Category Archives: Articles of Interest

• EMI Group will soon sell all its music (minus the Beatles catalog) through iTunes with no DRM whatsoever.
• Nice article by Damion Schubert about “casual” vs. “hardcore” gamers. A useful read for both designers and marketers. I agree with much of it.
• Norwegian Cruise Line is putting Wii consoles on all its ships. My congratulations to Nintendo. This kind of thing helps our entire industry.
• Mario and Sonic will appear together for the first time in a Wii game based on the 2008 Olympics. Honest question: doesn’t Sonic win all the racing events by default?  🙂
• Family Guy. Bill Clinton. DDR. Video goodness.
• Harmonix brings us Rock Band, successor to Guitar Hero. Sounds awesome, though I wonder how many owners of Guitar Hero 2 will be willing to transition over.

• Via Raph, a lovely game (to be shared with all skeptical friends and family) that attempts to explain how video games teach.
• Remarkable account of creative hiring practices employed by Mark Kern, founder of Red 5 (previously interviewed by me here.)
• Mixed news on the PS3 launch in UK, Australia, and France. Apparently, the French launch was a disaster, but the UK launch was solid. (PSP is apparently doing well in the UK as well.)
• Article about building user communities. Some of it will seem very obvious to you, but there are a couple of interesting ideas sprinkled in there.
• EA starts a music label. Yet another example of the increasing cultural and business impact of games (and of EAs inevitable progression to massive media conglomerate…)
• Very funny comic about Viva Piñata.  🙂
• Great article about Webkinz and Club Penguin. One thing I didn’t realize — Webkins limits the amount of time kids can play games, apparently to great effect. I guess busy adults aren’t the only people you can attract by avoiding typical timesink game designs…

• Recap of the Experimental Gameplay session at GDC. I was only able to attend the first 45 minutes or so, but what I saw was really entertaining. Most interested in the first slew of (sound-centric) games… unfortunately the recap only mentions some of them. Also, I learned of Petri Purho’s blog during this session; he’s a game designer with a great sense of humor. Check out his work.
• Recap of Clint Hocking’s GDC talk about self-exploration in games. He makes a great point about games that implicitly force you to be “very good” or “very evil” (which is pretty much all games with a moral slider). Doesn’t that arbitrarily limit the player? Doesn’t it cut out some interesting design opportunities?
• Three Rings’ Whirled will be a web-based UGC toolbox / virtual world where people hang out and create their own minigames. I know of at least three other projects along these lines; I wonder how many hundreds are in the works that I don’t know about.
• EA’s Neil Young talks about their new BattleCast feature (basically, other people can tune into your game session as watch along.)
• Microsoft finally announced Games for Windows Live; aka the Live service on your PC. Most people are talking about achievements, multiplayer, etc, but I’m more excited about ways this can help foster user-generated content.

Way, way too much interesting news over the past ten days. Will be breaking things up into several posts. First:

• Transcript of Will Wright’s amazing SXSW keynote. Just brilliant. Focuses on storytelling in games and on user-generated content. My favorite quote: “We could have the computer come to some understanding of the story the player is trying to tell… We can even present dramatic obstacles to achieving those goal states, and this amplifies the drama… If we can parse intended story, we can change the presentation, the lighting, music, events… I wish games were more like [the movie] Truman Show.” Interesting to contrast this talk with Warren Spector’s GDC presentation.
• Interesting casual game statistics from GDC: Puzzle Pirates is reaping $100K/mo from subs, $250K from microtransactions. Club Pogo has 1.4M paying subscribers. Good news on both fronts.
• Most of you have heard of Sony’s PS3 “Home” by now. Achievements meets Miis meets Flickr/YouTube, with ads. Honestly, a very cool initiative (how’s THAT for grudging praise!) Honest opinion: this will have little-to-no impact on Sony’s sales until they significantly drop the price of the PS3. “Home” (even assuming solid execution) is the kind of thing that existing customers love, but potential customers generally undervalue. Oh, LittleBigPlanet seems very cool, too.
• Viacom sues Google over YouTube, and (unrelatedly), analysts reveal that YouTube only reaped $15M revenue in 2006. Google better figure out how to squeeze more juice out of their $1.65B investment soon… $15M can’t even cover YouTube bandwidth costs (or legal fees, for that matter…)

• Konami is developing a Yoga Training game for the DS. Probably the most stark example of third party publishers buying into the mass-casual vision laid out by Nintendo.
• Acclaim is taking community-centric game design one step further by effectively launching the equivalent of American Idol/The Apprentice for game design. The “best” contributor to an existing project will become the “director” of a future MMOG. Neat stuff; looking forward to seeing whether this is purely a PR stunt, or a genuine attempt to loop users into game design (plus PR stunt).
• Lots of Google/YouTube news. TV networks are thumbing their nose. Google is developing its own DRM solution (to help appease the aforementioned networks, no doubt). But Google has reason to smile, because YouTube traffic keeps exploding.
• I love Penny Arcade. 🙂
• Always useful to be reminded how unbelievably compelling Xbox achievements are to some customers…
• GameTap is trying hard (short of significant first or second-party funding, as far as I know) to claim the mantle of “indie game champion.” All kinds of snide, competitive remarks are coming to mind, but I’m stiffling ’em. 😉

