September saw a brief respite from the bad news, but October
brought it in spades for the video game industry.
Sales of video game software dropped 19 percent, compared to
a year ago to $573 million. Hardware was even worse, falling 23 percent
compar…
Look, if people are going to eschew their work day in favor of having a gaming tournament, we’re the first to sympathize. In the case of those in the business of protecting our lives from murderers and financial institutions though, we find it hard to offer much solace. So when eleven officials from several Florida agencies were caught on videotape playing games a couple months back and the story caught on internationally, we were hopeful that those found guilty would maybe, you know, actually receive some form of punishment.
Instead, the Lakeland Ledger reports that the offending officers will suffer such retribution as … a few hours of retraining? The names of the officers are even being withheld due to their “undercover” status at the time. Lakeland sheriff chief of staff Gary Hester goes as far as to say, “We are learning from our mistakes … I think we handled [the investigation] properly.” He then hurriedly rushed back to a game of Street Fighter IV in progress against a competing police department.
… Okay, we made up that last part.
Wii-playing police receive slap on the wrist, strict talking to originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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I sat in a blue room on Monday, surrounded by what some hardcore gamers might call artifacts of absurdity.
On walls around me hung a Wii bowling ball controller attachment, a Wii pool cue, Wii pom poms, and more.
Who makes this stuff? Two amiable Orthodox Jewish brothers — black pants, white shirts, beards, and an offer to their guest of some kosher pastries — sat across from me, cheerful about what they've built and the amazing gizmos surrounding us.
I was at the second floor offices of CTA Digital, a block from where Brooklyn, New York touches the East River, in a short, aged office building, up an elevator painted with an old yellow floor ad for Domino sugar. I was in the spotless show room where Leo and Sol Markowitz's line of sometimes-ridiculous, sometimes-useful — and apparently hot-selling — attachments for the Wii and other electronics line the walls. (See their offerings online, then imagine that a lot of that is hanging on the walls of one room that’s also big enough for a couple of couches and a big-screen TV.)
The brothers Markowitz are some of the guys who saw in the Wii not just a gamer revolution but a chance to make money selling people things to attach to their Wii remote.
And 200,000 units of their Wii bowling ball controller sold worldwide later, they say, they were pleased to be surrounded by the plastic products of that opportunity.
“We smelled it right away,” Leo told me, recalling his first sensations of the Wii’s imminent success.
The Wii peripheral market is big and, despite other industry slumps, growing. Of the 58.4 million gaming peripherals sold so far this year in the United States, the NPD group reports that 18.4 million of those are for the Wii. That’s up a million from the same date last year.
So even though Sol, an avowed Kotaku reader, playfully cut his brother off early in our meeting about Wii add-ons to remind him that "real gamers don't like the Wii," enough people do like these attachments. They like the tennis rackets and the baseball bats, the imitation light sabers and shotguns. Maybe not the pom-poms — a weak seller — but people like buying Wii peripherals and business is no joke at all. It's good.
CTA has more than 30 employees, a warehouse in upstate New York and design and development teams in Asia. Maybe most importantly, Leo noted, “We have five people who think of things to make 24-7.”
They think of things like… the bowling ball. “Why wouldn’t you buy it?” Leo said to me, when I ask him what the point is. I argued that people had been Wii-bowling with no ball-shaped shell around their controller just fine.
It makes the game fun for plenty of people, Sol said. “It makes it more exciting.” He knows that “real gamers” won’t care as much.
This bowling ball was a dream project, a year in the making and spurred by research that showed them that Wii Sports bowling is the most popular activity on Nintendo’s console.
“We all knew that whoever comes out with bowling, it’s going to be huge,” Leo recalled.
Those CTA engineers got to work, trying to craft a bowling ball something-or-other that could fit around a Wii Remote. They didn’t want people to chuck a bowling ball controller through their TV, so they tried to design a bowling ball shell that wouldn’t function if you didn’t wear the shell’s wrist strap. Couldn’t get it to work right, Sol said. They settled on a design that has two wrist straps and is sealed with a sticker that must be broken in order to first encase a Wii remote in it. You rip that, you assume the risks.
The bowling ball’s good, though it’s holes are positioned only for right-handed bowlers. An ambidextrous design hadn’t worked. But have no fear, fellow southpaws. “We probably will get into the left-handed business,” Leo told me.
I met with the Markowitz men and a helpful colleague for over an hour. Leo repeatedly bounded from his seat on a couch across from me to grab secret prototype after secret prototype of CTA gaming add-ons that will make the bowling ball seem pedestrian. They’re secret still, but they’re wild.
CTA’s been in this business for 16 years, Sol explained. They started with cell-phone add-ons, then moved on to iPod attachments. Now they do gaming add-ons too, like PlayStation 3 chat pads, Xbox 360 cooling devices and iPhone steering wheels. The Wii’s been the big one for them lately, and gaming’s up to a quarter of their business, though they won’t say how much money CTA makes. They sell their attachments worldwide, to electronics stores that once ignored them or shunned gaming.
