IS ELECTRONIC ARTS EVIL?

I have written some prickly things about EA, but while doing some research I stumble to this EVIL claim time and time again. I was thinking that with this blog title I might get some visits from people who have rather strong opinion on the matter. Maybe write a comment and say what you think, OK?

EA USES ORIGIN TO EDGE UP THEIR PROFIT MARGIN

What we now have on gaming news sites is a wall of comments on how Dead Space is available as a free download at EA's Origin service. Yahoo! Good for gamers I say, so here is what I did, I opened a free Origin account. After all I am an oddball gamer since I don't have Steam account. I decided that it might be a good learning experience to see what online gaming has to offer at Origin. Maybe later I go and check the Steam and compare the two.

WAIT A MINUTE WHERES ULTIMA?

Is it just me or does it feel strange to get online gaming under the name Origin instead of Ultimas? Granted, you have to be an old timer to remember those days. Younger generation is much more accustomed to own something digital. For me it is important to have that game as a physical product, which I can later on sell if I feel like it.

Well no point of feeling sorry for Origin as it has been in Electronic Arts stable since 1992. On that ownership department nothing has changed and younger generation hasn't even heard of Ultimas since the plug was pulled. For the rest of us the name comes with some sort of pedigree. Really nice branding move from EA. Although for me it is especially difficult to move past the fact of putting Privateer Online on the shelf.

AFTER STEAM AT FULL STEAM

Obviously EA hasn't gotten enough steam behind their effort to match the sales of the Steam. All the time I have been in business life a free offer has been an attempt to get some solid assets (customers) under your feet. So what we got here is a failure to compete head to head with the current industry leader and some extra oomph was needed.

NOT LIKE THIS

I doubt that Dead Space is that extra oomph. It lacked the sales then and it will lack the interest now. It is just thrown into the mix because the title doesn't bring in any money in any case. Basically this is a scenario of too little too late.

What they should do is to combine Titanfall-like visibility into a free-to-play and recoup their losses in future from much bigger user base. Unfortunately once financial powerhouse EA is reeling from mixture of bad decisions and market trend changes and can't digest this sort of up-front investment at the moment. Origin service is not going to pick up speed any time soon.

WHY IT IS A LIFE AND DEATH MATTER FOR EA?

Games are leaving dedicated chains like GameStop and being introduced in household chains, which are master cost-cutters and price squeezers. This will lower the margin a game publisher will get from sold unit. You don't have to be a Holmes to see that revenue from games is slipping and the only way to maintain the margin is to deliver directly to consumer retina. EA needs Origin to retain as much profit for themselves as possible. This is the single biggest key to a solid finances for EA and it is strange how little they are pushing into it.

THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT

Set all classic EA games as free-to-play on Origin and drive hordes of new users into the service. When everybody and their moms are in they never want to leave, because all their stats and playmates are there too. You don't want to give up your accomplishments and the longer you spend on Origin the more history you get with the service and everything it has to offer.

Do it this way and there is a good chance Origin vs Steam will be like Xbox (One) vs PS3 (4) currently is.

KING DIGITAL STARTS WITH A FREE FALL BUT CAN IT FARM ITS WAY UP AND LEVEL?

King Digital stock started its journey at open markets. It rained hails and arrows as our new hero first ran out from the home base. Harsh was the test our hero was put on and as a newbie it faltered and fell. Now it must battle the lack of new super hits similar to Candy Crush Saga. Stock must also fight against the gradual loss of interest because nobody plays one game indefinitely... anymore. How will the stock gain some desperately needed experience points and level up? It will be an interesting show to follow the adventures of Zynga, King Digital and Supercell.

MORONS CALLED NEWS PARROTS A.K.A. PS4 HARDWARE SALES JUMP 106% ON INFAMOUS

On thing I don't understand. You get a meaningless snippet of information from some unverified source (the news I refer to in title had "trusted retail source", which probably means some store clerk who happens to know someone in gaming press) and the next thing you know is all fan boy gaming sites blast it to orbit and use it as undeniable truth on PS4's excellence over XBOX ONE. Was that number for all of UK? Was it for the whole week? Was it for one shop in one small town in UK?

