40-50 hours of gameplay? Top quality graphics and audio? Are we playing a different game?
Angry Birds is a time-waster. No-one sits down of an evening and thinks "Man, I'd love to spend 3 hours playing Angry Birds tonight. I just love the music!". It's a game for commuters and the constipated.
It's a good game but I doubt Portal 2 lost any sales to it.
Console games are not on the way down. In fact, the industry reaches record revenues of $62.7 billion last year and is expect to do even better this year. Not bad considering the global economic downturn and the current end-of-cycle home consoles. There's room in the market for both 99c time-wasters and $55 experiences.
1) I've put more hours into Angry Birds than I have any other video game in my life. I've put more into other games, in general, like Scrabble-based games and chess in my lifetime, but never so much into one game for such a short time frame of existence.
2) I would expect the readers of this forums that play MMORPGs to have put in thousands of hours but that's what they are designed to do with their monthly subscription model.
3) Your comment on Portal 2 not losing any sales from Angry Birds doesn't work. You need to consider the loss of a console sale to an iOS-based iDevice, other smartphone, or 'PC' to see how the market is pulling away from consoles.
4) Your last paragraph reads like RiM's CEOs arguing that the company is doing better than ever when in relation to their market they are shrinking quickly within a fast growing market. What is the percentage of profit from console gaming YoY. Is it decreasing or increasing?
I think quite a few of us who grew up with consoles like Master Systems, Megadrives, NES, SNES, PS1 etc now have jobs / families and far less time to game. iPhone / iPad games are quite often a nice dose of nostalgia that can be enjoyed anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours (when / if we get the time).
Meanwhile the kids these days playing their PS3s and Xbox's can play those games AND mobiles / tablet games. Apple can dip into both markets with ease.
Solip pretty much said it all. I will echo this, in case you missed it:
Quote:
EA chief executive John Riccitiello declared Apple's iPad its fastest growing gaming platform, noting that dedicated gaming consoles have slipped from 80 percent to representing just 40 percent of the game industry.
That's not a subtle shift. Rich, your comments are so biased that all I can assume is you're part of the gaming industry, and frustrated where things are headed. Just like the music industry, things change.
The only thing I'll agree with is that there's room for many different kinds of gaming experiences. But there is also no doubt that consoles and their $50-60 price tag per experience are playing a smaller and smaller role.
The die hard console supporters remind me, very much, of the people who absolutely could not accept, a few years back, that Nokia and/or RIM were in trouble. Remember? There were all these posts sort of semi-angrily pointing to various sales numbers, market share, evidence of historical might, and just generally insisting that such giants couldn't possibly be rendered irrelevant by the likes of Apple. Different markets, they said. RIM people needed to get "real work done" and Nokia sold phones to every man, woman, and child on the planet while creating stunning hardware, they said. "Hardcore phone users" weren't going to give that up for an iToy.
Markets change, habits change. One thing that never seems to enter into the above thinking is that patterns of consumption change as populations age and are supplanted by younger folk. Just because there's been this thing called "hard core gamers", why should we expect that type to endure forever? Why should it be surprising that the hard core gamer's children might have a different idea about what constitutes a compelling gaming experience? And it's not like that process takes a long time-- 5 years and you've got an entire generation of people who entered and have moved nearly through their teens. They've grown up with new devices, new ways of thinking about electronic interaction, and vastly more amusements competing for their time than the folks that made the beloved console games successful.
Why is gaming somehow immune to the forces of rapid transformation that has so altered the digital landscape in every other sphere? Are gamers really so blinkered as to believe that their preferences, the stuff they grew up with, the kind of game play they prefer is the only possible model and will endure forever?
... However, as the iPad began to gain traction, game developers quickly began to report astonishing growth and support from customers, with one major developer noting its iPad launch as being "by far" the fastest selling and highest revenue generating game platform, thanks to promotion by Apple. ...
How would you define "hard core gamer"? Let me count the ways:
1. Anyone who spends more than $1000 on a modded Windows PC to get a really high frame rate.
2. Anyone who spends more than 2 hours a day playing on a game console connected to a TV.
There are probably more definitions for "hard core gamer" but you get the idea. Anybody who spends way too much time and/or money on gaming and takes it way too seriously.
So how many people do you know who are "hard core gamers"? (My guess is few.) And how many people do you know who own an iPad or iPhone or iPod touch? (My guess is many.) Yes, I know that a tiny fraction of AppleInsider readers are either 1. serious Mac gamers or 2. PC gamer trolls and therefore know many other "hard core gamers."
But really, there are 200+ million iOS devices out there. Ready to run any of the tens of thousands of great games available, cheaply, on the App Store. And after barely a year and a half, iPad is "by far" the biggest game platform for at least one major developer.
