Episode 390: Counting Down

As Paul’s departure as a regular host is in 10 episodes, Jonah rants about the Batmobile in Batman: Arkham Knight and talks about the painlessness of Fallout Shelter‘s micro-transactions. The other part of the podcast is them talking Heroes of Might & Magic II, and discussing what makes a good expansion.

The news items include:

  • Lack of female character choice in The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes explained
  • Australian government bans hundreds of mobile and Web-based games
  • Nintendo has no problems changing franchises, despite fan outcry
  • Apple pulls games with Confederate flag imagery

All this plus Listener Feedback and Paul’s indignation.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Episode 373: Happy New 2015Episode 373: Happy New 2015

This is the first podcast of 2015, and Jonah and Paul are ready to get going, talking about their holiday gifts and their disappointment in the film Birdman. There’s no Gaming History or Gaming Flashback this week, but stay tuned for one next week.

The news in this episode includes:

  • FBI claimed to be investigating Xbox Live, PlayStation Network DDoS perps
  • GSC Gameworld re-opens for business
  • Halo 5 multiplayer beta gets more maps, weapons, and modes (from GameSpot)
  • Xbox Live founder leaves Microsoft

Also in the podcast is some Listener Feedback and the Question of the Week, “How much do you play online?”

Episode 227: Dreaming Of GamesEpisode 227: Dreaming Of Games

Paul is a sleepy boy this week, as Jordan finally erupts in disgust over criticism of the PlayStation Vita. Instead of a Gaming Flashback, the guys check out the upcoming indie adventure game To the Moon.

They also discuss the following news items:

We also get some reader feedback, and this week’s Question: What games, if any, did you find yourself dreaming about playing that you already owned? Write in and tell us!

End of 100 Million Dollar Games?End of 100 Million Dollar Games?

Gigaom had a great writeup about how Grand Theft Auto IV marks the end of “next generation” as we know it, stating, in more words or less, the game is a failure. GTA: San Andreas sold 21.5 million copies during its time on the shelf while GTA IV has sold roughly 9 million copies as of June 7th.

Granted, the game is still on the shelves and will still get sales, but the mass of “hardcore gamers” have had their fill and either purchased it or will not. The end result? A huge tapering of sales numbers for the graphically impressive game. Take-Two spent USD $100 million to develop the game which had great opening sales records but has gone down drastically since.

Imagine the title gains them USD $30.00 per sale in profit (considering distributors get the game for roughly USD $45 to $48.00 USD), taking into account shipping of the product, marketing and all the materials that go into producing a copy, they’d have to sell a large quanity of game titles to break even, which I think they have done.

Nobody is in this industry to break even. A block buster title should make block buster profits, right? Else, why bother to spend the 100-million when a Wii title can double or triple the profits with six months of development?

(more…)