GameStop Exec Believes It’s Highly Unlikely Next Generation PlayStation And Xbox Consoles Will Block Used Games

My immediate reaction is this guy is just throwing up a smokescreen so Gamestop can protect their stock price as long as possible. If there is one issue game publishers [...]]]> Found this article thanks to John Gaudiosi of Forbes:

GameStop Exec Believes It’s Highly Unlikely Next Generation PlayStation And Xbox Consoles Will Block Used Games

My immediate reaction is this guy is just throwing up a smokescreen so Gamestop can protect their stock price as long as possible. If there is one issue game publishers and developers are united on its their hatred of used game sales. You’ll find some who are fine with the concept, but they don’t like the fact that all that money is going to Gamestop rather than to the developer. Yes, it begs the question as to why publishers haven’t figured out their own used game system, but that doesn’t change how people feel about it.

As a result of this hatred for Gamestop’s leechery, you see more games with online only play, or online activation codes for more content, etc. I think the codes for bonus content are a cool way to go because then the people who buy new get rewarded. What sucks is when those people sell their game and still got the full benefit of that reward.

The reason I find this Gamestop hatred totally legitimate is because Gamestop basically got so addicted to the “free money” of used game sales, they basically CHOSE to become an enemy of the industry.

When you bring a brand new game to the counter at a Gamestop now, the staff are trained to check for a used copy and try to sell you that instead. They are trained to push it very, very hard in fact. So what we have now is the biggest brick and mortar retailer in an industry actively working to shaft the people who make the products they sell. Even when someone WANTS a brand new game, they try to jump in and steer the person away from it and instead onto a used game where Gamestop makes 100% of the money.

This is what prompted Gamestop to all but completely jettison their PC games – only carrying a few top titles when they are newly released or hot (or related to something like WoW).

What Gamestop has done over the last 5-10 years is completely and utterly destroy any kind of relationship they might have once had with game developers and publishers. There is so much animosity now that there is really no hope of a repair.  Game developers/publishers around the world are going to rejoice when the PS4, XBOX 720, and WiiU take massive steps to utterly kill the very possibility of used games.

Gamestop is going to be left in a situation where the bulk of their entire business evaporates in the span of a couple months, and then it will be too late to build new bridges to sell new games.

Microsoft, Sony, EA, Activision, etc. will have moved on to Steam or Steam-like distribution methods where used games don’t exist as a concept and they keep a lot more of the money being spent on their games (which, honestly, is where most of the money should go in the first place).

As usual, the customer is the big loser here because more and more games will require an always on internet connection, and in the end a lot of gamers will have less money to spend on games (so they’ll just end up buying less). As a game developer, I had absolutely no problem with the CONSUMERS buying and selling used games. I feel like that option did not reduce the total $$$ they spent on games. It just allowed them to buy and play more games. The only problem was the gigantic cut Gamestop was taking and not sharing with the people who actually created the product.

I don’t see Gamestop existing 5 years from now. So all you bargain hunters having fun visiting Blockbuster stores for their going out of business sales, get ready to move on to Gamestop stores next.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: The Great Buffett Caper

Income taxes are always easy to exploit because the [...]]]> Pretty funny skit, and kinda sad too. But this gets at a point I realized many years ago that the very concept of taxing income is flawed and doomed to always be horrendously abused and exploited.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: The Great Buffett Caper

Income taxes are always easy to exploit because the only person involved in the transaction of reporting income is the person with all the motivation to cheat.

In a national sales tax, a millionaire who wants to cheat would have to convince a third party (whoever he was buying stuff from) to also cheat on his behalf. This is far less likely because that third party then has everything to lose (their entire business) for the primary benefit of the millionaire.

I don’t know if it will ever happen in my lifetime, but I really wish we would switch to the national sales tax (http://www.fairtax.org/)

If you have a unique name, being google/net/facebook stalked is super easy. Your information is likely at the top [...]]]> In a world of decreasing privacy where employers, dates, or in general anyone you meet will likely google or netstalk you, will it soon become a huge benefit and asset to have a super common name?

If you have a unique name, being google/net/facebook stalked is super easy. Your information is likely at the top of the results, and thus everything you’ve done online is easy pickings.

But imagine if you had a super common name like  John Smith. My goodness. Would anyone even bother to google your name? What’s the point? The odds are so small that any result would be about the John Smith being targeted that it wouldn’t even be worth the effort.

Many parents (myself and my wife included) made some effort to give their child a meaningful name. Perhaps part of that decision included not giving their child a super common name. In this day of eroded digital privacy, was that a mistake?

