I first heard about the push to give customers back their unused $5 deposits a few weeks back, when a GameStop manager mentioned that calls would be going out urging customers to head into their local store and get back their money. The manager in question was none too happy, as a reserve cancelled is one less reserve registered for the day, and reserves are a key statistic used to track a GameStop store's success.

Now Kotakuite and former GameStop employee (aren't we all?) TheMadjai drops us a line to inform us that GameStop's automated service is calling customers, urging them to visit a website where they can enter in their phone number and last name in order to receive their money back in printable gift certificate form. You'll have to wait for the call, however, or else your unused reserves won't be on file.

I spoke to a GameStop manager about the phone calls, who verified that they are indeed going out. As for the day customers were called en masse to come cancel their unused reserves, the manager confirmed that quite a few people showed up, though a request for specifics was greeted with a heavy sigh and a "no comment."

The New-Brunswick Telegraph Journal reports the findings of Economics student Ryan MacLeod, who has crunched some demographics numbers to determine that, the more men play games, the more their income drops.

He's put a number on that, the paper reports:

The effect is so notable that for every minute a video game is played, MacLeod's research suggests gamers can expect a 0.4 per cent decrease in income.

And more from MacLeod:

"My work confirms that, in general, the more income a person has, the more time they spent playing video games," MacLeod said. "But that playing video games could also have a negative effect on a person's income."

I've long wondered how much money avid gamers commit to their gaming hobby each year. When you add and subtract all your game purchases, trade-ins and whatnot, what's the tab at year's end? And, as the story notes, if your income is lower, is it because of some subtle effect playing games has on earning power? Or is it simply that you played games so much, you cost yourself time that could have been used to make more income?

Mt. A student's research finds playing video games can lead to lower income

[Pic]

How much it lost is either a little or a lot, depending on which accounting principals you prefer to hold your publicly traded companies to. EA raked in $644 million its first quarter of the 2010 fiscal year, down from the $804 million it took in the year prior. That's a $234 million loss, going by GAAP. It's a $6 million loss if you're going non-GAAP, which sounds a lot nicer, doesn't it? Regardless of your personal accounting compass, John Riccitiello seemed pleased with the company's results.

"Good execution delivered better-than-expected financial results in the first quarter," said John Riccitiello, Chief Executive Officer, via press release.

He pointed to strong sales of The Sims 3, which sold 3.7 million copies during its first month on the market. The company was similarly proud of its Wii Fit competitor EA Sports Active, which helped the publisher double its Wii sales, selling 1.8 million copies during the quarter.

That title, along with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, EA SPORTS Grand Slam Tennis and Rock Band 2, helped the company secure a 21 percent share on the Wii in North America, a 13 percent share on the Wii in Europe. Not too shabby for a third party!

EA will hold an investors call today to talk more about this money making business, which we're about to listen to. We expect enthralling safe harbor statements to be read flatly.

The Fort Worth Star Telegram fingered the cost of development for the game at $15 million to $20 million.

The budget figure ran in a profile of lead Ghostbusters development studio Terminal Reality, which earned the opportunity to make a Ghostbusters game after one of its militiary-shooter prototypes impressed Vivendi Universal in 2006.

Ghostbusters film and game actor and co-writer Dan Aykroyd has also talked about the budget to the press, estimating in a June interview with the magazine If that the game's publishers spent "like $12 or $15 million" to make the game.

Last month, the CEO of Ubisoft said he expected the average video game budget to swell to $60 million in the next gaming hardware generation.

Vivendi, which merged with Activision, did not publish the game when it was released in June. In the U.S., Atari did. But a representative from the publisher did not respond to a request about these budget figures by press time. Kotaku has also inquired directly with Terminal Reality and will let readers know if they can shed any more light on the cost to make the game.

When it came to producing a video game that was exciting and captured the spirit of 'Ghostbusters, a Lewisville outfit got the call [Fort Worth Star-Telegram]

Robert Walsh heads up Krome Studios, one of the biggest indie studios on this blue planet we call Earth, and points out the very obvious: Game budgets are way up.

"I think that's one thing that the press, to a certain extent, is forgetting," said Walsh tells industry site Develop. "They're saying sales have increased over ten percent since last year or whatever; I mean, dev costs have probably doubled or tripled in the console transition."

