Industry regulators believe the Chinese market will continue to grow with numbers between 30 and 50 per cent in 2009 compared to 2009. Total market price would then be around 4 billion dollars.

China’s government provides the last hurdle towards really making the Chinese online market count; the General Administration of Press and Publication plans to tighten regulations, making government approval and license a requirement towards releasing a game. The report that foreign individuals and companies are not allowed to invest in China-based online game operations will only limit the growth.

China does have a positive attitude towards competitive gaming. The World Cyber Games global final will be in China for 2009, and the Electronic Sports League has been an organiser of major events for some time now. Lets hope they will not try to limit that growth!

“We have a really exciting slate, including five Rolling Stones songs, and we just see a constant rise in the percentage of our users that are connected to the internet, the percentage that are playing online, and the percentage that are downloading music – it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.”

More importantly, the latest installment has backward compatibility, allowing users to bring over songs they’ve already downloaded and paid for, and enables them to play these songs in the new game.

He touches on the software/hardware sales split by saying that a new franchise will see a 50/50 divide between both, DJ Hero being a prime example, but with Guitar Hero they keep seeing more solid software sales because of the established user base.

Guitar Hero 5 sold more copies than any other Guitar Hero on launch, beating Beatles Rock Band and clearly building on its bigger following because of the difference in marketing activities for both games; Beatles Rock Band saw enormous marketing efforts being made, linked to the Beatles releasing their box set simultaneously.

When linked to the comment of Activision’s CEO about passing the consoles by releasing a fully functioning gaming product, he clearly had Guitar Hero in mind. With this success they have once again shown the branding value of this franchise.

My prediction would be a console interconnected with internet and home computers, the pillars I mentioned ealier; network terminal, media player and gaming should be continued. But a more thorough integration of internet connectivity in both communication and social contact will be key in convincing consumers to switch to the new console.

Backward compatibility will be an issue, but as we’ve seen with the current generation of consoles, it will not stop the masses from adopting the new platform.

Art, it’s an uncommon product, and normally, they’re one of a kind so they are quite expensive. But an artist has to make a living like any other so why not behave like this french artist and make the following setup:

You create art, with your own significant style, and you advertise yourself on your website. On this website you also showcase what you have made. What you also do is sell directly from the website for a good price.

I can imagine that the step from finding an artist to buying a piece of art is the biggest, this makes that step much smaller. Who would make a trip to Bordeaux where her gallery is based on a website alone? But I can spend some money on something I seem to like. And this allows anyone that finds you to get a good indication of price, even when they don’t want to buy right away. I would say that it would be most interesting if the artist also created a premium product line that would only be sold in select gallery’s. This way you can still get the more common work directly, but for the really exquisite pieces you would have to visit the gallery and pay a (much) higher price. This would also allow you to involve people even more with your painting, add them to the tribe to use Seth’s words.

I think this goes for more than just paintings, any type of product of which the value is determined mostly by taste would benefit from this approach. Think designer furniture, jewelery, photographs (which are like paintings) or even something intangible like a service.

Grieve without reservation or embarrassment until you can grieve solemnly and inwardly, and then finally hang up your tears and wear them only occasionally, as befits the true men of the hear. Grief is not a thing to be ashamed of or suppressed. Nor yet is it a thing to cherish. Feel it, inhabit it, and leave it behind. It is right, but it is not the end.

From the book The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway. And yes, that’s the second quote I get from this book.

David Geary, who lead the study, had the following to say:

“In a serious out-group competition you can kill all your rivals and you’re better for it,”
“You can’t alienate your in-group partners, because you need them,”

Meaning that it makes sense to eliminate a group of strangers to establish dominance, allowing the testosterone to surge, but when the opponent is a relative or friend the level stays pretty much the same. In the latter case it is interesting for the gamer to establish dominance, but not to the full extent because he will need these people in his social environment.

We can directly conclude that you should play with friends instead of against them.