With retail video game sales smacked down by the rough economy and ever-growing competition in the crowded social and mobile game marketplace, it seemed like attendees at [the] annual Game Developers Conference were more frustrated than birds catapulted at pigs.
Game designers, programmers and executives from around the world converged at the Moscone Convention Center in hopes of figuring out how to become the next “Angry Birds,” the silly top-selling mobile game that pits birds against pigs. Yet many attendees dismissed the mobile platform as The Next Big Thing, noting that selling 99-cent games isn’t a dependable way to generate revenue.
“Downloadable games are the future, which is what I keep telling my team when they ask why we don’t make any money,” joked “Psychonauts” and “Brutal Legend” developer Tim Schafer while hosting the Game Developers Choice Awards on Wednesday. “Just kidding. I blame marketing.”
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said in the conference’s keynote speech Wednesday morning that “game development is drowning” because of the rise of cheaply made and priced mobile and social games. He expressed concern that those platforms have “no motivation to maintain the value of gaming” and that they lower gamemakers’ ability to make a living.
“We invest a tremendous amount in technology, engineering and in the staff that create these games to maintain that high level of value, so that consumers want this content,” said Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime in an interview afterward. “It’s not disposable, and it’s something that consumers can enjoy over long periods of time.”
Iwata and Fils-Aime also used the speech as a chance to reveal that the Nintendo 3DS, the glasses-free hand-held 3-D gaming device set for release in the U.S. on March 27, would be able to stream Netflix movies and freely connect to more than 10,000 AT&T wi-fi hotspots. Iwata also…