I asked friend of mine who told me that PS3 does not support PS2 games. The reason is - I don’t know - but I’d guess it’s either (1) production costs or (2) marketing thing. Or both. (Or maybe something else)

I’m asking this because I realized that if PS3 would support PS2 games, then purchasing PS3 would be a no-brainer to me: I would get blu-ray, fancy new games AND all the good classics (which PS2 seems to have).

But since PS3 does not support PS2 games the choice becomes trickier: Now I can consider Xbox 360. And PS2. Or PS3. Or something.

If it is a marketing trick (meaning: they want people to buy newer expensive games), then it sort of is a good, but it’s also eating their own leg. By monopolizing this thing “you can no longer play PS2 games on PS3″ it means that I’m thinking the alternatives as well: Xbox live has pretty decent Arcade place so I’ve heard…

Today I was visiting one nearby supermarket and out of curiosity I checked the console “department”. I checked the games… and started ponder how “old fashioned” it would be to buy from those shelves. I buy all my games online (hmm, with the exception of sometimes going through some shelves when I feel like need for gold digging) and I stared those games and felt that I’d never want to buy those 67 eur games that way. I have purchased some brand new games… but that’s via Steam. Not from supermarkets. I guess I might consider ordering some game that would be delivered to my home. Might. If it couldn’t be ordered online (like that’s going to ever happen). Hmm, maybe it’s just me but I prefer downloadable stuff.

What about you. Do you purchase games that come with physical boxes? Do you like going to supermarkets checking out for some new games to add to your collection?

I just got informed that Big Fish Games affiliate system is changing. It’s not anymore about “guide a customer them once, get paid for lifetime”.

The new program is a “last to refer” system. Even if other affiliates have referred the same consumer you are referring, if you are the last person to refer the consumer and they buy a game within 90 days, they become your referral and you will earn commissions from all their game purchases for a full year.

The existing affiliates in the top of the food chain are naturally pissed off. BFG has like 60 million consumers in their databases (not sure if I can say this out loud, but just to make sure, if anybody asks you - I didn’t tell this).

I’m fine with all this. I was wondering why I was getting more sales from BFG so it’s fine. Maybe somebody can now “steal” my customers but at least I can steal other customers.

Now… to the slightly shitty thing.

It looks like the *links* might not be working properly. I’m not totally sure, but http://www.bigfishgames.com/?channel=affiliates&identifier=af9a7b34cd50 sure looks different than https://my.bigfishgames.com/index.php?afcode=af9a7b34cd50. If this means that seven trillion developers and their moms need to go through all their files to change codes, it’s bit sucky. Those of you who know how this should be done (such as creating referral link to something like www.gameproducer.net/bfg.php which would then redirect to the correct URL) are fine. The rest of us (who were too lazy to do this in the first place) might need to change the links.

I don’t know. Didn’t see info. Just making a wild guess.

The really good (perhaps) news are that they are finally creating a way to track sales. BFG is giving all sorts of campaign tracking stuff that you can use to see how many people bought this and that, and via which channels.

Me likes these changes.

Check Tell Tale Games and subscribe to their mailing list. Then unsubscribe. Pretty fun text… where they try to convince me to stay. It’s pretty nice idea for “viral marketing”. Their effort got some guy (that would be me) to blog about their site’s mailing list. And this was simply by having a bit different unsubscribe page for a mailing list.

There is indeed possibilities for marketing everywhere. Even when customer is about to step away from your store.

Kotaku and Gamer Bytes reported that game called I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 was the best selling Xbox Live indie game for the year 2009.

Pretty darn cool.

Interesting that the game was priced $1. Would have been pretty sweet to know how much the game would have sold when priced $2. Or $5. Or $25.

Congraz to the developer - awesome job.

For some reason I’ve started to think about getting either Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. I know there’s no rational reason but I’m sure my brain will use any imaginable way to convince me. Like… suggesting me that “hey, you got a baby coming - better prepare now!” or that “you gotta be aware what kind of games are out there, buy a console!”.

Luckily I know myself well enough not to trust those thoughts.

Anyways.

