7 ms·

interesting definition of gaming and its platforms. as if console-makers are the only players in town. let's see here: http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads

interesting definition of gaming and its platforms. as if console-makers are the only players in town. let's see here: http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Screen-Shot-2013-01-16-at-1-16-2.11.50-PM.png http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Screen-Shot... xbox360, ps3, wii ... all child's play. a niche industry. the true gaming platforms are android and ios, with ios users more likely to spend money on apps/games. serious game "journalists" dismiss casual gaming as beneath them. halo, skyrim, yes, but angry birds? cut the rope? no. interestingly the industry ignores journalists and goes to where the users are. hence the release of titles like baldur's gate for iOS - taking an old, known game and porting it back. no big budget needed. a lot of turn based games are perfectly suited for touch, from Jagged Alliance, XCOM, Panzer General to all the adventures to RPGs (where are all the Ultima games on iOS? Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger already are available). and then you have indie gaming, Minecraft, Torchlight, FTL, Hotline Miami, etc etc etc. Big budget shit games are dying. Max Payne 3? yes, good riddance.

corporalagumbo 14y ago
If you grew up playing console and PC games then yes, iOS games are a joke. If you loves games, touch-based UIs just don't cut it.
potatolicious 14y ago
> "all child's play. a niche industry. the true gaming platforms are android and ios, with ios users more likely to spend money on apps/games" I question this wisdom, and will continue to do so until the day an iOS title breaks Halo 4's first-weekend sales record. Or hell, lifetime sales record. The core gaming industry moves far fewer units than iOS/Android games (in which case "units" is more ephemeral of a concept), but succeeds in extracting $60-90 at a time, as opposed to $0.99. We had our love affair with "casual gaming is the future" when the Wii came out - that didn't pan out then either. Attach rates were abysmal, and people soon bored of the platform after one or two titles. It failed to find a long-term place in the living room, that's for sure. This isn't about some supposed superiority of core gaming vs. casual gaming, it's simply skepticism because every time someone has said that casual will eat core for lunch, it has failed to occur. Sales for iOS/Android games are terrible on a per-title basis, and even including only the top titles don't come close to console sales numbers. The only real corner of that industry making eyebrow-raising amounts of money are microtransaction-based, treadmilly, slot-machine type games, and I have my doubts as to whether or not it's a sustainable trend. > "a lot of turn based games are perfectly suited for touch, from Jagged Alliance, XCOM, Panzer General to all the adventures to RPGs (where are all the Ultima games on iOS? Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger already are available)." "Re-releasing old games on mobile" is a profitable segment, but it won't last, mostly because we will very quickly run out of games people actually give a shit about. And once you start contemplating development new adventure games, RPGs, and strategy games, the economics of this falls over. Even without the notion of modernizing graphics and gameplay, developing something like Chrono Trigger would hardly be worth it when the market bears $0.99 a copy, or less. More likely, we'll see Chrono Trigger, where enemies are overpowered and you pay microtransaction credits to revive your party members when they die. This is, after all, the only way mobile devs have found that generates any substantial revenue. What a marvelous progression of this industry. The future of the indie gaming scene lies with the PC, and potentially surprise core-gaming-targeted platforms like the Ouya. These are the only platforms where users are prepared to spend any real amount of money on gaming. Revenue extraction on mobile platforms inevitably involves fairly unscrupulous (and simply not fun) mechanisms.
- tluyben2 14y ago
  Casual will not eat core; they exist in their different places (phones are definitely perfect devices for casual) and you need original content (RPGs, strategy etc), but I think original content is not what drives the price up for the studios. The whole package is what does that; Ultima can now be made by two people in an attic; that doesn't cost a lot while it's fun to play. The problem is that 'people' want a FPS with superior graphics and that whole package is very costly. For me (but i'm old), the great graphics, like 3d effects in 3d movies currently, wear thin after a few minutes of ooohhh and aaaah and then it's about gameplay. Something which a lot of AAA 'sell $100 million' games lack. Nintendo their strategy (lowish graphics, small teams) but with non-casual, original games would (and did in the past) work fine and would be profitable IMHO.
  - ekianjo 14y ago
    Nintendo's strategy has limits: if they can't push enough hardware in the homes their sales will plummet. The WiiU is nowhere near selling out and we can already see it will not be like the Wii. The WiiU will not sell you any new experience, it's just more of the same old shit. People will get tired of it soon enough. Nintendo still has an upper hand in handheld gaming, because that's become their core business since the GBA days. But who know what happens 5-10 years down the road? Relying on past trends to predict the future is always doubtful at best. The market is continuously in movement.
    - tluyben2 14y ago
      I didn't mean to say Nintendo is doing everything well, but I think gameplay (should) trumps graphics every time in the long run. A lot of companies are betting on non vital (for gameplay) assets too much; according to the chart in the article, graphics are 25% cost of a game; I suspect it's a lot more in a lot of AAA games. In my opinion that's not needed to get the masses playing games. If the game is addictive and depends on a lot of content, simpler graphics will make creating that content a lot easier and cheaper and will make the game worlds bigger for a lot less money. And that's the part Nintendo, IMHO, got right a lot of times.
- 14y ago
ekianjo 14y ago
Well I have never seen anyone spending 3 hours in a row on Angry Birds. ALl these iOS/ANdroid games are for people who either have short attention span or who need to distract themselves for a few minutes in transports. Who believes these are serious games ? Obviously serious games are those where you CARE and put dozens, hundred of hours of your life into. And releasing old games on new formats cost nearly nothing. If the industry was as dead serious as you think it is, they would be making NEW, ambitious games for these platforms and make big bucks out of them. But that's not going to happen because nobody will play games for hours and hours on these devices - that's not the right public nor the right place for it. Big budget shit games are not dying. You are living blindfolded.
- marcosdumay 14y ago
  "serious games" I get a smile in my face every time I see those two words toghether.
  - ekianjo 14y ago
    There are "serious games" summits, too :) But these ones refer to games used in professional contexts, such as military ones.
sspiff 14y ago
That's not a fair comparison: everyone who buys an XBox or a PlayStation, intends to play games. Only a fraction of Android and iOS users want to play games on their devices.

