the future of video games

The video game industry will always be around. There is always going to be people who enjoy playing games of any type that will keep the gaming industry alive. Video games are actually starting to bring in more money than the rest of the entertainment market. The Guardian, a UK magazine, wrote an article last year about the video game industry taking over but still being the punching bag of the industry. "Last year will go down in history as the point at which the UK videogames industry pulled decisively away from cinema, recorded music and DVD sales to become the country's most valuable purchased entertainment market, with combined software and hardware sales topping the £4bn mark for the first time: more than DVD and music sales combined, and more than four times cinema box office takings."

I did some article searching to see what people are thinking the future of virtual worlds and gaming worlds are going to be like. I found some articles, some that sucked, others that rocked, three of them are listed before. Everyone is in agreement that video games will be all virtual, that the person playing wouldn't be able to tell apart reality from virtual reality. Other articles talk about a combining of different virtual worlds, the new 3-D tvs and virtual reality blending with augmented reality.

As cool and awesome as that sounds and as much as that reminds me of the science fiction novels I read and love, I cannot see 3-D, virtual reality and augmented reality as booming trends in the video game industry that would last for a long time. Personally, as someone who plays video games, I would rather hold a controller in my hand with no sort of science fiction aspects involved. I prefer an old school and more traditional approach to playing video games. However I think it would be an awesome way to watch a movie!!

Some interesting articles:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Video-Games-and-Future-Realistic-Augmented-Reality-Considered&id=4497594
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/predictions-on-the-exciting-future-of-video-game-design.html
http://gear.ign.com/articles/965/965595p1.html

The Future of Virtual Worlds

Within the next ten years, I imagine every business will have a virtual world presence just as most businesses have websites today. In Life beyond Second Life, Paul R. La Monica mentions that most likely only a few companies will hold most of the market share of the virtual world market. I agree with this. As participating in virtual societies become more common, I think three distinct communities with differentiating purposes will emerge, and businesses will acquire a presence on all three. The leading three communities will be broad enough to allow everyone to join, but will contain mini-communities for people so people can participate in things that interests them most. 

How will virtual worlds make money in the future?
There will be many avenues for virtual worlds to generate income, but I can see virtual worlds teaming with computer hardware providers to gain a profit. Tech companies will produce devices (or even specialized computers) that will enhance the experience of virtual gaming. Some virtual worlds may even say, Best experienced on a ‘SecondLife-Optimized-Mac’.

Virtual Gaming

Virtual gaming has increasingly become more popular as they develop these types of games more. I think in 5 or 10 years these games will either be just as popular or even more popular. The games now are also becoming more realistic, obviously making them more appealing to people. I don't think their popularity will lessen at all because people have always wanted an escape from life at times, and now this is a perfect opportunity to do just that.

As for the money, I do believe these games will continue to make just as much or even more money than they are making now. For example, the game World of Warcraft. I always of course knew it existed having heard of some people playing but it wasn't until recently that I saw just how much people played it. It's a game that has thousands addicted and even sacrificing eating and sleeping for it. They can play for unlimited time as long as they pay an affordable fee monthly, which keeps its players coming back happily. The makers of this game make a ton of money and their fan base has only gotten larger. Also Xbox 360 allows you to play their games with anyone, anywhere, live and make an account that you pay monthly or yearly for. The console costs money. The game costs money. The account costs money. And the makers gain a vast amount for it. This has all only gotten more popular and more expensive and i really see it just getting more popular in the future.

Virtual Gaming and Worlds

For some odd reason, the Industry of gaming itself seems to think that motion controls are the future of their craft. Although these motion controls such as Nintendo's Wiimote, Sony's Move, and Microsoft's Kinect can be extremely fun (I own a Wii), I just don't see them lasting very long. The simple reason for this is that these new control methods were created to bring in more casual gamers, or people who aren't gamers at all. But people who didn't play video games to begin with, didn't play them for a reason.

People who have been playing video games for years started out using a controller with buttons, and most likely want it to remain that way. Personally, if I wanted to exercise or snowboard or something, I would go out and do it, because its much more engaging than pretending to while holding a wand that senses my movements. And vise versa, if I wanted to play a game, I would pick a controller and press buttons, not jump around or wave my arms. Also, the better scored games, or the games with higher ratings and popularity, don't use motion controls at all. So hopefully in the next 5-10 years the buzz about motion controls will die down a bit.

