Written by fiona | 22 February 2010

Video games in terms of budget, are already close to Hollywood movies budget. In the early 90s, video game budgets were around $100,000. Today, that barely covers one month worth of production. How much money that goes into the production of those games? It definitely worth a further look into it.

The most expensive game to be made is Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV, according to numbers from Digital Battle.

With a rumoured budget of $100m, Rockstar’s game finishes above the likes of Polyphony Digital’s Gran Turismo ($80m), Sega’s Dreamcast epic Shenmue ($70), Microsoft’s commercial flop Too Human ($60m) and PS3 hit Metal Gear Solid 4 ($60m).

Here’s the list in full :

1. Grand Theft Auto 4: $100 million
2. Gran Turismo: $80 million
3. Shenmue: $70 million
4. Too Human: $60 million plus
5. Metal Gear Solid 4: $60 million
6. Halo 3: $55 million
7. APB: $50 million
8. L.A. Noire: $50 million
9. Final Fantasy XII: $48 million
10. Killzone 2: US$45 million

Let's take a closer look at their listed retail price on Amazon:

1. Grand Theft Auto 4: $24.55
2. Gran Turismo: $36.99
3. Shenmue: $78.97
4. Too Human: $25.57
5. Metal Gear Solid 4: $19.99
6. Halo 3: $27.49
7. APB: $49.99
8. L.A. Noire: $59.99
9. Final Fantasy XII: $19.99
10. Killzone 2: $27.99

Written by fiona | 15 February 2010

More than 24% of Internet users say they play social games frequently, making for a total of approximately 100 million social games players, according to a survey conducted by Information Solutions Group on behalf of social games publisher PopCap Games.

"This can be seen in the popularity of games like Popcap's Bejeweled, which to date has been downloaded over 150 million times and with 25 million copies sold, compared to a traditional hardcore blockbuster like Halo 3, which 8.1 million units sold made it one of the most successful console games in recent times," said Michelle Lui, MDA's deputy director of interactive media and games, in an e-mail interview with ZDNet Asia.

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Written by fiona | 08 February 2010

The demands of virtual economy development

In original virtual community, only a few kinds of virtual goods and services are provided, and almost no trade of virtual goods exists. With the varieties of virtual goods and services increase, the virtual goods trade between users increased sharply.

The virtual money comes out to act as a general equivalent in virtual world to facilitate the virtual trade.(Primary Mode)

When more and more users create value in the real world and consume in the virtual world, the demand of exchanging real money into virtual money rises.(Primary mode -> Ameliorative mode)

With more and more players entering the virtual world and spend a lot of time in it, they tend to create and accumulate virtual wealth in virtual world. Then the demand of exchanging virtual money to real money rises. (Ameliorative mode -> Intermediate mode)

The expansion of the virtual capital drives the virtual economy increasingly vibrant enough to emerge in-world virtual financial system. (Intermediate mode -> Advanced mode)

All these modes were made possible due to technological advancements and increase in progress of modern information technology mainly due to the Internet.  With more and more people joining virtual communities, some activities in the real world were unmistakably transferred to the virtual world.  Increase in virtual goods trading also drove virtual money to have a higher stand in reality and virtual world.  Hence, making it a source of “real” money to people in the virtual world.

Check out more analysis from the stakeholder's perspective.

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Written by fiona | 01 February 2010

Dear Readers,

Today we will continue our article and discussion on the evolution of virtual money and its incorporation into the real world. The following article consists mainly of the classification of virtual money and also on how the evolution of virtual money over the years has allowed it to become part and parcel of both reality and in the virtual system.  The diverse modes discussed in the previous article allows us to be able to understand WHY virtual money holds such an important role in enabling players and developers to allow the game to run more smoothly and function automatically by itself.

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Written by fiona | 25 January 2010

The development of virtual money is a dynamic process from junior to senior, with issuance mechanism and money function evolving gradually.In this article, virtual money is divided into 5 modes: original, primary, ameliorative, intermediate and advanced.The primary and ameliorate virtual money do not have the full four money functions, is not true sense of money. However, the intermediate and advanced virtual money have the full spectrum of characteristics of moneyness, can be treated as the real money. The impetus of evolution comes from the increase of in-game virtual goods trade, the facilitation prompted by information technology progress and internet development, the needs from users, and the choice from issuers who seek to maximize profit. The paper proposed that virtual money evolving from primary to advanced mode will attract more players into the online games and prompt the frog leap of the game subscription, which will bring more profit for the game operators. From a survey, it is found that all the virtual money in china is in primary (ameliorative) mode, but the demand for intermediate mode virtual money is strengthening, and the emergence of advanced mode should experience a long but promising process. Different regulatory measures on virtual money should be taken corresponding to the different modes.

This article will be split into a series of different chapters, each chapter giving u a deeper insight into the world of virtual money and goods with its relation to the real world. This first chapter starts off with the basics and definitions of virtual money followed by its evolution. You will actually be amazed by the different forms of virtual money and also the change and impact that e-money has affected in the real world itself.

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