• Surprised to see Average Selling Price of an XBLA game up by 10% last year to $9.12 http://bit.ly/aEN1Aq #
• Just posted: Last 7 hours to bring a colleague to my self-publishing Masterclass http://tinyurl.com/yfwhwx8 #
• Just posted: Ngmoco: “If we can’t make a game free to play, we’re going to kill it” http://tinyurl.com/yjjko7f #
• @PaulFish I'm there from Wed lunch -> end Thurs. 11 or 12 on Thurs is good – if you follow, I can DM my email address #
• Just posted: Redundancy round-up http://tinyurl.com/yfhxwcs #
• I love German bluntness. From the Casual Connect site: This is winter guys! Bring a winter coat, gloves and a hat if you are bald #
• Newspapers get 20% ad rev share, 8% audience share; Internet gets 29% audience share, 8% ad share. http://ow.ly/13mhy <- oh dear, newspapers #
• Really need to update the Job Loss Tracker. Looking at over over 1,000 jobs gone already this year. #
• RT @Michael_French: Take-Two will ditch 20% of its global workforce, says our source http://bit.ly/bDwfVS #
• #brokensword @charlescecil @davegibbons90 + original cast/B Pheloung will be at the Apple Store tomorrow http://bit.ly/a8AX74 #
• Just posted: The perils of a global audience http://tinyurl.com/ylxmfmx #
• RT @jen_bolton: RT @CCPGames: RIP Goonswarm: http://bit.ly/aRi74z [?!] #
• @SuperRewards I'd be really interested in meeting; a number of my clients are considering Rewards. in reply to SuperRewards #
• Bigpoint investors won't sell until its worth "one billion dollars!", says BusinessWeek http://bit.ly/aKqve9 #
• Just posted: How to Self-Publish, a masterclass by Nicholas Lovell http://tinyurl.com/yfp9wal #
• Good analysis about how traditional console brands are making more money than indie games on iPhone from @beamadelica http://bit.ly/9Cu14S #
• Just hit 500 posts on Gamesbrief since it was launched in a little over a year. That's more than 1 a day! #
• @codemonkey_uk Damn, you've spotted that. It's been on my to do list ofr over a month now in reply to codemonkey_uk #
• Just posted: Namco Bandai restructures, cuts 10% of its workforce http://tinyurl.com/yfyasvr #
• Wow, the @gibiz piece on Namco Bandai's restructuring is a regurgitation of inpenetrable management guff http://bit.ly/bCyfhc #
• Going to be at Casual Connect in Hamburg next week (on a panel on Thursday). Anyone going and want to meet up? #
• Is there a casual connect hastag yet? #cc10? #

GamesIndustry.biz reports on a FADE report estimating XBLA sales in 2009.

Here’s the top 10.

XBLA Estimated Top Titles by Revenue, 2009 (Average Price)

• Battlefield 1943 (EA Dice) – $12.5 million ($15.00)
• Castle Crashers (The Behemoth) – $7.3 million ($15.00)
• Trials HD (RedLynx, LTD) – $7.1 million ($15.00)
• Shadow Complex (Chair Entertainment / Epic Games) – $6.1 million ($14.38)
• Family Game Night (Hasbro) – $4.2 million ($9.53)
• Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (Capcom) – $4.2 million ($15.00)
• Magic: The Gathering (Stainless Games) – $2.8 million ($10.00)
• Worms 2 (Team 17) – $1.8 million ($10.00)
• Peggle (PopCap Games) – $1.8 million ($8.86)
• Turtles in Time: Reshelled (Ubisoft Singapore) – $1.7 million ($10.00)

Another top stat:

Just a brief reminder that the earlybird booking for bringing a colleague at half price to my self-publishing masterclass on 25th February in London.

You can find out more at the GamesDev Masterclass website

Hope to see some of you there.

Inside Social Games ran a big interview with Neil Young, CEO of ngMoco, last week. Two things leaped out at me.

If we can’t make a game free to play, we’re going to kill it

Young comes from EA, and you might think he has boxed product DNA in his blood. They’ve had more than ten successful games, all of which have been in the top 25 so far.

