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Reverb's latest feature lets you track the value of your music gear
Reverb, the Etsy-owned online used musical instrument site, has added a feature called Collections that lets you track the value of your musical gear.
Steam's curator update tackles shady review key requests
Steam's curator program will be getting a makeover this fall as Valve takes steps to make the system more effective for both gamers and developers. Under the banner "Curator Connect," players will now see their favorite curators' recommendations show up in other parts of the Steam Store, as well as their home page. Curators will also be able to embed videos in their reviews, create lists from reviews they've already written, have more control over their home page and get their hands on more data showing the impact their reviews have on their followers' buying habits.
The Moto X Play is the Style's more affordable cousin
While we expected Motorola to refresh the Moto X and revise the best-selling Moto G, we weren't anticipating a big-screened handset for those on a budget. The new water-repellent Moto X Play is designed to be exactly that: It's powered by a 1.7GHz Snapdragon 615 octa-core processor with 2GB of RAM and features a slightly smaller 5.5-inch full HD display, 21-megapixel rear-facing and 5-megapixel front-facing cameras and a whopping 3,630mAh battery that Motorola says will last around two days on a full charge. If you liked the Droid Turbo's longevity, then the Moto X Play could be your new favorite -- especially because its "TurboPower" quick-charging technology will get you back up and running in no time.
Chaos Theory: The value of The Secret World's DLCs, part 2
Last week we began our exploration of the value of The Secret World's DLCs by looking at the cost of the additional content relative to those who subscribe, those who don't, and those who are lifetime member grandmasters. But money isn't everything to everyone. As noted previously, value is a subjective judgment determined by whatever factors are most important to the individual making the assessment. So making the call on value will depend on which category/categories are used in the judging process. With that in mind, this week we're going to delve into the content aspect of the various DLCs. Specifically, we'll look at quantity, quality, and type of content in each issue and sidestories pack. Other key factors that are of equal -- if not paramount -- importance to some players are whether or not the additional pack is necessary to further TSW's story (who wants to miss some important tidbit?) and how fun playing through it actually is.
Report finds lack of mobile contract choice in the US, better value in Australia
This may come as a shock to our Australian readers, who are so used to getting ripped off, but who are we to argue with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development? In a study of smartphone contracts across 12 countries, it found that Australia consistently offered the best value, whereas the US and Canada penalized low-usage customers and offered just average value to the rest. Admittedly, the analysis had to set some severe parameters in order to benchmark across so many different markets and pricing models, including focusing on two handsets (the 16GB iPhone 4S and Galaxy S II) and a single month of data (February 2012, which was before the anti-subsidy trend began in the US). In any case, bear all that in mind as you read on for a summary of the report's main conclusions.
The Soapbox: Diablo III's auction house ruined the game
After his departure from the Diablo III development team, Game Director Jay Wilson released a statement that the introduction of an auction house "really hurt the game." While players predicted doom the moment the Real Money Auction House was announced, Jay argued that the gold auction house was equally to blame for the game's fall from grace following its absolutely stellar launch sales. I don't normally agree with what Jay has to say on Diablo III, but in this case he does have a very valid point. Diablo II was consistently popular for over a decade thanks to its immense replayability. At its core, D2 was a game about building new characters and gearing them up by any means necessary. Every enemy in the game was a loot pinata just waiting to be popped, and players farmed endlessly for a few sought-after unique items. You almost never found an item that was ideal for your particular class and build, but you could usually trade for what you needed via trade channels and forums. Blizzard claimed that the auction house was intended just to streamline this process, but when Diablo III launched, it was clear that the entire game had been designed to make the auction house almost necessary for progress. The fault here lies not just with the concept of an auction house but with the game designers. That's right: I'm here to argue not only that Jay Wilson was right about the auction house ruining Diablo III but also that it was his own damn fault.