Skyrocketing development costs means skyrocketing sales are need to stay in business. "Thinking about just the volume of sales that are required to recoup a twenty or thirty million dollar game," he adds, "I mean, you're talking many millions of copies." Back in the PS2 days, Walsh explains, there weren't that many games that costs tens of millions of dollars.

Wonder how long this trend can continue...

Interview: Krome's Robert Walsh [Develop via GameBizBlog]

And the findings reveal that, provided a dev still has a job, most positions in the field pay quite handsomely. According to the survey, the average salaries are:

Programmers: $85,024
Artists: $69,532
Game Designers: $67,379
Producers: $82,905
Quality Assurance: $39,571
Audio: $78,167
Business & Marketing: $102,143

Note that these are the average numbers, and vary according to factors such as experience.

2008 Game Developer Salary Survey Reveals $79,000 Average Income [Gamasutra]

While the week was mostly positive for Nintendo—it had announced sales of 435,000 Nintendo DSi handhelds in its first week—it appears that yesterday's data on an industry-wide drop in sales hit Nintendo squarely in the stocks. Bloomberg reports that the stock dropped about 6.6% this morning, but as the day went on, it settled a little lower, ultimately dipping 7.5%.

Nintendo of America big cheese Reggie Fils-Aime says the industry is still "very healthy."

As Nintendo didn't have a multi-million unit seller last month as it did in March 2008 (Super Smash Bros. Brawl), we shouldn't be surprised at dropping sales. Nintendo did manage to sell more than 800,000 copies of Pokémon Platinum for the Nintendo DS, though.

"Our launch schedules are more spread out so we're going to have these tough comparisons month to month," Fils-Aime said in an interview yesterday. "But if you look at the overall trend of our business, it continues to be very healthy."

Nintendo Shares Fall After Wii Sales in U.S. Drop 17% (Update1) [Bloomberg]

Goomba478 detailed all the charges the laundry list of add-on charges to use the card: "Pay to activate the card, pay to call customer service when their service isn't working properly, pay to use the card, pay to not use the card, pay to add money to the card, withdraw money from the card, transfer money to another card, pay money to your bills, pay when the card isn't working when it should be, pay if you decide to use your pin-code, pay to get a paper statement and many more."

Ouch. Previously, we posted about the fine print for the Capcom credit cards.

But there's a happy ending to this story! Days after goomba478's post went up, a representative from the bank behind the Capcom card contacted goomba. Some of the fees were either removed or revised. Read all the nitty gritty details in the link below.

CAG Blogger Complaints Help Change Capcom Unity Card Fees [CAG]

Funcom's latest massively multiplayer online game Age of Conan is to blame for the company's huge deficit, with $22.8 million depreciating in the face of the game's poor performance. The bad financial news was compounded by the announcement of CFO Olav Sandnes's departure.

"Funcom is a company with a substantial potential based on a unique combination of skill sets in a fast growing global market. I wish Trond Aas and the rest of the organization all the best in realizing the full potential of the company," commented Sandnes.

Despite the operating loss, revenues were up for the fourth quarter, with subscription fees from Age of Conan raising them to $8.7 million over last year's $1.2 million.

In layman's terms, Funcom gained money from subscription fees, but lost money actually operating the game. This is reflected in the closure of over half of the game's servers last year. The company basically spent too much to make that $8.7 million.

Still Age of Conan soldiers on, despite estimates the the subscriber levels for the game are below the 100,000 mark. There's still hope, as Funcom has recently announced launch plans for the game in Poland and Russia, two countries where Conan remains immensely popular. We'll be keeping our fingers crossed.

Funcom CFO resigns following $23.3m loss [GamesIndustry.biz]

According to researchers at the Nielsen Company and its Monitor-Plus advertising monitoring service, the industry spent an astounding $823 million promoting its video game wares to consumers. Hey, you gotta spend money to make money, right? Surely we wouldn't complain.

Nielsen and business intelligence and research firm EEDAR announced alongside their findings their intentions to "provide detailed analysis of historical marketing campaigns in the video game industry" as part of a long term agreement.

That means we'll probably have solid data on whether the industry will spend the better part of a billion dollars on marketing and promotion this year, something we'd be surprised to see in the lagging economy.

That $823 million may seem like a lot, but it's less than 4% of the industry's total revenue for 2008. And considering how much Rockstar Games and Valve spent last year promoting Grand Theft Auto IV and Left 4 Dead, we're wondering how the rest managed to get by.

