Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson suggested that game publishers could achieve greater financial success by elevating talent and pushing key development figures as a reason to get consumers interested in a project.

"There are very few people in this world who know how to create hits. Not create a hit, but create multiple hits," Wilson told MTV Multiplayer. "Those creative minds should be recognized and remunerated in the video game industry for their contribution as much as other forms of media."

"From a business perspective, that might be more expensive, but if the reward is better selling games the trade-off is worth it," he added.

Wilson went on to suggest that despite that potential, many publishers see development icons as interchangeable in terms of franchise development, noting that Take-Two would likely develop a BioShock sequel with or without ... Read more

An unsurprising study funded by the Entertainment Software Association found that the industry is performing relatively phenomenally, with 17% annual growth from 2003 to 2006. The ESA boasts that this rate trumps the 4% annual growth of the overall economy, basically saying "in your face" to less fortunate industries.

"Computer and video game companies play an ever increasing role in our nation's growing economy," said ESA CEO Michael Gallagher. "These companies and their colleagues across the nation are making entertainment software one of the fastest growing industries in the United States."

The study by Economists Incorporated for the Entertainment Software Association found that the industry directly employed 24,000 individuals as of 2006 with an average salary of $92,300. In that year, the industry added $3.8 billion to the U.S. GDP.

California, a hotbed for the gaming industry, employed 40% of the industry's workers last year. The state's gaming industry grew by 12.4 percent and added $1.7 billion to California's economy, the study found.

With nearly $1 billion in sales recorded for the month of July, the year-to-date progress of the North American gaming industry is up some 43% over July 2006 numbers, with NPD's Anita Frazier now putting the yearly estimate of total industry sales at $16-18 billion.

Nintendo has emerged as the clear leader in hardware sales this year, with 425,000 and 405,000 sales of its Wii and DS consoles recorded in July, respectively. Sony's PlayStation 2 pushed 222,000 units, while the PSP recorded 214,000 sales. Microsoft edged out Sony with 170,000 Xbox 360 units sold to the PS3's 159,000. Nintendo's die-hard Gameboy Advance followed up the pack with 87,000 units.

Shack community member Chazums charted the numbers in a series of graphs, showing the yearly current-gen hardware sales broken... Read more

Paris-based Ubisoft will more earnestly pursue game-related movie efforts with upcoming titles, CEO Yves Guillemot revealed after his keynote at the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. Guillemot's words indicated a desire to pursue more full-scale movie-making efforts, such as the upcoming Prince of Persia movie.

Guillemot had hinted at this shift in the past, though this time he characterized the move as an absolute business necessity to stay competitive in the industry. "We will have to start making movies," he said. "If we don't do it, we won't be able to take advantage of the power of the next generation."

The CEO made it clear that unlike the late-in-coming Prince of Persia movie, he hopes to launch accompanying movies and books simultaneously with upcoming video game launches. The company already revealed an Assassin's Creed novelization and a short film based on the title, which is being... Read more

The folks at Cosmos Gaming have posted a Q&A about games in Russia, asking representatives from 1C Company, IT Territory, Step Creative Group, and Lesta Studio about the Russian games industry, Russian to English translations and games they are working on.

It seems that these days, any and every U.S. politician will find some time to speak out against the "atrocity" of violence and sex in videogames. It's such a frequent occurrence that it spurred on a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Dennis McCauley, to start-up GamePolitics.com. Just in the last week alone, we have a U.S. senator calling for the boycott of the unreleased 25 to Life, a D.C. Mayoral Candidate saying the videogame industry is "out of control," and a group of North Carolina state senators trying to pass yet another restriction of sales of violent games.

Schumer called upon New York retailers to boycott the game, and for Sony and Microsoft to cancel their licensing deals with Eidos for 25 to Life. "Little Johnny should be learning how to read, not how to kill cops," Schumer said. The bottom line is that games that are aimed and marketed at kids shouldn't desensitize them to death and destruction."

