2011's Top 5 Unforgettable Memories of the Game Industry
By Date: 12-30-2011 Views:
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1. Steve Jobs Left Us
Mediocre middle-class family from out of position, and all the way to grow into the largest global market leader in technology companies, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is a powerful and awesome people. Carried out in the long battle with cancer, he died on October 5, and raised a storm in the world.
Apple retail stores in front of hundreds of the world, can see the condolence of the crowd, fans offer flowers, candles, and wrote a eulogy to show respect. Jobs authorized Walter Isaacson (Walter Isaacson) to write the biography which was published in November this year, and immediately became a bestseller.
At Apple, Steve Jobs helped create the PC industry, and created a team, and he co-developed the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad and a number of well-designed products. He also found time founded Pixar Animation, the company successfully launched the movie "Toy Story" and Disney in 2006 was $ 7.4 billion acquisition.
Year after the death of Steve Jobs, the rapid growth of the technology industry was stalled, the global political and business leaders have publicly praised his influence. After Steve Jobs, no Steve Jobs.
Actually, Jobs also has a great impact on the whole game industry with his products from iPhone, iPad to Apple TV, making indelible contributions to the traditional game industry.
2. Sony was hacked 10 times
Sony announced on April 26th that, its Sony Qriocity and PlayStation Network entertainment services lost more than 100 million accounts due to hacks.
Since the April PlayStation Network breach that exposed over 100 million user accounts, Sony has been hacked more than 10 times. While the initial PlayStation Network breach was the largest of the hacks to date.Sony Pictures, Sony Europe, Sony BMG Greece, Sony Thailand, Sony Music Japan, Sony Ericcson Canada, and others, have all been the target of attacks.
The whole incident exposed Sony's weak security measures as well as affected the whole game industry. With the increase of network speed, more computers, tablets, mobiles are used to connect to the network, and people have come into contact with Internet more frequently. However, the Internet security is concerned most at the same time, for people are often asked to fill in private info in various websites, especially online banks and online stock exchanges. Thus, network security has become a global problem.
Doubtlessly, Sony hacking incident caused a stir in the game industry and hacks plagued the whole game industry in 2011. The shadow of Sony hacking in April still haunts us.
Retrospective Review: Frequent Hacks Hit the Global Game Industry in 2011
3.Free-to-play Sweeps Everywhere
Free-to-play launches and transitions were an unstoppable business model juggernaut this year, and only a sliver of older MMOs and stalwart subscriber-only titles remained unaffected. It seemed like every other week a major MMO announced that it was offering a F2P option, including EverQuest II, DCUO, Star Trek Online, Aion, Champions Online, City of Heroes, Global Agenda, and Fallen Earth. Love it or hate it -- and there are plenty of folks on both sides of that fence -- F2P became the clear majority in 2011, muscling out subscription-only games to win over the gaming populace.
Some quotes from Smedley's twitter:
Take DCUO for example, DC Universe Online features heroes such as Batman, Superman, the Flash, and villains like the Joker and DoomsDay. It plunged Sony Entertainment into losses when it adopted the subscription-based model. However, since going free-to-play in November, it has won over 1 million new players and noted 1000% increases in concurrent players in the first few days. Moreover, it has increased its revenue by 700% daily and queues have appeared on many servers.
Study: F2P MMOs Become Massively Popular
By contrast, subscription-only games are on the verge of death. Except Star Wars: The Old Republic and The Secret World, all new MMOs chose the free-to-play model. According to incomplete statistics, more than 350 games provide service in Europe and North America, but only 25 are pay-to-play, and 5 out of the 25 have just been released in recent two years. Other subscription-based games have run for more than 2 years.