CCP launches investigation after Eve Online FanFest panel accused [...]]]> Every time another news article appears about EVE Online, I am reminded why I would never play this game. I’m consistently impressed by their open world, single server, high skill cap design, but depressed by their encouragement of a community based on harassment, abuse, and betrayal.

CCP launches investigation after Eve Online FanFest panel accused of mocking suicidal player

“I want to reassure you that CCP in no way condones the harassment of players”

Huh? That’s an asinine statement from CCP’s PR folks. CCP openly condones and encouragements harassment (and worse) of players.

There are so many utterly poisonous game communities out there right now. EVE, WoW, League of Legends. I don’t understand why these game developers just let it get this bad.

Yes, community management is difficult, but not so difficult that you should just throw up your hands and surrender.

Perhaps this is why games like our own Threshold RPG can thrive despite being 16 years old and wayyy behind the curve technologically. There was a time where I’d say our USP was “required roleplay.” I still think that is the case, but I’m starting to think “a community that isn’t evil” is starting to be just as important.

The area that has a couple tables is adjacent to one of the smaller gyms where they have dance classes sometimes.

The teenagers that take the dance classes, as well as sometimes their [...]]]> I’m at my daughter’s gymnastics facility. Her practice is 4 hours long, so I bring my laptop to get some work done.

The area that has a couple tables is adjacent to one of the smaller gyms where they have dance classes sometimes.

The teenagers that take the dance classes, as well as sometimes their moms, pile all their bags, boots, fast food garbage, etc. all over the 3 or 4 small tables. They aren’t even using the chairs or tables, but they completely dominate them with all their junk and then go in and take their class.

So today I get there and every table is covered with junk. I pick one that only has a pair of dirty boots (standing, soles down, on the table), two soft drink bottles, a crumpled Arby’s bag, and the dirty peeled off top to a yogurt container, and put the stuff on the (carpeted) floor next to the table. (tons of their junk is all over the floors already too).

The class ends, and everyone comes piling out. Some moms show up as well.

One of the girls and her mom actually start complaining loudly about their stuff being moved. I think they were trying to get me to say something. I didn’t say a word. Then the mom actually taps me on the shoulder and faux innocently asks “Do you know who moved our things?”

Me: “Yes, I did. This was the most empty table.”

The mom: “Oh, I didn’t think anyone would need these tables for anything super important.”

Me: “My daughter’s gymnastics practice is 4 hours long so I try to get some work done.”

She kinda harumphs angrily, walks like 2 steps away, and loudly says to her daughter “I don’t know why he needs to move our stuff to play a game on his computer.”

I almost let it go, but I just couldn’t.

Me: “Ma’am, you MIGHT have a point if it weren’t for the fact that I make computer games for a living, and what you see on my computer is our latest game. Tables really aren’t the right place for people’s dirty boots and empty fast food garbage. There are 4 trash cans within 20 feet of us.”

She had turned around when I said ma’am, but after the above she just grumbled and left.

I get so sick and tired of these entitled, selfish, disrespectful (self censored).

One of the hardest things for indie game [...]]]> This post is a bit self serving, but I think the information could potentially be useful to other indie game developers as well. I really hope everyone who reads this will share it as widely as possible so we can get as much feedback gathered as possible.

One of the hardest things for indie game developers is getting the word out about their game so they can get a nice core of early players who will test, give feedback, help them iterate on their design, and get their game polished.

Personally, what I would really like to have early on is about 100-500 hardcore, dedicated players who will play the heck out of your game and stick with it for a few months. You want them to stay dedicated so they can understand where you’ve been and become a core group of tested players whose feedback you can benefit from for many years to come.

So the $64,000 question is: how do you get those couple hundred players?

GAMING FORUMS:

Gaming forums SHOULD be a great place to get the word out about your game. Thousands of gamers, many of which are always looking for something new and interesting, gathered in once place, in a medium that has self selected people who like to communicate.

Unfortunately, many (most?) gaming forums are completely insane with how rapidly they shut you down if you post about your game. They accuse you of spam even if all you do is make one post. Even if you check back regularly, answer questions people post, etc. (which is something an actual spammer would never do), they will warn, ban, block, etc. with impunity. I hate that so many gaming sites do this, and I wish they’d change, but I lack the power or influence to make this happen.

