By Kieron Gillen on May 3rd, 2009 at 11:25 am.
Sundays are for avoiding tidying up the house by compiling a list of interesting reading from across the week, while trying to avoid mentioning a certain comic that may have been released. And how much I’m trying to avoid tidying can be ascertained by the length of this hefty Sunday Papers special…
- The most essential thing from the week was Chris Delay’s look at Introversion’s 2008, where he talks candidly about how Multiwinia almost brought down the company. Full of totally hearbreaking vignettes. Choice one: “Tom had always fantasised about building a sales counter that would sit in the corner of the office and tick up whenever we sold a copy of a game. This time around he actually did it, building the device out of second hand parts bought from Ebay and writing custom driver software for it that linked directly to our Multiwinia sales counter. During our launch party dinner and celebrations that evening, what was truly amazing about this counter was how little it was actually going up. I’m not kidding when I say that we actually checked the connections and the software several times to make sure it was actually working, only to find out it was. Even then that very night we knew it was bad, that our whole future was in doubt.” Go read.
- JG Ballard’s been dead for a while now, but Jim only got his chance to do his tribute over at Offworld this week. Rossignol does a fine job of showing exactly why he mattered and inspired people – and his relevance to games. Oh, just read it. He gets to use the title “Ragdoll Metaphysics” too, which we always like.
- After Zeno Clash’s array of positive reviews, Tom Jubert of Games Brief wonders whether Indie games get an easy ride. Someone drags out this position every time someone doesn’t like a mainly-well-reviewed indie game, and it never really gets any more convincing. On the topic of Zeno Clash, if our cryptic mentions of director/writer/awesome-chap Jodorowsky in our review intrigued you, here’s the oft-brilliant Joe McCulloch on the Metabarons, his definitive comic work. FULL BORE MENTAL.
- The Sunday Times on adding smells to games. Yes. So, at last, we will have games that really do stink.
- Clive Thomas at Wired, inspired by Jonathan Blow’s asking people to not use walk-throughs, segues close to something we were covering in the podcast – as in, the Internet’s effect on game experience, specifically puzzle solving. The solution of embracing the hive mind strikes me as somewhat pat. The vast majority of people in ARGs don’t solve the puzzles – they sit back and let everyone else find the answer for them. The people analysing Lost are mostly just consuming more slowly generated User-generated-FAQs. And “people know when not to use them” strikes me as pretty naive in a world where avoiding spoilers on a game solution is tricky, assuming you actually *want* to be involved in gaming discourse.
- Greg Costikyan’s had a busy and controversial week. First, at Gamasutra he looks at US boardgaming’s past and tries to extrapolate it into US gaming’s future – using the Twiggy boardgame as evidence. It’s grim stuff – and probably too grim, for my money, but it’s worth chewing over. Costikyan’s an invaluable scholar due to his ability to tie all of modern gaming’s prehistory together. Secondly, on Play This Thing, he takes on Indie, Punk rock and pretension inspired by the genuinely very funny if you’re not indie, fuck off video. At least, watch that. Yes.
- Phill Cameron interviews Offtopic Production about their recently released epic Deus Ex mod, The Nameless Mod. I still haven’t had a chance to go back to it yet, annoyingly, but it’s a pretty towering achievement.
- The Thoughtshake looks at monthly fees and grinding.
- Wot No Bridge Simulators? SWIZ!
- Andy Johnson at Resolution magazine writes about the concept of terror and security in videogames. And… well, it’s the start of a series, and possibly fertile ground.
- Eurogamer on the End of Publishing – which is spinning off the BAFTA debate this week about the future of digital downloads. I actually attended, but didn’t write about it – interesting, but not really much we didn’t already know. Perhaps most telling, even someone like Paradox – who own their own digital distribution channel – still only sell 20% of their games via it. Though, admittedly, that still makes 40% of their profit.
- The Art Game debate trundles on, with Leigh Alexander talking to some key players for Kotaku.
- Gamasutra looks at ever-rolling Soap Opera which is Midway, focusing in on the boom to bust of the Mortal Kombat creators. Interesting fact: Midway haven’t turned a profit since 1999. That’s mental.
- After enormous delays, there’s a new issue of my bloody, horrific child out. The second issue of Phonogram: The Singles Club is entitled Wine And Bed And More And Again, available from all good comics shops. There’s a preview here, its reviews are here and it’s inspired by this record, amongst others.
Failed. Yet avoided tidying for a bit, so a little bit of win.
03/05/2009 at 11:42 AndrewC says:
Is this not, like, three weeks in a row that the Sunday Papers have been posted before mid-day? Epic win.
Also, like, messy houses are totally Indie.
03/05/2009 at 11:42 Ted says:
I really wish Introversion would just go away. Darwinia was not nearly as good as the overexcited reviews for it. Multiwinia was a piece of shit. I’m sick of their wining. Make good games, and people will buy them. Stop whining for charity buys because you’re an indy company. Your games suck, bottom line, and you need to shut the fuck up.
03/05/2009 at 11:48 daysocks says:
Ted: Not even like Uplink?
03/05/2009 at 11:54 Monchberter says:
Are you not a Brit Ted? You may be aware of the Anglo tendency to cheer for the plucky underdog, who struggles on with some flair and technical ability against their own limitations to achieve some level of success.
This is the popular response to Introversion and it is hard-wired into our genes as Englishmen. Even if they do worry about not being ‘true’ indies any more, we’ll still talk about Uplink and Darwinia in hushed reverent tones even if their games do get worse and worse.
03/05/2009 at 11:55 Lewis says:
The GamesBrief piece… christ, are we on N4G?
More of that “I don’t like this game, so all the critics must be involved in some sort of high-score conspiracy” nonsense. Albeit more restrained than most. His article is based on the assumption that just because a particular gameplay mechanic doesn’t work all that well (objectively, eh? I thought the combat was fine) it means the game as an experience is necessarily inferior.
