The Fourth Estate

The Next Level

With no small trace of nostalgia, I read through Wired's recent review of the top Amiga games of all time. If people romanticise about the lost summer of their youth, I'm sad to say I've often thought wistfully about how I spent those same summers playing Shadow of the Beast, Syndicate, Defender of the Crown and all of the other titles that made the Amiga a cult machine.

The Dessert of the Real

It’s a funny thing – but after ten years of innovation on the web – our interfaces are largely the same as when we started. This is not a gripe about design. Usability, rich media, and personalisation have done wonders to transform the humble web page. The truth is, however, no two dimension interface can adequately capture the rich, n dimensional complexity of the web as it is today. If you want my pick on what the Internet will look like in years to come, the best place to start is in the world of games.

Spielbound

The news that Spielberg will be working with leading games developer Electronic Arts to develop three original game properties is confirmation of the broader integration between gaming and the entertainment world that had to happen.

Sooner or later,  Hollywood  had to wake up to the fact that the underlying economics of  blockbuster games capable of monthly billing cycles are worth more original thought, conception and development than a mere licensing appendage to a traditional movie release. This is a theme I explored recently in my Fourth Estate column entitled "Platform Entertainment".

The bottom line is - Game developers excel at creating the visceral, action packed environment that appeals to trigger happy males under 24. For everyone else, greater work is needed to bring the same emotional and narrative depth currently invested in the film medium. The tools are now there.  And so is the creative talent. Lets see what they deliver.

Platform Entertainment

Hang out long enough in LA, and you could be forgiven for thinking that Hollywood is an approximation of hell – people without talent chasing people with money without heart. Fortunately, it also happens to be a highly efficient machine for the creation and exploitation of entertainment franchises. But as many are finding out the hard way – the Web, like love, changes everything. And the film industry will be no exception.

Counting Halos

If you want to amuse yourself for a few hours and gamble with a few hundred million, chew on this one for a while. Do movies make better video games than video games make movies? It is easy to find examples that prove either case, and some that prove both – an awful movie that makes an awful lot of money. The big news this week is Microsoft touting Halo as the next big thing. So does the Bill and Balmer show now have eyes for prime time? 

Retail Deathmatch

Game aficionados will no doubt be curious as to the result of the legal deathmatch between Vivendi Universal games, and Valve, developer of the insanely popular Half-Life 2 blockbuster. The settlement, which will see Valve's entire boxed inventory yanked off shelves and moved to online distribution should raise a few eyebrows and the blood pressure of retailers hungry for software sales.

Playing For Keeps

OK, you know video games are big business. And you have probably heard they can not only make as much money as a blockbuster movie, but if they are released in tandem with one, can do ever better. That’s about half true – most comparisons don’t factor in Hollywood’s downstream revenue from DVD retail and rental, and overstate video game numbers by leaving in hardware sales. But even still – it’s a hefty dollar sign, and if you happen to be a media company without a shiny new games development division, the big question on your mind has got to be – what now?

Homemade Halos

Now, few would ever bother accusing Microsoft of modesty. And there was certainly little of it from the Software Satan's gaming impresario J. Allard's recent keynote on the next generation XBOX. Leaving aside the standard ambit claims to being the future home entertainment hub, one interesting tidbit was the plans to provide an e-commerce platform for consumer generated game modifications. Entering your initials in the top score list is one thing, but selling your personalised armour to other players? Actually, its not so crazy an idea.

Game On!

Some off the cuff remarks by Peter Chernin, COO of Newscorp, at a recent US investment conference had the Street murmuring that Murdoch might soon make a big play in the videogame space.