As far as people making real money from virtual worlds, that will probably continue to happen, as long as updates and expansions to these online worlds are created to keep users coming back for more. If the worlds are never updated, and users stop logging in, then I see this disappearing, its all up to the developers to keep this trend going.

Virtual Gaming

Video gaming is a powerful industry. When a popular video game is released it can rake in more money than a new movie can.

i.e. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/14/business/la-fi-warfare-game14-2010jan14

Second Life gaming is something that attracts a lower age group in their teens. These games become popular only because they are addicting. They will probably hang around for a while until the fad ends.

The world of gaming is changing rapidly. Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony are all implementing motion controllers for their games now. It is very exciting because it is an advancement in technology but I don't believe it will take over the entire industry of gaming. People like to play video games because they like to sit down and use a controller and not move. The best games for video game systems aren't ones with motion controllers.

Microsoft has introduced Kinect which reads the users body movement without controls, it uses a heat sensor camera to sync your body movement to the game on screen. That is the closest the video game industry is to being in virtual reality right now. The graphics of video games get better and better and I feel that the standard controller with buttons and joysticks will outlast motion controllers and heat sensing cameras as controllers also. The anti-controller movement may have a future but a majority of video game enthusiasts play video games because they want to sit down and play, not have to move arms legs, etc. I don't think video games will ever get old to the people who play them.

Assignment for 11/2

Gaming & Virtual Worlds

Read:
http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/14/news/companies/virtualworlds/index.htm

Write:
Where do you think virtual worlds or gaming will be in five years? Ten years?
People are making money in Second Life and Gaming platforms, will that continue? Why?

Karmaloop

Karmaloop was founded in 1999 by Greg Selkoe. Currently Karmaloop is based out of Boston, Massachusetts. Karmaloop is an online re-seller of underground urban street wear offering clothing for men and women. According to www.karmaloopboston.karmaloopblogs.com their mission is to provide their customers with the best brands and products that represent the cutting edge culture they live, breathe, and love. When it comes down to it, Karmaloop sells clothing that you will not find at your local mall. They pretty much focus on being a desired online boutique.

Their products include jackets, jeans, t-shirts, hats, accessories, hard to find shoes and much more. Their online store offers more than 250 brands. Not only does Karmaloop sell clothing, but they also provide online information and reviews on current and new fashion trends. Also to add to their bragging rights, Karmaloop was ranked 196 in the Internet Retailer’s 2010 Top 500.

Just recently Karmaloop opened a flagship store located on Newbury Street in Boston, Massachusetts. They primarily receive most of their revenue by their online store. Karmaloop tends to run banner ads on their website. These banners allow them to pick up more cash by advertising brand names such as Nike and or Adidas. I believe this is how they bring in most of their income. Based off of their ranking with Internet Retailer’s 2010 Top 500, coming in at 196 out of 500 shows they are doing something right to make some good profit.

Check out their site... www.karmaloop.com

Netflix

Netflix is now an online business. They actually make a decent profit considering their product is very "cheap". Their membership starts at 8.99 and you can rent one DVD at a time but then it goes up and you can do 13.99 and you can get two DVDs at once and then watch instantly online. Most people keep the DVDs a lot longer because there are no late fess. So this process works out well for the company they do not have to buy a lot of DVDs of it. I have netflix and I know this is the best money I have ever spent. Movies come right to me in the mail and then when I am done I can just put them right back in the mail. This company is making a lot of money for this type of business.

Travelzoo

Travelzoo is an internet based company that’s goal is to inform their over 18 million subscribers of the best travel and entertainment deals. Membership is free for this site, but they bring in all their revenue from advertising fees. They do make a profit off of this site. Their advertising fees, from what I understand are their partnerships with airlines, hotels, cruise lines, etc. When a deal is run through Travelzoo, I believe the different companies pay for their company to be the advertised flight, train, cruise, hotel, etc. They inform the subscribers of the deals through several international sites including in the UK, USA, Europe and Australia. A weekly newsletter called the Top 20 is sent out informing the subscribers of the best 20 travel deals each week. Through these advertised deals is how the site makes revenue. They also network with several third party sites to increase their visibility and click through rates, which is another way to bring in revenue.

