Category: News

Malathedra.com Launch Week 1 Statistics

Within the first 5 days of the Malathedra.com website launch it received 924 visitors. The high of those days was 312 visitors, reached on the 5th day. For that month, June 2006, it had a total of 3154 visitors. The total for September 2006 was 960 visitors.

That is a significant drop and shows that those once interested in the game might have actually forgotten about it. This week EDI is trying to improve these numbers by releasing new game materials for 5 days straight.

I’ll continue to cover the progress of the site as the days go on.

I laugh at any developer who doesn’t support Wii

Faster development cycles, cheaper budgets, creativity, innovation – that’s what the Wii brings. Does it make business sense not to support this console if you’re a commercial developer?

I predict that any developer who has games coming out on the launch for the Wii will make a serious amount of cash no matter the quality of their game. Gamers will be hungry from day one, they want the new experiences that all of these games bring. It doesn’t matter if the game is a port because graphics don’t matter. It’s the gameplay that makes the game.

Technically each of these games/franchises are starting off on a fresh start. It doesn’t matter if the series was bad on previous consoles because with the difference in gameplay, no one will be able judge, if the game is good or not, until the game is actually released.

Even if the game sucks, it still will be fun because you’ve never played a game like this before. It’s a fresh and exciting new experience. This experience will wane after sometime but for those that release a game within the first six months, their game will sell like gold.

The creativeness of each developer will truly show in the next couple of years. In the near future, sales charts will prove that creative and fun games will often sell more than games that follow previously designed gameplay mechanics for the Wii.

By the way, now is the time to invest in any game company stock, especially Wii developers. Sell come mid-January/early-Febrary.

Consumers are smarter than you think…

Well at least more so than I thought.

Today I went to the Mountain Dew & Xbox 360 Game Live, a College Campus Tour, at my school and it felt like a minature-E3 – games were buggy, there was a DJ, hot girls asking player’s if they wanted to enter in a contest, etc.

I went around asking students what they thought about the games they were playing – Splinter Cell 4, Eragon, Madden 07, Need for Speed Carbon, FlatOut 2, DOA 4 – are the ones that I remember being there. Players actually weren’t impressed with buggy games. Buggy as in buildings were flickering from textured to non-textured. Crap like that won’t sell a game so why in the world would any developer show this to the public?

It’s different in the case of showing the media a buggy game. They’ll understand that the game might only need a few tweaks to fix the broken parts, but do consumers understand this? Somehow I doubt it. Seriously does any consumer, other than geeks, understand how games are developed?

What’s really sad is that consumers are forced to put up with mediocrity. Have you entered a game store recently? 1,000s of games on the shelves – how are they supposed to know which one is better than the other?

Do they know the hundreds of developers and publishers behind those games? Obviously not! They may know the top 8 names – Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, UbiSoft, EA, Activision, Midway, Atari – but after that…

There’s a reason why so many game companies fold and that’s because consumers are confused. No matter the company or the franchise consumers are not safe from buggy and low quality games. So I ask what will make them buy $60 games that have not been unrestlessly assured in quality?

PS3 Doomed?

With the recent announcement of not only a lower quantity of shipments and the delay of launch across Europe, is the PS3 Doomed?

Short term yes but we all new that to begin with.

Long term is almost impossible to predict.

There are so many variables with this machine that could change the outcome. Yes the PS3 will do fine, but who knows how well it will sell. Hardcore as well as mainstream gamers will eventually buy a PS3 once it reaches a price point of $300 (for the high-end package).

Mainstream gamers will not be buying the PS3 for at least the first year that it comes out. The costs of the hardware as well as the games will be too high when compared with the Xbox 360 and Wii. Plus the wider selection of games that these two consoles will have is another factor not in Sony’s favor.

People like brand names and the PS3 will be a hot item this holiday season but gamers will go elsewhere if they cannot find the consoles. This will hurt developers tremendously. Be prepared for major staff reductions. Come February/March 07 if the PS3 is still out of stock be prepared for PS3 development support to decrease and move onto other platforms.

The 3rd day is the worst

After all the orientations and move in, I feel like there’s nothing for me to do. Classes aren’t starting till Tuesday. I don’t have anything major to do with my games right now. There was a lot of excitement on the first two days but this morning it’s all waning away.

Much like with game projects I always want to move onto the next thing. At times this can be a problem and with real life it’s something that I have to fix. As I’ve always told myself, enjoy it while it lasts.

There are only so many years that you’ll be an indie developer. There are is only one time I’ll have these college experiences. So enjoy it now and stop nagging.