Game Theory - Episode Two

I believe this is a scary situation for big publishers. Smaller developers will have less risk to create and market their games. It won't really be about throwing more money at a problem. Good games will come out on top.

I'm glad the Apple refused to create a special section for "AAA" titles on the app store.

Posted:2 years ago

That's a stupid suggestion overall. Who and what determines what a AAA title is? Is it the cost of making it? Quality? Hype level? None of the three can be judged fair. Many times you hear developers or publishers call games AAA even through they clearly are not. So yeah... good on Apple.

Posted:2 years ago

I always thought a AAA title was basically a console game?, any game released on the latest console would be classed as AAA?

There is quite a few issues with digital distribution I think, not everyone has the internet to download games and what about download time? Can this be speeded up without getting a letter from your internet provider about "fair usage"

I use Steam to download games and it can take a day or 2 to download games like bioshock and COD.


I think a better idea would be to replace the disc as its unreliable if scratched, game stores would become the distribution centres where you take your hard drive plug it into a computer (funky cashpoint in apperance) and choose the title you would like to purchase, then its instantly transferred onto the hard drive. That way there wouldn't be thousands of people left without work when game stores eventually close due to online downloads.

Edited 2 times. Last edit by Mark Hunter on 11th August 2010 1:59pm

Posted:2 years ago

@Mark Hunter - No AAA means that it's a top priority game for the publisher. The problem is that publishers, game press and gamers all think different. It's a kind of quality thing and that is awfully hard to decide. Games that publishers think is AAA may not be AAA in the press. It's a mess and quite a confusing concept.

Posted:2 years ago

@ Alexander Cederholm- ahhh I see that makes sense, It's almost as if there should be a universal quality bar to work from...or maybe the targeted platform should determine the class

I actually see what you're saying as sometimes I find job advertisements titled with "AAA" then I get confused after looking at their website seeing a huge difference in quality compared to other AAA titles.

Posted:2 years ago

"This only my opinion and does not necessairy reflect PLayntrade's"

I like Mark's comment as it is what I think that we could see as well.

There is always going to be a big problem with the download of very large product from the internet for the consumers. Time to download, cost to use a large bandwidth to reduce download time, increase cost of internet usage, usage limited by Internet provider, storage problems etc. Sometimes, because we are in the industry and to close to the tree, we miss the fact that there are many more people using the internet for other purposes than gaming. If everything becomes digitalised only, it would be a bit like seeing those street racers using common public roads and streets to race their cars (Fast and Furious style)... At the end, a handful of gamers (compared to the overall worldwide internet users) cannot monopolise the web usage and bandwidth capacity.

Instead, what if the store of the future would be a giant Hardrive with several thousands of games coming directly from the publishers. Maybe few dozen ports for consumers to come to the store, plug in their own individual hardrive and get the game they want within minutes (would be much faster than internet download). There would be a profit share between stores and publishers and accessories would still be purchased as a physical good and store would still be used by publishers to promote future product. That would also put the smaller publishers on the same playing field as the big ones when it comes to putting their product in front of the consumers. Everybody wins and tens of thousands of jobs are preserved at the retail level as well.

I think that the ultimate publisher's goal is not to kill the retail stores, but to change the way they distribute their games as physical goods become increasingly expensive and complicated to move.

Posted:2 years ago