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Gridiron Thunder Ouya Kickstarter concludes with $171k, many questions
Gridiron Thunder's Kickstarter project ended over the weekend, earning $171,009 in its 30-day campaign. Gridiron Thunder was under suspicion when it first met its funding goal in late August, thanks to curious funding spikes witnessed by backers. To reach its goal, it received more than $10,000 apiece from a limited number of funders, as revealed by Kicktraq. It was one of two games that reached its goal as part of Ouya's Free the Games Fund, a program that rewards successful Kickstarter project creators by matching the crowdfunding results in exchange for six months of Ouya exclusivity. The game had just 183 total backers, making for a rate of $934.48 per person. In recent months, the closest any project has come to that average is Yargis, which had an average of $275.05 per backer thanks to a lone $5,000 pledge. The results of 84 projects in the past three months revealed a mean average of $50.59 pledged per person, making Gridiron Thunder a statistical anomaly. The other Ouya game in question, Elementary, My Dear Holmes, was suspended by Kickstarter on Friday after the developer addressed concerns to both Kickstarter and Amazon surrounding "suspicious accounts" that backed the project. The game's creator, Sam Chandola, said the developer "wanted to get on top of this and did not want anything to do with any of what was happening as it was an extremely negative campaign for us." Kickstarter declined to comment on the project's suspension.
MCV 2012 UK salary survey shows industry pay up 10 percent year over year
MCV's 2012 UK Games Industry Salary Survey, which polled 975 people (597 of whom worked in United Kingdom), showed an average UK games industry salary of £33,123 ($50,741), more than a 10 percent increase from 2011's average of £30,667 ($46,979). That figure was created using survey results from "all sectors - development, publishing, retail, PR & marketing, services, technology and business development," according to MCV. Ten percent of respondents were women, which is reportedly in-scale with their overall presence in the British gaming industry. The study's average salary figure is a median average rather than a mean average, we should note, and does not include "the group of very senior, and very well paid, execs" that also participated in the survey. Including their data, the average salary is £35,790. If you include the 378 non-British respondents, the average rose to £34,263, indicating that junior-level employees may be earning more outside of the UK. The survey also showed a disparity between the average salaries of men and women, with industry women making £1.35 an hour less than their male counterparts. This is disproportionate to MCV's global findings, which show that women in the games industry earn more than men on average, albeit only by a few hundred pounds. Here is your reward for making it all the way through a facts-oriented article about salaries and averages. [mffoto via Shutterstock]
AAPL hits all-time record high
Perhaps because of optimistic analysis going into tomorrow's conference call, Apple's stock price has hit an all-time high today. While the Dow Jones average was down overall, AAPL rose $6 at one point, hitting $371.06 as a high. That's huge -- bigger a stock price than it's ever been before. Analysts say that there are a few factors here, with the big expected earnings only one of them. The HTC patent ruling was another big piece of good news to Apple's investors, and a lot of Apple's moves in general have really been turning out well lately, from the integration of iOS subscriptions and Apple's deals with both media providers and developers, to more recent innovations like iCloud and the new versions of iOS and OS X coming soon. In short, Apple's hitting its stride in a whole new way, and there's still a lot of room to grow yet. Note: Past performance is never an indication of future stock prices. This post should not be considered sound financial advice.
MyTown updates to version 3.1, adds collectibles and social features
MyTown is one of the hottest things going on the App Store right now in terms of social apps. As we mentioned in the interview with CEO Keith Lee a while back, they've actually got more users than Foursquare. The company has just released version 3.1 of the app, which introduces more collectible rewards earned by checking-in to certain local, real life locations (which you can then use to customize the properties you "own"), as well as more social features. You can now browse through the top trending properties, see your most frequent check-ins, and browse through where your friends are going out to and checking-in from. Additionally, Booyah tells us that the app is growing by over 100,000 players each week. They're suggesting that the average player of the game spends "more than an hour a day within the app." That's kind of incredible, but if it's true, that's one heck of an attachment rate. In fact, those are exactly the kind of usage stats that Ngmoco's Neil Young would drool over. Considering that MyTown just made an appearance in Ngmoco's We Rule splash screen, odds are that the two companies are at least sharing notes and, at most, possibly primed for a partnership. We'll have to wait and see what happens.
