Is the Games Industry Recession Proof?

As the Christmas Clamour to buy the “must have” video games and consoles starts, we ask, is the Games Industry recession proof?

Sales of Games and Consoles in October 2008 were the highest yet, at $1.31bn, and the release of the World of Warcraft extension pack resulted in 2.8m units being sold in the single first day.  It sets the scene for a market that looks set to survive the recession well.

Video Games are the New Cinema

This recession is frequently referred to as the “worst since the great depression”, and the 1930’s saw the movie industry excel, producing some of the largest and grandest productions, including some of the huge musicals.  Cinema was seen by the masses as a cheap form of escapist entertainment, and video games are being perceived as this recessions answer to the movies.

Games Console Sales Increase

The games industry reported that 46% of Americans were intending to buy a games unit of some kind on the day after Thanks Giving.   And the Nintendo Wii looks ready to sell out again in the UK for Christmas, with over 330,000 units being bought in the UK last month alone, substantially more than sales of the Xbox and Playstation combined.  Nintendo say that they are increasing supply by 50% over the last two months of 2008 to ensure that everyone who wants a Wii will be able to get one.

Some analysts are arguing that this Christmas may see the Wii at saturation point, and that this could bode well for the xbox and playstation who are targeting themselves at the less family orientated markets, and combine features such as Blue-ray players.

Stocks and Share Prices

So is the high street activity reflected in the share prices.  All of the major Games manufacturers and suppliers have seen their share prices knocked, but most have only fallen in proportion to the market wide fall of around 33%

EA saw the largest drop, with their share price falling by around 50%, this reflects concerns that even though video games are a good form of cheap escapism entertainment, the full retail price of the games at between £30 and £50 is still a large amount for people to find when times are tight.  The market anticipates that there will be need to be some discounting on the prices of the games to encourage players to keep buying new games.

The evidence is that the games industry looks set to ride the recession out well, even factors such as the cold weather mean that cheap indoor entertainment is what families are looking for, and in a recession giving the public what they want is key.

Megatrends of Gaming – Article (3) – Merchandising

This post is a discussion of the the Megatrends of Game Design, written by Pascal Luban.  When it comes to merchandising Luban states;

“Today’s games feature rich and popular universes, which may yield products taking many forms: action figures, manga and comics, ornaments, school supplies, ringtones, animated series or evan novels, theatrical screenplays, or the much wider boradcast of video game tournaments.”

“I am convinced that we will get there.  Some games will give more compelling shows than others, in the sense of being watched and understood by the viewers”

Again this is nothing particularly new, it’s just something that the next generation games should take on board at the conception phase as opposed to the “cash cow” phase.  Tomb Raider is probably the computer game that springs to most people’s mind as the first to take computer game characters into the cinematic world.  There have been others, see here before, and many many others since, although none of them have really had the box office sucess of the Lara Croft films.

The reason why so many video games progress well into cinema is the lack of plot.  When gamers are playing their game they are caught up the action of the game, the stages that they need to do to progress, the objects they need to collect, etc etc etc.  This doesn’t make rivetting cinema, infact it’s probably as exciting for someone else to watch as a dash around tescos.  And this is the issue that needs to be addressed if games designers and publishers want to get the most out of the merchandising.

The leading MMORPG games seem to have the merchandising far more nailed.  With World or Warcraft merchandising carefully controlled by Blizzard, but including models, cards, t-shirts & clothing, books, soundtracks, pc peripherals, board games and strategy guides.  Oh yes, and a $100m budget movie currently in production.

The MMORPG have much more scope for merchandising than the traditional shot and slash type of games, because plot is what the games are all about.  There may even be the risk, that despite spending $100m on the film that true World of Warcraft fans and players may be disappointed, because the whole MMORPG concept is built around the players fantasies and imagination – will it be as good when it makes it onto the big screen?

Uwe Boll who applied to Blizzard for the role of director in the World of Warcraft movie, about making a true and faithful adaption of a film;

“You go for it, to please the game fans, but on the other hand if you have the hard core gamers, they live in their own world. And you cannot fulfill their ideas from a video game based movie, it’s impossible. 

For games to move effortlessly between film, product, game and online virtual communities there needs to be a plot, something that the player can associate with, can internalise, not just scores & results.

The Megatrends of Game Design – Article (1) Multiplayer Gaming to the Rescue

Pascal Luban, vetran games designer, outlines the trends that he sees emerging in Game Design and the Games Industry over the next few years.  This post, and other posts continuing this exploration have been based on the articles The Megatrends of Game Design Part 1, and Part 2.

The first megatrend that Luban raises is the necessity of increasing the commercial life span of games. 

The lifespan of games can be surprisingly short, developers are committing to hundreds of thousands, sometime millions of pounds on game development, on a long investment period of around 18-14 months.   And the window of opportunity sale the game, and recover the costs and make a profit can be incredibly short, sometimes only a matter of a few months.  And along with this the publishers run the risk that their competitors are simultaneously working on a similar product, which may well beat them to till.

This retail environment is not one that encourages the large amounts of time and cost needed in R&D.  So what are the ways to extend the commercial lifespan of games.

(1) Multiplayer Gaming to the Rescue.

Multiplayer games, commonly known as MMOG (massively multiplayer online games) are seen as a way of engaging the player in a longer term environment.  One where the player has to not only acheive their targets, but also to do so in an everchanging environment and against a real, live and unpredictable competition.  Some recent games including Call of Duty 4 have made definite decisions to develop MMOG into their platforms.

With Fantasy Couriers we perceive the Multiplayer element as being a key part to the enjoyment of the game.  Some games are all about you versus a situation, or an opponent, but this is never a situation that could ever apply to a business environment.  In business there is always competition, always a cheaper product, a better service, or an alternative option.  Even you are lucky enough to be the single supplier of a product you still have to compete with all the other products and services that consumers have the option of spending their money on instead.

