40 réponses à ce sujet

[TurianRebel212]

http://kotaku.com/th...ssia-1693616232

 

http://www.ign.com/a...-only-to-russia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TheJediSaint]

Great, first Crimea and now Halo.  Where will it end, Putin?!

[AventuroLegendary]

 

Great, first Crimea and now Halo.  Where will it end, Putin?!

 

There were ethnic Russian interns being abused by 343. He had to intervene.

[TurianRebel212]

The game will utterly fail in Russia for 3 reasons. 

 

1) Russia is dirt poor and even a F2P game isn't free enough for them

2) They'll somehow just pirate the game anyway's. 

3) Do Russian's even like HALO???? *Legit question, I have never met a Russian playing HALO, in all my life*

[Terca]

The game will utterly fail in Russia for 3 reasons. 

 

1) Russia is dirt poor and even a F2P game isn't free enough for them

2) They'll somehow just pirate the game anyway's. 

3) Do Russian's even like HALO???? *Legit question, I have never met a Russian playing HALO, in all my life*

 

1) F2P games are as popular there as they are in the East. Same thing China does really.

2) lol.

3) Possibly. As a guy who lives in NA I would never be matched up with someone in the Federation. If it's on PC then I guess it'd do really well.

[Fidite Nemini]

Goodie.

 

I wonder how many Russians will start talking English just so other Russians won't understand a thing they say. Because I swear, any other online game I've played it was always the Russians that would flat-out refuse to talk anything other than Russian. But oh boy do they talk and talk and talk and talk ...

[General TSAR]

1) Russia is dirt poor and even a F2P game isn't free enough for them

Really? That's odd considering Russia is one of the biggest video game markets in Central and Eastern Europe with 40 million gamers.

 

Also F2P games are really hot in Russia, especially games like World of Tanks. 

[Degenerate Rakia Time]

Really? That's odd considering Russia is one of the biggest video game markets in Central and Eastern Europe with 40 million gamers. 

40 million? are there even 40 million gamers on the planet?

[Fidite Nemini]

Really? That's odd considering Russia is one of the biggest video game markets in Central and Eastern Europe with 40 million gamers. 

 

Wouldn't exactly say Russians are poor, but they sure have to pay a lot less for their games, which is usually a good indicator on how wealthy the average customer is in a region.

The fact that games are so cheap over there is the reason why publishers are region locking copies in order to crack down on game-key retailers getting cheap keys and reselling them.

[General TSAR]

40 million? are there even 40 million gamers on the planet?

Apparently.

 

"Russia is just like Germany -- a very PC-oriented game market that is today behaving a bit like an emerging market, like Brazil," says Peter Warman, co-founder and CEO of NewZoo, a Netherlands-based market research and consulting firm focused on the games industry.

 

"People there love PC games, especially free-to-play (F2P) games. So if you're in that sector, there's practically a guarantee of success. If you're in a different market, Russia may not be as interesting for you."

 

Warman estimates that there are almost 40 million gamers in Russia -- compared to a total population of about 140 million -- with about 25 million actually spending money on their gaming.

http://www.gamasutra...th_.php?print=1

[Morty Smith]

40 million? are there even 40 million gamers on the planet?

 

Half of those are on my private CS 1.6 server alone, doing my mother. So I can write a warrant for that, I think. Huge family now and all.

[DarkKnightHolmes]

F2P games seem to be popular in the east side of the world.

[God]

40 million gamers? That's small for the U.S. population.

 

Anyway, it rather sucks, but I don't think the game would have much to offer here for regular Halo fans like me. I think it'd be more of a means to generate interest in the franchise in that market.

 

I've been getting back into Halo a lot lately. Big on H5.

[Althix]

don't be so jealous topic starter.

[God]

Did some searching and read the Russian language articles concerning this. 

 

I think the ploy is what I said it would be, with a little bit extra. Microsoft is trying to branch their flagship video game franchise. It's an experiment to see how the game goes over for a PC market in a relatively risk free play-pen (Russia), with the purpose of also raising interest in the series in those markets.

 

The Russians are talking about how MS is doing their equivalent of a grassroots (I couldn't translate that part very well) to generate interest in the series as well as learn lessons about how to possibly apply to future Halo content that might, just might, not be Xbox exclusive, but also released on PC. Granted, the rationale in this is that MS would possibly do this only for non-Western markets, so as not to interrupt the performance of the Xbox (regardless of how you feel about it, Halo is still the standard for which Xbox systems are measured too, and it is still their killer app, so to speak. You don't think of an Xbox without thinking of Halo to some extent).

