He's every ones favorite analyst: Michael Pachter. I wonder if the actual job description at Wedbush-Morgan asked for someone who was willing to sit a desk with a crystal ball and make academic predictions that even the most vociferous posters on the forums could make with their hands tied behind their back. I have done my best to try and ignore the stories about him, but they seem to be appearing a lot more often. Let's look at his track record over the last couple of months:- Fixing Manhunt 2 will cost Take Two millions. Duh.
- Halo3 to cause GTAIV delay. Oh really?
- Red Octane a better buy than Harmonix. Yes, $100 million is less than $275 million.
- Buy GameStop stock before the holiday rush. Please take all of my money and invest for me.
It seems like the writers that are continuing to give him the spotlight see the same pattern I do, but continue to post his thoughts. I guess they get some kind of enjoyment out it. It's definite that he does: I don't solicit all this press coverage. The press finds me. I think that the press finds me because I'm colorful, I'm not shy, I have an opinion and I frankly really don't care if someone agrees or disagrees with it. I'm willing to share.
He's enjoying his fifteen minutes but I think it's time to cut him off. Now he starts making some really off the wall predictions, I may start to listen. He has done it once, and I have to admit, I think it's his best prediction yet: Wii 2.
By casual, I mean a) my wife and b) she only likes Tetris and Mario Kart. The commercial for Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree has been playing quite a bit on TV. After seeing it, her revelation went as follows. 'That looked boring.'
The Nintendo marketing machine has been awesome over the last couple of years as proven by the success of the DS and now the Wii. They seemed to have become complacent since this spot inspired my wife's reaction, who I believe is in the Wii target demographic. There's a lot of standing around and stiff pointing despite the tag line of giving your family a 'degree in fun.' I'm just not seeing it. I think those who are writing the reviews are not getting it either.
I came across this interview over the weekend and it seems that most of the major sites have jumped on it as well. Ender's Game is my favorite book of all time, fueling my love of science fiction when I read it in the sixth grade. When I thought about what to name my blog, this was the only source I wanted to go for inspiration. The writer touches on some great topics such as the role of story in games and the effect of violet games on kids. I was most attracted to the comments Card made on a series of games set in the Ender universe, ranging from what sounds like RTS's to first-person shooters to action-adventure games. Don't look for one "Ender's Game" game. Look, instead, for games bearing the Ender's Game brand.
The Battle Room. I see several game modules here, using the same graphics base but with quite different game play. There's the game where you're an individual soldier; the game where you're a toon leader; the game where you command.
I have always wanted to interact with this world. The Battle Room, while possible strategy based, would be a very cool. I have always imagined while reading the book how this would play out as a game: teams maneuvering through zero-g and bouncing off the walls, blasting each other with lasers and rotating the room in three dimensions. It would be very cool. He also suggests a game based of my blog's namesake. Then there's the "mind game" or Fantasy Game from the novel. This would be the hardest to design, since there are so many areas where free-association would need to be rewarded. But it would also be the most fun to explore!
The game in the book was open ended, giving the player the freedom to do anything he wanted. It was essentially one of the first sandbox games. The game would be impossibly difficult to actually create but as emergent AI improves and games continue to become exponentially more complex, it is feasible in the near future.
The Battle Room, and more specifically the simulator from the end of the book, is actually the inspiration for one of my first attempts at creating my own game. With design combined with a popular board game of my youth, I hope to start prototyping and developing in the near future.
As gaming goes more and more mainstream, it has struggled to find it's place in the world. The Championship Gaming Series is not the answer.In an effort to appear legitimate, they held a draft to fill six teams based throughout the country. There are so many things that are wrong with this, that I don't even know where to start. Okay, I know, I'll start with the location: the Playboy Mansion. This could not be more inappropriate than hosting the Republican National Convention in San Francisco. While attempting to fulfill the wet dream of many gamers, they only succeeded in displaying how out of touch with our culture they are. This event, as suggested for award shows as well, should have been online. It needed to be accessible on a platform that gamers could converge on and possibly participate. One possibility could have been to host it in Second Life. In the age of MySpace and YouTube, this was a first step in the wrong direction.The draft format was a ill attempt to emulate actual sports, like the NFL. Playing a video game is not a sport and marketers need to realize this. Our pastime is just that, it passes time. All be it one that can be a lot of fun and can become very competitive, there is no physical exertion let alone contact. It is a game. Games do succeed on television, like Poker, but they will never break into the big four: the MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL. It is going to be even harder with the likes of NASCAR and MMA quickly dragging eyeballs away from the leaders. There are more kids in this country playing soccer than any of these other sports and yet the MLS is still struggling. The Championship Gaming Series will struggle to attain the same status as bowling and cheerleading on ESPN2.The first pick in the draft was a bit dubious for me. I'm not sure I even understand the point of a rule that requires at least one woman on the team to play Dead or Alive. The first pick was Vanessa Arteaga. Upon first impressions, based on her image since that is all I have to go on, her selection implies a ploy to play up the fact that not only are women involved but at the forefront and equals to the boys. I also have a hard time believing that she is indicative of the typical female gamer, again pandering to the wet dreams of gamers across the country.I can't help but think that the Championship Gaming Series would play better as a reality show. I still wouldn't watch it but at least it would not have to pretend to take it self so seriously. It would allow the 'competitors' to evolve some personality instead just playing the games for a paycheck. In ten years when gaming is as ubiquitous as watching television, we won't need an image because we'll all just need to look in the mirror to know what we're all about.
