Organisers of the Gamescom consumer and trade event in Cologne, Germany have revealed that the 2011 expo has so far attracted 20 per cent more exhibitors than at the same time last year.
Due to run from August 17 to 21, the event has already confirmed exhibitors including Nintendo, Sega, Capcom, Electronic Arts, Konami, Namco Bandai, Ubisoft, Warner Bros., Take-Two Interactive, Bethesda Softworks, Valve and Deep Silver.
Online companies including Frogster, NCsoft, and Trion Worlds are also registered for the event, as well as hardware suppliers Hama, Razer and Bigben Interactive.
According to organisers many companies have significantly increased the size of their exhibition space from the previous year. 2011 will also see the first country-specific exhibition at Gamescom, with a special Mexican pavilion.
"We are currently working at full steam on a trade fair exhibit that will excite all generations of gamers. We look forward to reuniting with our fans from all across Europe in Cologne," said Michael Auer, central European sales & marketing director for Capcom.
"We are looking forward to being a significant part of Gamescom in this important and exceptionally strong year for us. We are now using the coming months to present our titles in an impressive way to an international community of excited video game fans in Europe as well."
Further information is available at the official website.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...r-cent-on-2010
...

Nominees for the Best Original Video Game Score at the 56th Ivor Novello Awards have been announced, with Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, James Bond 007: Blood Stone, and Shogun 2: Total War all under consideration.
Nitin Sawhney was nominated for Ninja Theory's Enslaved, Richard Jacques for Blood Stone, from now shuttered developer Bizarre Creations, and Richard Beddow, Richard Birdsall, and Ian Livingstone for The Creative Assembly's Shogun 2.
The 2010 ceremony was the first to introduce a special video game category, although the awards themselves are now in their sixth decade. The categories are presented annually by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors and judged by the music community, with no input from publishers or record companies.
The winner of last year's award was Guerrilla Games' Killzone 2, with other nominees being Empire: Total War and Savage Moon: Waldgeis.
The 2011 winners will be announced at a gala event on May 19, at Grosvenor House in London. Further information can be found at the official website.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...nees-announced
...

This is a retailer on games’ side, and with 20 million customers walking through its doors every week

I was sitting in a conference last month listening to a big retail exec discuss the future of video games.
He spoke about no longer selling discs, but rather the rights to access content. He discussed streaming services and DLC. He even suggested bundling Xbox games with PS3 titles.

But the surprising thing about this wasn’t the content of
the speech, but rather the person that was giving it. It wasn’t HMV’s Simon Fox. It wasn’t GAME’s Ian Shepherd. Nor was it Amazon, Steam or iTunes.
It was Rob Salter, the entertainment boss at Tesco. You know, the supermarket. Sells bananas and clothing.
For over two years now Tesco has seen itself as more than just a grocer that sells a small range of games. To them they are specialists with specialist knowledge.
Hence the shelf space dedicated to pre-owned, pre-orders and, if it had its way, DLC and collector’s editions.
It is interesting to hear Tesco’s games boss Sarah Kaye call for a ‘level playing field’ with the specialists. For years we have had GAME, HMV and indies complain about the grocers and their penchant for cutting prices.
Here we have a supermarket complaining about specialists and their unique offers. Who says the grass is always greener?
Sure Tesco is a big, scary corporation. It owns a bank after all. And an insurance company. And a mobile business and film studio. And I am sure it can be difficult to deal with at times.
But this is a retailer on games’ side, and with 20 million customers walking through its doors every week. It is an opportunity publishers would be foolish to ignore.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/43991/OPIN...esco-seriously ...