• Circuit City is dipping its toes into used game sales. Didn’t work out for Best Buy; I’ll be curious to see if it works out for CC.
• Nickelodeon’s ME:TV, airing from 5pm to 6pm, will showcase original user-generated content uploaded by kids. The show will include a participatory element (real-time voting via Nick.com, etc.) Love it!
• Henry writes about Bandai’s attempts to court US pirates of Japanese anime.
• Border Watch, which enables live viewing of the Texas/Mexico border, has recorded 200k subscribers, 25M hits, and 12k emails, and is now seeking to become a permanently sustainable program. (Very serious) big brother concerns aside, this is an example of something that could be turned into a crowd-sourcing game, though the current level of interest possibly indicates that such design effort isn’t even necessary.
• Interview with Capcom Marketing VP, Charles Bellfield, which focuses in part on incorporating user-feedback into game design, encouraging word of mouth, etc. The interview doesn’t delve as deeply as I’d like, but it’s good to see another major publisher focusing on these issues.

• Some great news: researchers have found that people who played action video games for a few hours a day over the course of a month improved their vision by 20%. And here I was, worrying about my eyes!
• SCE’s UK sales director, Kevin Jowett, has left the company (just weeks before the European launch of the PS3.) Reminiscent of Molly Smith’s resignation during the PS3 launch (she was the head of PR). Double ouch.
• Shanda’s free-game strategy, derided as desperate over a year ago, is paying off and winning over analysts. More on this from Business Week.

The times/locations for my GDC sessions were just announced. I hope some of you will have the opportunity to attend and say hello afterwards.  🙂

Session: Sharing Control
Time/Location: 10:30am Friday, March 9, 2007, Room: 41

Session Description: This year’s GDC theme is “Take Control”, but this next generation of gaming should be equally remarkable for its emphasis on broadband-enabled social systems, multiplayer games, and user-generated content. This panel will grapple with the benefits and challenges of *sharing control* with gamers. Issues include: how can developers involve consumers in the design process, how can user-generated content help and harm a game, what are the best ways to prevent “low quality” UGC from frustrating the community, and how can user-driven marketing be encouraged?

Session: PC Gaming in an Age of Connected Consoles
Time/Location: 12:00pm Thursday, March 8, 2007, Room: 36

Session Description: The PC game industry is in flux. While sales of casual and massive multiplayer games are rising, sales of traditional AAA titles are reportedly declining. The panel discusses how PC games should evolve to compete with and complement console titles, and identify promising areas for ongoing PC game development. Issues include:
– Is the decline real (and, if so, what is behind it)?
– How will MMOGs continue to impact the market?
– Which business models are most appealing for PC game development and distribution?
– How should PC game design evolve in response to the capabilities of modern consoles?

• Bravo to Linden Labs for recognizing an opportunity to build goodwill and actually benefit from unthreatening parody exposure (the Get a First Life campaign). Far too many companies would have instinctively reacted with lawyers and threats.
• Henry writes a very good analysis of the debate over Second Life’s user numbers. (I’ll throw one small barb, Henry: cultural change may be difficult to quantify, but profit is not. Users matter partially because Linden Labs is not a charity.)
• Google is bringing ad revenue-sharing to YouTube. Let the flood of lawsuits commence! (And check out my previous article on this subject.)
• Lost Planet cost $40M USD — half marketing, half development.
• An article about vote-based TV programming. One interesting quote: “It is far from clear, though, that the connections voters make with their favorite new talents are the sort that are built to last… aspiring stars — even those backed by a bloc of voters — still need support from old-line media gatekeepers.”
• Ian Bogost tackles one problem with many exergames: lack of social/cultural/creative depth. Quote: “Exergames will have to do more than just demanding physical gestures that produce latent exercise. In addition, they will have to simulate and create the social rituals that make us want to be physically active, whether alone or with others.”
• Great little video explaining the meaning and importance of Web 2.0. I agree with Kim: thoroughly inspiring!

Xbox / India link updated with correct URL. I’m batting what… one broken link every other post? Bah.

• eBay is delisting auctions for virtual objects. The stated rationale is notable: they’re effectively declaring that game players don’t have inherent ownership of their own virtual property… which is the rationale most MMO developers are hoping will take hold in legal circles.
• Classic Nintendo game themes, acapella-style — a delightfully geeky treat.  🙂
• Hamburger giant Burger King says its Xbox games promo helped the company achieve a 40% increase in profits for Q2. That’s huge!!
• Some interesting anecdotes about games (and Xbox) in India.
• Today’s Penny Arcade comic is hysterical.  🙂