Since Pac-Man CE came out a week ago, there has been a bit of back lash based on the price. At 800 Microsoft Points, it's a little steep, in my opinion, but Aaron Greenberg, group product manager for Xbox 360, doesn't believe so. Namco came to us with what they thought the content price should be and I do not disagree with it costing 800 points. There's actually a lot of work from a lot of people to bring it all together.
Totally understandable. However, while the demo was a lot of fun, I just couldn't bring myself to fork over the points to purchase the full version. In fact, the only 800 point games I've purchased were Street Fighter II and Worms. Many games, such as Cloning Clyde, Eets, Castlevania, Catan and, possibly, Prince of Persia, have suffered a similar fate. I enjoy the demo but it's tough to justify the $10 price tag. On the other hand, the 400 point price point seem to be easier swallow as I have purchased the full version of several of those games.
Are there many people who are following the same logic? Maybe, but Microsoft has been stubborn to change their stance on pricing. This implies that the plan is working for them but maybe there needs to be a third tier. What if there was a 600 point price point in addition to the 400 and 800 for Live Arcade titles. This translates into $7.50 in real money. That doesn't seem that unreasonable for games that don't fit nicely within the current pricing model. It seems to work for Nintendo who has three tiers on the Virtual Console. Additionally, as some comments pointed out, where are the price cuts on the older titles? Where are the Platinum Hits? Microsoft has been mum but to the average consumer, it would make sense. It works for disc based games. Speculation would say that it might work even better for digitally distributed games. All we can do, in the mean time, is make our voices heard with our wallets. They'll get the message when we stop buying things on the Marketplace willy-nilly.
I hate the term fanboy. It applies to a small fraction of very vocal people. I have never been so supportive of any one hardware manufacturer that I ignore the rest. I have been a proud owner of Atari, Nintendo, Sega, Sony and Microsoft consoles. I never picked them up because I was in love with the hardware or in an way felt loyal to it; it has always been about the software. Games, in my opinion, are always the root of my decisions. I bought a 360 to play Oblivion and eventually Halo3. I was fortunate to be able to buy Twilight Princess and play it without buying the console, for which I'm glad because there has yet to be anything worth playing for me. Metroid 3 and Mario Galaxy have me intrigued but until they're out, I will remain Wii-less. There are zero games out or coming in the foreseeable future (which aren't coming out on the 360 as well) that are enticing me to drop $600 on the PS3.
Kotaku points us to an posting on the Motley Fool, an investment website, which warns against Microsoft's potential to maintain a positive investor relationship due to perceived hardware issues.As an investor, I can't help but worry that my experience with Microsoft consumer products is not out of the ordinary. Not only are repairs an expensive waste of shareholder capital, but they risk alienating potential customers and crimping future growth. In effect, it doesn't matter if the rate of Xbotch failure is as low as Microsoft reportedly contends, because the perceived rate of failure is what matters to consumers. People trust what they hear. And if they hear enough from irate Xbotch or Zune customers, they aren't going to open up the wallet.
While agree that this image is hurting Microsoft and the Xbox brand, I can't help but see a flaw in the statement that the author himself is neglecting. Yes, he has had a problem with his 360. Unfortunately everyone seems to know someone who has fell victim to the ring-of-death. On the other hand, I know a lot of people that have a 360 and only one person has had similar issues described here. I once received the Error 74 message, but it occurred after transporting the system across the state and the hard drive was jostled loose. I once scratched a disc, but again, it was my fault.
If people report their console dies and then the message boards jump all over it causing the major blogs and websites to report it, yes it seems like every one's console is dying. There are nearly 11 million 360 sold and they are not coming back in the numbers that warrant the perceived rate of failure. I think it takes a bit of common sense to take a step back and try to give some rational thought to the subject. Who is more foolish: those that regurgitate what they hear or those that blindly follow them when they speak. If investors start jumping ship because fanboys have shaped Microsoft's hardware reputation, we have a much larger problem than a few rings-of-death.