The die hard console supporters remind me, very much, of the people who absolutely could not accept, a few years back, that Nokia and/or RIM were in trouble. Remember? [...]
Agree. Technology moves on. Remember Laser Discs? In case you don't, they were 12" plastic discs, kind of like giant CDs, and they contained analog data that could be played back through a Laser Disc Player and displayed on your TV: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_disc.
Anyway, LDs were the home videophile's friend back in the '80s and '90s. The average movie cost about $50-$70 for a new release, the players were expensive, and "bit rot" plagued some discs as the metal inner layer decayed over time.
Fast forward to today. DVD and Blu-Ray have completely replaced LD. Smaller, cheaper, faster, better. Remind you of anything in the gaming industry? (Hint: expensive consoles and games.)
The die hard console supporters remind me, very much, of the people who absolutely could not accept, a few years back, that Nokia and/or RIM were in trouble. Remember? There were all these posts sort of semi-angrily pointing to various sales numbers, market share, evidence of historical might, and just generally insisting that such giants couldn't possibly be rendered irrelevant by the likes of Apple.
Why should it be surprising that the hard core gamer's children might have a different idea about what constitutes a compelling gaming experience?
Are gamers really so blinkered as to believe that their preferences, the stuff they grew up with, the kind of game play they prefer is the only possible model and will endure forever?
At the launch of Youtube, would it have been reasonable to suggest that people would stop watching feature length movies in favour of clips of babies waking themselves up with their own farts?
If you looked at the stats page alone, you'd probably conclude it would wipe out all other forms of video entertainment:
However volume isn't everything and that's what we're talking about with casual games. Casual games are simplistic, they are developed quickly and cheaply, they are sold cheaply and downloaded easily. This targets a high volume audience.
The profits aren't high though. Angry Birds has sold over 200 million copies but only made $70m.
Call of Duty Black Ops only sold 20 million units and yet generated over $1b profit and 7 million units on day 1. $650m profit in the first week. It has taken Angry Birds (the most popular casual game) 1.5 years to get to 1/10th of the profit margin of a popular immersive game in 1 week.
Youtube launched 6 years ago and we're still watching feature films.
In a few years time, people will still want immersive games. Let's remember that hardcore gamers of today grew up with casual games too like Tetris and Pong etc but they don't tell stories, they don't have depth of character and they don't involve the player enough to replace games that do.
How would you define "hard core gamer"? Let me count the ways:
1. Anyone who spends more than $1000 on a modded Windows PC to get a really high frame rate.
Nope, that is not a hardcore gamer...THAT is a Grade A Moron.
A computer that can deliver a high frame rate for any game in recent years costs little over $400, and will not need to be updated for at least 5 years.
Comments
40-50 hours of gameplay? Top quality graphics and audio? Are we playing a different game?
Angry Birds is a time-waster. No-one sits down of an evening and thinks "Man, I'd love to spend 3 hours playing Angry Birds tonight. I just love the music!". It's a game for commuters and the constipated.
It's a good game but I doubt Portal 2 lost any sales to it.
Console games are not on the way down. In fact, the industry reaches record revenues of $62.7 billion last year and is expect to do even better this year. Not bad considering the global economic downturn and the current end-of-cycle home consoles. There's room in the market for both 99c time-wasters and $55 experiences.
1) I've put more hours into Angry Birds than I have any other video game in my life. I've put more into other games, in general, like Scrabble-based games and chess in my lifetime, but never so much into one game for such a short time frame of existence.
2) I would expect the readers of this forums that play MMORPGs to have put in thousands of hours but that's what they are designed to do with their monthly subscription model.
3) Your comment on Portal 2 not losing any sales from Angry Birds doesn't work. You need to consider the loss of a console sale to an iOS-based iDevice, other smartphone, or 'PC' to see how the market is pulling away from consoles.
4) Your last paragraph reads like RiM's CEOs arguing that the company is doing better than ever when in relation to their market they are shrinking quickly within a fast growing market. What is the percentage of profit from console gaming YoY. Is it decreasing or increasing?
5) All games are time wasters.
Meanwhile the kids these days playing their PS3s and Xbox's can play those games AND mobiles / tablet games. Apple can dip into both markets with ease.
EA chief executive John Riccitiello declared Apple's iPad its fastest growing gaming platform, noting that dedicated gaming consoles have slipped from 80 percent to representing just 40 percent of the game industry.
That's not a subtle shift. Rich, your comments are so biased that all I can assume is you're part of the gaming industry, and frustrated where things are headed. Just like the music industry, things change.
The only thing I'll agree with is that there's room for many different kinds of gaming experiences. But there is also no doubt that consoles and their $50-60 price tag per experience are playing a smaller and smaller role.