The courier market was chosen for the Fantasy Couriers business simulation game because it is one of the most competitve markets out there.  Small errors in pricing can mean catestrophic results to a company.  It’s also a market that suits multiplaying, because there are so many different pricing and business strategies that can be adopted.  There are very few industries where the impact choice of high price low volume, and low price high volume is better demonstrated.

BBFC and the UK Games Industry move closer to agreement over Game Ratings.

Computer games and videos play a significant role in most Children and young peoples lives.  And as a result the issue of ratings on games is a recurring topic amongst the games industry producers and suppliers, and between political and social organisations.

Currently, PEGI is the system most used in Europe, whereby the games are rated from 3+, and guidelines exist as to what is suitable at each of the key levels.  PEGI is a European standard operated by the games publishers.

 

Currently the British Board of Film Classifications (BBFC) have no direct regularity authority over any ratings on any computer or video games.  However the Byron Report (described as remarkably balanced and no-political) suggested that BBFC logos be carried on the front of all packaging, as it’s ratings, images and standards are all very familiar to the UK public.

 

The rating system relies on a single recommended age box, along with a number of smaller boxes indicating what types of potentially objectionable content you may find in the game. These smaller boxes simply confuse matters – not least because the task of expressing an abstract concept like “horror” in a tiny black and white picture is the kind of thing you expect to find in a lateral-thinking puzzle game, not a sober attempt at implementing a rating system.

 

Arguments against the continued use of PEGI include the fact that it is Pan- European, and that cultural differences, religious and social differences all mean that what is “acceptable” cary widely between the European member countries.

 

After months of bitterly opposing the BBFC’s further involvement in game rating, however, Britain’s Games publishers seem to have changed tack. This week, UK games publisher association ELSPA tacitly acknowledged flaws in the PEGI system – and instead proposed a new “traffic lights” system, which would be much clearer for consumers, not to mention more visually striking.

 

In fact, what’s most visually striking about the new logos is how much like the BBFC’s they are. The rating system is admittedly different, but ELSPA’s new traffic lights really do bear a superficial resemblance to the BBFC’s own rating stamps. They even boast the explanatory text box on the right, replacing PEGI’s utterly awful content icons.

 

However, from this coming together of ideas springs a new issue.  Who should govern the ratings – the games industry (perhaps through ELSPA) or the BBFC.  The BBFC maybe do not have enough experience in this particular market, and could have a tendency to concentrate on the visual images in the games, as opposed to the underlying games strategy or the game playing. 

 

However, given the fact that the media are quick to draw links between computer games and our “broken” society, it would be a brave government that would give control of games rating to the games industry.

 

Fantasy Couriers is an online computer game that is played by under 18’s, and as such the company seeks to abide by, and exceed, all rating systems that are relevant to the games industry, whether they be regulated by the BBFC, PEGI or anybody else.

 

“We want parents to feel completely happy when their children are playing Fantasy Couriers” says director Sandra Patterson.  “Fantasy Couriers is about challenging the players to run a business, and as such there is no blood or gore, or any aspect or horror, or any other element which could make the game unsuitable for younger players.  We have always had this as a major underlying principle in the game development, and we continue this by ensuring that the sponsors and advertisers in the game are also only promoting products that are suitable for the under 18 year old players”.

Top Five Tips For Couriers To Save Money

Teaching Van Drivers New Driving Techniques could save their company’s money, even the smallest saving on each van through fuel-efficient methods will have a beneficial impact on the company. to stay in business.  Alistair Patterson from Simply Clearances has vans traveling all over the UK every week, he has found that their fuel costs have been taking up more and more of their profits, which made them examine how they can make savings.

Mr Patterson said  “Leaving about 15 minutes earlier for each job means that we can reduce the average travelling speed from 70mph to 60mph, this has increased the mileage that we get from a tank of fuel from 480 kilometres to around 600 kilometres.  I was aware that savings would be made, but even I was surprised about the extend of these, i expected to get an extra 50km a tank, not double that!”

Industry experts say that the surprising large savings are due to a number of factors which tend to arise out of a slower average speed,  there is a lot less accelerate/brake, and this contributes a lot to saving fuel.  And the slower average speed tends to mean a generally calmer attitude which helps in spotting hazards ahead and more predictive instead of reactive driving.

Top tips for saving fuel are;

1. Plan to leave your depots a little bit earlier each day for your destinations, this should help you reduce your speed, saving you fuel, and will also help you feel more relaxed too.  Don’t forget that there is also the speeding tickets to consider and fines, if you’re driving at steady speeds, particularly on the motorways, then you don’t even need to worry about these.
2. Avoid harsh acceleration and braking, this helps to reduce wear and tear, and it saves the fuel dump every time you brake & accelerate.
3. Look forward, read the road and the traffic, plan for hazards and drive for the conditions.  This should help to reduce stop/start driving, thereby reducing fuel consumption and making you a safer driver.
4. Remove all the clutter from your van that you dont need, this should help reduce fuel consumption.  You will be surprised just how much stuff you carry around “just in case” and then never use.
5. Remove any items that may affect your aerodynamics, roof rack or top boxes they will only reduce your efficiency of your van.  Be aware of the drag of a trailer, plan ahead and only use these items when you need them, and remove them as soon as possible when you’ve finished with them.

Making a living as a courier can be a tricky business, so anything that can benefit your company must be a good thing, even the smallest saving is worth having.

Fantasy Couriers game is almost ready to play and it should help you identify new ideas with savings and your company  profits.  http://www.fantasycouriers.com