But they are now wholeheartedly embracing freemium. As Young puts it:

That’s a big change for a mobile games company. It’s a clear acknowledgement that games are now services, not products. It shows how rapidly the freemium/virtual goods model is developing, and is bad news for bedroom coders thinking that they will still be able to make games and sell them for $0.99.

» Continue reading “Ngmoco: “If we can’t make a game free to play, we’re going to kill it””

I don’t care about the SuperBowl.

I struggle to care about soccer. I definitely have zero interest – none at all, not one iota – in American Football.

Which causes a problem for Zynga. They’ve just sent me a Farmville promotional email for the first time in months. And it was totally irrelevant.

» Continue reading “The perils of a global audience”

I’m teaching a seminar!

I’ve teamed up with Tandem Events, the guys who bring us the Develop Conferences in Brighton and Liverpool, to teach a Game Developer Masterclass.

It’s about business, as you might expect. But more important, it’s entitled:

How to Make Money from Self-Publishing

9.00 – 17.00, 25 February 2010, London

So what’s it about?

» Continue reading “How to Self-Publish, a masterclass by Nicholas Lovell”

• RT @andrewcrawshaw: Rumour: BBC has given Dr Who game to a German dev. It wouldn't be hard finding talented UK dev (via @wonderlandblog) #
• Just posted: Axe Cop – the surrealist wit of a 5 year old http://bit.ly/cECPm9 #
• #AxeCop rocks. Great animation + the surrealist wit of a small child. Why aren't all comics like this? http://bit.ly/denxFX #
• Thinking about how to price your game. Check out how to use "loss" language to improve conversion http://bit.ly/5it02S #
• Just posted: Why Facebook won’t charge 30% for payments and leave billions on the table http://tinyurl.com/yjbs62u #
• Is 2 million the new 1 million? Now Flight Control has reached 2 million Apps sold, just after Pocket God. http://bit.ly/8HicDv #
• Tesco sets up film studio. What next? A games studio? http://bit.ly/4FE7Ue #
• I'm enjoying the GAMESbrief love over "Games don't cause rickets". Thanks to everyone who has linked/retweeted. #

A comment in this interview with Rebellion’s AvP Director, David Brickley, got me thinking recently about DLC. Largely thanks to the online capabilities of seventh gen consoles it’s a sometimes controversial revenue stream that’s grown fast over the last few years, and as a result has come under close scrutiny from industry and consumers alike.

On the one hand, paid-for DLC provides developers an opportunity to release material that didn’t make the cut, extend a game’s lifecycle and generally improve a product without upsetting the money men. On the other it’s often argued that content is intentionally held back as a sly tactic to increase a game’s price point.

Brickley has this to say: “If the content is on the disc already there’s absolutely no justification for studios to offer DLC which is essentially an unlock key or something.” He goes on to support DLC in principle by saying, “But I guess what doesn’t come across to some people is that [...] while [debugging, approval and manufacturing] is going on, it tends to free up resources at the studio, so they can make items that can be added on as DLC afterwards.”

As the voice of creative idealism (or youthful naivety as it’s usually termed at GAMESbrief) I feel like I need to chip in a defence – those complaining are looking at things all wrong.
» Continue reading “DLC: Value For Money Naysayers Are Looking At It All Wrong”

If you haven’t seen Axe Cop, go and read it now.

Seriously.

It’s an amazing collaboration between a 29 year old comicbook artist and his (much) younger brother.

It shows what happens when you give a 5-year old free reign with his imagination. And not only is it brilliant, it has its own internal logic. It positively makes me feel young. Properly, back in short trousers young.

Marvellous stuff.

“Pay with Facebook” is coming.

It’s already live on Happy Aquarium from Crowdstar. Later this week, it’s coming to Farmville, the most popular application on Facebook with over 70 million monthly players.

It’s big news. And most commentators and industry insiders are expecting Facebook to charge 30% commission to companies using “Pay with Facebook”.

And I think they’re wrong. Facebook would be leaving billions of pounds on the table. I don’t believe that Facebook would be so short-sighted when there is a far bigger prize at stake.
» Continue reading “Why Facebook won’t charge 30% for payments and leave billions of dollars on the table”