GAME exits Administration

[Fightersmegamix]

Digital distribution is a dead duck, no one in their right mind can think it will work with the current game industry model. A few downloads here and there are a different world to full digital distribution. I have over 100 xbox360 games, on download that would be 4-5 grand on a product that is worth exactly nothing the minute I hand over the money. Already I'm looking at the XBLA games i've downloaded and drawing back from buying too many more. Everyone buys a duff game, with digital there's no going back. It only takes a few wrong buys and your average customer will be put off.

Yes, books and cd's have worked to an extend, but they are ultra cheap and rife with piracy. Digital downloads on the iphone don't do that well from what I've read, free apps are still the biggest downloads, the money generated from downloadable games is through advertising not the games themselves.

I've no doubt the games industry will plough on with digital despite the outcome being obvious to everyone. It's sort of like the banks in 2007, you can see what's going to happen but they'll do it anyway because they're greedy.

[thevulture]

'I've no doubt the games industry will plough on with digital despite the outcome being obvious to everyone. It's sort of like the banks in 2007, you can see what's going to happen but they'll do it anyway because they're greedy.'

That's the best thing i've read on the subject for bloody ages.

[Darran@Retro Gamer]

It's worth noting that the Go was an excellent machine. It's also worth noting that Sony didn't have day and date retail/download releases like it does with Vita, and that publishers for the most part took the mickey, asking ridiculous prices to a captive audience. I think PS Vita is going to be interesting to watch, as it's offering both types of service from the get go, and I know a few posters on certain forums I visit are happy to download games instead of buying them. I just wish my 16 GIG card had more space

[ToxieDogg]

Digital downloads on the iphone don't do that well from what I've read, free apps are still the biggest downloads, the money generated from downloadable games is through advertising not the games themselves.

I've no doubt the games industry will plough on with digital despite the outcome being obvious to everyone. It's sort of like the banks in 2007, you can see what's going to happen but they'll do it anyway because they're greedy.

Absolutely agree with that. I think a lot of people forget that most people only go for the free apps, and as you say it's advertising that makes the most money rather than the games themselves. I'm pretty sure that was even mentioned on either last year's or the year before's series of The Apprentice when they were set a challenge one week to come up with a free downloadable app for i-devices.

Digitial downloads are convinient and I fully appreiate the arguements from people in favour of them, but people who actually want them as the norm are in a minority, and I certainly don't see how you expand your market by going fully digital....Nintendo proved a few years back that what Joe Public wanted was innovation, not just evolution. Look at all the extra money they generated from things like old people's homes and the like, for instance. That kind of an audience isn't going to embrace a digital model, most of them never even use a computer.

I'll be interested to see which (if any) of the big publishers go fully digital, then go back to physical releases if it doesn't quite work out the way they wanted,

[thevulture]

Thing is though Toxie, since when have the likes of Sony or MS really given a ripe fig, what we the customers wanted?.

As a 360 owner:I wanted loads of arcade conversions on Game Room, was'nt what i got, i wanted to keep old dashboard, but have ability to instal games to the HDD, the avatar crap i did not want, yet had to upgrade, zero interest in Kinect, yet MS pushing it, resources poured into it, w.i.p games canned so developers can focus on Kinect etc.

As a PS3 owner:No interest in Move, don't own a 3DTV, yet games that Sony patched to include support for such features, i had no option but to sit through a patch.

Whenever the 1st big player decides time is right to go download only (basically be prepared to take the 'hit' on lost sales from those not keen), they'll implement it and then the others will no doubt follow.Way industry sadly works.

[theantmeister]

Digital downloads on the iphone don't do that well from what I've read, free apps are still the biggest downloads, the money generated from downloadable games is through advertising not the games themselves.

Where did you read that?

[CraigGrannell]

Digital downloads on the iphone don't do that well from what I've read

Depends on who you speak to. 2DBoy, for example, was overjoyed with how well the iPad version sold. Plenty of indies are making a living in a way they simply wouldn't be able to on any other platform. And plenty of the majors are either fully immersed in the platform or sniffing around.

free apps are still the biggest downloads, the money generated from downloadable games is through advertising not the games themselves.

That was (although not always is) truer for Android, but not iOS.

I've no doubt the games industry will plough on with digital despite the outcome being obvious to everyone. It's sort of like the banks in 2007, you can see what's going to happen but they'll do it anyway because they're greedy.