I have played soccer for more than two-thirds of my life. It has come to mostly define who I am. Several times throughout my playing career, I have been asked to take the helm and coach. I actually accepted once; I helped coach the women's team at my university after my eligibility was up. I hated nearly every minute of it. See, I have never been one to enjoy being on the sidelines. I enjoy roles of leadership, but on the field, as a captain. In other words, I prefer to do, not command.
This train of thought struck me as I was watching a coworker play an RTS at work the other day, all the while practically salivating at the announcement of Starcraft 2. I have never, ever enjoyed a Real Time Strategy game, not even any of the Sims titles. Finally, it occurred to me why: I don't enjoy the role the game places you into. I will alway prefer to play the hero or the main protagonist. I like like to take the reins of a character, if only to suspend my disbelief and become this character for a short while. Seeing my orders carried out never made me feel powerful or god-like. If anything it made me feel powerless as my units were obliterated and dismantled. Maybe the games are better now ( or I just sucked) but I gave up on them a while ago.
I would like to see a game give some control to the individuals within the ranks. I think that is way I am intrigued by the upcoming game, Overlord. It has Action RPG elements like Oblivion, but allows the player to control a small army of minions, like Pikmin. It sounds like the player could hack and slash their way through the game but would be better served by implementing his minions to do some of the dirty work.
This sort of mash-up of genres gets me kind of excited. As long as it doesn't start to play out like a Dynasty Warriors game, it should be fine.
The internets have been all aflutter today with video of Guitar Hero III in action, presumably, on the Xbox360. Joystiq made comment in their post that caught my attention:
It's hard to blame the team from Neversoft if the game's playing a little differently at the moment, as they didn't have access to the code (created by Harmonix) from the original two games.
While I know that when Activision acquired Red Octane they also received the Guitar Hero publishing rights. It seems odd that they didn't get any of the code in the process. It stuck out in my mind because it seems to mirror some of the things that go on at my own company.
Strictly speaking about only titles on Nintendo platforms, with all the developers under the wing of THQ, there appears to be little in the way with sharing of resources and ideas. Throughout the test cycle, some developers will continue to struggle with functionality that our other developers code with ease. Instead of communicating with each other, there seems to be more interaction with support at Nintendo. It seems like a case of one hand never talking to any of the other hands. We seem to have a system in place that should help with this but that our developers are still trying to figure out how to use it. Hopefully in the future, as they become better acquainted with helping each other, the test cycle will go smoother and the end product will be of a higher and consistent quality.
I absolutely love Live Arcade. The idea that not only fresh, new experiences can be brought directly to me over the series of tubes, but classic ones as well, just warms my heart. I have, however, noticed that there is something quite wrong when playing these classics games: I suck!
I have been stumped by games that twenty years ago, I was a master. At least that's how I remember the games. Games such as, most recently, Rush'n Attack, Double Dragon, Paper Boy, and Root Beer Tapper on Live have be so much more difficult than I remember. Even NES classics like Super Mario Bros., Metal Gear, Elevator Action, and Ice Climber challenge me to even get past the first level in some cases.
These games are so much more simple than the games I feel that I have mastered on the 360 or the Wii, or even the GameCube or PS2. There is usually on two directions to move, horizontally or vertically, and a jump button and an attack button. Why then do I struggle with these games?
I initially chalked it up to age. These games are the epitome of the platformer genre and twitch game play. They rely more on reflex and rote memorization than most of today's free roaming games. I definitely struggle with multiplayer FPS's so I believed that this was the reason I was sucking at games that I once played with ease. Or did I? It then occurred to me that I own many more games today than I did as a kid. Now, I usually only play through a game once, unless I'm going for some achievements, and then I'm done. Not so in the past. I must have played some games until I practically wore out the controllers and cartridge connections. Playing these games over and over drilled them in to my head. There is also the ability to save practically anywhere you want in games today. If not, there is most likely some sort of autosave system in place to keep your place for you. We have it so easy now. Remember when you had to write down a password to continue where you left off? Otherwise, you had to start from the beginning. Again.
As I wrote this though, one other thought came to my head. What if is the AI, or rather a lack thereof, that make these classic games so difficult? Instead of increasingly complex and human-like development from the AI we see today, the AI is almost zombie-like in its effort to get to your character. They usually come from all sides, unyielding to anything in their way, even their own doom. Programmers are always attempting to create more realistic enemy by making them more cautious and intelligent. That's great and all, but what if? What if a game with today's capabilities hurtled endless waves of intelligent but suicidal enemies at you? Scary.
The proper term is not Wiimote.
Joystiq is reporting that a group of journalists have got together to assemble a guide for budding journalists and bloggers. Their aim is to set the record straight and create a sense of commonality on terminology in our industry. They touch upon such hot topics as the correct use of video game and what defines a great review. I imagine it is a thrilling read.
I just hope they get at least one thing right. The proper terminology handed down from Nintendo is Wii Remote. I'm sorry everyone. There is an extra three characters in the correct name.
