First of all, I really like GAME. In my opinion they are the best specialist store out there. Worked for them too. However seeing such a situation unfold and reading the comments from CEOs and whoever else is very disappointing. I would just like to say that so far I’ve seen people defending GAME or people that weren’t concerned about them but they were simply upset about the situation with Mass Effect 3. However, no one seems to be defending EA.

Just one thing I think needs to be said here (of course I don’t know what the exact details are): GAME constantly undermined publishers with its pre-owned sales for years. Publishers were more than disappointed by this and had no other choice but to accept this fact or develop some kind of expensive system over the years that would put an end to this unfair system. At the end they managed to create a half-acceptable system: the Online Pass.

I say half-acceptable because even though I agree with it, a lot of gamers got really upset when they thought that by buying a pre-owned game at GAME, they just saved a lot of money and then they have to find out that some part of the game (multiplayer in most cases) doesn’t work.

Of course, this is a very competitive industry and these two major players at the two ends of it are in turmoil over a deal that should look like an annoyance rather than a huge conflict for companies of such size.

The problem and potentially the downfall of GAME Group Ltd came out of an argument concerning the highly acclaimed Mass Effect 3 which is already in first place in the first week and apparently surpassed the week one sales of both of its two predecessors.

(Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/339551/uk-chart-mass-effect-3-breaks-series-records/)

So how to deal with this situation? Now, it might be too late. I had two ideas to fix this.

Solution 1:

• Agree to the terms that EA was asking for as according to a number of sources, GAME still could’ve earned £2,5 million in profits alone from Mass Effect 3.

Results:

• No real advancement for the business. The publisher is pleased and GAME still cashes in £2,5 million within a couple of months.
• GAME loses out a small amount of its profits but there’s no real advancement for the business.

Solution 2:

• Ask EA to back out from the special request that they proposed regarding mint copy sales.
• In return, offer a small percentage of pre-owned sales to maintain and improve the business relationship between the two companies.

Results:

• EA is very pleased and happy to withdraw its demands regarding mint copy sales.
• GAME loses out a small percentage of its pre-owned sales which would affect its profits greatly as GAME’s main profit source is pre-owned sales.
• EA is more flexible in terms of time of payments or is willing to help out in other ways.

Counter arguments will ovbiously arise.

Arguments like “But retailers don’t give any percentage of pre-owned sales to the licence holder in any of the other industries!” Sure. But in the other industries are all ver different. The video games industry is a unique one. For example, if you want to compare a video game to a car. I mean obviously things will be different. The price difference between the two products are massive. In a normal situation, people buy way more games or music CDs or film BluRays than cars. It’s totally different. Now that I brought this up, just think about it. The music industry eliminated pre-owned sales almost in 100% by going digital. Of course, the industry was far from prepared for pirates and the digital age but the video games industry is different. More advanced, more capable and more creative. If that’s what it takes, it will be ready to switch over to 100% digital.

Of course, without actually having a full insight into any of the businesses, I can’t say that these options are feasible at all as there are some major factors that can have a huge impact on any of the businesses but maybe giving a try to any of these would’ve been a better otpion than firing about 10,000 people…

As for the staff, I can’t feel sorry enough. It’s very sad news even if GAME won’t go into administration. To live with the constant uncertainty can be very trying, I know from personal experience…

Hopefully this whole situation can be sorted out as I have a few friends working at GAME or Gamestation (even though the working conditions are quite poor).

The question is whether you can reload you last saved GAME or there will be a new title coming out soon at every major video games publication’s headlines: “Administration: The GAME” ?

First of all, I have to mention that I never had any kind of Nintendo product whatsoever. I played with almost all of them but I just didn’t feel the need to buy any of them. I’m sure that a lot of you will send me hateful responses and wish me to execute myself in some strange and deranged way but I think that someone has to mention the possible negative steps that Nintendo can possibly take.