There's a lot of potential: people having more rapid access to games when they want them, for a lower price point, and also more indies being able to access people. The problem is that Apple, as an example, didn't suddenly go "hey: games!"—it spent years quietly building its infrastructure and offering. The iTunes Store is now a behemoth—not quite Amazon in terms of size, but still massive, and with millions of credit cards plugged into it. The amount of money behind the store and also in the bank to enable it to grow is also mind-boggling. While Nintendo is a big company, it would find it tough to compete in that field. (Microsoft, on the other hand…)

[JennyTablina]

Thing is though Toxie, since when have the likes of Sony or MS really given a ripe fig, what we the customers wanted?.

As a 360 owner:I wanted loads of arcade conversions on Game Room, was'nt what i got, i wanted to keep old dashboard, but have ability to instal games to the HDD, the avatar crap i did not want, yet had to upgrade, zero interest in Kinect, yet MS pushing it, resources poured into it, w.i.p games canned so developers can focus on Kinect etc.

As a PS3 owner:No interest in Move, don't own a 3DTV, yet games that Sony patched to include support for such features, i had no option but to sit through a patch.

Whenever the 1st big player decides time is right to go download only (basically be prepared to take the 'hit' on lost sales from those not keen), they'll implement it and then the others will no doubt follow.Way industry sadly works.

Uh, developers DO care what the market want, and try to supply what the customer want - after all people DO want the games and stuff they all make. That's why there is an industry! ; )

In the case of Microsoft: Game Room apparently flopped big time - people simply were not buying the retro titles (or I assume this to be the case, as Game Room hasn't seen an update for over a year now), the new Dashboard is pretty functional, though I admit browsing is a little more awkward in my experience, haw good luck getting proper game installs - Microsoft know people would abuse that feature if it wasn't locked to require a disc on boot.

In the case of Kinect and Move, Nintendo showed the industry that if you give a customer an intuitive control scheme (many a cry I hear from more casual gamers is they hate games asking you to remember a ton of button commands) they will buy into it. Microsoft and Sony had to look into the motion control sector for that very reason. You might not like Kinect, but I am sure the add on did wonders for Xbox sales (without Microsoft committing it to a new console entirely) - same with Move. What YOU want, does not not reflect what THE MARKET wants. The rest is Sony or Microsoft trying to bank on some new ideas, Sony themselves would be invested in 3D, because they sell other electronics too - and the TV market is a big one for them.

IMO for digital distribution to really win out on retail, the industry needs to work out how customers can hold onto their purchases and so on. It's okay while a generation is ongoing, but there needs to be assurances that next gen people can at least transfer their purchases or carry them over to the next system I think (or at least keep servers up). People will always be wary if they think their purchases can be taken away whenever Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo decide to take them away

The reason the Go failed, is because Sony shafted the genuine PSP existing customer base that WAS buying games for the system. Had the promised UMD transfer ever come through, it might of been a different story for the Go, but that and the stupid pricing to begin with really killed the Go's chances. Looking at the PSN store since on Vita it seems Sony and other companies have learned that flexable pricing is viable on digital, thank goodness.

[thevulture]

JennyTablina:I'd love to think developers really do give consumers what they want, but...as stated on here by myself and others, distinct lack of space shooters on current platforms,


MS canned a bloody promising sequel to Freelancer (and this way way before Kinect emerged) and as for Sony...digging up PS1 franchises, but still NO new Colony Wars or G-Police? shocking.

Game room:perhaps IF MS had put, i dunno some previousily unreleased, quality coin-op's on there, instead of 2600, intelli. stuff and let people who'd previousily bought the coin-op stuff from XBLA play them via Game Room, it might have had folks like myself using it hellva lot more, but they did'nt, so i and others did'nt use it.

Sony already had motion control for it's home system:PS2 eyetoy, Move? was in R+D back during PS2 eyetoy days (Edge did big report on it from Sony's labs), Sony dismissed it (and Wii) until Wii sales sky rocketed, then Move rolled out and it's still waiting a killer-app.

[ToxieDogg]

Thing is though Toxie, since when have the likes of Sony or MS really given a ripe fig, what we the customers wanted?.

That's why I added at the end that I'll be interested to see which of the big publishers decides to go fully digital first, and then if they then revert back to physical media if they don't immediately make the fortune that they seem to think they'll make.

They all talk about it and constantly threaten it, seems that they're a little reluctant to actually take that next step though. They know the problems and pitfalls involved just as well as the rest of us.