UK consumer group Gamers' Voice has filed an official complaint with Channel 5 over as episode of chat show The Wright Stuff in which violent video games were under discussion - specifically linking them to the shooting of a London teenager.
The show aired on Thursday 14 April and was centred on the possible reasons behind the shooting of Agnes Sina-Inakoju by Leon Dunkley and Mohammed Smoured, who have now been convicted and jailed for the crime.
The pair are members of the notorious London Fields gang responsible for many other violent attacks, including the stabbing of 14 year old Shaquille Smith in 2009.
During the broadcast, host and panel members speculated on whether violent games could have been a significant factor in the boys' behaviour, with Anne Diamond one of the more vociferous voices present. As an illustration of how violent video games can be, the show aired footage of 18-rated Modern Warfare 2's infamous "No Russian" level at 10:30 am - well before the watershed.
Gamers' Voice not only feel that the context and discussion was poorly balanced and argued, but that the airing of unsuitable material before the watershed constitutes a violation of broadcast rules.
"It's nothing new that TV loves to sensationalise gamers and shooters," reads a statement on the group's website.
"Instead of trying to learn and educate themselves as to why people commit horrific crimes, TV loves to target gaming. Gaming is easy to attack and it seems that it can conveniently 'explain the increase violent behaviour'.
"In the episode of the 'Wright Stuff' that was aired on Channel 5 on Thursday 14th April, they discussed the alleged causal link between video games and violent behaviour. In particular, they focussed on the detached way that 22-year-old Leon Dunkley drew a sub-machine gun and killed customers in a London pizza parlour.
"Instead of talking about possible the social, mental or economic problems that could have driven Dunkley to kill, the Wright stuff went straight to what must be the cause for the problem. It wasn't gang culture which puts perceived respect above regard for human life, no, it's first person shooters that are responsible.
"What was even more shocking was that during the introduction to the discussion, they showed scenes from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Specifically the infamous level 'No Russian' where the play can gun down unarmed civilians, if they so choose. So apparently at 10.30 in the morning during the school holidays, it's fine to show scenes from an 18 rated game to set context of how it causes violence, which goes in some way the level ignorance of all involved in the programme on the subject being discussed."
In January of 2011, Gamer's Voice hosted an evening at Portcullis House in Westminster to try and encourage MPs to engage in games. Suprise guest of the evening was Keith Vaz, who'd long been associated with an anti-gaming stance.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...with-channel-5
...

Starting today, US ratings giant ESRB won't even play some of the games it rates before release - it'll have a computer decide instead.

The New York Times reports that the body has written a program designed to replicate the "ingrained cultural norms and predilections of the everyday American consumer".




What this means is, starting with XBLA, PSN and WiiWare titles, game developers will now fill out a digital questionnaire to gauge any "violence, sexuality, profanity, drug use, gambling and bodily function" that could possibly offend players.

The questionnaire will then be judged by ESRB's special tech and a game rating spat out. A human won't review the title until after the game is released, the NY Times reports.

Developers can't simply lie about their content either - if they do they'll likely suffer penalties, it's said, and Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft won't certify games without ESRB's backing.

The system sounds similar to that used in Europe by ratings body PEGI, which has applicants submit their games with a "content declaration". The difference is, PEGI's system then has a (human) independent administrator review the submission, where as ESRB will now reportedly use its computer program to do the job.

The decision is said to be based on the huge influx of titles landing on the ESRB's lap to review, specifically Facebook and Apple games which are currently under the exclusive control of the companies that run them.

Under the new system ESRB could potentially see its logos on all of these social and mobile titles, but it's so far refused to comment on any negotiations with Apple and Facebook about adopting the ratings.

Last year the ESRB rated about 1,600 games, of which up to 30 percent were only online. The digital titles set to be rated under the new system are said to total around 650 games a year.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS ...

...

Activision's Dan Winters, head of developer relations, has spoken out about what he feels are misconceptions of the company's image, telling GamesIndustry.biz that it's not so long since his company was the plucky underdog.
Winters' comments come as part of an exclusive interview about the general state of play at Activision, in which he is keen to point out that the company has a great deal of respect for developers, something he hopes is reflected in public perceptions of the publisher.
"I would like to think that we spend a lot of time, and I individually spend a lot of time thinking of ways to reach out to the development community and show that we have respect and complete admiration for what they do on a daily basis," Winters argued. "I hope that there aren't any hard feelings and I hope there isn't any reluctance - I've certainly not felt it directly.
Before our merger with Blizzard we were always known as the warm and cuddly Activision; the scrappy, loveable number two.