Nintendo is one of the oldest companies in the video games industry. The one that led the way for so many years. Mario, Sonic, Zelda… etc. are just the most recognisable ones from the huge list of all time favourites for a lot of people. But there’s a huge issue that needs to be resolved in a very short period of time. This is nothing else but the fact that Nintendo is dying. Fading away from its position of past glory and success. (I told you, didn’t I? You don’t like me now.) It’s losing so much money that eventually it can harm the very core of the company hence it could suffer an inevitable death.

People usually say: “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.” But to be perfectly honest, you can’t hate anyone here. Nintendo is doing a lot of innovation and is trying as hard as it can to stay in top shape and to keep that massive fan base who pledged their loyalty to the blue hedgehog and the plumber with the red hat.

So what’s the problem? Simple. Nintendo is doing all its innovation and hard work to a half-alive purple cactus instead of its fan base. Why do I say that? Again, it’s simple. You don’t have to be a genius to see the faults behind Nintendo’s decisions. A tablet? The complete lack of new IPs… It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about hardcore or casual gamers. At the moment Nintendo doesn’t seem like a company that wants to make any of these groups happy. But let me just build it up for you.

When you just want to chill at home and play

Let’s start with the normal console section. So the ones like Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and of course the Nintendo Wii. Obviously you use these consoles at home when you have some free time and you just want to switch off and want to immerse yourself in a good story, blow off some steam by shooting some people or playing tennis. Obviously, Nintendo managed to reach such a huge, untapped market that none of the other big competitors even thought of reaching, the casual gamers. Let’s be honest, none of the big competitors even thought of reaching out to this segment for one simple reason: They needed a new technology or idea to do that. It was risky nonetheless hence no one wanted to make the first step. So Nintendo jumped to the opportunity and invented the Wii. Smashing idea that managed to not only totally convince about 80% of the casual gamers but to fish the initial £180 or so out of some really hardcore gamers’ pocket. Brilliant job that put Nintendo “back on the map” for at least a good 3-5 years as one of the big innovators and big games companies.

When you’re on the go

The handheld gaming was again, a very niche market. You have to know who wants to play on the go, when and what. Nintendo brilliantly tapped into that as well. It managed to set up a massive fan-base by creating its handheld device which picked up really when the Nintendo DS came out, followed by the DSi and now the 3DS which gives you a 3D screen on a handheld device without 3D glasses. BOOM! (Yes, BOOM!)

But before I would fall face first into the reasons why I said the things that I did at the beginning, I have to mention the competition briefly. Microsoft had nothing to contribute to this part of the industry, really. Sony, however, had a lot to offer with the Playstation Portable which gave the player a very nice piece of gaming platform with even better graphics than on the Wii and better yet: All this was an on-the-go package.

I personally was amazed by the high quality of the PSP and the games for it. Of course you’re not going to play Skyrim on it anytime soon but you could play Prince of Persia, Need for Speed and Splinter Cell, just to mention a few. For me, out of the two devices, the winner is obviously the PSP. Of course Sony managed to bag in an expensive failed experiment which was called PSP Go. Unfortunately consumers thought that it needs to “Go”, so it’s gone. Now, Sony managed to combine a lot in their newest system, the PS Vita which will have everything that the PSP series had as well as some nice little tweaks that combine all the features of a smartphone. Oh…Wait. What? Smartphone? Yes.

I haz a smartphone

Since the iPhone 3G, the video games industry went into a massive expansion in the handheld department and mobile gaming in particular. Apple created the “App era”. Where 10 years ago people were trying to find out whether a particular shop, magazine or TV show has a website, nowadays the same wild search goes for apps. First, it just started off as interactive applications but now we get special iOS versions of big hit AAA titles like Batman: Arkham City in a form of an app.

This came out of the blue as well, just like the Nintendo Wii at the time. Smartphones also targeted a niche (the above mentioned) target audience of handheld gamers way better than the current handheld consoles out there. This proved to be such a success that mobile gaming (as dead as it was), came to life once again covered in flames, like a phoenix rising from its own ashes.

The appearance of the tablets was inevitable as well so when Apple came out with the iPad, everyone else jumped on the bandwagon almost instantly, increasing the importance of apps even further. Tablets, however, don’t only try to replace gaming consoles but netbooks, laptops and even desktop PCs/Macs. Even though the first set of tablets were kind of lame and more like a fashion kit rather than the ultimate gadget, the second iteration of the iPad and Android tablets look like the real deal.

