October 27th, 2009 — News analysis and background
I have written before about the relationship between Eric Lam and Evony. In light of their legal action against me and threats against The Guardian it is interesting to see the following comment that Eric Lam made on the Wowgoldfacts blog:
He clearly says “We don’t want to sue you” and “There is No Such Thing As Bad Press”!
October 27th, 2009 — Housekeeping
It is a little interesting that both Gamesindustry.biz and MCV have recently released traffic details. Gamesindustry.biz at over 340K monthly uniques, MCV at over 240K monthly uniques. Now both these sites publish multiple articles every day written by multiple professional journalists. So my whimsical opinion pieces can hardly be expected to compete.
Here are the numbers that analytics are telling me for the last month of Bruceongames: Visitors 100,869, Uniques 91,014, Page views 185,954.
Imagine what they would be if I had a bit more content and a marketing budget!
October 27th, 2009 — News analysis and background
There is something about video gaming that a lot of people don’t understand, especially many politicians and much of the traditional press. And that is that gaming is just another form of media. Like the ballet, television, books, opera, film, newspapers etc etc. That is all it is. Of course gaming has made most of the older media obsolete because gaming has the technical advantages of interactivity, non linearity and connectivity. These represent such a paradigm shift that it is just about impossible to convert content from the old media to games and vice versa. Gaming also has the phenomenally powerful task/reward mechanic which is what will ultimately seal its position as the main method for delivering education.
This lack of understanding of what video games are has lead to them being demonised by the ignorant. And unfortunately the ignorant include prominent politicians and newspaper editors. But it has always been so, misunderstood new media is a feature of our history. The arrival of mass literacy in Victorian Britain was followed by the penny dreadful novel which were perceived to corrupt the youth of the day. American 20th century comic books were thought to be so bad that they were investigated by the Senate Committee on Juvenile Delinquency, there were public burnings of comic books (it isn’t just Hitler!) and some cities imposed outright bans. The establishment was so frightened of the early movie industry in America that The Supreme court in 1915 removed first amendment protection from films and in 1927 the industry was so scared of external intervention that it imposed the Hays Code upon itself. And of course in more recent years television has been blamed for youth violence, loose morals, poor academic attainments and obesity, amongst a plethora of other problems.
So against this background of fear rooted in ignorance it was hardly surprising that three British charities, The British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK and Diabetes UK, wasted vast amounts of their donors money on a very silly advertising campaign demonising video games, implying that they caused early death. A totally ridiculous position. This campaign was in support of a government health advertising campaign under the Change4Life banner, but the government’s adverts were completely different using plasticine Wallace and Gromit type figures.
(As a side note some sectors of the press didn’t let the facts get in the way of a good story and hysterically tried to blame the charities’ campaign on the government.)
And now we have the deepest irony, pouring total scorn on the three idiot charities Change4Life has now approved a video game, Wii Fit Plus, which will be marketed under its banner. According to the BBC: “A health department spokesman said active video games were a ‘great way’ to get kids moving.”
I think that this is a great, a fantastic, example of how quickly a lot of people are becoming educated about the reality of video games. And how using false and simplistic stereotypes no longer works. A lot of this shift in attitude comes from the democratisation of the power of the press. The centre of gravity of knowledge has moved from print and broadcast to the internet. Blogs, forums, social networking, social indexing (stumbleupon, reddit), microblogging and all the websites (like the BBC, Wikipedia, Amazon and Metacritic) that invite comment and participation are the internet. The dynamic, interactive, user generated whole that reflects the humanity that created it. We can no longer be dictated to by old media and dinosaur politicians. The world has changed for the better.
October 22nd, 2009 — The platform holders
I am very, very glad that I am not in competition with Microsoft’s Xbox division. They really are grinding the opposition down. And it is not as if they are attacking on one front. No, Microsoft believe in being better in every single possible way. The Xbox 360 is now, by a huge margin, the gamer’s choice of consoles from this generation. It is cheaper to buy, has far more games available and has the best online gaming service on earth, Xbox Live. Little wonder that in September Microsoft sold $404 million of Xbox 360 hardware, software and peripherals in North America alone. A phenomenal result.
Part of the success is down to platform exclusives. Halo is massive and Halo 3: ODST has done the business again through this summer. But there is also Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction, Forza Motorsport 3 and Left 4 Dead 2 with Mass Effect 2, Gears of War 3, Crackdown 2, Halo Reach and Alan Wake to come. Relentless and formidable.
There is the constant upgrading of Live to become a media hub, with HD movie rental, Facebook, Twitter, Zune and Sky Player on the way. This makes the 360 by far the most powerful entertainment hub that you can connect to your television. And it is a lesson to everyone that Microsoft are a software company, they see the Live service as being infinitely more important than the 360. The 360 is just the current box of choice, there will ultimately be far more that can use the service.
