Fifth Wall Ventures’ Brendan Wallace and The Real Deal’s Hiten SamtaniThink about the word “landlord.” It connotes a relationship in which the power dynamic is very much tilted in favor of the property owner. Highly coveted space in prized locations is offered up, and rent is paid for the privilege of occupying it.That centuries-old dynamic is now being questioned, with the coronavirus having forced people into a massive remote-work and remote-shopping experiment. The pandemic has wrenched real estate’s ingredients for change out of the slow cooker and into the Instant Pot, according to the head of the largest real-estate focused venture-capital fund.Brendan Wallace is the co-founder of Fifth Wall Ventures, which has over $1 billion under management and has backed startups such as Opendoor (iBuying), States Title (residential closings), VTS (CRE cloud-based portfolio management), Industrious (co-working) and SmartRent (smart homes). The Real Deal caught up with Wallace to discuss these key shifts as well as hear his take on why retail real estate needs a government bailout.This interview was conducted May 3. It has been condensed and edited for clarity.We’re talking right before what would’ve been retail real estate’s prom night, ICSC. The future of retail just looks really, really patchy right now. You’ve made some big bets on brands that started out online [Allbirds, Cotopaxi] and are now moving into brick-and-mortar. [Retail-focused REITs] Acadia, Macerich are some of your investors. And you’ve written a piece on Medium I thought was quite interesting, where you asked for a $30 billion retail bailout. Let’s talk some of those things out.I think what you’re looking at is a potential systemic crisis. The retail ecosystem is comprised of so many different constituents. You have the landlords, but then you obviously have the retailers of all different sizes. All different types and flavors, from the emerging new omnichannel retailers that our fund invests in to the established big-box retailers. Then you have the mortgage lenders, insurance companies, local jurisdictions who collect property taxes. You have the employment base of all the retailers. You have the underlying vendor ecosystem. And I think what’s a little daunting here is that you are, to some extent, looking at a systemic crisis. You have the Covid-19 crisis itself. Literally no people are walking through retail assets.There’s still that fear. There’s still that sense that this is not a safe space.Yeah. And that ties into some of the broader, more, almost sociological and psychological shifts that are afoot. The largest forced adoption of e-commerce since the invention of the internet just happened in the last 45 days. Versus March of last year, e-commerce transaction volumes are up 74 percent. So many of those customers used e-commerce for the first time. It’s almost like we accelerated the e-commerce adoption curve by five years. Plus we compounded it with a psychological fear around being in a public place.On top of that, you have a broad freeze in capital markets for both retailers and retail landlords. You just have to look at the publicly traded equities and the debt values of many of these companies to assess how frozen those markets are. And all of that is taking place in an environment where many people have discussed the death of retail, which I’ve always thought is an overplayed phrase in the press. But what I think is true is that you have retailers that are large rent payers that are both overlevered from a debt perspective and over-stored. Retail footprints are too large and so many of these retailers needed to contract anyway. So when you add all these forces together, you face what could be a pretty systemic crisis.In a more loosey goosey way, it’s also the fabric of a city. What makes a great city is activity, is shopping. If you think of New York, one of your images is probably going to be Madison Avenue, Fifth Avenue.You’re right, it’s the fabric of a city. The street life, the streetscape of having stores is critically important. It’s the ambience of a city. But it’s also a functioning supply chain. If you were to stop goods and services from reaching consumers close to their homes, that’s a national security issue. You can’t stop goods and services from getting to consumers. We have to keep that flow going.You need a brick-and-mortar retail ecosystem to be functioning just to provide the goods and services to consumers. Today, most people are surprised by this, but 10 percent of all U.S. retail is e-commerce. So if all we’re relying on is e-commerce, we’re going to face a national security issue, a public health crisis in and of itself. This is what I would call a social imperative for the government to take action. And it was surprising that they didn’t.But [the Paycheck Protection Program] was a debacle, right? The way the funds were allocated, the graft that happened. Public companies got money from the government when it’s supposed to be for small business loans. So I find it difficult to grapple with, given that we just had this debacle, we’re talking about injecting a further $30 billion into another new program, which again, could be ripe for abuse.There’s probably a big distinction between the PPP and providing government capital to retailers themselves. One distinction is the granularity. The granularity of the PPP program is what makes it very challenging. A lot of these local banks struggle with the volume of applications. And you’re dealing with oftentimes very small businesses. I know there were some exceptions, which is, I think the graft that you’re referring to large companies that probably should not have gotten PPP loans did. And that should’ve been prevented. But the vast majority is going to small businesses.Could you draw a parallel between what you’re talking about and the bailout of the auto industry, where a lot of people have argued that we rescued an industry that didn’t deserve rescue?The similarities are related to jobs. Protecting American jobs is obviously very important. But a portion of the bailout of the automotive industry was around outsourcing. And moving a lot of the production plants abroad, which you can’t really stop from happening. You can’t move a shopping mall abroad. That’s the unique feature of real estate. You can’t move a building. So real estate is inherently local. It depends on immediate access, the walkable or drivable distance to an asset, exactly, as I was describing for that supply chain to function. “You can’t move a building. So it doesn’t matter what your political beliefs are.” So I think the dynamics are similar in the sense that we’re trying to protect a spike in unemployment right now. But they’re different in the sense that there actually is long-term viability to making sure that we don’t see a systemic crisis in the U.S. retail industry right now. Because we really don’t want that to happen. And I know your readers are a lot of real estate owners.One of your solutions I thought was quite interesting: Get the five largest retail landlords into a room with the government and hash out some best practices. Standardized forbearance agreements, for example. You’re backed by the likes of Macerich, Acadia, some of the big players in the retail space. Have you had this conversation with them? Like, “Hey, Macerich or Acadia, would you be down to sit with the government and work something out with your competitors?”So I can’t comment specifically on the conversations we’re having. But what I can say is why I do think it makes sense. There’s two stages to it. The first is landlords need to act together to solve their collective-action problem, to solve the over-storing problems and the overextension problems and the overlevering problems of retailers. And that needs to be solved systemically. So if you’re dealing with a retailer that’s in crisis, solving their real estate problems with one landlord doesn’t really solve the issue. You need to work with all landlords together.The second thing is that these rent concessions themselves are a form of equity investment. If you think about it, if you give a rent concession it’s equivalent to paying equity, it’s just negative fixed costs, which is the equivalent of positive cash inflows. So it’s a form of equity. To be biased, one thing we’ve always advocated for is that the relationship between landlord and tenant change — landlords should think of themselves and conceptualize themselves and build relationships with tenants as an equity investor. I think this is a unique opportune time to affect that. “Landlords should think of themselves and conceptualize themselves and build relationships with tenants as an equity investor.” It’s not a simple relationship between the tenant and landlord. Ownership is often such a Byzantine structure. Private equity is such a big player, particularly with some of these big retailers, Victoria’s Secret, JCPenney, you name it. So how would that work?I think it’s complicated and it’s going to require a lot of discussion. But one way you could conceptualize it is if you were to say, “I’m going to give you a particular rent concession. I’m going to reduce your rent by 30 percent over the next three years to help you survive. Or I’m going to let you out of this particular lease. So I’m not going to get rent income, but you’re going to save that particular cost.” If you were to take a net present value of what that represents to retailers, it’s a form of equity investment. Now it’s not useful if any landlord does it on their own because it’s too small. It represents too small a percentage of the total retail footprint of any retailer.But if all the landlords come together and work with the retailers and say, “Hey, let me understand how you’re thinking about the go-forward state of your business. Do you think you have too many stores today? Do you think you’re paying too much rent because sales are too low on a handful of your assets? And let’s sit down with you and collectively holistically solve your problems for you by either reducing rent or maybe letting you out of a handful of leases. But in exchange for that, we become your equity partners.”What happens today without that taking place is that rent concessions are being negotiated in hand-to-hand combat, one-offs between landlord and tenant. And when you get a rent concession as a retailer, your landlord doesn’t get any equity ownership. So in many ways they [landlords] help that retailer survive, but they don’t capture the upside.I feel like lenders have worked with a lot of the retail landlords we’ve been speaking with. But you just don’t know how long that will go. Maybe in a couple more months, they’ll be like, “Look, we need to get paid as well.”Yeah. And I think it’s a reconceptualization of what it means to be a landlord. This has been true of all of real estate. It’s something we [Fifth Wall] have advocated for a while, which is: The relationship between landlord and tenant needs to change. It’s no longer sufficient to have a purely transactional relationship. The tenants, whether in office or industrial or retail, care about a more full-service relationship with their landlord. And part of that I think means aligning your interests with them.And maybe there’s a buy-sell in the future. Where when things normalize and capital markets normalize, these landlords can get out of that position. So that’s one component of it. And then you asked about how that would relate to government action. And I do think there’s a strong imperative for the government to take action here because of jobs and because of tax revenues and sales taxes.The collective action also assumes that retail landlords would want to get in even deeper with the retail industry — and let’s just talk major cities right now where retail real estate can be repositioned. A mall is a very different proposition — there’s not very much you could do with a mall. What you’re talking about is an even longer, deeper, more intimate relationship in retail between landlord and tenant. Do you think they [landlords] would even want that?I think the right question is, do they need that right now? Right now, the top of the funnel in the retail ecosystem is solvent, revenue-generating, cash flow-generating, rent-paying retailers. And right now, the assumption that that is a cohort that is going to continue to exist is no longer safe.There was this trend that had been gestating for years, where landlords were saying, “I want to have a more intimate relationship with the retailers.” That was existentially why we created the retail fund.These emerging digitally native brands want to have a deeper relationship with their landlord. They want to have a partnership relationship. They want to have an equity relationship. They want their landlord to intimately understand their business and make recommendations about how they should expand. And the best way to do that is through equity ownership.What we’re facing today is that there’s many retailers who never would’ve thought of their landlords as being equity owners in their business. There’s many landlords that never would’ve thought of their relationship with certain retailers as coming to look like anything like equity. But if we’re going to affect the sustainability of the retail industry, as close as it could look to what it looked like at the end of 2019, that needs to happen.My analogy is, you’ve got a bad employee. They’ve been with you for five years and then they come to you and ask you to pay for their MBA. It’s like, “Do I really want to invest again in this person’s future?”It’s such a huge portion of the economy and I’m not sure it’s the time to be asking ourselves, do we want this part of the economy to exist? This part of the economy that literally employs one in four Americans.Your vision for saving retail, does it have space for the mom-and-pop retailers that a lot of people will argue make up the fabric of a city? Or are you saving a Red Lobster over an independent mom-and-pop?I don’t think it’s an issue of either/or. I think we should all be rooting for all of retail to be saved. But what I think the CARES Act didn’t specify is programs to solve the large retailers’ issues. And the large retailers employ tens of thousands of people. Collectively they employ millions. So if all we do is build programs to solve the mom-and-pops, that’s great and I strongly support that. But the issue is we just have large retailers that are right now confronting crises of being over-stored and overlevered.It’s just that a big portion of where the government should be focused and where landlords should be focused is on these medium and large retailers that are huge employers of people. Because the social imperatives there are in some cases larger. And I actually think you solve, to your earlier question, the granularity problem. You’re not talking about 10,000 retailers, you’re talking about in the hundreds of retailers. It’s a solvable problem. Now it’s complex because you need someone to underwrite these assets and understand what is their pro-forma state — what do they look like in the future? You need someone to help reposition them, but it’s a much smaller number that we’re talking about. Now, the dollar number is very large.That’s your $30 billion number? It’s kind of a swag to be totally candid. I think any amount that you can put in, it’s in the tens of billions of dollars. To contextualize that, $25 billion today, or I should say in February, was paid in retail real estate rents in the United States. Every month. Today, I think it’s a safe assumption to say that somewhere between 70 and 100 percent of that is not getting paid. What that does to capital markets, it freezes them. So you’re just trying to unfreeze it and you can’t unfreeze it unless your order of magnitude response is commensurate with the amount of rent being paid.What role can you see Fifth Wall playing in getting this to go?What we’re good at doing is convening the industry to solve collective-action problems. That was why we created Fifth Wall. We realized that individual landlords forming their own corporate venture-capital programs were not optimal. They were oftentimes small, they were not super professional. So what we said is, instead, if we put the whole industry together, many of their problems are common. They’re dealing with the same technology