gaming – Page 2 – Steven Savage

Game Roundup: 8/16/2013

August 16, 2013 by Steven Savage

Quite a bit of gaming news today.

Harassment a problem in the gaming industry. Lots of interesting stories here that aren’t surprising, but one is not correct. I’m curious how the indie movement will handle this as it at least spreads out the abuse as it were.

Microsoft killing Games for Windows. In the wake of hiring one of the Steam Big Guys. Yeah, pretty obvious they’re up to something new and steamlike, and I can’t say I’m exactly sure they’ll pull it off. Microsoft’s been erratic lately.

Gaming sales down in hardware and software.. Not surprising with new consoles coming up and a bit of a dry spell. I certainly don’t see anything to appeal to me after Castlestorm.

– Steven

GoldieBlox Is In Stores!

July 5, 2013 by Steven Savage

GoldieBlox, designed by a woman in engineering trying to encourage girls to play with construction blocks, has reached the shelves of Toys-R-Us. The toy comes with the parts needed and a story book that leads readers into building along with Goldie.

– Steven

The Toy-Game Interface: It’s A Trend.

March 18, 2013 by Steven Savage

OK, it’s a trend.

Yes, after weeks of me ranting about what’s going on in gaming, what it means for your career, and why I’m still confused half the time, there is a trend I distinctly want to call out.

Merchandise-game integration. Let’s call it MGI so we have a cool acronym.

Awhile ago at NerdCaliber I called out that we were on a cusp of a trend where games were integrated heavily with merchandise. and marketing. My example was Disney Infinity, which was pretty much “Skylanders” with Jack Sparrow and a sandbox mode.* I felt this was one to watch because I could see a lot of properties done MGI style, and transcending some of the previous attempts out there.

(Disney is so confident, they don’t mind a delay – that may mean selling more)

Ironically, of the many properties I discussed where heavy MGI possibilities lay, I missed one, and of course some smart guys and girls ended up creating the most obvious MGI I could have seen, only I didn’t see it.