Business

January has flown by and it's time for the first NPD predictions column of the year.

GameStop stock values are in the midst of a four-day losing streak, as shares have fallen from $25.00 on January 25th to $23.36 at the closing bell today. It's likely that any number of factors could be attributed to the slump. Maybe there's a fear that sales are weak after the holidays. Maybe there's some basic profit-taking going on. It's hard to really pinpoint anything.

The decision to lock out used games would be a major gamble for Microsoft to make. While the decision would likely be cheered by the industry, the possibility of fewer consumers and doing irreparable harm to relationships with retail partners has serious implications.

There has been a lot of attention paid lately to the rather tepid response for the PlayStation Vita over in Japan. According to Media Create data, a mere 18,361 Vita units sold last week. That boosted the number over 500,000 units overall, and it took just shy of a month to reach that benchmark. It's likely that you've read the doom-and-gloom stories about the Vita and how disappointing that sales have been over there. Some analysts are worried, some consumers are worried, but Sony isn't worried yet.

Software sales were the highlight of November's NPD report. Strong Year Over Year (YOY) comparisons were the result of one of the strongest months of software releases in recent memory.

So for the last couple of months (and especially over the last few days) there's been a resurgence of "no one should ever write for free, ever, never never" among freelance games writers and paid career professionals. As someone who takes games writing very seriously and who's also worked as a mostly-unpaid-but-not-always reviewer for the last twelve years, I wanted to take a few minutes and share my thoughts on the subject.

After a weekend rife with rumors and denials, eyes should be on THQ this week to see whether any fallout results from the currently unsubstantiated turmoil.

December 2011 is a month that, upon review of the NPD report, continues the slide that the console video game industry has seen for much of the year. Hardware sales were down 32% from a December ago, with weaker Wii and PlayStation 3 sales leading the decline.

Welcome back to the second part of our interview with Jonathan Blow, creator of the indie smash Braid and the upcoming The Witness.

In this episode, we begin the discussion of what it means to spend our time playing games. Paramount to this: our discussion of "achievements" and how they feed into creating structures that presuppose challenging design.

Welcome back to State of Play with Brandon Bales!

Here's the first part of our interview with Jonathan Blow, creator of the amazing indie hit Braid and the upcoming The Witness!

In this episode, we dive into Mr. Blow's history in the industry and into the genesis of Braid, one of the breakout hits of the new Download Renaissance.