I’d say if you’re thinking Zeno Clash is about how good, say, the technical bits of shooting are, you’re sort of misreading it. It’s total joy-of-discovery, total videogame-story-nostalgia. It’a absolutely worth the great reviews (and, it should be noted, it’s not exactly been gushingly praised anywhere, has it? We’re talking 7-or-8-out-of-10s). I don’t think there’s even an interesting discussion there.
Sorry, Mr. Jubert.
03/05/2009 at 11:56 Dreamhacker says:
Introversion list of merits:
Uplink: BRILLIANT!
Darwinia: Is this really from the same developers? Really?
Defcon: How could something this promising turn out so disgustingly wrong?
Multiwinia: What madman is financing this cluster-up?
Introversion needs to return to their Uplink-roots or cease and desist…
03/05/2009 at 12:04 Dominic White says:
Well, this is why Introversion are doing badly, then – despite glowing reviews, they’re apparently loathed by Angry Internet Men, and when you’re selling direct to the internet, they’re who you have to pander to.
Seriously, how could you hate Darwinia? Defcon I can understand not getting (it’s effectively a digital board-game you play with your friends over lunch, not a hardcore singleplayer strategy game), but Multiwinia was the one I was saddest to see fail, because it’s a very good game, or at least seemed to be in the three matches I got to play total before the entire playerbase vanished.
03/05/2009 at 12:12 Kieron Gillen says:
AndrewC: Next one will be very late, I suspect, unless I find time to do it in advance.
KG
03/05/2009 at 12:27 SirKicksalot says:
About Multiwinia:
Despite several iterations of playtests and interface work, somehow, we’d missed it. Later that night at the pub after demoing our game, some of the writers from PC Gamer came clean with us. You’ve really fucked up the controls, they told us. It was a consistent message from everyone we spoke too.
Another massive redesign followed. Ultimately we solved the interface problems and the game was made immeasurably better because of it.
I don’t understand why some developers don’t realise their interface is fucked up.
Are Brian Reynolds and Sid Meier too old-school, is that the reason why they always focus on the interface?
03/05/2009 at 12:27 EBass says:
None of Introversion’s games really appealed to me personally. That said, I could at least see the appeal in Uplink and Defcon, I played both demos of Darwinia and thought it was a very flat and boring strategy game.
03/05/2009 at 12:34 AlexW says:
I always thought that putting too much emphasis on Multiwinia was a very bad idea. Darwinia’s actual gameplay was sort of so-so, in my opinion, and as an indie game it’s much harder to find someone else that actually has the game that you’d like to play with. Add to that the fact that it seems like a cash-in (though not as much as the Darwinia soundtrack – greedy asses), and it’s a recipe for poor sales. I think they’ve definitely grown a little too large for an indie developer – they can’t afford to pay double-digits employees when they’re in a new-idea slump.
03/05/2009 at 12:36 Dorian Cornelius Jasper says:
@Kieron: That’s a shame. Today was a good reason to stay up in the wee hours of the Pacific US morning. Usually I’d only get to read the Sunday Papers sometime after waking up.
Or is that supposed to be the point.
03/05/2009 at 12:39 PC Monster says:
Woah, where’s the IV hate coming from???
Ted, Dreamhacker – if you can pull your heads out of your wholly subjective rear passages for just a second, your disapproval/rejection of whatever games is not the same thing as these not being good games. I’m a huge fan of Darwinia, and think it earned more than the praise it lavishly received. Not so much Defcon, despite the amazing premise, and Multiwinia simply doesn’t grab me in any way. See? It’s nice to have opinions but you don’t have to be jerks about delivering them.
I think what’s been happening at IV this year demonstrates a sad fact of reality: Dreams vs Business. We all want devs to focus on their dreams – IV seem to be using lasers to pinpoint theirs – but keeping the company economically viable to enable these dreams is obviously a completely different kettle of fish, and it’s sad to see the two clashing so painfully in Chris’s emotive pieces.
I, for one, hope they can overcome 2008 and continue to provide these endlessly fascinating original works; the world would be a far poorer place without them.
PS: Anyone who isn’t at least slightly interested in Subversion has no soul. I’m on tenterhooks. Go read the excellent dev blog and test yourselves.
03/05/2009 at 12:43 hydra9 says:
This is a serious message. If you haven’t seen Alejandro Jodorowsky’s movie El topo yet then please get hold of a copy. Rent it, buy it, whatever. You won’t regret it, because it’s a truly startling piece of cinema and (I think) one of the best films ever made.
Here’s the tagline, if it helps:
See the naked young Franciscans whipped with cactus. See the bandit leader disemboweled. See the priest ride into the sunset with a midget and her newborn baby. What it all means isn’t exactly clear, but you won’t forget it.
03/05/2009 at 12:52 Tei says:
Uplink: not my tea cup
Darwinia: BRILLIANT!
Defcon: good, but not for loong
Multiwinia: good, but not for loong. also, for some reason the settings for the game browser reseted itself every time you visit a lobby, making the search of games absolutelly painfull. but is a good MP game. Anyway is somewhat strange teh evolution from singleplayer with good history, to multiplayer… multiwinia feels like a 20$ game.
I hope this guys continue and gain steam to make more nice games. Where somewhat heralds of the indie world. But something got wrong.. :-/
03/05/2009 at 12:56 Markoff Chaney says:
Dreamhacker – Spot on perfect analysis of Introversion, imo. It’s just my opinion, but I’m, admittedly, not an RTS guy. There’s something about Uplink, to me, though… I still cherish my signed Uplink disc I got from them. I still think it is one of the better games and designs I’ve played. The modability of it gives it legs still and allows for complete conversions. Everything after Uplink has just been a slow slide down a slippery hill, but, again, that’s just my opinion. I have great hopes for Subversion, but after reading that disheartening opener, we may just have to stick with their original release as being their zenith.