Another interesting point of discussion that was brought up is GTA: SA's unlockable sex mini-game. Could it make the game as obscene as a hardcore porno flick, thus making it illegal to sell to a minor? Get caught up on your game politics right here.

According to a recent editorial by technology pundit John C. Dvorak, the game industry is on the verge of collapsing in a monumental fashion. Citing lack of innovation and stale content, Dvorak says, "I really can't imagine this scene continuing as it is for much longer. I suspect that the next generation of machines will be the last - or at least the last in the current boom market. It will be downhill from there."

Dvorak also attacked one of the industry's leaders in innovation, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. He shrugged off their new titles, like Nintendogs, because they're rehashing old ideas (like Tamagotchi). "If that doesn't flatten the market, the never-ending need to satisfy the demanding full-time game-player should do it. Some of today's games are ridiculously hard to play - unless gaming is your so-called life - and so daunting to casual players that they will quickly reject them. Who needs to devote themselves to a game just to play it once in a while? I'll take Spider Solitaire instead."

While we all know there is no union for the gaming industry, developers and publishers do often hire talent that are members of the SAG or AFTRA unions, which protect artists in the film, television, an radio businesses. For a while now, SAG has met with top videogame publishers and worked out bare-bones deals to protect their members, but the current contract is set to expire Friday with no new deal in place. Variety.com suggests we could be just a day away from a videogame-related strike.

A strike would most affect the industry with regard to the use of big names. From Clint Eastwood to Vin Diesel to Heather Graham and even Marlon Brando in EA's "Godfather" adaptation, A-list talent is turning from a rarity to a must-have in the vidgame world. SAG is increasingly hungry for residuals to be part of a mix, because when a game hits, it can hit big -- bigger than the heftiest studio blockbuster, in some cases.

This has been a difficult process for all parties since SAG has no official authority to work with and many members of the industry don't know or don't care about the issue. Most companies are content with using non-union workers for their games. Also, when it comes to turning a franchise into a film, some companies don't use union workers until absolutely necessary. For instance, Microsoft has been working on the Halo movie without going through any film studio.

There is a Reuters article about the game industry and how it's shedding its geek image. Right. The only real example being offered is EA, where they are hiring animators and such from Hollywood. If you've ever seen a behind the scenes documentary on TV or DVD, you know that these people are the same type of geeks as game industry people.

"In our industry we have people who are recognized as the consistent producers," said Steve Dauterman, general manager of EA's British studio. "I wouldn't be surprised if one day they become superstars like Steven Spielberg, but right now they're known within the industry, not outside."

Seems pretty unlikely to me, what do you think?

Since we certainly have a big portion of aspiring game developers out there or at least people who are interested in how things go in the industry, here's some numbers you guys may find interesting. From a recent GDC survey:

- The average game programmer salary is $66,000.
- A technical director with 6 or more years experience earns an average of $104,000.
- Game artists earn an average of $61,000.
- A game designer with one year of experience earns an average of $52,000, with the highest salary reported at $300,000.
- Game producers earn an average of $76,000.
- Developer salaries are highest in California and Texas, where game development studios tend to cluster.
- Women in the game industry fare better than women in other industries, earning 89 cents on the dollar, exceeding the national average of 76 cents.

Remember that sillyness over in Indianapolis about trying to prevent minors from being able to play games? Something about thinking games turned kids in to psychos or whatever. Well as expected the failed attempt was a waste of time and money as the game industry won the case, and even more amusing now is that the court has awarded over $300,000 to the game industry for legal fees they incurred. Tax payers in Indiana, thank your local congressman! Thanks jasonepowell

Among the backers is Indianapolis retiree Mary E. Douglas, who said taxpayers foot the bill for many "nonsensible things," but that the ban was a worthwhile goal. "They shouldn't be allowed to play those games, period," Douglas said of minors. But Dave Danz, owner of the Indianapolis-based courier company Double D Express, called the law "a ridiculous waste of money." "It's up to us as parents to teach our children values. However well-intentioned it might be, it's not a function of the government to intervene," Danz said. "We're blowing taxpayer money at a time when we need to be looking at things like sewers."