Go Daddy

Go Daddy is a website domain register a web hosting business. It was founded in 1997 by Bob Parsons and are based out of Scottsdale, Arizona. It now manages over 4 million domain names and is now the largest I-CANN or Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Go Daddy makes its money by selling domain names to those who wish to create new websites. There mission is provide a service that allows others to create websites that are open to the public. They have used interesting marketing strategies to sell their websites service. Mainly using good looking women to get people to come to their site, these girls have come to be known as Go Daddy Girls. This is an interesting way to market a web site and one that has obviously been very successful.

Threadless

Threadless is an online company that is half graphic t-shirt seller, and half art contest. All of there designs come from artwork submissions to the site by the public and the best are chosen to be sold on their site. The person who submitted the artwork receives $2000 cash, $500 in Threadless credit,an additional $500 every time there design is reprinted, and full recognition for his/her artwork; if there design is chosen.And even if you are not artistic they have submissions for unique phrase t-shirts at a reward of $500. So everyone can participate.

It's a rather unique business model in that all of there product is essentially created by their users. They make money from there sales of the shirts and have a decent reward program for the people who submit there designs. In the process they have a product line that is extremely unique and fun.

Netflix

Netflix has been around for a while and did not start as a web based company, but the principal is pretty much the same. Plus, they have now moved into their new promo of renting movies online and you can “watch them instantly” on your computer, iphone or ipad.

Originally, you would start a cheap monthly subscription for $7.99, similar to that of a magazine, and every month you would get a new movie in the mail after you sent your previous movies back. It has been putting movie rental stores out of business and also is a top competitor for Comcast On Demand rentals. Unlimited movies is just 2 dollars extra a month.

They have no late fees or due dates so they are making their money off of membership fees. I think they are in it to make money and not just pay the bills. Besides cable companies, there is no other online Movie Store that is a top competitor with Netflix that I can recall. Unless they are getting movies from Itunes or downloading them for free elsewhere.

Amazon

Amazon is a large company dedicated to online purchasing. The mission of this company is to allow people to buy and sell anything they desire online with affordability, safety and ease. Amazon started off small and didn't really start to impact the market until a few years after its release. But when it did, it had tremendous amounts of success.

They make a profit by taking a small percent of the earnings made from already discounted items. And because Amazon is so reliable, people will trust it for its pricing, safe use and wide variety of products. People will even sooner go to Amazon than the company's website they are buying a product from. I know i personally wont buy anything from the internet most of the time unless its from Amazon. The more people trust and buy from Amazon, the more they can profit.

Groupon

With groupon.com, their revenue model is pretty straight-forward but unique. This is an online version of those discount entertainment books that our parents used to buy.

Essentially, everyday groupon.com offers a deal from local vendors (restaurants, activities, memberships, etc...) from which they take a commission. What's interesting is that the deal isn't active unless there are enough people interested in purchasing it - giving the incentive to share that deal with friends and family. This is also beneficial for vendors as they can set a minimum purchase number so they're aware of how many offers were sold and at what they made at minimum. There is also a time limit set in order to purchase the "deal of the day".

Songbird

While searching for an iTunes replacement a few years ago, I discovered Songbird. Songbird is a multi-media player and a web browser. With each new build, Songbird integrates more add-ons that make the distinction between media player and web browser harder to identify.

Below is a screenshot of Songbird in use: 

The mission of Songbird is to create a more open, and neutral, media sharing and web browsing experience. The device that a person interacts with should not affect their ability to experience the media that he or she possesses. Songbird describes this point perfectly here:

“Current media players such as iTunes, Windows Media Player and Zune are proprietary, single‐vendor, vertically‐integrated silos, excluding any competitive services and devices. If Web browsers had been designed like current media players, Internet Explorer would surf only Microsoft.com and run only on the Xbox.”

http://wiki.songbirdnest.com/Getting_Started_with_Songbird/01_Introduction_to_Songbird

Since Songbird is open source, how does Songbird make money? And how are their talented developers paid? In their frequently asked questions forums, I found that songbird makes money by: 

• Sequoia Capital, Atlas Venture, and donations
• 7digital, Songbird’s iTunes music store equivalent (http://us.7digital.com/)
• Songbird Store that sells Songbird merchandise (http://getsongbird.com/gear.php)
• Partnerships with devices that Songbird is installed on and with add-ons that Songbird provides (http://addons.songbirdnest.com/)

On the official website the management of Songbird said that as Songbird becomes more popular and more available, they hope to generate more creative ways to make money. Until then, their model closely resembles the way that most open-source organizations generate a profit.

