Now we move on to a couple of questions about studio changes.

6) First indie studio during the year to be bought by a publisher.
(1 point for developer, 1 point for publisher)

Daniel Lim

I was going to say Microsoft would (or should, I think) buy up Harmonix, but apparently they’ve just got some new investment and gone independent again…
Aww screw it, I’ll say Harmonix will be bought up by Microsoft.

James Parker

Hello Games – by Sony

Jeremy Johnston

Twisted Pixel

Ross Mansfield

Level 5 – Nintendo

Steve Bromley

Nimblebit

Teck Lee Tan

Frozenbyte by EA

Tony Gowland

Hello Games are going to be bought by Sony I think.

Warren Merrifield

Hmmm. God knows. In any case. Let’s say Sony buys someone.

Quite a wide variety of answers there (some of them I had to look up to see who they were – shows how much I know about the games industry huh?), though a little bit of a trend in three of us thinking that it will be Sony who makes the first acquisition of the year.

7) First publisher-owned studio to shut its doors.
(1 point, 1 bonus point if you can guess three management buzzwords that are used in the resulting press release)

Daniel Lim

Is it cheating to say Bizarre Creations considering they’re currently still open (just)? If it is cheating, then my secondary guess will have to be Neversoft. I think Activision might cut them loose if sales of Guitar Hero don’t pick up with the next iteration…
Buzzwords: consolidating, streamlining, talented team

James Parker

Freestyle – “Broader Economic Environment”, “Fundamental Shift”, “Evaluate opportunities”

Jeremy Johnston

Blue Tongue Entertainment, owned by THQ. The words used are restructuring, maximize, and solidify.

Ross Mansfield

Bizarre Creations – Streamlining Brand initiative Current macroeconomic conditions

Steve Bromley

Bizarre (cheating? ) “commercially unviable”, “exploring social media” “economic downturn”

Teck Lee Tan

2k Marin

Tony Gowland

Freestyle (of DJ Hero fame). “restructuring” “economic climate” “focussing our catalogue”

Warren Merrifield

Buzzwords: stuff like “Challenging Environment in the Industry”. “Focusing more on Core Platforms/Games”.

Right, well first off, I feel bad about putting this question in. I um-ed and ah-ed about it, and looking back I think it was probably in a bit of poor taste. If I end up running the Predictathon again next year this question won’t be in it.

Still, I was after categories for predictions that would almost certainly come true, and it’s a sad truth that I would guarantee at least one studio would close its doors (or have its doors closed for it) this year.

With all that glum-ness in mind, we have still notched up three votes for Bizarre (I think they are technically “for sale” rather than shut, right now, so that counts), and five votes for Activision-owned studios.

(Also, Warren has provided me with the name of a studio, but would rather it wasn’t published as it could get him in to a little bit of bother. That’s fine, if his prediction comes true I will let you know.)

Hey kids, it’s time for more top games industry predictions!

3) Highest metacritic-rated 3DS launch title (by the end of March).
(1 point for title, 1 point if you get the %age score)

Daniel Lim

This is a really tough question! Generally speaking, handheld games don’t tend to do too well on score aggregator websites (very few DS games scored above 90). I have a suspicion that it will either be Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle or Super Street Fighter IV: 3D edition.
Remakes of classics (OoT) will get mixed reviews from the sentimental and those that feel it could never live up to the original (either due to technical issues like the controls or lack of updating of the graphics or simply because too much time has passed).
Layton has performed strongly and consistently over the previous three iterations (in order: 85, 84 and 86 – very close to the handheld glass ceiling). Street Fighter could be amazing (all the versions of IV have scored over 90)… but will the controls let it down?
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – 92

James Parker

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3DS – 92%

Jeremy Johnston

Ocarina of Time, with a 96. (Lowest will be Steel Diver with a 23)

Ross Mansfield

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3DS – 99%

Steve Bromley

Pilotwings Resort (93%)

Teck Lee Tan

Paper Mario, 90%

Tony Gowland

Pilotwings Resort, 92%. People I’ve met who have played it have pretty consistently said this was the stand out game in terms of the 3d actually helping the game, and I think reviewers will pick up on that and tout it as “the reason the 3ds is worth it”.