Warren Buffett speaks out on Apple's cash pile
Warren Buffet was on CNBC yesterday, and the famous investor had some opinions about Apple, its stock price and the enormous pile of cash it's sitting on lately. His basic thoughts, not surprisingly, were just for Apple to keep making money. "The best thing you can do with a business is run it well," said Buffett, "and the shares will respond." Apple recently had a big investor try and sue them to get dividends from the company's cash back to the shareholders, but that lawsuit failed, and Buffett says he wouldn't have worried about it. "I would ignore him," Buffett said of the investor David Einhorn. "I would run the business in such a manner as to create the most value over the next five to 10 years." Which makes sense -- while stockholders might not be happy about not getting paid cash right now, no one will argue with an extremely valuable business that grows even more valuable in the future. Buffett also shared a story of Steve Jobs calling him when Apple made a little extra cash, and Buffett advised him to get some of the stock back. "When Steve called me, I said, 'Is your stock cheap?' He said, 'Yes.' I said, 'Do you have more cash than you need?' He said, 'A little.' [laughs] I said, 'Then buy back your stock.' He didn't," Buffett remembers. And Buffett finished his story with a wise bit of advice for Tim Cook, Apple and really any investor out there: "If you could buy dollar bills for 80 cents, it's a very good thing to do." Obviously, Apple is working hard on R&D spending, and the company could go through its vast cash reserves very quickly if that's indeed what it wanted to do. But instead, the strategy should probably be to keep making the company even more valuable, because both Apple and its shareholders will benefit if that happens.
Minecraft's mobile version outsold others by volume in 2012
Minecraft creators Mojang have released stats on how the game's various platform clients (Windows/Mac, Xbox 360 and of course iOS and Android) have been selling, and the numbers have a surprise. The mobile version is outselling everything else by volume. As you can see above, Christmas sales boosted the mobile version, at least in terms of pure numbers, so that it's beating all other versions offered over the past year. In terms of value, the mobile version didn't fare quite as well as the more expensive Windows and console versions, ending up with about 16 percent of sales as compared to the PC's 44 percent of incoming revenue. Still, Christmas was a huge time for Minecraft: Pocket Edition apparently, with the company raking in money from almost 284,000 copies on that day alone. Minecraft is traditionally known as a PC title, as that's where the platform started, but the mobile version stepped up into its own during the last weeks of 2012.
The Soapbox: Games-as-a-service sucks for the consumer
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. If you pay close attention to game industry marketing-speak, you've probably heard of something called games-as-a-service. It's an initiative that's been gaining momentum in recent years, as publishers and development houses look to increase revenue, strangle used game sales, and clamp down on both PC and console piracy. It's also championed by a few of our more clueless game "journalists," more often than not due to their (desire for a) cozy relationship with the aforementioned industry players. Put simply, games-as-a-service seeks to change both the definition and the public perception of the phrase "video game" from a product that you buy to a service that you rent, thereby granting developers and publishers complete control over the end-user's experience. If that sounds somewhat nefarious, that's because it is. It's also something that MMORPGs have been doing for two decades.
Study: iPad holds value longer than Kindle
Electronics retailer Gazelle has been calculating up the various values of used electronics, and the firm has found that the iPad will hold its value way better than the Amazon Kindle has so far. The Kindle e-readers have only held, at the most, about 33% of their price after a year of use, while the iPad is usually sold for about 50% of its original price. Even the iPhone is more valuable after it's used: Old iPhones are selling for about 40% of their original price. It's no surprise why: Apple products are continuing to remain in demand even after they're updated, and the Kindle's lower price and fewer features probably doesn't help the resale value either. If there's a not a big difference between the used and new prices and not many new features, why wouldn't you just buy a new Kindle? Obviously the iPad 2 is faster and has that camera, but an original iPad is still very useful, making it much more valuable for the price. All of that said, of course, this tablet market is changing very quickly, and the pattern that we've seen with the iPhone is that as more models come out, the earliest models are worth even less; just find an original iPhone on Craiglist these days to see how cheap they can be now that the 4 and 4S are out. With another iteration of the iPad expected out this year, we might see the earliest models become quite cheap on the resale scale.