Google

Google started out as a simple search engine and evolved into a massive corporation. They are the Microsoft of the internet world, in my opinion, and they have a hand in everything from searching the web to mobile phones. Their main revenue is probably from software development and their Android phones. They released their phone OS a few years ago and it gave way to the now popular Droid mobile phone. Google is the most popular search engine on the web by a wide margin. They make money from their "Adsense" program as well. They allow people to place "Google Ads" on their sites that automatically use ads relevant to the website they're placed on. Its interesting how a simple idea for a website like Google can turn into an international corporation with a wide control of the internet. Google also recently bought youtube.

TeeFury

TeeFury is a web based company where they have new daily t shirts up for sale for around 9 dollars. Everyday a new t shirt is posted, only one, and after the day passes its gone. All in all TeeFury.com's mission is to sell you a fun creative t shirt created by artists from all over. Not only do they sell your work on a t shirt but they promote the artist that designed it. They show other works by the artist and a few quick paragraphs from him so you can get a feel about the person that made it, it gives you a closer feel to everything which is a great idea.

Another reason as to why people buy these t shirts is because they are only available for one day and then its gone, most sites have sites up for forever mostly, but the idea that you only have so much time to get this shirt is really smart because you dont want to miss out on it. I know its worked on me, I buy alot of my shirts from this site.

YouTube

I would consider YouTube to be a well-established communication website. As most people know, one can create an account, post videos, and have those videos "liked," "disliked," and commented on. One can also do all these things on other people's videos as well. Youtube puts ads on everyone's videos as well as charges users for a premium accounts so that they can post videos longer than 10 minutes, and this is how they make their income.

YouTube is also now in a partnership/ownership with Google. Every time one logs into YouTube it asks the user to merge their YouTube account with their Google mail account. This opens up the opportunity to send mail to the users gmail account as another means to make income through mail advertisements.

Expedia

My web-based company is called Expedia. It is an online travel company website where people can book their airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, cruises, vacation packages, and various attractions.

Expedia makes money by charging a fee per transaction, by purchasing the travel inventory such as plane tickets and hotel stays from the travel provider at a discounted price and/or by charging the customer a premium on top the original price.

Base on the Wiki analysis, Expedia is struggled to remain profit because of the higher fuel prices and lower consumers demand for travel. Further, Expedia has intensive competitions such as Priceline, Oribitz, and Travelocity that also drive for the same goal discount airlines.

They plan to make a profit by continuing to offer loyalty programs and lots of discount to various marketers ranging from families with children to luxury travelers.

Amazon

Amazon is a well known established online e-commerce company. It was founded in 1994 and launched just a year later in 1995. It is by far one of America's largest online retailer. The company's original plan was different than other online businesses. They did not expect to make a profit for the first four to five years. It slowly but surely grew and stockholders complained the company was not making a profit fast enough. As many online companies went out of business Amazon still stood strong.

They began as an online bookstore for easier convenience. The company was named "Amazon" for being the worlds largest river in hope their business would grow to be just as large. In 2000 Amazon logo had an arrow leading from the letters A to Z. This arrow represents a smile and the letters A to Z was a goal to have every product in the alphabet. Amazon is well-known for just books now so the letters in the logo no longer exist but the arrow for the smile is still there to represent customer satisfaction with a smile. Amazon sells just about everything. They sell products such as books, music, movies, software, electronics, kitchenware, tools, lawn/garden items, toys, baby products, apparel, sporting goods, gourmet food, jewelry, health and personal-care items, beauty products, instruments, clothing, industrial/scientific supplies, and groceries.

Not only can you purchase on amazon but you also sell. Amazon makes money by taking a small percentage of each item sold on the website. Since they get millions of visitors a day they make a huge profit. Their popularity has grown throughout the years as well did their market share. Those who used to sell on ebay now sell on amazon. Amazon is now worldwide and have quickly become a household name