pain points. The same technology opportunities. What if we could convene all of their collective intelligence, all their collective distribution? That was how we created the first real estate tech fund that we launched in 2017. That was our $212 million fund. And we had seven landlords in that. What happened in the course of the next two years was that more owners said, “Well, should we do this ourselves? Or should we work together? Should we join this consortium? Because it’s more efficient and there’s economies of scale in doing it all together.” We went from seven in the U.S. to 54 across 11 countries.You’re talking as LPs?Real estate owner-operator-developers as LPs. So when we took that learning, we said, “How can we solve this for other categories, other pain points that real estate owners have?” And then more recently we started the Carbon Impact Fund. Which again, it’s a collective-action problem. Individual landlords becoming carbon neutral don’t make a massive difference. The industry becoming carbon neutral makes a huge difference.On the retail fund, are you even thinking of deploying capital right now?We’re actively deploying capital. I think we want to support our existing portfolio companies. This is a time where you really want to lean on your investors that have the long-term interest of your startup in mind. So this is the time when you really show your stripes.Those from the real estate industry are with you guys in terms of betting even now?Absolutely. I think what this has done is accelerated a lot of the technological disruption forces that were already well afoot before this crisis. So I don’t think this is a repudiation of, “Oh, we shouldn’t adopt technology.” I think if the conclusion a real estate CEO makes from this crisis is, “Okay, thank goodness. I don’t have to adopt real estate technology for my assets,” I don’t think that CEO is going to have their job for that long.That is not the appropriate conclusion to this crisis. So I think if anything, it underscores how can we make technology work to solve some of these big public health and collective-action problems. And actually, that’s exactly what we tried to do with our Carbon Impact Fund. We said the similarities between a public-health crisis and the climate crisis are in some ways uncanny. The timelines are quite different, but the dynamics are very similar.Brendan, even though it has to be said, a lot of real estate CEOs do not believe in climate change. This is just the way it is.And that may be true. I don’t want to comment on the political beliefs of real estate CEOs.This is not political. This directly impacts the response something like this would get. So I’m not talking politics.I would agree with you. However, here’s the dynamic that’s happening right now regardless of what you believe as a real estate CEO — whether you believe the climate crisis is happening, or you believe climate change is happening or not. What’s happening is that within your political jurisdictions, you have mayors that are increasingly green. And even though Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord, many mayors are putting their cities right back in. New York did it, Los Angeles did it. And here’s the dynamic: Just like we talked about with retail, you can’t move a building. So it doesn’t matter what your political beliefs are. If you’re going to get taxed and you’re going to get fined for not being carbon neutral or not meeting certain carbon-neutrality standards, it doesn’t really matter. That’s now an economic incentive.What’s interesting is that when you look at certain states, if you look at an electoral map of the most red state, the most Republican state in the U S., and you look at voting maps, you’ll see a lot of red and you’ll typically see blue dots over every city.And if you look at where most of the real estate value is concentrated in those cities, it tends to be in the blue dots. So oftentimes cities have green Democratic mayors. So regardless of the political beliefs of landlords, it doesn’t really matter. Because if their buildings exist in jurisdictions where climate change becomes an imperative, where carbon neutrality becomes an imperative, it just becomes an economic issue for them. And in some ways, that’s what we should be looking at government to do. Government in part exists to solve collective-action problems.And to make unpopular decisions as well.In the long-term interest of society. And I think we all know there’s a different time horizon in the tenure of real estate CEOs and the tenure of the climate crisis. So what I think we are seeing and what we will continue to see is that local jurisdictions will enact carbon-neutrality laws that are very much on standard for the Paris Climate Accord. So it doesn’t matter what happens at a federal level. Cities will move towards carbon neutrality standards that will force real estate owners by the simple fact that they cannot move their building to conform to that. So I’ve said this before, but I fundamentally believe it. Wherever sustainability sits on the priority list of a real estate CEO, I said by 2025…That timeline, has it been accelerated or has it relatively stayed the same given what’s just happened? Where we’ve had a near-shutdown of the economy for the last eight weeks.In the short-term, the number one focus for any real estate CEO should be and ought to be the response to the Covid crisis, the public health dynamics around that. I think if we start to look a year, two, three years out, if again, the conclusion a real estate CEO draws is that, “Oh, now I don’t need to focus on sustainability” — I don’t think that’s the right conclusion. I don’t think that is a long-term conclusion. I don’t think that’s a long-term CEO.I think sustainability falls into one of the top three priorities for every real estate CEO, certainly in the U.S. and most likely in the entire Western world, within the next 24 to 36 months. And we are seeing it. We are seeing it on all sides. Because these landlords are. This is being impressed on them by the many constituents of the real estate industry. It’s coming from tenants.I think that’s the really interesting thing. It’s coming from investors too.It’s coming from capital markets. It’s coming from debt and equity providers. It’s also coming from the insurance industry. The insurance industry is saying, “We’ll give you lower rates for more climate-resilient assets.” It’s just good business for them. So building more sustainable assets is just fundamentally a good business. You’re able to lower your cost of capital. But I think the unknown is the pace of regulatory change. And I would say we’ve been enthused and encouraged by what’s happened in New York and Los Angeles. Those are obviously coastal cities with democratic mayors. But there’s a lot more coastal cities with democratic mayors. And there’s a lot more inland cities with democratic mayors out there that are looking to the response of real estate owners to what happened in New York and Los Angeles.And going to your question about, what have we learned from the Covid response? What is the relationship between real estate owners and their local political jurisdictions? I think what they’re seeing is that government can make a difference when it acts decisively. When they act in unison. There are really profound effects that happen. So I think a lot of mayors are going to be emboldened by seeing the response to the carbon neutrality laws in New York and Los Angeles. And they’ll say, “Can we take this to solve more long-term collective action problems? Are there insights we can apply to solve this issue and this imperative we have to become carbon neutral by 2030?I will predict that your Carbon Impact Fund is probably going to — whatever target you had for it — it’s probably going to be bigger by a factor of two or three. I think you are hitting on something quite significant. But let’s talk Fifth Wall’s other bets. I’m thinking of Opendoor. It’s a really capital-intensive business. I think going in you knew that profitability is a long road with a business like that. A lot of the established players [Zillow, Realogy] have moved into this space as well. And now it’s frozen.I don’t want to comment on any portfolio company and its performance. But what I can comment on is the sector of iBuying and how I think this changes it. And I think what’s happened is that you do, as you appropriately put, have a freeze on activity. And I think that’s obviously incredibly unfortunate. But I don’t think this in any way undermines the need for an iBuying solution for consumers. When you back up and you say, what is iBuying? You have the U.S. residential real estate market, which is the largest peer-to-peer market on earth. It’s a gigantic eBay for homes, the most expensive asset most consumers ever purchased.And as a result, the information, the transparency, the speed of transactions are all suboptimal. You can get more information about what’s the best running sock to buy on Amazon than you can about the quality or the condition or the economic outlook of a home you’re buying. So I think what iBuying is just philosophically, it’s saying that we shouldn’t just have a peer-to-peer market. We should have a C-consumer to B-business market. And a B-business to C-consumer market, which is exactly how iBuying works. A consumer sells a home to Opendoor, Opendoor flips it, and ultimately sells it to another consumer. “You can get more information about what’s the best running sock to buy on Amazon than you can about the quality or the condition or the economic outlook of a home you’re buying.” What that gives them is the ability to capture data, provide transparency around the sale. So you just have a higher level of quality, a higher level of experience. Because you’re dealing with an institution that’s in the business of constantly selling homes. It’s in the business of providing a standardized quality to those homes. And I think on both sides, it’s giving security of close. Right now it takes, I think it’s close to 140 days to typically sell a home. That’s a very long time.I understand the bet that you made and why you made it and why you’re relatively bullish about the sector. But I was more asking about whether it will be able to withstand a sustained shutdown given how capital-intensive it is.The short answer is I don’t think anyone knows. That’s the nature of startup investing. I think we’re really optimistic about Opendoor in part, because a lot of the demand for selling a home very quickly with a guaranteed price is driven by expediency on the consumer side and driven by a need for security. So at some point Opendoor will start operations again. [Editor’s note: Opendoor resumed iBuying one day after this interview was conducted] And when they start operations again, I think you’ll have buyers or sellers that are thinking more pragmatically about, “If I want to sell a home, do I really want to price optimize right now? Or is what I really want the security, the guarantee to close on a timeframe that works for me? To move my family, to get the equity out of my house, whatever my needs are. I want some security around that.”The other thing I think is really important to note is that while you do have a lot of iBuyers out there, what matters is the quality of the institutional investors. And I think one of the things Opendoor pioneered was institutionalizing the capital markets for iBuying. The quality of the lenders that are actually providing capital to enable them to buy homes more efficiently. And return capital to investors, according to a certain return profile. They institutionalized that to an extent and to, I think, a level of integrity that you hadn’t seen in this space before.Your co-founder, Brad [Greiwe], comes from that background, comes from Invitation Homes.And Invitation Homes is in many ways the exact same story. Many people from 2010 to 2014 were buying single-family homes. And there was this cottage industry that emerged of local regional buyers that were buying homes. What Invitation Homes figured out is how to do it institutionally with speed and scale. And I think if you look at iBuying, no company – to the extent Opendoor has – has figured out how to institutionally buy homes with speed and scale. And that’s partially driven by the fact that they were first and they’re the largest. But I think it’s in large part driven by the quality of the institutional investors that backed them.It’s also their main event, which is both an opportunity in terms of refining it and a threat. Because if that’s all you do and you can’t do it anymore, we’ve seen big layoffs at the company, for example. So it’s both things. On a more positive note, I think people are just getting more open to the idea of virtual, just because they don’t want anyone in the house going through everything.I think you’re exactly right. We’re seeing an acceleration of those trends. I think in some ways it underscores why I think a company like Opendoor is really well-positioned. Which is if you’re going to be buying a home virtually, you want to have trust in who you’re buying it from. It’s the same thing with e-commerce. I feel a lot more comfortable buying a pair of socks on Amazon than buying them from another person that’s selling socks on eBay. It’s just the nature of standardized information. And that relates to everything you mentioned. The virtualization of appraisals, the virtualization of tours. Frankly, digitizing every aspect. The closing of a home transaction, insurance, title insurance, mortgage, notary, all of those things ought to be digitized. It’s hard for an individual seller to adopt all that. You don’t need an individual seller of a home to become an expert on setting up a virtual tour. Setting up a 3D tour. Building relationships with every virtual transaction company out there. We want a company to intermediate many of these transactions, because it provides a higher quality standard and a higher degree of trust to consumers.I want to circle back to the changing landlord-tenant relationship. How else will that evolve in the post-Covid age?Part of it is what we’ve always talked about, which is reconceptualizing what it means to be a landlord. And taking responsibility for the wellbeing of the occupants of your assets. One of the mindset shifts that you will see is that landlords, I don’t think, thought of themselves as micro-mayors. In the sense that we know that our mayor is responsible for the wellbeing of the people in their jurisdiction. If they’re drinking polluted water, that is the mayor’s fault. That is the local political authorities fault. But if a building owner is not providing safe air or potentially contaminated air to their tenants, I don’t think they internalize that responsibility previously to the extent they could have or should have. And I think coming out of this crisis, landlords will see themselves as, “We have a responsibility to the wellbeing of our tenants, that…”You don’t think that’s wildly optimistic? You’re talking about institutional landlords or all landlords?I think it’ll start with institutional landlords because they have to, but no, I don’t. And I’ve had conversations with many of our 54 real estate company CEOs in the last two months. And I would say the gravity of their social responsibility has dawned on them. And the importance of protecting their tenants, not just with respect to the elements. Protecting your tenants from rain or snow or cold air is always how real estate has conceptualized itself. But now we’re protecting it against microbes. And we’re protecting the well-being of tenants around things we had never previously conceptualized as falling into our responsibility as landlords. And I think landlords are saying, “We need to internalize that.”I do think a big part of the solution will be technology. And I think it prompts really existential questions about what it means to be a landlord. And when I think it starts to collapse is the distinction between just a transactional relationship with your tenants and having a social and a health imperative to protect them, which is very much like being a micro-mayor. You have jurisdiction over your assets.That’s catchy. Then something like a cloud portfolio manager — VTS is one of your portfolio companies — I guess I could see some of that being filtered through a software like that as well. The responsibility of looking at a portfolio in terms of wellness.I think any company that can digitize information about a building and provide transparency both to the tenants at the corporate level, but also to the individual users through their devices or through notifications, that’s going to be very important. And I think those are questions that employees are going to ask of their employers. And therefore employers or tenants are going to ask of their landlords. So the response is coming. This [pandemic] has effectuated a change in the psychology of everyone. And it will in turn effectuate a change in, I think how landlords conceptualize themselves. And they’re going to take a more, I hope, and I actually believe this, a more holistic view around their responsibility to the well-being of their tenants. It’s not just about keeping the bad guys out and the rain out and the lights on. The relationship between landlord and tenant is much more intimate. And it has a social profundity that I don’t think was appropriately captured as little as 90 days ago.(Write to Hiten at [email protected] To check out more of The REInterview, a series of in-depth conversations with real estate leaders and newsmakers hosted by Hiten Samtani, click here.) TagsCoronavirusFifth WalliBuyingProptechRetail Real EstateThe REInterviewventure capital Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare via Email Share via Shortlink