 

The game itself appears to be based on a heavily modified Halo 3 engine, so it's not going to be all that high-tech. The Russians are excited for it, and are praising the willingness of MS to apply a F2P model to the game (which is how games typically circulate in Eastern Europe). They also seem to be aware that MS will likely be using them as a testbed for future PC tailored content (if not full on releases).

[General TSAR]

40 million? Odd considering the Russian Federations rapidly shrinking population

Russia's population stabilized in 2009 and it's been generally growing ever since. 

 

More research required.

 

If you got a better source than Peter Warman, co-founder and CEO of NewZoo, a Netherlands-based market research and consulting firm focused on the games industry, then by all means please post it. 

[General TSAR]

https://www.google.c...tion&gws_rd=ssl

I'm on my phone so that's the best I can do. But yeah Russia's population is shrinking,

So you posted your google search? 

 

Okay, well time to retort in a similar manner I guess:

https://www.google.c...pulation growth

 

https://www.google.c...ssia population

 

and "ethnic Russians" are becoming a minority. Which is why they have resorted to violence. It's desperation

What is this crap you're trying to feed me?

[General TSAR]

Relax home slice, I'm on my phone like I said. I meant to link this http://www.worldaffa...population-bomb

2009 eh? And "Drunken Nation."

 

Not bad, not bad, elite pundits around the world would be proud. 

 

I guess I'll try 2013 from someone who actually knows their stuff.

http://www.forbes.co...s-about-russia/

 

And feed you? I'm trying to educate you, not feed you silly. 

Well silly you're not doing a good job of educating me, in fact I think you're a bit ignorant yourself. 

........

Anyway, I've been reading up and this game has COD gameplay mechanics, what a piece of crap. 

[God]

Putin fight!

[General TSAR]

Nah, I'll stop there.

 

I just get defensive toward a country I'm suppose to be ashamed to be from. 

[General TSAR]

Ah yes, the "Russia is dying crowd!" crowd. Let's look at the real situation without any predictable western bias and why these analysts are not as reputable as they appear:  

 

Russia's Demography Just Took A Significant Turn For The Worse

 

One month does not make a conclusive trend, but Rosstat just released its preliminary demographic data for January 2015 and the results are ugly. Compared to the previous year, deaths were up and births were down by 2 and 4% respectively. This means that the overall natural movement in population for the month was -25,000, compared to only -15,000 the year before.

 

The uptick in mortality is particularly disconcerting as it was the result of increases in the cardiovascular diseases that have traditionally been most problematic for Russia. The death rate from external causes actually decreased by a full 5%, likely aided by a relatively mild winter, but this improvement wasn’t nearly enough to overcome increases in deaths from diseases of the circulatory system, diseases of the digestive system, and lung disease (which increased by a whopping 12.6%).

 

The decline in births was strange in that a disproportionate share came from non ethically Russian regions that have traditionally had higher fertility, places like the North Caucasus and the other “autonomous republics.” Indeed a few of the most ethically Russian areas, like the Central and Northwestern okrugs, actually recorded year-over-year increases in fertility. Births in Dagestan, a traditionally Muslim area that has long been one of the most fecund regions of the Russian Federation, were down by 6.7%. In Bashkortostan, a region where ethnic Russians make up only a third of the population, births were off by a full 10%. In Tatarstan, another region where ethnic Russians are a minority and where the fertility rate has traditionally been higher than the national average, they were off by 8%.

Now monthly data is noisy. In a nation of 143-odd million people there are going to be substantial fluctuations in the absolute number of births and deaths. However,

considering that the data in November were also quite ugly, there is a very strong chance that the January numbers reflect not simply statistical “noise” but a genuine, and sharply negative, change in Russia’s demographic trajectory. We won’t know for sure for another few months, when there is additional data to look at, but the odds of this being simple happenstance are slim.

 

Nothing is written in stone. I’ve written widely about Russia’s the, very real and very significant, improvements in Russia’s demographic outlook that have taken place over the past several years, but these is no guarantee that these improvements will continue. They reflect no eternal truths about the “Russian soul” or the righteousness of Putin’s cause, the are highly contingent on the performance of Russia’s economy. And the economy isn’t doing very well right now.