They say that even Bed Bath & Beyond is on board now. The brothers recalled that the retailer — not exactly a gaming powerhouse — consented last Christmas season to trying to sell 30,000 of CTA's Wii add-ons, simple things like controller charge stations, and sold almost all of them. The retailer asked for more — asked for the top sellers, even. So, the brothers told Kotaku, CTA has sold Beth Bath & Beyond Wii Sports kits to sell and even a Wii controller shotgun. No word if it's sold next to shower curtains.
Leo showed me a smart one: A belt and holster designed to hold a Wii Remote for users of Wii Fit. He rightly pointed out that the game requires players to use the Remote to start their exercising but then forces them to either put it down or needlessly hold it as they work out on the Wii Balance Board. The holster holds the Remote, freeing the user’s hands. And it swivels, letting someone point the Remote to navigate menus without having to un-holster it. That seemed to address a Wii Fit user interface issue.
I asked the brothers if they saw themselves as being in the problem-solving business, the fun business or — gesturing to the Wii Music Kit that lets you embed the Wii remote into shells shaped like a violin, a trumpet, a dog paw — the novelty business.
“We see what the problem is [with a game] and figure out what we can make for it,” Leo began.
“We are in the fun business,” Sol cut in.
Leo laughed. “We’re in the business to sell and make money.”
CTA’s bowling ball controller may make the company stand out, but they are not the only creators of imaginative Wii add-ons. Mad Catz makes controller shells shaped like Ubisoft’s Rabbids characters. Nyko director of marketing Chris Arbogast told Kotaku that one of his company’s most creative Wii add-ons was going to be their Party Station: “a combination charging station / beverage container / chip bowl.” It’s not coming out. “Although it generated a lot of buzz and consumer response, it was not cost effective to produce and was tabled.”
Arbogast noted that some of the more imaginative controllers, while fun or aesthetically pleasing don’t fit his company’s strategy. “We decided on particular accessories that allowed us to incorporate new technology or offer features that were not previously available, like button relocation on our Action Pak pistol grip or rumble in our Kama.” Their next big product is their new Charge Base IC.
CTA is well aware that some of this wilder stuff doesn’t work. The Wii Music kit has been a slow seller, not helped by relatively slow sales of the Wii Music.
The brothers seem undeterred. They say that their new Wii Sports Resort kit, which includes a bow-and-arrow add-on, a Jet-Ski-style handlebar and even a frisbee shell, is selling great.
And don’t worry, those of you who might feel you’re too cool for these kinds of attachments. Leo and Sol are making some products for you in mind too. Just wait. Brooklyn’s keeping busy.
Anyone who does proper exercise could have pointed this out, but it’s always nice to have it in writing; the American Council on Exercise have claimed that Nintendo’s Wii Fit produces “underwhelming results”.
The group has released a report on the super-popular home fitness program, drawing on research performed by the University of Wisconsin. And this report has found that even Wii Fit’s most physically taxing workouts can’t hold a candle to actual exercise.
Wii Fit’s boxing, for example, burns only 1/3 the calories of actual boxing, while the other four most intensive modes – Free Island Run, Super Hula Hoop, Advanced Step, and Free Step – only burned between 100 and 160 calories every 30 minutes of exercise. Considering a cheeseburger has around 300 calories, you’ll be on Wii Fit all day if you want to really burn some fat.
Perhaps most damning/hilarious, however, is the report’s finding that while Wii Fit burns more calories than a regular game – where you’re doing nothing – it’s not as good for you as a session on Nintendo’s own Wii Sports.
Ah, the power of marketing.
American Council on Exercise Charts ‘Underwhelming’ Wii Fit Health Benefits [Gamasutra]
What better way for insurance company Kaiser Permanente to promote a healthy lifestyle than strapping television monitors playing Wii Sports to the heads of its marketing team?
Members of the Kaiser Permanente “Pixmen” marketing team took to the halls of Honolulu’s Ala Moana Center mall yesterday to demonstrate how Wii Sports can help people stay healthy while still playing video games. They used Pixman Nomadic media to get the message across, a technology-based street media system that seems to involve placing television monitors on the backs of marketers. I approve of anything that places television monitors over the heads of marketers.
The team wandered about the mall, inviting people to play a game that certainly seems like Wii Sports, though the Honolulu Advertiser seems to think it is Wii Fit. Judging by the article’s description of passersby playing bowling, golf, and tennis, I’d say Wii Sports is a far better bet.
“We got pretty good reaction today from people,” said Michael Lew, one of the Pixmen. “There’s a significant number of people who interacted with the game. It’s a great way to get your message out.”
So Wii Sports isn’t just a grand alternative to standard exercise; it’s also a fine alternative to standard marketing.
Insurer promotes fitness game [Honolulu Advertiser]
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