Let’s see the future…

So what Nintendo’s planning for the foreseeable future? They are somewhat alright on the handheld front with the 3DS that only gives a few people seizures and headaches but what about the normal console department? News are already emerging that the next generation of consoles will come out in 2012 or 2013. This will mean a PS4 from Sony and an Xbox 720 from Microsoft. (Well, this is how the public calls them anyway.) 1080p graphics, Kinect, Move, DualShock 3, Xbox LIVE party… etc. Seriously? And Nintendo came up only with a tablet? Really?

People would probably say the same thing that came to my mind at first, I can play OnLive on any tablet or smartphone via an app and the graphics are amazing thanks to the streamed HD video as well as the whole gaming experience thanks to the controller.

Then I had a look at the demos available and again, I have to say that I had enough of Nintendo! The initial idea of having a tablet was just way too basic as the obvious comparison to an iPad or any other high-end Android tablet is just inevitable. Then I found myself in the uncomfortable position of my girlfriend wanting to watch the TV while I was still playing… Erm.. Switch to tablet, 1080p, video chat, touchscreen and motion sensor? Seriously? Wow!

So after all the negative comments about how Nintendo might going to fall and fail in the innovation race, I have to say that now I feel the urge to have a go at one of these Wii U tablets as soon as I can and right now, I feel like getting one after the demos that I’ve seen so far.

So you just wasted my time?

Of course not! Nothing is written in stone yet. Nintendo can still mess up a lot of things until then. The Wii U must be a huge success because Nintendo won’t be able to afford a next chance financially. Let’s be positive and say that it will succeed.

Why is it so important that Nintendo will succeed with the Wii U and it will keep innovating? Because even though both Sony and Microsoft are making amazing innovations come to life, they’re all stretching the boundaries in a different pace and direction. The video games industry is a highly competitive one with a huge creative focus. To be innovative is to stay alive. When Nintendo created the Wii, it made the competition move. (Sony did just that: Move! – ha ha ha…) So to me, it looks like that Nintendo is the one who comes up with brand new ideas where Microsoft and Sony seem to be happy to perfect these ideas sometimes to a whole new level for their own platform. I know that this is not actually like this or at least that they’re not doing this on purpose but it feels good to think that. An industry that thrives on a constant but healthy competition. Finally, Dear Nintendo: Amaze me!

…or wait until we catch up

I know that you might have had the chance to go to one of the biggest video game events of this year, the Eurogamer Expo 2011. I was lucky enough to spend two whole days there which was just enough to pick up one of the newest consoles out there, OnLive. Correction: MicroConsole. Because a a matter of fact, the console is really so small that it fits perfectly into a shoebox sized box. Of course you’ll be able to see it from the video, alongside the rest of the content that was stuffed in the package. So instead of talking about the things you can see, I’ll talk a bit about the things you can’t see. Let me tell you my experience so far with the OnLive MicroConole so far.

First of all, you probably have to spend no more than 5 minutes on figuring out how to connect the console both to the internet and the TV a it is very easy to do. At least in theory… The reason why I want to tell you my experience is because I am kind of a special case which - in theory - still needs to work according to OnLive but of course it doesn’t. Let’s start with the fact that I don’t have a TV. I play on a Monitor and watch movies on a PC. I don’t watch TV so I don’t need it. The problem is that the only cable they give you with the console is an HDMI one which is great and everything but I don’t have anywhere to plug it into. The console has an optical port as well but the cable for it is only available in the US.

Next up is the issue of connecting your OnLive Microconsole to the internet. Of course there’s nothing wrong with cable connection as it is faster and most of the time easy to do. One question: So why don’t we do it? Why did man invent the Wi-Fi? Because they wanted WIRELESS connection… The only way to connect your already loved MicroConsole to the internet is via an Ethernet cable. Cool. I just want to test it anyway. But let’s get to the testing process.

