09.17.13 |
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This guest post by free-to-play consultant Ethan Levy on Kotaku was interesting, but I’ve flip flopped on my feelings on it. I planned to first link to it pointing out some of Levy’s strong arguments, but at rereading it a few times he comes off harsh and defensive with his audience.
Levy makes a fair point about changing economics and tastes of the audience, and how a free-to-play model can lower the risks for developers:
On the development side, a free-to-play game lowers the risk involved in making a game. A developer is able to release a high quality game that represents a fraction of the total vision, and if players think it is fun and justify it by spending money, the developer can continue to improve the game for months or years on end.
But at the same time, there’s a “business first” tone in the article; a lack of financial support for traditional games forces studios to jump to free-to-play. But I think there is a lot of support for more traditional gaming, especially on mid budget indie releases. Furthermore, many genres of games, especially those with a longer, single player narrative (e.g. The Last of Us) just can’t adapt to free-to-play. We need a strong market for these games as well. If gaming markets sees dollars only around free-to-play, we could lose a lot of gaming diversity. We’re seeing these problems already seep heavily into EA’s latest game releases along with mobile gaming.
09.13.13 |
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John Siracusa:
If the time of the game console is not yet at an end (handheld or otherwise), then Nintendo has a lot of work to do. It needs to get better at all of the game-related things that iOS is good at. It needs to produce software that clearly demonstrates the value of its hardware—or, if that’s not possible, then it needs to make new hardware…
…Nintendo needs to do what Nintendo does best: create amazing combinations of hardware and software. That’s what has saved the company in the past, and it’s the only thing that will ensure its future.
I agree with Siracusa; Daring Fireball’s John Gruber and others that disagree I think are missing the potential of the current market. We may be clearly moving in the direction of multi functional platforms that can do more than play games. But, as Siracusa points out, as long as there’s a strong market for dedicated gaming devices that offer a richer, more immersive experience (I think next-gen console sales will reflect this), Nintendo still has a shot with its hardware and software combination.
09.09.13 |
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Capcom just released this documentary free on YouTube. It’s gotten a lot of praise online with its extremely high production values (as expected from the production studio Area 5.) Anyone who’s into gaming, especially Street Fighter fans, should watch this.
09.05.13 |
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Longtime video game journalist and designer Jeff Green, discussing his issues with more complex multiplayer games like DOTA 2:
The problem of course, was and still is the barrier to entry. If all the players in a particular game are skilled and experienced, then it just makes it that much harder for a new player to find his or her footing, to gain any experience or confidence. And there is little to no tolerance by a lot (but not all) experienced players to put up with noobs on the team. Especially in games where everyone takes it totally seriously and winning is everything.
Gaming has changed for me in two ways over the past few years. First, as work and other life commitments take more time, there’s just less time for gaming. And as part of that, I’ve got far less patience for complex or twitch based multiplayer. I want to have fun and relax, not get stressed out every time I start a match of Call of Duty.
08.28.13 |
Gaming |
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I’ve been racing through the PS3 horror survival game The Last of Us at a blistering pace over the last few weeks. Unlike almost every other console game I’ve played, I’m doing so because of the game’s great storyline, not its gameplay.
Joel and Ellie, the two protagonists of The Last of Us, propel the narrative forward. Both characters are morally flawed and have depth; they grow and evolve significantly throughout gameplay. It’s a progression that’s more impressive than a lot of what I see on TV today, especially when you factor in the relatively short in-game cutscene time. We’re not talking Mad Men levels of development here, but for a video game this is a huge accomplishment. Overall, I feel invested in these characters and can’t wait to find out what happens to them next.
There are other ways that the The Last of Us’ narrative has similarities to a great TV or movie screenplay. There’s no excess exposition; characters rarely talk about how they feel or unnecessarily recall earlier events to fill in the audience (e.g. no character says “tell me again about…”). Instead, nuanced actions convey emotion. Elle slightly changes her stance when she gets agitated. Joel glances at his broken watch to recall a tragic backstory.
