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> Yet WoW has passed 6 million users,
> If this is failure, what's success?

1. There is more then one definition of success. Success = Popular, is only one definition.
2. Popularity != Quality.
TV (Reality Shows), Fast-Food (McDonalds), etc, all prove that.

WoW isn't a great game -- it is "good enough" and better then most other MMORPGs. Is is fun game? Yes. While it's yet-another-mmorpg that streamlines most of the annoying problems others still have, it still lacks "rich game design."
i.e.
Character types are restricted to classes. The only real thing to do at level is 60 is waste ridiculous amounts of time farming for "phat loot." The world is static and boring because quests have absolutely no influence in the world. Crafting is limited. Combat is the only way to level up. It's designers have no clue on gaming dead-time. World interaction is almost non-existent. i.e. no rock climbing, treasure hunting, sailing, etc. I could go on, but I'm tired of playing another boring MMORPG. I want the diversity of Ultima 7 / UO in a modern engine, with WoW's streamlined interface.

> If we're exhaling now (and I'm not convinced we are), relax. The industry will inhale soon enough.
I'm glad you mentioned this -- far too many people forget about the life cycles, especially how gaming goes through it's 11-yr life cycle. i.e. Down cycles in ~83, ~94, ~05.
See Video Game Timeline (Word Doc)
Video Game Timeline (Google HTML cache)

--
Why is Windows Explorer so bone-headed? Try renaming a file/directory to start with
- a period. i.e. ".config"
- a space, so it shows up first when sorted. i.e. " Shortcuts"

This article which summarily claims that Nintendo is dying, is absolutely terrible. The writer does not understand video games and he doesn't understand Nintendo's current state. A lot of what he says is based on common misconceptions that a lot of you probably have. Misconception 1. Power wins portable wars. A lot of people say the PSP can't lose because WOW look at those graphics, but as someone stated earlier, look at the Sega Gamegear among others, they had better screens and graphics than Nintendo's GBC and GB, and look at them now. Yes, sitting in pawn shops throughout the nation. I don't know enough about demographics and industry trends to say firmly that the PSP will follow a similar fate, but to say that Nintendo will is completely unfounded and silly, 5 million DSs have been shipped already compared to 3 million PSPs. www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/28/ds_psp_sales Now, an ignorant person would look at this as irrefutable fact that Nintendo's up in the game, but I point out that the PSP shipped later and was therefore at a disadvantage. Misconception 2. Sales figures are everything. Let's just say that it was the other way around, with PSP sales at 5 million and DS sales at 3 million, Nintendo would still not be anywhere close to dying. Nintendo did not sell more gamecubes than sony did ps2s, heck they may have not even sold more than MS did, to them, it only sort of matters. Yes better sales are good, but if we're to be objective about it, Nintendo is the clearcut winner of this console generation where it matters, the money. "...Nintendo's business engine is so efficient that even though they sell far less than Sony, they make, bottom line, about as much as all of Sony, Yes, that's right. Little Nintendo generates about as much cash as giant Sony--electronics, movies, the works. (For a bunch of good financial data on this subject in one place, see PCVSConsole)." http://www.buzzcut.com/article.php?story=200505312 2342247 Nintendo's not on their way out, they're not even close, this generation is gonna be real interesting because Nintendo will probably win it again, but this time, I think it'll be more obvious.

In this light, it's odd how few game commentators seem to understand just how profitable Nintendo really is. With a net margin of over 20%, Nintendo is a financial rock star. Just by way of comparison, General Electric, that monster global conglomerate whose executives write the books about corporate leadership that other Fortune 500 execs read, clocks in with a net margin of 11%. Nintendo's business engine is so efficient that even though they sell far less than Sony, they make, bottom line, about as much as all of Sony.

"And even though the announcement at E3 of the Game Boy Micro was greeted with a certain amount of skepticism and curious musing by the game press, from a business strategy standpoint, I expect that it will turn to pure gold.

