2015
Company
Documents about 2015
Tales from the Trenches: AI Disaster Stories
This presentation from the 2015 Game Developers Conference (GDC) serves as a post-mortem compilation, focusing on the technical and design failures encountered by artificial intelligence (AI) developers across various industry projects.
- AI development failures often stem from systemic issues like poor communication, lack of domain expertise, and the bypassing of established testing protocols.
- The 'black box' development approach frequently causes AI behavior to disconnect from animation and design intent, leading to unpredictable or broken gameplay.
- Relying on rigid, non-debuggable custom scripting languages creates significant technical debt and prevents developers from effectively diagnosing AI logic errors.
Bust A Cup: Reclaiming Risk in Play
Brian Schrank argues that contemporary "risk society," a term borrowed from Ulrich Beck, has stripped play of beneficial risk, and that games carrying real physical, legal, or perceived danger can help players confront self-imposed limitations.
- Schrank argues that contemporary risk society has drained games and everyday life of meaningful danger, leaving players in cycles of safe, low-stakes interaction while the perceived world grows more threatening.
- He contends that games with real, designed risk can help players confront self-imposed limits, reconfigure physical, spatial, legal, and personal boundaries, and build resilience against fear-based manipulation.
- The central example, Bust A Cup, is a two-player puppet brawl using coffee cups that softens the reality of street combat while preserving its capacity to unsettle and provoke.
Aiming FY2016 Q3 Earnings Presentation
Aiming experienced a challenging fiscal period in the third quarter of 2016, characterized by an operating loss of 693 million yen and a projected full-year deficit.
- Aiming reported an operating loss of 693 million yen for Q3 2016 and projects a deficit for the full fiscal year.
- The company’s financial performance has been volatile, following a 2015 revenue peak of 12.168 billion yen.
- Current losses are driven by increased royalty payments, high advertising costs for new title launches, and content valuation adjustments.
Self-Reflexive Videogames: Observations and Corollaries on Virtual Worlds as Philosophical Artifacts
Stefano Gualeni argues that self-reflexive videogames, meaning titles that use unsettling, convention-subverting gameplay and deliberately exposed constructedness such as glitches and debug information, can serve as philosophical artifacts.
- Gualeni argues that self-reflexive videogames, which expose their own artificiality through subversion and unfamiliarity, can function as philosophical artifacts that prompt critical reflection on both game conventions and modes of thought.
- The argument draws on modernist precedents including Brecht's epic theater, Surrealism, and the Russian Formalist concept of defamiliarization associated with Shklovsky and Pound.
- The essay's main case study, NECESSARY EVIL (2013), casts the player as a disposable minion of evil confined to a room with deliberately non-functional interactions, exposing the player-centric ideology behind many virtual worlds.
Critical Jostling
Videogames can function as critique as well as targets of it, and this essay argues that critical game design can work through reconfiguration.
- Pippin Barr proposes "reconfiguring the remainder" as a critical method: shifting conventional design standards to expose what games omit or take for granted, while keeping the work functional and playable, drawing on Dunne and Raby's critical design and DiSalvo's adversarial design.
- Barr's Jostle Bastard reworks Hotline Miami by replacing killing with non-fatal "jostling" and adding social consequences such as arrest, job loss, eviction, and victim revenge, plus a mundane non-violent life option that makes violence feel unnecessary.
- Jostle Parent reworks the comic parenting scenario of Octodad: Dadliest Catch into an emotionally serious game by letting the player's children die permanently, recorded via gravestones and named children, removing the source's linear, consequence-free narrative.
Capcom FY2016 Q2 Financial Results: Business Divisional Strategies and Projections
The Capcom fiscal year 2016 second-quarter financial results outline the company’s performance for the six-month period ending September 30, 2015, and detail strategic projections for the remainder of the fiscal year.
- Capcom experienced a decline in operating profit from 4.4 billion yen to 2.8 billion yen for the six-month period ending September 30, 2015, despite revenue increasing to 31.6 billion yen.
- The company's operating margin dropped significantly from 16.9% to 9.0% due to rising development costs, underperforming pachislot machines, and higher cost-of-sales ratios.
- Digital content remains the primary revenue driver, highlighted by Monster Hunter 4G reaching 4 million global units and Dragon’s Dogma Online surpassing 1 million downloads within five days of its August 2015 launch.