Warren Merrifield

Hmmm. A toss up between Zelda or Mario. Let’s say Mario Kart with 90%

Well that seems to be the majority staking their bets firmly on Zelda, and most looking at a rating of the low 90′s. I think Daniel hit it on the head with the relative low review scores of handheld games. Are they really worse than “big console” titles, or is there just some mental barrier that stops reviewers from scoring them as highly?

4) Highest selling 3DS title (by the end of March).
(1 point for title)

Daniel Lim

Is this worldwide? Difficult choice between Mario Kart 3DS and Nintendogs & Cats… Originally I was thinking it would be Mario Kart, but Nintendogs is one of the biggest selling DS games after New Super Mario Bros. so it has to be…
Nintendogs & Cats

James Parker

“Professor Layton and the Curiously 3D Objects”

Jeremy Johnston

Nintendogs + Cats.

Ross Mansfield

Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracles

Steve Bromley

Mario Kart

Teck Lee Tan

Paper Mario

Tony Gowland

Mario Kart. Nintendogs / Cats is also a good bet, but I think the 3ds is a little bit more of a gamer-oriented upgrade. With that in mind I don’t think the casual titles can be expected to have the same runaway success as they did on the vanilla DS. People will buy the same goddamn Mario Kart game on every system Nintendo ever makes from now until the rapture.

Warren Merrifield

Mario Kart

What I find interesting here is that six of the eight participants don’t think that having the highest review scores will translate directly in to getting the highest sales figures.

5) Who has the highest Nasdaq share price on Wednesday April 13th? Activision Blizzard (ATVI) Take Two (TTWO) or EA (ERTS)?
(1 point, 2 bonus points for predicting the price per share to the nearest dollar)

Daniel Lim

I know nothing about the stock market, shares or indeed anything about money. So these are a total guess:
Take Two (TTWO) – $13.80
Activision Blizzard (ATVI) – $11.50
EA (ERTS) – $9.50

James Parker

EA – $14.50

Jeremy Johnston

EA with 14.53

Ross Mansfield

Activision Blizzard (ATVI) – 12.238

Steve Bromley

ATVI, $12

Teck Lee Tan

EA, $17

Tony Gowland

Going to stick with EA, since they have been ahead for most of about the last two years. Something fairly catastrophic would have to happen for their price to tumble dramatically, and I can’t see a reason for either of the others to announce a huge an unexpected sales spike. $16.5 per share.

Warren Merrifield

Activision at $13.68 ish?

Yeah, this is a boring question, I know. But money is pretty important to the industry, and share price is a fairly reliable way of tracking how the outside world thinks the “big three” western 3rd party publishers stack up against each other. Also, I wanted to make sure that predictions would be coming in throughout the whole year (to make it at least slightly more interesting for you, the non-participating reader, to follow), and this was a pretty easy thing to read off on a set date.

Of course, if anyone was taking this seriously they’d be able to pump the share price by spending hundreds of thousands and “buy! Buy! Buy!”ing their way to success. I bet none of them even care enough to do that. Pft.

Anyway, how is this presentation style working out for you? Easy to follow? More predictions per update? Fewer?

Surely the holiday news slump is going to end soon, and there will be a high profile slagging match on the cards. Our first points must be only a few weeks away!

Rather than just copy and paste everyone’s complete entry forms in here, I thought I would spread it out a little bit. One, it’ll make for more updates, and two it’ll be much more readable.

So without any more padding or messing around, let’s get on with the predictions!

1) Which has sold more by the end of January? Kinect or Move?
(Obviously both companies will be trying to inflate their numbers, so this is more of a “who can realistically invent the larger number. 1 point)

Daniel Lim

Despite launching 2 months later, I think Kinect will win the Christmas sales battle. Despite the higher costs, I think the bigger marketing push and the “freshness” of the tech compared to Move’s “quite similar to the Wii” controller antics will win out for Microsoft. Kinect will certainly sell more than Move over the same period of availability.

James Parker

Move – because Sony have a bigger overall market to lie about.

Jeremy Johnston

Kinect.

Ross Mansfield

Kinect.

Steve Bromley

Kinect.

Teck Lee Tan

Kinect.