God that was a depressing read. It deserved top billing, but moving on was tough from there. Nice Metabarons read as well. I appreciate waking up to these. Thank You.
-Edit- I wholeheartedly second the call for watching El Topo. I’d say you won’t regret spending the time watching it, but opinions are like certain methods of elimination.
03/05/2009 at 13:25 Autogunner says:
I never really got on with any of introversions games. I wish I never bought defcon because the demo contained all the ‘game’ there was to it. Darwinia was just dumb, I got to the the third level and spent an hour trying to herd those sprites around, got tired and then went and played men of war.
03/05/2009 at 13:29 CMaster says:
I’d say about introversion:
Uplink: Nice concept, nice atmosphere, ice execution. Not the greatest game ever but pretty clever and playable.
Darwinia: Great atmosphere, music, styling, Very, very retro a lot of it’s appeal is in it’s references to old games. Gameplay is a bit meh, although improves though the patches.
Defcon: Cheap, simple, great fun. Exactly the kind of thing “indie” developers should be pumping out. However, really needed them to be a bit more “valve” like and keep supporting the game post release. Introversion need to learn about fostering gaming communities.
Multiwinia: Oh god what were they thinking. Seriously, no starergy, random powerup etc etc. And it took them forever. It’s fun like Worms used to be I guess, but it really seems to lack much depth or long term fun (based off the demo). Most fun I had with it was turning the crate drops up and watch madness break out. Especially with Subversion looking as clever, novel and as well, subversive (if my guesses about the game are right) as it does, spending 2-3 years on Multiwinia seems mad.
Seriously, the company has done well for itself when it made quick, novel gameplay simple games. Everytime they have gone even vuagley towards the “AAA” style with the Darwinia series, it’s hurt them. You’d think they’d learn.
03/05/2009 at 13:39 Gap Gen says:
I think the main problem with Multiwinia was that people expect Introversion to do something new and interesting, and get excited by that. Multiwinia seems more like the absent multiplayer mode of a game I finished a while ago, and there are more attractive multiplayer strategy games out there (and as is, I rarely play online strategy games). I’m excited by what I’ve seen about Subversion, though. Hopefully the company will see it through until release.
03/05/2009 at 13:49 Gap Gen says:
Also, talking about volume 2 of comic books – I have the complete Transmetropolitan and Scott Pilgrim series lined up, and both of them have pretty consistent layouts on the spine, except for the 2nd volume, which is slightly different. Not particularly important, just an idle observation.
03/05/2009 at 13:51 Gpig says:
I don’t see how Introversion is going to make it to the release of Subversion. It seems to me that the majority of the success of Indie games on XBLA and the PC depend on the 50,000-100,000 hardcore, blog reading gamers. They’ve already played Darwinia.
I’d love to be wrong, and with World of Goo looking like it made a ton of sales on Wiiware I may be, but I just don’t see Darwinia+ selling much more than 20,000. 20,000 is fine for indie developers, but Introversion is a behemoth trying to survive on indie wages. 10 people is simply unsustainable.
I say I don’t see Introversion making it to Subversion, but I do see Chris Delay. They tried bringing on multiple people to open up multiple revenue streams with ports of their games, but it ended up not working because their games are targetted at the 50,000-100,000 I mentioned who are largely platform agnostic. 2008 was a bad year for Introversion, but 2009 looks worse. Hopefully Darwinia DS does well for them.
03/05/2009 at 13:52 SpoonySeeker says:
ಠ_ಠ
Suddenly I’ve lost all sympathy for Introversion.
03/05/2009 at 14:09 Sinnerman says:
I always had trouble working out who Multiwinia was being made for as it wasn’t for me. Another one of the many problems in the world that could have been avoided by asking for my opinion first.
03/05/2009 at 14:16 Larington says:
Personally I quite enjoyed Darwinia, bought it purely off the demo.
I’m amused by the person who says he dislikes Darwinia and then follows it up with a comment on how he isn’t an RTS guy. Some games aren’t going to be for you, or me, or whatever, doesn’t automatically make it a bad game, nor does that automatically mean the developer isn’t allowed to exist. I got reminded of this when I learned of the existence of an in development Lego Rock Band, yuck, but I’m sure its going to sell rather well regardless.
Haven’t played any of Introversions other games of course, they haven’t really grabbed me tbh. Also goes to show its not just the megacorps that make big mistakes, very human.
03/05/2009 at 14:23 Corvus says:
I think Introversion simply bit off more than they could chew. Trying to juggle three different projects with a ~10 man team is frankly insane. I admit I never liked the idea of them trying to expand and become a “proper game company”, it was always going to lead to creative compromise, hence the focus on Multiwinia, their first unoriginal title. I do hope that Darwinia+ will sell enough to allow them to finish Subversion, which sounds really interesting, but sadly I’m not sure if the XBox Live audience will go for a remake of an obscure indie title which won the IGF grand prize four years ago. I think most people who want to play Darwinia already have by now.
As for Greg Costikyan’s piece on the IGF video: his irony detection glands obviously weren’t working the day he wrote that.
03/05/2009 at 14:40 jay says:
Did you really have to re-ignite my lovefoxxx crush Kieron?
03/05/2009 at 15:13 Xocrates says:
@SirKicksalot: As someone who was on the Multiwinia Beta, I can tell you this: The controls weren’t “fucked up” because they were bad (indeed, even today I wish the old style controls were an option), the controls were “fucked up” because they weren’t the standard RTS fare. This caused everyone who played the game to feel they were awkward.
Indeed, there was some considerable resistance by the Beta testers when the current controls were implemented.
03/05/2009 at 15:16 Markoff Chaney says:
Always glad to amuse, I am. I was just trying to place my comments in the right perspective, and not just throw it out without a why or wherefore. That type of commentary doesn’t seem to help in the long run. Not like any of this will matter in Fifty Million years. Won’t stop the typing, though.