Nintendo put out another PR saying how well they are selling as they compete with Microsoft for releasing the most impressive sounding PR. They go over recent sales figures etc saying Smash Brothers has sold over a quarter million in just 9 days. But here is the stat that really grabbed me:

The video game industry overall is hotter than ever, with total 2001 retail revenues now on track to exceed $8 billion for the first time ever (+19% vs. 2000).

19% growth in sales for the entire industry in just one year? Great googly moogly!

The local hero here CliffyB from Epic Games has a .plan update pointing to a quick article of interest to anyone wanting to get a job in the gaming industry. Just some common things that you should know and ask and think about before signing your life away.

The Adrenaline Vault has posted the fourth part of their PC Gaming As An Industry article. This time author Brad Wardell dispels some myths about the industry.

Eric J. sent word that the IDSA has just released their report for the gaming industry that has all kinds of interesting stats that you can look through. Here are a few of the latest ones that are of interest:

- 57% men and 43% women breakdown of gameplayers
- $6.02billion worth of game sales in 2000 and 219million games
- 42% over 35, 30% between 18 and 35 and 28% under 18 years old for computer game players
- Computer games are 2/1 more popular as a "most fun activity" as polled by 1600 households over TV
- 21.35% Strategy / RPG , - 17.42% Action , - 14.95% Sports Sim ,  - 12.57% Family/kids - 10.08% Racing ,  - 23.53% Misc Categories

There's a new article on CliffyB.com, which originally appeared in Game Developer Magazine. In it, CliffyB rants about why this industry is so insecure that games need celebrity endorsements, instead of the games speaking for themselves.

The fight continues! As many of you guys probably remember a law was proposed in Indiana that would put all videogames deemed 'violent' behind a curtain and 10 feet or more away from all other games in arcades. (Violators get fined). The gaming industry fought back a little bit later. But then another court backed the original ruling. Well the law was about to start being enforced but luckily a stay was issued that got them to hold off for a bit: (Thanks Rick!)

The City-County Council passed the ordinance July 10, and it was to go into effect September 1.  [...] The city on Wednesday was ordered to hold off enforcement, temporarily at least, of its ordinance against children under 18 using violent or sexually explicit coin-operated video games. [...] argued that the ordinance's restriction on games with "graphic violence" were content-based restrictions on free speech, in violation of First Amendment guarantees. They also contended that the ordinance was unconstitutionally vague.

Brandon Reinhart, programmer at 3D Realms, has written an article for Gamespy where he explains how the gaming industry is structured and how things inside a game developer are structured work wise.

As you might remember from back in July, Indiana created a law that requires 'violent' and games with 'strong sexual content' to be placed behind curtains where minors are not allowed to go. Well, according to a story on CNN (thanks laerth), two video game industry groups have filed a lawsuit against the city of Indianapolis claiming the banning of the games is unconstitutional.

"What's next after banning video games depicting violence?" AMOA president Frank Seninsky said in a statement. "Movies? Books? ... We are on the edge of a slippery slope, and our industry has been forced to litigate to protect core constitutional rights."

Basically they (the video game makers) are saying the ban violates First Amendment rights.

I swore off the large majority of all the post E3 coverage stuff that has been coming out but this commentary from CliffyB over at VoodooExtreme I felt deserved a bit of attention. Between fashion shoots Cliffy found some time to share his thoughts on the E3 experience. Most interestingly was this bit:

... I find that, no matter how big this industry gets, there is still an overall mentality of feeling like we're Hollywood's little brother, like we live in their shadow. And there's a lot of that at e3. You find it at websites that interview pseudo-celebs from TV that show up at the show instead of developers. In fact, you see this not only at e3 but also with struggling games. A publisher will slap an out-of-date musician or band (or celeb) onto a product in an effort to give it some sort of branding. Then, when there's any game coverage in the press you find the reporters interviewing the musician or celeb instead of the developers, as if the person knows jack squat about games. It turns my stomach.

I dont know about you guys, but CliffyB is my rock star. I've been sending him my underwear in the mail every week for 6 months.