Gamertell

It’s Earth Day 2008 (April 22, 2008) and the average price of gas around my town (near Cincinnati, Ohio) has finally reached $3.60 per gallon. That means a 14-gallon fill-up now costs $50.40. Yep, the price of the average console videogame.

Which will you try to spend less on, games or gas? Will gamers across the country buy one less game a year to have enough money to drive to work one extra week?

Consider this: Staying home and playing videogames means less time on the road which translates into less time quickly consuming automobile fuel (and polluting)...

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Despite the fact that CNN, Wall Street analysts and even the United States government continue to warn the American people of a possible recession, the video game industry hasn’t gotten the memo yet. Year-by-year, quarterly profits continue to rise for developers, publisher and the industry as a whole in both software and hardware sales across the board.

GameStop announced that its fiscal 2007 financial report increased 33 percent over 2006, bringing in more than $7 billion in revenue

“Our performance in 2007 was impressive from many perspectives,“ R. Richard Fontaine, GameStop Chairman and CEO said in a press release. “But what is particularly noteworthy is that 2007 was a…

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Twofish, Inc. has launched Twofish Elements, which the company claims is a true “Economic Engine.” Twofish Elements is middleware that will allow game developers to securely manage all aspects of in-game microtransactions. The product is targeted at pay-as-you-play game developers who don’t have the time and the resources to develop their own in-house in-game economy management solutions.

Any in-game or add-on purchase can be considered a microtransaction - photo packs, maps, characters, levels or even weapons and items. As many casual online games tend to feature paid downloadable content and virtual items, it becomes imperative to manage these transactions in a secure way. These pay-as-you-play games are just beginning to pick up.

In simple trems, it will help them manage in-game transactions and inventories, and make the microtransactions more secure. The founder and CEO of Twofish, Lee Crawford, told Next-Gen that game developers were realizing that microtransactions are complicated and more important than they thought a yea ago. He also forsees a bigger future for microtransactions (in-game) in the West than in the U.S.

Read [Next-Gen]

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