Items tagged with digital distribution
In a further step towards achieving its goal of absolute world sports dominance, the National Football League has announced that they will present a football game during the upcoming 2015 season that will air only on the Internet. Monday, at the annual league owner's meetings being held in Phoenix, the NFL made the decision to sell the rights to the October 4th contest between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Buffalo Bills to a digital distribution company. The Week 7 game, one of three NFL matches that will take place in London during 2015, will begin at 9:30AM EST. For fans in the local Jacksonville and Buffalo markets, the Jaguars-Bills matchup will be broadcast on over-the-air networks. It...
Read more...
Few things are more frustrating than dropping a wad of hard earned cash on a video game only be to disappointed by the crappy graphics, botched controls, uninteresting storyline, or any other shortcoming. In most cases, you're stuck with the title whether you like it or not, especially in this age of digital downloads, but believe it or not, it's Electronic Arts that's pioneering a better way of doing business. Through EA's "Origin Great Game Guarantee," the games publisher promises you'll either enjoy the title you purchased and downloaded, or receive your money back, provided you let the company know in a timely manner. "We hope every game you play on Origin will meet this high bar, and we're...
Read more...
If a tree rejoices in the forest but nobody is around to hear it, does it still sound like jubilation? We may never know the answer, but we imagine there are several of them hootin' and hollerin' to the news that Newsweek is abandoning its print business model and transitioning to all-digital format in "early 2013." Newsweek made the announcement on The Daily Beast, an online rag it merged with in 2012 to create The Newsweek Daily Beast Company. If you're a collector type, keep your eye peeled for the December 31 issue of Newsweek, which will be the final print version. Ever. "Newsweek Global, as the all-digital publication will be named, will be a single, worldwide edition targeted for a highly...
Read more...
In early 2011, Robert Murdoch's News Corp took the wraps off The Daily, a new, iPad-centric newspaper that was supposed to revolutionize the digital news business. Murdoch himself described the paper as "unique mix of text, photography, audio, video, information graphics, touch interactivity and real-time data and social feeds provides its editors with the ability to decide not only which stories are most important." It was also the first app to use Apple's in-app subscription system, which allowed charges to be billed directly to your iTunes account without needing to open another window or register a separate billing service. Now, the company is said to be on the virtual chopping block, with...
Read more...
Game designer Richard Browne has come out swinging in favor of the rumored antipiracy features in the next-gen PlayStation Orbis and Xbox Durango. "The real cost of used games is the damage that is being wrought on the creativity and variety of games available to the consumer," Browne writes. "The real cost of used games is the death of single player gaming." Browne's comments echo those of influential programmer and Raspberry Pi developer David Braben, who wrote last month that "pre-owned has really killed core games... It's killing single player games in particular, because they will get pre-owned, and it means your day one sales are it, making them super high risk. I mean, the idea of a game...
Read more...
Over the last few years, Valve's Steam service has become the go-to location for digital gaming. This transition has generally been viewed positively by PC gamers—mainstream gaming retailers, while scarcely thrilled, have devoted less and less space to PC titles as time has gone on. This positive trend is being bucked in the UK, where angry retailers are calling Steam an unfair, monopolistic service. "If we have a digital service, then I don’t want to start selling a rival in-store,” the digital boss at one of the biggest UK games retailers told mcvuk.com. "Publishers are creating a monster – we are telling suppliers to stop using Steam in their games." Part of this hostility...
Read more...
To say that Steam is doing well would be like saying Bill Gates has a little bit of money saved up. You think? Steam isn't just doing well, it's growing at a phenomenal rate. According to Valve, there are now over 30 million active accounts on Steam, and growing. "Steam is on track to record the biggest year in its six year history," said Gabe Newell, president of Valve. "The year has marked major development advances to the platform with the introduction of support for Mac titles, the Steam Wallet and in-game item buying support, and more. We believe the growth in accounts, sales, and player numbers is completely tied to this work and we plan to continue to develop the platform to offer more...
Read more...
VUDU has been around for years. They were actually one of the first movie-streaming companies to emerge in the last decade, but they never seemed to gather a huge amount of support. Netflix already had a ton of buzz surrounding them, so when they decided to add a streaming option to complement the by-mail service, many flocked to it. Amazon's Video on Demand has also found a small group of supporters, but regardless of the different boxes and technology deployments, VUDU never seemed to get the respect it was due.At least it never got the public respect it was due. Behind closed doors, VUDU has been receiving a great deal of respect and attention, and from the world's largest retailer: Walmart....
Read more...
