Business of Gaming

Leave a comment Posted on by Steve Murray Video Games

PSX is the Perfect Example of a Games Industry Showcase

playstation-experience-2014It was around this time two years ago that I suggested that the games industry needed a second showcase event apart from E3 every June. Following another edition of The Game Awards that was more interested in the new trailers and game reveals than it was in celebrating the best in gaming during the unspecified nomination period. I was planning on leaving this alone because I don’t see The Game Awards ever being an awards show but rather being a product of hype.

Last month, I changed my mind. While it wasn’t the first time they did this, I realized that Sony might have inadvertently stumbled upon exactly what I was looking for with their second PlayStation Experience convention and industry show.

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Leave a comment Posted on by Steve Murray Video Games

Final Fantasy VII Remake to be Released Episodically and Why That’s Dangerous

final-fantasy-vii-remake-logoI felt a great disturbance in gaming, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.

Over the weekend, Square Enix released the first look at gameplay from their upcoming remake of Final Fantasy VII. This included a look at part of Midgar as well as the opening assault on a Mako reactor. Not surprisingly, the whole of the internet was excited about it though there were some concerned with some of the changes that SquEnix has already shown off for FF7 Remake.

What didn’t sit well with gamers were some of the quieter announcements that Square Enix made about the game in a press release that seems to have gone to selected outlets. Square Enix quietly announced that Final Fantasy VII Remake will be a “multi-part series.”

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2 Comments Posted on by Steve Murray Video Games

Kotaku, The Blacklist and What’s Left of Games Journalism

fallout-4-please-stand-byIt’s not an uncommon occurrence for a gaming news outlet to be blacklisted by a publisher. You can hear Jim Sterling talk about blacklisted regularly on The Jimquisition. Destructoid was blacklisted by Konami. At one time or another, EGM was reportedly blacklisted by numerous companies including Sony, Midway and Ubisoft. Jeff Gerstmann infamously lost his job at GameSpot over a poor review of Kane & Lynch that resulted in Eidos Interactive threatening to pull ads from the site.

The latest publication to take their blacklisting public is Kotaku. Editor-in-chief Stephen Totilo took to the site to reveal that the company had been cut off by the PR branches of both Ubisoft and Bethesda. While some in games media are standing up for Kotaku, those content consumers that Kotaku are supposed to be producing content for aren’t on their side. When you’re as divisive as Kotaku, there isn’t much sympathy for the devil.

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Leave a comment Posted on by Steve Murray Video Games

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Comes with a Ridiculous Pre-Order Scheme

deus-ex-mankind-divided-headerSometimes, it really pays to read beyond the headline. For example, if you were sent a press release that says “Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Launch Date Revealed,” you would think that the press release was mostly about the game’s launch date and a little bit about what is available for pre-order.

That what I thought it was until I got to the subheading of “Player Choice Prevails with Augment Your Pre-Order Campaign; Collector’s Edition Unveiled.” At first glance, player choice and pre-order bonuses seems like it’s a long-awaited change to the typical pre-order plan. Then you see how Square Enix has put it together and you can’t but help but hit your head off your desk.

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Leave a comment Posted on by Steve Murray Video Games

Report: Valve Made $730 Million in Revenue in 2014

steam-money-headerOne of the advantages of being a private company is that you are not required to publicly file your annual financial statements. That won’t stop people from trying to figure out the financial health of your company.

A market data firm called SuperData has prepared a report on the revenues of Valve and Steam. Their calculations indicate that Valve made $730 million in revenue in 2014.

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Leave a comment Posted on by Steve Murray Columns, Video Games

Is Ubisoft Overcharging Canadian Steam Users?

ubisoft-cad-price-headerDuring Steam’s Monster Summer Sale, I noticed something during the Tom Clancy franchise sale. The price of the upcoming Rainbow Six: Siege is $80 CAD. The US dollar price is $60. If you were to pay for the game in USD and have your credit card company convert it to CAD, a Canadian customer would spend $73. That’s an inexplicable loss of $7 as a sort of living in Canada tax (when no sales tax is charged by Steam in Canada) from a company whose biggest development studio is in Canada and receives subsidies from various levels of Canadian government.

