It’s shifting

But first, we need to stop a bit this BS around.

Like the bullshots. We exactly know how they are done, we all know this is pure bullshit compared to real gameplay in-game, with opponents, AI inputs etc

But still, Kotaku for example is full of them more than ever. And people jerk off on it. We had to when we were young because game news were only on paper. In 2009? I don’t even understand.

It’s like this crazyness about figurines and movie adaptation of games. Come on even at 11 years old I knew Doom or Wolfenstein stories were not serious, just here to wrap some outstanding and groundbreaking 3D engines and gameplay. Now they try to make it as if the story was really the core of these games, using the IP to some extreme. Ridiculous.

Sony is launching the PS3 Slim and still loose money on it. As everybody knows, it’s all about software and the PS3 has already lost this battle: games are either multi-platform and sell or Sony exclusive and don’t. For the BR player? Yeah maybe. We sell 1To hard drives for 100$ now and media centers like crazy but yeah, maybe.

I think the public is tired of having to go all the way for a manufacturer, or having no choice but to buy them all. The trend seems to be to go away from closed platforms. Always have been the case: after some hegemony from closed platforms (Amiga, Atari, C64), they suddenly die.

For developers and consumers it’s a win/win. In the Scott Miller ind-depth interview on Gamasutra, we can see that it really has always been the case: the more you aim your game to a large crowd -technically, making sure it runs on the largest chunk of people’s computers- the more you make money. It seems stupid I know. 

“Obviously all your Kroz games were text-based, and you said they sold extremely well. So graphics weren’t a prerequisite at that time to have a successful game for the IBM PC, right?

SM: That appeared to be the case. Most people back in those days when I was doing the Kroz games had CGA cards. EGA was up and coming, but you really couldn’t count on it. These disk magazines like Softdisk wanted the kind of ASCII-based games I was making because they felt like everyone could play them. They didn’t want games that could just work on ten or twenty percent of people’s computers.”

When a developer goes exclusive with a very specific theme in his game –like, WAR- he’s aiming an awful little market. Really juicy ok but with no growth expected. That is what are aiming a lot of publishers these days: 10% of the overall computer market maybe less.

Talking about growth, netbooks sales are up by 40% from last year this quarter. Just sayin’

So to resume: publishers and big names are trying to make sure that we are partying like in 2003 with AAA games and exclusives deals while developers are getting laid off more than ever from that kind of game productions –canceled games every week- with veterans going indie –Chris Hecker man!-. On top of that, consumers are buying games on mobile platforms and tend to enjoy fast and quick game sessions. They use closed platforms when it’s good and different –DS, Iphone- but they know they don’t want that in the future.

They want the fun and the freedom. Developers, don’t forget the freedom part. Oh by the way,