Satya Murthy

by Eric Eldon

We’re at the Virtual Goods Summit in San Francisco, where +8* analyst Benjamin Joffe recently gave a great presentation on virtual goods in Asian markets. In his 127-slide deck, he breaks down revenue among leading market leaders in China, Korea and Japan, the profitability of industry leaders like Tencent, and much more. He also talks about the cross-Pacific history — and future — of gaming.

Joffe notably calculates that the virtual goods market in Asia is worth $7 billion this year, versus our calculation that the US virtual goods market is worth $1 billion.

Unity Technologies has announced that the limited version of its ‘Unity’ game development platform previously sold for $199 as ‘Unity Indie’ will now be available free.

Now simply called ‘Unity,’ the free engine and suite naturally contain fewer features than the $1499 Pro license but still offer plenty for budding designers and developers to tinker with. You can nab the suite in a 163MB download from FileShack.

The suite and its offspring, Time Donkey by Flashbang.

An interesting article by Will Freeman on casualgaming.biz

In a Casual Games Forum panel looking over the current health of the sector chaired by CasualGaming,biz editor Ben Parfit, a panel of industry experts have been talking over the relative merits of micro transactions, predicting that paying upfront for games will last just another half-decade.

"People will only continue to pay upfront for games for, picking a number from the air, perhaps another five years at most," suggested Zattikka’s head of development Matt Spall.

Quick to agree at today’s event, vocal Playfish CEO and co-founder Kristian Segerstrale added: "Once games become a service, just like with any service, people will stop paying up front. It is pretty much inevitable that it has to go there, and it’s a huge opportunity for all of us.

"But what we must ask is, in terms of the huge new market out there that me must get product in front of, ‘how can we get something in front of them that is meaningful, and how do we charge different people in different ways to best grow as an industry?’"

In general the panel, which also included Finblade chairman John Chasey, agreed that micro transactions offer the most sustainable, potentially profitable model for casual gaming.

"Micro transactions do trump a lot of things," said Segerstrale. "As an ability to offer a menu of options to your players in terms of the way they consume and enjoy there games it is very powerful. That is a huge opportunity to reach beyond the concept of the gaming budget. That means we can evolve business models and understand consumer behaviours beyond offering a single price point. That is a huge growth opportunity for all of us."

"If you look at it as something like gambling in reverse, where every now and then you have to put in a little money, it is very addictive," added YoYo Games CEO and founder Sandy Duncan. "It plays on human behaviour, and in that context out of all the funding models micro transactions are perhaps the most pervasive and important."

from: inspiredm.com

Let’s not forget that the Web 2.0 hype was not just about glossy logos and round cornered buttons; the added value of this new wave of websites is the social part and the huge potential to ‘make things together’. So here’s a roundup of the most popular and interesting services that offer us the opportunity to find or submit designs or ideas.

Kickstarter

Kickstarter is a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, explorers…

Crowdspring

By helping Buyers reach countless creatives across the globe, we’re changing the game for the little guy.

99 Designs

Need something designed? 99designs connects clients needing design work such as logo designs, business cards or web sites to a thriving community of39,698 talented designers.

Brandstack

A Spring is our voting system. When someone likes your portfolio or your uploads they can Spring it. Items that receive more Springs will receive more exposure.

Social Designer

Buy stuff, design stuff, vote on stuff and be an agent of change.

Name This

Namethis makes the otherwise time-consuming process of finding a market-ready name quick and painless.

BigCarrot

The site allows people with a common interest to come together and pool their contributions to create an inducement prize.

Collab Finder

The Place To Find Designer & Developer Collaborators.

Collab.ie

Enabling collaboration by helping people with ideas meet people with skills.

Pikkoo

The first social community for user generated interactive mobile screensavers & wallpapers.

Genius Rocket

Advertising and marketing projects for a tenth the cost of traditional ad agencies.

For all those hungry entrepreneurs/CEOs of startups…

• If you cant look at other entrepreneurs and learn – then don’t look at them. Jealousy (or self pity) will kill you in this business!
• When you look at facebook and twitter, your imagination must run wild… you heart might say, I wish I could come up with an idea like that. Well here is the truth – don’t try and create something for the entire world – break it down. Remember the British – divide and conquer!
• Companies like facebook were never created for the world – they tried to address a small, specific need – and it just happened to become big. And – NO – it didn’t happen overnight!
• I see most entrepreneurs trying to sell the product before its fully functional or useful! Give it some time – its good to talk about it – but pls for gods sake don’t spam the networking sites, your friends and families mail boxes.
• Don’t copy – After the success of FB and twitter, there came some 100 scripts which can the do the same – what’s the point? Its good to have a niche social networking site about cats or fashion or women in games or what not – but thinking that you can replicate the success of twitter and FB or MySpace is madness – you will end up like orkut – neither dead or alive!
• Don’t burn yourself – if you are making a decent salary and working for someone –great – keep doing that until you really really have to quit! thinking that you can survive on the revenue from adsense is crazy talk!
• Say yes to venture capitalists – money in all forms is good – if a VC is ready to fund you, I’d say take it! Don’t listen to people telling you about “how VCs will take the control away” that’s nonsense! Having that extra $ or Rupee in your pocket will only help you be a little bolder and experiment with you company/product. Remember, you want to stay alive in today’s business – keep reinventing your products/ideas.
• Lastly – marry as many people as you can in your business, its good to have people who believe in you and can advise you in crappy times. You will need more than a couple of shoulders to cry on if you are an entrepreneur – that’s how this game is!