Markets change, habits change. One thing that never seems to enter into the above thinking is that patterns of consumption change as populations age and are supplanted by younger folk. Just because there's been this thing called "hard core gamers", why should we expect that type to endure forever? Why should it be surprising that the hard core gamer's children might have a different idea about what constitutes a compelling gaming experience? And it's not like that process takes a long time-- 5 years and you've got an entire generation of people who entered and have moved nearly through their teens. They've grown up with new devices, new ways of thinking about electronic interaction, and vastly more amusements competing for their time than the folks that made the beloved console games successful.
Why is gaming somehow immune to the forces of rapid transformation that has so altered the digital landscape in every other sphere? Are gamers really so blinkered as to believe that their preferences, the stuff they grew up with, the kind of game play they prefer is the only possible model and will endure forever?
... However, as the iPad began to gain traction, game developers quickly began to report astonishing growth and support from customers, with one major developer noting its iPad launch as being "by far" the fastest selling and highest revenue generating game platform, thanks to promotion by Apple. ...
How would you define "hard core gamer"? Let me count the ways:
1. Anyone who spends more than $1000 on a modded Windows PC to get a really high frame rate.
2. Anyone who spends more than 2 hours a day playing on a game console connected to a TV.
There are probably more definitions for "hard core gamer" but you get the idea. Anybody who spends way too much time and/or money on gaming and takes it way too seriously.
So how many people do you know who are "hard core gamers"? (My guess is few.) And how many people do you know who own an iPad or iPhone or iPod touch? (My guess is many.) Yes, I know that a tiny fraction of AppleInsider readers are either 1. serious Mac gamers or 2. PC gamer trolls and therefore know many other "hard core gamers."
But really, there are 200+ million iOS devices out there. Ready to run any of the tens of thousands of great games available, cheaply, on the App Store. And after barely a year and a half, iPad is "by far" the biggest game platform for at least one major developer.
No liquid nitrogen cooling required.
The die hard console supporters remind me, very much, of the people who absolutely could not accept, a few years back, that Nokia and/or RIM were in trouble. Remember? [...]
Agree. Technology moves on. Remember Laser Discs? In case you don't, they were 12" plastic discs, kind of like giant CDs, and they contained analog data that could be played back through a Laser Disc Player and displayed on your TV: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_disc.
Anyway, LDs were the home videophile's friend back in the '80s and '90s. The average movie cost about $50-$70 for a new release, the players were expensive, and "bit rot" plagued some discs as the metal inner layer decayed over time.
Fast forward to today. DVD and Blu-Ray have completely replaced LD. Smaller, cheaper, faster, better. Remind you of anything in the gaming industry? (Hint: expensive consoles and games.)
The die hard console supporters remind me, very much, of the people who absolutely could not accept, a few years back, that Nokia and/or RIM were in trouble. Remember? There were all these posts sort of semi-angrily pointing to various sales numbers, market share, evidence of historical might, and just generally insisting that such giants couldn't possibly be rendered irrelevant by the likes of Apple.
Why should it be surprising that the hard core gamer's children might have a different idea about what constitutes a compelling gaming experience?
Are gamers really so blinkered as to believe that their preferences, the stuff they grew up with, the kind of game play they prefer is the only possible model and will endure forever?
At the launch of Youtube, would it have been reasonable to suggest that people would stop watching feature length movies in favour of clips of babies waking themselves up with their own farts?
If you looked at the stats page alone, you'd probably conclude it would wipe out all other forms of video entertainment:
http://www.youtube.com/t/press_statistics
However volume isn't everything and that's what we're talking about with casual games. Casual games are simplistic, they are developed quickly and cheaply, they are sold cheaply and downloaded easily. This targets a high volume audience.
The profits aren't high though. Angry Birds has sold over 200 million copies but only made $70m.
Call of Duty Black Ops only sold 20 million units and yet generated over $1b profit and 7 million units on day 1. $650m profit in the first week. It has taken Angry Birds (the most popular casual game) 1.5 years to get to 1/10th of the profit margin of a popular immersive game in 1 week.
Youtube launched 6 years ago and we're still watching feature films.
In a few years time, people will still want immersive games. Let's remember that hardcore gamers of today grew up with casual games too like Tetris and Pong etc but they don't tell stories, they don't have depth of character and they don't involve the player enough to replace games that do.
How would you define "hard core gamer"? Let me count the ways:
1. Anyone who spends more than $1000 on a modded Windows PC to get a really high frame rate.
Nope, that is not a hardcore gamer...THAT is a Grade A Moron.
A computer that can deliver a high frame rate for any game in recent years costs little over $400, and will not need to be updated for at least 5 years.