Jon Peddie Blogs

Mobile Game Pricing

Posted by Ted Pollak on March 21st 2008 | Permalink
Categories Games
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If you compare software prices to the cost of developing console, PC, and mobile games, something seems to be out of whack. World of Warcraft costs about $50 million to develop and market, Call of Duty 4 – probably $20 million total, Gears of War $10 million to develop and a few more in marketing. The prices of these games range from $30 - $50 (barring subscription fees). By contrast many mobile games cost $50 - $250K to develop. So how can the mobile game industry expect people to pay $10-$20 a pop when as a percentage of development the value…

SLI on Skulltrail – how?

Posted by Jon Peddie on February 15th 2008 | Permalink
Categories Blogs, Games
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That’s what I wanted to know – how’d you get SLI to work on the 5444 chipset. I asked the folks at Intel. I got shrugged shoulders and apologetic smiles. Not being coy, the people I was talking to just didn’t know, but did, in true (and almost always reliable) Intel fashion, promise to ask around and find out. I figured it was magic,  a little trickery maybe, but if it was, it wasn’t easy. It’s well known Intel doesn’t have an SLI license, but the Nvidia SLI control panel on the computer was operational in the Display Settings dialog box,…

What’s Apple’s next trick? Jon thinks it’s gamey

Posted by Jon Peddie on February 7th 2008 | Permalink
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Apple, which used to be known as Apple Computer, is today possibly one of the greatest consumer electronics companies in the universe. It’s interesting and admirable how the Mac transitioned from the computer of choice for artists and photographers to a consumers delight, and didn’t lose any of its artist photographer fans — in fact if anything, they are stronger and more convinced (vindicated?) than ever. Apple has created customer loyalty as great as Sony used to enjoy. It used to be Sony that was the one to bring out the marvelous new consumer products, and they charged more because they…

A Theory About PC Gaming

Posted by Ted Pollak on February 4th 2008 | Permalink
Categories Blogs, Games
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A simple proposition: most modern PC gaming requires deeper thought and higher analytical skills than console gaming, and therefore is better for the human brain. Pretty obviously, this is a theory of mine made without scientific research but I’m willing to wager there is a neuroscientist out there who would agree with me. I look to two major components to back up this theory: game play complexity and system complexity. Game play complexity The most obvious difference between PC Gaming and Console Gaming is the number of control combinations that are possible in PC gaming — essentially every key on a…