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Tom Brady may be buying a waterfront mansion in Clearwater
Tom Brady and the home (Credit: James Gilbert/Getty Images, and Google Maps)New England Patriots quarterba… ahem, Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady is reportedly finalizing a $7.5 million deal for a waterfront mansion in Clearwater.TMZ reported on Thursday that Brady was expected to close on the deal later in the week, although the listing agency has denied Brady is involved with the sale, according to the Tampa Bay Times. TMZ did not list a source in its article.Listing agent Sophia Vasilaros said, “Tom Brady is not buying this house,” and that “TMZ jumped the gun.”A spokesperson for her brokerage, Smith & Associates Real Estate, also said Brady is “not associated with the sale of this house.”The house has five bedrooms and totals around 8,500 square feet. It sits on a peninsula on Diamond Isle, an artificial island in Clearwater Harbor.Whether or not Brady is behind the purchase, he’s got reason to be in the market.Brady and his wife Gisele Bündchen have been renting a nearly 31,000-square-foot mansion owned by New York Yankees Hall of Famer Derek Jeter for the last several months, but Jeter listed the property last month for $29 million.Brady told Howard Stern in March that living in the Jeter residence was a big change of pace from the private lifestyle he was used to after years living outside Boston. Jeter’s house is on a public road and its backyard opens to Hillsborough Bay.“Where I lived in Chestnut Hill, I was pretty private for a long time,” Brady said. “So I forgot, in a way, like people could drive up to your house. You couldn’t drive up to my house where I lived in Chestnut Hill. Here, they could pull right up to the back of the house.” [Tampa Bay Times] — Dennis Lynch Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare via Email Share via Shortlink TagsCelebrity Real Estate
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San Francisco mayor blasts “lefty movement” for blocking housing
San Francisco Mayor London Breed (Getty)San Francisco Mayor London Breed didn’t mince words in telling a leading podcast of her city’s tendency to torpedo new housing developments.On this week’s edition of Freakonomics, Breed blamed progressives for limiting the supply of dwellings, which she said drives up housing costs.“San Francisco has a very, very, extremely left group of people on the Board of Supervisors more loyal to a ‘lefty movement’ than San Francisco’s residents,” said Breed, who is allied with Democrats.She accused the board of undermining her efforts to build more housing despite the high costs of renting and buying in the city, as well as rising homelessness.“The problem we have, and why we are seeing even more homeless people than we have in the past, has a lot to do with the fact that we have not kept up pace with building more housing,” she said on the popular podcast.ADVERTISEMENTHer remarks were part of a two-part series on New York City’s economic crisis and why cities such as San Francisco are so expensive. It also featured economist Ed Glaeser, a professor at Harvard and an expert in how cities function and grow economically.“I know how to make New York affordable,” Glaeser said in the first episode. “You build 100,000 new units a year.” A recent study found that over a decade, only 19 dwellings were created for every 100 new jobs in the city.One way to build more housing is by rezoning to allow for more density. But that should not be the only remedy, according to Dan Doctoroff, who was New York City’s deputy mayor of economic development under Michael Bloomberg. Doctoroff, on the same episode as Breed, said the Bloomberg administration rezoned 140 tracts of land to support more dense construction, but it “didn’t do nearly enough.”Earlier this year he said on a TRD Talk that Bloomberg’s 70 contextual rezonings, which froze current densities in place, should be revisited to find opportunities for growth.Doctoroff is now CEO of Sidewalk Labs, which tries to make cities work better. But its flagship project, remaking a waterfront neighborhood in Toronto to showcase solutions to modern urban problems, met with opposition and was canceled after the pandemic hit.In San Francisco, Breed established “neighborhood preference” to tamp down gentrification fears. The policy sets aside 25 percent to 40 percent of new affordable units for people already living in that neighborhood. But in New York City, a similar policy has been criticized for curbing diversity in neighborhoods.The podcast episodes also highlight how cities might thrive again after the pandemic, and give an overview of the political changes that happened in the 1970s and ’80s that contributed to today’s housing costs. Renters’ rights movements, for example, made apartments safer but at a financial cost.The episodes explore potential solutions to the housing crisis, such as assembly-line homebuilding with composite wood and digital electricity.Write to Orion Jones TagsAffordable HousingHousing MarketSan Francisco Message* Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare via Email Share via Shortlink Share via Shortlink Email Address* Full Name*
UK government’s Games Prototype Fund launches today
0Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyShow all comments (6)Darren Adams Managing Director, ChaosTrend5 years agoWho are the management team in charge of UK Games Fund?That is an unknown atm, but it would be very interesting to see who does get the role. 5 years ago Here’s a link to those wanting more. http://ukgamesfund.com/ Edited 1 times. Last edit by George Williams on 12th October 2015 9:56am 0Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyDarren Adams Managing Director, ChaosTrend5 years ago This is good news of course, but I do wonder how they are going to set this up. One of the main bugbears of grant funding as I have found out is defraying; you usually have to spend all the money first, before you can put in to get anything back. I always thought it would have been better to have it in tranches on a milestone type system.But until they give further details on how it will actually work, I do hope they factor in the smaller companies and a think of a good way to help them take advantage of the fund. UK government’s Games Prototype Fund launches today£4 million to be distributed to studios over next four yearsDan PearsonMonday 12th October 2015Share this article Recommend Tweet ShareRelated JobsSenior Game Designer – UE4 – AAA United Kingdom Amiqus GamesProgrammer – REMOTE – work with industry veterans! North West Amiqus GamesJunior Video Editor – GLOBAL publisher United Kingdom Amiqus GamesDiscover more jobs in games The UK’s Video Games Prototype Fund, which will allocated a total of £4 million in £25,000 grants over the next four years, launched today, taking over from the Abertay fund to help small and new studios turn ideas into working prototypes to take to the next stage of funding. The cash injection was announced as part of the UK government budget earlier this year and will also include access to mentoring and skills management alongside the direct funding. The fund will be managed by the UK Games Talent and Finance CIC, which was involved in GamesIndustry.biz’ GI Investment Summit at EGX in Birmingham last month. “We lobbied for this kind of support and we are pleased to see the Fund launch,” said UKIE CEO Dr Jo Twist. “It has enormous potential for the future of the UK games industry. Access to finance has been an on-going challenge for small and micro games businesses, and the financial support of the fund, as well as the mentoring opportunities that are provided, will open doors to a huge amount of unearthed games talent in the UK. Ukie is really proud to continue to support this project. It is one more step towards the UK becoming a world leader in games development.”Celebrating employer excellence in the video games industry8th July 2021Submit your company Sign up for The Daily Update and get the best of GamesIndustry.biz in your inbox. Enter your email addressMore storiesCEO says Paradox “can do better” as Q1 profits plummet”We are not satisfied with the quarter,” CEO Ebba Ljungerud saidBy Marie Dealessandri 18 hours agoStarbreeze’s Q1 losses shrink 95% to $505,000New CEO Tobias Sjögren says “the road ahead is clear” as Payday 3 is fully funded By James Batchelor 18 hours agoLatest comments (6)George Williams Owner Edited 1 times. Last edit by Darren Adams on 12th October 2015 12:55pm 0Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyMartin Darby Design Director, Strike Gamelabs5 years ago Who are the management team in charge of UK Games Fund?
0Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyTom Pickard Founder and Creative Director, Knifey Spoonie Games5 years ago At the Gi.biz investment summit Paul Durrant gave a short talk on the upcoming fund, it seems very interesting, one I’m keeping my eyes on as a small studio. 0Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyAnthony Gowland Director, Ant Workshop5 years ago It’s Paul Durrant, according to TIGA’s press releasehttp://www.tiga.org/news/press-releases/new-4m-prototype-fund-is-another-arrow-in-the-quiver-for-the-uk-video-games-industry0Sign inorRegisterto rate and replySign in to contributeEmail addressPasswordSign in Need an account? Register now.
Backlash fears halt global Dead Or Alive Xtreme 3 launch
7Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyAndrew Watson Tools Programmer Backlash fears halt global Dead Or Alive Xtreme 3 launchTeam Ninja has no EU and US launch plans due to concern over series’ depictions of womenMatthew HandrahanEditor-in-ChiefWednesday 25th November 2015Share this article Recommend Tweet ShareCompanies in this articleKoei TecmoDead Or Alive Xtreme 3 will not be published in Europe or North America, the first time Team Ninja’s beach volleyball series has failed to reach those marketsResponding to a fan enquiry on Facebook, an official representative of the game said, “We do not bring DOAX3 to the west and won’t have any plan change in the future. Thank you for asking.”As more responses rolled in, the representative clarified the studio’s position. “Do you know many issues happening in video game industry with regard to how to treat female in video game industry? We do not want to talk those things here. But certainly we have gone through in last year or two to come to our decision. Thank you.”Related JobsSenior Game Designer – UE4 – AAA United Kingdom Amiqus GamesProgrammer – REMOTE – work with industry veterans! North West Amiqus GamesJunior Video Editor – GLOBAL publisher United Kingdom Amiqus GamesDiscover more jobs in games For those not familiar with the series – which started with Dead Or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball in 2003 – the appeal is as much down to its scantily clad, generously proportioned and perpetually giggling female character models as it is engaging with the various mini-games that comprise its gameplay. With that in mind, it’s understandable that Team Ninja and publisher Koei Tecmo might have anticipated a backlash, and weighed that negative publicity against the costs of marketing and any potential sales.Dead Or Alive Xtreme 3 will launch in Japan in February 2016. We have contacted Koei Tecmo for further comment on its plans for a worldwide release.Celebrating employer excellence in the video games industry8th July 2021Submit your company Sign up for The Publishing & Retail newsletter and get the best of GamesIndustry.biz in your inbox. Enter your email addressMore storiesHyrule Warriors drives record Q3 for Koei TecmoAge of Calamity is now the best-selling entry in the franchise By Marie Dealessandri 3 months agoKoei Tecmo says it will sue over bootleg Dead or Alive videoPublisher plans civil case against person who sold in-game videos of Dead or Alive games modified to remove clothesBy Brendan Sinclair 4 months agoLatest comments (41)Morville O’Driscoll Blogger & Critic 0Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyCurt Sampson Sofware Developer Edited 4 times. Last edit by Morville O’Driscoll on 28th November 2015 12:05pm 1Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyRobert Mac-Donald Game Designer, Lethe Games5 years agoStop trying to imply that it is, and that it’s to do with SJWs and censorship.How is it “implying” when the developers themselves said the reason was because of the atmosphere here regarding those kinds of games? You keep pressing that key when we already know the reason they gave for that. And like I said, whether they are lying for an advertisement stunt or not, we know that a lot of westerners have been saying sexy games are bad for a while now. There is a part of our generation being the “we should ban rock and roll music” crowd, but instead they are saying “we should ban sexy female characters in video games”.No-one is saying that games with female sexual appeal should not be released to the Western audienceThere has been a lot of internet articles, personal tweets and blogs expressing that opinion. If you haven’t seen any, you haven’t been browsing places that talk about that sort of content.And the people, like Anita, who have not yet plant their feet and said whether they think such games should be developed at all or not, are “criticizing them”, like it happened with that Kotaku article on the Dragon’s Crow sorcerer: “Game Developers Really Need To Stop Letting Teenage Boys Design Their Characters”Do they really need to stop? What is wrong with making them?Then, you have the most upvoted comment there:No, this is totally worthy of criticism. This isn’t satire, this isn’t highlighting an ugly truth to expose it, this is just flat out demeaning.I’ve been watching this with some interest as I personally like the genre, but I will be passing purely because of the level of immaturity on display.I am not okay with marginalizing 50% of the population.The opinion? That the game is demeaning [to women], and that even though you like the genre, you shouldn’t buy the game purely because of immaturity and not being ok with marginalizing women. Had he stopped at immaturity, it would be ok, but when you add “demeaning” and “not ok to marginalize” women, what these people are actually expressing is a sentiment that such games should not be released, and this is not ok to enjoy them, otherwise, you are sexist. This is just one example (I didn’t even follow the dragon’s crown controversy, nor played the game, I just remembered this as an example and went after it). There are thousands more.Again: there is in fact an apparently large group of people saying rock and roll is corrupting the youth and should be banned, but with sexy characters instead. A group that may even be larger than the people that were concerned with violent video games in the past. This is worthy of being addressed by us. It will help if people and the media stop calling anyone who doesn’t think sexualizing females is bad a “gamergater”, and address the situation properly. Where did the adults in the games industry go? 1Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyRobert Mac-Donald Game Designer, Lethe Games5 years agoyou’re trying to argue that if a person doesn’t actually say it’s ok to play/buy/enjoy those games, they believe the games should be censored. https://youtu.be/9L_Wmeg7OTUWatch the first minute of that interview. Anita says:One of the problems with that [sexualized women in video games] it that actually reinforces the myth that women are sexual objects, sexual playthings for males, and we are notLater on:The industry as a whole perpetuates these issues of sexism and misogynySo, yes. If Anita and people that share her views are saying that such things are bad, logically that implies they think such things should not be created. Or are you telling me their message is that “sexism in video games is bad, but don’t worry about it, keep making sexist games”? If anything, their message is not clear then, and they have to make it clear.That’s why I ask to see one instance of Anita, or people who support her views, actually come out and say something like “we should have games that are not sexualized as well, but it’s ok to have sexualized games for boys”. They have not said that. The message that people seem to be picking up upon, including the Japanese devs, is that all sexualized women is bad and you should not make a game that has sexualized women, is it not?You keep talking a lot and a lot Curt, but you are yet to show any evidence. All you have to offer us here is your interpretation without even linking to something she has said to back up your interpretations. And please stop with the personal insults like “you gamergaters”, adds nothing to a discussion, it isn’t an actual argument and makes you look unprofessional. 3Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyAlfonso Sexto Lead Tester, Ubisoft Germany5 years ago MorvilleHe dismisses the Gothic Loli as a possibility, but perhaps Xenoblade Chronicle X’s costume-change has made KT wary of such situations?I think that’s more Nintendo’s doing (Like with The underwear costume in the last Fatal Frame) You release Xenoblade in PlayStation and I doubt they would do any alteration. 5 years ago “Business decides to not release content that might be considered offensive”.That’s not censorship. That’s a business decision. 4Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyMorville O’Driscoll Blogger & Critic Edited 1 times. Last edit by Morville O’Driscoll on 26th November 2015 10:54am 2Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyMorville O’Driscoll Blogger & Critic 5 years ago They should have added the male cast of fighters to this game as well years ago. In tight speedos and loose-fitting shorts with penis physics! It should double their target audience, making the localization worth the trouble again. 1Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyBarry Meade , Fireproof Studios Ltd.5 years ago Come now you’re reading into it there, if you think I’ve nothing to say you’ve never met meIt’s not at all clear from the evidence that DOA is a victim of self censorship. They have publicly floated more than one reason and I find each of them compelling, I’m sure it *was* a multitude of reasons combined that caused them to take that decision but I’d say the primary one is they know it’s c-list game and nobody is really interested in it. If they could make big bank with it I doubt an army of detractors could stop them publishing. 5 years ago Barry did a great job of saying a lot of what I was trying to say.Robert’s staying well off the rails with things like,Or are you telling me their message is that “sexism in video games is bad, but don’t worry about it, keep making sexist games”?No, of course not. Sarkeesian’s message, as far as I have seen, is “1. There’s clear, incontrovertable evidence, which I have presented, of sexism in games. 2. This is probably bad, in certain ways, for society.” I haven’t seen her enter the debate on exactly what sort of further limits, if any, should be placed on freedom of speech in light of this.But I think this really gets to the core of things:I also don’t know what relevance the harassment carried out by gamer gate has to do with this issue of self-censorship due to a toxic environment which is a serious one to have for a creative industry.A point I’ve been trying to make is that the GamerGate reaction is intimately bound up with this “self-censorship” issue because the two things are just different sides of the same coin.First, let’s make it clear: “self-censorship” is often a very good thing. The “self-censorship” that keeps people from making and distributing games simulating snuff porn, physical abuse of women, or lynching of homosexuals and black people, to give just a small handful of examples, is completely desirable for society, and we’d like to continue to maintain an environment “toxic” to such things. I’m just going to assume that everybody here agrees with this position; feel free to let us know if you don’t.Given that some self-censorship and an environment toxic to certain views is a good thing, the question is merely, “what, as a society should we be strongly discouraging?” I don’t think that there’s a clear line that can be drawn here, and we need to look at a lot of examples and discuss them, which is precisely where people like Sarkeesian are doing us a great service, by collecting evidence and providing a starting point for discussion.A number of people out there, particularly from what one might call “traditional minorities” and the feminist camp and the like, maintain that they feel that the current gaming environment has elements that they find discourage them from speaking up, and that is clearly the case, given the death threats, doxxing, and other malicious activities we’ve seen in reaction to the pointing out of anti-feminist tropes in gaming. Those reacting against this are free to argue about this, but their complaints that they feel that they’re now in a hostile and unwelcoming environment get no sympathy from me: all I have to say is “welcome to where some other people have been all this time.” What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and if you feel that making others with different viewpoints uncomfortable is a good thing, you should admit that you’re doing it yourselves and put a stop to it before complaining about others.Is it bad that a company decided not to release to certain markets a masturbatory fantasy of girls as sex objects rather than people? I don’t know for sure either way, but I certainly think it’s a reasonable topic for discussion, rather than something that should be condemned immediately as “someone’s trying to kill free speech.”…former game journalists from large outlets like IGN and GameSpot were found threatening to stop supporting Play-Asia for them openly supporting gamers who want to purchase Dead or Alive Xtreme 3.And how is it a bad thing that those “former game journalists” are exercising their right to free speech and to make decisions about their own behaviour? 4Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyCurt Sampson Sofware Developer Edited 6 times. Last edit by Morville O’Driscoll on 26th November 2015 10:26am 1Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyMorville O’Driscoll Blogger & Critic 5Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyMorville O’Driscoll Blogger & Critic 5 years agoCurt, I would love to see Anita saying it’s ok for developers to make the DOA series, and ok for people to play it and buy it, and enjoy it.Either you’ve gone completely off-topic, or you’re trying to argue that if a person doesn’t actually say it’s ok to play/buy/enjoy those games, they believe the games should be censored. In which case, you are much more urgently in need of dealing with people such as Ronald Regan, who by that argument also wanted such games to be censored, than you are with Sarkeesian.If you want to get back to facts, rather than you twisting things around, I am stepping right out and saying the claims you guys made that I quoted above are factually incorrect. I see you’ve moved on to other statements of “fact” that you can’t support (see the second paragraph of the post above), and assume that in response to this you’re just going to make up more stuff that “supports” your argument that the white European male is one of the most oppressed groups in the world.I’ve seen overly politically-correct people fall in to their little la-la lands and I’ve gotten annoyed by that, but you “GamerGate” types (or pick whatever other label for your poor oppressed selves you like; I don’t care) really take the cake. You appear to have no capability whatsoever to interpret any sort of differing views as anything but a direct attack that’s trying to destroy your way of life. 11Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyRobert Mac-Donald Game Designer, Lethe Games5 years agoNow that you are seeing the possible outcome of that, maybe you’ll rethink your attitude.Don’t tell people “maybe you should rethink xxx”I didn’t. There is no ‘should’ in what I said. And If you start doing personal attacks to people’s personalities, and not their arguments, the comment section will quickly derail into personal drama, so I won’t address personal things. As for the rest of your comment, well honestly I don’t get what point you tried to convey in it.My point is clear: developers, there is nothing bad with sexualizing women in video games. If anyone has an compelling that sexualizing women in video games is harmful, I’m yet to hear it. Nobody is harmed from that. So don’t do it for a moral reason. Do it for an economic reason if it makes sense, but not for moral ones and not because you feel pressured into it due to bad PR, because there are many of us that will support you. Do what you want, games are an artistic medium. You are supposed to express yourself how you want, even if in a juvenile way. Those that disagree, can try to show me the other way.it obvious that she’s merely expressing criticism, not arguing that such games should not be made or that people shouldn’t be allowed to play themCurt, I would love to see Anita saying it’s ok for developers to make the DOA series, and ok for people to play it and buy it, and enjoy it.If you have any video evidence of her ever saying something like this regarding a similar game, then please link. I would also like to point out that Anita is another derail of this comment section, the only reason we started talking about that was a tangent point when someone said:It’s easier to say that and let the fans blame some “SJW-Sarkeesian conspiracy if shadow” (like they are already doing)2Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyMorville O’Driscoll Blogger & Critic 2Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyCurt Sampson Sofware Developer 5 years ago I take your point and by the definition yeah it is. Sorta. But calling it censorship just winds up the free speech sirens – no-one is *stopping* them selling it: they are choosing not to sell it in some territories. Their rights of expression are not being halted.I have conversations with friends that I wouldn’t have with my parents – I don’t call that self-censorship: I call that tact.No-one is telling them they can’t do something. 6Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyRobert Mac-Donald Game Designer, Lethe Games5 years agoIt’s easier to say that and let the fans blame some “SJW-Sarkeesian conspiracy if shadow”Yet Alfonso, Anita’s message has been precisely that developers should not make games like Dead or Alive.She was praised by the media everywhere, including non gaming media. She made a lot of money. Received a lot of support. Anyone who spoke against that message, was branded misogynistic, or a straight white male basement #gamergate dweller, including by gamesindustry.biz, with a very one sided, frankly ridiculous and shallow narrative.And now that we are seeing developers say they see the west as a place that hates boobies and sexy women in video games, a game with boobs and sexy women is not finding itself coming here. Are the developers lying about the motive? Let’s say they are, does that change the fact that we have been promoting that kind of message for the past 2 years? Will we continue to send this silly message that objectifying women in video games is bad?Now that you are seeing the possible outcome of that, maybe you’ll rethink your attitude.But like I said, it’s not like indie development will be affected by that. This is a conflict for the AAA industry, and also related with the notion that video games are for children.And next year, with Virtual Reality devices being released, we’ll probably be looking at a huge influx of actual pornographic, priced tagged, realistic 3D games on the market. I wonder how the industry will react to that, when women in bikinis are controversial right now. 13Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyRobin Clarke Producer, AppyNation Ltd5 years ago I don’t think posting this story under an entirely speculative headline is very helpful.They’re most likely not releasing the game in the West because they don’t think it’ll sell enough to warrant the cost of localising and publishing it, which they would be shouldering themselves as Microsoft Game Studios are no longer involved.(I assume from the replies below that I can see that the usual aggrieved conspiracy theorists have come out of the woodwork. It would be great if gamesindustry.biz would actually bother with comment moderation as a matter of course instead of only taking it seriously when the toxicity threatens to become a PR issue. YouTube conspiracy videos and muckraking tabloids are not legitimate news sources. Spreading defamatory rumours about visible women in the industry is unacceptable, and certainly not something anyone wants to see on what is supposed to be an industry resource.) 5 years agoYet Alfonso, Anita’s message has been precisely that developers should not make games like Dead or Alive.Let’s rephrase that to Dead or Alive – Beach Volleyball Boob Physics Wankathon, shall we? Because Dead Or Alive Xtreme 3 is part of the Beach Volleyball spin-off series, which featuresan improved breasts physics engine from Dead or Alive 5 Last RoundI think the PR from that alone isn’t worth the hassle.This is a conflict for the AAA industry, and also related with the notion that video games are for children.The mainline Dead or Alive series isn’t facing this “issue”. I would be tempted to say this is something faced more by hentai VN companies, than anybody else. Interestingly, though, there’s been quite a few “sexy” Japanese VNs released on Steam in the past year (including at least one dealing with lesbian themes, and one with nudity), and there’s not been one-word said against them. So perhaps it’s just the juvenile wanky jiggle-athon that’s an issue?Side-point that is a major digression: Writing that last sentence, I was reminded of how Carry-On films used to be one of the British Film Industry’s exports. Yet you look at them now, and they stand as a testament to how nudge-nudge-wink-wink the British were about sex. Could it be argued that DoA Beach Tittyfest is the game industry’s Carry On franchise? 