Insight articles
Since 2005, GIC has written a monthly GIC commentary on the games industry, its trends, latest data, common fallacies and latest crazes. All were originally published in the games trade magazine Develop, but are reprinted for you here.
2011
August 2011 Microtransactions consolation prize
Nick Gibson investigates the enormous potential of microtransactions on console and asks why the opportunity is largely untapped.
July 2011 Learning to Love Gamification
After nearly 3 years working on a large scale gamification project, Rick Gibson analyses the potential and pitfalls of gamification.
June 2011 Hardcore social
Nick Gibson appraises how Kabam drastically cut its user base and grew twentyfold by focusing on the highly lucrative area of hardcore social gaming.
May 2011 Understanding Smurfgate
Rick Gibson assesses how a scandal around virtual goods in a mobile game roused the legislators and changed the way Apple handles in-app purchasing.
May 2011 Why the Gamification market will never be accurately scaled
Rick Gibson analyses whether it is possible to accurately size the gamification market and why some analysts' gamification projections should be scrutinised. This short article is not a Develop column.
February - March 2011 Analysing the analysts
Nick Gibson explains why the old addage 'there are lies, damn lies and statistics' remains true for analysts using the wrong research methodology.
December 2010 - January 2011 Science Friction
Rick Gibson assesses the commercial science of managing the friction that can make or break your social game.
2010
November 2010 Facebook's Forgotten Fountain of Youth
Nick Gibson looks at why the youth audience that founded Facebook is being under-served by games and go elsewhere to play.
October 2010 How games development clusters survive
Rick Gibson analyses the impact of Realtime Worlds' closure on Dundee and what's in the DNA of the more successful games development clusters.
September 2010 The pitfalls of 3D casual gaming
Nick Gibson warns would-be 3D pioneers to avoid casual gaming, where 3D has failed again and again, but where simple, fun and intuitive means a winner.
August 2010 Chinese hordes
Nick Gibson finds China has become the 3rd largest games development territory and assesses the latest round of acquisitions of Western games companies by giant Chinese online games companies.
July 2010 Is mobile gaming's future social?
Nick Gibson explores the drivers and barriers to mobile gaming becoming social and accessing significant new revenue streams.
June 2010 Freeing the iPhone
Rick Gibson assesses the future of iPhone games and contrasts his bleak findings about premium retail games with the brighter prospects for freemium products like ngmoco's We Rule.
May 2010 The Generation Game
Another year, another batch of Cassandras calling the current generation of consoles the last ever. Nick Gibson picks up and passes this old canard around, before putting it into touch.
April 2010 Do we still need publishers in an online world?
As the games industry inexorably moves online, we examine the myth of 'going direct' and assess the new skills games companies need to get their products to market.
March 2010 Games will subsume everything
14 years after GIC founder Nick Gibson first wrote that games would become our predominant entertainment medium, Nick revisits his radical hypothesis to uncover more evidence that his prediction is coming true.
February 2010 An offer you can't refuse
Rick Gibson examines the furore around criminal scams and the firms taken in by them, and finds a perfectly viable commercial model for social gaming.
2009
December 2009 to January 2010 Taking a Gamble?
An investment in an online games publisher by a huge online gambling company suggests that the games industry's often heavily regulated cousin wants a piece of the action.
November 2009 Extraordinary Games Businesses – part 4: Ankama
The fourth in our series of articles looking at cutting edge online games businesses, this time France's largest independent developer, the casual MMOG studio Ankama.
October 2009 What the industry said: the definitive survey on tax credits
A review of our findings in the latest industry survey on tax breaks
September 2009 Extraordinary Games Businesses – part 3: Zynga
The third in our series of remarkable games business looks at possibly the fastest growing games company of all time.
August 2009 Extraordinary Games Businesses – part 2: Giant
The second in our series of remarkable games business looks at the hyper aggressive Chinese MMOG operator.
July 2009 The best things in life are free: How freemium business models deliver hefty profits
An article looking at giving away games content for free and the rise of the freemium business model.
June 2009 Extraordinary Games Businesses – part 1: Artix Entertainment
The first in a new series examining remarkable and successful games companies operating at the fringes of the games industry.
May 2009 A new golden era? Innovation shortfalls in online games design
Has network gaming really introduced a new era of original IP creation?
April 2009 Funds’n’Games: Global downturn hits games investment hard
Funding for privately held games companies has collapsed in 2009 with potentially serious implications. Is this the real cost of the recession for the games industry?
March 2009 Network gaming hits the mainstream: When network gaming will overtake retail
A look at how network gaming fares next to the traditional console and retail market.
February 2009 New business models – part 2: Microtransactions
Microtransactions are here in the West and far more pervasive and widely used than you might think.
2008
December 2008 The game's not nearly up: Games Up campaign wrap
October 2008 New business models – part 1: subscription
September 2008 Beyond the Billboard: advertising inside games surges online
August 2008 German persistence: Europe’s new casual MMOG juggernauts
July 2008 How online changes everything: new paradigms for games studios
June 2008 Child's play: the new online market for children’s games
April 2008 Growing pains for global studios: how Ubisoft rides the wave of globalisation
2007
September 2007 Extreme M&A – Part Three: IGN’s acquisition by News Corp
August 2007Climate Change: Games hardware cycles extended by the new mass market
July 2007 Extreme M&A – Part Two: : the ‘failed’ disposal of Vivendi Universal Games
June 2007 Extreme M&A – Part One: DMA Design’s acquisition by Take 2
April 2007 A Long View of Original IP – Part One: rising risk aversion dampens new
February 2007 An Asian Audition: the hidden MMOG that rules the world of online gaming
January 2007 The Nintendo Method: Nintendo’s unparalleled profitability
2006 and earlier
November 2006 Developing a service ethos: Services and microtransactions to transform games industry
October 2006 £300m at the end of the rainbow: Myths about public service gaming
September 2006 Winning the war by losing the arms race: Nintendo changes the rules
June 2006 Would you Live Anywhere? Xbox Live assessed
May 2006 10 Years of Games in the City: lessons from a savvy games investor
April 2006 Outsourcing - Part 2: Next-gen consoles turbo-charge the outsourcing market
March 2006 The new Asian tigers: demystifying the Asian games market
February 2006 The Next-Gen PC games market: online is changing PC gaming forever
January 2006 Arrested development: Giant potential in the Chinese domestic games market
December 2005 Outsourcing's time has come: outsourcing is now standard operating procedure
November 2005 The times they are a-changing: the future of the games industry is mass market
October 2005 Disabusing digital distribution delusions: the industry’s digital holy grail myth
September 2005 The games M&A market: 2005’s feeding frenzy of games company acquisitions
