iGame Radio

 

What’s inside this episode:

• Host Omaha Sternberg and co-host Corey Tamas of Macgasm talk about the week’s news in Mac and iOS gaming. First up, Steve Jobs’ offered Apple his resignation letter this past week. Omaha and Corey talk about his resignation and the impact Jobs and Apple has made on gaming on the Mac and iOS over the years.
• Omaha reports back about last weekend’s PAX Prime, the huge gaming convention in Seattle. Summary: no one makes fun of Mac games anymore.

Music Notes:

• Digital Droo produced our theme music here at iGame Radio.
• Pedro Camacho featured some of his game demo music.
• Rich Carlson featured music from Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space.

 

What’s inside this episode:

• Host Omaha Sternberg and co-host Corey Tamas talk about the week’s news in Mac and iOS gaming. First up, Omaha and Corey talk about the recent purchase of PopCap by EA. Omaha has a great wedding gift for PopCap…listen to find out what.
• The freemium freakout of traditional games continues. What games are next, and why are games traditionally sold at retail or with monthly subscriptions suddenly going freemium?
• Mac OSX Lion will break compatibility with older games that haven’t been upgraded to Universal status. Why, and what can you do about it?
• If you are in your 40′s and play games, do you think you’re weird? NBC’s Today Show thinks so. Find out what Corey and Omaha think.
• Whoa! What happened over at EVE Online?? We tease through the debacle to get to the meat of the issue.
• The uDevGames contest is live! Omaha gives a quick update about the contest.
• Omaha and Corey talk about games that they’ve played in the past week, and Omaha reveals the poll results from last week.

Music Notes:

• Digital Droo produced our theme music here at iGame Radio.
• Michael Hu-wong featured music from Fizzball.
• Tom McLeod featured music from Cooties, available from the iTunes App Store.

My good friends at MacGamer posted an interesting article today regarding the ongoing issues with the sale of second-hand games, being those games that consumers have purchased legitimately, and then choose after having played them to sell to another person. Corey Tamas spoke with Bungie’s Marty O’Donnell, the man who created the music for the newly released Halo Reach (and all Halo’s before it), about his views regarding this practice.

O’Donnell pointed to a practice in the industry in which the publisher determines that it must sell a certain number of the developer’s games per retail store in order to have recouped the expense of the development cycle. However, as O’Donnell states:

The publisher dictates to the developer that 50 people per store need to purchase the game in order for them to recoup and then share profits. The developer believes that their game will be played by 50 people per store. The publisher knows that they recoup their costs after the first 25 are sold. A retailer buys 25 copies and gets a small margin from the publisher. Then the same retailer buys those copies back from consumers and sells them again at a discount to 25 new consumers. On these sales the retailer gets a huge margin. The small developer needed 50 people to buy and play the game from that store and they did, however the store only shared from the first 25 purchases. Publisher is covered, retailer is doing fine but the developer is out of luck.

Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but it seems to me that this points to an atrocious behavior pattern on the part of the publisher, not on the relationship between the retailer and the consumer. After all, it is the publisher who dictated terms to the developer that they knew they needn’t have dictated in order to have recouped their expenses. The publisher required the sale of 50, not 25, games in order to recoup expenses…even though that wasn’t needed.

Obviously, as Tamas states himself in the article, this is not an issue that will be solved in one article, or a month. But certainly the more articles and discussions that are had, the more problems about the issue can be teased out. And the more solutions can ultimately be discovered.

Part 1  

Part 2  

What’s inside this episode:

• Whoah! We had so much to talk about today that we had to split it into two different podcasts. Part 1 covers Apple’s announcements today regarding App Review guidelines and developer license agreement changes, the Game Center launch, and the Mini Ninjas review. Part 2 covers the interview with Chris Hazard of Hazardous Software and the coverage of PAX 2010.
• Omaha reviews Mini Ninjas by Feral Interactive. A true family adventure game pitting you against the evil samurai warlord. Save all those innocent critters and run your little ninjas around in circles!
  