5Sign inorRegisterto rate and replySign in to contributeEmail addressPasswordSign in Need an account? Register now. Edited 1 times. Last edit by Curt Sampson on 28th November 2015 12:34am 1Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyRobert Mac-Donald Game Designer, Lethe Games5 years agoRobert’s staying well off the railsI’m the one staying on topic here. A company said they don’t want to release their game in the west because they feel the west will react badly to it. The issue here has to do with the message western developers, gamers and the media are sending to people out there.And the most direct question to be answered is: do we agree with that, that games with female sexual appeal should not be released to the western audience, or do we not agree and need to work on our image so our message is clear?Harassment, gamergate, whatever, is what is off the rails here. 0Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyMorville O’Driscoll Blogger & Critic 2Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyRobert Mac-Donald Game Designer, Lethe Games5 years ago I think I recall the IGDA.org being involved a lot in the past with the debate on violence in video games.I also recall them (or at least some of their members) having panels about being more inclusive to women in the video games industry, and other women related issues.I have not seen anything yet from them when it comes to this whole debate on what people are calling sexism in video games. From what I can gather, they are completely silent on it. Why?They even have an Advocacy: Anti-Censorship & social issues subsection on their site, with articles from violence in video games up to 2013. But as far as I know, they have been completely silent in this whole Anita/Gamergate/SJW/Sexism in videogames debate.Their mission:Mission: To advance the careers and enhance the lives of game developers by connecting members with their peers, promoting professional development, and advocating on issues that affect the developer community.This mission is carried out in the following key areas:Advocacy: Make change in our industry by identifying and speaking out on key issuesPerhaps this is not considered an issue yet, because there are no danger of actual laws to regulate video games differently at this point?Anyway, just wanted to point them out in their silence. Edited 1 times. Last edit by Barry Meade on 27th November 2015 3:21pm 7Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyAnthony Gowland Director, Ant Workshop5 years agoSo, yes. If Anita and people that share her views are saying that such things are bad, logically that implies they think such things should not be created.I know that salt and fast food are bad for me. I still put salt on my meals and eat fast food sometimes. So you’re wrong – knowing that something can have detrimental effects doesn’t automatically imply you want that thing to not exist. 5 years agoYou don’t like these games and don’t think anyone else should and therefore you agree with the people doing all within their power both through argument and intimidation to stop others from playing them.I don’t mind them, y’know. But the appeal is fairly juvenile, right? No-one is going to argue a volleyball franchise where the boobs have physics is a Great Game.And I think you should note that I haven’t said people can’t/shouldn’t import them. So give it a rest, yeah? Edited 4 times. Last edit by Morville O’Driscoll on 25th November 2015 5:43pm 4Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyJamie Firth Video Games Production 18Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyDavid Vink Game Designer 4Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyShow all comments (41)Jamie Firth Video Games Production 2Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyAlfonso Sexto Lead Tester, Ubisoft Germany5 years agoNow that you are seeing the possible outcome of that, maybe you’ll rethink your attitude.You made remember why I had you on ignore list… because of that “attitude”. I’ll answer you one last timeAnita talks, manages people to listen to her. And you can’t do that without rising a valid point. You can disagree or not, but those are facts; a part of the industry is by her side, other part is not. The first change their games, the second don’t. See? no conspiracy here; just logic talk.I disagree with Anita in more than one point, never got attacked for that. So maybe it’s not what you say but HOW you say. For example: Don’t tell people “maybe you should rethink xxx”, I don’t have to rethink anything; you can try and convince me, or not, but in the end nobody has the right to tell another person that he need to rethink his ideas since “he is wrong”And that’s it. You have a good day now. 5 years ago I think you are being played for fools. We are talking TeamNinja here. They literally invented boob physics in video games! It is not like their other games are on the frontier of graceful female characters. Which IP of theirs could be damaged in the west by this game? The one where you fight wearing nothing but a string tanga or a towel?Don’t act surprised when some region free game from Japan mysteriously has full English menus and subtitles. Because for the low sales the predecessors had in the West, this one message is probably all the PR they need, the rest can be done by grey importers. 5 years agoIf there wasn’t any intimidation “out there” then Team Ninja would have released this game unless you think they agree with Anita’s argument and were convinced but only if you are American.Oh do stop being silly. :)intimidation?We recently learned that Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 is in development for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. This week’s issue of Famitsu magazine provides more details from an interview with producer Yosuke Hayashi. [Thanks, Hachima.]Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 wiill be sold in Japan and Asia; however, if there’s enough demand, then Koei Tecmo may develop a version adjusted for North America.From the link I posted in my first comment. That’s dated August.But, no, clearly “intimidation” is the reason why this game is not getting a release in the West.Edit to add: Interesting somewhat-in-depth article about all this: http://www.usgamer.net/articles/doax3-still-not-releasing-in-us-koei-tecmo-makes-excusesHe dismisses the Gothic Loli as a possibility, but perhaps Xenoblade Chronicle X’s costume-change has made KT wary of such situations? Edited 2 times. Last edit by Morville O’Driscoll on 26th November 2015 8:07pm 3Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyCurt Sampson Sofware Developer 4Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyRobin Clarke Producer, AppyNation Ltd5 years ago Why is this comment thread still here? 3Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyTom Keresztes Programmer 4Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyRobert Mac-Donald Game Designer, Lethe Games5 years agoYou’re clearly upset by people exercising their free speech to say they don’t like certain things.Heh. If you knew the service I have created, you’d know how silly that sounds, and how wrong you are.You seem to be saying that there’s some sort of systematic societal bias occurring here that’s making you feel bad.Your ability to not address my actual arguments and go with your emotions is uncanny.CTRL+F “rock”, find my post where I mentioned rock and roll. My point is pretty clear in that post, with lots of analogies. Feel free to address any of my arguments instead of posting how you feel about my feelings. 5 years agoSo you are for freedom of speech used for intimidation as long as it comes from your side?Depends on what the “intimidation” is.If it’s along the lines of, “I feel intimidated because I was told someone will come and do physical harm to me if I continue to say such things,” then, no, I don’t think that should fall under freedom of speech.If it’s along the lines of, “I feel oppressed and intimidated by articles and blog posts from feminists that are putting forward views I don’t agree with,” well, that’s your problem.do we agree with that, that games with female sexual appeal should not be released to the western audienceLet me make this clear again: I believe very, very strongly that, at this point, anybody who wants to release a game like DOA Xtreme 3 to a western audience should be free to do so. (I really thought you were on my side on this.) And as far as I can tell, they are.I’m trying to figure out what you want here. You’re clearly upset by people exercising their free speech to say they don’t like certain things. You seem to be saying that there’s some sort of systematic societal bias occurring here that’s making you feel bad. But now you’re just reiterating the arguments of feminists and similar groups, but fifty years behind them. So why is it that it’s bad now when it wasn’t bad then? Just because it’s now you feeling oppressed rather than women or non-white people or whatever? 5 years ago Robert Mac-Donald says, “Anita’s message has been precisely that developers should not make games like Dead or Alive.”John Owens says, “You don’t like these games and don’t think anyone else should and therefore you agree with the people doing all within their power both through argument and intimidation to stop others from playing them.”Both statements are demonstrably wrong, though John’s in a more subtle way. While you can probably find some particular phrases in Sarkeesian’s work and pull them out of context to try to demonstrate otherwise, any fair assessment of the full body of her work will make it obvious that she’s merely expressing criticism, not arguing that such games should not be made or that people shouldn’t be allowed to play them. And I have never, ever seen a single posted comment here on gi.biz claiming that nobody should be allowed to like and/or play sexist games.Not that there’s any arguing with these GamerGate-like folks. They’re convinced that they’re being oppressed in some way, and facts won’t ever change their minds. Their identity seems somehow tightly bound up in making sure we never mention that a game where a primary focus is women’s breasts bouncing up and down is not only sexist but, frankly, juvenile. 5 years agoThey should have added the male cast of fighters to this game as well years ago. In tight speedos and loose-fitting shorts with penis physics! It should double their target audience, making the localization worth the trouble again.Well I suppose that’s only fair. And they could even name the next one Dead Or Alive Xtreme 3: Special Sausage Fest Edition. But considering all consoles are region free this gen(except the Wii U if I’m not mistaken) it’s not that big of a deal because XBO and PS4 owners can still play imported versions. 4Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyBarry Meade , Fireproof Studios Ltd.5 years ago Nobody, in any debate, has to play both sides of an argument for their opinion to be valid. Anita Sarkeesian specifically set out to create a critique of video games, not to rub developers on the belly. How did this fantastic idea of balance come in, where she can’t do one without doing the other?And you can’t ragingly disagree with her position then none the less demand that she supports yours. This seems silly. I’d find it annoying if in the middle of a debate, my opposite started patting my hand and nodding, telling me my position is perfectly valid too. It would be ingratiating and mealy-mouthed, dishonest. This is arguing for politicians and children.As far as sexuality vs sexism goes, it’s those of you who are black and white on the issue and can take a side who are most out of whack with the rest of us. Nobody delights in sexism but most any developer, if you push them, supports the right of games to be sexual and is against censorship broadly if not fanatically. So for most of us GG is not a forum to discuss these issues sensibly, even if the hardcore minority continues on their great quest to tilt at windmills.At this stage an awful lot of Gamergate, on both sides, is a made up fight about nothing, waged by people who fantasise they are battling for all of us but really are after personal vindication. Somehow, they have tangled up this somewhat minor and overly-intellectual online argument with their personal identity. So people go from calm to volcanic at the drop of a verb. If a great debate amounts to a bunch of really angry people making up new words to call each other on a forum, anybody with a life switches off. That’s why everybody in the industry leapt on the proGGers when the threats started. It wasn’t because everybody was suddenly a politically correct sheep, like the ever-suffering proGGers wanted to believe. It was because violent threats and the shutting down of conferences was actually a real, live issue that was happening, as opposed to the bullshit rah-rah-rah that the GG crowd carry on with every day. Oh, your fantasy battle is so real to you, you think it’s worth threatening peoples lives now? Then Je Suis fucking Sarkeesian, asshole. 2Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyKlaus Preisinger Freelance Writing 0Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyMorville O’Driscoll Blogger & Critic Edited 1 times. Last edit by Morville O’Driscoll on 26th November 2015 11:21am 3Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyTom Keresztes Programmer 2Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyAlfonso Sexto Lead Tester, Ubisoft Germany5 years ago Morville, right on time (and on the spot) once again.Yesterday we were talking about this, and personally I don’t believe that’s the reason. Sure some people could get mad, but it’s not like the game is going to be banned or ruin your reputation as a company. Just look at Marvelous AQL and their “Senran Kagura” or Tamsoft and their “Onechanbara”… or all those fanservice Vita games.My theory and what I personally believe that happens here: They just can’t go and say “Hey dear fans, you are too few, it’s not worthy for us to localize a game that only a small number of you will actually buy” because that would cause the actual backslash. It’s easier to say that and let the fans blame some “SJW-Sarkeesian conspiracy if shadow” (like they are already doing) 5 years agoThe issue here has to do with the message western developers, gamers and the media are sending to people out there.Question: Do you regard the decision to not release hentai Visual Novels in the West a symptom of this message? Because I’m telling you now, there’s been a massive amount of porn/implied porn not released in the West due to “business decisions”, for a long-time. This is not something that’s new. Stop trying to imply that it is, and that it’s to do with SJWs and censorship.do we agree […] that games with female sexual appeal should not be released to the western audience, or do we not agree and need to work on our image so our message is clear?No-one is saying that games with female sexual appeal should not be released to the Western audience, and, as I have already stated above, there’s plenty of instances of sexy games. Here, I’ll make it even easier for you: http://store.steampowered.com/search/?snr=1_7_7_151_12&term=nudity and https://www.mangagamer.com/ (both links NSFW to a greater or lesser extent).Self-censorship doesn’t stop people from making people simulating snuff porn, physical abuse of women, or lynching of homosexuals and black people.Regular censorship does that and rightly so.No. Regular censorship ensures that such things aren’t sold/distributed without legal repercussions. Self-censorship ensures that these things aren’t produced in the first-place. 5 years agohttps://twitter.com/koeitecmoeurope/status/671690313912598528Essentially, the community rep’s views don’t represent KT.Soooooo…”intimidation” and “censorship”, right?To be fair, I don’t think GI did a lot to help this by posting the barest minimum of “facts” regarding the story. But *shrugs* guess you got to go elsewhere for in-depth news stories about gaming. 