News of the Day, July 2, 2009

Video Games

Social game Mafia Wars hits 4 million daily users and Playfish installs 100 million games in 18 months : More proof that social media may be one of the most fertile arenas of the gaming industry around today. Another one is sports games: 2K Sports NBA 2K9, which is available on all major gaming platforms except the Nintendo ones, has surpassed 2 million in sales, a figure which probably would be much higher if there were a Wii version.

No More Heroes, a major hit for the Wii, may be moving away from that platform and toward Microsoft's Project Natal - the company behind the game says they've "done all they can" with the Nintendo device. Which raises the question of the future of "hardcore gaming" on the Wii - will other developers follow the lead of Grasshopper Manufacture and take their non-casual games to the motion-enabled Xbox? It's a possible future trend worth watching.  

Job Market

Bad news job-statistics wise: There were 467,000 jobs lost in June, the first time in four months that the number of jobs lost rose from the previous month. The statistic was about 100,000 more jobs than expected, too, and unemployment is at its highest levels since 1983. Definitely a sign we're not out of the woods yet recession-wise.

Publishing

The parent companies of the Chicago Tribune and Dallas Morning News have formed an ad-sharing partnership, hoping to entice national advertisers with the promise of gaining visibility in several major cities with a single ad buy. It means fewer jobs in the ad departments of these papers, but it may save a lot of jobs on the writing end.

Another high-profile magazine has vanished - hip-hop bible Vibe abruptly shut down earlier this week. However, there may be hope for its staffers: Superproducer Quincy Jones, who founded the publication more than 20 years ago, said he is trying to buy it back and reopen it. Seeing any closed magazine get a second chance in this climate is always a good thing, so hopefully, Jones will succeed.  

Technology

Joost has announced it will provide 'white-label' content hosting for video providers, meaning a cable or satellite company can host its content on Joost under its own label. This shifts their focus from content provider to content host, and is probably the only way they can survive after losing the battle with Hulu.

Media

A conference focused on the intersection of the film, comics, video game and television industries, sponsored by ICv2, will be held in San Diego on the eve of Comic-Con. The main focus will be on cross-media opportunities for comics providers, but the very fact that such a conference exists shows how seriously cross-media synergy is being taken by the entertainment industry as a whole. (Of course, sometimes it can be taken too far: Universal has serious plans to produce a game based on Asteroids).  

Social Media

Twitter increases API limit: Tweetdeck users are reporting that their hourly API call limit has been increased from 100 to 150 per hour, even though there's been no official announcement from Twitter yet.

- Bonnie   

Comments

[Steven Savage]

I'm curious as to the No More Heroes news - as the sequel is going to be on the Wii - but Suda 51 says that he has ideas going out to NMH 5.

Then again NHM started as an X-box game, but I'm curious. NHM has the mark of a potentially big multimedia property so they may want more exposure.