CAPCOM Co., Ltd. Consolidated Financial Results: 6 Months of Fiscal Year Ending March 31, 2017
Capcom’s consolidated financial results for the six-month period ending September 30, 2016, reflect a transitional phase characterized by a strategic focus on major title releases scheduled for the second half of the fiscal year.
- Capcom's first-half net sales for the six months ending September 30, 2016 fell 9.4% to 28,676 million yen, while operating income dropped 39.7% to 1,715 million yen.
- Ordinary income declined 82.2% and net income attributable to owners of the parent fell 79.2%, driven largely by foreign exchange losses from the yen's appreciation.
- Despite the weak first half, Capcom maintained its full-year forecast of 85,000 million yen in net sales and 9,000 million yen in net income, implying year-over-year growth.
Consolidated Results for the Six Months Ended September 2015 and 2016
Nintendo’s consolidated financial results for the six-month periods ending September 30, 2015, and September 30, 2016, reveal a period of significant operational transition and currency-driven volatility.
- Nintendo reported a 33% decline in net sales to 136.8 billion yen for the six months ending September 30, 2016, resulting in an operating loss of 5.9 billion yen.
- A 62.7 billion yen extraordinary gain from the partial sale of the Seattle Mariners enabled the company to report a net profit of 38.2 billion yen despite operational losses.
- Foreign exchange volatility significantly impacted results, with a strengthening yen contributing to 39.9 billion yen in losses.
Current Report: Conclusion of Significant Distribution Agreement (China)
PlayWay S.A. has formalized a significant distribution agreement with Beijing CE-Asia Co. Ltd, marking a strategic expansion of its software catalog into the Chinese market.
- PlayWay S.A. has signed a non-exclusive distribution agreement with Beijing CE-Asia Co. Ltd to launch eleven software titles and DLC packages into the Chinese market.
- The portfolio focuses primarily on simulation titles, including Car Mechanic Simulator 2015 (Gold edition and DLCs), Farm Expert 2017, Giant Machines 2017, Ships 17, Robot Squad Simulator 2017, and Demolish & Build Company 2017.
- The agreement includes the puzzle-platformer The Way, marking a slight diversification beyond the company's core simulation genre.
Age Report
Quantic Foundry's Age Report is a 55-page paid market research product ($2,499) examining how gaming motivations, genre preferences, and popular titles change as players age, with a particular focus on the growing 35+ gamer segment.
- The report analyzes data from 177,410 gamers to identify how gaming motivations, genre preferences, and popular titles shift across age segments ranging from 15 to 64 years old.
- The sample demographic consists of 82% male, 17% female, and 1% non-binary respondents, with a median age of 25 and a primary focus on core PC gamers.
- The study utilizes a Gamer Motivation Model to track 12 distinct psychological drivers, providing granular breakdowns by gender and age cohorts (15–24, 25–34, 35–44, 45–54, and 55–64).
4 More Key Features Niantic Needs to Add to Pokémon GO to Keep Us Coming Back
Pokémon GO's post-launch engagement problem is the focus of this October 2016 analysis from GameRefinery, which argues that Niantic should add four proven features to sustain player retention and loyalty.
- Daily rewards are essential for retention, with 62% of the top 100 grossing games offering login gifts and 48% utilizing daily quests to drive regular engagement.
- Limited-time in-app purchase (IAP) offers are a critical monetization driver, appearing in 97% of top 100 grossing iOS games as of August 2016, up from 80% in November 2015.
- Competitive features like dynamic leagues and leaderboards are increasingly standard, now present in 56% of top 100 grossing iOS games compared to 43% in late 2015.
How Gram Games evolved its UA strategy to maintaining momentum for its existing games
Gram Games’ user acquisition strategy centers on the iterative evolution of marketing tactics to maintain momentum for mobile titles, specifically transitioning from aggressive burst campaigns to sustainable, data-driven always-on models.
- Always-on UA campaigns outperformed burst campaigns, delivering 20 million installs over two months while simultaneously reducing effective CPI by 10%.
- Burst campaigns can negatively impact long-term metrics; an initial burst campaign for '1010!' increased DAU by 30% but caused a 30% decrease in user lifetime value due to an over-reliance on incentivized traffic.
- Dedicate at least 20% of the total marketing budget to testing new ad networks and inventory sources to avoid exhausting the potential of existing channels.