Has anyone here ever been to GDC in Austin? If so, what did you think of it? Do you think it has value for an indie game dev/owner to attend for these purposes?

In fact, if Apple spent a fraction of its marketing budget on making gaming viable on the Mac, one has to wonder if that would have seized more market share.

At long last, Apple has finally canceled their grossly counter-productive “Get a Mac” ads (more well known as Mac vs. PC ads). I have often wondered how much longer Apple would continue to give Microsoft/PCs free publicity. Years ago, the PC guy became far more loveable and endearing, and the Mac guy became more of a self-important, arrogant, douche.

For many people, the piss poor gaming support is a major reason people don’t even give Macs a second glance. For perhaps the first time in two decades, a revolution in the gaming industry is threatening to break down that wall: casual/web games. We all know how popular these are becoming, and finally they are games that Mac users can play as well. Then again, maybe Jobs and his hate for Flash will strangle this baby in the crib.

Would you be more likely to buy a Mac if it ran more games? Do you think the rise of social/web games is a major opportunity for the Mac to make aggressive gains in market share? Or is it all irrelevant, because no matter what happens Apple will always be their own worst enemy due to their obsession with proprietary standards and reliance on haughty snobbery to sell products?

2) Tom and Jerry MMO from Turner Interactive. WTF? It will supposedly be released first in India. Are Tom and Jerry super popular over there or something?

3) Study on assumptions gamers make about people based on the looks of their avatar.

I hope never, but I fear that is a pointless hope. Last night I read this article: Google Stops Wi-Fi Mapping Project After “Mistakenly” Scoring Personal Data. It got me thinking about the accelerating violation of “customers’” private information for profit by so many companies out there.

Zynga has already gone down this path with so much of their gameplay based on nagging people into spamming their own friends about their games for free marketing.

Facebook and Google are legendary for it.

When will we have our first MMO that makes the gathering and selling of customer data a major part of their business model?

As a gamer, how much of this would you tolerate? And try to be honest, because the continued use of Facebook and Google by so many of us shows we are actually willing to tolerate quite a lot.

How do you think an MMO could successful move in this direction to make money without completely alienating their customers?

Subscription MMOs often run various promotions and events to try and lure people back. Sometimes they are called re-activation weekends. Often these events coincide with other special events like double XP (note this), new content, special events, etc.

A few days ago I received an email from LOTRO trying to convince me to return. Among the amazing incentives were:

1. 5% bonus xp.
2. Free stable master travel.
3. Collect tokens from defeated monsters and trade them in for special rewards.
4. Play your old characters.
5. Play LOTRO for $9.99 a month

Lets break that down a bit. #4 and #5 are kinda stupid to even list there. #4 is freakin’ obvious, and #5 is the same price everyone pays…. yipee. #2 is functionally irrelevant. Even as a lowbie I never even paid attention to stable master travel. #3 is vague, and might be interesting, but most likely the rewards are meh or silly.

So the big lure, and the thing they listed FIRST, is the “whopping” 5% bonus XP.

Who is the idiot marketing buffoon who came up with this idea and rammed it home?

Who in the heck is going to give a crap about 5% bonus XP?

I cannot remember the last time I saw a major MMO have an xp related event that was not 50% or more bonus XP. The common bonus is DOUBLE XP (+100%).

Does anyone know someone at Turbine they can ask about this? Because this has to be one of the most laughable MMO promotions I’ve ever read.

But to make this more than mocking LOTRO’s promotion, let us also discuss the larger issue:

1. How important do you think it is, and how much focus should be put on, luring back former customers at an MMO?
2. What methods do you think are likely to be most effective at doing so?

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group Acquires Turbine, Inc. North America’s Largest Privately-Held Online Gaming Studio

That says it all basically. Turbine, one of the biggest privately owned MMO developers is no more. For those of you that don’t know, Turbine is responsible for Asheron’s Call, the now defunct Asheron’s Call 2, Dungeons and Dragons Online, and Lord of the Rings Online. 3 out of 4 is pretty darn good.

None of their games really suited me, but in the 1-2 months I played LOTRO it definitely seemed like a quality game.

Congratulations to Turbine I guess… I imagine the primary shareholders and founders made a nice chunk of change. Personally, I am sad to see another gaming studio that had at least SOME independence get gobbled up.