It’s not just the Canadians who are losing out for not living in America. According to the Steam All Region Price Checker extension, British customers are being charged the equivalent of $80 USD and others in the EU will be paying the equivalent of $68 USD.

So why are certain countries paying more than other and who is at fault for the price discrepancies?

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Leave a comment Posted on by Steve Murray Video Games

From Failure to Record-Breaker: Tomb Raider Racks Up Franchise Record 8.5 Million Copies Sold

tomb-raider-wallpaperI want you to flashback to March 2013. I know it seems like forever ago. I didn’t have any grey hair then so it’s longer for me.

In an investor call at the end of the month, Square Enix effectively called the Tomb Raider reboot that had been out for all of three weeks a failure. They said that they had expected the game to ship between five and six million copies and only it moved 3.4 million. Square Enix made it sound like the Tomb Raider franchise was dead on re-arrival.

Over the following 24 months, Tomb Raider and the current-gen (PS4 and XB1) Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition sold another 5.1 million copies to bring the total units sold to a franchise record of 8.5 million copies sold. They’re touting the success of the Tomb Raider reboot in the run up to this fall’s release of The Rise of the Tomb Raider (a timed exclusive on Xbox One and Xbox 360).

So what happened for Square Enix to change their tune?

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Leave a comment Posted on by Steve Murray Columns, Video Games

Heroes of the Storm: Early Access by Any Other Name

blizzard-heroes-of-the-storm-logoHave you heard of H1Z1? It’s the latest MMO from the artists formerly known as Sony Online Entertianment (now called Daybreak Games). While SOE’s MMOs are all free-to-play, H1Z1 has launched as an Early Access title on Steam for $20. That price gets you immediate access to the game along with a few other perks. By all accounts, it’s quite obvious that it’s in the alpha stages of development.

The problem most people are having is that it’s a triple-A company that have gone the early access route. SOE has a few popular MMOs on offer already and with their financial backing from Sony and now Columbus Nova, it’s not like they should need the funding from Early Access sales to complete and polish the game.

But H1Z1 is the popular example of Early Access gone wrong. They aren’t the only example out there right now. Imagine my surprise a couple of weeks ago when I launched Battle.net and saw Heroes of the Storm waiting for me to click. The problem was that it wasn’t there to download. HOTS got a spot on my Battle.net launcher so I could spend $40 on the Founder’s Pack which includes immediate access to the game along with a few other perks.

So how is SOE and H1Z1 getting blasted for releasing an alpha of their game as early access while Blizzard is getting a pass for Heroes of the Storm?

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1 Comment Posted on by Steve Murray Columns, Video Games

The Bad, The Ugly and The Worst: A Look at Evolve’s DLC and Pre-Order Plans

evolve-bannerI don’t know how many times that people have to be told not to pre-order games for it to sink in but I’m not sure that it will matter. For all the convincing pitches that game companies themselves make with games that are broken on launch or otherwise in need of a lot of work to be considered of triple-A quality, publishers are coming up with ever more convincing pitches to get you to pre-order games or upgrade to more expensive editions of the game and it all comes down to money.

It used to be that pre-order perks were limited to things like skins or weapons or other little bonuses that didn’t really make that big of an impact on the overall game. Those traditional pre-order bonuses should not be confused with the setup that Turtle Rock Studios and 2K Games have come up with their latest hoped triple-A money printer Evolve.

In order to move pre-order copies of Evolve and to sell the various deluxe editions of Evolve, Turtle Rock and 2K have come up with one of the most complicated and ridiculous DLC schemes in recent memory. People have actually come up with charts in order to keep track of what is included with which version via pre-order, purchase, season pass and a la carte. Evolve might be one of the better games this year but its DLC will make it one of the most controversial at the same time.

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Leave a comment Posted on by Steve Murray Video Games

Gamescom 2014 News Roundup

gamescom-2014-bannerNormally, the summer would be quiet enough for me to be able to post all sorts of news from Gamescom. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out that way for me so I have to do the big Gamescom news in a few posts. Today, we have news and gameplay videos while all of the Gamescom trailers will be in Monday’s Game Trailers Roundup.

For now, we have four of the more interesting stories that I’ve read from Gamescom. While only one is a game announcement, we have some business of gaming-esque news that’ll probably just make you hate Ubisoft more.

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