Gaming Podcast Episode 218: Introducing Paul

The listeners of Gaming Podcast finally get introduced to the third member of the Videogame Roundtable podcast team, Paul S. Nowak, who only desires hate mail and more time playing Dungeon Overlord on Facebook. This week, the Gaming Flashback looks back at the Gamecube title mentioned by Jordan Lund last week, Eternal Darkness, and the guys respond to the reader mail from episode 217, and if you’re interested in other types of games such as escape rooms you can visit the Room escape games in Portland Oregon just for this.

The trio also discuss the following news items:

  • Microsoft: Halo won’t be a yearly franchise
  • Analyst: Kinect appealed to “more hardcore” than expected
  • 2M users sign up for COD: Elite beta
  • Wizardry Online announced, will feature permadeath

This week’s Question of the Week: How much do you think the Wii U will cost? All this and more in this delightful podcast that will have you begging for more.

0 thoughts on “Gaming Podcast Episode 218: Introducing Paul”

  1. @ Halo won’t be a yearly franchise:
    Right, I’ll take their word for it. Thing is, with their current schedule, yearly franchise or not, they will have sales for the earlier one eaten up by the later game.

    @ Kinect appealed to “more hardcore” than expected:
    Microsoft doesn’t have to do anything. I believe that the game developers will manage to create a control scheme for hardcore game(r)s.

    @2M users sign up for COD: Elite beta
    Protest or not, this is just an improvement in the matchmaking service. Why not play Quake Live?
    What I am saying is that there will always somebody willing to do this for free.

    @Wizardry Online announced, will feature permadeath:
    Permadeath + PVP = niche market. The only thing that can make it worse is high-damage / insta-kill weapons.

    Speaking of MMOs:
    http://thenoobcomic.com/index.php?pos=19

    @How much do you think the Wii U will cost?
    Man, I hate price guessing …
    I say 150 USD. Middle way between a plain controller and the 3DS. Bare in mind, this is just for the controller.

  2. QOTW:
    I’d say $350 USD including the console and a controller. Which will probably end up being $550 Australian or more 🙁

  3. QOTW – I’m going to say $350. Probably 250 for the console and 100 for the controller. Maybe less for the controller and more for the console, but I’m thinking somewhere around 300. I can’t see it going much higher than 400 though, I don’t think the casual audience that the Wii appealed to will want to shell out the extra 300+ dollars for a new console. Its going to be interesting to see what the official price is.

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A few months ago, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said investing $500 million to a billion still wouldn’t be enough to compete with an MMORPG like World of Warcraft. The MMORPG space is a costly investment and you’d need to really burn a lot of money to start competing against the mega-giant, but Mythic VP and Warhammer Online lead designer Mark Jacobs disagrees with that quote.

Jacobs says $100-million dollars would be needed to start competing against the giant subscription generator that is World of Warcraft. Although few developers are sitting on $100-million USD, it’s a bit more realistic an investment for a studio to scrape up compared to a billion bucks! A billion dollars is a scary number when you consider that’s the start of an investment that may, or may not, pay off in the end.

Kotick may not be using complete scare tactics, he may be working off experience when dealing with MMORPG’s. A startup MMO isn’t a cookie cutter system, there is a lot of development efforts, $100-million dollars worth, but MMO developers slip dates many times. When you start slipping your dates you’ll start burning more money and, before you know it, you’re a billion in the hole. Jacobs thinks $100-million will cover development costs and messing up, so a billion is still way over budget.

Perhaps this is a bit of a scare tactic, assuming a developer will fail and slip their dates isn’t really a great way to start quoting prices. However, shooting too low isn’t always the best method of building your development assessments. The end result, scream ONE BILLION and you may scare off any potential startup MMO developers.

Warhammer Online lead designer did mention one big barrier to entry: the need for “at least half a million subscribers to be successful.”

(Thanks, 1up)