Storytelling 2.0: Exploring the news game via @nicolaskb. Ian Bogost, contributor Video games can be more than just entertainment - they may be the future of journalism PICTURE a bunch of journalists.
What do they look like? What stories do they tell? The beat reporter records events from afar, bringing the world to your recliner. All of these stories focus on people, places and events. Now think of a video game. Video games simulate rather than describe the world. At the Georgia Institute of Technology's Digital Media Program, we are researching newsgames, the application of games to journalism. (Image: Burger Tycoon) Take, for example, Burger Tycoon. Despite its cutesy graphics and simple mouse-click play, Burger Tycoon paints a striking portrait of how the business models of multinational food conglomerates can compel corruption.
Another newsgame is Escape From Woomera, a documentary game that draws on the traditions of investigative reporting. Video games do not offer a panacea for news organisations. EA Playfish's Sebastien de Halleux (Belgian): "The billion dollar social game is achievable" Someone is going to create a social game that pulls in a billion dollars a year in short order, said Sebastien DeHalleux, vice president of business development and strategy at EA Interactive and former chief operating officer of EA’s Playfish social game division.
Speaking at the Inside Social Apps conference in San Francisco today, DeHalleux said that hitting that milestone for the social game industry — which is only about two years old on Facebook — would be astounding. But he noted that the goal is based on a matter of simple math. To hit $1 billion in sales in the console game industry, game franchises such as Grand Theft Auto have to sell 15 million copies at $60 each. Game franchises that have done so include FIFA soccer, Modern Warfare, Final Fantasy, the Sims, Need for Speed and others. But to hit $1 billion in revenue with free-to-play social games, a game has to hit 100 million monthly active users who, on average, generate a little above 80 cents a month for a year. EA Playfish's Sebastien de Halleux (Belgian): "The billion dollar social game is achievable" "The console is dying" - Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid)
By Kevin Krolicki TOKYO Wed Apr 7, 2010 6:18pm IST TOKYO (Reuters) - Hideo Kojima, one of the world's most famous video game creators, sees a future for digital entertainment outside the box -- outside any box.
Kojima, whose "Metal Gear Solid" games have sold more than 27 million copies, says the future of video gaming is on networks that will free players from consoles supplied by the likes of his long-time partner Sony Corp. "In the near future, we'll have games that don't depend on any platform," Kojima said at a news conference announcing the latest installment in a game saga that began in 1987.
"Gamers should be able to take the experience with them in their living rooms, on the go, when they travel -- wherever they are and whenever they want to play. Kojima was speaking at an event in Tokyo to detail plans for the late April launch of "Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker," a video game he developed and directed and Konami Corp is launching for Sony's portable PSP device. Zynga Could Be Worth $5 Billion. Zynga, the leading social gaming company behind Facebook hits such as Farmville and Mafia Wars, would likely be worth as much as $5 billion if it were publicly traded instead of privately held, according to SecondShares.com, a group of former equity analysts who spend their time researching the value of private online companies such as Zynga, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
SecondShares based its estimate of Zynga’s value on the number of outstanding shares, estimated revenue per user, growth rate and other metrics, and projected that by 2015 the game maker could have a theoretical market value as high as $10 billion. Given the pent-up demand that such private companies represent, there’s a lot of interest in valuing them — since there is a chance they could go public someday — and also in trading their shares through secondary markets, although Facebook recently barred its employees from selling their stock through such vehicles. Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d): Zynga Could Be Worth $5 Billion. {c'est du belge} IPhone app developer Tapulous says its sales have approached $1 million a month.