Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
You’ve simply got to love it when one of the biggest names in gaming decides to throw all caution to the wind, and host a charity golf tournament – with microtransactions included.
Apparently this is the brainchild of EA CEO Rich Hilleman who sought to use design elements from Korean microtransaction based games in a real world golf tourney. All players were allowed to purchase special abilities each round. Some would help them improve their score, while others would damage opposing teams (see pricing chart below). Prices range from $1 to toss a beach ball at another player and moving another players ball one club length from the hole, to $10 which allowed players the ability to kick another players ball into a water hazard (take THAT Mr. Perry).
Image courtesy of MTV
EA Partner’s GM David DeMartini joked that the event was actually a test. “So if microtransactions catch on here at the golf course today then it’s likely they will in the real world.”
And while EA smartly applied the microtransaction theme to a good cause, there’s also a timely message contained in this exercise. Bob Wallace, principal at Strategic Alternative says, “The industry has been interested in microtransactions since the arcades.” He thinks that although the model originated primarily in Asia, North America and Europe are prime to reap the benefits of microtransaction based pricing, “Because, you actually get what you pay for.”
DeMartini echos Wallace’s sentiments, “”I think we’re certainly headed in that way with more of the mid-session games, some of the free games…I think it’s going to be much more of a free-play microtransaction model.”
When asked about the market shift, Wallace predicts “Five years or less”. He says that the two models (subscription and microtransaction) will coexist for a time (aren’t we already at this phase?), but that microtransactions will gain ground, “I think it has a lot of appeal to mass market gamers.”
All proceeds from EA’s microtransaction charity golf tournament will be donated to the Randy Pausch Scholarship Fund, part of which may be used to help fund the education of future game developers. If you’re unfamiliar with who Randy Pausch is, clear 10 minutes from your schedule and watch.
View the full 1 hour 16 minute version here.
Tags: Bob Wallace, CEO Rich Hilleman, charity golf tournament, David DeMartini, EA, ea games, free games, golf tourney, Market, microtransaction, microtransactions, Randy Pausch
Posted in industry news | No Comments »
Monday, June 2nd, 2008
The Dutch Game Garden has announced that they’ll be launching at the NLGD Festival of Game on June 19th in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Coming hot off a nice pat on the back, the Dutch gaming industry is 
poised to be a major force to contend with in the Euro gaming market. The Dutch Game Garden foundation is financed in part by the Dutch government, and is supported by a number of universities and schools. These schools along with the government are extremely interested in promoting the growth of the gaming sector. In 2007, the Dutch gaming industry revenue exceeded that of the Dutch film industry, and figures report the gaming sector to have a growth rate of 50% faster than any other Dutch economic sector.
The Dutch Game Garden will support, encourage, and do all it can to help fledgling developers and startups located in the Netherlands, along with companies that choose to relocate to the Netherlands. They tackle this via a three pronged attack:
The Game Development Club which seeks to encourage students of game design, media, arts and programming courses at universities and school to work together in collaborative projects.
The Game Incubator is a pot o’ soup for talented young entrepreneurs. The Incubator project helps young entrepreneurs navigate the often hectic ropes of not only setting up a company, but keeping it afloat, and ultimately, bringing their product to market. By providing training in entrepreneurship and coaching, assisting with housing, providing tools and a network of technical, financial and legal experts, the Incubator seeks to help Mr./Ms. ‘Hey I got an awesome game, but where the heck do I start?’ to hit the ground running.
The Game Development Business Centers provide top-notch facilities for existing and growing game firms in the Utrecht region. The ultimate goal of these facilities is to create a hotspot of gaming, with access to other important companies, A1 research institutes, universities and schools.
The Dutch Game Garden will offer an official presentation along with a panel discussion at the NLDG festival.
To learn more about the Dutch Game Garden: http://www.dutchgamegarden.nl
To learn more about the NLDG: http://www.nlgd.nl
Tags: business centers, collaborative projects, developers, dutch film, dutch game, dutch government, entrepreneurship, Euro, game, game design, game development business, game development club, gaming, gaming industry, gaming market, gaming sector, hotspot, important companies, incubator project, Legal, legal experts, Market, NLDG, programming courses, setting up a company, The Netherlands, US, Utrecht, young entrepreneurs
Posted in industry news | No Comments »
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008
Canadian residents are not required to pay an entry fee for Blizzard’s upcoming arena tournament. Instead, Canadian residents are required to write a 250 word typewritten essay comparing the video gaming culture in the Great White North to the video gaming culture in the States. Click here for the tournament main page and then click on rules (Blizz isn’t allowing direct linking to this page).
