Brad Wardell, founder of Stardock, had some interesting things to say about piracy in a post he made on his blog last week:

So even though Galactic Civilizations II sold 300,000 copies making 8 digits in revenue on a budget of less than $1 million, it’s still largely off the radar. I practically have to agree to mow editors lawns to get coverage. And you should see Jeff Green’s (Games for Windows) yard. I still can’t find my hedge trimmers.

Another game that has been off the radar until recently was Sins of a Solar Empire. With a small budget, it has already sold about 200,000 copies in the first month of release. It’s the highest rated PC game of 2008 and probably the best selling 2008 PC title. Neither of these titles have CD copy protection.

While I don’t see Sins as the best-selling PC title of 2008 (leave that to the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Spore, or The Sims 3 if it’s out in time), that’s not the interesting part. Brad goes on to say that the key to a successful PC title is to find a demographic that buys games, and then to build them a game.

(obviously, the rest after the jump)

At the beginning of October, 2005, f13 published an article by Dave Rickey [who also has a new blog!] - as the banner above says - about player types in MMOGs and the way players play these games. In my opinion, despite the badgers in the forums (and mushrooms and snakes), it's a good time to revisit it simply because the genre has taken exactly zero steps forward since then. But that's not what I want you to discuss since I'm mostly crazy, rather, the article, reproduced in its entirety, sans images (error: could not find them). Read on for the meat.

Towards the end of the last Austin conference, F13.net was lucky enough to snag a dinnertime interview slot with two of the more interesting figures in modern-day online game development: Scott Jennings, formerly Lum the Mad, and Dave Rickey, formerly of a lot of places. As neither Dave nor Scott were able to tell us about their upcoming titles, we instead did was we must, because we could: ask random questions and then try to keep out of the crossfire.

F13.net + Sigil/SOE = BFF

The Community Panel. They are not laughing with us.

Also, Raph is better at journalism than we are.
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In Response To: GameTap Thursday: Garou Mark of the Wolves

So here I am, sitting at work, when I get a call from a good friend of mine. He wants me to hear something. Obviously, I had better sit down. Obviously. Typically, this only happens with really bad news. Seems that someone took it upon themselves to talk about fighting games without doing their research and has inevitably come off sounding like an idiot.

It’s clobbering time.

To: guy who doesn't review games
From: weaboo
RE: Blizzcon

I farted in public today. Here's a picture of a coke machine. It has Hello Kitty on it. Long sentences make my nose bleed. Japanese people can be small. Is that offensive? I like lights. Oh. Gaming. Right. Blizzard bought Swingin' Ape in May of '05. Six months prior, they registered Blackthorne as a trademark. They canceled development on Starcraft: Ghost, because it was bullshit. And then in 2007, and I quote, some frothy jackass said:

"Team 3 is working on something really awesome. I can’t give you any hints, but it’s totally awesome."

Blackthorne would be totally awesome. Maybe they're bringing it back. My kid would like that. He likes games. Don't you like reading about my kid? Oh, and the trademark was published for opposition on April 17th, 2007. I'm thinking of opening a private detective agency. What? I've seen an episode of Kuitan. He likes food, lol. ^_^ Also, Nintendo sent me a shirt that says "industry tool." I don't get it.

What you missed last night:
I made a penis in Picross.
I posted some news that was a few hours old.
I laughed at people who have to work for a living.
I tried to figure out why people read this shit. Got a divide by zero error.
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Last week, we started posting a short series of interview transcripts with Raph Koster of Areae, taken from an epic chat conducted at the beginning of GDC07 in March. Today, we're proud to conclude the series with the final transcript, covering academic gaming programs, prototyping, tools, inspiration and moneyhats.

If you missed part one or part two, you may want to start there first.

Long before the recent Vanguard scandal, f13.net sat down with Raph Koster to chat about a wide variety of topics relating, at least tangentially, to the gaming industry. Earlier this week, we released the first installment in a short series of transcripts from the resulting brain-dump.

Today, instead of beating a dead horse, we bring you Part Deux, including some of Raph's thoughts on journalism, the handling of scandals from both press and industry points of view, the future direction of MMOs, and the relevance of independent and Korean games to the market.

You read that right - we did actually sit down with Raph at GDC this year. Belatedly, we bring you the first in a short series of articles, consisting of transcripts from the marathon interview conducted at the very beginning of the conference.

As is becoming standard with our designer interviews, we're roaming all over the landscape in terms of topics. In this installment, we touch on Areae, team sizes, Chief Creative Officers, game grammars, the play preferences of children and the fun of flapping, among many other things.

Enjoy!

"I hope no one deals with them anymore. When you ask someone not to post something that isn't controversial, you expect that tiny bit of respect." - Anonymous Lead Designer

This hurts to write. My hands are shaking. I can't remember the exact time I read Crecente's post on Kotaku. Sometime this afternoon (March 1st, 2007), I read something that - in any normal situation - would make blood burst from my eyes. Today, one of the most popular gaming blogs on the internet confused integrity and honesty with investigative journalism. Michael McWhertor published a (not quite) rumor about something. You can find out what this something is on nearly every site on the internet, including this one - just a few posts down. In posting, Michael set in motion a series of emails and newsposts that have left - in my eyes - a stain on the entire gaming industry. It hurt the fans, the developers, the publishers, and most importantly - independent gaming sites. And who's pointing it out? I guess I will.

What follows after the jump is a letter I stole from Max Console because I'm too lazy to navigate the giant monstrosity that is Destructoid (seriously, it's huge even at 1680x1050 and really hard to C&P from). I've tagged on some comments at the end. And yes, I suppose this is old news... but I've been away at a convention that sites like the aforementioned Joystiq and other game chic blogs like Kotaku and... Destructoid manage to avoid. Not enough lights or whatever.

AGC Rivebrog: Third Party Community Sites

We come to you rive from the "3rd Party Community Sites" panel, in which we're going to hear about how game companies should work with 3rd party sites, like F13.net and our ilk (although for some reason we're not on the panel -- not that anyone here is bitter).

Summary: Communication is key. If you want to get information from developers, tell them what you're looking for, and let them know what's going to be done with that information.

Having slept in from a sickness some call a "hangover," I stumbled into the convention center and immediately found another sick guy. His name is Raph, and he "livebrogged" the keynote. Enjoy. We'll have more once we get hold of the notes from this morning's panels.
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So this jackass somehow managed to BREAK HIS KNEE playing Guitar Hero, apparently by rocking out too hard. Then this retarded Jack Black wannabe created a website devoted to his idiotic blunder, in his own words:

What is this site?
This is a website dedicated to my knee and all others who have suffered injuries while playing video games. (Although I think that number is very limited as I'm sure few people have suffered such.... ridiculous injuries.)

It even gets worse:

What is this sites purpose?
Hopefully this will serve as a warning to all of those hopeful Guitar Hero's out there. When you play this dangerous game I implore you to think about the consequences of high kicks and mid-riff splits before you do them.

Let the mocking begin!

[Link]

Oh, and I would like to devote this website to the THOUSANDS of people who managed to not injure themselves while playing Guitar Hero.
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