• Chris Hazard of Hazardous Software returns to chat about his publishing strategy. Shared by an increasing number of Indie game developers (such as Wolfire Games), the pre-release model releases betas of the game to gamers that pre-order. We talk about how such a model works, how much work is involved in development and in communication with users, and how gamers work with the model.

Show Notes:

• Host Omaha Sternberg chats with co-host Corey Tamas of MacGamer about Apple’s announcements this morning, including the release of their App Review guidelines, changes to their developer license that will allow third-party tools for app development, and their promise for more transparency.
• Game Center was launched yesterday…with no games. Within 24 hours over 30 games now populate the Game Center network, but why didn’t those games show up upon launch? Corey and Omaha tease their way through the miasma. And Omaha complains about the horn.
• PAX, that Nirvana of gaming goodness, was last week, and Omaha got to go. No, there was no orgy. Unless you consider an Expo floor full of games, rooms full of tabletop gaming, and floors filled with gaming consoles and PCs with gamers gaming an orgy!

Music Notes:

• Digital Droo produced our theme music here at iGame Radio.
• Rich Carlson featured music from Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space.
• Digital Droo featured music from Neon Tango.

 

What’s inside this episode:

• Corey Tamas of MacGamer gives a review of GodFinger for the iPhone by ngmoco. Use your finger to be god. I mean, what else would you use your finger for? Make charming critters worship you, then roast them when you had a bad day. All for free!
  

Show Notes:

• Omaha Sternberg and Corey Tamas of MacGamer talk about the iPhone 4 first impressions. Despite over 1.7 million iPhones sold in 1.5 weeks, only 48 apps have been updated for iOS4. What gives? Omaha and Corey talk about what that means. Also, what do people think about the gyroscope, multitasking, and retina display so far?
• OnLive is live. But Omaha can’t connect. Find out why.
• Feral Interactive has announced a teaser for their next game announcement, and Omaha thinks she knows what it is.
• Virtual Programming reissued X3: Reunion as a native Mac port because they didn’t feel the Cider was “good enough”. Omaha and Corey talk about what the means, and whether this is the start of a trend.
• Contests! More contests than you can shake a crashed iPhone at!

Music Notes:

• Digital Droo produced our theme music here at iGame Radio.
• Matt Jarvis for featuring music from Osmos.
• Bobby “Glorian” Slavov and Victor Stoyanov for featuring music from Eschalon: Book 1.

 

 

What’s inside this episode:

• Due to the length of the podcast, it had to be cut into two parts. The first part has the second half of the Tales of Monkey Island review and coverage of the iPhone 4 pre-orders. The second part has the interview with Chris Hazard of Hazardous Software and coverage of E3.
• Omaha revisits Tales of Monkey Island by TellTale Games to complete her review. Even with the graphical issues, the game comes off with the same engaging charm and deep storyline that Mac gamers have come to love in the Monkey Island series.
  
• An interview with Chris Hazard of Hazardous Software about Achron. Hazardous Software just recently released an experimental port of their time-traveling game to the Mac. Omaha discusses the port, how the game has been developing, and what Chris has learned since the last time iGame Radio spoke with him.

Show Notes:

• Omaha Sternberg and Corey Tamas of MacGamer talk about the iPhone 4 pre-orders. Servers down, interminable wait times to pre-order, no white iPhone included (Corey doesn’t care!), and purchase information security broken all over the place. But, hey, 600,000 pre-orders in one day!
• E3 used to be a place Mac gamers could look at from far away and just dream. Now dreams can become reality. Omaha and Corey talk about what actual Mac games were shown at E3, and what games announced might turn out for the Mac in the future.
• Corey finally got his iPad months after Omaha got hers. But he can still brag that he can tether.

Music Notes:

• Digital Droo produced our theme music here at iGame Radio.
• Rich Carlson featured music from Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space.
• Digital Droo featured music from Neon Tango.

 

What’s inside this episode:

• A review of Tales of Monkey Island, part 1 for the Mac by TellTale Games. A point-and-click adventure game of swashbuckling fun, danger on the high seas, talking demonic skulls, and manatee bile. Wait…what? And more visual bugs than you can stick a cutlass through.
  