Canadian residents are not required to pay an Entry Fee in order to enter. Instead, Canadian residents may enter by submitting a 250 word typewritten essay comparing the video gaming culture in Canada to the video gaming culture in the United States on 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper and mailing their essay to Essay Entry for The North American Blizzard Entertainment Arena Tournament, P.O Box 18979, Irvine, CA 92623. Essay entries must be received no later than March 31, 2008 in order to be eligible. Essay entrants represent and warrant that the essay is their original work and does not infringe the rights of any third party. By entering, essay entrants hereby grant, without further consideration, all right, title and interest in and to their essay to Sponsor.
Ok, so the deadline has passed, so if you’re living somewhere in a province under a red maple leaf, sorry, but you missed the boat. On the other side of the coin here, gotta hand it to Blizz, excellent crowd sourcing and market research all within a highly specialized field. I’d LOVE to be sitting on the marketing review and research and development panels on the receiving end of these essays. Nice work Blizz!
On a side note, all Canadian contests involving a game of skill or chance must have a no fee entry clause. Normally this is covered by the STQ. The STQ is a skill testing question, used in order to qualify a ‘potential’ winner. While this question is usually mathematically in nature, sometimes a trivia question has also been used. I’m assuming that a 250 word essay will be a perfectly acceptable STQ.
A skill testing question is a legal aspect attached to all contests that Canadian residents can enter. Some contests may require you to answer the STQ when you enter the contest, other may require it only after you are declared a ‘potential’ winner. Because Canadian law prohibits “for-profit” gaming or betting, but does allow prizes to be given for skill (or mixed games of skill and chance), chance-based games (which, a random draw for contesting is), stays legal when contestants are required to answer the “skill” testing question. The STQ is a mathematical question, which you must answer correctly to be declared the contest winner. Contests which are run by sponsors in the USA are required to include a STQ if the contest winner is a Canadian resident, even though STQs are not required by contest winners in the USA. Some Canadian contests will ask a trivia question in place of a mathematical STQ.
Tags: Blizz, Blizzard, blizzard entertainment, Canada, canadian contests, canadian residents, crowd, Entertainment, entertainment arena, game, gaming, gaming culture, Irvine, irvine ca, King, Legal, maple leaf, Market, market research, marketing, North American, red maple, research, research and development, skill test, stq, third party, tournament, trivia question, typewritten essay, United States, USA, video gaming, word essay
Posted in industry news | No Comments »
Monday, May 19th, 2008
Market research firm NPD released April data on Thursday putting Nintendo’sWii on top.
Nintendo also released their own press release using the NPD numbers:
According to NPD, the Wii outsold Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s Playstation 3. The Wii moved 714,000 units in April bringing it’s total US sales since launch to 9.5 Million units.
NPD’s numbers show that Microsoft milked the cash cow for 188,000 units and Sony, 187,100 PS3′s.
Perhaps having a bit of advanced knowledge of the upcoming numbers, Microsoft released a statement of their own on Wednesday that they’d reached the 10 Million units sold mark, making the Xbox 360 the first next-gen console to reach this landmark. Microsoft gave itself a pat on the back, arguing that this is the landmark that that usually indicates the eventual winner of each console generation.
Speaking of April, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto IV launched on the 29th on Xbox 360 and PS3. Granted, GTA IV had only been out for 2 days last month, and box Microsoft and Sony saw an increase in these sales, and yet Wii still came out on top.
NPD’s data on GTA IV places the game in two of the three top slots of software sales, with the Xbox version cashing in with 1.85M copies, and the PS3 version selling 1M units.
Again, Nintendo backs that ass up with Mario Kart Wii coming in as the second best selling game for the month of April, pushing 1.12M bananas out the door. Overall, 6 out of the top 10 best selling games during April were Wii games.
Let’s not forget about the other white meat: handheld gamers. The Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP outsold both the Xbox 360 and the PS3. The DS cranked out 414,800 receipts, with the PSP paling in comparison at only 192,700.
Overall, NPD’s research indicates what we’ve already mentioned, even though the economy sucks, the gaming industry is still partying like it’s 1999, with total sales in April racking up $1.23 billion. Yep, that’s Billion. That’s a 47% increase over the $839 million only one year earlier. Likewise, hardware sales were up 26% from $339 million in April 2007 to $426 million in April 2008.
Tags: April, Auto, best selling games, bit, cash, cash cow, comparison, cow, door, economy, firm, game, gaming, gaming industry, generation, Grand, grand theft auto, grand theft auto iv, GTA, gta iv, industry, knowledge, landmark, launch, Mario Kart, mark, Market, meat, Microsoft, Million, month, month of april, Nintendo, nintendo ds, NPD, pat on the back, playstation 3, press, PSP, release, research, rock, Rockstar, rockstar games, software, software sales, Sony, sony psp, Speaking, statement, Theft, Thursday, top, US, version, Wednesday, white meat, Wii, wii games, winner, Xbox, xbox 360, xbox version
Posted in industry news | No Comments »
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=6ca83d8a-2339-4643-bc07-c6f7d136e5c5)
