Episode 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?”

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Episode 554: This Time, No ScottEpisode 554: This Time, No Scott

In Episode 552, there was no TJ. This time, Scott has to duck out early in the podcast, leaving a two man podcast again. It’s all good since the quality is still there. (Maybe not.) There’s also a Gaming Flashback: Burnout Paradise.

This week’s news includes:

  • Anthem reportedly set for major overhaul as BioWare looks to reboot its troubled game
  • Minecraft Dungeons will be supported long term with a mix of free updates and paid DLC
  • Dragon Quest Builders 2 is coming to Steam

Let us know what you think.

Episode 319: Someone Is Butt-Hurt About MicrosoftEpisode 319: Someone Is Butt-Hurt About Microsoft

There’s no Gaming Flashback or Gaming History, but there is a crapton of news this week on TD Gaming Podcast, which Jonah Falcon and Jordan Lund eagerly read.

That, and Jordan really wants to know what you have been playing.

The news this week includes:

  • Microsoft officially announces indie self-publishing, to be unveiled at GamesCom 2013
  • Phil Fish explodes on Twitter, cancels Fez II in a huff
  • Shadow of the Eternals back on Kickstarter, no longer episodic
  • Neil Gaiman has announced his first videogame, Wayward Manor
  • Lanning: Nintendo will be around for “100 years,” but probably not Zynga or Microsoft
  • Activision-Blizzard buys out $8.2B of its own stock from Vivendi
  • Paid subscribership of World of Warcraft down to 7.7M

All this and Listener feedback.

Trading Used Games, Like Fraud?Trading Used Games, Like Fraud?

David Braben, founder of Frontier Developments, says retail outlets that buy and sell pre-owned games are “essentially defrauding the industry.” Although multiplayer gaming might not be a huge threat, the single player experience in games may die out because gamers play the game quickly and resell it back to places like GameStop for others to buy.

Developers don’t get a dime when a game goes traded, many gamers will “share” the single player experience with a single copy of the game by reselling it over and over. The end result, retail outlets make a good penny for marking up old games while developers see nothing. This is really how game retail outlets survive because the margins on video games is so damn low.

The story has been heard before, developers want a piece of the action so they’re taking steps to entice people to keep the game with renewed downloadable content on old games; you can’t experience the new content without keeping the game around longer. In the world of low margin games, high cost development and short-lived story lines the solutions to this problem aren’t exactly obvious.

Braben’s idea of a solution is to offer two versions of the game, a not for resale/rental version at a high price, say $160, and a low priced version that cannot be shared (heavily DRM’ed?) for $50. In essence, gamers would no longer be able to trade in games because the idea of spending double for a game so you can resell it makes no sense to most gamers (including myself.)

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