Well, maybe this just creates more opportunity for the indie studios. What do you think?

Right away, I am going to answer the question in the topic: No.

People love games. People love computer/video games. The number of people who love computer games continues to grow. The gaming industry is thriving and will continue to grow, expand, thrive, and include more and more people. Television and movies need to look out because computer/video games provide almost everything they provide, plus interactivity. (However, they don’t have to fear for their lives. Just like casual/social games won’t kill other types, television and movies provide a type of entertainment that is unique enough that many people will continue to enjoy and prefer it.)

Very few forms of legitimate entertainment get wiped out when something new comes along. The new just adds to the old, and the overall quotient of happiness increases. As I noted in a previous blog post, the Rubik’s Cube just turned 30 years old and has sold 350 million units. People still love the thing. I play Uno with one of my kids almost every day. I watch TV. I watch movies. I read books. I listen to the radio. I go for walks. I play catch. I ride my bike. The fact that we, as a species, have more and more entertainment options as our planet spins upon its axis is a GOOD THING.

Zynga is a wildly successful juggernaut that uses a variety of questionable business practices to succeed in the market with products of dubious quality. Right now, many (if not most) people think they are an unassailable titan that will continue to dominate its sector of the industry and perhaps crowd out others. Their own staff are becoming increasingly arrogant about it (perhaps as a defensive mechanism). When a Farmville developer was booed and heckled during his acceptance of the social game award at GDC, he fired back with “we’re hiring” and various other snide comments that amounted too “when you chumps are done being artists, come work for us and make money.”

I don’t know about you, but that sounds a lot like AOL to me. How many of my readers are viewing this blog while logged onto the internet through AOL? Zero? Yeah, I thought so. AOL’s primary profitable business now is TMZ if I am not mistaken (yes, that’s how far they have fallen).

The power of social games like Farmville is that it let people play games with people they like (friends, family, etc.) that they probably never thought they’d game with – ever.  Parents gaming with their kids, grandparents gaming with grandchildren, and people gaming with high school friends they haven’t spoken to in 20 years are all pretty amazing things. The fact that some of the actual games that accomplished this are weak from a game design standpoint is not really the point.

Competition will come to this space, and crappy (at least in my opinion) games like Farmville won’t be able to compete. Zyngas will have to raise their standards. The same thing happened to AOL. In AOL’s case, they didn’t evolve so they died (as far as their ISP business).

Core games will continue to be made. AAA, multi-million dollar budget games will continue to be made. FPSes and fantasy MMORPGs will keep getting made. As long as there are people who like them enough to spend money on them, they will get made.

Farmville has grown the market for games, and in the end that is a good thing. This is similar to what The Sims did to help grow the gaming market – though admittedly The Sims is a high quality game in its own right. This is a good thing for us, people. Relax.

The Rubik’s Cube is celebrating its 30 year anniversary. It was patented in 1975 in Hungary as the Magic Cube (the same year the Pet Rock came out). In 1980, it was exported to the US and renamed the Rubik’s Cube. Since 1980, more than 350 million Rubik’s Cubes have been sold. It is the best selling puzzle game of all time. It clearly has longevity as interest has spanned multiple generations.

So what about professional gaming? Is it a pet rock-like fad, or a Rubik’s Cube like phenomenon with staying power. Thirty years from now, will people sit down and watch the equivalent of Starcraft matches like they watch football or baseball today? Will schools have gaming teams? Will colleges offer scholarships for people to PLAY games? Will there be a market for hundreds, or even thousands of professional gamers to make their entire living just by competing in gaming tournaments?

And for those of you who think the answer to some or all of those questions is yes, perhaps you want to learn how to become a professional gamer. Get training!

From Spinksville:  You cant heal stupidity!

and

From Bio Break: The Long, Hard Road to Console MMOs

and

From Elder Game: 2009: A year of Shitty MMOs.

For reference, you might find this post from Bio Break really useful: MMO Timeline. It includes dates of every major MMO’s release, expansions, and in some cases, cancellations.

Read them, enjoy, and feel free to share your comments there and/or here.

The Mud Connector – A Vital Resource in MUD and MMORPG History

You owe it to yourself to read the interview and learn a bit about this really important web site in online gaming history. And its not just a dinosaur – the site still gets about 100,000 unique visitors per month.