I was surprised to see a large spike in my site traffic today, especially to older posts about how many players CoH/V had. Then I looked further and saw that NCsoft announced its intentions to shut down CoH/V and Paragon Studios. This has taken a lot of people by surprise, given that it seemed that … Continue reading
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The Secret World: Only 200k Copies Sold
Here’s a fun fact: it looks like Funcom’s last profitable quarter (by EBIDTA, anyway) was Q4 2010. The company has spent around a year and a half eating into its cash reserves. Continue reading
Eight is Enough: Video Game Payment Models
So let’s look at the payment models available for video games, at least at a high level. Continue reading
How Many Games?
“For the entire life of the NES there were only 785 Carts in TOTAL shipped for the USA and Europe.” Continue reading
Point / Counterpoint: Why Developers Don’t Talk To Gaming “Journalists”
Kotaku: C’mon developers, talk to us more. You can trust us. Open up. PA Report: And when you do, you can be sure we’ll spin things to attract as many eyeballs as possible.
Ouya: Outcast
Oh, a ‘new’ kind of console that is being made by a start-up and is aiming to tie mobile Android gaming to a television? And you want a lot of people to gift you money to make it happen? Why? Continue reading
What Can We Learn From Picking Winners?
Having spent a bit of time looking at some infamous AAA MMO failures, it’s worth trying to see what lessons can be learned from them. Continue reading
Great MMO Studio Collapses of Our Time – 38 Studios
So, what’s the take-out here? Obviously the market conditions that 38 Studios launched with in 2006 were very different to those it expired under in 2012, with investors no longer interested in pouring tens of millions of dollars into MMO development. But it’s not like 38 Studios should have been strapped for cash – as identified, they had at least US$135m put into the studio. Yes, they got a single player title out, but it fell a long way short of the initial “broad media” dreams, or even releasing the promised MMO, while burning a lot of cash. Continue reading
Brad McQuaid Comes Back to Vanguard
No, really. I blame myself. I said, “McQuaid” five times to a mirror while writing about the spectacular collapse of Sigil. “What harm could it do?”, I chuckled to myself. Now we know.
Point / Counterpoint: The Role of Women at Modern Gaming Events
Kotaku covers it succinctly: If you’re a woman and outside of those things, well, you just don’t really fit. If I was being extra picky, I’d say the image used for the ‘positive take’ of women in gaming shows a lot of leg on a woman with an hourglass figure who’s reached the top of … Continue reading
World Class Villains 