Videogames sales drops, industry try to react

2011 is not looking that good for game industry as 2009 or 2010. According to the NPD, U.S. retail video game sales in January shows overall revenues for the industry dropping 5 percent compared to the same month last year. This wane was somewhat expected since in the last couple of years gaming industry was in its selling zenith, surpassing in gross numbers Hollywood revenue. Even though, as I said, this drops were somewhat expected, it didn’t helped many developers and insiders to believe that we are in the verge of some kind of downfall or turning point to the game industry.

The main pleas is how casual and social games have been successful lately even when AAA games haven’t been so much. Zynga being more monetarily esteemed than the veteran EA haven’t help much contradicting this believe and it seems that lately there is some kind of flock between many good and experienced developers and connoisseurs who are convinced that social casual games are going to me the new industry model.

Fortunately not all devs are in this heard and some as proclaming theur love to the beautifull and expensive games they produce as Cliff Bleszinski, of Epic Games, who said in his twitter “Kotaku throws down on the casualfication of gaming. You can pry my work on AAA titles from my cold, dead hands.” or “I like casual games. They have a big place in the world. I’m just determined to keep kicking ass on big AAA titles.”. Epic latest AAA game, Bulletstorm, is on stores in US since last Tuesday and sales a expected to be over 4.5 million by the end of the year.

FarmVille Model may make its way in PC games

For almost a decade, PC gaming was nearly in limbo. Few AAA games that were released to consoles made their apparency as PC titles [I'm not talking about console exclusivities, as Mario or Metroid, but about third parties titles,  as Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden or Metal Gear Solid]  and there were even fewer exclusive games. But in the last years, this is [slowly] changing and even Microsoft, which hadn’t released any PC title for over 5 years, has announced new games for the platform.

But while AAA games are crawling back to PCs, the platform now shelter a different type of inhabitant: the casual/social videogames. Though those games are generally seen by hardcore games or old gamers as a “silly” or “too easy” ride, it’s hard not to take into account the amount of people, hours and money involved in those games. Two weeks ago, the newcomer Zynga, responsible for Farmville and Mafia Wars, surpassed in worth the veteran Electronic Arts(EA).

EA was founded in 1982 and have been really relevant in the videogames market since then. The company main titles are sports themed videogames, movie franchises (as Harry Potter) and its own videogame franchises, as Need for Speed, Medal of Honor, The Sims and Battlefield. Zynga was founded in July 2007 and makes social facebook games. Zynga’s revenue come from in-game payments for special items and partnerships with businesses.

But Zynga wasn’t the only casual game news lately. Last week, a Japanese developer of social games claimed to make 30 times more per user than Facebook and 15 times more than Zynga. This prosperity in the social/casual game market may not only be the reason why AAA game developers are coming back to PC but also suiting as a role model for those games. Cevat Yerli, president and CEO of Germany-based game development studio Crytek, believe in this influence and wrote this interesting article to Kotaku. According to Cevat, PC Games will become more and more alike the “Zynga Economic Model”, in which several parts of the game will be free of charge and open to all users while premium content will be charged.

Since Zynga’s economic model is one of its games most noticeable caracteristics, I automatically link  it to all other Zynga’s game characteristics, from social aspects to difficulty. Though I agree with Juul that casual games are the only link to videogames possible for most people and that’s why the should be encouraged, we can’t forget that there are still some hardcore and old gamers out there that don’t fell any challenge in most games of this generation.

Wii sales sovereignty in danger

The British game retailer Game Group has announced a 40% drop on Wii and DS hardware while noticing a 16-17% increase on Xbox360 and PS3. That’s quite a surprise for those [including myself] that thought that PSMove and Kinect were to be a fruitless investment in casual gamers in both consoles.

The main belief was that the move gadgets plus the consoles would cost pretty much double [$399.00 for a Xbox360 with kinect or a PS3 with move] what Wii cost [$199]. Paying that muct just didn’t seemed logical at all, but apparently it is. What might be happening is that many average gamers [not hardcore neither casual] prefer to invest on a console in which both kinds of playing were hearty available.

Wii is not a casual only console, but it also don’t have many options for players to go hardcore sometimes. Contra Rebirth is a good example of hardcore game for Wii, but besides being a short game, it’s also not very common other games for Wii in this difficulty range. Also, most of new hardcore games are most released for PS3 or Xbox360 [and, when we are luck enough, for PC too].

Snob taste for games

David Thomas wrote this great article on a certain kind of gamer. According to David, some [or most?] gamers spend too much time and energy discussing hardware recommendations and criticisms, reading segmented gamers magazines and bragging about obscure titles from antique consoles.

David says “And to think that we wonder why the mainstream world doesn’t take games seriously. Perhaps they are afraid of games because they are afraid of us. Hardcore gamers like making Joe Average gamers feel stupid.”

And don’t completely agree with David; though I accord that there is some unnecessary complication sometimes, it’s imminent that both game hardware and software improve complexity. Yes, it’s quite scary to an outsider to hear about the different types and need of RAM memory or how different games use aggro and how different from each other those aggros are, but this snobty is needed for more complex games.

Games Decade

At the TEDxBoston, Seth Priebatsch talked about the “game layer” in which reality can be incorporated with in order to incentive certain behaviors. His arguments are not really convincing, but he got great examples.