Dan Winters, Activision

"A business is a tough thing to manage on a number of different fronts, especially when you're dealing with a creative community like video games or interactive entertainment. Any time that I do hear anything of concern I do try to dispel it. The overall message that I would love people to get out of any time they actually get detailed information about us or my personal approach is that we have admiration and respect for the talent in this industry.
"We recognise that the success we've had as a company comes from the talent of those individuals and those teams. We would like to think that we're able to compliment that talent and high-quality product with the ability to move things through the right channels, and that's great, I think that's part of our magic sauce. But without really high quality product, and without the passion and talent behind it, we recognise that the business is only the business. I hope there's no reluctance, I certainly haven't felt it directly."
Recently, in an interview in Edge magazine, three high level ex-Bizarre Creations staff spoke about their experience during the notice period and subsequent closure of that studio by Activision. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, there was an impression that the process had been handled with a sensitivity and tact, with the offer sitting on the table to buy back the studio as an independent concern.
"I'm sorry that people were surprised by that," Winters responded when the interview was raised. "With all of our internal studios we have built a process, Bobby [Kotick, CEO] has really done this directly himself, built a process for the independent developer model, that allows them to retain their own culture, their own visibility, their own leadership, really to drive the stewards of the brands. I think those are important pieces of ownership, as it's loosely defined.
"I think that's an important part of people coming in and having a passion and being able to exercise that passion as opposed to going in and being called publisher's name plus location. That takes some of the individuality away from that studio, and maybe some of their ability to personalise, to put in passion and ownership into their studio process. So I think we've done a good job of that through the years."
A large part of the negative perception of Activision's behaviour doubtless comes from its success. As Winters points out, it's wasn't too long ago that EA was sitting in Activision's current position: number one in terms of revenue, and wearing the heavy badge of the 'Evil Empire'.
"It's interesting, before our merger with Blizzard, becoming the number one publisher from a revenue perspective, we were always known as the warm and cuddly Activision; the scrappy, loveable number two. As soon as we become the number one and we develop broader perspectives, perceptions started to change a little bit.
"We've worked very hard, and continue to do so, to let people know that, you know, we're the same guys, we really are. We haven't changed! I'm the same guy that I was before the merger, as are most of us. We're the same organisation. We haven't gone out and hired 3000 people. Our ability to scale and move quickly is the same as it was before. We're not this big, monolithic empire that's making decisions in a dark room, we're still very collaborative. We still have the same healthy respect and appreciation for talent that we ever did."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...olithic-empire
...

A report by tech industry analysts Gartner believes that half of all organisations which 'manage innovation processes' will gamify those processes by 2015.
The study concludes that gamification in marketing and customer retention programs will be "more important than Facebook" by 2014, citing programs such as the DWP's Idea Street and recruitment tool America's Army as prime examples of the process.
"Gamification describes the broad trend of employing game mechanics to non-game environments such as innovation, marketing, training, employee performance, health and social change," said Gartner analyst Brian Burke.
"Enterprise architects, CIOs and IT planners must be aware of, and lead, the business trend of gamification, educate their business counterparts and collaborate in the evaluation of opportunities within the organization."
Key points of gamification were identified in the study, which splits the advantages of the process into the four distinct branches of accelerated feedback cycles; clear goals and rules of play; compelling narrative and a successful challenge/achievement balance.
"Where games traditionally model the real world, organizations must now take the opportunity for their real world to emulate games," added Burke. "Enterprise architects must be ready to contribute to gamification strategy formulation and should try at least one gaming exercise as part of their enterprise context planning efforts this year."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...on-on-the-rise
...

But at the same time, retail research shows the number of new games released is at a six-year low

The average price of a video game last year was £24.32, Chart-Track data has revealed.
That number is a 7.2 per cent increase over 2009, where the average price was just £22.69.

Surprisingly, it was supermarkets that increased prices the most. The average price of a game at a grocer set gamers back £23.93, an 8.7 per cent rise compared to 2009.
Despite the rise, specialist, generalists and indies are still the most expensive games retailers out there. The average price of a game from these stores in 2010 was £25.31, an 8.2 per cent increase over 2009.
Online retail prices were also up last year, albeit not as much as other outlets. Games online on average were priced at £22.97, a 5.4 per cent increase over the £21.80 recorded in 2009.



In terms of the number of titles released, there were just 1,626 games that debuted at UK retail in 2010, the lowest in almost six years.
It’s a sharp decline on the 1,777 titles released in 2009 and is in fact the lowest number since 2004, when there was also 1,626 games released.
The numbers reflect the traditional console cycle, with fewer games released in the last few years of a console generation as publisher priorities change.
However, these figures do not take into account digital sales and are for retail only.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/43950/Aver...es-on-the-rise
...