Tony Gowland

Move, because it has more “bits” needed to make a complete set playable by two people, and Sony are bound to just lump all of the units in together when it comes to sales boasting.

Warren Merrifield

Kinect will have made more money, Move will have sold more units. Dunno which way you want to call this.

Well, a clear vote of confidence for Kinect there. From anecdotal evidence, I’ve heard a lot of non-gamer friends and family talking about when they played on Kinect over the Christmas period, but I’ve not heard anyone mention Move at all.

2) Someone is bound to get in the gaming press with a story along the lines of “developer X says competing product Y is crap”. Fill in X and Y.
(1 point for each, bonus point if your prediction comes true first. Story has to be reported on a decent-sized game website. You are allowed to nominate yourself)

Daniel Lim

It’s happened a couple of times already, but there will be at least one more instance of Sony saying Kinect isn’t very good, the games aren’t very good or the camera technology is a bit shit, or vice versa.
EA and Activision continue to battle it out over the Infinity Ward / Respawn Entertainment debacle, slagging each other’s companies off rather than particular products.
Microsoft and Sony will make comments about how each other’s online services clearly aren’t as good as their own.
OnLive and Gaikai (Dave Perry specifically I imagine) will pass judgment on each other.
TIGA will continue to bash the coalition government over their gaming tax breaks back-pedalling.
David Jaffe will slag at least one person off.
Everyone will slag off Bobby Kotick.
(Those last two aren’t entirely serious)

James Parker

X = Someone at Treyarch, Y = Medal of Honour, but it will have been taken massively out of context.

Jeremy Johnston

X = Activison, Y = EA

Ross Mansfield

Slightly Mad Games/EA says Forza and GT5 are crap, specifically not accessible and boring.

Steve Bromley

Molyneux says MS/Kinect is crap

Teck Lee Tan

Stuart Black says Bodycount sucks, his new thing is awesome.

Tony Gowland

X = Cliffy B, Y = Any and every 3rd person cover shooter that comes out between now and Gears of War 3.

Warren Merrifield

Someone Sony-related (Kazunori Yamauchi or Hideo Kojima? Let’s throw something wild out there and go for a God of War mobile developer, Ready at Dawn’s Ru Weerisuriya, let’s say) is going to say that the iPhone/iPad are crap for gaming and it’s a lot harder to write code for compared to the new Sony system when a PSP2 drops/is announced.

Lots of interesting predictions there – and all very believable. It’ll be interesting to see how many of these happen over the year. Also, note that Daniel is really hedging his bets by basically voting for every person and company in the entire industry. Still, only two points are up for grabs.

What do you think, readers? Could you have made a better guess? Are the competitors well off target? Are you a competitor who wants to add more reasoning behind your prediction? Get involved in the comments.

(Except Daniel – you’ve written plenty already )

The Games Industry Predictathon 2011 entry cut-off point has been and gone, and I have had a whopping seven (7!) entries. Yeah, that was a bit sarcastic. Never mind, let’s crack on by introducing you to our competitors (except me. I’m going to assume you already know a little bit about me, if you’re here).

Once you’ve read up on who’s playing, be sure to check back tomorrow for the first batch of answers.

Daniel Lim
Twitter: @asphaltOnline

I’m an animator. I work in videogames. Previously I could be found at Sony Cambridge where I worked on such titles as Heavenly Sword, Killzone 2, LittleBigPlanet PSP and one other that I’d rather not talk about! I am now at Rockstar North and no, I can’t tell you what I’m working on.

My irregular ramblings can be found at: http://www.daniel-lim.co.uk/

James Parker
Twitter: @gameswriting

I am an actual professional script writer for videogames, with credits including Reservoir Dogs, Spongebob Squarepants, and Operation Flashpoint (the new one). I’m also the designer behind cult puzzle game “Droplitz” which some people enjoy disproportionately, and “Eat Them!” which has been garnering average reviews on PS3 but is actually good fun.

Jeremy Johnston

I’m a designer for a small studio in Phoenix called Big Bang Entertainment that has been part of MMO development as well as iPhone/iPad development. I’m relatively new in the industry (been here for a little under 3 years now) and don’t expect to do extraordinarily well in this after looking at the questions about studio purchases/closures or stock prices (I’m basically pulling names and numbers from a hat).