Apple Store almost worth as much as the White House
There are several different ways to judge the success of a company. You have earnings reports, brand value and market value. For retailers, there's sales-per-square-foot which places a monetary figure on the sales and the size of a store. CNN calculated Apple's sales-per-square-foot value and determined its flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York City (US$4,709 per square-foot) is worth almost as much as the White House ($4,752 per square-foot). It's also significantly more valuable than #2 Tiffany, which has a sales-per-square-foot value that's 40% less ($2,974 per square-foot) than Apple's. Apple opened its first retail store eleven years ago, and it's been a rocket-ride to the top of the retail market for the Cupertino company. It now has over 350 stores, which occupy three million square feet and generate $14.1 billion dollars a year. The secret to Apple's success, says analysts, is its flawless retail execution which dictates everything from how the store looks to how its employees interact with customers. Apple products also command a higher than average retail price which helps to boost the company's bottom line.
Apple jumps to 9th most valuable brand in the world
Apple is now the eighth most valuable brand in the world says a recent Bloomberg report that ranks the top 100 global brands. The brand rankings use five unnamed criteria and exclude privately-held companies. Brand value includes the name, logo, image, and other intangibles which identifies a company to a consumer. The top ten list is heavily dominated by technology firms including IBM, Microsoft, Google, Intel and HP. Apple trails IBM, Microsoft, Google, Intel, but comes out ahead of number ten HP. Apple's brand value stands at US$33.493 billion, up from $21.143 billion in 2010. Apple increased its value 58% year over year, climbing from 17th place last year to 8th this year. The company's momentum shows no sign of slowing down, and may climb even further up the ladder in 2012. [Via AppleInsider]
App Store hypothetical market cap beats RIM's value
Research in Motion, maker of the once-ubiquitous BlackBerry, hasn't been doing so well this year. As each month goes buy, its smartphone continues to lose market share to the likes of Apple's iPhone and Android-powered phones. Just last week, RIM's stock sank after dismal quarterly earnings and a less-than-stellar outlook. That stock slump brought the company to a market cap of approximately US$7.04 billion last Friday. As smartphone market analyst Brian Hall was the first to point out, that's less than Apple's App Store is worth. Yeah, just the App Store alone is worth more than all of the BlackBerry maker. Now, to be sure the App Store is not an individual company or subsidiary of Apple. But its value is estimated to be worth $7.08 billion to Apple. That estimate is based on an analysis by Trefis that says Apple's App Store makes up 2% of the total market cap of the company. And actually as of close of market yesterday, RIM is worth even less than on Friday when the numbers were first run -- about $6.7 billion -- and Apple is worth more, so the App Store has actually increased its lead. Not to kick a company while it's down (too late) that means that not only is RIM getting its butt kicked by Apple's iPhone, it's getting it's butt kicked by just the App Store that runs on the phone that's taking all its market share. What's worse is that there's really no sign of a turnaround strategy for RIM, although some bloggers think they have the answer.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Post-survival
So we've had a week to adjust to the new state of being for City of Heroes. OK, maybe a bit less than a week, what with all of the server issues and maintenance, but it's been something close to a week. That means that as a collective playerbase, we can start looking back at the launch and taking a slightly more critical eye. We're no longer running on speculation about how the launch will go; we're running in the wake of the relaunch, expansion, whatever you want to call it. Last week, for those of you who've forgotten already, I wrote a piece specifically about surviving the release when it went live. Now that we've had a chance to go through it, there are some things I got wrong, some things that need more elaboration, and some things that I've just revised my opinion on. Since we've all survived the head start at this point, let's look at what it actually entailed, yes?
Amazon to launch Netflix-style service for digital books?
Details are still sketchy here, but the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Amazon's looking to launch a Netflix-like subscription service for digital books, much to the chagrin of some publishers. According to unnamed sources familiar with the matter, Amazon is currently "in talks" with several publishers about the program, which would provide access to an online library in exchange for an unspecified annual fee. The insiders also claim that the service would be available for Amazon Prime subscribers (who currently pay $79 per year for free shipping and access to shows and movies) and that the proposed library would feature primarily older works, with monthly restrictions on the number of books a subscriber could read for free. Publishers would reportedly pocket a "substantial fee" for signing on to the program, though some are reluctant to participate, for fear that doing so would "downgrade the value of the book business," according to one publishing exec. In fact, it remains unclear whether any publishers have thrown their hats in the ring, but we'll certainly be on the lookout for any developments.