In the case of Microsoft: Game Room apparently flopped big time - people simply were not buying the retro titles (or I assume this to be the case, as Game Room hasn't seen an update for over a year now)

It was a completely broken model though. You couldn't just download the actual games you wanted, you were forced to download packs containing 3 or 4 games whether you wanted them all sitting on your hard drive or not. In my experience, the leaderboards wouldn't update properly half the time either, and I've got a decent connection. Then there was the fact that the people who developed it (Krome) ran into financially difficultys and laid off most of their staff. On top of that, the pricing was a bit of a hard sell as well, 400 points each for games that are easy to get hold of free elsewhere , plus the likes of Time Pilot which was already available on XBLA complete with a bunch of Achievements. The emulation on a lot of the games wasn't great either, the likes of Iron Horse suffered severe sound problems for example. And then there was all the unwanted Atari 2600 games...one of which wasn't even a game (Venetian Blind demo) but they were still charging the same rate for them. I could go on here, but you get the idea...Game Room as it was just wasn't fit for purpose, there was a hell of a lot more to it than people just 'not buying the retro titles'.

IMO for digital distribution to really win out on retail, the industry needs to work out how customers can hold onto their purchases and so on. It's okay while a generation is ongoing, but there needs to be assurances that next gen people can at least transfer their purchases or carry them over to the next system I think (or at least keep servers up). People will always be wary if they think their purchases can be taken away whenever Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo decide to take them away

I mostly agree with that. There needs to be some assurance at least that even when a next gen system with it's own online service is released, that support isn't just immediately dropped for the older system and owners will still be able to buy games for it and retain full use of at least the single/local multiplayer modes of the ones they've already purchased, along with any single player/local multiplayer DLC they've purchased for them.

The reason the Go failed, is because Sony shafted the genuine PSP existing customer base that WAS buying games for the system. Had the promised UMD transfer ever come through, it might of been a different story for the Go, but that and the stupid pricing to begin with really killed the Go's chances.

Well...yes and no. UMD transfer would have helped it quite a bit, but the stupid prices and the facts that (in terms of games alone at least...and games are the main reason people buy consoles after all) it was no different to the existing PSP asides from you couldn't buy cheap games for it, swap/lend any with your mates or sell your unwanted games afterwards were probably the big nails in it's coffin.

Looking at the PSN store since on Vita it seems Sony and other companies have learned that flexable pricing is viable on digital, thank goodness.

Really? For smaller games on XBLA and PSN maybe, the prices for retail games are still ridiculous, or at least they were when I last checked about a week ago. Sony and the others haven't really learned at all.

[DigitalDuck]

JennyTablina:I'd love to think developers really do give consumers what they want, but...as stated on here by myself and others, distinct lack of space shooters on current platforms,


MS canned a bloody promising sequel to Freelancer (and this way way before Kinect emerged) and as for Sony...digging up PS1 franchises, but still NO new Colony Wars or G-Police? shocking.

Space shooters aren't popular right now. Therefore space shooters aren't being released right now.

[thevulture]

@Toxie, i still wager it'll be MS 1st with the download only and or/streaming....

Why? 1)Sony been burnt by PSP Go exp.won't be in hurry to repeat that, espically since Sony consoles no-longer the all destroying sales force PS1+PS2 were.

2)MS invested too much in it's online side to let someone else get in 1st and after 360's head start took Sony so long to catch up with, think they'll want to be 1st off the blocks with new hardware for next couple of generations (and have the pockets to absorb the impact of doing so).

And 3)...I'd wager they are not going to want Apple to replace them as 'top of the tree', with Apple moving into Kinect style tech with i-TV, MS might well be looking at where the next big money maker will be and IF it's download only......

Just speculation on my part of course.

[ToxieDogg]

Space shooters aren't popular right now. Therefore space shooters aren't being released right now.

Or is it because they aren't being released right now, that they're not popular right now. I'm confused.

You can't play what isn't there.

[thevulture]

MS canned Freelancer 2 (or Project Lonestar as it was then known) on 360 back in 2007.

Sony were talking about bringing Colony Wars to PS2...(in feature in OPM)......

So the issue of Space combat games being popular right now, seems mute, as console wise, Reach bits and aging PC game Darkstar One brought to XBL...we've not had any of real worth.

Even during DC/PS2/Xbox/G.C days we had Starlancer (DC), Star Wars:Rogue Squadron (G.C), Battlestar Galactica (PS2/Xbox), Mace Griffin PS2/Xbox.

[thevulture]

Space shooters aren't popular right now. Therefore space shooters aren't being released right now.

Or is it because they aren't being released right now, that they're not popular right now. I'm confused.

You can't play what isn't there.

Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson's next major project will likely be an open world space game inspired by classic trading sim Elite and cult sci-fi series Firefly.

Speaking in an interview with PC Gamer, Notch revealed that he hopes to make a space game in the same vein as David Braben's ancient 3D classic, but "done right".

"I want the space game that's more like Firefly," he explained.

"I want to run around on my ship and have to put out a fire. Like, oh crap, the cooling system failed, I have to put out the fire here."

PC only? but at least people still making them.