-EDIT- On another note, the god sons love Rock Band and were overjoyed with Lego Rock Band. I hope they save up for it though. I may have bought the first 2 (and a LOT of DLC) but I’m not putting my financial backing into that one. The Beatles, however, that may get a buy…
03/05/2009 at 15:23 much2much says:
Multiwinia sucks. Thats the truth of it.
Darwinia is awesome.
Very deterministic game with totally game changin randomness does not make for a fun game.
03/05/2009 at 15:37 MtotheThird says:
Haha, holy crap Sr. Gillen, for some reason I never before linked the Phonogram-Kieron with RPS-Kieron in my head. Looking forward to the new issue.
03/05/2009 at 15:55 Bullwinkle says:
Multiwinia was a bad idea from start to finish. Genuinely strange. And I quite liked Darwinia.
The GamesBrief guy is right. Zeno Clash totally got a free ride on its subpar gameplay. It’s a little embarrassing, frankly. I do have to say that ACE Team was pretty cool about addressing player concerns with that second patch, though. That’s the kind of responsiveness that makes me consider a future purchase from a company I hadn’t been that impressed with.
03/05/2009 at 16:02 Kieron Gillen says:
MtotheThird: I’m dual-classed.
Bullwinkle: And everyone who enjoyed it immensely is just lying, clearly.
KG
03/05/2009 at 16:13 jackflash says:
Much as I love indie studios, I do agree somewhat with those who loved Uplink but found IV’s later games to be mediocre. I bought both Darwinia and Multiwinia, but more out of pity than enjoyment (I haven’t played more than an hour or two of either). They’re just not *fun*, at least to me. I find both of them deathly boring, and I simply don’t understand the strategy in Multiwinia at all. Seems more like a “spray and pray” kind of game than anything. As for DEFCON – very cool style, but after playing the demo, again, I didn’t see where the fun came in.
IV does seem to have a lot of talent, though. I hope they survive and their next game is fun to play and innovative.
*Edit* – just saw some of their Subversion videos. IV, please survive to release this game. Looks amazing.
03/05/2009 at 16:38 Caiman says:
Darwinia is the only IV game I’ve ever bought, and I still rate it amongst the best games I’ve ever played. Uplink didn’t really interest me. Defcon sounded and looked great, but ultimately I found it boring based on the demo. And I’ve not tried Multiwinia, but it just didn’t seem particularly original or appealing. Subversion looks and sounds excellent, however.
03/05/2009 at 16:39 Panzeh says:
I find that ‘indie’ games tend to get free rides by some reviewers, mostly in regards to the fact that they don’t bash indie games for the same things they bash in mainstream games. A game like mount and blade will get constant praise but i’m 90% sure it would get hugely panned if it were released by EA because of it being ‘incomplete’ and ‘not enough content’.
Not to say that these are bad games, but mediocre indie games seem to get lots of praise while mediocre AAA games get panned for not being the next coming, the next huge thing, simply a competent execution of some previous genre.
03/05/2009 at 16:40 TCM says:
I’ve never played an Introversion game, though based on word of mouth, word of internet, and word of reviews, I still can’t decide if that’s a good or bad thing. They’re very polarizing.
03/05/2009 at 16:40 Bullwinkle says:
Kieron: Irony aside, of course they’re (you’re) not lying. But I think people are being a lot more forgiving of the gameplay because of a) the originality and weirdness of the world, which *is* top notch, and b) because they’re an indie team. Seriously, if a major corporation had made this, and instead of the weirdness, you had an ordinary world, would you have thought so highly of the gameplay? Namely:
Why do I have to lock on to any enemy to fight them? I’m playing on a fucking PC, not a console, aren’t I? Totally unnecessary, and demonstrated by the fact that they removed that requirement in the last patch.
Why can’t I discard/holster a weapon? Again, taken care of the next patch.
Why are the maps–the tiny, tiny maps–so unbelievably linear? And I don’t usually have a problem with linear. But Christ, were we on rails or what?
Why do I have to stop *playing* every two minutes to watch a cutscene? What is this, the Max Payne 2 School of Design? It’s not even that I didn’t like the cutscenes; I did. I love the world they created. But freakin’ let me *play* a while, won’t you? And let me *explore*. And don’t turn a victory/defeat into the opposite in a cutscene.
And so on. Now, frankly, I don’t think the melee combat was that great, even besides these points, but whatever, different strokes. That’s not my point at all. I read your review of it. You guys did mention these things. So it’s not like you can say I’m batshit crazy. I’m just saying that I had the same reaction as the GB guy when I sat down to play it. I think you gave these issues far more of a pass then you would have if the game wasn’t wonderfully weird/an indie.
03/05/2009 at 16:41 Radiant says:
I love it; out come the Internet’s anonymous morons talking about games they haven’t even bought and opinions on things they have only read about.
03/05/2009 at 16:42 yutt says:
I thought Darwinia was an unintuitive messed, both deliberately inaccessible and poorly designed. While Multiwinia was a much more refined take on the same basic premise.
03/05/2009 at 16:43 Sunjammer says:
Of fucking course a game made by 2 dudes gets a “free ride” over one made by a team of hundreds including testers and outsourced media production motherfuckers.
How is this not blindingly obvious? It’s all bloody relative! If you were Valve and you put out Zeno Clash, you should, on a technical level, be ashamed. Ace simply haven’t had access to the insane QA *engine* Valve has set up for itself.
What that GamesBrief dude is doing is saying “Your kid’s picture is crap. Syd Mead can do way better”. It’s just mindblowingly stupid.
03/05/2009 at 16:44 aoanla says:
I must say, being one of Introversion’s fanboys back when they did Uplink and Darwinia, that I really didn’t get Multiwinia either. I bought it (despite the initial issues with getting it working in Wine), but I ended up getting bored of it quite quickly due to the stupid randomness and the bleak setting (compared to Darwinia).
