3 ms·

> "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

> "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

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