One day at Passivision headquarters in Timbuktu. There is an annual board meeting going on between the executives, the managers and the developers. They are planning for several new projects for games that will be carried out in the upcoming year. So the meeting starts:
CEO: Today we see ourselves as one of the biggest players in the gaming industry. Although we are going through tough times because of recession, we still have to make sure that we become the biggest company in the gaming industry. We have devised a very effective plan to make the upcoming year a great success. So shall we proceed?
So the CEO takes a break, drink a glass of water and starts again.
CEO: So here is what we have devised so far. We will continue making more Out of Duty DLCs for the two platforms 360 and PS3 except the PC since PC is obsolete. We will be making another Out of Duty sequel which will continue the story from before. Please don’t worry, since we have the license for the game and those Limited Ward guys will not be able to protest. How the game will be made? Our senior manager will talk more about that.
The CEO sits down and the senior manager stands up.
Senior manager: So basically we will be adding more options like we can rip-off the Assault mode from Surreal Tournament or Bombing Run. That’s all. Do you need anything else? It’s so easy and it will bring in many revenues since gamers will love to get hands on the new modes. Single mode? Hmm! We can add some personal story of Lux like the terrorists kidnapped his wife and kids and its time for Lux to save his family and eventually save the world. We can hire a B-Rated Hollywood script writer and make the script easily. In this way we can reduce the costs too.
One of the managers raised his hand and asked, “How we can make Bombing Run for Out of Duty?”
The manager replied, “Use your brains, don’t you know that the world is witnessing the FIFA World Cup, so in the Bombing Run case, the players will kick the Jabulani ball straight to the goal. Here there will be no fouls, no red cards, no yellow cards. They just need to shoot them dead, even the goalkeeper too. To make things challenging, the goalkeeper can have rocket launcher. Its unfair play!! Don’t worry! We are in talks with our sponsors who can sponsor the game.
Everyone slapped their hands, “BRAVO!!! BRAVO!!!”
One concern manager stepped up and said “Shouldn’t we bring out something new and innovative? The gamers were angry for the previous installment since they felt it’s just the same.”
The CEO replied, “Why do you care? They will eventually buy it anyway because of new features. That’s what they do. Just look at the sales figures.”
The manager remained silent and the CEO carried on.
CEO: Our next project will be Keyboard Zero. We will feature create a song mode and the keyboards will be colorful. It is so colorful that kids will think it as a toy and buy it even though they don’t realize that it is a video game. Its for everyone (E for everyone). We are talking with artists from Disney, Hannah Idaho, Justin Bieber, Jonas Brothers and so on. We will just put some songs and create the game. Not to mention we will adding more DLC after that.
Another concerned manager stepped up and said, “Is it really necessary to add those artists? Is it really necessary to make another Zero game as a new ip?
The CEO shouted angrily, “Yes, you fool. Don’t you understand kids and teen these days? They love them. You should also know this that our main competitor Circuit Arts has already added a keyboard option for their upcoming Punk Band 3. Don’t you care about competition? We will be having a competitive advantage. Instead of Punk Band being sold at a complete package, we will just sell Keyboard and the game for straight 100 bucks. See how much we are getting?
The manager remained silent.
The CEO continues, “Next we will be doing some side projects too. We will be making another movie based game. We will be trying to persuade the Hollywood industry to give us a license to make the upcoming Devilina Jolie movie “Salty”. We will be making a James Pond game “The Spy who killed me and I am alive.” As soon as our upcoming ip Singularity is lauched, we will plan to make a game called Plurality. Last but not the least we will be going for another Tony Eagles game and this time the game will be called Tony Eagles Manhole. Another Ogre game “Ogre does not Exist” will be made. We will also make several Barbie games like Barbie meets Ken. In this way we can get quick bucks and even the recession will not be able to stop them.
All the people in the board applauded with his marvelous decision.
The CEO sits down with great pride and the CFO stands up and continues.
CFO: Since our financial growth has been hurt pretty bad during the recession we will be taking serious measures. We will not make any new ips since taking risks will have adverse effect on the stock price of the company and we don’t want that during recession. We will close down several rising developers, since rising developers will ask more money and we need to shut their mouths up for greater good of the company. The DLCs and smaller games will bring us more money. We will force the gaming sites to write good reviews about our games and provide ads, so we can see huge sales in games. Also we will not lower the price of the games from the standard 59.99 dollars, whether the game is AAA or not. Also in order to keep our operating cost as low as possible, we will reduce the salaries by half and will not provide health benefits. This will allow us to have less operating expenses.
As soon as he told about cutting benefits, all the members shouted angrily.
The CEO comes to the rescue, “Shut up!!! If you don’t like our competitive salary and benefits then leave the company and we can hire some others to replace you all.”
The members remained silent. They cannot do anything else but just listen to him. After all if they lose job they will be having a serious hard time since US job-gloom is still very high.
The CEO finally concluded, “The meeting is finished. Let’s make 2010 the prosperous year for Passivision.”
