Theme Park Greed doesn't add up

Many many moons ago, probably more than I'd like to admit Electronic Arts released Theme Park on PC. A fantastic blue box that screamed fun just from the packaging alone. Sure enough it was a good game too allowing you to build and manage your very own theme park, it was micromanagement personified right down to the smallest of details, for example; adding more salt to the fast food made visitors more thirsty so you could push the price up on soft drinks to fleece the suckers waiting in line and increase revenue.
Graphically the game was cartoon cute, bright colours, some great detail and visually the title really popped once you'd got a pretty good park set up. At the time I think it retailed for around £24.99, I shifted an incredible amount at £19.99. Fast forward a good few years, again, probably more than I'd like to admit and EA have revived the title for iOS as a freemium title.

But unfortunately according to a couple of other blogs I've read that's where the fun stops. You see apparently EA has provided the title free to play with in-game monetization and many of the game's attractions are locked based on your level, leveling up is a fairly slow process achieved by tapping on existing attractions to earn a few experience points.You can also complete missions to earn extra experience points, this helps you to level up faster, but is nothing more than a long drawn out chore which ultimately gives you a set of rides which unless you build duplicates to just to fill things out your park is going to look very dull, unless of course you're willing to shell out Tickets to upgrade. As you progress you unlock other large areas in your theme park and each area can be themed according to your choice with a selection including Knights vs. Cowboys and Pirates. However, the process of filling each area in your park is ultimately a painfully slow one, primarily due to the frustrating level-locked items and the fact that the rest of the must have items cost Tickets, or premium currency, to purchase. For instance, a Skull-Train roller coaster costs the equivalent of more than $60 to purchase.

$60!!!???, hang on a minute, so let me get this straight, EA have decided in its wisdom to charge $60 for one 'cool' ride as an in-game purchase when I may as well click on over to Amazon and buy the full original PC version for less than $5 packed with all the rides and cool stuff for a much more rewarding experience. Its these kind of decisions by the suits that tarnish brands.
Everyone knows that games cost money to develop but have EA seriously sat down at the board room table and worked it out that to generate a break even they have to set the in-game pricing  for one item at 12 times the price of the original game? Games should be fun to play, they are after all a form of entertainment, they should also reward the player for the skill and time they invest. Monetization of products with in-app purchases should be transparent so that the end user knows what they are getting in to. Everyone loves free to play but players know when they are being taken for a ride, even a Theme Park one.

You're going to need a bigger boat

If you're going to catch the big fish you're going to need to be on equal terms, if you can't get a bigger boat stay the fuck out of the water.
If only Electronic Arts had heeded that advice when they launched the damp squib that was Need for Speed The Run. A game that failed to chart in the top ten despite the bucket loads of marketing push with TV and online media buy and as for that TV trailer - in all honesty did a Michael Bay directed  trailer really add value to consumers perceptions that the product would be good? The reviews haven't been kind either,critics have slated the title as too heavy on the story with not enough for gamers to get their teeth into.Official Xbox Magazine who scored it a big fat 5 out of 10 summed it up with the following summary -  "As it stands, we've rarely been so bored when travelling at 150 miles per hour, less inspired by a police chase or less interested in the plot of a videogame." Full review here.
I absolutely loved Hot Pursuit when it launched last year and the trailers, viral and social aspects of the marketing really propelled the title despite the fact it halved in retail price only 6 weeks after launch to devalue all that hard work somewhat.

But herein lies the problem at this time of year, EA glossed up and shoved NFSTR out to capitalize on the seasonal trade, problem is diluting a brand and trying to move what is essentiually car lovers porn into a totally new story driven direction (and one that only really had a lukewarm reception at E3 earlier in the year) was a warning sign for EA to hold the title back until Feb when retail would have been far more receptive to it. Instead it went up against the man eaters that was Skyrim, MW3, Battlefield 3 and FIFA, two of those products were from its own stable but yet all vying for market share from the same consumer. The investors would have pushed for the Christmas launch as essential, the producer probably would have liked more time for some much needed polish and no doubt the PR guys were scratching their heads trying to gain pagination in a market dominated by truly deserving games with tons more quality at even half the price.
EA need to realise that trying to combine a Mirrors Edge inspired chase story /design /bunch of bollocks to a pure driving experience that has been the mainstay of Need For Speed is only going to tarnish the brand not innovate it.

