Editorials

Here is where we weigh in on all of the important issues that effect today’s world. There are so many things to complain about: developers, publishers, retailers, other gamers, the market as a whole, gaming technology, gaming related technology, gaming politics, gaming court cases, Japan, trends, current events, past events, future events and bioterrorism. We won’t silence an opinion just because it’s “unpopular” or “poorly reasoned,” so you can be sure we will always present at least one side of an issue. Think of us as the Fox News of gaming.

What did the Next Gen ever do for Us?

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The tagline to the above title being when does next gen become this gen? Yes, already there are rumours abound of what the next generation of consoles might bring to the table, even though for many veterans is still feels like the current generation barely got started. For those of you who remember the last brave days of the PS2, Gamecube and Xbox, it was with bated breath that the new generation was unveiled before our own eyes. And what of it? A number of years down the line (and with a few false starts) how has console gaming really changed and what can we anticipate the next generation will bring? Here’s the topic dealt with in the time-honoured list format.

Crates and/or barrels.
It was our personal hope that we would see the last of the crate and of the barrel, which were ubiquitously used to build generic levels, block pathways and for the henchmen to crouch behind (although to be fair this use was only really for the red barrels). →  Readbot Chronicles

E3 to the Grave: Forgetting Good Old Games

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E3 has started. Some gamers are excited. Some gamers are jaded with it all. Either way, the lifecycle of many games will start this week. Almost. Well most of them were revealed, hinted at or leaked already. So this is games at their birth. First comes hype, then months of reveals, then reviews then bam! Japan gets the game. Then America. Then Australia. Then most of Europe. Then the UK. This is the beginning of a lifecycle for a game. But what happens at the end? When the game has been played by millions? Bizarrely it appears they dissapear from sight, only resurfacing on the second hand market. Don’t believe me? Check the official sites for Nintendo, Capcom, Microsoft games, Sony, Ubisoft. Mostly filler sites at best with the rare piece of news before Kotaku gets it. →  Finger lickin’ read.

If we all work together, we might just get out of this thing alive

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Things have changed. Co-Op is now a big deal in the world of games, and, as ever, there is an exact moment at which a well-informed observer such as myself can point and say “this, this is where the trend started.” Imagine there’s a timeline projected on the wall, and I’m probably wearing a suit, and with a laser pointer I confidently direct your attention to Halo: Combat Evolved, way back in 2001.

That’s right, before Halo there was literally no such thing as Co-Operative campaign mode.

Okay, fine, so that’s not strictly true. Or true in any sense. But Halo arguably marks the start of Co-Op gaming moving into the mainstream so that today, as we stand here in 2009, you literally can’t walk over a pile of games without tripping over one that has a Co-Operative mode. →  Destroy All Articles! 2

Enduring the Grind – Crunching as Company Policy

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Mike Capps, president of Epic Games, has come under fire recently for remarks about quality of life issues in the videogame industry made during the “Studio Heads on the Hotseat” panel at the IGDA Leadership Forum ’08 (video here).

The remarks which brought about the controversy were made at about 21 minutes into the panel. Taken in the context of everything he says, his remarks aren’t as inflammatory as they’ve been made out to be, but I still have experiences which would contradict some aspects of what he maintains is a good way to make video games. I’ll get back to him after a little background on crunching to make a video game.

For anyone who hasn’t studied the game development industry, the dreaded “crunch” refers to the period during which game developers work well beyond eight hours a day and sometimes through weekends in order to meet an important deadline, typically the shipping date of the finished game. →  [post launches in virtual reality],[put on your VR headset now],[left click on your mouse to open the remainder of this post in your web browser on your digital computing device]

A Return to Rapture – Looking Back at BioShock

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Although I voted BioShock the best game of 2007, the more I play it, the more it shows me how far video games haven’t come.