I started off with trying it out on one of my friends’ small HD TV. Everything synced and worked, I signed in aaaaaand… Nothing. I received an error message with no explanation whatsoever. I won’t give up so easily so I connected the whole thing to my little netbook. Even though OnLive should work on any kind of device, in reality it is not the case. On a PC by default you will need to download the OnLive client which takes a few minutes only. But after connecting to the system and starting up the client, I got the message that my beautiful light-blue netbook is not technologically enhanced enough to run OnLive which means that the above mentioned statement is not true… Shame. Anyway.

The system is very awesome if we look at the fact that you can watch other people play. Also, I tried it with the only configuration that I could set up and it was quite a pleasant experience and the graphics were really nice. I played on a 10MB connection and with wi-fi which resulted in a bit of a lag and of course the fact that the OnLive controller is not compatible with PCs was a sort of back draw as well.

Altogether the console made a positive impression on me and I’m sure that if you satisfy the optimal requirements, it is as they say: Awesome and instant. But it seems like we have to wait for it to work on every kind of set-up a bit longer…

Most of you might’ve heard the terrifying news that the newest True Crime game got cancelled by the nowadays more and more “inFamous” Activision. (Can you see what I did there?)

I will be honest here. I was very close to writing a letter to them stating the pros and cons of continuing the development of this awesome game. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m far from a hardcore fan and I only played with the first one (which was very enjoyable at the time) but after that, stopped following the series. For this game though, I only needed to watch the trailers to be convinced about the amazing characher animations, graphics and the general complexity of the game. Is it really not “up to the high standards” that Activison is willing to back up? For me it looked like a truly terrific, all-in-one game.

So I was more than satisfied when I learned that Square Enix picked the game up which means that it won’t become another Duke Nukem Forever, nor a Tony Hawk’s game…

Enough ranting… :) I hope that the game will see the sunlight as soon as it’s possible as I, for one, would definitely buy it.

It’s True! :)

So of course everyone gets a bit hyper sometimes and starts behaving in a bit of an… arrogant way. At least I hope. I mean that everyone does it. Not because it’s a good thing but because I just don’t wish some of my Xbox LIVE friends to stand out from the crowd. Be rude people! Not.

Now let me explain the situation a bit more before I would get into it.

I have a frie… a guy that I know from Xbox LIVE. We played Splinter Cell Conviction co-op and it was awesome. We were killing it and at the end of the levels we didn’t only get a nice score but an achievement that said: klick You’re Awesome!

Yes! We were. So obviously we got bored a bit plus I started to work my (un)healthy 12 hours a day, so we just simply didn’t meet for a couple of months. Of course the worse that could happen is to really suck at the game and you will just need to get warmed up a bit. Other than that, nothing can change. He’s still a cool 12 year old that I’m playing with. Online. With a video game. At least I thought. Not the video game. The change.

The guy seemed to become a total agressive idiot since our last session of gaming awesomeness. Must be puberty, I thought but then started questioning the actual reasons that I previously created in my mind for his behaviour. Let me give you a brief list what I thought must be a problem with him but I still felt confident enough that it can slide.

• Puberty
• Loss of girlfriend (I know but I like to be an optimist.)
• Parent(s) opened on him while he was beating the monkey
• I don’t care, let’s rock this sh.t!!!

These are the things that I made up because they made me enjoy the guy’s anger and helped me divert mine. Also helped me avoid the urge to throw the controller to my monitor so hard the it would hit the guy in the face at the other end. However, none of these things seemed to be good enough excuses after, in the so called Face off mode, the guy destroyed me to 42-10…

I was fuming. How can be someone such a ….? Seriously. Even if I’m winning like Charlie Sheen, (drinking and under the influence of heavy drugs) I would let the guy catch up a bit and would try to kill him with only hands or something. Of course I could be agressive and destroy him, I wouldn’t do it throughout 3 matches straight. Don’t get me wrong. I’m good at Splinter Cell Conviction. Really good! It’s just that the guy went all rage on from the first second while I took it easy and tried to have a friendly session with my online friend.

Ex-friend. That is. RUDE! That is. :)