Art of Assassination

For me its not just the end product that excites me about most forms of visual entertainment, be that film or videogame but rather the processes and artistic talents that go into creating those experiences we enjoy. As much as I have enjoyed the amazing artistic talents of Jim Lee's series of comics I've collected since I was a spotty teenager I got a bigger kick out of seeing how he put the likes of Batman,Superman and Deathblow onto paper in his awesome coffee table book Icons.
At Midway I was extremely fortunate to have worked with some amazing digital artists who literally brought games to life with some truly astounding design work for titles Like Stranglehold, Mortal Kombat, Wheelman as well as other projects that never saw the light of day such as Criminal, Paladin,Hero and This is Vegas which was being developed by Surreal studios over in Seattle led by Alan Patmore.
If you love the design aspect that goes into games design and the art creation and you've checked out Parka blogs regular artbook reviews then you'll be a fool to miss the work of Gilles Beloeil  who worked on Assassins Creed, check out his personal website found here. 

Activision triples profit with digital

Providing more evidence that boxed product days are numbered and that a healthy online digital business model is the way to go Call of Duty and World of Warcraft publisher Activision has reported a near tripling of profits for the quarter ending September 30^th.
Total profit came in at $148m – that’s up on the $51m reported in the same period in 2010.

Read the full story here at MCV.http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/activision-profits-triple-as-digital-surpasses-boxed/087228

Is Buying a CityVille Guide for Facebooks biggest game worth It?

71 Million AMU (Average Monthly Users) is pretty hard to ignore, I never did quite get the Mafia Wars bug despite the endless requests flowing in to my Facebook page as more and more updates from friends "needing help on a job", probably just as well really since 40 million players abandoned it in little over a year.I am however fully engrossed with Cityville because it was closest to one of my absolute favourite games Sim City and at 41 years of age I realised I hadn't actually dabbled in the whole social gaming thing (which for someone who works in videogames is pretty tragic). Needless to say Cityville does borrow some gameplay structure from Sim City or is at least inspired by it, however, its economy system is a lot tougher to navigate than I expected.When CityVille guides began popping up I was pretty sceptical about the whole thing. I had never actually played the game myself but I was a huge fan of Populous on the Mega Drive all those centuries ago and my days that turned into weeks that turned into months on Sim City gave me some god like experience,I figured that there couldn't be all that much to it anyway. How much strategy could really go into building a virtual city anyway,especially on Facebook? When I saw all the hype about CityVille and the fact that there were these guides I figured there must be something to CityVille after all, and like I say 71 million players can't all be wrong...can they?
CityVille turned out to be much more complex and enjoyable than I had figured it would be, visually its colourful and eye catching which for me is important if I'm going to invest large quantities of time looking at pretty much the same things for hours on end. There are so many options, buildings, crops, businesses and additions that you have so many decisions to make, and like Sim City every decision has a knock on effect somewhere in the chain. The more I got into playing CityVille the more I realized that the strategies involved were much more complex than I had expected. I did not want to spend all my time using trial and error to get the best possible city. I wanted someone to do all that for me so I went out and bought a guide.
The guide I ended up buying is called CityVille Secrets. I'd heard some pretty good things about it after doing some digging about and it seemed like the most logical choice. CityVille Secrets is relatively new and they update it constantly so it contains the latest additions to the game and will add new updates as CityVille adds new features. I wasn't expecting too much from this guide as I have bought game guides in the past which have been pretty average. CityVille Secrets however, completely blew me away! primarily because it contains so much detailed information, secrets and strategies when CityVille as a Social network game is still fairly new.
I used the guide to see if what it preached would actually work, either that or I'd thrown the best part of the price of a Friday night takeaway down the drain, I dabbled at first but then started implementing the CityVille secrets, tips, and strategies and was pretty impressed with the results because I went from a level 13 to a level 35 in only a week of relatively little gameplay (2 hour stints). There is a lot more going on in CityVille than meets the eye and if you don't do things properly you could be missing out on countless coins and experience while playing more than you need too. If you are interested in getting the most out of your CityVille experience then I highly recommend picking up a copy of CityVille Secrets today.