It’d be a terrible shame if IV went under before Subversion is released, though, since it looks genuinely extremely interesting.
03/05/2009 at 16:44 Tom Jubert says:
Darwinia was a truly fantastic game… shame about a lot of IV releases since then. Here’s to a better 2009 for them :-)
On the (more controversial than I expected) topic of Zeno Clash, I wasn’t so much trying to point out how much more right my subjective opinion of that game was – I might just as easily have focused on my own Penumbra games.
More so, I was using ZC as a case study to explore the idea that indie games get an easier ride at review. I do believe that that’s true, and I do believe it’s a bad thing for video games.
The thing is, a review isn’t about rewarding a team for its abilities, it’s about judging the final product. Saying a kid’s picture is crap comapared to Syd Mead is stupid because it’s not a competition: you should be rewarding the kid. If that kid entered his picture into a gallery, there’s every grounds for comparing the two unfavourably. Realising that, Sunjammer, is not exactly brain science.
I just don’t like the idea of giving AAA titles a rougher time just because they had bigger budgets – risk taking AAAs are rare enough as it is.
Edit: Also, it does sound to me as if the new patch may have corrected most of the biggest problems I had with the original build…
03/05/2009 at 16:49 BedroomProgamer says:
Re: Introversion
Their games have a distinct style. Subversion looks (technically) cool though no one knows what it’s about yet so it’s just Delay doing Carmack style wanking.
Uplink: Fun multi-tasker for a bit. I’ve since found Hacker: Evolution the more superior hacking simulator.
Darwinia: Great fun!
DEFCON: glorified Flash game. Seriously I paid for this? Nice aesthetics though (wargames styling, chilling audio)
Multiwinia: Meh tried the demo, didn’t like it. Too random/not skill based as others mentioned.
*facepalm*
03/05/2009 at 16:49 subedii says:
I’ve only played the demo of Zeno Clash so far and can only say its praise is well deserved. Leave aside the fact that it being an indie title from a first time developer in Chile makes its accomplishments more impressive. It has without doubt the best implementation of first person hand-to-hand combat I’ve seen in a game. Every other game I’ve tried it it feels awkward, nothing really connects and I’m almost always fighting the controls.
In Zeno Clash every impact feels as if it connects and every thwack is solid. The gameplay mechanics work really well with to create a pretty diverse and intuitive combat system out of something that it would have been incredibly easy to screw up. They clearly put a lot of thought and effort into it.
What they’ve achieved with Zeno Clash isn’t just a really good implementation of first person combat, it’s something that other people are now going to rip and take from and try to recreate in their games as well.
All that and I haven’t even touched on the utterly surreal art style and aesthetic.
Bah, detractors saying everyone’s being nice to it do so simply to go against the grain of popular opinion. They like to feel as if they have the courage to SPEAK the TRUTH in the face of HYPOCRISY etc. etc. Ultimately it’s just that they didn’t like the game and can’t stand that others did for some reason.
03/05/2009 at 16:52 yutt says:
@Panzeh
AAA games get panned? Haha! Example? Please, really, I’d love to see a popularly hyped game with a < 80 Metacritic score. It doesn’t happen. The game press merely being excited about a game a year in advance of its release means it automatically gets 85+.
If any games are getting a free pass by reviewers, it is big studio releases that cost $50-60 (US).
03/05/2009 at 16:53 Gap Gen says:
Do the guitars in Lego Rock Band have little knobbly bits all over them that make them a bit uncomfortable to play?
03/05/2009 at 16:54 Sunjammer says:
Argh this Zeno Clash topic pisses me off to no end. The notion appears to be that an 8/10 from one site == an 8/10 from another == an 8/10 from another, and if there is any sort of discrepancy, SOMEONE MUST BE WRONG.
Jesus christ you wouldn’t go to Roger Ebert for a porn movie review. Know your sources. If you trust blindly in metacritic or other aggregate sites that treat scores as “canon”, you ARE the problem.
03/05/2009 at 17:00 Dominic White says:
You know what the saddest thing about this Zeno Clash line of discussion here is?
There are people who don’t ‘get it’.
Now, this wouldn’t be nearly as terrible if it was an abstract puzzle game with a pseudo-poetic narrative, but it isn’t. It’s a fucking Final Fight style brawler, where you go from arena to arena, punching people in the face, eating food for health, and repeating until the credits roll.
Yes, the setting is weird and the art is surreal. This is because the developers have openly stated that they were inspired by both Heironymous Bosch and The Dark Crystal. They’re not trying to get across some deep message here – they just love surreal punk-fantasy stylings.
Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar, and in this case, Zeno Clash is a budget-priced, old-school brawler with a new perspective and a funky art style and setting.
Stop overthinking things. Please.
03/05/2009 at 17:02 RabidZombie says:
Multiwinia is not a shit game by any stretch of the imagination. How? Because there exist people who enjoy it thoroughly.
The problem with Multiwinia was that it didn’t appeal to the same crowd Darwinia did. This isn’t too bad in itself, except that they made it look like a sequel. It isn’t. People who disliked Darwinia will automatically assume they don’t like Multiwinia, and it will ultimately disappoint those Darwinia fans that were looking for more of the same.
Also, strategyless? Just because you suck at the game doesn’t mean there’s no strategy.
Still, I’d consider Darwinia+ a mistake overall, since its taken so long and sucked up so much money. It’s sad to think Introversion’s biggest ever risk, and possibly last, has arisen from collaborating with Microsoft simply to port an already finished game.
03/05/2009 at 17:04 Lewis says:
Basically: every argument that indie games get an easier ride seems to be sorely lacking in justification. It’s all speculative, and no one stops to consider that it could just be that people like these games a lot.
03/05/2009 at 17:11 Jim Rossignol says:
Also, RPS gets sent, plays, and then says nothing about loads of indie stuff. Because a large amount of it is utter shit.