Also, quietly but persistently, Microsoft are moving content distribution away from the physical plastic and cardboard sold at retail. Online is the future and Microsoft are already there. They keep adding to the number of game titles that can be directly downloaded with a new batch just released including Army of Two, Midnight Club: Los Angeles, and Sonic Unleashed. Microsoft are making the transition gradually so as to wean both retail and consumers to the new reality. But the rumours are that the Xbox 3/ Xbox 720 / Project Phoenix will be a download only device.
As if the weren’t enough we have Project Natal on the way. An implementation of gesture interface technology that is a quantum leap beyond anything else. This will bring infinite new possibilities to how humans interact with video games and the whole online world. New levels on immersiveness will transform the potential of the medium. We are about to make a paradigm shift of epic proportions.
People scoff when I say that I think that the Xbox 360 will ultimately outsell the current non HD version of the Nintendo Wii. But I still think that it will. The 360 represents amazingly brilliant value for money, yet Microsoft can easily sell it even cheaper. As a gaming device it massively outperforms the alternatives. And it is evolving to do so much more as well.
October 21st, 2009 — Practical information
October 21st, 2009 — Practical information
Next week is the fourth London Game Festival. A collection of 12 events during the week, a format that seems to be working nicely. Here is a list of all the events:
I will be going to two of these. The Best of British on Wednesday 28 October has a very promising programme of speakers:
| 10.00 – 11.00 | Registration and networking |
| Host (Gareth Edmondson, Reflections studio introduces the event). | |
| 11.00 – 11.30 | Ed Vaizey, discussing the games industry and its importance to the UK economy. |
| 11.30 – 12.15 | KEYNOTE: Charles Cecil, MD of Revolution studios will take a look at the British games industry where are its roots and what made Britain the birth place of the games industry. What are the key USPs of Britain moving forward? |
| 12.15 – 13.30 | Lunch and Networking |
| 13.30 – 14:15 | “Darwinia + playthrough”: Mark Morris MD of Introversion will talk about the benefits of being a British independent studio and how they have managed to transform from a small time indie to professional console developer. Mark will be talking about the influences of their latest and most exciting game Darwinia+ which is due to be released on XBLA later this year. |
| 14:15 – 15:00 | “Marketing Browser games” Simon Seefeldt is Head of Business development at Jagex – a world-leading developer of high quality, browser-based games and the largest independent games developer and publisher in the UK creating games such as Runscape and funOrb. Simon will talk about how they build their communities and market their games and how Britain is a great place to make games |
| 15:00 – 15:30 | Tea Break and Networking |
| 15.30 – 16.00 | Title: “I, myself and iPhone”: Paul Farley, MD Tag games will be talking about how Tag games started and what the benfits are of being a casual games company in the UK. Paul will also be highlighting the pros and cons of iPhone versus some of the other platforms. |
| 16.15 – 17.00 | “Give us a break”
Gareth Edmondson and a panel of leading developers and games experts will be discussing the prospects for a Games Tax Relief and the implications for the industry as a whole if the measure is implemented. Games Tax Relief could benefit developers by reducing their over-reliance on publisher funding, promote original IP development and encourage a move to more sustainable online business models. The availability of government subsidies overseas is making the UK less competitive, not only from the point of view of costs, but also of skills as government support in other countries has attracted key staff away from the UK. The panel will be looking at what the Government reaction has been so far to TIGA’s lobbying and what are the next steps in ensuring tax breaks happen. |
| 17.00 – 17.05 | The decision – what is the best ever British game? All delegates will be asked to nominate a game at registration the top 10 nominations will then be voted on by the audience. |
Then on Friday I am going to Eurogamer Expo. A consumer event with lots of games, development sessions and a career fair. And which is sold out!
October 20th, 2009 — News analysis and background
Patrick Charnley of the solicitors Eversheds has sent me a letter on behalf of their client Train2Game. This is eactly how legal reputation management works. They are trying to bully me into censoring an article that their client does not like, even though that article self evidently only contains the truth. They have succeeded in getting YouTube to remove the three videos that showed a Train2Game salesman at work. You would wonder why Train2Game wanted these removed. In fact their actions speak volumes.
Bruceongames now comes top of quite a lot of Google searches, this makes me a target for people who only want their version of the world reported on the internet.
I took the article down for a little over a week whilst I spoke to various legal and journalistic experts including no win no fee solicitors. One told me that the charges against me are ridiculous. Obviously the article is now back up.
Read this letter, it is amazing stuff, they are even trying to prevent me from talking about the Blitz Academy website. How blatant an attempted suppression of free speech can you get?
I'm Bruce Everiss, a veteran games industry marketer. Find out more.