Xbox has better price, you can get it black as well, can watch movies (but not bluray) and play several fun games. On the other hand, PS3 has that bluray thing (not that I’d have any use for that but at least it could get me bragging rights) and there’s also neat games for PS3.

On the very other hand… there’s PlayStation 2. Which has tons of games. Good games. Games that don’t rely on graphics. Enjoyable games like Tenchu (the new versions for Xbox 360 got bad grades).

So… what you vote?

I’m not getting one quite soon, but thought to ask what you guys think.

Was thinking of creating a brief list of game dev contests, this is a pretty brief list but those interested in participating in game dev contests (or some form of prototyping) might want to check out these:

• globalgamejam.org - by IGDA
• igf.com - The big Indie game conference thing. You all know it.
• unity3d.com/contest/ - Unity has their own
• experimentalgameplay.com/ - the prototyping site.
• udevgames.com - by iDev Games. (Don’t know how regular this is nowadays)
• ludumdare.com - good thing, experimentation.

Please help fill the list.

Update:
Here’s several more from you readers:

• TIGsource
• Kokoromi (GAMMA4)
• IndieCade
• Sense of Wonder Night (Tokyo Game Show)
• Indie Games Arcade (Eurogamer Expo)
• Indie Bay Competition (48 hour contest)
• Fizzy
• Game Jolt
• BlitzMax (BlitzMax Community contests)

Three-ish years ago I bought a DVD that I tried to return. The store pretty much said “screw you” when I tried to return a $5 DVD that wouldn’t work on a DVD player I bought from that (remember, that I hadn’t tried Daniel Kinney’s excellent idea about returning things - see the comment on Daniel’s idea in the old blog post). Basically, I couldn’t return $5 DVD and it certainly would have cost me more to fight about the issue, since it was only 5 bucks.

Well, couple of weeks ago I was pondering that “shite it”, I’ve been boycotting the store enough (had purchased tons of DVDs, printer, new TV and whatnot elsewhere rather from this ex-favourite store of mine). I’ll go check if they have some new anime moviews. I went to the store.

I checked out the DVDs and felt bit bad remembering how I got treated, but then got into mood for checking in DVDs. I eventually picked one movie and started walking towards the cashier.

I saw the same saleswoman who was “helping” me with that DVD return few years back and I stopped walking.

All the things got back to my mind. I turned back, put the DVD back to shelf and walked away.

I thought - I can get this DVD from somewhere else.

I haven’t counted… but I think this DVD shoppe has lost quite a bit of money, which some other stores have got. But… if that boycott shoppe want to have $5 and problems instead of a customer who has insane urge to buy stuff, then fine by me. Who am I to tell them what to do?

This reminds me about something. Going to see if I can get Samurai Champloo in my hands.

From some other store than the boycott shoppe, naturally.

Pretty crazy what $5 can lead into.

Creating games has many beneficial things in life (whether or not you plan to sell any games): team work, social skills, organizing work, creativity, writing, networking skills… and tons of more.

I started to ponder the most important lesson/experience/thing I’ve got from gaming.

I don’t know what the answer for me is… but somehow I feel that the possibility to share things (and rant about them) together with people and friends must rank pretty high in my list.

Or just rants.

Can’t decide.

Maybe it boils down to experience sharing.

What you’ve got from this thing we call “game dev”?

No matter how experienced we become, it’s pretty darn hard to predict the future. Or anything where you have variable “human” in it.

Yesterday, I made a blog post about how many computers we really need and it quickly got several replies. It’s not super-much, but several replies is several replies. I didn’t expect those. I certainly didn’t expect seeing “DVDs are history” comment there.

Similarly, I wasn’t expecting so many positive comments on newsletter hack thing.

I think this goes for bigger scale as well. I was watching some music publisher guy saying that when they took Apocalyptica under their wings, they estimated that this band could sell perhaps 4000 units - so they tried it. They ended up selling something like million units or whatever. And this guru had long experience from the scene.

As Gandalf said: “Even the very wise cannot see all ends.”

(He also said “My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill before this is over.”, but let’s not get stuck in that.)

Prediction is very hard, especially about the future.