Mobile Miscellany: week of July 25, 2011
Here's some of the other stuff that happened in the wide world of wireless for the week of July 18, 2011: Remember the Samsung i927 with AT&T logos we saw spy shots of a few days back? These photos came with others' speculation -- and our skepticism -- that this would be the Galaxy S II Rethought Possible. Our hesitation to call this one a surety was spot-on, however, as we've now been told this phone model is not the mystical Samsung Attain after all. Could the i777, just seen wandering through the FCC testing facilities, be it instead? [via BGR] Google's updated its Maps for Android app to include My Places, photo uploading, and a few other goodies. [via Google] Foursquare posted an update to its BlackBerry application; within it, the app now offers support for BBM integration. [via PhoneArena] T-Mobile's rumored Value plans took effect this week, offering a lower price point for anyone who either owns a T-Mobile device already or brings an unlocked GSM handset to start the plan. [via T-Mobile] Sprint unveiled new "Business Freedom Plans" -- business pooled voice and data options that don't come attached with any commitments. [via Sprint]
T-Mobile unveils flexible new Value plans: unlimited talk, text, and / or data for any device
We'll give T-Mobile credit, it isn't afraid to shake things up to try to gain ground on Big Red and Ma Bell in the cellular arms race. Mere months after rolling out new prepaid options for its customers, T-Mo is bringing Value plans to the people. These new plans come in various configurations, but all are available with any of the carrier's phones, tablets, or broadband accessories. In exchange for a two year commitment, you get 2, 5, or 10GB of high speed data, with limitless websurfing at slower speeds. Full pricing hasn't been announced, but we do know you'll be able to get two lines with unlimited talk, text, and 2GB of data for $100, while the data alone will run $20 per month. Sound good? Well, the plans go live next Monday, so you've got plenty of time to read up on your options in the PR after the break.
Ask Massively: Let me show you pictures of my cat edition
Oh, wait, I can't show you pictures of my cat because he's currently hiding. I can show you pictures of what my cat normally looks like, except that we recently had him shaved so that the hot summer wouldn't be hitting him with a full long-haired blue coat. He's decided to repay this kindness by sulking and screaming at Ms. Lady and me because we have humiliated him. To be fair, he does look pretty pathetic now. Even if he does resemble a tiny lion. Now that we've lost absolutely everyone but the hardcore Ask Massively readers, we can delve into this week's questions, centering on TERA's political system and the curious grip that free-to-play games can hold upon our wallets. As always, you can mail your own questions along to ask@massively.com or leave them in the comment field to be answered in a future edition of the column.
Apple brand valued at $153 billion, scoots ahead of Google for first place
What is the world's most valuable consumer-facing brand? If you'd asked the guys behind the BrandZ survey at any point over the last four years, they'd have told you "Google," but in 2011 their answer has changed. Apple is now the hottest property in terms of consumer goodwill, earning an estimated valuation of $153.3 billion and leading a pack that includes the likes of Coca-Cola, BMW, HSBC, and Disney. The tech sector had a very strong year as a whole, with Facebook's brand improving in value by a staggering 246 percent (to $19.1b) and Amazon becoming the world's most valuable retailer (at $37.6b) in spite of having no actual stores. Sadly, there were some downers too, as Nintendo lost 37 percent of its brand worth over the past year, Nokia dropped by 28 percent, and the BlackBerry marque was considered 20 percent less awesome than before. Punch the source link to learn more. [Thanks, Bruce]
Alter-Ego: Looking at the state of the game
One of the most common questions I get every week in the comments for Alter-Ego is whether or not I think people should come play DC Universe Online. Obviously, I personally like the game, else I wouldn't still be playing and writing a column about it. I freely and openly admit my bias there. I'm a comic geek, so I've played every superhero MMO that's come out to date. While I love aspects of all of them, I currently prefer DC Universe Online for the fact that I get to run around with some of my favorite heroes and take down villains that I've known all my life. So with my bias openly stated, I'd like to counterbalance it with this: As a veteran MMO player, I also won't put up with things I think are absolute crap for very long. Much like everyone else, I have a life to attend to outside of MMOs, I had to shell out for a copy of the game, and I pay my own subscription each month. I get just as irked when I feel as if I'm not getting value for that dollar as anyone else does. With that in mind, let's take a look at DC Universe Online from launch to current day, and I'll toss out my thoughts on picking up the game afterward.
