News Analysis

Eurospeak

Develop! 99: When Lampposts Attack

Develop! Highlights. The weekend of the 26th saw the latest annual Develop! conference in London, and the European industry proved that no matter how important a guest speaker may be, it's still not enough to get them out of bed early on the weekend. This year's keynote speaker was Bruno Bonnell, head honcho of Infogrames - or at least, he was supposed to be the keynote until three days out from the event he cancelled for "private" reasons. It was therefore with a gratifying sense of irony that we (I helped to organize the speakers for the event) managed to get arch-rival Hervé Caen from Titus to step in at the last minute. Thankfully, the rest of the show managed to go pretty much to plan, with a pleasing number of attendees proclaiming it to be the best ever. The presentation with the largest attendance was, unsurprisingly, SCEA big cheese Phil Harrison's discussion of the PlayStation 2. There were few genuinely draw-dropping revelations though (especially considering Jez San's presentation asserting a 3:1 'bullshit factor' in the official performance figures of all the next-generation consoles). One of the more revealing points was the lack of a generic modem in the machine. Apparently the customer will be expected to purchase variously speeded devices separately. Also revealing was Phil's curious refusal to answer how many controller slots the machine will have because that would reveal too much about the console's mechanical design. Other stand-out presentations included The Fatman's (a.k.a. George Sanger's) treatment on the future of in-game music given in the style of Southern Baptist rhetoric, as well as Stephen Reid's uncompromising assessment of the average AOL user's mental faculties.

Unfortunately, Develop! 99 will probably be best remembered for the speakers who did not attend. Just a week before the conference, Mark Kenwright (ex-boss of DID) met with a nasty car accident that has left him with a serious back injury. After being rammed from behind by an army truck, Kenwright now faces eight to twelve weeks of physical therapy and recovery. Then on Saturday, as he drove to the conference center to give his speech, Peter Molyneux managed to prang his car against a lamppost, which resulted in some hospital downtime and a trendy new neck brace. Molyneux is already up and about, but his infamous driving skills have yet again been proven in public – no wonder Hi-Octane turned out to be crap. Of course, neither of these accidents is a laughing matter. The industry can only breath a sigh of relief that serious permanent injury was avoided - we did feel like reminding delegates to drive home carefully by the end of the first day.

Virgin Drops Prices. It seems that some are seriously considering the British public's increasing reluctance to spend £40 and up on a new game. Virgin Megastore has decided to put its money where its mouth is and slash the prices on all its full-price PlayStation titles – although at this point only for the summer. Brand new titles such as Driver, Soul Reaver and V-Rally 2, as well as older titles such as Metal Gear Solid and Tomb Raider III, will now be on sale for a standard price of £29.99 ($47.98). Predictably, the less forward thinking publishers have been up in arms, with Roy Campbell of Infogrames UK commenting in trade magazine MCV that, "Retail always complains that they make no money and that overheads are tight, yet someone goes and does this. It is totally dumb." Virgin is anything but apologetic though, and claims that repeated efforts to solve the pricing problem with publishers and other retailers have led nowhere, so they've decided to take action themselves. As has been pointed out, the average selling price of a new game a year ago (when the Platinum range of budget PlayStation titles was still relatively small) was £38. Today, though, that average has shrunk to £23. One can't help but feel that Virgin has taken the right approach here. No one would dream of selling an ordinary video of a Hollywood film for £45 and still expect to attract a mass market. The excuse that games are expensive to produce is increasingly meaningless to ordinary consumers, as they are perfectly aware that the average Hollywood blockbuster costs hundreds of millions of dollars. Clearly, a balance must be struck within the game industry's currently smaller market place, but change is needed and it'll be interesting to see what results Virgin's move create, especially if other retailers initiate a price-matching scheme.

Screenshot of Metal Gear Solid, which is now available at Virgin Megastores for a more reasonable price of £29.99

Stale Sponsorships at Sega. With the company's strong showing at E3 leading some to wonder whether Sega can break its trend and actually sell a non 16-bit console, it seems unfair to poke fun at its new sponsorship deals. But whoever said life was fair? After the unnecessary financial burden of sponsoring Arsenal, the runners-up in last year's English Premier League, Sega has gone on to sign sponsorship deals with a couple of other European clubs that are currently past their expiration dates. French club St Etienne isn't so bad, but Sega managed to clinch its sponsorship deal with famed Italian club Sampdoria the very year they were relegated from the Series A league for the first time in 17 years.

Eidos and EA in the Sponsorship Game. If you thought that that was an odd choice of team to tie your corporate flag to, Eidos Interactive has decided that Manchester City is the club that most closely mirrors the company's own dynamic and successful history. This decision comes despite the fact that the club has only just managed to claw its way into the First Division (i.e. a division below the Premier League) and is forever in the shadow of neighbor Manchester United. EA, meanwhile, has side-stepped the vagaries of a specific team's performance by becoming an official partner of the newly-opened FA Premier League Hall of Fame. This apparently gives them ownership of the 'EA Sports Virtual Stadium' which will include a number of PlayStation pods featuring EA games. With 750,000 visitors expected in the first year, it looks like this is a much safer bet than Man City ever making it back into the Premier League. And if there's one thing EA knows about, it's safe bets.

The Manchester City football club in action.

New Skirmish in the Virgin/Crave Suit. For anyone that was slightly disappointed by the quick finale of the bizarre legal fracas between Virgin Interactive and their German chief (who they accused of plotting against them), it seems that the fat lady has not quite sung her last on the matter. It now appears that the Hamburg constabulary has raided the home of Christian Gloe (said ex-head of Virgin Interactive in Germany) and the business premises of Crave Germany (one of the companies he was alleged to owe his true allegiance to). Although the Los Angeles Federal Court dismissed Virgin's case against Crave, it appears that the German courts may be have a different view of the situation, indeed Virgin is now apparently trying to sue Crave for at least $30 million – even more than last time.

join | contact us | advertise | write | my profile
news | features | contract work | jobs | resumes | product guide | store



Copyright © 2001 CMP Media LLC. All rights reserved.
privacy policy | terms of service