Oh... man... Well... THEN we can compare it to the fact that Xbox had similar news circulating regarding Titanfall launch. Similarly fantastically accurate data to let us know that there was 96% increase in console sales after the game launched.

Sure there must be something to drum up the visibility but what I don't understand is the parroting side of the industry it is almost as if news were published as RSS feeds. We don't care what it means we just want to stuff more info into the tube.

Ok, now this is officially a rant. What we really learn from this is that good games promote console sales.

PUBLIC OR PRIVATE OWNERSHIP WHICH ONE BRINGS BETTER RESULTS FOR A GAME COMPANY?

This is actually very simple question, because the answer is obvious and a fact that can't be disputed. Privately owned companies are doing better when you take the long approach and follow them through decades. The reason for this is that they can focus on improving their business without the constant pressure of stock owners who only care about money. Private companies also care about their surroundings and make better propellants of good in society and community where they operate. This in turn means that they get better goodwill and therefore better workers. It might not be true what comes to CEO as private companies tend to pay less than public companies. But CEO is not really all that important instead they are more often than not the catalyst of destruction in a company they lead.

WHAT THIS HAS TO DO WITH GAME COMPANIES?

Well, right now there is very interesting pair of mobile game companies fighting for the crown of highest crossing game of App Store and Google Play. Supercell is doing it with their Hay Day and Clash of Clans and King Digital with their Candy Crush Saga.

SO WHICH ONE IS PRIVATE AND WHICH IS PUBLIC?

Japanese Softbank bough majority of Supercell and can be considered private company because Softbank has amazing take on long term operations and doesn't care much about quarterly success. King Digital is taking different road and running for IPO. Lots of regulatory stuff in the works for King and playful conditions for Supercell. What do you think, which is nicer?

WHERE THE PROFITS GO?

Supercell says they are happy to pay taxes and amazingly enough they DO PAY out massive cut of their earnings as taxes. What comes to King I am not sure - and I'm just speculating here - but since their headquarters is in Ireland, a country know for ample opportunities for tax planning (avoiding taxes at any cost), I believe that King Digital will not turn out to be a model member of society. Instead the money that company earns goes to people who already have quite a bit of money - now where's the good in that?

People who look at the world solely through the dollar binoculars quickly move on if they get more money from somewhere else. There is next to nothing in terms of long-term relationship building or any feeling of gratitude. On the other side of the coin - Supercell side that is - we have lots of support and projects designed to involve company's local communities. To me it looks like workers in Supercell just might code that extra mile.

IS IT STUPID TO CARRY STOCKS OF A BIG GAME COMPANY?

LEAN AND FINE COMPANY

Supercell is famous because of their Clash of Clans title. The company itself is very young but it has catapulted itself among game industry greats. Year 2013 turnover was 672 million euro and profit totaled whopping 349 million euro. They have two titles and third one coming out March 2014. It has taken only about 140 people to produce these amazing results as that is the amount of people who work for the company. Softbank bought 51% slice of the company and by doing it set the valuation up to 2,2 billion euro (thats about 3 billion USD). Insane, right? Company was founded 2010 even more insane, right?

FAT AND BLOATED COMPANY

Now let's take a look at the other side of the coin. There lurks the industry behemoth Electronic Arts once touted to be the best game company there is. Such a sorry state they are in now. Almost makes me sad but not really. If you take a look on my already fossilized articles I have been writing about Electronic Arts on this blog already almost ten years ago. I have always had some dislike towards their business practices just buying titles and market share almost as if they are a pure marketing company, which doesn't care about the games themselves, as if they just happened to be games they are in could very well be toiletries for all they care about. Anyway, this big juggernaut finds it increasingly difficult to make money it must be all those management, marketing, merger and acquisition people who load the EA boat with heavy costs and all the brand name game titles have not been enough to maintain the profitability.

