By Nadia Oxford on May 31, 2011 in Business, Game Design, Game Development
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We all deal with thankless, pushy bosses from time to time, and when we’re chewed out, we mumble (when the boss’ back is turned, of course) about how you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. While being bulled at a minimum wage retail job by a superior is often unnecessary (“Cut those fries faster! What’re you waiting for, the Second Coming of Christ?”), the situation tends to be different if a person is working at a job where...
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By Nadia Oxford on May 31, 2011 in Business, Culture, Game Design
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The generation that grew up with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) probably didn’t know Shigeru Miyamoto from a hole in the wall. Nowadays, the maturation of the earliest gaming generations combined with the Internet’s vast information databases and communication potential has elevated many veteran game developers to near-celebrity status. In some instances, fans can even reach out to their heroes via email, Twitter, and, if you somehow manage to...
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By Nadia Oxford on May 30, 2011 in Business, Casual Games, Facebook
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References to online social gaming have a way of putting proclaimed hardcore gamers into a bad mood, and it’s not hard to see why. Core game developers like Capcom, Square-Enix, EA and more have been opening up studios and creating teams that are tailored strictly for the development of social and mobile games. Meanwhile, independent social games studios are popping up around the landscape like daisies on the first warm day of March. Core gamers are bristling...
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By Nadia Oxford on May 30, 2011 in Business, Digital Distribution, Marketing
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At first blush, it might seem a it odd that video game retailer GameStop is throwing so much money and effort behind building up digital distribution. After all, GameStop is the baron of retail game distribution, and no small part of its fortune has been made through the used game trade–a trade that can only exist for as long as video game data is transferred onto a disc and sold in a store.
Upon closer study though, GameStop is getting in on the ground floor...
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By Nadia Oxford on May 30, 2011 in Digital Distribution, Nintendo, Project Cafe
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For better or worse, Nintendo is a company that observes what its competition is doing and then goes in the opposite direction. Said experimentation results in industry-changing ideas like motion control, portable game systems that demonstrate strength through solid franchises instead of top processing power, and affordable gaming that appeals to families worldwide.
The trade-off is an evident hesitation to embrace features that were considered standard in the...
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By Nadia Oxford on May 27, 2011 in Business, Marketing, Sony
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The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play smartphone (a.k.a. the PlayStation Phone) began making its presence felt on worldwide cell phone markets recently. The phone puts a special emphasis behind gaming, which is evident from its pop-out d-pad and lineup of classic PSOne games. It even comes pre-loaded with some titles, including Bruce Lee: Dragon Warrior, Crash Bandicoot, and Tetris. It is, frankly, a neat little piece of technology, but it’s having some trouble...
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By Nadia Oxford on May 27, 2011 in Business, PlayStation 3, PSP
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As Elton John and Bernie Taupin once penned in a ballad, “sorry” is the hardest word. Sony knows it; it has been doing some heavy-duty apologizing since hackers made off with personal information belonging to tens of millions of users of the PlayStation Network. Now that the PSN is back, the company has sought to make things up to its fanbase through free game offers, including LittleBigPlanet, WipeOut HD, inFamous, and others.
Some PSN users...
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By Nadia Oxford on May 26, 2011 in Business, Free Games, Online Games
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Are you traditionally well-behaved when you game online? Do you refrain from screaming and swearing at other players, or hold back from implying that their mothers earn their livings at houses of ill repute? In the future, Valve boss Gabe Newell might reward your good behavior on Steam by having you pay less for games than the cussers and the cheaters.
In a May interview with Develop, Newell said that the industry’s current formula of charging every consumer...
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By Nadia Oxford on May 26, 2011 in Culture, Online Games
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Parents can sometimes be overheard talking fearfully about “video game addiction.” In fact, if a child is forbidden from playing video games it’s often because parents don’t want their kid getting “addicted” to games and spending hours on titles that will sap their grades, health, and social life.
Technically, video game addiction is not a disorder that’s recognized by the World Health Organization or the American...
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By Nadia Oxford on May 25, 2011 in Business, Game Design, Game Development
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As the video game industry matures, it’s becoming apparent that game development is a cyclical event. New ideas are valued, but retreading old territory is what really seems to get the games community talking. When a beloved retro game receives a remake, it lets a new generation experience classics from the old generation, but more than that, it gives the old generation a chance to revisit an old favorite and resurrect the memories that accompany it.
But not...
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Scott Steinberg is the CEO of 