5 years agoSurely that is self-censorship if ever there was such a thing. The fact their response to questions was “Do you know many issues happening in video game industry with regard to how to treat female in video game industry? We do not want to talk those things here”Which would be more relevant if they were originally inclined to bring it to the West and then changed their minds… but since they didn’t, I don’t see how it could be classed as “self-censorship”. This all seems like tricksy PR designed to at the very least sell more units of the East Asian release through importers.Or, to put it another way… Which plays better to the “perceived target demographic” – saying it’s not financially worthwhile to release a game in the West, or implying they’d love to release it, but those damn feminists/SJWs/moral-do-gooders would cause trouble if they did? 5 years agoI thought you had me on ignore. ;-)I do. Interesting fact 1) Using a different browser and not logging in means you can see what people on your ignore list say, and 2) I dislike the idea of people on my ignore list referring to me without me knowing, so occasionally I do 1). :p 8Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyPaul Jace Merchandiser 0Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyAlfonso Sexto Lead Tester, Ubisoft Germany5 years ago @TomWe most be more inclusive, right? Accepting and tolerating dissent ?Always. But not disrespect or those who seems to use this comments to flush their professional frustrations (not saying names; but they are more than one) 5 years agoThey’re most likely not releasing the game in the West because they don’t think it’ll sell enough to warrant the cost of localising […] itIt’s already been localised into english. I don’t know why they don’t just do a digital-only release in the west though, considering how easy that is to do these days.Ultimately this decision doesn’t change anything. People who wanted the game can still import it, and everyone else can have fun screaming at each other on twitter over it. 5Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyNick McCrea Gentleman, Pocket Starship5 years ago @ John OwensI always think Jerry Holkins writes brilliantly on issues of the games press and its decaying relationship both to the industry proper, and its audience. His recent post in Penny Arcade from a couple of weeks back had this quote:Having been the cowering creature beneath enthusiast media’s Eye of Sauron on more than one occasion, the object of their tender ministrations, their ostensible populism and their eerily synchronized perspective, I have no sympathy for these creatures. Which is to say, I have the same sympathy they express for those outside their cloister. You may feel very confident that there are conversations at every publisher now, wondering to what extent they are required to eat shit from these people. Edited 1 times. Last edit by Nick McCrea on 28th November 2015 4:22pm 2Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyCurt Sampson Sofware Developer 5Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyRobert Mac-Donald Game Designer, Lethe Games5 years ago Anthony, I think when it comes to sexuality, people make things more complicated, especially when us men try to speak on the perspective of girls. So instead of sexuality, let’s talk about violence. Pick a game like Hatred, or Postal, or Manhunt or movies like Rampage 1 and 2.If someone asks me, “is it ok to make such movies or games?”, I’d answer “yes. Threre is nothing wrong in making games or movies that are about violence, or even promoting it”. What would be wrong, is that if those were all the values we had in society. Psychological studies suggest that what we say, is not as important as what we imitate from other people’s behavior. We all grew up with violent video games, but we are not violent because our parents are not violent, our friends were not violent. Our values were stronger than violence. So, while I can denounce the values of a violent video games (violence is bad), I can say it’s completely ok to make a violent video game at the same time.Now, is it ok to have a sexualized game? By the same logic, yes. I don’t want to date a girl that is dumb and all looks. I want a girl that is smart. The fact games exist that show girls that are purely eye candy, like games that are about violent characters, should not be the reason why girls become purely eye candy or why men become sexist, correct? We need other values. So, we can denounce the values of a sexist game (being a shallow girl that is all nails and hair is bad), but say at the same time that it’s ok to make such games, for the enjoyment of people.We have fought the notion that violent games caused violence in the past, so why should we say now that sexy video games make people sexist?And here is where I don’t agree with your salt analogy. First, you are saying that salt is bad for your health, but good for your tastes. Is Anita saying what I just said, and what you just said, that sexist values are bad as values, but they can be good and positive thing for people as a medium to enjoy? As in, recognizing that salt is bad for the health but good for the soul?What is unclear about Anita’s message is, that while we all know she is saying sexism is bad as a value, is she saying or not that sexually appealing video games are bad as well for the consumers or not?. As in “there is something wrong with you if you enjoy salt. That’s the damage the patriarchy has done to you”. So, what is her message exactly?And, again, it seems that japanese devs and lots of people are understanding that the message is that we shouldn’t enjoy girls portrayed in a sexualized way, ever. That is what the statement from the Japanese devs on why the are not releasing a game seems to be coming from. If we do not agree with that statement, maybe we need to do a better job at exposing what we actually believe in. Asking Anita whether she is ok with DOA being released and people enjoying it or not would be a great start. 5 years ago Before cries of censorship abound, it should be noted that they never had concrete plans to bring it over to the West. The series also apparently sells poorly outside the Far East, so that, plus marketing/localisation/PR budgets would mean that they’d not gain much in revenue for their effort. 5 years ago Robert, I did address your “argument.” In my very first post, I told you that you were making up straw men, such as, “Anita’s message has been precisely that developers should not make games like Dead or Alive.” (Opening a discussion about whether making such games may not be a good thing is not the same thing as coming out and saying they should be banned.) You completely ignored that. And even if she said they should be banned, so what? Should people not be allowed to say such things?What, precisely, do you want Sarkeesian to stop saying, and why? Please point out the actual speech you think she’s doing harm with, rather than making up things. Or let’s start with our agreement that what Sarkeesian is saying is fine, and work from there. Your choice.This whole discussion has been crippled by people one one side, excuse my French, “making s–t up.” They claim, for example, that DoA wasn’t released due to oppression by the matriarchy or whatever, not just in the face of no solid evidence, but even evidence to the contrary. (One excellent way to keep the game out of the spotlight in the West would be not to create an English version. Yet they spent extra money to do so, and continue to distribute a version that works in English even though their ostensible markets are arguably the least English-speaking nations in the world.)I’m not saying intimidation doesn’t go on via speech on the Internet, but I think that clear death threats and the like are the place we want to start railing against it, not situations like this that a) could just as well be a marketing stunt as any actual intimidation, and b) where the value of the game is actually a reasonable point for discussion. (Though I’m sure certainly people here will take that second part as me saying, “ban it now!”) 5 years agohttp://www.vgchartz.com/game/479/dead-or-alive-4/Most of the sales were in Japan. Edited 1 times. Last edit by Robin Clarke on 27th November 2015 12:36pm 12Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyRobert Mac-Donald Game Designer, Lethe Games5 years agoThey’re most likely not releasing the game in the West because they don’t think it’ll sell enough to warrant the cost of localising and publishing itThat is not the answer they gave however Robin. They explicitly said they don’t want to deal with “issues happening in video game industry with regard to how to treat female in video game”.Hasn’t a handful of similar events happened recently, with Japanese games being more censored in the west in the form of removed or changed female outfits?AAA Developers, so far us indies have spoken about the things you couldn’t say for fear of backlash or losing your job, since we can. But it’s time you broke your silence if you want to revert the direction in which AAA is going. We don’t have the power to do it for you. Edited 2 times. Last edit by Curt Sampson on 30th November 2015 11:40pm 4Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyRobert Mac-Donald Game Designer, Lethe Games5 years ago (Opening a discussion about whether making such games may not be a good thing is not the same thing as coming out and saying they should be banned.) You completely ignored that. I’ve addressed that in more than 1 postAnd everything else you have asked me is addressed on the post I mentioned rock music, that I asked you to read on my last reply. 5 years agoI do. Interesting fact 1) Using a different browser and not logging in means you can see what people on your ignore list say, and 2) I dislike the idea of people on my ignore list referring to me without me knowing, so occasionally I do 1). :pWe most be more inclusive, right? Accepting and tolerating dissent ?
Microsoft hints at its Xbox endgame
Edited 3 times. Last edit by Morville O’Driscoll on 3rd March 2016 12:43pm 4Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyAdam Campbell Product Manager, Azoomee5 years ago This was my predicted vision just over 10 years ago but we’ll see. Not too sure why Microsoft kept PC and console platforms so separate for so long, considering you would expect their main goal to be furthering the Windows platform. 9Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyOliver Jones Software Developer 5 years ago Not a programmer, but won’t this affect the ability of developers to code to the full extent of each system’s capabilities? We’ll effectively have un-optimised launch-window software pretty much perpetually. Edited 2 times. Last edit by Kevin Strange on 4th March 2016 12:04am 2Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyRoberto Dillon Associate Professor, James Cook University5 years ago Sometimes I have the impression people at MS try so hard to think out of the box that they actually break the (x)box itself!Jokes aside, there are several reasons why consoles had 5 or more years cycles. As pointed out also in the article, manufacturing costs go down and profit margins go up year after year and that’s where the manufacturer recovers all R&D investments and make a good overall profit. At the same time, developers acquire in-depth knowledge of the system possibilities, allowing them to squeeze the HW more and more and actually improving the quality of their games even if the underlying tech isn’t state of the art anymore. And let’s not forget also that players get more mileage out of their investment too. Having fixed specs for a few years is a win-win for everyone.This move seems to wipe out all these benefits at once… I guess I am missing something here. 5 years ago Imagine an Xbox Three launches in 2018. Lots of Xbox Two’s start hitting the after market, snapped up cheaply by Xbox One owners looking to upgrade 5 or 6 years after having bought their XboxOne’s. At that point, there are still just 3 targets devs have to worry about, or two if they decide to totally drop X1 support.In any other scenario, devs would still have to target the original Xbox 1 hardware as their minimum spec till maybe a year after next gen launches?If Microsoft then say new Xbox every 2 years after that, and keep the versions easy to understand – Xbox 3, Xbox 4, Xbox 5 etc. It gets a lot easier to sell to gamers: If you want the shinyest graphics, upgrade every 2 years and get some trade in value for the old one. Can’t afford that, then know your Xbox will be good for at least 4 years. Even the GameStop’s of this world benefit from the arrangement!I think selling this idea to Xbox fans will be the tough part though. Edited 1 times. Last edit by Oliver Jones on 3rd March 2016 1:56am 8Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyJames Coote Independent Game Developer 5 years ago The cell phone market analogy doesn’t fit because people don’t buy cell phones primarily for games. They buy cell phones primarily as communication devices and oh, if they play games too that’s a nice bonus. It’s not the prime mover the way it is with console sales.Microsoft could move the needle very easily by doing two things:1) In the next hardware revision of the Xbox One, stealth add a USB-C port.2) Say nothing about the USB-C port until the next generation is ready to launch and then triumphantly announce an external GPU upgrade for the systems people already own. Something like this:http://www.anandtech.com/show/9963/asus-booth-tour-at-ces-2016-10g-switches-external-gpu-dock-usb-c/2Then, instead of releasing a completely new system every 5 or 6 or 7 years, you can release a new GPU every 2-3 years.Using the same consoles people already own. 4Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyAlan Blighe Research Associate Microsoft hints at its Xbox endgamePhil Spencer gave glimpses of a future for Xbox with short product cycles and a smartphone-like business modelRob FaheyWednesday 2nd March 2016Share this article Recommend Tweet ShareEver since Satya Nadella took over as Microsoft’s CEO, there’s been a cloud of speculation lingering over the company’s Xbox division. Nadella’s focus is strongly and unapologetically on a key set of Microsoft’s core strengths – enterprise software, cloud services and securing the market position of the Windows / Office product range – and Xbox, an entertainment hardware platform for consumers, seems at odds with a company increasingly focused on software and services for businesses. There have been rumours of talks with other industry giants aimed at selling or spinning off Xbox, though they ultimately came to naught, leaving Xbox as an unusual, out of place division within a pivoting Microsoft.”As the core features (and software) of Xbox are made available on Windows 10, so too will the Xbox become more like a PC” This isn’t actually a new position for Xbox, which has been at something of a tangent to the rest of Microsoft since its inception. Originally conceived as a strong response to the perceived threat of Sony – the then-dominant PlayStation 2 seemed to herald a bid to wrest control of consumer home entertainment from Microsoft, whose previous living room initiatives (WebTV, anyone?) had failed miserably – the division was led by and attracted a talented if motley group of Microsoft outsiders and mavericks. Within a few years, the original raison d’être of Xbox had evaporated; both Microsoft and Sony lost the battle for the consumer, with smartphones, tablets and other devices running Apple and Google operating systems becoming the core of most people’s entertainment and communication ecosystems instead. The Xbox 360, though, justified its place in the company on its own strengths, comfortably outselling Sony’s PS3 for most of its lifespan. Xbox One, despite selling more strongly than the Xbox 360, is a different story, and a distant second to PS4 in installed base. It’s easy to justify sustaining a strange, badly fitting business unit when it’s generating acres of good press and dominating a market sector; with that advantage gone, the spotlight has inevitably turned back to the question of what Microsoft does with Xbox now.At last week’s Xbox Showcase event, we got a pretty good, albeit still incomplete, answer. Xbox is going to push ever deeper into the Windows 10 ecosystem. Following updates to the console that essentially turn its OS into a version of Windows 10, and permit various cross-platform features between Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs, Microsoft is now pushing the concept of a Universal Windows Application, which essentially means games that run on PC and on Xbox One (and on tablet devices like the Surface). Developers will create their games and sell them through the Windows Store, with the notion being that, in theory, you’ll buy a game once and play it on whichever Windows 10 platform you prefer – a paradigm Microsoft has been driving towards with, for example, the free copies of Quantum Break on Windows 10 it’s giving to people who pre-order the game digitally on Xbox One. As the core features (and software) of Xbox are made available on Windows 10, so too will the Xbox become more like a PC; without giving details, Xbox boss Phil Spencer hinted at a (near) future where the console is upgraded on a much faster, more flexible cycle, more like a smartphone (with a 12-month refresh cycle and, generally, a 24-month lifespan in consumers’ hands) than like an existing console (whose hardware spec remains fixed for six or seven years).”If