Paul returns to the show to drown his sorrows in the discontinuation of a game series he loved, and the podcast ran so long it has to be split into two parts.
The first half of this podcast includes the following news items:
Stay tuned for Part 2.
Episode 425: Paul’s Return Part 1
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Episode 465: No FrillsEpisode 465: No Frills
This week’s episode is raw and unedited, since Jonah’s laptop got fried. However, despite the audio issues and being posted via cell phone, the gang got off a pretty good show.
This week’s news includes:
- Overwatch pro ends career with stream of racial slurs
- Don’t expect Kingdom Hearts 3, Final Fantasy 7 remake until at least 2018
- DOTA 2 will soon require competitors to cough up their phone number
- Report: PlayStation VR bundle will come with required camera and one Move controller
The Question of the Week: “What kind of VR game would you want to play?”
Episode 336: Happy New Year 2014Episode 336: Happy New Year 2014
The first episode of 2014 is now out, as Jonah Falcon, Jordan Lund and Dan Quick recap the major news of 2014.
The news includes:
- PC gaming exploding
- Next-gen launches, including Microsoft’s 180
- Nintendo Wii U suffers
- Nintendo Announces 2DS
- Microconsoles launched
- Tech flops of 2013
Also, some Listener Feedback, and the Questions of the Week, “What was the biggest event of 2013? What was your favorite game?”
Phil Harrison’s Building a 100 Million Dollar FranchisePhil Harrison’s Building a 100 Million Dollar Franchise
Once upon a time, Activision Blizzards CEO Bobby Kotick kicked a few franchises to the curb: Riddick and Ghostbusters. No doubt, this was a result of the Activision and Blizzard merger requiring some resources to the merged together while others were cut from the lineup. Phil Harrison, the new big suit at Atari/Infogrames has raised these little birds from the ashes with a dream to build them into 100-million dollar franchises.
While Bobby Kotick said the titles, “don’t have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million dollar franchises,” Phil Harrision sees it as a personal challenge to prove him wrong.
“What Bobby, perhaps unhelpfully said, was that those games were franchises which wouldn’t make $100m of revenue and generate sequels. If that’s his benchmark, then fine — and we’d love to aspire to the same benchmarks. But you know what? I would love to turn Ghostbusters into a $100m franchise, just to prove him wrong.” (1up)
In many ways, this is the difference in attitudes from a large firm compared to a smaller firm with strong goals and a vision for success. Activision Blizzard is big now, perhaps the biggest publisher in the industry, they can’t be bothered with minuscule 80-million dollar franchises. Others, like Atari, strive to take a title from nothing to something of greatness. Granted, Atari’s failed in a lot of franchises, but with their new ex-Sony executive behind the helm things could turn around and this might be the first step.
Most of the best game franchises in existance today started from nothing but a dream. Big publishers don’t have time to dream, they’re too busy making money off the fanboys of their current franchises.