The Calm Before The Storm, Why No News?

Journalists and bloggers around the Net are doing whatever they can to scrape up news on the gaming industry. What’s the deal, it’s a Monday and nobody in the gaming industry has anything really big to announce, talk about or “leak” onto this here Interwebs?

Sure, we can read about a 7 year old’s request for game design tips for Little Big Planet, more than enough DSi news beating down the same door over and over or pour through pages upon pages of Warhammer Online reviews. But, where is the news?

Here is some news for you: nobody wants to make waves in the game industry right now. Consumers around the globe are looking for what is hot and what is not for the holiday rush. Parents are watching their children and looking to see what they’re talking about to build an internal memory of this years wish list of items. Maybe a Wii Game or a DS game or a 360 console or perhaps the PS3.

Moms and Dads are looking at the entertainment industry to find the best bargains and deals so we can stow away our tech toys in closets, basements and attics for holiday mornings. You don’t have to celebrate Christmas to be looking for great game deals this holiday season.

The last thing a game developer or console manufacturer wants to do is accidentally talk about a near-future project, price drop or game delay. One reason why Microsoft will not discuss any rumors on a slim 360 or why Nintendo hasn’t committed on a DSi release date for North America yet is because they do not want consumer hesitation when they should be spending spending spending!

The game industry has given us E3, PAX and other events with the only last minute news coming out of TGS soon; this will discuss the far reaching future of the game industry. For today, gamers have gotten the news and reviews for the upcoming game releases; it is time for them to put their money where their mouth is and buy all this crap.

Game titles are arriving weekly, the hype is done and it’s time for us to buy into it or walk away from it. We’re going to be bombarded with “need to have” games with a very slim wallet (thank the banks and their inability to loan money to qualified people) and we’re going to have to pick and choose what we’re prepared to buy.

Let’s face it, we’re going to be having some serious problems in the future if every game developer and publisher is going to push out all their best titles in the span of two months while we sit awaiting great games for 10-months. This model isn’t going to scale if the industry is going to continue to grow. Pretty soon we’re going to have to save a few titles for the holidays and give us a well rounded selection of titles for the full year.

Until then, we’re going to have to sit in silence while publishers and developers cross their fingers that the right game choices have been made, reviewers write good reviews and consumers eat it up. We’re expecting news for current projects to be light from here on out.

Hopefully TGS ’08 will give us something to look forward to for next holiday season ’09.

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Many game studios are being dropped following a bit of an economic downturn in the United States and globally. Activision has to deal with being agile enough to survive the economic times like anyone else and has dropped a few games that had great potential.

Gamers continue to ask the question, “why?” when some of their highest potential games were dropped to the floor. Ghostbusters and Brütal Legend are a couple examples of games with eager fans already salivating prior to its launch. Some of these fans are a bit ticked off that Activision named them as dropped franchise opportunities.

People ask why a company holds one “mediocre” title while getting rid of other potentially awesome ones. Don’t forget, this is a business and a good studio/publisher is going to make good business decisions without emotional attachments – those that bring emotions into play may end up with a highly valued product (to them) with no additional potential and lower revenue. This isn’t to say developers cannot be passionate about their games and their industry, they just have to build games gamers will buy and continue to fall in love with release after release.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is one of these business savvy individuals who knows where investors will find profits for the future, and he also know how to manage employees, with the use of software like this sample pay stub for payments and more.

“[Those games] 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. … I think, generally, our strategy has been to focus… on the products that have those attributes and characteristics, the products that we know [that] if we release them today, we’ll be working on them 10 years from now.” (1up)

Ghostbusters is a great example of a title which could be well received and fun to play but probably wouldn’t be an exploitable franchise. The game, based on a popular movie, has limited potential for yearly releases and huge franchise success. Ghostbusters fans would probably disagree, but that’s when emotion comes into play. Think dollars and cents, not awesome fun gaming.

Oddly enough many of these business decisions from Activision, Electronic Arts and other big publishers arrive when the economy is in free fall and investors are eying your revenue potential. People make their most important and, usually, unfriendly business decisions when their company is at risk.

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It’s sad to think money comes first and entertainment value comes second but we’re not the ones trying to make a profitable living in the industry. Put yourself in Kotick’s shoes as he walks into a board meeting to discuss future plans, road maps and profitability – you’d do what you have to do to keep your job, right?

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It took me roughly fourty minutes to figure out how to get on my mount and ride off into the sunset. Because they’ve changed a bit about how the mount is placed in your inventory, instead being in the “pet” tab in your character profile; this new addition was a slight adjustment to my usual method of play.

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The news includes:

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All this and Listener Feedback, with the Question of the Week: “Have you ever created your own content with a game’s editor?”