In addition, The Last of Us doesn’t front-load the story with clumsy, overly direct details such as intro voiceovers, a common mistake among action games. Instead, the game fills in the blanks on its post-apocalyptical setting along the way, mostly in the action’s periphery: two characters have a throwaway conversation about a summer barbecue before the infection spread. Loudspeakers shout ominous warnings from FEDRA, the militaristic remnants of the U.S. government.
Unlike a lot of games, gameplay violence has serious consequences that aren’t glorified or fetishized. Gun fights are short and deadly. Enemies (and their victims) are dispatched in brutal, realistic ways. Joel and Ellie obviously rack up an unrealistically high body count (it’s still an action game), but are far from unstoppable super heroes. Thanks to excellent sound design and motion capture, both characters are often weak, scared and tired during battle. With all these factors in play, “fun” combat ironically ranges between feeling uncomfortable to flat out dreadful. Consequently, extended gaming sessions are hard to handle. But I think the game developers would argue that’s exactly the point.
Overall, The Last of Us shows a real maturity in its narrative, an evolution past what we normally see in gaming. It’s fitting that the game is one of the PS3’s last tentpole releases. Here’s hoping the next generation of gaming, from the XBox One and PS4 to the iPhones and PCs of tomorrow, will push their respective stories to even higher levels.
08.28.13 |
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The Penny Arcade Report’s Ben Kuchera on free-to-play games:
The economy of free-to-play games are always designed to be unsatisfying in some way, that’s how the business works. For-pay games feature a kind of brute honesty: If you don’t pay the asking price, you don’t get to play. Free-to-play games hide their hooks in the game play itself, like sharp bones inside a nice piece of meat. It’s hard to feel like you can dig in when you know any bite may bring pain, so we’re stuck ripping the meal apart with our knife and fork to try to figure out where the bones may be hiding.
This is pretty much exactly the problem I’ve had with the popular mobile free-to-play game Real Racing 3. To get to more advanced races I felt the need to grind races over and over for more coins to buy. Was the game putting up a wall and telling me to fork up a few bucks? How much would I feel obliged to spend to get some of the later stage, more powerful cars? I’ve decreased my play time significantly since I had to start asking these questions.
08.23.13 |
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There’s been lots of hype around both the PS4 and XBox One regarding the state of launch titles. Ars Technica gaming reporter Kyle Orland presents the numbers on each side, divided by exclusivity, genre, and more. It’s a helpful guide and a potential factor in deciding which console to pick up.
08.20.13 |
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A big step in the right direction for catering to indie developers. Microsoft still isn’t out of the weeds: their decision to not make the Kinect required is baffling, and there’s many other moves that suggest a platform without a strong vision. But adding an indie friendly publishing platform is a uniformly great decision.
07.31.13 |
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Sam Gibbs writing for Gizmodo UK (sourcing data from a lengthy Eurogamer article):
It turns out that despite having 50 per cent more power in the GPU department, the in-game graphical performance of the surrogate PS4 only managed around 25 per cent faster frame rates, like-for-like in the gaming benchmarks. The interesting thing here is that the homebrew Xbox One test rig kept up with the PS4-like kit if the resolution was turned down from 1080p a smidgen, which makes me think that on the whole the two are going to be very evenly matched.
Pretty much all tests, signs and evaluations we’ve heard is that at least out of the gate you won’t notice much difference between the two systems in terms of raw graphical performance. But years down the line as graphical needs get pushed further upward I’m curious if the extra PS4 power will make a noticeable difference, at least on first party games.
07.17.13 |
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Rob Fahey writing for GamesIndustry International:
Here’s this approach in summary – “save AAA games by making more money from the same consumers”. If you think you can rescue AAA by following that strategy, I’d submit that you’re part of the problem, not part of the solution. AAA development isn’t in trouble because its consumers don’t pay enough money – it’s in trouble because the growth of its consumer base has stalled. After years of meteoric growth, AAA games have hit a ceiling – new people are playing games in droves, interactive entertainment has gone every bit as mainstream as anyone dared to dream, yet AAA experiences are utterly failing to encourage new audiences to jump in, to swim upstream and become fully fledged video game consumers.