Show Notes:

• Omaha Sternberg and Corey Tamas of MacGamer talk about the WWDC, the imminent announcement of the iPhone 4G, and the potential new games we might see on the iPhone and iPad.
• Aspyr is looking for Mac game developers for a new AAA title that they are bringing to the Mac from the PC. No one knows what it is yet, but Omaha and Corey make their guesses. What’s yours?
• Hand of Greed released an HTML5 web demo for the touch screen of their game, first of it’s kind. Check it out!
• NPD reported that 4% of gamers play in the Extreme Gamer category…48 hours of gameplay a week. Can you work and play that much?
• Looking to buy an iPhone or iPad soon? If the FTC has it’s way, you might just be paying 5% extra…to save newspapers.
• Jeff Vogel of Spiderweb Software talks about the inspiration for his new game, Avadon the Black Fortress. One word. Psychosexual.

Music Notes:

• Digital Droo produced our theme music here at iGame Radio.
• Digital Droo for featuring music from Burning Monkey Solitaire.
• Rich Carlson for featuring music from Dr. Blob.

 

What’s inside this episode:

• A review of Farm Frenzy 2 for the iPhone by Alawar Entertainment. An addictive time management game that let’s you raise animals, refine their goods, then sell them on the market and buy more. Beware of the bears falling from the sky. They come to kick your chickens around!
• Also Corey covers the issues with ngmoco’s We Rule, the iPhone-based MMOG. Server downtimes, app crashes, level caps, lack of help files, and difficult touch screens haven’t stopped Corey from becoming addicted. He just wishes ngmoco would, you know, fix some of these issues.

Show Notes:

• Omaha Sternberg and Corey Tamas talk more about Steam for the Mac. about yesterday’s launch of Steam for the Mac. More games, speed issues, Portal bugs, and stability are all discussed.
• Corey complains about Blizzard’s remote auction house app. The end of the world? Well, ruins the strategy at least…
• Latest games released, delayed, and updated.

Music Notes:

• Digital Droo produced our theme music here at iGame Radio.
• Digital Droo featured music from Active Lancer; pick up the Active Lancer soundtrack
• John Gatti for featuring music from El Ballo; pick up the El Ballo soundtrack

 

What’s inside this episode:

• A review of Warships: Sea on Fire by I-Play. Hey, you sunk my battleship! Great concept, but does it play out that way on your iPad? Listen and find out.
• And a review of Grand Chase Lite by Ntreev, the free iPhone version of the free to play MMORPG. Sometimes, you get what you pay for.
• Plus, a review of Inotia 2: Wanderer of Luone, by Com2uS. The sequel to Chronicles of Inotia: Legend of Feanor, even more content and graphics for your iPhone. Which means even more for you to have to look for on your iPhone. And those monsters…a farmer’s dream, a gamer’s nightmare.
  

Show Notes:

• Omaha Sternberg and Corey Tamas of MacGamer talk about Roger Ebert and his “get off my lawn” column about games and art.
• Gizmodo and the iPhone…nothing to do about games, but whoa, are they in trouble?
• With all those iPhone and iPad games coming out, bet you don’t know about the cool Mac games released just this week! Omaha and Corey chat about them.
• Valve, Steam, and the Mac. Yep. It’s almost the end of April. So where’s our Steamin’ Mac??
• Corey calls out fellow writer Tom Herring on We Rule.

Music Notes:

• Digital Droo produced our theme music here at iGame Radio.
• Rich Carlson featured music from Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space.
• Digital Droo featured music from Neon Tango

 

What’s inside this episode:

• An interview with Paul Hutson of Outer Empires about updates to the online SciFi game, including news about the new Galactic Council. You, too, can run for a seat…if you have 1.25 million credits to spare.

Show Notes:

• Omaha Sternberg and Corey Tamas talk about the iPhone OS 4.0 announcement and what the Game Center and iAd will mean for gamers and game developers.
• Corey grills Omaha about her new iPad, what features she likes and doesn’t.
• Omaha talks about her first impressions of some of the iPad games she has played.

Music Notes:

• Digital Droo produced our theme music here at iGame Radio.