Average iPad app price is $1 more than iPhone apps
Here's some more interesting stats about app pricing. We've heard pricing average stats before, including that the average app price seems to be hovering right around three dollars. But a firm in the Netherlands has done some more research into current iPad and iPhone app prices, and discovered that while iPhone apps average out at $3.87 (slightly higher than most estimates, but still in that $3 range), iPad apps are actually hitting an average of $4.67, almost a dollar more than iPhone versions. That's both good and bad news for developers -- while it does mean that iPad apps are releasing and selling at higher prices (something most developers believe should be the case, given the amount of work and design that goes into iPad apps versus their smaller-screen cousins), those prices aren't that much higher. Apple specifically priced their iPad apps at $9.99 after selling their iPhone game at $4.99, and if they wanted that to be the early standard for the iPad, it doesn't quite appear the plan is working out. Still, an extra buck is better than nothing, and as always, developers should sell their apps for what they think they're worth anyway. The firm, Distimo, also says that 80% of iPad apps are paid (compared to the iPhone's 73%), and medical and financial applications are the most expensive, averaging out at $42.11 and $18.48, way higher than the iPhone's $10.74 and $5.74 averages for the same categories. So while the prices may differ, there's no questions that developers are charging more (and getting more) for applications on the iPad.
Study: Average social gamer age is only 29 in the US
If you think that those silly social games like Farmville and Mafia Wars are full of teenagers, you're only half right. The average player of social games is actually younger than previously believed, according to a new study, but a little older than teenage: 29 in the US and 27 in the EU. That's an interesting conclusion, especially since the average gamer is actually a little older than that (s/he was 30 a few years ago and has been getting steadily older since then), and most people believe that social gamers on Facebook tend to skew even older. This survey by GamesIndustry.com, however, goes against that grain, and claims that while there are more females playing these games than males, they tend to be younger than expected. Peter Warman of that site says that the reason for this is that most such surveys don't poll any lower than age 18: "It is therefore not at all surprising that their average age is extraordinarily high ... Data from kids and teens is vital and should always be taken into account." If these surveys aren't representing anyone below age 18, then it's possible gamers, especially those playing social games on Facebook and elsewhere, are even younger than anyone's guessed previously.
The state of the Azerothian economy
Thermalnoise over on the WoW LJ thought of a great poll, and the results are interesting. He asked readers there what the average amount of gold they had on their characters was, and I thought the amounts were relatively high: between 2,000 and 10,000g for about 40% of those polled. The other big chunk is between 200 and 2,000g (a little under 30% of respondents), which is where I'd expect most of the player base to be, but no: apparently Blizzard's bigger rewards in Wrath of the Lich King (not to mention the higher gold sinks, requiring us to try and raise more gold if we want to fly around or ride a mammoth) have made us richer as a whole.Thermalnoise also asked how much your savings of gold fluctuates, and for most people it apparently stays pretty much the same, or generally increases (probably as they run professions, do quests, or sell off drops and pay repairs). I'd imagine Blizzard is keeping a pretty close eye on just how our gold moves around, and that "steadily increase" is what they'd want all of our money to do, just to keep the game's economy moving around.In fact, though I'm probably repeating myself here, it'd be nice to have them give us some insight on just what's happening with the ingame economy. We've gotten a few hints at what sells and doesn't on the realms, but it would be interesting to see some official numbers about the average amount of money that players have and keep at the various levels of the game. and exactly where it all goes when we spend it.
Next-gen launch reviews projected
Are you anxiously awaiting the reviews scores for the PS3 and Wii launch games? Be anxious no longer -- Next Gen has kindly projected those scores weeks in advance by studying review scores for past console launches.While every console launch is different and past performance doesn't necessarily predict future success, it's interesting to see how the earliest games for earlier systems have fared. Unsurprisingly, a 36% plurality of launch titles tend to be mired in the mediocrity of 70 to 80% average scores, while only one in ten games break past that magical 90% average. More surprising is that Nintendo launches (N64 and GameCube) tend to fare slightly better on average than Sony launches (PS1, PS2). In fact, the GameCube had the most well-rounded launch in the modern era, with an 80.2% combined GameRankings average.Curmudgeon Gamer has a more detailed breakdown and downloadable spreadsheets to play with the numbers yourself.
