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It seems that if you just want a bit of casual fun, apps are pretty hard to beat in terms of value, convenience to buy and play anywhere, and fresh new types of gameplay. Consequently, mainstream casual board games are still reeling from the competition and will probably never recover. There is now almost no market for new casual board games, and even the classics sell only a fraction of their annual sales just a few years ago.

Though he does point out that before the advent of apps "about six years ago" (prior to the interview in 2015), board game sales rose in line with population growth. So I stand corrected there. Up until 2009, instead of a decline, there was more of a 'maintaining status-quo'.

http://www.videogamessuck.com/... http://kotaku.com/death-threat... http://kotaku.com/5904367/anot... http://www.develop-online.net/... I'm sure all of you Social Justice Whiteknights modded 5:Insightful want to line up to support these men who received similar threats and insults, right? I would link donation pages, but unfortunately those people are busy making their living making video games instead of being professional victims, so there are no pages. Somehow, women are the only people who can be victims in this industry—I wonder if it's your internalized misogyny that makes that the case. Women are always victims, because they are weak and vulnerable to men, who have "power" am I right? "Poor women, they will never get a break" is an EXTREMELY misogynistic statement, and it's what the majority of the upvoted comments are stating. I hope the disgusting irony does not escape you. Where's Roberta Williams' donation page? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Like this one coursera or you could check into one of the many free game engines like these: develop-online

Should MS get a cut because your app is generated (derived) by the Visual Studio compiler/linker?

Look up what derivative works are in the context of copyright law. You clearly have no idea.

Every time you use a loop, call a function or declare a variable etc., the compiler replaces that with its own copyrighted machine code that you did not write.
Your executable is a patchwork of copyrighted code from the compiler.

Are they demanding ad revenue from non-Nintendo (ie 3rd party) games? That would require are more interesting legal theory if true.

Apparently, yes. From TFA:

Many developers have previously stated their intention to allow YouTube users to upload videos relating to their games, without any kind of charge, express permission or revenue-sharing deal.

> Hardly any games continue to sell after more than 2 years on the market.

That's why Diablo 2 + LOD sold for 10 years. It is called "polish" and good design + gameplay. (Plus free patches that helped drive end-game content.)

Almost everyone tends to forget Gabe's quote:
"You can ship a bad game on time and no one will remember it shipped on time.
You can ship a good game late and almost no one will remember it was late."

> You can't take 2 years to make a game anymore.
You can but the ROI is terrible. Even John Carmack regrets Rage taking 7 years to ship.
* http://www.develop-online.net/news/37969/id-regrets-Rages-seven-year-dev-cycle

The "industry" is too focused on Tech. The indies don't have tech to use as a crutch they are forced to innovate gameplay. i.e. Path of Exile happens to have both.

You didn't cite a single source.

I thought I was pretty up-front about where those came from, and I don't think I presented it as my own, comprehensive research into the market intricacies of mobile platforms.

But if you wanted my search terms, I think it was something like, "piracy ios vs android" or "developer ios vs android". Going a little further for those who don't want to look...

First one was probably: http://www.diasks2.com/post/20172033158/ios-vs-android-a-comparison-for-first-time
or maybe
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/appsblog/2012/jun/10/apple-developer-wwdc-schmidt-android
or maybe
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2012/05/android-app-sales-piracy-matters-seasons-dont/

There are about a billion more if you care to read them.

Second was probably: http://www.develop-online.net/news/38848/Android-app-pirated-2300-more-than-iOS-edition
Though here's one that says 90% - http://keyeslabs.com/joomla/blogs/i-think-im-becoming-an-android/136-android-the-perfect-piracy-storm
and one that says they had 83%, if you prefer - http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/05/wired-uk-android-game-piracy/

Third was something like: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-ios-vs-android-fragmentation-2012-6
or
http://opensignalmaps.com/reports/fragmentation.php

Of course there are another 8 gazillion results for each of these. I said only what I saw.

That aside, many of these are topics we've covered extensively here on Slashdot. If you think it's all FUD, you're obviously welcome to discuss and I'll be interested to see it. I have no real vested interest in the results besides being a user.

Read this: http://www.develop-online.net/news/37234/UDK-devs-making-75k-only-give-1-to-Epic In short, they take 25% if you sell the game, but only if your game makes more than 50.000. They also take into account the 30% that applestore of android take using their distribution platform. But if it's non-commercial, there is no $99 if I'm not mistaken. Btw, that $99, could the average indy develop an engine like this for it? I would say, nah.

It's a significant achievement for all of them, but if you think that's big budget you're kidding yourself. The average multiplatform game budget would apparently hover between 18 and 28 million dollars, while single-platform budgets would be around 10M:
http://www.develop-online.net/news/33625/Study-Average-dev-cost-as-high-as-28m

Certainly! If you don't recall reading about it earlier here on Slashdot, David Braben has come out publicly against the rights of consumers to resell their used games. You can read it here.
And here is his rant against people hacking their own property.
His choice to use GNU/Linux as a kernel in his product notwithstanding, this man is no friend to those of us who value digital freedoms.

You must not be counting on a discount on DOTA 2.

NOT FOR YOU

So, in practice, a really likable person in our community should get DOTA 2 for free, because of past behavior in Team Fortress 2. Now, a real jerk that annoys everyone, they can still play, but a game is full price and they have to pay an extra hundred dollars if they want voice.