03/05/2009 at 17:13 Subject 706 says:
F****ng indie games get a free ride? What about the absolutely ridiculous lineup of 10/10 for GTA IV, Fallout 3 and Mass Effect?
Sure, opinions are subjective, but no games journalist with his/her integrity intact can claim that any of those games are that perfect. In that light, I’d rather say indie games are sometimes judged too harshly.
03/05/2009 at 17:20 yutt says:
It only takes a moment to look at reviews for Eternity’s Child, Merchants of Brooklyn, Tank Universal, I-Fluid, Project Aftermath, etc. to see the premise that indie games get a free pass is ludicrous. Even The Maw received mediocre reviews.
03/05/2009 at 17:22 Sinnerman says:
I think that big budget games get a free ride due to people being bowled over by the hype, not wanting to offend the literally billions of excruciatingly pleasant people who made them and being impressed by technical achievements. Free indie games are often unfairly ignored despite sometimes being a lot more fun than some of their AAAcore counterparts. I guess that there are also some indies who are good at self promotion and pushing the right buttons.
03/05/2009 at 17:24 suibhne says:
Preach it, brotha. In a journalistic climate where Bioshock is praised as high literary art, and Fallout 3 gets “10/10″ scores and descriptions like “like-affirming”, it’s hard to take seriously any claim that indie games are getting a free ride. The only way to mount that argument is to advance the position that there’s somehow a baseline of criticism against which reviews can be calibrated…and from where I’m sitting, it looks like most game reviews are out of the whack, regardless of the product’s specific origin.
03/05/2009 at 17:29 Mad Doc MacRae says:
I thought the “terror and security” thing was going to be about the emotions and not current events. A little disappointed but hopefully it goes interesting places.
03/05/2009 at 17:29 GameJurnalist says:
Psst guys. Here’s a secret. The companies that publish games pay reviewers for high scores.
03/05/2009 at 17:34 Sinnerman says:
They don’t have to pay them. They do it for below minimum wage and a pat on the back.
03/05/2009 at 17:45 FernandoDANTE says:
CSS is truly one of the worst bands of our time.
03/05/2009 at 17:50 aoanla says:
@RabidZombie:
I mostly agree with this post – the reason I took against Multiwinia as strongly as I eventually did has a lot to do with it not being anything like Darwinia, at all. And, indeed, it probably would have been better received all around if the connection hadn’t been there – since clearly there are people who enjoy it.
I still hold that, whilst not being “strategyless”, the randomness level seems awfully high.
03/05/2009 at 17:56 Frank says:
Yeah, what Ted and Yutt said. Count me as another AIM on this one. Introversion have never felt like the indie heroes they’ve sold themselves as. Regarding over-selling themselves, see Gillen, 2005: http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/?page_id=693
03/05/2009 at 18:01 syrion says:
You know, it doesn’t make you an “angry internet man” if you play a game, find it lacking, and are annoyed by the whining thereafter.
Multiwinia was terrible. There is no depth to it. It’s all massing and random chance. If it results in the company dying, well, I’m sorry–but that’s what free enterprise is about.
Gamers are under no obligation to support the producers of bad games.
03/05/2009 at 18:01 Lewis says:
@GameJurnalist Not getting into it. Not again, not ever. Stop it.
@Subject 706 10/10 doesn’t in any way mean perfection. It’s nothing to do with integrity. I reviewed Fallout 3 for one publication and gave it full marks because I found it to be the most entertaining, atmospheric, and generally delicious game I’d played in a number of years. I didn’t get bribed by Bethesda.
Or did I…?
03/05/2009 at 18:04 DigitalSignalX says:
Great piece on Ballard, I can easily envision the prophetical rabbit holes of mental escape he penned being the primary function of gaming. It makes me want to find out more about his work.
03/05/2009 at 18:11 Jim Rossignol says:
No, they don’t.
03/05/2009 at 18:13 syrion says:
Jim, a comment. I used to edit reviews for a site that will go unnamed. We very definitely did have an issue where a company tried to pressure us for a better review; when we refused to change the review, they said that they would no longer send us review copies of their games.
03/05/2009 at 18:17 Kieron Gillen says:
Of course they try to pressure you for a better review. That’s what PR means. You tell them to fuck off, they throw as much of a hissy fit as their bosses require and by the time the next game comes around everything’s normal again.
KG
03/05/2009 at 18:19 weegosan says:
That’s a whole different sphere of culpability though.
I’m sure many reviewers have been reminded down the chain that large advertising deals are in place for certain games they are about to review, as I am that companies have used tactics like the above.
The idea that backhanders are shoved around freely like some kind of LA Confidential payoff to get good reviews whenever needed is a wildly unrealistic. It also assumes a level of organisation and intelligence in Marketing and PR people that is even less likely.
03/05/2009 at 18:20 The_B says:
Jim didn’t deny that some journalists somewhere in the world had not been offered incentives. But I’d hazard to say any decent publication worth their salt wouldn’t have even considered accepting it.
I mean, bloody hell, RPS currently have Introversion adverts running, and the top Sunday Papers story is about Introversion. LOLZCONZPIRACY?
Tom Bramwell wrote a piece about how advertising deals and the like work on EG and I dare say many places have a similar way of working. So of course, unscrupulous deals may be offered and read about, but I dare say the true amount of any actually accepted is minute. It’s just a general pessimism and lack of faith from conspiracy theorists making the ‘problem’ seem worse.
(That’s not to say it doesn’t happen altogether, but y’know. Ground yourself in reality a bit more, and not the pessimist’s reality.)
03/05/2009 at 18:21 Lewis says:
syrion – Name names. Hell, I would.
I’ve been meddling in this world for a few years now. There have been two instances where I’ve been pressured in some way regarding a review. Neither involved money. Both were solved with a quick bit of communication, and no loss of integrity on either side.