Still, I’m willing to give it a shot.

Ross Mansfield
Twitter: @FuriousRoss

Freelancer

(Also apparently a man of few words.)

Steve Bromley
Twitter: @steve_bromley

User Experience and UCD chap, worked on Split/Second, Monkeys in Space, ModNation Racers and with Relentless Software (Buzz, Blue Toad Murder Files)

Teck Lee Tan
Twitter: @lotekk

Freelance Artist, did enviros for Rocketbirds: Revolution, doing textures for Dungeon Legend. Indie dev. www.lotekk.com

Warren Merrifield
Twitter: @wmerrifield

Ex-Creative Assembly, Ex-FIFA Team, Ex-Rockstar, Ex-Game Developer who is now living the high life writing iOS apps for the Daily Mail (amongst others). Currently being subjected to long-term sleep depravation by his new Guantanamo Baby.

So there’s 2010 been and gone, and it was an interesting year. Rather than churn out a series of “the top / bottom 10 of a thing of the year” posts, I thought I would bundle a load of stuff together into this generic shambles.

Thankfully after writing this out, it looks like I can think of a lot more besties than I can worsties. Which means that by any real measurement that matters, I have to judge 2010 a success, even if I missed a few of the goals I had set myself.

Here’s to a similarly successful 2011, and I hope all my readers have good ones too.

Besties

• My wife and I finally moved to Edinburgh. This was a biggie for us – it’s where she was born and raised, and a lot of her family still live here. I love the city, and have been keen to move up for a while. Finally everything aligned itself properly and we both got jobs up here. Yay! This later ended up with us having a fantastic two week holiday in Scotland. Strongly recommended.
• The gaming surprises. Despite having been disappointed with the last few iterations of Call of Duty, I bought Codblops and loved it – definitely the series’ finest hour since Modern Warfare. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light came out of nowhere to be one of my favourite games of the year. Splinter Cell: Conviction turned out to be ace.
• I lost some weight, and got a bit fitter. People often have “get fit” as new year resolutions, and this year so did I! After moving I managed to keep to it. The amazing secret of this success? Not a strange new diet, but the tried and tested method of burning more calories than you take in, through regular visits to the gym.
• Kept Mainly About Games more up to date than ever before. 2010 had the most posts, and not all of them were rubbish! I even got around to writing up a few subjects that I had been intending to for a while, such as how I got into games, how you could get in to games, and some design interview tips.
• I did a bit of work for charidee. Out of nowhere, I ended up spending 24 hours playing video games, to help make the lives of children in Edinburgh hospitals a little bit better. Unsurprisingly I felt quite good about this, and have decided to do a bit more for charity in 2011 (but I don’t like to talk about it).
• Red Dead Redemption was released, to critical acclaim. The eight months last year that I spent thousands of miles away from family and friends paid off.
• Got in to photography in a bigger way. Another thing I had been meaning to do for a while, I finally bought myself a DSLR and learned how to use it. Early shots were a bit ropey, but I have been getting better, as you can see from my more recent Flickr uploads.
• Saw some of my best friends get married.

Worsties

• I started Game Dev Blogs only to falter and let it slowly die over a few months of inactivity. I still think the idea is pretty solid, and the readership is there (it still gets a healthy-ish amount of traffic each day), I just need to get my arse in gear and update it. I actually have a little bit of a plan for how I’m going to do this, so I’ll put regular updates to that site as a resolution for the year.
• I didn’t manage to get a full game out there in my spare time. This was one of my resolutions for the year, and for whatever reason (probably mostly apathy on my own part) it just didn’t happen. Color Zap remains in a state of limbo, having come close to being finished, but eventually requiring just a few too many boring coding tasks to call it complete. On the Flash side of things I do have a project in the works, but again this was probably a case of shooting too high too soon. The todo list is mammoth. Maybe I will get something smaller and quicker done as a stop-gap.
• The gaming disappointments. Fable 3, Halo Reach, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Crackdown 2 – all games that I was looking forward to, that failed to grab my attention in the way that their predecessors did.
• I left my iPhone in the back of a taxi. On the plus side – I ended up with an upgraded phone. On the down side – I felt like an idiot and it cost me.