SpudBug

Nobody knows - if you had asked this question as the gamecube was coming out, nobody would have guessed what the Wii was doing 5 years later.

I assume they are likely to continue treading water in a comfortable position for the foreseeable future.

I am starting to think that the market has been so poisoned by smartphones and tablets that a home console from nintendo (and maybe even other hardware makers) may never again see huge success. Not just for videogames, but for all media based on use of the television in the home. Broadcast, Cable TV, and Home Video are also struggling as a result of the appeal to the short attention spans of most people.

Honestly if Nintendo was to go just to offering handheld games and systems, I'd love for them to do some bigger projects and release on PC, maybe even with their own controller. I'd love to be able to play big first party nintendo games on PC and have a handheld that has unique exclusive games for it, and the ability to "off screen play" the PC titles.

Nintendo could even sell a small, power efficient PC box every few years of their own design that their own games are targeted to be played on, but also plays other PC titles - It could really solve the 3rd party problem they have.

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RaminShokrizade/20130626/194933/The_Top_F2P_Monetization_Tricks.php

This article patrick posted in worth reading, is absolutely worth reading.

Research has shown that putting even one intermediate currency between the consumer and real money, such as a “game gem” (premium currency), makes the consumer much less adept at assessing the value of the transaction. Additional intermediary objects, what I call “layering”, makes it even harder for the brain to accurately assess the situation, especially if there is some additional stress applied.

This additional stress is often in the form of what Roger Dickey from Zynga calls “fun pain”. I describe this in my Two Contrasting Views of Monetization paper from 2011. This involves putting the consumer in a very uncomfortable or undesirable position in the game and then offering to remove this “pain” in return for spending money. This money is always layered in coercive monetization models, because if confronted with a “real” purchase the consumer would be less likely to fall for the trick.

I wanted to highlight this article incase people don't see it because it really is a shocking look at how indefensible these types of games are - I often see people on forums defending games like puzzle and dragons and Candy Crush as "not that bad" and saying that you only have to spend money as a shortcut. Well that's clearly not true. The companies behind these games even refer to it as a "trick", a way to design the game to force you to spend money while not realizing that you're buying nothing.

Having the user see their amount of premium currency in the interface is also much less anxiety generating, compared to seeing a real money balance. If real money was used (no successful game developer does this) then the consumer would see their money going down as they play and become apprehensive. This gives the consumer more opportunities to think and will reduce revenues.

More opportunities to think means reduced revenues. Isn't this a dangerous way to build a business? Don't businesses that build upon preventing the consumer's ability to think eventually fall apart?

There's a ton more gross stuff in the article, but maybe one of the worst is in the comments:

Thanks Ramin for the article and insights! As you point out yourself, and as I'm sure we've all experienced, F2P monetization is a rapidly evolving field and I'm very curious to see what the "established norm" will be in a year, two or three. Personally I predict a massive amount of consumer fatigue once "ordinary consumers" figure out what's going on here (as Facebook has experienced...). New models will take the place of what you describe above - and this is why I personally find this business model so fascinating and interesting! There's a giant blue ocean of innovation and creative opportunity out there, and understanding some of the basic mental processes that drive user behavior helps enormously.

So to this person (who i'm sure is very intelligent and reasonable) "innovation and creative opportunity" are additional ways to trick users into paying to progress or succeed in games. Not unique gameplay systems, or responsive controls, or original stories and settings. Innovation is about monetization.

What do you think? Is this strangling the game industry? The move away from true gameplay innovation and craft to the kind of tricks and psychological manipulation usually reserved for the casino ultimately cannot be a GOOD thing for anyone but the people going home with bigger paychecks.

man, I love watching fighting game streams. I love fighting games.

Collusion and pot splitting have and always will be a thing. What is a problem is these assholes who don't even want to compete out a match. Hopefully this deters a lot of that.

Wow, I didn't watch texas showdown, but that was really shameful. The commentators aren't even saying anything because there's nothing to say.

I assume they'll run into the same problems that the WiiU had with its day one update. Slow, overloaded servers. No matter what, nobody ever seems prepared for these kind of things.

I know i'm not getting an xbone anytime soon, but I'm on the verge of just waiting until the 2nd wave of software shows up for PS4.

Why don't they put this up on the site? I hate how I can't view Twitch.tv archives on the Ipad, that's how I watch most of the GB content.

Yes, let me play too! This is exciting.

PSN : MrSaturnDAKOTA

On PS3 I have Injustice, KOF13, MK, Super SF4, Third Strike, ST Remix, MK arcade collection, Marvel 2, and Tekken Tag 2

Of those I kind of play Injustice, ST remix, SF4, and MK Arcade collection.

Reading so many people saying how they feel awkward about getting sad or crying over ryan because they never met him, don't.

There are a lot of people that you've met that you don't know half as well as Ryan. Our lives will go on and certainly none of us are affected in the way any of the Giant Bomb crew, his family, or his friends are, but it doesn't make what you feel less valid.

Let it out, duders. Just don't forget that he would still want to be making people smile.

how you feel is how you feel. you need to get it out. He was a big part of a lot of our lives. Indirectly, but it was a tuesday routine as valid as any routine to hear.. "HEY EVERYONE ITS TUESDAY"

Everybody says that it's weird to feel sad, but realize how many people are saying that, and nothing is weird about it.

Day two and i'm still breaking up about it.

Yes I like the PC best too, but the PC will not get ports of every game unfortunately.