I don’t know if this is just overzealous moderation or bad policies. Either way, it is really disappointing and terrible for the industry as a whole. The mega giant blockbusters don’t need to communicate directly with gamers so they aren’t affected. It is the smaller games and indies that need a way to talk to gamers, and the best medium for this is being consistently made unavailable.

Are there any gaming sites/forums that aren’t like this? Where you can post about your game and actually get a bunch of people who will try out your game, give you feedback, and potentially join your hardcore group of early adopters? If so, please share in the comments!

GAMING BLOGS:

I read a lot of gaming blogs, and there are people on tons of them that I would love to have as testers or early/trial players. But blog topics are determined by the blog author, and I rarely see an opportunity in a discussion to say “Oh speaking of (topic being discussed), you guys should try my new game.” It doesn’t feel natural and instead feels disruptive or just too far off topic.

I have tried mailing blog authors and asking them to write about one of our games, and in a number of cases some awesome bloggers have done this. But these blog posts seem to get mostly ignored by the readers. I think blog readers are generally looking for commentary, analysis, or controversy. So when they see an article that is a nice, calm “hey check this cool thing out”, I think blog readers tune it out or say “oh yeah I will check that out later” but never get around to it.

So as much as I love blogs, I am not sure how well they work for getting the word out about your game. Perhaps if there are some specific blogs designed to promote indie games or to help gamers find new and unique games. Again, if anyone knows of such a thing please post about it in the comments.

ADVERTISING:

In my experience this is just a money pit. Indie companies don’t have tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to dump into advertising, so chances are you won’t ever be able to get enough coverage to break through the din of marketing noise. People in marketing know that repetition is the key to making your advertising message effective. It isn’t the first time someone sees your game ad that they try it out. It is more like the 5th or 6th time they see it. Then they say “oh hey, there’s another ad for that game I keep seeing. Maybe I should try it out.”

It is hard enough for an indie company to get enough ad coverage for someone to see their ad once. Getting the ad in front of the same person 5 or more times? Nearly impossible.

Advertising on some smaller, specialized sites might be effective, and once again I’d love to hear some suggestions from readers about sites where an indie company could advertise and actually have it generate some good results.

GAME AGGREGATORS/PLATFORMS:

This is where sites like Kongregate (flash) or Pheeva (html5) come into play. I’ve never made a game that would work with these types of sites, so my experience here is zero. I’d love to hear from people who have put games on sites like this – especially if you did so with the purpose of driving people to your “main” or “bigger” gaming site.

FACEBOOK:

Ugh. I hate the dominant position Facebook has taken as a gaming platform, mainly because it is a pretty bad platform for gaming in general. Tons of screen/UI real estate is eaten up by Facebook, a third party can (and does) change the API on you at will, and if you want to charge money they force you to use THEIR currency from which they take 30% (at least) of your gross.

The only option here, imho, for indies is to make a light or simple version of your game and put it on Facebook just to entice people to play your real game (similar to the aggregators above).

Alternatively, what about just sending updates, high scores, etc. to people’s walls. Does this still work? If so, is it effective? Also, how hard is this to build into your game?

Way too early for a brilliant visionary who affected the world in many positive and amazing ways.

It would have been great to see what else he could have done given another 20 years.

A huge loss for humanity, regardless of how you feel about Apple or specific Apple products.

10 ways Steve Jobs [...]]]> Sad.

Way too early for a brilliant visionary who affected the world in many positive and amazing ways.

It would have been great to see what else he could have done given another 20 years.

A huge loss for humanity, regardless of how you feel about Apple or specific Apple products.

10 ways Steve Jobs changed the world

World reacts to death of Steve Jobs

Former Mythic boss explains EA split

It sounds like Jacobs’ is saying that from the time EA bought Mythic, the direction of game design didn’t go the way he wanted or the way he felt was best.

Very interesting.

Perhaps this starts to [...]]]> Not a lot of detail, but some of it is very interesting:

Former Mythic boss explains EA split

It sounds like Jacobs’ is saying that from the time EA bought Mythic, the direction of game design didn’t go the way he wanted or the way he felt was best.

Very interesting.

Perhaps this starts to show a little more insight into what went wrong with Warhammer Online.

Please give this article a read, and let me know what you think.

Facebook Games: Where Monetization Gimicks and User Growth Matter More Than [...]]]> So I broke down and started playing a Facebook game recently. Not much has changed. The same lame tricks and the same lame forcing you to spam your friends into oblivion.

Please give this article a read, and let me know what you think.

Facebook Games: Where Monetization Gimicks and User Growth Matter More Than Good Game Design

I look forward to your opinions.