Don’t take on the world all at once, take once city/district/state/country at a time! My 2 cents!

from: http://gamerpaper.com/index.php

1.It would be embarrassing if she were better at video games than you. Here you envisioned long co-op jaunts crusading against alien invasions, teaching her to play Portal by romantically holding her hands over the controller, and getting cozy while sniping from a bunker in Call of Duty, but here she is, curb-stomping your face over and over in Gears of War multiplayer. You don’t even have to wait to wear that pink sweater she bought you for your birthday to be emasculated.

2. If you are better at video games than her, you will fight every time you give in to her pleas to play together. There are plenty of girls out there that play games. But playing does not imply winning. Ever. Even girls that identify themselves as gamers can be totally inept at video games. She may love playing the easy level campaigns at a nice slow pace, but when you catch her at every spawn point on the multiplayer board and snipe her before she even moves, she’ll start to cry. For some reason.

3. You will never, ever get to play single player campaign again. It’ll always be "oh, we never get to do anything together, let’s play co-op" and then she’ll insist on using Convenant weapons because "they are purple and pretty."

4. She will always be misled by beginner’s luck on beat-em-ups. Girls don’t understand the relationship of button-mashing with beat-em-ups; that is, if you do it, you win. A few button-mash wins will cause them to think they’re skilled players, but once she starts trying to learn the moves, you’ll crush her every time, and she’ll cry again (see #2).

5. She does it for the dudes. Maybe this girl actually likes to play video games. And maybe someday I’ll live in a bouncy castle and eat hamburgers for every meal. But she does it mainly because guys think it’s cool, and is actually terrible at video games (see #2 and #4). This girl probably also "likes" football, baseball, basketball, paintball, beer, violent movies involving zombies, and firearms, but knows absolutely nothing about them.

6. She says she’s a gamer, but what she means is about ten years ago, she used to make a Sim of herself WooHoo with a Sim of her crush, and then set his Sim house on fire. This girl is not actually a gamer, and is, in all likelihood, insane.

7. She says she’s a gamer, but the only games she plays are on PopCap and other websites.Not only will she waste your time by getting you addicted to some niblet of a game like Kitten Cannon, she actually thinks this is gaming, which means she’s just a terribly confused human being.

8. She’ll really put the RPG in MMORPG. Running around as a naked night elf damsel-in-distress who’s had her armor stolen and getting attention from the Stormwind sausagefest will be all well and good in the game, but ask her to do it in the bedroom and then there’s just something WRONG with you.

9. If your girlfriend is playing video games with you, there is no one to bring you sandwiches and energy drinks. And if she stays the night and you both are awake until 3 AM playing Call of Duty, there is no one to wake up and make pancakes. Already you’re out two meals. Do you want to starve to death?

10. If your girl gamer fits none of these descriptions, that means she is probably also a supermodel and a rocket scientist, and is therefore a perfect human being. You do not deserve her and will eventually break up, but video games and sex will be inextricably linked in your mind forever after all those games of Strip TF2, and you won’t be able to turn on your console without getting a boner. Happy gaming!
Written by GamerPaper’s favourite girl gamer, Casey Johnston!

Electronics group Samsung is willing to pay as much as $250,000 to each developer that pitches any ideas that become games on the Samsung Application Store.

The company, which has in recent times seen its mobile phone market share slip, has enlisted mobile game developer Handmark to provide insight and judgement on the horde of developers pitching ideas, prototypes and products.

If any hopeful developer (either individual or team) is given the green light to develop their idea, Handmark will also be available to assist production.

The initiative is Samsung’s latest move to try and catch up with the industry-shifting success of Apple’s iPhone, and indeed the App Store itself.

The Samsung Application Store launched in September with titles such as Space Invaders and Guitar Hero ready for download.

Samsung is looking for titles that will showcase the firm’s mobile phones; the tech behind them, and the advanced features they offer. The company says all ideas will be considered.

Chris Barnett, Handmark’s senior VP of Global Sales, believes that there’s a wealth of great ideas waiting to be discovered in the mobile game space.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for anyone, including big brands, mobile developers or any individual with a unique, creative idea to make it a reality,” he added.

Story originally published on Develop

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Sr. Character Artist needed for exciting Next Gen Fighting games – THQ Agoura Hills, CA, USA

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Live Producer – BioWare Austin Austin, TX, USA

WE ARE REVOLUTIONIZING RTS GAMES! Trion is creating a groundbreaking MMO-RTS game in conjunction with Petroglyph Games, the creators of Command and Conquer, Red Alert, and the Empire at War series of games. Trion is looking for an exceptional and passionate Producer with strong MMO experience to help manage the external development of the game.

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Producer MMO-RTS – Trion San Diego San Diego, CA, USA

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Animator – Telltale Games San Rafael, CA, USA