The Box of Empty Promises 64
Grimwell.com has a feature up discussing the content selling that publishers like Sony Online and Microsoft have been announcing of late. Xbox Live micro-sales and the purchasing of in-game items in Everquest II may have an adverse affect on the playing field for the average gamer. From the article: "Games are becoming too much about money. Thats a real no brainer statement and I know it. The video gaming industry is where the money is at these days, besting Hollywood and the record industry without even trying. Nor have they really built up a public industry equivalent to the machines that grind out more traditional forms of entertainment. Oh, that's coming, and EA is quickly becoming the MGM of the old film studio system, but the public recognition of the machine that drives the gaming industry is nothing when compared to film, television, and radio."
Mini games (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Mini games (Score:1)
Re:Mini games (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mini games (Score:1)
History repeats itself... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:History repeats itself... (Score:4, Insightful)
This brings up a good point, there is a difference between casual and competitive. I had older cards that weren't balanced which I could use in causal play, however, in competitive play those cards were banned, so they were useless.
Microsoft/Sony can sell all the toys they want so long as they are kept out of competitive play. All it will do is change the gameplay experience for those who buy it. Those who buy it will have more fun, but it won't decrease the level of fun for you. In a twitch game like Halo, maybe you could buy extra weapons or vehicles, so long as those things are kept out of PvP there is no imbalance.
Re:History repeats itself... (Score:2)
Re:History repeats itself... (Score:2)
Man I haven't played in waaaaayy too long, last set I remember was Fallen Empires
Re:History repeats itself... (Score:2)
Re:History repeats itself... (Score:2)
Opportunity (Score:5, Interesting)
-Around 18 minutes out of every hour of radio is spent on commercials
-The average hourlong TV show only truly breaks 40 minutes of content (I know, I TiVo through the commercials) -Movies innundate you with ads slideshowing prior to the ads for future movies. Those ads now lead you into movies with an incredible amount of product placement ads. -Video games give advertisers a unique opportunity to let people actually buy the product when the advertisement is fresh in their minds. It is the logical conclusion to the cycle, and it is only going to get worse.
Re:Opportunity (Score:1)
I don't think it's fair to compare these forms of media to video games, though, because with this, it gives the player a choice that's not there with TV commercials... As long as there's a choice between earning the +5 Sword of Smiting by defeating the Black Knight and buying one from the developer for $4.99, I don't see it as a problem. Now if the ONLY way to get i
Re:Opportunity (Score:2)
Re:Opportunity (Score:1)
Re:Opportunity (Score:2)
Most likely what you will see items sold for aesthetics rather than gameplay. You can get a +5 sword of smiting from the black knight, but you can only get a +5 sword of energy for $4.99. Functionally they could be the same, only the sword of energy has cool electrical sparks on the blade.
Re:Opportunity (Score:3, Informative)
I remember learning about scriptwriting from old Star Trek books I had when I was a teen ("Making of Star Trek" and "Trouble With Tribbles"), and learning that when Trek was made, 8 minutes (or less?) per hour were allowed for commercials. Somehow the fact that over 25% of airtime is no longer
Re:Opportunity (Score:2)
It was sponsored by Ford, and had (if memory serves) a 5-minute commercial at the beginning and end.
That was 2 years ago. Today, they could do another advertisement-free episode to kick things off, but do product placement instead. This week's episode had Chloe mentioning how Cisco networks are 'self-repairing', for instance (not that this is a particularly intelligent way of promoting Cisco, but you get the idea).
How uninsightful (Score:2, Insightful)
Better By Sony (Score:3, Insightful)
It should be _better_ for the game when companies like Sony actually begin selling in-game items, money, and bonuses.
On games where players themselves are the providers of goods for sale, there is a huge business in "farming" items and coin for resale. So not only do you have players with real money able to buy things (rather than earn them), but you also have the contention for resources due to all the farmers.
If game company provides the virtual goods, that essentially undercuts any player-farmed trade. That is definitely an improvement.
Re:Better By Sony (Score:2)
Re:Better By Sony (Score:1)
Re:Better By Sony (Score:2)
Re:Better By Sony (Score:1)
Had this before (Score:1, Insightful)
Art house movie theatres, local garage bands, independently published books. That is where the quality is. And now that all the vast consumer sheep buy video games the real money is in selling crap games like this to them. The hardcore gamers who actually give two s
Re:Had this before (Score:2)
Re:Had this before (Score:2)
A hell of alot of great freebooks though and rarely have i come across a load of tripe( i mainly read referance).
Blockbuster games can be crap and can be good , don't tar them all with the same brush , each thing needs judged individualy. I have played alot of small scale games that are awfull as i have good ones.
I guess most are too young to remember... (Score:3, Insightful)
With all of the losses in hardware and set to grow higher with the next round, no real innovation in the next gen except for possibly the Revolution (ooh, online pay gaming and wireless controller standard!), and this notion that the same tired videogames will continue to sell after GTA 9, NFL 2k28, and the rest of the current market, I don't think so!