BioShock has one of the most chillingly powerful locales and universes in video game history, but sadly the game can easily be labeled a first-person shooter. It doesn’t really try to redefine what gaming is, or can be. It merely extends it, even though it redefined what a video game universe can be. Rapture is a fully-realized world; to an extent never before seen in video games. Rapture’s existence had purpose. People had lives, dreams, and aspirations. And Irrational should be commended for that. The writing/designing in this game is something most people can only dream about, or simply do not have the balls to even try. →  Ba da bam ba baa I’m readin’ it.

Now on Virtual Console: My childhood

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This Monday the Virtual Console got its first batch of Commodore 64 titles (in the states). Though I haven’t played the released games, it was a momentous occasion for me because the C64 was home to my first gaming experiences. While the other kids were playing their Nintendos, I was learning run “*” ,8,1 (only with the shortcut of “u” plus the shift key that yielded some bizarre symbol I don’t remember).

The majority of American gamers likely haven’t even touched a Commodore so VC sales will probably be pretty slow. Honestly, I’m not sure they deserve to be brisk – most of the titles I remember were fun at the time but seem archaic and shallow now. Still, I feel a responsibility to present a list of favorites just in case the planets align and Nintendo releases good C64 games and you happen to find yourself with five bucks to burn. →  Gotta get down on Friday.

Counting the Game Industry’s Gold

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Like most industries, the gaming industry is bound by the conventional economic wisdom that you must spend money to make money. Historically, that’s meant taking a loss on every game system sold (with the notable exception being most Nintendo consoles) in order to tap into selling game after game to console owners. This measure of success is known as the “attachment rate” or “tie ratio.” A somewhat (November 2008) dated Gamasutra chart shows that the Xbox was in the lead, with 6.6 games/system sold, followed by the Wii at 5.5 and the PS3 at 5.3.

This statistic has historically been a powerful metric for measuring market penetration and overall success for a console. After all, what’s the point of selling a console if you can’t sell game after game? But as with many things in today’s integrated media world, the lines have blurred and traditional metrics don’t necessarily tell the whole story. →  Show me the reading!

2008 in Review Part 4

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Games, I have always believed, would benefit from acceptance into mainstream culture: once the stigma that video games entertained only troglodytic nerds disappears, the scope of what games are allowed to be would increase. This has started to happen, as, despite the whining and hand wringing of those who want games to remain in their and only their basements, gaming has expanded over the past several years. Part of this has been in the form of non-gamers picking up controllers, but my bet is that most of it is ex-gamers picking them up again, or twenty-somethings not putting them down as they (we) age.

This expansion has meant that the collective entity known as “gamers” now has much broader tastes: broader in terms of theme and maturity as well as content. →  Secread of Evermore

The next gen consoles then and now – Revisited

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I wrote this little ditty sometime last summer, analyzing all three consoles and how they had changed since launch. Since then the market has seen more major shifts, so I want to take yet another look at the Wii, 360 and PS3, and see what we might expect from them in 2009.

Microsoft
Then: I claimed before that Microsoft looked to be getting wishy washy, constantly tweaking the policies and features behind the 360, leaving early adopters in the cold and not focusing on the important issues that need fixing.

Now: Microsoft embarrassed my predictions through and through. The Red Rings of Death have waned, and whether or not it is a good thing, the community has mostly gotten used to dealing with them when they do occasionally pop up, much like we got used to replacing old PS2s. →  Devil Summoner: Readou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Article

Digital Distribution in a Not so Ideal World

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I don’t like getting into personal anecdotes, so I’ll make this part quick. I was a strong supporter of digital distribution when it started popping up as a legitimate method of buying games. I was a Steam apologist when it was new and buggy, and I used Sam and Max as staunch proof that episodic content could work.

Digital Distribution has so many strengths that seems hard to argue against it. Quick access to games as soon as you want them, with no trips to the store and less physical hardware to strain. Plus, its digital nature should theoretically reduce prices and put more money into the right pockets. This last part is not happening, as theory is not becoming reality.

As easy as it is to make digital games cheaper, the technology can also be used to nickel and dime us. →  The only thing we have to read is read itself.