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Thursday, January 28, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Game Customization: Why not sim engines? Stuck
11:00 AM - January 27, 2010. Written by MMChrisS
Thanks to OSer jaosming for the idea for this blog. I wrote a couple weeks ago about difficulty levels, and how I wanted them to be more customizable.

Today it is simulation engines. I want to just ask a very fundamental question about sim engines: Why were they not developed with user customization in mind? And how can we get there from here?

My grand idea centers around making sim engines a customizable option much like difficulty levels. There are a lot of OSers who absolutely hate sim engines and the results they produce, but that griping would go down significantly if you could tweak the global simulation values of the games you play. I know sports gaming developers are pulling their hair out at this thought, because it would require nothing less than a complete rewrite of simulation engines to make this possible.

But sometimes, progress is not easy.

I'm going to use Madden as an example here to illustrate what I'm proposing. Why can't we adjust sliders for total plays in a game, how much teams run and pass, how often people get injured, and other varying factors that go into simulating a football game? Furthermore, why are gamers so accepting of having predestined limits being put on their gaming experience?

My point today is a simple, yet very complex proposition. I want simulation engines to be opened up and made customizable so users can have the ability to fix the inevitable inaccuracies developers create with simulation results. Several titles have experimented with this, but none have dived headfirst into complete customization. I'd like to see that happen. What do you think?
Blog: MMChrisS
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Tiger Woods Online: My new addiction Stuck
10:40 AM - January 26, 2010. Written by MMChrisS
In the words of a wise man: "Free is good."

Tiger Woods Online is free. Tiger Woods Online is good.

I've been playing at least a few rounds a day for a few days now, and I can honestly say I am totally in love with the game. It is what I would expect an online golf game to be built around the Tiger formula.

After you find the right settings to play with on your computer, you will find the game plays much like any other Tiger game. EA literally put a full version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online up for everyone to play, compete with each other, and enjoy together. There are seven courses, all with challenges to unlock, along with promises of new courses coming on a regular basis as well.

The gameplay, while it has a couple of hiccups still, is as good as anything else you'd expect from a Tiger's game. If you haven't checked it out, you really should give the game a look. My only hope is for more of a player customizable experience, at least in terms of creating tournaments. It'd be cool to be able to create tournaments to play with your friends. Of course, this would all be made easier with more robust social networking features.

I think the latter would play into creating multiple EA Online games. I can see a future where you can use your EA.com account to play a round of golf online and then going on to challenge your friends in an online game of basketball. There is definitely potential when the pricetag at the base level is free.

Have you played Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online? What did you think of it? Sound off!
Blog: MMChrisS
Monday, January 25, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
An (overly) simplistic analysis of a new release model 
11:15 AM - January 21, 2010. Written by MMChrisS
I'm going to dive into this issue a bit further tomorrow, but today I just want to play with some numbers so we can see how feasible a subscription based model might be for sports games. It seems there is a populist kind of movement starting by sports gamers where we want companies to focus on quality and go to an every other year release cycle while using some sort of DLC/subscriptions to fill the gap on the year a game isn't released. So let's look at some simplistic math drawn from arbitrary numbers to see how feasible such a model really is.

Scenario 1
The current setup, where we have yearly releases at $60 a pop. We're going to say the game sells exactly 1 million copies each year of our two year cycle for $120 million in revenue. It's not exactly that simple of course, but for the purposes of this exercise, we're making it that simple.

Scenario 2
This is an every other year release cycle with charges on DLC and a subscription based model for some features. The game would sell for $60 a pop up front, and we will estimate we sell roughly 1.4 million copies over a two year period -- a bit over our 1 million copies per year in scenario one (I told you this was simplistic). That results in $84 million in revenue.

So a company would be dealing with a roughly $36 million shortfall in both models. As the virtual simplistic CEO, I'm going to offer a roster, uniform and stadium update pack for $10 which 20% of my customers will purchase, which results in a $28 million revenue pop. I'm also going to charge for access to our advanced online gaming features, which we used the extra time to really do a great job on. We are charging $5 a month for these features and given the transient nature of customers on subscriptions, we're predicting we'll get 100,000 customers (about 7% of our customers) worth of 12 month subscriptions out of this...giving us a $6 million further advance in revenue. Thus, we have now made up $34 million of our $36 million shortfall.

Conclusions
Using some very conservative estimates and simplistic conclusions, I was able to come up with a reasonable scenario where a subscription based model could actually be close in terms of revenue production to our current model. Granted, the profitability of such a measure is a much more complex calculation, and the realities of the market are also far more complex. However, I think it is false to say an every other year release cycle that relies on subscriptions/DLC can't be as lucrative as a yearly release cycle if a company actually does do it right.

