Author Archives: Steve Murray
The Dollars and Cents of Monument Valley
You might not have heard Monument Valley but the Escher-inspired mobile puzzle game was one of the smash hit mobile games of 2014. It was one of the best rated mobile games of 2014 (that isn’t Hearthstone, anyway) and was the only mobile game to pick up a Game Awards nomination for Best Indie Game.
While they’re becoming more frequent, paid mobile games are more the exception than the rule. Despite costing over $1.4 million to make (including the Forgotten Shores DLC), ustwo Games sold enough copies and made enough money to more than cover the costs and get them on their way to the next game.
The lesson that ustwo Games teaches us with their breakdown of the dollars and cents of Monument Valley is that you don’t have to have a terrible free-to-play play-to-win monetization model on top of a non-existent game to make money in the mobile space. If you build a great game, people will buy.
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PC Gamer Editor Writes About Ubisoft While in a Relationship with Ubi Employee
Sometimes it pays to avoid controversial topics because people will dissect you if you poke the bear. PC Gamer executive editor Tyler Wilde just learned this one the hard way.
Wilde posted a column on PC Gamer advocating for the end of the term “PC Master Race” (while making some comparisons of the term to the Nazis) but I don’t think he expected what the fallout would be. While he had to weather the unfortunately expected personal attacks, he also had his personal life dragged into the matter. That’s because Wilde is dating a communications specialist for Ubisoft while still writing about Ubisoft for PC Gamer without disclosing his relationship.
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Formula E Buenos Aires ePrix: A Race No One Wants to Win
The following post was originally written for The Lowdown and is geared towards a motorsport audience. Most of the analysis is written for that audience rather than a tech crowd so it may not necessarily be for you. That being said, an all-electric motorsports world championship is kind of a big deal so we’re continuing our coverage of Formula E.
When Formula E was announced and the race format detailed, everyone thought that the series’ biggest challenge would be the battery life of the cars. After the championship’s fourth round in Buenos Aires, it looks like the longevity of the suspensions will be the biggest curveball thrown at teams and drivers.
What started as a fairly straight forward race quite quickly degenerated into chaos when the safety car came out after the race’s first suspension failure. After that point, there were four leaders who ascended to the top in a cloud of debris with the final one being Antonio Felix da Costa who scored his first Formula E race win.
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Comic Book Pull List for January 14, 2015
After yesterday’s return of the Game Trailers Roundup, it’s time to bring back another etg. regular post from it’s holiday hiatus. It’s our first look at comics in the new year. Also like the trailers roundup, it’s a bit of a slow week outside the big two.
If adaptations are your thing, this week has lots in store for you. The six-issue Q event comes to an end in Star Trek #40 as the new Enterprise crew joins forces with Captain Sisko against Dukat. Did I mention how much of a DS9 fan I am? Marvel takes its first crack at Star Wars with a new series that bridges Episodes IV and V in Star Wars #1. Yes, I’m almost sure that’s Marvel and not Dark Horse. And DC gives us a couple of video game adaptations with Mortal Kombat X #1 and Fables: The Wolf Among Us #1.
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AGDQ Raises Over $1.5 Million for Charity
A lot of people love gamers who do YouTube let’s plays and Twitch live streaming for a living. Eventually, I’d like to add that stuff to the offerings I do online (under the etg banner or a different pseudonym). For now, though, I’m leaving it to the experts.
The great things about those experts is that they often put their talents to good use. A group of speedrunners joined forces to raise money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation with a week-long speedrunning marathon streamed on Twitch.
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Game Trailers Roundup: January 12, 2015
After a little Christmas and New Year’s break, we’re back with the first game trailers roundup of 2015. Of course, I could have pushed this back another week because new trailers haven’t exactly been plentiful over the last few weeks. However, we have five trailers for some pretty popular games for you to watch today.
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Nintendo Pulls Out of the Brazilian Market
Back in October, we covered complaints over the price of the PlayStation Four and Xbox One in Brazil. As a result of the country’s high import duties and taxes, the PS4, which is priced at $400 in America, costs the equivalent of $1,800 USD in Brazil while the Xbox One jumped in price from $500 to $1,000.
Sony and Microsoft are continuing in the Brazilian market despite very nearly being priced out of it because of the local taxes. On the other hand, Nintendo has decided that the prices caused by high taxes are too much so they are pulling their products from Brazil.
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et geekera’s Most Anticipated Games of 2015
Since we did our look back at 2014 yesterday, it only makes sense to use the next day to look forward. It’s only logical to follow-up on our list of our favourite games of 2014 with a look at the games that we’re most excited about in 2015 with the Most Anticipated Games of 2015.
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et geekera’s Fourteen Favourite Games of 2014
It’s that time of year again. A little later than I intended to completed it, it’s time to look back on the year of gaming that was in 2014 with the annual list of my favourite games of the past twelve months. They may not be the best games of 2014 but they are the ones that I loved the most.
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Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes Review: The Real Next-Gen?
If there’s one thing that will get gamers excited, it’s the words “Hideo Kojima.” The man has generated so much goodwill among gamers for the epic Metal Gear series that he might as well walk on water. Just the announcement of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was enough to launch the hype train to near unprecedented levels.
Then Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes happened. The game was released in March 2014 on console for $30 but it didn’t live up to the hype or the price. What was a very solid experience was overshadowed by backlash over fan criticisms of a lack of value.
And now Ground Zeroes has made its way to PC. It made a big splash with a smaller price tag than the console release and getting a 33% discount on release day thanks to a front page appearance during the Steam Holiday Sale. Can the PC port of Ground Zeroes salvage some of Metal Gear Solid and Kojima’s reputation?
et geekera 