PUBLISHING IS OVER IN GAME INDUSTRY FOCUS ON GAME DEVELOPMENT

The old way of bringing games to the market has changed. App Store, Google Play and Steam have all the audience you could possibly ever want. Since publishing is easy the focus must be the actual product and the story why people should pay attention and play it.

If you need marketing campaign just let Youtube gaming celebrities do their work and you instantaneously reach an audience of millions of viewers. Couldn't be better times for game development companies.

SELL THE STOCK OF YOUR BIG NAME GAME COMPANIES

Don't bet your pension funds on this advice but take it seriously anyhow. You need to unload the big juggernauts since they are bloated, rigid and generating losses, which will show in the valuation quite badly.

BEGINNERS OPPORTUNISTIC CLASH OF CLANS STRATEGY FOR PICKING GEMS EARLY IN THE GAME

Ok, let's keep this short and sweet. The biggest bottle neck in Clash of Clans is the number of builder's huts. If you can't build or upgrade you are dead in the water so the goal in the game is to have as many huts as possible. You can buy two right off the bat but it gets more and more difficult as you need to pay them with gems.

You can get gems from tidying up the neighborhood and completing achievements. Unfortunately it is all very low key and time consuming except one item and that is Sweet Victory! achievement. Even as a new player this achievement is fairly easy to accomplish. You just need some archers and money to pick up just the good fights.

Quite a few players build their base so that their town hall is completely out in the open and by taking that one building down you win the fight. So basically drop couple of archers to a right position and wait your way into victory. Repeat until you get 1250 trophies. Afterwards you'll get hammered, but so what now you have three huts and can develop your setting much faster. Here are some examples and if you find your base among the lot, please let me know and I have a special thank you package for you...

Notice how gold keeps on going up while elixir fluctuates. Reasoning behind this is obvious, I don't use any gold and raids always give some gold while I occasionally spend quite a lot of elixir to build new troops to destroy the ones lost in previous raid.

Oh, one more thing, I didn't win them all, sometimes there are dragons lurking in the clan fortress...

THE BEST BENEFIT OF A KICKSTARTER FOR AN INDIE GAME DEVELOPER

Yes the money is always good we all need bread and water but what Kickstarter can really do towards making the project reality is the exposure to gaming enthusiasts who frolic the pages of Kickstarter. There are gamers who really can give some extra exposure for their specific gaming community if your project fits into their gaming niche and imagination.

WHAT NICHES ARE POPULAR ON KICKSTARTER?

MMORPGs have seen lots of success although market might be reaching saturation point at the moment and it is the same case with all sorts of RPGs, usually fantasy world driven Ultima copies. iPhone and Android games are also something that many want to shove their money into.

KICKSTART YOUR INDIE GAME FINANCING WITH PUBLICITY

Anyhow the key for you desire to start a project in Kickstarter is that you have an idea for a game. If your game idea doesn't fall into popular niches you are at disadvantage from the get go. Usually people behind the idea are not too good in pushing it forward so Kickstarter is the best place to let people know about you and your project. If you fail to expose the project to many probability for failure rockets. I say that it is small price to pay if you tune your original idea to make it a better fit for popular game categories. This way you are able to nail your project up on the wall for all hungry eyes.

HOW YOU REALLY GET SUCCESS FOR YOU INDIE GAME PROJECT?

Hard truth is that Kickstarter alone will not make your project. Actually Kickstarter is probably one of the last steps before you complete the project. The reason for this is that successful projects build following around them over long period of time. In the beginning it is the famous elbow grease, which will take care of pulling the project forward.

Only after you have build up following and development marches on comes time to MEGAblast the project skeleton on Kickstarter. At that point - because of your ready following - you will gain momentum fast, which will balloon into speedy completion of the funding run.

SO YOU GOT THE AUDIENCE, NOW WHAT?

You need to get the visibility among influential genre gamers for your title. This will ensure that the word gets out and people will come in troves. Then you better have something more to show them than just the idea and the best way to do this is to show impressive graphics. Impress enthusiasts and they will drum up even more visibility for your project.

BUT IT IS SO LITTLE MONEY...

