pretty low on content, for example, this is the complete section about the Nomad:

For $180, players get a cumbersome machine that breathed life in a dying 16-bit system; that is if you had the money to feed its greedy, 16 bit processor. The Nomad consumes six AA batteries in two hours, a terrible issue that helped spell its demise.

The article is only really useful for comparing the cost of systems when they were new to today’s dollars, but since he inexplicably left out Nintendo’s offerings, its worth is suspect.

Link! (GameDaily) if you’re so inclined.

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