[casual_games] Slow death for the current generation of casual games? (Bugs, Parental Controls & Game Explorer)

[Eka Gauranga Das]

About 80% of the games we get from third party developers have some kind of
issue with Vista. ??
or Vista have some issues with all the current software...

as in regards with Hibernation AFAIK Vista is having troubles... not the
programs


my two cents


eka

On 12/18/06, Dave Selle <Dave.Selle at wildtangent.com> wrote:

>

>

>

> Hi Everyone,

>

>

>

> Just dropping you a bit of cheer before the holidays…

>

>

>

> But seriously I want to raise some issues with our game community that we

> are seeing currently in our network which will become acute in the very near

> future for many developers.

>

>

>

> Overall I also am very interested to hear in general what is happening

> with Vista preparedness across the industry and what issues you may be

> encountering. Here are some of the things that **we** have learned:

>

>

>

> *==Casual Games Vista Bugs==*

>

>

>

> About 80% of the games we get from third party developers have some kind

> of issue with Vista.

>

>

>

> Just under half of that number are "severe" issues that will significantly

> impact a user's ability to play the game. In our network, these will have to

> be pulled once our OEM partners start shipping Vista on new consumer

> machines. Outside our network, these will die a slow but equally inevitable

> death (if nothing is done to fix them) as consumer adoption of Vista marches

> forward.

>

>

>

> The issues are mainly in two areas:

>

>

>

>    - Installation/save games

>    - Sleep/Hibernate resume

>

>

>

> In terms of Installation, many games write config files or save game data

> into the program files area. In Vista this are gets virtualized per user.

> Depending on what data is written users can lose save games or in some cases

> will not be able to run at all as a non-elevated user after the initial

> install. One thing that you can do now in XP to check is to run in a limited

> user mode on XP. If your game installs and runs fine in that mode, 90% it

> will work in Vista also.

>

>

>

> The other big one is sleep/resume. Sleep behavior is turned ON by default

> in Vista, so everyone with a new PC will be experiencing this. Furthermore,

> Notebooks are the fastest growing segment of the PC market and there it's

> not just a nice to have feature. Many games do not recover well, or at all,

> when coming out of sleep mode.

>

>

>

> *==Parental Controls & Vista==*

>

>

>

> And finally, even if you fix your bugs there is one other issue looming

> which could significantly limit accessibility to your games under Vista:

> Parental Controls.

>

>

>

> Vista comes with a robust set of Parental controls based on games' ESRB

> ratings. And as we all know, relatively few casual games currently are ESRB

> rated because few developers have seen the ROI for the cost and effort of

> going through the submission process. Vista will certainly change this

> equation, especially for new games.

>

>

>

> Under Vista, as soon as **any** level of parental controls are set for

> games *all* unrated games will be hidden from the game explorer and

> require a lot of extra steps to access them. That's right: your games can

> just go "poof" and effectively disappear in Vista.

>

>

>

> The best defense against this particular threat is to get out in front of

> it and get your games ESRB rated. After the New Year comes and the Royalty

> checks start coming in I would strongly encourage all developers to consider

> this investment in the future of their games.

>

>

>

> Any other big Vista issues that folks are seeing out there?

>

>

>

> Here is wishing everyone a happy and successful holiday season!

>

>

>

> Best,

>

>

>

> --Dave

>

>

>

>

>

> *WildTangent*

> *David Selle*

> *VP, Content Acquisition & Developer Relations*

> dselle at wildtangent.com

> 18578 NE 67th Court

> Redmond, WA 98052<http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?Pyt=Tmap&addr=18578+NE+67th+Court&csz=Redmond%2C+WA+98052&country=us>

> tel: 425-497-4538

> <http://www.plaxo.com/click_to_call?src=jj_signature&To=425-497-4538&Email=dselle@wildtangent.com>

> fax: 425-497-4501

> mobile: 425-894-0707

> <http://www.plaxo.com/click_to_call?src=jj_signature&To=425-894-0707&Email=dselle@wildtangent.com>

> www.wildtangent.com

>

>

>

>

>

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-- 
Chant Hare Krishna and Be Happy

Eka
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