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Jonah is in LA, TJ is at EVO, and who knows where Scott is.

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Is This The Golden Age of Gaming?Is This The Golden Age of Gaming?

Entertainment Software Association (ESA) president Michael Gallagher called this the “Golden Age of Gaming” during his E3 keynote address. Calling out innovators like Nintendo who have “helped revolutionize our industry” and Sony’s Home initiative.

The keynote fell on the ears of fifty or so people who filled the large room awaiting his talk. Gallagher believes we’re in some of the best years of the gaming industries life based on… sales figures, technology and innovation?

If we’re in the Golden Age of Gaming we might as well pack it in now. Text book definitions of the phrase are defined as “the first and best of the four ages of humankind; an era of peace and innocence that finally yielded to the silver age.”  Or, “the most flourishing period in the history of a nation, literature, etc.” (dictionary.com)

By that definition, we’ve seen the best to come and everything from here is downhill. When a person retires from work they’re often said to have reach the “golden age” of their career. Is this the correct message to be sending to the industry? That we’ve done it all and now it’s time to sit and relax.

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Episode 411: We Are Experiencing Technical DifficultiesEpisode 411: We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties

This podcast is delayed due to unforeseen circumstances, but there’s plenty of banter between Jonah and Scott, and 30 minutes of the podcast were removed to be aired as an outtakes at some point. Oh, and there’s plenty of cursing and NSFW content in this particular podcast, so be warned.

The news includes:

  • Starbreeze announces it’ll build a VR arcade venue in Los Angeles
  • Mighty No. 9 unexpectedly delayed by Comcept
  • Nintendo NX set to be new face of Nintendo with busy 2016 planned
  • Five Nights at Freddy’s World pulled from Steam

Let us know what you think.

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?

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