Author Archive | Jared Newman

The gaming world was seriously bummed out today, hearing that the blockbuster Bioshock 2 will be delayed until fiscal year 2010. I’m thrilled.

Publisher Take-Two said in a financial update that the game needs “additional development time,” but there are hints that the company wants to duck this year’s holiday game rush, even if FY2010 technically allows for a November or December release. Mainly, the following quote shows the publisher’s hand: “We believe the result [of a delay] will be a more compelling consumer experience and a better performing product in the marketplace (emphasis mine).”

Could this signal an end to the age-old practice of releasing too many good games at the end of the year? Maybe, but there are other factors that can’t be ignored. Take-Two acknowledges that it’s partly waiting for a better economy to come around. In explaining Bioshock 2’s delay to FY2010, the publisher says the game, along with other blockbusters, “provide a platform for enhanced financial performance in what we hope will be an improved retail environment.”

And sure, extra development time could certainly be a necessity. There are, after all, four studios working on the project, which I imagine would slow things down considerably.

But Bioshock 2 is a major release, certainly capable of going toe-to-toe wih other top-tier titles, and publishers aren’t well-known for delaying a game past the holidays for the sake of making a better product. I don’t know if the economy will be more favorable to video games by, say, next spring, but I’m inclined to think Take-Two sees an advantage in separating itself from the holiday game glut. At least one other high-profile game, the Playstation 3 exclusive Heavy Rain, is doing the same.

It’s my opinion that Bioshock was a flawed masterpiece, better left standing alone, so the news doesn’t bother me on another level. Still, I welcome any sign of better games in the off-season. A blockbuster game would be perfect right about now, in the summer.

With new video game-related purchases flattening over the last few months, we’re starting to hear that the recession is catching up to the industry, but that doesn’t mean people are playing less.

To the contrary, a study by Nielsen found that video gaming, in hours played per week, is bigger than ever. As seen in the graph below, gamers — defined as people who purchase a game in the last six months and play at least an hour per week — are spending an extra two hours playing per week compared to the last two years.

The results appear to corroborate two other recent developments: Used game sales are on the rise (according to industry analyst Michael Pachter and to Nielsen’s own survey results) and new game sales are lower this year than in 2008, according to The NPD Group. For good measure, Nielsen asked its survey respondents how many DVDs they purchased over the last six months and found, unsurprisingly, that the numbers are roughly on par with last year, and lower than those from 2007.

It’s easy to pin these changes on the recession, but as NPD has said for the last couple of months, the first half of 2008 was cluttered with blockbusters, such as Mario Kart Wii and Grand Theft Auto IV. This year’s new releases are weaker in terms of buzz.

But common sense says that blockbusters don’t necessarily make for the best games. In a twist, Nielsen found that 34 percent of people who played more said they liked this year’s games better. This is most true for Playstation 3 owners (41 percent), who are finally getting long-awaited titles such as Killzone 2.

A full examination of how the recession affects gaming would look at playing habits within individual games. Are players milking each title for all its worth or ditching their games halfway through? This sort of data isn’t available in Nielsen’s study, but it’d be interesting to know.