So while my math was simple and my numbers were largely best guess estimates, we came to a point where both models could realistically be just as lucrative revenues wise. So what say you? Do you think it could work? Throw out some of your own arbitrary math, it's both fun and gives you a (false) sense of importance! Sound off now!
Blog: MMChrisS
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Are sports games losing their mojo? Stuck
11:50 AM - January 20, 2010. Written by MMChrisS
The year was 2005. Madden was among the best sellers in all of gaming. NFL 2K5 was a $20 hit which captured the imagination of those who played it. Both NBA games sold pretty well and even NCAA Football 2005 was a big seller.

That was then.

When you fast foward to 2009, you see that every game franchise did not sell nearly as well as it did in the previous generation. And sure, while you could make the argument there are less people on next-gen consoles than on the previous generation, but that is becoming a very weak argument as time continues to march on and sales continue to stay lower.

It's not like Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 didn't outsell similar hits on the previous generation by a decent margin. In fact, software sales as a whole are up for software from 2005, even despite the sharp downturn this past year from recessed consumer spending. But while many games are finding big sales success, sports games have seemingly lost their mojo.

Sports games are especially lacking on the Wii, where there is a huge established userbase but few willing buyers of sports games. However the looming fact remains, sports gaming sales are sharply lower compared to the previous generation of sports games while other genres are still breaking sales records on multiple consoles. So what's up?

I think it's simple: minus a few very minor enhancements, sports games are stuck in the mud. Some games took major backwards steps in their leap to next gen and some simply didn't take a forward step at all. This has resulted in sports games which don't do much more than the previous generation did. And as I have said numerous times on this blog, developing good games for the 360 and PS3 is much more difficult and costly than developing good games for the XBox and PS2.

So tomorrow, we'll begin to explore possible solutions to maximize game quality, profitability, and possibly open the door to a bit more innovation in our genre. In the meantime, what do you think could be done to games in our genre to bring back the magic?
Blog: MMChrisS
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
NBA Live: Quality comes, but the sales don't Stuck
02:03 PM - January 18, 2010. Written by MMChrisS
NBA Live 10 did just about everything right in terms of quality. In almost every sense of the word, the franchise improved once again this year, putting it on at least a competitive footing with NBA 2K.

But when it comes to sales, it doesn't appear to be close.

By all accounts, NBA 2K10 is dominating the basketball games sales charts. In fact, it is very likely the combined sales of NBA Live 10 and NCAA Basketball 10 are not even close to outselling NBA 2K10. There is even an outside chance NBA Live 10's sales could decline over NBA Live 09's effort.

Gamers have effectively staged a revolt against the Live franchise. What was once one of the flagship titles for EA has now become one of it's poorest performers among the major sports titles.

I don't think current trends are going to lead to Live being cut from the EA lineup (or NCAA Basketball either, which EA holds an exclusive license), but the pressure to make up considerable ground sales wise will be hanging over the head of the Live team in future years.

What do you think Live can do to close the sales gap? On the same token, what can NBA 2K do to ensure the gap isn't closed? Sound off!
Blog: MMChrisS
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Is MLB 2K10 Doing Enough? Stuck
12:11 PM - January 17, 2010. Written by MMChrisS
I honestly do not envy the folks developing Major League Baseball 2K10.

MLB 2K is the source of blame for Take Two execs on why the company isn't quite performing as well as investors anticipated. There's no doubt the expectations run a bit higher with MLB 2K at Take Two, mainly because the game has to be a cut above in order to be profitable thanks to the expensive MLB exclusive license signed by Take Two. And then there's that 9000 lb. behemoth standing over MLB 2K's shoulder: MLB: The Show.

It's almost as if the MLB 2K team has been given the reigns of the Baltimore Orioles but nothing less than a World Series Championship this year would be considered acceptable.

Early returns on MLB 2K10 are positive as far as steps taken to correct the series' ills. Stadiums have been fixed, visuals have been improved, franchise has been tweaked and gameplay has been tuned.

But the real question lingers: is MLB 2K10 doing enough?

It seems the game is taking some important positive steps, but it has seemed that way before as well. MLB 2K10 has to somehow sell well enough to keep the series from falling into a gaming netherworld where a game can't be cancelled but it's no longer profitable to throw much in terms of development resources at it. To do that, MLB 2K10 has to improve dramatically in order to challenge MLB '10: The Show on the PS3 as well as be good enough to entice many more 360 buyers it's worth a look.

I've already let my feelings be known, as I don't feel the MLB 2K10 developers will be able to create a commercial success given the realities of the market. That's not to say MLB 2K10 isn't going to be good. In fact, I can envision a scenario where MLB 2K10 is much better than any previous iteration of the series in the MLB exclusive era but it still doesn't sell well.

That's the unenviable position the MLB 2K10 crew have been dealt. Unfortunately, unless something truly revolutionary is announced in the coming weeks, it appears nothing could stop what is quickly becoming inevitable.
Blog: MMChrisS