E-book marketing and promotion

I'm still waiting for approval from Apple for Carved which is taking longer than I anticipated for launching my book but is due any day now, I somewhat underestimated the time for approvals since I wanted to get carved out on the 10th anniversary of the event it covers.
In the meantime I've been looking into the ways in which I need to think about marketing the book, as a novice author I have a lot of work to do to make Carved stand out the best I can on a minuscule budget. First on the list will either be a small website page promoting the book or a Facebook fan page to build up the awareness.Content wise I'm a bit wary of the Facebook direction because I need to make sure there's enough going on there to engage the audience.
With a hosted mini site I need to factor in the cost of hosting per month against sales, I could very well be paying more to host the promotional site than I'm actually making on the book. I looked at hosting options with various companies but wasn't looking to spend major amounts with email and functionality I didn't want, two companies stood out at offering a bare bones basic package and both had excellent write ups, one was Go Daddy and one was Blue Host, Go Daddy was £4.49 per month unlimited whereas Blue Host offers me the same service for £4.45, I buy much of my domains from Go Daddy and run airsoftinfidels.com with one bought from Go Daddy, my wife's forthcoming Tiara business launch also has a domain bought from Go Daddy. The book domain I bought through Go Daddy but I thought it was worth giving Blue Hosting a try in hosting the site to promote my book.
The first thing I need to do is figure out all my meta data, the keywording thats going to get people flocking to my web page, a daunting task for a mini site, I've dabbled with Keywording on Zazzle but its an area I know I need to improve on. if I get it wrong then it'll have the reverse effect and much harder to rectify further down the line.
Additionally to that I need to think about if I should engage prospective buyers via my Twitter link, this will detract from what I use it for currently so I'm not sure yet and people hate being sold to on Twitter. Facebook ads are also on the list since I know I can set a target audience with a PPC campaign but now I'm starting to accumulate costs so I need to tread carefully, advertising, hosting will all add up over time. The fact I can set a budget limit for Facebook ads and target who views them is reassuring that advertising wastage will not be much of an issue.

I'm confident my Blurb about my book is tight enough, I reworked this several times over until I was happy with it so I know that the concise information is going to drive forward the message of what the book is about.
But how much will I be spending against what I can make?, difficult to say, hosting with a reputable company is an important investment but all in I'm looking at the region of about £53 for that, another £50 for targeted Facebook click ads and possibly another £24 on printing up some coloured novelty business cards over at Moo to promote the book its getting pricey. I figured the Moo cards were a good idea, that way if I'm out and about I can just slip someone a card that promotes the book and web page in one hit which drives both traffic and awareness. That takes me to around £130 give or take a couple of pounds. That means I need to sell  in the region of 75 books a year since my book pricing is £1.99.

To be honest I might be mad, I'm on Kindle boards and so many people have done a lot less for a lot more gain so I'm borderline confused on what is the best route is, marketing ebooks I'm told isn't a science but I'm convinced that if anyone is going to buy it they at least need to know about it first.

The downward spiral of Marfia Wars and social gaming trends

18 months ago Zynga was pretty much unstoppable, loved and hated in equal measure the games publisher was teflon reincarnated with its farmville and mafia wars titles. However 18 months is a long time in an ever shifting digital market where user allegances are short and players go as quickly as they had arrived.The original Mafia Wars hit its peak on Facebook at around 45 million monthly active users in the summer of 2010. Now it has just 4.4 million monthly active users. Users come and go with most trends, what was popular last year won't necessarily be as popular this year but what I find alarming is that 40 Million players upped and left, where did they go, what are they playing now?. From a financial perspective losing 40 Million players is going to have a massive effect even if lets say only 2% of those users were actively dealing with microtransactional business in the game.

Zynga continues to expand its original Mafia Wars game and recently launched its Chicago city. Zynga helped monetize the game through a series of branded deals that promoted virtual items based on movies such as Scarface and The Green Hornet.

Initially it was perceived that social games were a massive threat to traditional videogames but the results buck that trend in the case of Electronic Arts. According to Appdata, The Sims Social now draws in 65 million monthly active users (MAUs) – the closest it has ever got to Cityville’s current 71 million user mark.Ho monthly users just nine months after it launched.