Episode 475: Sterling Reviews

August 17, 2017August 17, 2017| Jonah FalconJonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 8:59 pm
Categories:

This week’s episode is 50% longer as the first 20 minutes or so are devoted to the reaction to Jim Sterling’s explosive review of Hellblade and his subsequent recanting later that day. This week has no Gaming Flashback or Gaming History, but there are six news items to make up for it.

The items include:

  • EA talks about Nintendo Switch support
  • Rainbow Six: Siege “Operation Blood Orchid” update launches August 29
  • Myth-inspired RTS Deadhold charges into Early Access later this month
  • No Man’s Sky “Atlas Rises” update adds story content and “limited” online co-op
  • EA says Star Wars: Battlefront “lacked long-term goals”
  • Moons of Madness is Lovecraftian horror on Mars

Let us know what you think.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.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

Related Post

Imagine a Free World of WarcraftImagine a Free World of Warcraft

Once upon a time the folks at Blizzard Entertainment thought they could support the entire world of World of Wacraft by ad revenue. This would have created an MMO experience which would cost you nothing but a bit of annoyance by ad providers; what would the total audience be if the game was free?

Had WoW launched free of charge they would probably have significantly more users playing the game, but the ad revenue from the sheer amount of people would be nothing compared to a monthly charge for eight million subscribers.

Although only a small number of those subscribers are US based, they’re still raking in the cash compared to an ad-based model, even if they were to have triple the subscribers.

However, the Blizzard exec noted: “We didn’t want to charge a subscription, but as we researched market conditions, we realized that wouldn’t support us.”

It’s possible, perhaps, that Blizzard would have fallen under its own weight had they created a world where anyone could play for no charge. Imagine the server utilization, the volume of traffic and the support calls they would get for triple or quadrupal the player base with only ads paying the checks.

Granted, a free system would be excellent in theory, but in practice, making us pay is the only way to throttle our addictions. Sad, but true.

(Thanks, gamasutra)

Read MoreRead More

Activision Blizzard Trying To Scare Off Competition?Activision Blizzard Trying To Scare Off Competition?

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)

Read MoreRead More

Microsoft Says They’ll Win Console WarMicrosoft Says They’ll Win Console War

Apparently the war is in full force and Microsoft’s Don Mattrick is ready to poke the flag in the ground and call it a sure fire victory (in so many words). He said he’s “willing to declare here today that Xbox 360 will sell more consoles worldwide this generation than PS3” (eurogamer)

They’re either not seeing the Wii as a competitor or are trying to avoid that evil word considering the growth of the tiny little console in the market. After telling the audience the Xbox 360 has already outpaced the PlayStation 3 and Wii he failed to mention the one-year head start the 360 had over its competitors.

There are, of course, bonuses to talking figures when you were first out of the gate. The interesting facts, which won’t present themselves for years now, will be the end unit sales figures for Wii, 360 and PlayStation 3 when all boxes are end-of-life’d. We’re sure to hear each side declare victory when they’ve decided when the war actually ends. In Microsoft’s eyes, the console war will probably end when they release the next-generation box, barring the fact that they should wait at least one year before claiming the title.

You can’t argue with the facts, Xbox 360 is doing very well in the United States (if we ignore Japan). The Nintendo Wii has sold 8.8 million units to the Xbox 360‘s 10.3 million units. How many units did the Xbox 360 have sold around the same time Nintendo boasts 8.8 million? Probably a bit less.

Press can be a great thing when you have numbers to play with and figures to skew. Oddly enough, if some of us are any indication, we’ve purchased multiple Xbox 360’s because of dead systems. Sure, we’re stupid for actually doing it, but those figures will work into the total units sold for the Xbox 360 hardware sales. Imagine, their failing systems may have actually boosted sales figures a bit; probably not statistically significant but funny non-the-less.

We can’t wait to see what type of numbers Sony and Nintendo are going to fling out. If we ask each competitor, we’re sure they’ll say we’re going to win the console war. Nintendo may just ask, “what console war? We just make game hardware” and you can’t fault them there!

Read MoreRead More