Author Archives: David J Edery

• Activision and Valve have agreed to distribute Call of Duty, COD 2, COD United Offensive and Gun via Steam. An interesting vote of confidence in the service.
• Clint Hocking raves about the Wii’s SDK (specifically, the part that enables designers to record their own movements as input data.)
• EA will enable gamers to unlock hidden content in Tiger Woods for a fee, instead of (and in addition to) unlocking it via play; a partial solution to addressing the concerns of affluent, low playtime gamers.
• Via GameTab, USA Today reports that Warner Brothers is cutting year-end estimates for hi-definition video sales, due to expectations that only 1.5M capable devices will be sold.
• Reuters has set up a virtual news bureau in Second Life; it will bring real-world news to SL players, and SL-news to the real world. Philip Rosedale must be ecstatic. 🙂
• Some stats and predictions, re: the Korean games market, via Raph Koster.
• CMS student Dan Roy’s thoughts on the benefits of education via (mobile) MMOs.

Articles of Interest

• Via Phil Steinmeyer, a great set of dynamic charts displaying the most popular casual games, most successful casual game developers, etc.
• Forgive me for indulging in a little humorous competitive ridicule. 🙂
• To be fair, I’ll mention a rare bit of good news for Sony: one research study claims that consumer anticipation of the PS3 remains high, despite the price, despite Sony’s repeated marketing gaffs, etc. Let’s see if “anticipation” translates to purchase behavior when consumers realize there’s no quality difference between the games (and a world of difference between the online services.)

I have some lovely news: Singapore’s Media Development Authority and MIT CMS are joining forces to create a multi-million dollar, multi-university international game laboratory! I was fortunate enough to take part in the birth of this initiative before leaving MIT a couple months ago. This was just one of many reasons why it was very hard to leave. 🙂

The lab will be focused on innovation, both in terms of game design and technology. (How cool is that?) This is big news, both for the game industry and for academia. Here’s a copy of the official press release:

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Singapore Media Development Authority have announced an agreement to establish the Singapore-MIT International Game Lab (SMIGL). The pioneering collaboration aims to further digital game research globally, develop world-class academic programs in game technology, and establish Singapore as a vital node in the international game industry.

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• Game Developer Magazine reports that, according to research group Strange Agency, “survival horror is the most appealing genre to hardcore female game players.” Explanation offered: these games typically provide a “compelling reason” to fight — i.e. plot elements that counterbalance the violence.
• If you still don’t understand the scope of the virtual market in Second Life, check out this SL marketing guide. Wooo….
• Gamasutra calls Planescape: Torment the 2nd-best RPG ever. Best ever, IMO.
• Another article on product placements in games; this one explores their increasing pervasiveness and sophistication. One quote by Dave Perry caught my eye: “If you want this sword, [Acclaim’s 2Moons] would put up a message and ask if you would like Coca-Cola to buy this item for you.
• A recent Neilsen study on gamer habits reveals some interesting things, including:
• RPG buyers are the most likely to pre-order a desired title (which possibly suggests that RPGs would make especially good candidates for episodic content…)
• Music is second most popular interest after games among active gamers (which explains, in part, MTVN’s aggressive posture in the space.)
• “Active gamers” spend 14 hours per week playing console games, and 17 hours per week playing handheld games.
• …and more (just go read it)

• Interesting note in the C3 blog about two things. First: Netflix has launched a contest encouraging the community to help improve the Netflix recommendation engine (it is being received very well). Second: some good thoughts on how family-sharing of accounts can mess up recommendations (this problem extends beyond Netflix, of course.)
• Acacia Group predicts that the gaming middleware market will grow 12% over the next five years, from $718M to $1.3B
• Article questioning the quality of recent EA Sports titles. I have no personal opinion on this (I haven’t played any EA Sports titles recently) but, since I used EA Sports as an example in my lifestyle brands article, I thought I’d note that maintaining high quality is important to maintaining a strong lifestyle brand. EA is aware of this, I’m sure.
• Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has acquired Danish game developer ITE.

A quick announcement, on behalf of MIT (reprinted from Henry’s blog):

The Comparative Media Studies Program is proud to announce an exciting forthcoming conference, The Futures of Entertainment, to be held at MIT on Nov. 17 and 18. The event is designed to bring together leading thinkers from across the entertainment industry to speak about core issues around media convergence, transmedia storytelling, user-generated content, and participatory culture. Speakers confirmed so far include The Long Tail’s Chris Anderson, Flickr’s Caterina Fake, DC Comic’s Paul Levitz, Warner Brother’s Diane Nelson, Big Spaceship’s Michael Lebowitz, social networking researcher Danah Boyd, television scholar Jason Mittell, and many others, including representatives from MTV, Cartoon Network, Bioware, and other leading companies in this space. The event is free and open to the public but we ask that you preregister since seating will be limited. The event is being hosted by the Convergence Culture Consortium.

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• Via Digg, a fun, simple flash game called “Red” that vaguely reminds me of the Atari classic Missile Command.
• Rockstar will offer two downloadable Grand Theft Auto IV episodes on the Xbox. (I nearly missed this news in the chaos of my move to Seattle. Yeek.)
• Via Edge, Nintendo has revealed some information about the Wii’s “message board”, a function that is intended to foster communication within the home, as well as remotely (via phone and email.)