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AT&T, Verizon Moving Into Gaming

Posted by Soulskill on from the stop-wiretapping-my-railgun dept.

Verizon announced today that they are working on a service to deliver games through their broadband service for a monthly fee. The service will begin this summer in New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Along similar lines, IndustryGamers reports that AT&T is "investing millions in gaming." In addition to revamping the games section of their website, they are also working on an IPTV service and trying to find a way to unify the gaming experience across mobile platforms, computers, and consoles. "[AT&T's Executive Director of Gaming, Glenn Broderick, said,] 'What we're doing is trying to incentivize [gaming companies] to take some risks by tethering mobile games to console or PC experiences.' ... He continued, 'We're putting a ton of money into back-end systems for both mobile and the broadband site... We're making serious investments in the games space because it's now seen as a huge strategic initiative for AT&T. And before it just wasn't; it wasn't on the executive agenda.' Broderick also is optimistic that cloud-based gaming services like OnLive that provide games on demand will take off in the next 5-10 years, and he sees AT&T and its network as a big player in that."

7 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. Hooray for the end of buying used games! by interkin3tic · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Oh, good, yet another way to prevent me from selling back crappy games or games I'm done with. I'm all for destroying gamestop, but it seems to me that one of the best checks against a company profiting off of a game that is utter crap is the resale market.

    If your game is terrible, you get many people buying your game because they don't bother reading reviews, many find out it's crappy sell them back, the next line of consumers who also don't read reviews buys the used copies. People who have a passing interest wait for it in the bargain bins or to buy used. You don't sell as many copies as you were hoping and you learn your lesson and don't make crap games.

    Now though you buy it you're stuck with it, and all those gamers who don't bother making sure a game is good before wasting their money on it aren't getting any smarter or decreasing in numbers: shovelware is going to get rewarded even more.

    Fuck.

    1. Re:Hooray for the end of buying used games! by sopssa · · Score: 3, Informative

      What the hell are you talking about, its a monthly fee for a service. You aren't buying the games, you're kind of renting them. Like with cable tv.

      I would more than welcome having a monthly fee for a nice games library where I could just play whatever game I like. Hell, it would probably be even smaller price than a single game, maybe half of it. Then you could easily download the game you want to play, and if you dont like it you go try the next. No extra costs. Too bad I dont live in the usa, so I wont probably see it for a long time.

    2. Re:Hooray for the end of buying used games! by jaggeh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      it looks like a steam clone with a stupid pricing system.

      --
      I would give everything i own for a little bit more.
  2. Translation... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can translate this...

    "We cannot seem to squeeze any more margin out of our sub-standard networks (when compared to Europe/Japan/etc, both land line and cellular, so instead of upgrading those networks and building out something worthwhile to the customer, we will have some MBAs think of some new space we can pump our money into. We want to change the story, rather than improve the current story."

    Somehow, I don't think this is going to work out too well for them.

  3. "Unifying the game experience"? by Rogerborg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Say what?

    On the mobile side, AT&T is taking its .net website to phones for a "more consistent experience" between PC and mobile. Essentially, AT&T has a "three-screen focus," Broderick said. "We're looking at the TV, broadband connected PC and mobile almost as a unified platform," he stressed. "What we're doing is trying to incentivize [gaming companies] to take some risks by tethering mobile games to console or PC experiences.

    Does anyone know what language this guy is speaking? It's almost like English, but seems to convey no useful information.

    Is he saying that the same game will be playable and look pretty much the same on mobile, PC and on a TV (presumably through a set-top box)? Wow, that should be a shitty experience for at least two out of three platforms, although I wouldn't rule out the possibility of it sucking on all three.

    Or is he proposing multiple clients with potentially wildly disparate UIs playing in the same game world, chosen from a vast content range such as video poker, scrabble, or video poker?

    Would anyone care to risk their sanity by trying to decipher the meaning behind his marketdroid hoots and wails?

    --
    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  4. Internet by EvilRyry · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...and trying to find a way to unify the gaming experience across mobile platforms, computers, and consoles.

    I got it! We'll build a giant computer network that spans the entire globe. Then we can hook all of these mobile platforms, computers, and consoles up to it so they can communicate seamlessly. In fact, we can hook just about anything up to it. I propose we call this new invention "The Internet."

  5. "core" gamer by dontPanik · · Score: 3, Funny

    Broderick said it's going to be rebuilt from the ground up "to serve everyone from the casual gamer to the core gamer."

    Here's a new term, the "core" gamer. The same as "hardcore," but none of the negative connotations.

    I like it! Real respectable-like!

    --
    "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso