In my previous bit of armchair expert analysis on 38 Studios current situation I ended with the statement that the “financial maths” hadn’t been done correctly, or had been ignored. But then I thought that may not have been clear what I meant. As such: charts! I’m basing these charts predominantly off this article’s timeline … Continue reading
Filed under Industry …
How 38 Studios Spends $4m a Month On Operation Costs (Probably)
An interesting factoid emerged in the wake of 38 Studios struggling to come up with the cash to make a good faith loan payment back to Rhode Island and fund its payroll: it was announced that it costs them US$4m per month in operating costs to stay open. 38 Studios apparently has 379 full-time staff. … Continue reading
UnPopularity Contest – KickStart It!
As mentioned earlier, I’m going to start creating video for this blog if / when I get the time. And for my first attempt: KickStart It! What’s an UnPopularity Contest? I’m going to be creating videos on things from a viewpoint that probably won’t be popular with a broader public, but it will be viewpoints … Continue reading
Path Finding and Kick Starting
As previously discussed, I’m fairly cynical of Kickstarter for video game development. Backers see it as supporting something they are interested in; I see it as companies leveraging off their previous reputation and gamer hope to get money gifted to them. Because that’s what the money is: a gift. Once the pledge target is met … Continue reading
Point / Counterpoint: Sexual Stereotyping and Android Demonstration Videos
VG24/7 (thanks to Good Games Writing for highlighting it) an article about sexism in video games / video games ‘journalism‘, with the key point being that although it goes on, both developers and writers have the ability to reduce latent sexism by not focusing on the obvious T&A presented to them. All it takes for … Continue reading
There’s Gold in Them Thar Hills… Somewhere: Minecraft
I thought it was interesting to see that Minecraft has made over US$80m in revenue since launching in October 2010, but ‘only’ US$13.5m in earnings before taxes, interest, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA). The overall revenue figure seems pretty easy to calculate – 5m paying downloads at a variety of different price points from €14.95 for … Continue reading
Point / Counterpoint: Survival Horror Market Too Small, Says Dev; Oh No It Isn’t, Say Gamespot Comments
Paraphrasing Resident Evil: Revelations Producer Masachika Kawata: The survival horror fanbase in the US / West is too small to justify a big development budget on a single title, which is why the Resident Evil series is heading in a mostly action-horror direction. Paraphrasing the Gamespot comments to this Gamasutra article as re-written by Gamespot: … Continue reading
An Update That Promises Further Updates
So NCsoft’s Q4 2012 earning results are out now and although City of Heroes / Villains saw an increase in revenue after going F2P, it isn’t the huge jump you might expect to see. This could be one of the reasons why Paragon Studios has made the move of introducing variable ratio randomised rewards you … Continue reading
Double Fine & Kickstarter: Everyone Is Still Going To Their Day Jobs Tomorrow
One of the hot topics at the moment is Double Fine’s Kickstarter project, with the mere words “a Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert point-and-click adventure” was enough to send some gamers into a donating frenzy – at this point a shade over 47 500 people have donated over US$1.6m towards the project. And there is … Continue reading
Star Wars: The Old Republic – SWTOR vs. WAR!
… and Age of Conan, for that matter. EA announced during their earnings call that Star Wars: The Old Republic had sold over 2 million boxes and had 1.7 million subscribed players, beating EA’s internal projections. A lot of sources took that at face value as a great result, but was it? Let’s look at … Continue reading
World Class Villains 