I know that most indie game developers turn into crowdfunding as the last resource and rightly so. It tends to rake in sums in low five figures and that is not enough to pay through game development cycle unless it is something simple on iOS or Android. It's really difficult to say if it is better to slug it on as an indie developer at night and employed software developer zombie during the office hours OR throw away pension plans and dive into the rocky stream of indie developer and entrepreneur. The reason why I say this is that if you jump out and grab the helm of your own project you are going to see it through relatively fast AND you can either get it out of your system or alternatively you are going to be successful enough to keep pushing updates and new games and make a living doing it.

But remember Kickstarter is more of a catwalk, which gets you some desperately needed visibility. During your first 15 minutes your performance has to be top notch otherwise you'll sink.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A VIDEO GAME TURNS INTO A GRIND?

We all have had those days when playing a game feels like eating nails. Those days we throw controllers to corner or take different approach to gaming. Zombie shooter can also be a dance hall. Party on!



What should we call this? Flash mob in gaming... As it happens as some kind of a boundary breaker and a valve to blow out some steam inside a game there probably is nothing a game developer can take home from it. Or maybe this sort of videos could be used to do some viral marketing. Not many watches on this video though.

PSYCHOLOGICAL SPENDING TRIGGERS IN MEGAPOLIS A SMART PHONE GAME

FRIENDLY SETTING AND EASY START

Promise of glorious future welcomes the hopeful mayor-to-be in the loading screen. Nice use of colors with plenty of contrast. Extremely friendly, so if you want to set the player into the right kind of buying mood then relaxed and happy people are easier to sell to than nervous and angry people. You can't sell even angry birds to angry people because they need something stronger.

Anyway at this stage the player needs to feel secure and they absolutely must have the feeling of fast development so make the start of the game as comfy and funny as possible. That is the key to make them stay for a longer time. That time will work for your application as the player will grow mental roots to the game setting. This is especially important in simulation games. Keep the rules as simple as possible and limit choices to minimum.  

SYMPATHY FOR THE GREATER GOOD

We have this hot doctress who presents the case. Those poor dolphins and other cuties are going to have it tough and dry without some player help. Everybody and my downstairs neighbor love dolphins and other cuties especially cuties like Samanth Ruth or Jennifer Lawrence - so, of course we want to save them. That would really make us feel nice and Jim (don't tell me you don't know Jim Dandy).

You need to present a noble purpose for the player to turn them into devotees. Have you noticed how long this mission in the image is? You lure the player in with an idea and seemingly easy fulfillment. However, when the idea is sold and the player jumps in it is time to turn the screw and increase difficulty. Nobody wants to be a looser nor failure so in order to reach the goal real money is used. Nicely done Megapolis!

Let's just go through the steps of tightening the screw. First of all you have an adorable doctress explaining the situation and showing the steps. Then you get the actual requirements in every separate stage. And those requirements grow every step of the way. They become so complex that obtaining needed materials becomes impossible. Finally the task expands with several upgrades. The most stressing fact is the timer that runs down like a zombie snail on steroids and we all know what is the faith of those poor lil dolphins if the snail hits the frying pan.  

An important part of this squeeze is the involuntary nature how this task is presented. Essentially it is a scripted mission, which touches that special part in our heart. If you are a developer you should use this kind of psychological triggers to focus on specific gamer groups like dog owners, cat owners, bird watchers, scuba divers etc. 

What Megapolis misses here is a huge opportunity. If the player steadies her chest and waits until silicone fillings stop bouncing... wait... wait... nothing happens, no drama, no mourning, no indication of devastation of any kind. What happened to those marine mammals? Are they now in my fridge as cans? How will it influence to later activities in the game? If you really want to make this work then you need to apply some bad consciousness on the player. How about some footage of chemical carnage or demonstrating crowds that need calming with some tax cuts etc.

