Valve’s Gabe Newell gave the keynote address at this year’s Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain (DICE) Summit about the cost of games, the effect of piracy, and how to reach new players. Valve undertook an experiment recently to test how price affected the sales of their popular survival-horror FPS, Left 4 Dead. They Reduced the price by 50% on Steam, which “resulted in a 3000% increase in sales of the game, posting overall sales that beat the title’s original launch performance.” They also tested various other price drops over the holidays, seeing spikes in sales that corresponded well to the size of the discount.

See the full article at Slashdot.

It’s a tale of two online sellers — and two fourth-quarter earnings reports.

When Amazon reported earnings at the end of last month, it showed why it’s about the only recession bright spot in retail, as its investments in the buying experience, customer service and smart fourth-quarter promotions have paid off.

The week prior, eBay told a different story, even though a recession should arguably be its time to shine. It’s lost affiliates and failed to build out a unified experience and direct e-commerce platform. Now, fear some analysts, it may be too late.

Full story Ad Age.

Starbucks Corp. said nearly 7,000 employees may lose their jobs due to a new round of store closures and cost cuts as it reported Wednesday that its profit dropped 69 percent in its fiscal first quarter.

The company plans to close 300 underperforming stores around the world by the end of the fiscal year in addition to the 600 it already planned to close in the U.S. The company has already closed 384 of those stores.

The additional closures could result in the loss of 6,000 in-store jobs. Starbucks also plans to lay off about 700 non-store employees.

See the full article at Yahoo News.

The above screenshot, taken earlier today, shows a video posted to Death Cab for Cutie’s Official Website. The message is a copyright claim from the band’s own label, Warner Music Group. Yes, you read that correctly.

The explanation is likely simple: the band, or its staff, embedded an unauthorized YouTube version of the music video which was later removed from YouTube…

Read the full article at Mashable

Cat fight!

Warner Music Group Chairman/CEO of Recorded Music for the Americas and the U.K.Warner’s label chief speaks out on 360 deals, $1.29 singles and why YouTube deals don’t pay.

No one can say that Lyor Cohen isn’t opinionated. At Def Jam in the ’90s, he earned a reputation as an entrepreneur who would fight to protect the interests of his artists. And he didn’t mellow out much at Island Def Jam or at Warner Music Group, where CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. brought him in 2004.

Hired to make Warner’s various labels more efficient, Cohen has recently posted some impressive gains. In 2008, WMG gained 2.2 percentage points of market share, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and Atlantic became the No. 1 label in the United States.

Read the full article at Billboard

Tony Dungy always considered football just a career path.

Not his life’s mission.

On Monday, Dungy began the transition from head coach to full-time dad and devoted volunteer by announcing his retirement after seven years leading the Indianapolis Colts.

But the culmination of a 31-year NFL career, which started with Dungy winning a Super Bowl ring as a player in Pittsburgh and ended two years after he became the first black coach to hoist the Lombardi Trophy, brought out some rare emotional moments from the usually stoic Dungy.

“My wife Lauren told me to bring some Kleenex. I thought I would make it a little farther than the first sentence,” Dungy said, his voice cracking.

He told owner Jim Irsay of his decision Sunday.

“And we spent about 21/2 hours crying,” Dungy said. “But I had a real peace about it.”

The 53-year-old Dungy informed his staff of the decision Monday morning, then met with some players after the traditional one-week waiting period ended. Dungy and his wife, Lauren, spent the last five years discussing whether he should continue coaching.

See the full article at SI.com

Droopy red hats are sure to be the new fashion statement for the animal kingdom!

Merry wishes for the holiday season!

Autoblog had a nice write-up of the new Nissan 370Z yesterday. When I lived in Vegas I owned a first-year 350Z that was absolutely a blast to drive on long and open desert roads.

Well after looking at some of the photos it became obvious that they did some of the testing just a few minutes from where I used to live in Red Rock Canyon. Oh the cruelty! Their picture on top, my picture on the bottom:

Notice the mountain top in the background of both pictures — yup, that’s Red Rock!