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Microsoft will continue to expand Avatar offerings as time goes on. “Our goal is not to create a sterile environment where you move furniture around.
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Casual Gold Bust - Forbes.com
It’s sort of sad. There’s so much promise in the casual game sphere—and the general business has a huge overlap with the indie movement—but developer’s are having a tough time staying afloat as the market becomes oversaturated with games trying to take advantage of your grandma.
I still remember my first meeting with PopCap Games in 2006. CEO David Roberts and co-founder John Vechy stopped by the Business 2.0 offices to convince me that there was a “casual boom.”
Two years later, that bubble has burst. Developers are saying it’s virtual suicide to get involved in the downloadable games business these days.
Of course this will spur all sorts of new innovation as developers experiment with new business models—and cause another cyclical decline after social networks (or whatever) or eventually overrun with games.
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In some ways, perhaps, the world of Mergers and Acquisitions is a massively multiplayer role playing game as well. Like in World of Warcraft and other games, the participants in the M&A field take on certain roles, interact in their own community, hone specialized skills, and even develop a unique, somewhat curious vernacular. One particular quest in the world of M&A is disclosure litigation. In the instance of disclosure litigation presently pending before this Court, the world of M&A meets the World of Warcraft.
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“Diablo III,” completes the Blizzard trifecta. Within a relatively short time frame, the company will have updates to all of its major franchises, something sure to create a revenue avalanche for the company and productivity slowdowns throughout the country—which makes Blizzard’s pending merger with Activision (nasdaq: ATVI - news - people ) even more intriguing.
Activision-Blizzard, as the company will be called, will become the industry’s largest publisher, displacing Electronic Arts (nasdaq: ERTS - news - people ) and leaving companies like Take-Two Interactive Software (nasdaq: TTWO - news - people ) and THQ (nasdaq: THQI - news - people ) as distant also-rans. The cash infusion of a new “Starcraft” and “Diablo” titles will only widen the gap. — Blizzard’s Perfect Storm - Forbes.com
My arch-nemesis Chris Morris debuts as a Forbes columnist today. His premiere column (lamely named “Game On!”) discusses why Diablo III is a big deal.
(No, it’s not the rumored carpal tunnel-free gameplay).
Instead, Blizzard understands how to compete in different markets, has a high quality bar, and makes compelling games. It’s one of the few (like Rockstar) that can go for years without updating its franchises.
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Mr Kotick, an urbane New Yorker who lives in Hollywood, doubts it. “I don’t think that you need to have gratuitously violent products,” he said. “But no company can afford to turn its back on a $45 billion section of the market. They are as important to the business as R-rated movies [restricted to 17 and older] are to films.
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If we launch a game that is on 360 and PC simultaneously, we basically shoot ourselves in the foot by allowing the German market to choose to play the PC version – because they are more likely to buy that than spend their money on the Xbox 360.
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I remember finishing Toy Story and thinking that they’re going to be able to make video games that look as good as this,” said Stanton. “And it’s WAY passed that now. Now it’s at this scary place where it’s just lapping at the heels of what we do for the films. And it’s only because of the manner in which they’ve got to use the technology so interactively that it’s keeping it at all from matching or exceeding what we do. I think we’re maybe months, years away from it being indiscernible.
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The Vivendi people were there, but the reality is that in Vivendi Games, Blizzard is the crown jewel, so we needed to be on board and believe in it. And honestly, when [Vivendi] said to us they were thinking about exploring the possibility of something like this, we said that if we were going to do something like that, it should be with Activision - those words came from our mouth.
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If “Battlestar Galactica,” a show on the Sci Fi channel for God’s sake, is able to create characters as compelling and troubling as race traitor Gaius Baltar and tackle issues as profound as genocide and religious fanaticism without once losing its thrill-factor, GTA should be able to do the same. Niko, as a character, doesn’t surprise, and the choices he confronts don’t make me want to put the game on pause in order to mull things over; they don’t implicate me or reveal me in any way.
An Indie’s worst fear…
Ron Carmel, one half of 2D Boy, isn’t worried that his game won’t sell, forcing him to return to “the corporate udder.” No, he’s worried that “Kyle will get hit by a bus.”
He has reason to worry: Kyle Gabler has a tendency to conduct interviews while roaming around San Jose.
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