Economy Woes

[Bluepixie]

I guess it was bound to happen to the game industry. FileFront (http://farewell.filefront.com/) is dead and LightHouse Interactive (http://www.lighthouse-interactive.com/Lighthouse-Interactive-declared-bankrupt) has been bankrupted. I really liked FileFront as well. :( A sad day indeed.

[twonky]

Man they had a game called ship simulator. No wonder they went bust if they couldnt come up with better titles than that.

[saladin]

Eurogamer ran an excellent article a while back on why the closing of these things has nothing to do with the recession. Unfortunately, I can't find it right now.

[Bluepixie]

Oh ok.

[Hex]

Edge had a funny quote this month from someone at EA (or was it Activision maybe?) along the lines of "the recessions will be great, the riffraff will go bankrupt". Ahhh businessmen, so compassionate ;-)

As for Filefront and Lighthouse...eh, I've seen better companies go bankrupt. Such is life.

[GingerPrinz]

Yeah Woolworths > Filefront tbh. I am in two minds on the impact of the recession on the games industry. On one hand it seems obvious that tighter belts mean less spare money for games, but on the other hand our testing company is busier than we have ever been, the work shows no sign of drying up any time soon, sales figures dont seem to be dropping.

Since the 30s the global economic powers of the world have been integrating and cooperating but the "depression" has made most countries financially insular (USA being the prime example). THing is, the industries affected by this behaviour deal in fields like travel, automotive, shipping etc. Gaming is and will continue to be a relatively cosmopolitan, pan-global activity, which doesn't share the nationalist stigma of industries such as car manufacturing. It also is an industry with some NICE selling points in a recession - Stressed about money? Play a game and take your mind off it! Stuck at home with the kids? Get them a game to keep them (or you :P) occupied! Totally bored at home because you have no kids and no job? Sounds like WoW time for you mate!!!

[DAve]

Edge had a funny quote this month from someone at EA (or was it Activision maybe?) along the lines of "the recessions will be great, the riffraff will go bankrupt". Ahhh businessmen, so compassionate ;-)

As for Filefront and Lighthouse...eh, I've seen better companies go bankrupt. Such is life.

That's true to a point. Primark and Lidl do well in a recession because they're low-budget stores. Negative price infelxion, or some other economic bullshit.

It's similar to darwanism in that respect.

As a slight tangent, is there such a thing as the intelligent design theory for economists? I have noticed that (largely republicans) decry darwinism, but essentially are the first ones to complain about government intervention to prevent darwinian capitalism.

[Sideshow]

Lazarus risen (http://kotaku.com/5194923/and-on-the-third-day-filefront-was-risen)

[CaNNoN_FoDDa]

Had an email from Paul[dot]Watson[at]recruitmentzone[dot]co[dot]uk looking for peeps interested in working in games (i think in glasgow and probably testing). If anyone's interested, please get in touch with him.

[GingerPrinz]

Nooooooooooes! He just recruits for our company afaik - if you want to test please get in touch with ME. Or Gor.