SOCIAL MEDIA GAMES GIVE THE FEELING OF UNITY, ACCEPTANCE AND ACCOMPLISHMENT

Finally we have the pressure of the crowd. Everybody wants to do well when compared to other people. Different kind of standings and lists give us perfect conditions to set arbitrary goals for standings like for example I'm set to reach 500 000 mark in experience. After that checkpoint I'll probably set some new goals for myself.

Playing these games with friends or other people you know do generate that extra need for competition. No wonder all these smart phone games want to link you to Facebook or Google Play or similar networks. Wonderful way to attract new flesh and extra motivation for doing well in the game.

LIST OF GAMER GIRLS ON YOUTUBE

This list will update the first of every month. My TOP three in preferred order the rest not so much.

THE FIRST - Raychul Moore - Gravity defying! She just has to be on top!

THE SECOND - Tara Babcock - this is for the cleavage and strong language

THE THIRD - EmmaExegames - She really puts out nice videos and she has the looks and you know what they say about women with sizeable noses...

THE REST - Melonie Mac - vivid and comes with lots of make up

THE REST - Amelia Talon - very hot but talks so slow that I forget what she was saying

THE REST - Kelly MrsViolence Kelley - deadly player

THE REST - LethalXPrincess - uh... have to get back to this

THE REST - I'll put her on top as soon as she posts more

THE REST - Spaaamantha - Spamming Samantha?

ADDICTIVE CLASH OF CLANS: WHY WE PLAY IT?

CLASH OF CLANS LOOKS CUTE

Yet is is a game of war... In my previous piece on MEGAPOLIS (just looks more mega when bolded and on caps) I listed friendliness as one of the gateways into player interest retention. Those first few minutes are pretty important when using hand held gear be it a smart phone or a fleshlight. If it is smooth, soft and rounded there is big chances of being a cross-over game ranging from young to old and from gamers to squares. Clash of Clans doesn't fall short in cuteness instead it is all over the board starting from the loading screen.

This is how it starts an onslaught of friendly yet determined
looking creatures flooding from your screen.

SIMPLICITY SUITS FOR SHORT BURSTS OF PLAYING

Smart phones are especially nice for ruining our eyes with those small ass screens. It has to be a super narc game to keep people playing. Clash of Clans revolves around long term base building and short term battle sequences. What a wonderful game for the masses. Most of the time you can stay idle and when you come back to visit your home village there is always something little to do, maybe upgrade that piece of wall or cut down some trees and yes, rearm traps and fix damages done by evil attacker...

Lovely creatures minding their own business.

IT COMES IN SLOW AND FAST MOTION

Game tempo is very slow on the village side of the game and you don't get lots of action. However the tempo picks up when you jump to the battle side of the game. This dynamics will keep on attracting wide mix of players. Some will enjoy the farming side of the game and some will be attracted to the blood and mayhem. Too bad they don't have real clan warfare implemented yet.

What a serene view, suddenly there is a crack in the sky
 and the enemy village is in sights. Let's see what
kind of and adversary we'll be served this time. 

DO THE WAR CHAP

Then it is time to do WAR (yeah, this also looks more commanding this way). You choose single player campaign or multiplayer free for all. Once again nice set up for different types of players. I believe that quite a chunk of gamers will quit the game soon after they have played through the single player campaign. On the other hand majority will dive in and enjoy battling against other players.

A battle coming to an end. I the attacker have not been
successful in totally demolishing the resistance.
The victory is mine though as I have
inflicted over 50% damage
to the village.

TACTICAL FIGHTING

The most fantastic part of the fighting is that player doesn't have complete control over the troops. One can choose the place outside enemy village as well as the type of troops and the sequence together with number of troops. After that the attack takes its own path and all hell breaks loose. Defending village does the same just according those diabolical defense lines, which defender in turn has developed.

So I won but at what cost. Very little loot and lots of
expenditure on troops. This was a bad attack in the end.
Next time I'll do better so... one more game and then I'll stop.

REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT

Simple formula but so narc that you go and play some more and then some more. As your village slugs on and produces some raw materials it is easy to take few days breaks from the game and then swing on like nothing happened. I believe Clash of Clans is being played by occasional gamers and heavy users.