 

During the 1990′s Russians conclusively proved that, when they feel threatened by the economic environment, they will postpone or forgo family formation. What’s happening now isn’t nearly as serious as the 1990′s crisis, but it clearly is a come-down from the economic performance of recent years. Given that, the January 2015 data isn’t a mystery or a puzzle: with rising inflation, slowing growth, and increasing unemployment we would expect to see a deterioration in the demographic fundamentals. Unless the Russian government can get a handle on the economic situation, experience would suggest that the hard-won gains of recent years will slowly melt away.

http://www.forbes.co...-for-the-worse/

 

 

Among elite pundits it is received wisdom that Russia is a “dying nation.” Everyone knows that Russia, ruled by a bloody and incompetent gang of thieves, is in a demographic “death spiral” which will inevitably send it into the abyss. Furthermore, elite pundits “know” that the only way this decline can be arrested is if Russia embarks on a path of democratic, liberal reform. After all, everyone knows that the other post-Communist countries that embraced free markets, democracy, and the rule of law have fared much better.

George Weigel provided an excellent example of this tendency  in a recent article for National Review:

Weigel is very firmly within the elite consensus when he bemoans Russia’s “death” and when he simultaneously implies that other, more Western leaning, states have had a better go of things. The problem is that when you compare the actual change in Russia’s population to other post-Communist countries it’s not at all clear that it’s a particularly poor performer. Here is how Russia’s population change since 1992 compares to the Baltics, Romania, and Bulgaria:

Russia is, in many respects, dying. Alcoholism is rampant. Life expectancy is sinking: Today, a 15-year-old Haitian boy has a longer life expectancy than his 15-year-old Russian counterpart. The economy is stagnant, and the ruble is cratering. Russia imports potatoes from Romania. Churches are largely empty. Yet atop this rotting body politic is an oligarchic elite that functions very much like the Mafia families depicted in Puzo’s novel The Godfather and the films spun off from it. 

 

The idea that liberalizing political and economic reform (a kind of “democratic prosperity theory”) has some kind of ancillary demographic benefit doesn’t withstand even the most basic critical scrutiny. Countries that have unarguably  made far more progress than Russia in rooting out corruption and in creating fair and accountable governments have simultaneously undergone demographic crises that are much more severe than Russia’s. Indeed the Baltics, arguably the most eager liberalizers in all of post-Communist EasternEurope, are some of the most demographically unstable countries on the planet.

 

From a demographic standpoint “the “dying Russian nation” is simply not that unique. Indeed Russia’s long-term demographic outlook is actually quite a bit better than the rest of the region’s: its fertility rate, the biggest long-term determinant of population growth, has rebounded quicker and more robustly than any of the other post-communist countries in Europe with the possible exception of Estonia.

http://www.forbes.co...-is-not-unique/

 

Joseph Nye, the dean of liberal internationalism and the coiner of the now ubiquitous idea of ”soft power,” went on the BBC’s Radio 4 earlier this weekto speak about the threat presented by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Much of what Nye said seems largely on point: Russia’s exports are far too heavily weighted towards energy and the increasingly severe confrontation with the West over Ukraine puts the country’s prospects for economic modernization at risk.

 

Annexing Crimea might have lead to short-term euphoria within Russia (“Crimea is ours!” has quickly become a populist rallying cry) but from a more strategic perspective it seems exceptionally short-sighted and stupid. In exchange for what amounts to a new Cold War, Russia acquired a small, relatively poor peninsula with a disproportionately old population of around 2 million. Crimea has no industry worth mentioning, and will require massive taxpayer subsidies for the foreseeable future. If that is Putin playing three dimensional chess, he’s playing it poorly. So, in general, Nye is right to be skeptical of Russia’s prospects in the current standoff.

 

Nye, however, waded into the debate over Russian demography and it was a bit of a mess:

There are two factual claims here, neither of which are factually accurate. Russia’s population is not shrinking, but growing. It’s been growing for several years now and has managed to recoup some of the grievous losses it sustained during the 1990′s. Russia’s population shrank during the 1990′s and it is extremely like that it will shrink in the future, but for the past 6 years Russia’s population has not been shrinking.

It has a terrible demographic problem; the number of Russians is shrinking. It has a huge health problem; the average Russian male dies at about age 61.

 

As for male life expectancy, I’ll let the following graph do most of the talking

You can say that Russian man die at “about age 61″ but they actually die at about age 65.

Now, in case anyone is confused, the fact that Russian males die at 65 and not 61 doesn’t mean “Russia is awesome!” or “Putin is the best!” The only thing it means is that… Russian males die at 65 and not 61. One of the numbers is right, and one of the numbers is wrong. The number Nye used is wrong.

 

But why does it matter that Nye used a wrong number? What’s a few years of average life expectancy among friends? Well if someone is sloppy with one particular fact (if, for example, they use a life expectancy number from 2009 instead of 2013) it is possible that they’ve been sloppy with other facts as well. It is possible, I suppose, that everything else that Joseph Nye knows about Russia is 100% accurate and up to date and that the only aspect of contemporary Russian life which he should brush up on is average male life expectancy.