How about by making saving into a game? Takara Tomy's Wallet Saver is a handheld LCD game shaped like a purse that lets you enter your budget and financial details and then plays like an RPG. Every purchase you make in real life gets entered into the game using the stylus (you can even open up the 'purse' and store your receipts inside) and influences gameplay.

Stay within your budget and things will go smoothly, but conflict will arise if you go and waste your money of stupid purchases like, er, novelty LCD games.

Personal finance pocket RPG

The Jinsei Bank ("Life" Bank), Ikemen Bank ("Cool Guy" Bank) and BANKQUEST. The neat thing about doing the piece is that I actually "played" through all the banks. Had to get a huge stack of bills changed — "Jinsei Bank" can hold about a thousand bucks!

Be sure to click through the gallery to get the blow-by-blow gameplay account.

This Little Piggy Bank Became a Videogame [Wired]

Sony may have won the format wars - seeing HD-DVD driven before them and hearing the lamentation of its early adopters - but longer term the discs may go the way of the Betamax and it's all that pesky economy's fault.

"The economy is the biggest challenge, because there are just so many pieces to the Blu-ray puzzle that consumers face," said Disney's Lori MacPherson, "You need the high-definition television set, you need the player, you need the cables, you need the software . . ."

And films. You definitely need films. The price of which compared to DVD, streaming and downloads might also be a factor.

"We're all constantly looking at (disc) pricing," said Rich Marty from Sony, "What it amounts to is that we'll wait until after the fourth quarter and see how it goes."

Economy grinch may pinch Blu-ray format [Reuters]

Oh, and it'll make more money accordingly. Operating income and net income have both been projected to be much, much higher. What does that really mean?

Net income of somewhere in the ballpark of $3.8 billion (in U.S. bucks) for the year, according to Bloomberg, news that gave Nintendo's stock price a positive kick in the pants. The Bloomberg report does not mention, however, exactly when Nintendo expects to give up its efforts and go third party and put guns on cars like they probably should. You're just prolonging the inevitable, Iwata!

Nintendo Raises Forecasts on Wii, DS; Shares Surge [Bloomberg]

So who the hell is Ultizen, you ask? Ultizen is one of those mysterious outsourcing companies, based out of China, that basically have their hands in many different gaming pies at once. They do everything from concept art to full-on programming to porting, providing services to everyone from small indie outfits to the big names in the industry. It helps to think of them as game development mercenaries. They're the A-Team of the gaming industry, and they love it when a financing plan comes together. Hit the jump for the full press release.

Ultizen Games Secures $6 Million in Series B Financing
— Funds Will Be Used for Continued Rapid Expansion Through Acquisitions—

SHANGHAI, China & LOS ANGELES—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Ultizen Games Ltd., a game development and outsourcing company, announced today that it has secured $6 million USD in a Series B funding round led by Taiwan-based venture capital firm PAC-LINK, with participation from Japan-based VC firm Japan Asia Investment Co. (JAIC) and CyberAgent, a leading on-line advertising agency and media representative company. The Series B funding will be used to support company’s continued rapid growth through acquisitions. Ultizen’s North American offices are located in Los Angeles.

Ultizen closed a $1.5 million USD Series A round of financing from Shanghai and Boston-based Dragonvest Partners in late June of 2007, and grew from 70 to 350 employees within the company’s first year of operation.

With the largest talent base in China, reliable security to protect client intellectual property (IP), excellent quality control and an outstanding record of on-time delivery, Ultizen provides the highest quality game art development outsourcing services to North American, European and Japanese clients ranging from “top 20” gaming and media companies to small and mid-size studios.

Ultizen Games’ 350-person studio provides game development services including game design, porting, programming and art. A certified Microsoft XBOX Live Arcade game developer, the company plans to launch its first title on the XBOX platform in the fall of 2008.

“China has become the biggest game development and art outsourcing market in recent years and we believe the market will continue to grow exponentially in the near future. With the advanced technology and more than 350 talented developers, Ultizen has the potential to become the market leader in the industry,” said PAC-LINK General Partner Allen Hsu. “In addition, the web-based casual game industry has shown tremendous growth. As an early mover in this segment, we believe that Ultizen will become a dominant player and, moreover, have great potential to expand from a developer into an influential publishing and operating company in this segment.”