corporalagumbo 14y ago

If you grew up playing console and PC games then yes, iOS games are a joke. If you loves games, touch-based UIs just don't cut it.

potatolicious 14y ago

> "all child's play. a niche industry. the true gaming platforms are android and ios, with ios users more likely to spend money on apps/games" I question this wisdom, and will continue to do so until the day an iOS title breaks Halo 4's first-weekend sales record. Or hell, lifetime sales record. The core gaming industry moves far fewer units than iOS/Android games (in which case "units" is more ephemeral of a concept), but succeeds in extracting $60-90 at a time, as opposed to $0.99. We had our love affair with "casual gaming is the future" when the Wii came out - that didn't pan out then either. Attach rates were abysmal, and people soon bored of the platform after one or two titles. It failed to find a long-term place in the living room, that's for sure. This isn't about some supposed superiority of core gaming vs. casual gaming, it's simply skepticism because every time someone has said that casual will eat core for lunch, it has failed to occur. Sales for iOS/Android games are terrible on a per-title basis, and even including only the top titles don't come close to console sales numbers. The only real corner of that industry making eyebrow-raising amounts of money are microtransaction-based, treadmilly, slot-machine type games, and I have my doubts as to whether or not it's a sustainable trend. > "a lot of turn based games are perfectly suited for touch, from Jagged Alliance, XCOM, Panzer General to all the adventures to RPGs (where are all the Ultima games on iOS? Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger already are available)." "Re-releasing old games on mobile" is a profitable segment, but it won't last, mostly because we will very quickly run out of games people actually give a shit about. And once you start contemplating development new adventure games, RPGs, and strategy games, the economics of this falls over. Even without the notion of modernizing graphics and gameplay, developing something like Chrono Trigger would hardly be worth it when the market bears $0.99 a copy, or less. More likely, we'll see Chrono Trigger, where enemies are overpowered and you pay microtransaction credits to revive your party members when they die. This is, after all, the only way mobile devs have found that generates any substantial revenue. What a marvelous progression of this industry. The future of the indie gaming scene lies with the PC, and potentially surprise core-gaming-targeted platforms like the Ouya. These are the only platforms where users are prepared to spend any real amount of money on gaming. Revenue extraction on mobile platforms inevitably involves fairly unscrupulous (and simply not fun) mechanisms.

tluyben2 14y ago
Casual will not eat core; they exist in their different places (phones are definitely perfect devices for casual) and you need original content (RPGs, strategy etc), but I think original content is not what drives the price up for the studios. The whole package is what does that; Ultima can now be made by two people in an attic; that doesn't cost a lot while it's fun to play. The problem is that 'people' want a FPS with superior graphics and that whole package is very costly. For me (but i'm old), the great graphics, like 3d effects in 3d movies currently, wear thin after a few minutes of ooohhh and aaaah and then it's about gameplay. Something which a lot of AAA 'sell $100 million' games lack. Nintendo their strategy (lowish graphics, small teams) but with non-casual, original games would (and did in the past) work fine and would be profitable IMHO.
- ekianjo 14y ago
  Nintendo's strategy has limits: if they can't push enough hardware in the homes their sales will plummet. The WiiU is nowhere near selling out and we can already see it will not be like the Wii. The WiiU will not sell you any new experience, it's just more of the same old shit. People will get tired of it soon enough. Nintendo still has an upper hand in handheld gaming, because that's become their core business since the GBA days. But who know what happens 5-10 years down the road? Relying on past trends to predict the future is always doubtful at best. The market is continuously in movement.
  - tluyben2 14y ago
    I didn't mean to say Nintendo is doing everything well, but I think gameplay (should) trumps graphics every time in the long run. A lot of companies are betting on non vital (for gameplay) assets too much; according to the chart in the article, graphics are 25% cost of a game; I suspect it's a lot more in a lot of AAA games. In my opinion that's not needed to get the masses playing games. If the game is addictive and depends on a lot of content, simpler graphics will make creating that content a lot easier and cheaper and will make the game worlds bigger for a lot less money. And that's the part Nintendo, IMHO, got right a lot of times.
14y ago

ekianjo 14y ago

Well I have never seen anyone spending 3 hours in a row on Angry Birds. ALl these iOS/ANdroid games are for people who either have short attention span or who need to distract themselves for a few minutes in transports. Who believes these are serious games ? Obviously serious games are those where you CARE and put dozens, hundred of hours of your life into. And releasing old games on new formats cost nearly nothing. If the industry was as dead serious as you think it is, they would be making NEW, ambitious games for these platforms and make big bucks out of them. But that's not going to happen because nobody will play games for hours and hours on these devices - that's not the right public nor the right place for it. Big budget shit games are not dying. You are living blindfolded.

marcosdumay 14y ago
"serious games" I get a smile in my face every time I see those two words toghether.
- ekianjo 14y ago
  There are "serious games" summits, too :) But these ones refer to games used in professional contexts, such as military ones.

sspiff 14y ago

That's not a fair comparison: everyone who buys an XBox or a PlayStation, intends to play games. Only a fraction of Android and iOS users want to play games on their devices.