Anyone who has followed The Game Show for a while knows that I have a knack for finding bizarre stories that are marginally video game related. They’re fun, they’re weird, and, Goddammit, they’re just something different.
So, as I don’t get on The Game Show much these days, its time to move some of them to print form instead. Who knows, this might end up being a regular thing.
In the meantime, here’s a few that might have been missed…
Video Games and Trading Cards, Two Great Tastes that Taste Stale and Weird Together
The Orlando Tribune reports that Twin Galaxies is releasing a series of trading cards featuring the world’s greatest gamers. Twin Galaxies is the arcade which many of you may recall from King of Kong; the original competitive gaming hub, it records all of the high scores of gamers around the world and declares World Champions from the verified scores.
I can’t decide if this is charming and kitschy, or hopelessly outdated.
On the one hand, a pseudo-celebrity trading card set is a delightfully 80’s idea, from back when trading cards still had cultural relevance and before 90% of the countries card shops closed down. What better coupling than a group who collect ‘High Scores’, a concept equally outdated, replaced as fully by the achievement trophy as baseball cards were by the… um… kids doing shit on YouTube. It nostalgia all around.
On the other hand, these guys don’t seem to be going for the kitsch angle, and seem to be taking this way too seriously. I know, gaming is huge now. But 40-year old dudes sweating it out over Pac-Man scores are not. Ask most gamers who holds the high score on Dig-Dug and they’ll probably shrug and tell you directly that they don’t give a shit. (Ironically, that same gamer cries himself to sleep at night because he doesn’t have the prestige of owning a ‘Download Complete’ achievement on his Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood copy yet.) So, they’re sending out national press releases for an extremely niche market.
It reminds me of the local music scenes, when you are sitting at a bar with live music, and you realize that the three bands playing, make up the entire audience. Man, they feel so important playing for each other, though. Its downright masturbatory.
Well, if you do fill that niche, here’s a promo of one of the cards. This one features gaming villain, Kong champion, and hotsauce guru Billy Mitchell. That’s some sexy plumage, Billy.
Slightly Less Outmoded than Trading Cards
Okay, thats a little harsh. The game card industry isn’t terribly strong these days (unless you are the unkillable Magic: The Gathering), but it still has some fans. And, thanks to kid friendly Pokemon and Yugioh, a young generation of game-addicts are growing up, weaned on dreams of cock-fighting cartoon monsters.
Anyway, I got an email from Capcom the other day, remind me that it was the 15th anniversary of Resident Evil this year. Awesome! And hey, did you know that Resident Evil has a card game out? Most of you probably don’t. I had heard of this before, but I’ve never seen the thing sold before, so I was pretty shocked to find that this reminder was actually about an expansion set that was due out. (April 22, as a matter of fact)
All snark aside, the game actually sounds pretty interesting. I’m a sucker for card games. Happily, Bandai has avoided the pitfall of the flagging ‘collectible’ card game market, with blind-buy packs, and just put each of the sets out in their completion in a single box, purchased like you would a board game. If you get the expansion, same deal, you get all the cards for one nice price, and you can still customize the decks from your pool of cards. In that way, this card game isn’t about how much money you drop into the game (*cough* Magic *cough*), but rather how creative you are with the same toolset as your opponent. 
In it, you set your cards out in a resource area, with all of the items resembling your inventory from a Resident Evil game, with herbs, guns and ammo. You also get a hand full of hazards and zombies to throw at opponents. Resources run out fast, so you have to balance your deck well, and hope the timing of your shuffle is right on.
Each of the boxes has about 250 cards for $29.99. Also, you can find a series of promotional 15th Anniversary cards floating around this year at various hobby shops, conventions and events. Click THIS VERY OBVIOUS LINK to go to the game’s website.
EA Earnings Waaaaaaaaaay Down
This one’s likely to get talked about on The Game Show at some point, but the game industry has been showing some signs of cooling lately, after years of almost non-stop growth. 2008 was the first year that the industry as a whole didn’t experience growth as far as reported earnings, though it remained stable. However, the following years have seen a small decline. Now, it IS a small decline, but following a decade of constant growth, and in what should be the peak of the current gen’s cycle, its a little worrying. Yeah, we know, the economy sucks, but despite whatever excuses we make, it hasn’t saved studios like Pandemic, and most recently Disney’s Propaganda, from closing. (Oh, did we mention Disney closed down that studio? Oh… yeah, that happened. Turns out that Tron game flopped pretty big.)
So, eyes turn to the big boys like EA to give us a little State of the Union pep-talk. Their Q3 earnings are coming in, an indication of how the year will close, and they are… down 22%. Ouch
A spokes man from EA points to the virtual overnight collapse of Music games as a major culprit. And its true that the sales of the once unflagging Rock Band series tumbled this year to the point where it is believed revenue was no longer enough to cover the licensing fees for the enormous song library. After being a cornerstone of EA’s E3 demonstration just this past summer, the big guys sold Harmonix back to its founders for a meager $50 (in return for some other corporate shifting, netting EA a smooth $150 Million in tax breaks, see Laughing Fish’s report on that). In addition, the much-hyped NBA Elite 11 ended up being cancelled. Ultimately, it was the International Market’s massive push on Fifa ’11 that ended up saving EA from some major, major losses.
EA also cited that they just didn’t have a strong slate of games this year, compared to last year’s Left 4 Dead 2 and Dragon Age releases. That’s a pretty ballsy admission, but if they’re willing to admit that they weren’t making the product they should, that’s a good indication that they are looking to correct it with a bevy a strong titles in the upcoming year. At least, they better hope they’ve got something around the corner, the weak quarter is posed to cut the company’s revenue by over $1 billion. (+/- $20 Million)
By year’s end, expect EA find strong residual earnings from online and subscription content, as well as their portable, flash-based games that can be picked up cheaply and en masse both on Xbox Live Arcade and the PSN, and perhaps more importantly on the iPhone.
A few more years like this, and we may see some major developers switching gears and moving more towards mobile content, which is cheaper and easier to develop, and bringing in the mass-market appeal that the consoles seem to be losing lately.
But that is a discussion for an article unto itself…
