The company [Zynga red.] was hoping to ride a wave of positive sentiment led by LinkedIn and Pandora after those companies picked up multi-billion dollar valuations when they went public.

But game stocks were down at least 1 percent across the board. Saints Row developer THQ Interactive was the worst performer after falling nearly 6 percent, while publishing supergiant Electronic Arts fell by about one percent. Those companies revolve around delivering cinematic triple-A titles like Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Those games still carry large price tags, which would give social and online gaming companies the edge.

Read the full article here.

More interesting is the position of PopCap within the EA universe. EA’s CEO John Riccitiello explains the reasoning behind the offer:

“PopCap adds to our portfolio some of the best casual intellectual property in gaming – hit games that are growing fast on mobile and social platforms. Where some companies are built on a single hit, PopCap has made lightning strike again and again. They have built a powerhouse of evergreen casual properties and proven their ability to create new hits again and again on the fastest growing platforms – mobile, tablets, PC, online and Facebook.”

Sadly they make it about shareholder return in the end by saying: “ this deal is expected to be at least ten-cents accretive in fiscal year 2013″. Which I don’t care much about, a good company buying a big casual gaming name in order to expand on their position seems smart to me and will probably prove beneficial for the company in a few years. I take the ability of the bankers to broker a financially solid deal as a given and they shouldn’t be that concerned about it.

When I did get in the game turned out interesting! The mini-games are quite fun, although they will bore you when you’ve played them a few times, and the building of your city is easy. Some things are still a little bit unclear, like how to get the highest values in production and the various ways to fight towards victory. As it is right now, growth is most important, where in regular Civ games you could also go for different routes.

Anyhow, I can’t imagine this not to work out, so once they fix the connection troubles we’ll be good to go and I think a lot of people will enjoy it!

The trip gave us faith that the video game industry will continue to thrive and satisfy loyal fans for a long time to come, even as disruptive forces from social and mobile games encroach on the time that gamers have available to play.

Microsoft had some great announcements, but most of them leaked out. The highlight of the day was that Microsoft announced that it will launch Halo 4 in 2012 and will launch a remake of the classic Halo Combat Evolved game from 2001 later this year. The Halo 4 game picks up where Halo 3 left off and includes Master Chief and Cortana. It will be part of a new trilogy. Microsoft also leaked a Disney Adventures Kinect game and Star Wars Kinect the night before. With so many leaks, it was hard to say we learned anything new at the Microsoft event.

Read the full article here.

And while Apple will do its best to steal the thunder of E3 by having its own Worldwide Developer Conferencein the same week, it no longer seems like the iPhone and the iPad are pummeling the traditional game industry. Apple won’t kill the consoles, or so it seems. In fact, it almost seems that, after years of struggle for control of the industry, the various factions of the game industry are becoming more and more satisfied with the concept of variety. Consumers are embracing games in any kind of form. About 67 percent of American households play games, and the average gamer is 34 years old. Forty percent of gamers are women.

Read the full article at VentureBeat!

Preferably, I would take a lesson learned from this and be done with it.

When discussing business ideas, the hard part would be to think of something new, or better said by Seth Godin; Something Remarkable. It seems common knowledge nowadays that the music industry’s business model of making obscene profits on record is slowly fading. It’s being replaced by the long tail in music preference and selection, better suited for today’s online market. If you have any doubts about this, read “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson. But for gaming it appears exactly the same thing is happening!

And just as we have concluded with the music industry: You cannot blame the market! Powerhouse Electronic Arts put in a big loss over last year, also blaming market conditions, this in a period in which various research reports and publications told us ‘gaming is recession proof’. Perhaps the traditional publishers should consider the fact that their passive approach to market conditions is what lead them to this point, it´s not some external failure. Looking at Valve´s Steam model I can only conclude they have managed to translate market changes to a better product. Well at least a better distribution model. 

Or consider Lord of the Rings Online, Turbine´s MMORPG set in Tolkien´s world. They have thought of another way of keeping their game alive; lifetime subscriptions! One large fixed fee to be able to play the game as long as you want, even though the addons they publish on a proposed 1,5 year basis are to be paid for. Allowing them to create  a vast group of customers that percieve themselves playing a ‘payed gamed’ for free.

I can understand that a corporate entity like EA has trouble turning away from a business model earning them billions, but their losses should be a sufficient signal. And let’s face it, the bottom line is that the winner in the long term when it comes to b2c selling, will always be the one offering best value for money, even if its only percieved as being best.

So, what will the next market about to change be. Your gues is as good as mine.