Valve’s Steam has 40 million users (up from 35 million in 2010). It made Valve almost US$1 billion in games sales in 2010. Microsoft has 40 million users on Xbox Live (up from 30 million in 2011). This earned an an estimate of over US$1 billion revenue from game, movie and TV show-related content in … Continue reading
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Star Wars – The Old Republic: And The Final Price Is…
In my previous examination of Star Wars: The Old Republic, the development budget from various sources ranged from the probably too-low US$80m (plus US$20 for advertising) through to US$300m. The LA Times has indicated that SWOR’s development cost sits at US$200m, while analyst Doug Creutz of Cowen & Co. suggested that EA’s “total all-in investment … Continue reading
Reading the MMO Tea Leaves for 2012
In previous years I’ve spent a lot of time reviewing and writing up a year’s worth of Massively.com / other MMO sites news articles. Although this is very useful from an information point of view (particularly the “oh, I’d forgotten about that” articles) it takes a very long time. So, this year I’m still doing … Continue reading
EA Thanks Australian Classification Board For Free Publicity
So EA Australia won’t appeal the Australian Classification Board’s decision to refuse classification to Syndicate, effectively removing its ability to be sold in Australia. And why would they? It’s sacrificing four or five figures worth of sales (at best) in Australia for the greater good of seven figure or higher sales in other countries. Getting … Continue reading
Reviewing My 2011 MMO Predictions
Time to see how right I was back when I wrote the following predictions about how things would turn MMO-wise in 2011. F2P titles continue to enter the market and other existing MMOs are likely to join them. Warhammer Online is a distinct possibility, as are titles in the position of Vanguard and Fallen Earth: … Continue reading
Star Wars: The Old Republic – Not Failing Isn’t Always A Guarantee of Success
We’re on the downhill run to Star Wars: The Old Republic’s launch. Soon the hype will be over and the hard part – delivering MMO services to paying customers – begins. I saw a report that stated industry analysts saw SWOR as a “little risk of failure” title. In some ways this is because if … Continue reading
McNamara On LA Noire Development: “Nobody Died Making It”
Brendan McNamara, former head of now-defunct Team Bondi, has been interviewed by Eurogamer. Part of that interview covered the end of the studio and his opinion about some of the allegations levelled at him as the head of the studio as being a “bully” among other things. You can read the interview here, but be … Continue reading
Crunch Time Is Wrong, But Gee This Game Is Fun!
GameSpot’s Andrew McMillen has an article up on the working conditions of game developers and why gamers should care. but unfortunately is misses its topic on a few levels and fails on its most important point – making gamers care. The first issue with the article are the games used to showcase extensive crunch times (“crunch” … Continue reading
1UP’s “Inside Starbreeze: The Secret History of the Riddick Team”
1UP has a great article on Starbreeze, game studio behind titles like The Darkness and Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. Some may read it as evidence of publishers interfering with game studios (which it is) but in broader terms I saw it pointing to the difficulty of developing games. Despite points on the … Continue reading
Team Bondi: Disappearing Into The Surf
News is out that Team Bondi has been put into administration, which is a way of saying, “all their assets are being sold to pay back their debts”. Some have raised questions about this event being linked to the claims of people being overworked in crunch mode at Team Bondi, but the real answer is … Continue reading
World Class Villains 