In the past six months, I’ve written two “exclusive reviews” that I awarded below 40%. No one batted an eyelid at those, but when I awarded an 80% in another exclusive, I was accused of having a vested interest in the game because of the early write-up.
No one has ever offered me, or anyone else I know in the business, any money for anything. Except, y’know, editors. But that’s positively encouraged.
I’m sure it does happen. Sometimes. Rarely. But every report of it I hear is just garbled hearsay, Chinese whispers, or emerges to be an outright lie. I’d love to hear about your experience, and if you don’t feel comfortable talking about it on here, feel free to email your story to lewisDOTdenbyATresolutionDASHmagazineDOTcoDOTuk, as I’m genuinely interested.
03/05/2009 at 18:27 syrion says:
Lewis, I would, but the site I worked for is still around and I’m not sure that they want their laundry aired. It’s not my place.
Note: we didn’t change the review, and as far as I know we never got another review copy from them.
03/05/2009 at 18:31 The_B says:
I think sometimes, accusations of backhanders within games journalism are a lot like the current hysteria over Swine Flu. So the best solution is clearly to deliver all future review copies of games via pigs.
03/05/2009 at 18:31 ynbniar says:
As an Introversion fan it is interesting to read some opinions from those less than happy with the company and their games.
Multiwinia has a lot of problems, though there is some strategy required if you are prepared to invest some time in it.
What I can’t understand is the folk who don’t get Defcon…it took me about 5min playing the demo to realise this is a multiplayer game…the strategies that have been developed by the player base for this game over the years and the skill of the top players is quite amazing.
03/05/2009 at 18:31 James T says:
“Do you feel vilified”, hahahah…
03/05/2009 at 18:33 Xercies says:
i don’t think Indie games are getting a free ride really, just look at The Path an Indie and art game and there are many detractors and praisers in there. Its the big games that are getting a pass. 10/10 for GTA 4 don’t make me laugh, it’s one of the most boring games I have ever played and one of the most frustrating to. 10/10 for fallout 3 nope still not, I loved Fallout 3 but it’s not that perfect, it has a rubbish main storyline and not that great writing(why it got an award for it I have no idea)
03/05/2009 at 18:34 Alec Meer says:
I rather suspect that when someone accuses reviewers of taking bribes/being otherwise biased, it’s really a result of their being unable or unwilling to accept that other folk might legitimately hold a different opinion to them.
03/05/2009 at 18:37 Xercies says:
Oh and the talk on Publishers paying for high reviews it does happen, and they sometimes do get accepted by some companies. Why do you think there have been a few scandals where this has happened, in print and on line. So saying it doesn’t happen Jim is a bit wrong and naive I have to think…
03/05/2009 at 18:54 Sinnerman says:
If all the reviewers are “on message” and saying the same things about games then the unwashed masses will start to wonder why their experience is different. Legitimate differences of opinion or not. Probably one of the reasons why Zero Punctuation is so popular. Even though Croshaw is less knowledgeable about games than many reviewers he does offer an antidote to all the 11/10, I loved Killblazer 11 and 12 is even better, reviews.
03/05/2009 at 18:55 Jim Rossignol says:
Xercies: Examples, please. I’d be very interested to see actual evidence for journalists being paid money by publishers.
03/05/2009 at 18:58 wiper says:
Loath as I am to agree with a person named ‘Xercies’, the blanket ‘publishers do not ever try to pay for better press’ statement doesn’t ring true. Driv3rgate being the the most obvious reason that it’s not believable.
It may not be common, but it’s just as unreasonable to suggest that it’s not at all an issue as it is to suggest that all game journalists take kick-backs.
Quick edit: this was written before Jim’s comment immediately above, and was not intended as a direct response to it. I too would be interested in seeing actual concrete evidence of scores paid for – but as people are unlikely to want to smear themselves as crooked or whistleblowers, I’m not about to hold my breath.
03/05/2009 at 19:01 wiper says:
And, perhaps more relevantly, human nature suggests that amongst the thousands of people involved on both sides of the games-media-machine, there will be some interested in paying little money for potentially improved sales, and some interested in accepting bonuses for opinion sculpting.
03/05/2009 at 19:08 Jim Rossignol says:
“Driv3rgate being the the most obvious reason that it’s not believable.”
There’s a good dissection of that particular clusterfuck here. Again, nothing to do with reviewers being paid bribes, and everything to with terrible reviewing, editing, and publishing practices.
My personal feeling is that if bribery was practice, anywhere, ever, we’d know all about it by now. Which is of course why it doesn’t happen: games editorial needs every last scrap of credibility it can get to hold onto readers, and publishers have better things to waste their money on than the kind of reviewers who would take bribes in the first place.
Unless you are this iPhone App company, natch.
03/05/2009 at 19:15 Sum0 says:
If I may talk about starship bridge simulators… man, I’d kill for a nuts-and-bolts space warfare sim in the mould of Silent Hunter. Not quite as complex as, say, Orbiter – have orbital mechanics by all means, but make it computer-controlled for simplicity – but I’d wet myself if there were a game with kinetic-kill railguns firing across thousands of kilometres of space above the surface of Jupiter or something. I’m tired of the whole “space-is-a-WW2-dogfight” mechanic in every space game ever. I want giant battleships with hundreds of nuclear warheads and laser beams and the grim inevitability of realising that you don’t have enough delta-v to outmaneuver that missile heading straight for your gigantic fusion reactor.
03/05/2009 at 19:17 Gap Gen says:
Wasn’t there the thing where Gamespot fired someone for giving a luke-warm review of Kane and Lynch? Of course, this doesn’t reflect on all publications and all writers.
03/05/2009 at 19:25 Gap Gen says:
And yeah, I suspect that by the time we get around to fighting real space battles, the notion of a bridge will be hopelessly quaint. Of course, it’s a fun idea anyway.
03/05/2009 at 19:27 Xercies says:
“There’s a good dissection of that particular clusterfuck here. Again, nothing to do with reviewers being paid bribes.”