successful, it would probably mark the end of game consoles as we know them; the long predicted “death of the console” brought about through evolution into a new form of device” This is a vision that makes enormous sense in the context of trying to fit Xbox within the jigsaw puzzle of Microsoft’s wider business. It would essentially take the Xbox One – a console which, remember, has already pivoted dramatically from its original, highly controversial vision – and turn it into a formal extension of the Windows 10 ecosystem, treating it as an experiment in discovering a new technical and business model for console hardware within a much more connected world. If successful, it would probably mark the end of videogame consoles as we know them; the long predicted “death of the console” brought about through evolution into a new form of device. But in some ways, this move is less about overall market success and more about figuring out how to position Xbox (which Microsoft’s upper management and shareholders do not care deeply about) as an important pillar of strength for Windows 10 (about which they care very, very much).Don’t underestimate just what an enormous change to the console model Spencer was proposing in his Showcase talk. Cross-play between Windows 10 and Xbox One is a big deal, of course – though it’s likely to infuriate PC gamers who already vociferously dislike console specifications being used as the “base spec” for games on their platform – but it’s the knock-on consequences of the notion of a more frequently upgraded console that are most important, and most suggestive of an end to the console model as we know it today. The existing console model is relatively straightforward: an expensive, high-spec device is released to the market at or below cost price, with the platform holder gradually moving into profit over five to seven years through a combination of cost savings on hardware (the price of the machine falls far more slowly than the cost of parts and manufacturing) and licensing fees on software sold for the device. There are many reasons why consoles remain popular despite the huge performance advantage of PCs: ease of use, design, software line-up and future-proofing are important, but price is perhaps the biggest factor, with consumers who buy something like a PS4 getting a pretty amazing bargain in terms of cost to performance ratio, at least in the early years of the console’s life.The smartphone model, to which Spencer alluded approvingly, is very different. No manufacturer sells smartphones below cost. While smaller manufacturers struggle to make money in a competitive market, both Apple and Samsung have solid profit margins on their devices. New smartphones are, as a consequence, very expensive, with $700 to $800 not unusual for a high-end model. Consumers do replace these, in general, every two years, with most using plans from their network service providers to spread that cost out over a 24 month period, “buying” a new phone with a renewal of that plan at the end of the period. The cost of the phone isn’t subsidised, despite the often misleading claims of phone networks. Consumers pay the full amount, one way or another, spread out over two years.”In the space of time between console launches under the old model (let’s say six years), the Xbox hardware would be refreshed three times” How might an Xbox operating on that model look? One can imagine essentially ‘leasing’ an Xbox from Microsoft, paying a monthly fee for the system (which would incorporate your Xbox Live access) for 24 months, with the company giving you a new, improved Xbox at the end of your two-year contract, and either letting you do what you want with the old device or – more likely – collecting it from you at the end of the period, since it’s in their interest to keep consumers on up- to-date Xboxes rather than letting a ton of older, less capable devices float around in the after-market. The notion of console “life-cycles” would be gone. In the space of time between console launches under the old model (let’s say six years), the Xbox hardware would be refreshed three times. The console would get to make some cost savings on hardware over its shortened two-year refresh cycle, but they wouldn’t be very significant; the chances are that consumers would always be expected to pay the full launch-day price of the console, spread out over monthly payments. This would, of course, mean that over a six-year life-cycle, a regularly-refreshed Xbox customer would probably end up paying something like $2000 for their hardware, while a customer buying a PlayStation on the old model (assuming Sony stuck to the old model) would have paid around $400. With the actual monthly cost probably being around $30, though, and Xbox being accessible to customers who didn’t have $400 on hand right then, would consumers notice or object to the huge difference?A lot of people are going to have quite visceral reactions to what Spencer and Microsoft are proposing, no doubt, but I think there’s a really interesting argument on both sides. A regularly updated console platform could still offer many of the advantages of a console – a somewhat fixed target spec for developers, great ease of use for consumers, relatively low cost to entry – while taking on board some advantages of a PC, like being able to deploy performance improvements and technological advancements more rapidly. As part of the Windows 10 ecosystem, and sharing many (though not all, Spencer has confirmed) games with its PC counterpart, there would also be the interesting opportunity to allow consumers to bounce between a gaming PC and an Xbox console depending on which suits their lifestyle and their budget better at any particular point, safe in the knowledge that they’d be taking their library of games with them on the move.”Microsoft is to be commended for trying – once again, and perhaps more credibly and interestingly this time – to shake up the status quo of the console industry” Related JobsSenior Game Designer – UE4 – AAA United Kingdom Amiqus GamesProgrammer – REMOTE – work with industry veterans! North West Amiqus GamesJunior Video Editor – GLOBAL publisher United Kingdom Amiqus GamesDiscover more jobs in games On the other hand, the existing console model is popular for good reasons, too. It’s extremely cost-effective, and it gives consumers a cheap system that’s pretty much guaranteed to deliver good quality games for over half a decade. Backwards compatibility, despite much being made of it in the media, has rarely proven to be much of a draw for consumers; rather, they seem more concerned with feeling confident in forwards compatibility, the knowledge that the system they own today will still be playing games released in a year, two years’ or three years’ time. A smartphone-like “leasing” model for a more regularly upgraded Xbox might assuage that concern, but there will still be overlap between models’ lifespans, and games on the 2020 Xbox that won’t play (or will play badly, which might actually be worse) on the 2018 Xbox many consumers still own. There’s also a question of how this model plays in markets outside the United States and other wealthy, developed countries, where the success of consoles generally hinges on them launching later in their lifespans, when cost savings in manufacturing make it economically viable to release lower-cost hardware in lower-income territories (and the second-hand aftermarket is a big deal there, too). In the traditional model, that lower-cost hardware can still play today’s latest games; in Microsoft’s new model, older hardware will play older games, which may severely limit its appeal outside high income regions.Even while recognising the internal politics within Microsoft that have fuelled this swing in the vision for Xbox, the company is to be commended for trying – once again, and perhaps more credibly and interestingly this time – to shake up the status quo of the console industry. Of course, there’s no innovator’s dilemma facing Microsoft; in distant second place behind Sony, it has little to lose from trying something new, but that doesn’t detract from the value of what it’s proposing. It may not work; it may well be that console consumers, who are developing a solid track-record of proving pundits wrong about their preferences for console hardware over alternatives, stick with what they know and love. But faced with a market drubbing at the hands of Sony after releasing a console that is, objectively, not all that different from the PS4, Microsoft is doing the right thing by trying something entirely new. Whether it fails or succeeds, this battle of two very different models and visions for the world of consoles is something the industry truly needs.Celebrating employer excellence in the video games industry8th July 2021Submit your company Sign up for The Daily Update and get the best of GamesIndustry.biz in your inbox. Enter your email addressMore storiesEA leans on Apex Legends and live services in fourth quarterQ4 and full year revenues close to flat and profits take a tumble, but publisher’s bookings still up double-digitsBy Brendan Sinclair 7 hours agoUbisoft posts record sales yet again, delays Skull & Bones yet againPublisher moves away from target of 3-4 premium AAA titles a year, wants to build free-to-play “to be trending toward AAA ambitions over the long term”By Brendan Sinclair 11 hours agoLatest comments (13)Carl Hudson Studying Computer Science, University of Adelaide5 years ago I’ll buy a new console every year if they divide the launch price by 7.Also, I thought the reason that games get better, into the cycle, is because devs have better tools and coding to take the absolute best out of the very specific hardware in the console? This cannot continue if the underlying hardware is a yearly x factor.I can’t imagine Sony/MS would be locking too much into the next cycle yet until they see how VR/AR pans out.With XB1 trailing somewhat, I can picture meetings at redmond, where they continually brainstorm to come up with as many remotely possible ideas as they can think of for the next gen. (or, if they’re gonna get whacked again next gen, how can they shorten the suffering?) 1Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyShow all comments (13)David Canela Game & Audio Designer 5 years ago From what I can gather, the Universal Windows Platform layer is the “secret sauce”, allowing a certain amount of on-the-fly optimisation of the game, disabling certain effects for older hardware, enabling them and changing resolution for newer hardware.Yes, it sounds like rubbish to me, too.Actually, I’m sure it’s probably possible to do that – it happens to an extent already, in the sense of cut-scenes can be played at one resolution or frame-rate, and actual game is another. So, this just would just extend that to its logical point. But I honestly don’t think it’ll do much – this seems like MS’s last gamble to make the Xbox One worthwhile, from its own viewpoint. You can already see them giving up a vast swathe of previously Xbox One exclusives as they shift focus to Windows 10 Store. Developers may be hypothetically interested, but considering it seems more effort than it’s worth when you can just focus on PC (Steam) and PS, I don’t see a lot of actual uptake.
0Sign inorRegisterto rate and replySergio De Los Santos Senior Render Programmer, Frontier Development5 years ago “Not a programmer, but won’t this affect the ability of developers to code to the full extent of each system’s capabilities? We’ll effectively have un-optimised launch-window software pretty much perpetually.”Current consoles are PC like, so it’s not the same as it use to be (Playstation always had very custom hardware that had a long curve to learn and master). As long they release new PC like hardware PC, things won’t change that much.I mean, there is always things to learn, specially on the GPU side, but is not like PS2 or PS3 that were very different. And GCN (the architecture behind both XB1 and PS4 GPUs) is a very open architecture and the documentation about it is public. Sure, some details are different in both APUs (the XB1 and PS4), but again, the difference is not that big. 3Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyDr. Chee Ming Wong , Opus Artz Ltd5 years ago Let’s see a working proof of concept, I imagine there might be a challenge of a moving goalpost for developers in future proofing a forthcoming title 0Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyMorville O’Driscoll Blogger & Critic 0Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyJordan Lund Columnist 2Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyRobin Clarke Producer, AppyNation Ltd5 years ago Handhelds (and mobile) have shown that incremental updates are possible without fragmenting the platform.Microsoft need to address the Xbox One’s weak specs to even get back into the ring with the PS4. How quickly and how often they deliver hardware revisions, and whether Sony will respond in kind, waits to be seen.Jordan Lund: a cool idea, but breaking the upgrade out into a separate component (requiring its own design, casing, packaging, testing, software, distribution, etc – every couple of years) would probably negate any cost saving. I really hope external GPUs take off for laptop PCs though. 5 years ago The comparison to smartphones seems a little risky to me. Most people carry their smartphones with them all day. For many, it’s a status symbol like wristwatches used to be. Consoles lack those factors and as much as the console audience gets older, it’s still much younger and probably has less disposable income Idk… 0Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyKevin Strange Developer Relations Account Manager, AMD5 years ago Full disclose, I work for the AMD Radeon Technologies Group (PC GCN GPU). I have no insight into what our Semicustom (custom GCN APU) team are discussing with Microsoft. (Or Sony)So this is just me speculating on Jordan’s theory with with public info at hand (not confirming or leaking anything)Upgrading the GPU while utilising the APU on older models whilst releasing more frequent consoles with new GCN APU/GPU hardware..Is a lot more feasible for programmers who are now working with DX12, which is now on XBONE and PC.Especially with explicit multiadapter which a lot of smart graphics programmers I follow on social are currently discussing (and Oxide are using in Ashes, one of the 1st DX12 games)https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2015/08/10/directx-12-for-enthusiasts-explicit-multiadapterX360 had a newer HDMI model release, perhaps they will release a more powerful XBONE model for 4K TV’s as well as Hololense / VR headsets (see Oculus/Microsoft E3 announcement maybe it’s more than just a controller) that still plays current XBONE games..Maybe in the future even a USBC box/periferal for XBONE and PC especialy as chips get smaller, cheaper and more power efficient (14nm Polaris GCN and beyond) 5 years ago As a iOS developer I can tell you mobile consumers don’t really have an annual cycle. Yes new product is released each year but significant changes in hardware only happen every two years and then consumers are often 3 or more years out of step with the latest device.As an iOS dev at the moment you target iOS 9 & 8. And if you want the final 5% of addressable market you target iOS 7 too. This means your software can run on devices going back to the iPhone 4. A device that is 5-6 years old.If MS wants to move the Xbox to to a more services driven model then sure it could move to a model of refreshing the hardware more regularly and offering flexible payment models but you are still going to find consumers lagging behind. Only updating their device every 3 or 4 years. Only the more affluent and tech oriented consumers will tag along on a yearly or bi-annual cycle.Any device that had this sort of refresh cycle would have to focus on backwards and forwards compatibility. Smartphone platforms do this well already.Microsoft could pull off this strategy change well if it ensures it doesn’t alienate its exisiting Xbox owners. It will be a tricky sell but certainly something it could do. Edited 2 times. Last edit by Roberto Dillon on 4th March 2016 4:07am 3Sign inorRegisterto rate and replySign in to contributeEmail addressPasswordSign in Need an account? Register now.