 

Anything is possible. It is possible that I will one day become president, or that I’ll win the next Powerball lottery. But if Nye was wrong about such a basic, easy-to-verify bit of factual information about Russia (seriously, checking the average life expectancy takes about 30 seconds on Google) it strongly suggests that there are other mistakes lurking in his analysis.

 

Again, the fact that Russian males live until 65 and not 61 does not exculpate Putin or justify the war against Ukraine. It doesn’t mean that Russia will win, or that the West is wrong. The only thing it means is that Russian males live until 65.

But for some reason I still cannot quite understand a lot of extremely intelligent, capable, and influential people habitually cite decade-old demographic data when speaking about Russia. Given the quick, easy, and free access to detailed statistical information there just isn’t an excuse for this anymore. People can and should criticize Putin to their heart’s content, but they should take a minute to ensure that the criticisms are factually accurate.

http://www.forbes.co...e-expectancy/2/

Russia's Abortion Rate Has Fallen Dramatically

 

A friend sent me an article the other day, a republication of a report originally written for Yale, with the decidedly ominous sounding title of “Russian demographics: the perfect storm.” The article was a bit overdone, the two authors seemed to be doing their best to scare the daylights out of people, but its thesis was fundamentally correct: Russia really will face enormous challenges from an aging population. Unlike a lot of others I think that Russia’s demographic challenges are surmountable, but they are large, complex, and deadly serious.

There was one paragraph in particular, though, that really jumped out at me (emphasis added):

I’ve seen variations on this particular talking point before but it really is astonishing to see two researchers use such outdated information. Two abortions for every birth might sound like a terrifying and grisly statistic, but a quick look at Rosstat’s handy Demographic Yearbook  is all that is necessary to show that it simply isn’t true. In reality, over the past few years there have been roughly two births for every abortion in Russia, and the last time that abortion exceeded births by two to one was in 1997 

Notwithstanding a recent fertility uptick, low fertility persists due to inadequate reproductive health services, lack of modern and low-cost contraceptives, widespread and unsafe abortions, infertility, fewer women of childbearing age, changing attitudes toward marriage and voluntary childlessness. In addition, Russia’s abortion rate, estimated at two abortions for every birth, has traditionally been the highest in the world.The government pays families for birth or adoption of a second child – and considers a tax on childlessness.

You can say that Russia’s abortion rate is still too high (it is high in comparison to the EU or the US), you can say that the Russian authorities should do more to promote other firms of birth control (they should), and you can criticize the overall efficacy of the Russian health system (which leaves a great deal to be desired). You can say any number of things that paint Russia is a less than positive light but you can’t say that there are “two abortions for every birth” because that isn’t true!

 

In reality, the incidence of abortion in Russia has declined precipitously over the past twenty years, and patterns of contraceptive use have been gradually (if a bit too slowly) converging towards Western norms.

 

Rosstat’s information about abortions isn’t a state secret, nor is it locked away in some obscure provincial archive. Instead it is freely available to anyone with an internet connection and a modicum of intellectual curiosity. The language barrier isn’t even an obstacle in this case, since Rosstat goes to far as to publish the demographic yearbook in English.

 

It’s not hard, indeed these days it’s remarkably easy, to paint Russia in a negative light. You can look at inflation, economic growth, unemployment, capital flight, or migration and accurately say “things have gotten a lot worse over the past year and are likely to get worse in the near future.” But it shouldn’t be a controversial to say that when making these criticisms it is imperative to use accurate information. Criticize Russia for its actual (not terribly impressive!) track record, not an imagined one.

http://www.forbes.co...n-dramatically/

 

 

I dont think you should be ashamed to be from Russia.

 

Nice attempt at patronization.

 

I was speaking on demonization in the media and political atmosphere in the West. But geopoltical rivals tend to do that.

 

 

 

 A country in which poverty is rife and young people are leaving in large numbers? 

Most of whom actually return later (students and seasonal workers).

 

I merely seek to put things in perspective.

Perspective of the elite pundits who are totally reputable no doubt.

 

Also speaking of money:

Russia Rebounds, Despite Sanctions

http://www.bloomberg...spite-sanctions

 

Why is this important? Let's see:

 

Russia's demographic situation is in sync with economy,

Largely good economy= Positive demographic shifts.

Largely bad economy=Negative demographic shifts. 

 

So expect more F2P games to be popping up in Russia when the oil price rises.