While the global economic cooldown seems to affect some areas more than others, that's not a surprise. After all, what seems like a crisis for some it is a great opportunity for others to get back on track, but that depends on a lot of things, mainly the brains leading a certain country and how they choose to manage the crisis. Anyway, the gaming industry is not one they can really help, since it's highly influenced by how things work for people in the world, basically the gamers and, sometimes, their parents - who are in charge of paying for all those games...

Unfortunately, parents all over the world are readjusting their budgets, and I am sure games and other entertainment-related items will fall off their lists in the first wave. Just one suggestion - if you're a parent, better quit smoking first, and then tell your kids they'll only receive 2 new console games this year, next Christmas! Now, let's see those facts, shall we?

For example, US games retailers are slashing their stock orders, trying to minimize the risk of ending up with a pile of unwanted games they'll be forced to sell for half the price or even worse...
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...but the interesting part comes in Europe, where - at least according to Sega Europe president Mike Hayes - things are different. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, he said that "In the United States you've got five customers, and those customers are saying that they don't need to order four weeks' stock, I'm going to order two. I don't want all this inventory. I think you'll find most publishers in the United States will be having similar challenges, to be honest. But Europe is such a mosaic of opportunities - while all the retailers are being more aggressive, and we understand why, Europe's a much more fluid and flexible market to manage, so we're in a good position."

Well, as I said in the beginning - while some go down, others go up, and it seems second-hand game retailers and game rentals services will take full advantage of this crisis. Even more - and worse, in my opinion - the gaming industry will accelerate the great shift from retail boxes to digital distribution...

OK, boys and girls, this is going to be a short one. I am all heated up, and I don't want to talk dirty, because we're not playing Call of Duty online here, and I am not getting owned. This is simply about EA's madness, and I have only a few words for them: you're headed all the way down, boys!

After hearing reports of layoffs at Black Box, Tiburon and Pandemic, GamesIndustry.biz asked Electronic Arts about the fate of other studios, such as Criterion and D.I.C.E., and the answer...

Well, here's the answer:"I can't give you more specifics on how many people in what locations, but we are making deep cuts in our cost structure to help make the company stronger. We announced a six percent goal for headcount reductions in our earnings call on 30 October. When we issued a warning on 9 December, we announced that the personnel cuts would be greater than six percent and just before the holidays, we provided the first details on that plan and said that it would include a cut of approximately ten percent, or 1000 people."
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The mumbo-jumbo above comes from some spokesperson who wasn't named, and now rumors are saying that various locations in UK, Romania, and Switzerland will be seriously struck by the crisis. Well, is this crisis, or just a bit of madness? In the end, this is not a game of fate, it's a game that EA has been playing really bad for the last few years, and now they get the results, it's just as simple as that!

After deciding to kill the studio responsible for Flight Simulator, Microsoft has just made another step with the left foot. In fact, I think they are jumping all over the place using the left foot, because closing Gamerscore is just another bad move, in my opinion. Hey, wait, I am not the only one who thinks that shutting down the Gamerscore Blog is not really smart, but...

...that's life, and it's not about the crisis, really. Here's the (un)official mumbo-jumbo: "Because of your feedback over the years and your desire to get more direct information about Xbox, we’ve created a variety of vehicles to communicate directly with you and keep you informed of everything new for Xbox. We love hearing your praise - and we learn from your criticism! We also want to make it easier for everyone to stay in touch, so we’re doing a little housekeeping. We made the decision to retire Gamerscore blog, and focus our community outreach through Xbox.com and through the Xbox dashboard."
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Jumping from a blog to a more formalized and official way of reaching customers is not what I really enjoy, but that's it. Another one bites the dust...

The farewell post on the Gamerscore Blog was closed with "We had a blast being part of Gamerscore blog, and we want to thank you for your support, but as you can see from the list above, there is no shortage of methods to snag the latest word from all of us at Xbox. And we’re ecstatic that we will continue contributing to these outlets going forward. We’ll see you there!"

Farewell, guys, I hope you're not going to lose your jobs anytime soon, and if you do, I really would like to see a new Gamerscore blog rising high, better than ever before!