Re:I guess most are too young to remember... (Score:2)
Re:I guess most are too young to remember... (Score:2)
Very early 80's. Basically wiped out the American industry and left the market wide open for Nintendo to invade with the NES. And people even hated the NES at first...
Re:I guess most are too young to remember... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pac-Man (Score:2)
I believe the original poster is referring to the godawful Atari 2600 home console port of Pac-Man. Atari expected it to sell hugely, but people just hated it too much to buy. That plus E.T. did start to fuel the crash of the 80's.
Re:I guess most are too young to remember... (Score:1)
Re:I guess most are too young to remember... (Score:4, Insightful)
Uncheck, the last year has had alot of great titles, moreso than in previous years. Probably a dozen or more big name games that lived up to the hype (or did at least good job)
and this notion that the same tired videogames will continue to sell after GTA 9, NFL 2k28, and the rest of the current market, I don't think so!
The Madden Franchise is like 15 years old, how many Mario and Zelda games have there been?
The environment is different now, you have a generation that has grown up with video games, consoles are now being treated as entertainment platforms rather than game players (ie people in Japan bought PS2s for the DVD funtionality), and multiple and mature genres that cater to many interests (as opposed to almost pure "action" titles available in the past).
The video game industry may decline, but it won't collapse completely.
Re:I guess most are too young to remember... (Score:2)
A dozen out of how many games released last year? Well over 100 games get released a year, so slightly more than 10% of 100 being in the "living up to hype" section is not really helping your argument.
The crap to good ratio is pretty horrid out there, right now, especially on the PS2. The Xbox is catching up to the PS2 in crap
Re:I guess most are too young to remember... (Score:2)
There always has and always will be a large portion of games that are bad. What caused the collapse of video games in the past was the big name games that were atrocious, that caused players to be jaded, and bottom lines to suffer horribly (ie Pac-man & ET).
Those 10% of games "living up to the hype" pro
Re:I guess most are too young to remember... (Score:1)
Re:I guess most are too young to remember... (Score:3, Informative)
The Cell Processor [wikipedia.org] doesn't count?
Doug
Re:I guess most are too young to remember... (Score:1)
Innovation in this context means from the user's point of view and more polygons or more accurate physics aren't innovative from that point of view.
Re:I guess most are too young to remember... (Score:1)
The cell is a cool piece of hardware, but it means nothing to games... it means a lot to Sony who is going to make the cell a part of their products and force a line of consumers into it and a whole product line around it. Again, this is totally missing the main
Game Continue? (Score:2)
Also, the free "promo only" items we get for pre-purchasing games are often great to start with, but won't last after a couple levels. So it's not the concept of micropu
zerg (Score:2)
What I want to know is (Score:4, Insightful)
Good link at http://grumpygamer.com/5378171 [grumpygamer.com]
Quote: "The 2004 domestic Video and Computer Game Industry is estimated to be around $10B. This is a slightly misleading figure because it includes the sales of the console machines, in addition to the sales of the software, but we'll go with it.
The domestic US box office is estimated to be around $9B for 2004, and this is where the myth starts to take life. The problem is the movie industry is a lot bigger then just the U.S. box office. DVD sales and rentals for 2003 topped $16B. VHS sales and rentals for 2003 was $6.4B. VHS sales are declining fast, but most of that will just shift over to DVDs, which brings the grand total for non-box office movie sales to over $20B, twice the figure for the entire game industry."
Re:What I want to know is (Score:2)
Have you ever been to an EA press event, or E3 for that matter? It doesn't come close to Hollywood in a traditional sense, but EA spends a small nation's GDP worth to fly out journalists for its events(on top of all the stuff they serve the guests, lodging, etc) and then E3 is a huge money sink in the spaces, the lights, the booth babes, etc. The ratio of dollars spent on advertising to all money
Micro-Payments? (Score:1)
Re:Micro-Payments? (Score:2)
That is why they are talking about 'micro' payments in the NEXT generation of the Xbox.
So, their idea of micro is sub $5.00 (or whatever that converts to in currencies throughout the world.)
This is something they are adding, not something they are doing now.
Re:Micro-Payments? (Score:1)
If I had the money to run a television ad campaign (Score:2)
I don't think it'll last, and I'd accelerate the process if I could. If I had the money, I'd love to produce this commercial and see if I could get it inser
My opinion.... (Score:1)
Re:My opinion.... (Score:1)
Now, I know you can argue that they do manufactuer the items, as its their game, but it's not like some make it sound. You don't give them $5, and they load up an uber sword and send it to you. A player finds uber sword in the game, lists it for auction, you buy it,
Deja Vu (Score:2)
I wrote a paper similar to this for a class about 3 weeks ago.
Nice to see I'm not the only one out there who picked up on this.
Did Anybody Else... (Score:2)
always... (Score:1)
maybe when you and i were kids, we couldn't see that among the cool new games.
and please don't trivialize buying "virtual" items unless you also do the same for any "virtual" objects aka computer code/games/software/music/video.
if you don't want to participate (welcome to the club) then don't but don't try the bullshit fallacious argument that only stupid people would buy "virtual" items.