I think this is not the way to teach this lesson, since it breaks the game for other people too. I agree that this must be tackled but I think Gabe Newell (last question @ http://www.develop-online.net/features/1192/Gabe-Newell-on-Valve) has a better idea about this. The only problem is the evaluation system that will be used. Any system will be unfair and wrong at some point, and who implements this must be aware and ready for the backfire.

Point 1 - The premise that we are entering a "Post-PC" era requires some evidence to back the theory. TFA didn't provide anything, other than a reference to Newegg pulling out of their IPO in May 2011. And even with that statement, Kevin Purdy says, "What happened? The internal factors are unknown." That does not provide sufficient data to support his premise. Shame on you, Kevin Purdy, for your sensationalism.

Point 2 - Newegg.com sells a great deal more than just PC parts. Even if Kevin Purdy's apocalypse were to occur, Newegg has a great deal of other business to support their profits margins. Last time I checked, you can buy phones, tablets and ultrathin laptops from Newegg.com.

Point 3 - There is sufficient evidence that we are, in fact, in the midst of a PC expansion. Nvidia just made the claim that PC sales will overtake consoles by 2014, Microsoft believes in the prominence of the PC, Michael Dell comments on his predictions, Epic thinks the PC has been 2nd fiddle to the console for too long, and MaximumPC has an article showing the results of a Baird survey relevant to the issue.

Will some people buy phones, tablets and laptops (ultrathin or otherwise) instead of a PC? They have been for years, why would that change now?

Will the PC market dry up and force PC Enthusiasts into a world of non-replaceable component devices, where we will be forced to feed on the scraps of outdated machines? Doubtful. I point to the Audiophile market as a comparative case study, where you can spend an incredible amount of money on components that some might argue have been replaced by smaller and better integrated devices. I suspect the home built PC market will survive phones, tablets and ultrathin laptops, just as it survived Dell, Gateway, Micron, Acer, et al.

Who, you? The whole "Final Fantasy was Square's last effort" is thoroughly debunked. (Hell, at the time, it wasn't even Square's biggest launch. That would have been "Rad Racer.")

You want a quote, though?

The atmosphere left Sakaguchi doubting the potential of the game, thinking that the game wouldn't sell thanks the shortage of staff and other factors. The series name, Final Fantasy, is often attributed to Square's dependence on the product as its last throw of the dice -- but the truth, says Sakaguchi, was that it was his personal last effort.

"The name 'Final Fantasy' was a display of my feeling that if this didn't sell, I was going to quit the games industry and go back to university. I'd have had to repeat a year, so I wouldn't have had any friends -- it really was a 'final' situation."

From this interview. (Also, thank you Slashdot for not supporting Unicode and forcing me to edit that quote. It's 2011. Please bring your website up to the standards of a decade ago.)

"is to seriously piss off one of the few remaining developers who really cares about the PC as a platform"

Headline: CEO Cevat Yerli defends EA’s controversial PDLC strategy, remains unsure on Crysis 2 demo...

http://www.develop-online.net/news/34545/Crytek-foresees-the-end-of-free-game-demos

Somebody who wants to charge for demos DOES NOT CARE about the PC as a platform. Most dev's these days (at AAA houses) couldn't give less of a shit as you see with their sloppy ports to PC and draconian DRM (assassins creed 2).

Back in June, a 'trusted source' reported that the Kinect cost $150 to manufacture. It seems they're selling at cost, with no profit per unit.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/35198/Source-pins-Kinect-manufacturing-costs-to-150

YA RLY

http://www.develop-online.net/news/34341/Tories-come-clean-Well-offer-tax-cuts-in-first-budget

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=244938

While more aggressive incentives did manage to lure the Public Enemies production to Wisconsin, after doling out $4.6 million in tax credits to the production, it was estimated that the filming of the movie only brought in $5 million in local economic activity

Seems the UK government was aiming for a wider ranging effect with it's budgeting as noted http://www.develop-online.net/news/35205/Tax-Breaks-the-deal-is-off -

As part of his Emergency Budget, Osborne said that subsidies for developers first proposed by the previous Labour government in April will not come into force. He described the suggestion as 'poorly targeted' as part of a wide-ranging budget that outlined a number of cuts and tweaks to the economy designed to reduce the deficit and facilitate business growth. And despite saying "I want a sign to go up above the British economy that says 'open for business'," he made it clear that this will not be made by selectively offering tax cuts to specific fields such as games.

You heard wrong. It was to be the last game created by Hironobu Sakaguchi - his Final Fantasy, as it were. After that he was going to quit the game industry entirely.

But it became a great success, and Square has gone on to continue to release countless sequels and rereleases of the same damned games to this day.

The LA Times report also claims that the marketing costs of Modern Warfare 2 hit close to $200 million - a staggering figure for a video game marketing campaign.

Now choose your professions. Marketing of coding. ;)

Yes, Microsoft in fact spent countless amounts of money and time opening up XNA development for the Zune HD, just to not allow XNA development for the Zune HD. In fact, they figured, "Hey let's waste fuck loads of cash doing something completely and utterly pointless for no reason whatsoever because it's not like we're a business in a recession where staff cuts are being made and departments need to justify their existence by doing something useful is it? Let's create Zune HD development tools even though we're not going to allow 3rd party apps on the app store!" -

http://www.develop-online.net/news/32857/XNA-Game-Studio-31-adds-Zune-HD-support

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/a177633/xna-development-now-available-on-zune-hd.html

But then, you did read it on Slashdot so obviously you must be right, it must be true.