Without making a significant investment in R&D or manufacturing, Nintendo repackages current technology and resells it at what, I would expect, is a healthy margin. Not only will the Micro put GBA technology in new hands, inevitably large numbers of the units will find their way into the shirt pockets and key chains of many current GBA owners. Not only will Nintendo make money on this new hardware product, it will stimulate additional demand for GBA software.

While Sony and Microsoft spent E3 showing off what billions of dollars of investment can do at their press events, Nintendo was demonstrating how minimal investment can generate cash.

That folks, is called smart business."

The whole article is worth a read.

"And even though the announcement at E3 of the Game Boy Micro was greeted with a certain amount of skepticism and curious musing by the game press, from a business strategy standpoint, I expect that it will turn to pure gold.

Without making a significant investment in R&D or manufacturing, Nintendo repackages current technology and resells it at what, I would expect, is a healthy margin. Not only will the Micro put GBA technology in new hands, inevitably large numbers of the units will find their way into the shirt pockets and key chains of many current GBA owners. Not only will Nintendo make money on this new hardware product, it will stimulate additional demand for GBA software.

While Sony and Microsoft spent E3 showing off what billions of dollars of investment can do at their press events, Nintendo was demonstrating how minimal investment can generate cash.

That folks, is called smart business."

The whole article is worth a read.

Best quote

I followed up with a simple question, "Who on this panel has played which of the games?"

Burke answered first, "I haven't played any of them." She backed up her willful ignorance of the games by suggesting that she didn't need to read Soldier of Fortune to know that she was opposed to its glorification of killing. "I think it's an irrelevant question," she concluded.

When will people learn that ignorance is not an excuse.

People are saying that this is fake. But based on other email comments I have seen from Jack Thompson, this is totally keeping in line with his responces.

In a thread on a videogame forum there are people who claim that they have emailed Thompson and got such pithy responces as: "the rubbish is up your cranium, take it out," "you're biased against lawyers. grow a brain," "No, actually it's all about ignorant gamers," "You don't know my motives, so don't try guessing," and "children are allowed to buy them. do your research, junior."

In another email exchange I've found, he basically says, that he would rather sue videogame companies than have laws passed.

Finally, Thompson is also famous for being the lawyer behind the Two Live Crew obsenity trials, , and most bizarly, claiming that Janet Reno was unfit for office in Florida because she was gay and people would blackmail her because of it (except by making a public deal of it, wouldn't that make it impossible to blackmail her) which resulted in Reno getting a restraining order against him.

In short, Jack Thompson is certainly 100% capable of the odd responces stated in the article. There is actually lots more odd things that this lawyer has done. Do a search for "jack Thompson" and videogames and tons of stuff will come up about him.

..."A Postmodern Analysis of Slashdot Editor's Comments" and plan to use the following quote as an example of the phenomenology of desperate attempts to start a flamewar that are so transparent they inevitably fail:

Is there plenty important being done in this field, or is it possible that academic study of videogames can tend towards overanalysis?

Is it possible that there is plenty of important work being done in a field of study which can tend toward overanalysis? You mean, like statistics? Or philosophy? Or biology? Or literary criticism? How about the humanities? Or law? Or history?

How about the latest news on the SCO lawsuit? Or the value of Open Source technology?

I'm so glad the readers didn't rise to the bait here (obviously intended to re-ignite the non-controversy started when skotos criticized a single chapter from Richard Bartle's densely significant book).

Recently I ran across an interesting posting on Buzzcut.com Apparently, according to the article Thompson recently appeared at U of Colorado. Afterwards, a student emailed him about what he thought should be done. His answer? Laws are nice, but he would rather see lawsuits. So it seems that rather than try to pass laws which would theoretically prevent videogame related violence he would rather wait untill something bad happens where people die and THEN sue to do something about it. Nice. Real compasionate. A cynical person would be tempted to think that he had an alterior motive or something...