Founded in January 2005 by gaming industry veterans Lan Haiwen and Wu Jun, now Ultizen’s CEO and Vice President, respectively, the company has achieved rapid success, and has grown to be one of the top three independent game studios in China, both organically and through the acquisition of Beijing-based Mo-Star Limited, a well-established game content provider on China Mobile’s game portal platform. The company maintains studios in Shanghai and Beijing, China and opened an office in Los Angeles in the fall of 2007.

“Ultizen’s leadership team, Lan Haiwen and Wu Jun, combines a deep knowledge of the gaming industry and the Chinese game development market with a sophisticated understanding of the needs of game development and media companies around the globe,” said Dragonvest Partners Co-Founder and Co-Managing General Partner Jesse Parker. “They have done an outstanding job of attracting and retaining the top talent needed to support rapid growth and address their clients skills and resource requirements while maintaining a high quality standard.”

Ming Hsu, General Partner, PAC-LINK and Tetsuya Tsuda, CEO of Japan Asia Investment (China) Co., Ltd. will join Dragonvest Partners’ Jesse Parker; Ultizen Vice President Wu Jun; and board chairman and Ultizen CEO Lan Haiwen on the company’s Board of Directors.

“Ultizen’s track record of profitable growth is a validation of our capabilities and the top- and bottom-line business benefit our clients derive from partnering with us,” said Lan Haiwen. “The addition of PAC-LINK, JAIC and Cyber Agent to our investment team provides us with the resources to aggressively expand our leadership position among China-based game development and outsourcing companies to address the huge market opportunity the thriving global gaming industry presents.”

With an aging gaming population comes more gamers with money, which means ... money to spend on travel. Bonnie Ruberg takes a look at where gamers would go given $1,500 for expenses for a 'game-related' vacation. PAX? E For All? Tokyo Game Show? ... Disneyland? I can't remember the last proper vacation I had, but I can say definitively I wouldn't be planning it around a convention or expo. In fact, a weekend off with time to do nothing but hang out would be a treat right now:

Not everyone's so ready to move from the sofa and fly across the country though. Chris Furniss, a 26-year-old Web site designer at Microsoft Game Studios in Redmond, Wash., feels $1,500 won't get him far. "Since flights anywhere are so expensive and I already live in Seattle, I'd go to PAX and live it up," he says. "I'd stay at a nice hotel downtown, get tickets for all three days and go on a shopping spree on the show floor. PAX is the gamer destination of choice and always a really fantastic time."

Short piece with a nice little slideshow and worth a looksee on a lazy, overcast Saturday like today.

Top Travel Spots For Game Fans [Forbes via Heroine Sheik

Gamasutra has an interesting look up at the MMO free to play/micro-transaction vs. traditional subscription model up - talking with SOE's John Smedley, Three Rings' Daniel James and EA Mythic's Mark Jacobs. Unsurprisingly, there are differences in opinion on the utility of the micro-transaction model, with some participants in the discussion coming down on the side of the traditional subscription model:

"You know, everyone thinks it's just so cool to say that the subscription model is passé, that it's dead," notes Mark Jacobs, general manager and VP. "They love to talk about their new models and how they are going to revolutionize the MMOG world. But MMOG publishers are spending a lot more on their games than anyone thought they'd be spending five years ago."

"If your game doesn't have the production values of a leading-edge game, if they are two-dimensional and not three, if they have lower system specs, okay."

"But if you're investing as much time and money as we are on our MMOGs, if you need to pay for the servers and the customer support, if you want to make a real profit on your game, subscriptions are the only way to go."

Snap! Certainly, there are times when the subscription model works well, and times when it doesn't - Chinese players are increasingly moving away from WoW in favor of the domestically produced micro-transaction games. I can't foresee subscriptions ever going away, but companies are increasingly seeing the benefits of the micro-transactions.

MMOG Business Models: Cancel That Subscription! [Gamasutra]

Here's how it all breaks down. Brace yourself for more millions and more percentage growth talk.

• Hardware - $426.2 million (+26%)
• Software - $654.7 million (+68%)
• Accessories - $154 million (+39%)

I've avoided collecting carts for a while — I always looked at them as a slippery slope, since there are just so many collectible carts out there to get. When I started, I concentrated on systems — I'm up to 130 now.