Supercell “printing money” with Clash games – SuperData
Edited 2 times. Last edit by Patrick Walker on 27th May 2016 11:42pm 2Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyCraig Page El Presidente, Awesome Enterprises4 years ago That sounds about right, a week after installing Clash Royale I quit Clash of Clans. And I was the leader of a level 8 clan that was winning 2 out of every 3 wars. But Clash Royale was clearly a better game, so why bother with Clash of Clans anymore?Clash Royale lasted another month, before I hit a pretty hard wall that slowed progression to a crawl, my deck wasn’t doing so well, and for a week straight every new chest gave me crap cards. So I uninstalled that game too.Is cannibalization the right word? It’s more like cannibalization then self destruction. :O 2Sign inorRegisterto rate and replySign in to contributeEmail addressPasswordSign in Need an account? Register now. Supercell “printing money” with Clash games – SuperDataBoth Clash of Clans and Clash Royale are generating $100m a month as digital sales in April climbed 5% to $6.2 billionJames BrightmanFriday 27th May 2016Share this article Recommend Tweet ShareWhile Mobile Strike was the top revenue generating title in April, SuperData’s latest report shows that Supercell was the dominant mobile player for the month, as both Clash of Clans and new spinoff Clash Royale generated $100 million each.”Supercell keeps printing money with both its Clash games earning over $100 million a month. Following a spectacular release month, earnings for Clash Royale show first signs of normalization as revenues more closely resemble those for the firm’s other title Clash of Clans. Both grossed a little over $100 million last month, with combined earnings still higher than before the new game’s release,” noted SuperData analyst Joost van Dreunen. While EEDAR’s Patrick Walker previously speculated that Supercell may be in danger of cannibalizing its own Clash franchise by being too successful with Clash Royale, SuperData doesn’t see it that way. “So far Supercell’s new title has managed to add to the company’s bottom line rather than cannibalize the success of its existing titles. In the past few months, Clash of Clans did experience a decline in revenues from over $5 million a day to just under $4 million, suggesting that the release of its new title was well-timed. Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal reported that Tencent is considering a possible acquisition of Supercell,” van Dreunen continued.Looking at other digital platforms, interestingly SuperData found that Bandai Namco’s Dark Souls III was the first Dark Souls title to perform better on PC than console, “demonstrating that both Bandai Namco and From Software put the lessons learned from Dark Souls I and II to good use. This time around, a PC-optimized version was prepared in advance for the game’s dual-platform release, providing PC users with improved controls and graphics from the get-go. The title’s PC success makes up for its failure to earn a top-ten grossing rank on Digital Console.” Overall, Dark Souls III earned an estimated $45 million in the first month of its release, outperforming console revenue by nearly $18 million and cracking the top five digital PC games. For the entire digital games ecosystem, sales were up five percent year-over-year to $6.2 billion in April. Much of the growth came from digital sales on consoles, as digital console saw the fastest growth of any segment – up 23 percent in revenue and up 15 percent in audience. On the casual games side, players unsurprisingly have been shifting from social desktop to mobile devices, leading to a 10 percent decline for the category. Here are the top selling digital titles by category for April 2016:Digital consoleCall of Duty: Black Ops IIIFIFA 16Tom Clancy’s The DivisionGrand Theft Auto VDark Souls IIIPC DLCDark Souls IIICounter-Strike: Global OffensiveStarcraft IIMinecraftFallout 4Free-to-play MMOLeague of LegendsCrossfireDungeon Fighter OnlineWorld of TanksDOTA 2Pay-to-play MMOWorld of WarCraftLineage IStar Wars: The Old RepublicTERA: OnlineBlade & SoulMobileMonster StrikeClash RoyaleClash of ClansGame of War: Fire AgePuzzle & DragonsSocialDoubleDown CasinoSlotomaniaCandy Crush SagaFarmVille 2Jackpot Party Casino – SlotsCelebrating employer excellence in the video games industry8th July 2021Submit your company Sign up for The Mobile newsletter and get the best of GamesIndustry.biz in your inbox. Enter your email addressMore storiesEpic vs Apple – Week One Review: Epic still faces an “uphill battle”Legal experts share their thoughts on the proceedings so far, and what to expect from the coming weekBy James Batchelor 15 hours agoEpic Games claims Fortnite is at “full penetration” on consoleAsserts that mobile with the biggest growth potential as it fights for restoration to iOS App StoreBy James Batchelor 18 hours agoLatest comments (2)Patrick Walker VP, Insights, EEDAR4 years agoWhile EEDAR’s Patrick Walker previously speculated that Supercell may be in danger of cannibalizing its own Clash franchise by being too successful with Clash RoyaleMy more specific argument is that while the short term revenue of Royale + Clans is obviously higher overall, Royale won’t have the long term staying power of Clans. Therefore, the cannibalization (that is already occuring) will be an overall negative to Supercell revenues within 6 months. This is after several years of Clans dominance.I’m basing this on a combination of the game play mechanics of Royale, consumer panel data, and early signals from the US app store. I just checked the US ios top grossing charts and Clash Royale is down to number 5, below Clash of Clans at number 4.
Twintown charity rally raises £250,000 for Special Effect
Twintown charity rally raises £250,000 for Special EffectDisabled children’s gaming charity sees benefits of weekend eventDan PearsonTuesday 7th June 2016Share this article Recommend Tweet ShareRelated JobsSenior Game Designer – UE4 – AAA United Kingdom Amiqus GamesProgrammer – REMOTE – work with industry veterans! North West Amiqus GamesJunior Video Editor – GLOBAL publisher United Kingdom Amiqus GamesDiscover more jobs in games The Twin Town Rally, a charity driving event in which cars worth less than £500 were driven from the UK’s Blenheim Palace to Le Toquet in France, has raised over £250,000 for Special Effect, say organisers. On the way, racers stopped at Silverstone for a few laps, as well as participating in blind racing, car boxing, a treasure hunt and plenty of fancy dress.”When we were planning Twin Town 16, we thought a target of £250,000 was quite ambitious,” said organiser and Special Effect VP Brendon Cross, “but with the amazing support of the Twin Town community, the teams and everyone involved with the event, we have not only reached this figure, but are likely to completely smash it.””The success of the amazing Twin Town Challenge 2016 has left the SpecialEffect team both stunned and humbled, not only by the remarkable funds raised but also from the feel-good factor generated by volunteers, sponsors and participants during a weekend that none of us will ever forget,” added Special Effect CEO Dr Mick Donegan. “We cannot thank Brendon and every single person involved enough for what they have done to help those who benefit from our life-changing work.”Celebrating employer excellence in the video games industry8th July 2021Submit your company Sign up for The Daily Update and get the best of GamesIndustry.biz in your inbox. Enter your email addressMore storiesGamesAid raises £70,000 for multiple charitiesUK-based games industry charity splits donation among seven organizations By Jeffrey Rousseau 5 days agoHumble Bundle rolls back plans to remove charity slidersStorefront backtracks on decision following feedback from the communityBy Danielle Partis 6 days agoLatest comments Sign in to contributeEmail addressPasswordSign in Need an account? Register now.
Digital revenues up 15% in October – Superdata
Digital revenues up 15% in October – SuperdataSingle-player games holding their own while Destiny 2 and PUBG push premium PC up 28%; worldwide digital revenues total $8.5 billionBrendan SinclairManaging EditorThursday 30th November 2017Share this article Recommend Tweet ShareCompanies in this articleSuperData Research, Inc.The games industry isn’t 100% digital just yet, but digital revenues are growing in a hurry. Research firm Superdata today released its monthly worldwide digital revenue figures, showing that people spent $8.5 billion digitally on games for the month of October, a 15% jump year-over-year.Much of that growth was driven by the premium PC market, which had two high-profile success stories during the month. Destiny 2 followed up the largest digital console launch ever with a successful debut on the PC, while PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds had its best month yet, selling another 5 million copies. Related JobsSenior Game Designer – UE4 – AAA United Kingdom Amiqus GamesProgrammer – REMOTE – work with industry veterans! North West Amiqus GamesJunior Video Editor – GLOBAL publisher United Kingdom Amiqus GamesDiscover more jobs in games Given recent debate over the potential of single-player games in today’s market, Superdata said October was a successful month for a number of single-player-focused titles. South Park: The Fractured But Whole, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, and Assassin’s Creed: Origins combined to bring in more than $160 million in digital revenues, while Super Mario Odyssey gave the Switch its biggest digital launch to date, selling 191,000 copies. That number may seem low for a game as well-received as Super Mario Odyssey, but Superdata noted that digital full-game purchases on Switch still lag behind those of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.Despite the results, Superdata was clear that it views single-player games as disadvantaged when it comes to long-term potential.”We don’t expect these games to have as much success in the long run, compared to the multiplayer genres, as it is generally harder to monetize through microtransactions in a single-player focused title,” the firm said.Celebrating employer excellence in the video games industry8th July 2021Submit your company Sign up for The Publishing & Retail newsletter and get the best of GamesIndustry.biz in your inbox. Enter your email addressMore storiesNielsen to close down SuperDataGames insights will be rolled into Nielsen Sports’ products and servicesBy Marie Dealessandri A month agoJanuary digital games spending reaches $11.6bnSuperdata reports a 15% rise in revenue year-on-year worldwide, with the PC space particularly growingBy Marie Dealessandri 2 months agoLatest comments Sign in to contributeEmail addressPasswordSign in Need an account? Register now.
Augmented and mixed reality revenue to overtake VR by 2021
Augmented and mixed reality revenue to overtake VR by 2021AR/MR revenue expected to double to $3.2 billion this yearHaydn TaylorSenior Staff WriterMonday 26th February 2018Share this article Recommend Tweet ShareCompanies in this articleSuperData Research, Inc.Revenue generated from consumer augmented and mixed reality is set to overtake VR by 2021, according to a SuperData report.The report, Nowhere To Go But Up: The Future of XR, found that augmented and mixed reality revenue is expected to double to $3.2 billion this year. Investment in immersive technology jumped dramatically in 2017, growing 40% year-on-year; it was the first year augmented and mixed reality investment pulled ahead of VR. This year, augmented and mixed realities are expected to attract $1.4 billion of the $1.9 billion invested in immersive technology. Related JobsSenior Game Designer – UE4 – AAA United Kingdom Amiqus GamesProgrammer – REMOTE – work with industry veterans! North West Amiqus GamesJunior Video Editor – GLOBAL publisher United Kingdom Amiqus GamesDiscover more jobs in games Investor interest in AR has been driven by proven earning potential of games like Pokémon Go, which has made $1.8 billion since its launch in the summer of 2016. “Mobile AR will be the primary driver for revenue through 2021, earning roughly twice as much as software for AR/MR headsets,” said a SuperData spokesperson. “AR and MR headsets will remain costly for the general population in the next few years, making it difficult for the audience to reach critical mass and generate significant software earnings in the near future.”Celebrating employer excellence in the video games industry8th July 2021Submit your company Sign up for The VR & AR newsletter and get the best of GamesIndustry.biz in your inbox. Enter your email addressMore storiesNielsen to close down SuperDataGames insights will be rolled into Nielsen Sports’ products and servicesBy Marie Dealessandri A month agoJanuary digital games spending reaches $11.6bnSuperdata reports a 15% rise in revenue year-on-year worldwide, with the PC space particularly growingBy Marie Dealessandri 2 months agoLatest comments Sign in to contributeEmail addressPasswordSign in Need an account? Register now.