Isn’t getting an exclusive version of the game a bribe in it self, reading the thing it does make me feel that that’s what has happened. Yes it’s not cash for it, but remember bribes are sometimes just not cash.
Another one is the Gamespot Kane and Lynch review scandal. So yeah it may not be money that’s getting involved but actually getting sent games first which even though many people would say it isn’t actually is beneficial to your website or magazine. If this isn’t bribery I don’t know what is.
03/05/2009 at 19:27 Rich_P says:
My problem with reviews from the major sites (IGN, Gamespot, etc.) isn’t the scoring: it’s that they’re poorly-written and surprisingly non-informative for pieces designed to inform me on the merits (or lack thereof) of a particular game.
(RPS is my de facto source of PC game reviews because (a) scores are not awarded and (b) the site’s format permits games to be reviewed on a “rolling” basis. The nature of today’s PC games makes the “review and forget” model increasingly irrelevant.)
03/05/2009 at 19:30 Lewis says:
Gap Gen: again, as with all these cases, nothing to do with bribes, and still pure speculation at that. The accusation was that Eidos had threatened to pull their advertising after the 6/10 scoring of Kane and Lynch. Gerstmann’s contract was terminated afterwards, though Gamespot say the reason was unrelated, and Gerstmann’s still bound by some sort of posthumous contract clause not to reveal what happened. Shortly after, the review was taken down, only to reappear a few days later with certain criticisms removed. The score remained the same, however.
Driv3r was an exclusivity deal gone horrible. Again, nothing to do with bribery.
One occasion that did worry me was [removed] review of [removed], over which one writer refused to review the game after his editor at the time told him he’d already agreed to a 9/10 score with the PR company. Or something. The review ended up going to someone else, who did indeed award the game 9/10.
[Lewis - hope you understand that we can't have open accusations of corruption against a named site without one hell of a lot of substantiating evidence. We don't fancy getting our legs sued off. - RPS]
But again, total one-word-against-the-other, and still nothing to do with bribery. And they’re isolated incidents. I’ve done tonnes of workshops and had loads of chats with other journos about this topic, and none of us, ever, have felt any undue pressure about reviews and scores in this way.
Xercies: falling into the same trap, I’m afraid. “Don’t make me laugh! Someone’s opinion differs from my own?” Do stop it. It’ll get us nowhere.
03/05/2009 at 19:35 wiper says:
Jim: Fair enough on Driv3rgate. I’m actually fairly sure I read that back in the day – and clearly promptly forgot about it.
I still stand by my argument vis-à-vis human nature and the sheer quantity of people working game press. The credibility angle is important, but only relevant to an editorial-level, rather than individual critic-level, application of money. A good PR, who knows a lot of critics well enough to know who might be a little bit open to persuasion, who is good enough friends to know that, at the worst, nothing will be said about the proposal – that sort of person would be well placed to get direct leverage without garnering attention. And credibility isn’t so important to everyone – in fact, that iPhone App company is good proof of it. Magazines for whom games criticism is a secondary issue – I’m particularly thinking ‘men’s mags’ here – would make a particularly soft target.
But, again, concrete evidence would be nice to have. I just don’t believe that the lack of it is particularly good evidence to the contrary* – and nor do I think that the possibility of bribery ocurring on a small scale amongst game journalists is particularly an issue: it just reflects society in general, after all.
*possibly biased due to an academic background in a subject for which most evidence is fragmentary at best.
03/05/2009 at 19:37 Jim Rossignol says:
So what you’re saying, Xercies, is that you cannot come up with any examples of bribery.
What you can cite is the murky practice of exclusives, which is a different, yet equally sticky mess. And far more relevant to what actually happens in the industry from day to day.
03/05/2009 at 19:40 Jim Rossignol says:
Wiper: no one goes into games journalism to get rich. And once in, they don’t throw it away for a few quid for a dodgy review.
Re “Magazines for whom games criticism is a secondary issue” – maybe they are corrupt, I can only talk from my own experience in the specialist games press.
03/05/2009 at 19:40 Lewis says:
Will everyone stop adding “-gate” on the end of words to signify a scandal? If that logic applied, it would have been called the Watergategate Scandal. But it’s not, because we’re NOT MORONS.
03/05/2009 at 19:42 Funky Badger says:
On reviewing: Yahtzee’s a far more insightful – if misanthropic – critic than any I’ve read on IGN, for example. And lhead and shoulders above anything in the mainstream – Guadian etc. all woeful…
03/05/2009 at 19:43 John Walker says:
The problem here is that when asked for “concrete examples”, people are responding by saying, “Oh yeah, wasn’t there that…” Gerstmann’s firing and Driv3r get thrown out each time, but no one appears to have any first hand information about either, but rather rumours they’ve picked up off a forum, etc.
I’ve done this for over a decade and haven’t ever been offered a bribe. Not even a small one.
03/05/2009 at 19:45 John Walker says:
Lewis: I’m fairly sure Gerstmann’s deal wasn’t posthumous : ) Unless Giant Bomb is written by a ghoooOOOOooost.
Also, re ‘gate’: http://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/strips/cartoons/1235.gif
03/05/2009 at 19:55 Stella Q says:
@Lewis – The -gate thing is funny, and has been for forty years.
As for the bribery thing..of course I don’t believe that cash money is paid by publishers in exchange for positive reviews, but other forms of bribery are definitely used and it’s been going on in every field of journalism forever.
Hell, Orwell wrote an essay back in the 30s about how no one should pay attention to book reviews in literary publications because they’re heavily influenced by the need for book publisher’s advertising dollars. It’s the same thing that happens in politics. If you openly criticized the Iraq War, you didn’t get the exclusive interview with Condoleeza Rice on Sunday morning.
03/05/2009 at 19:59 Lewis says:
Posthumous to the contract, Walker. You know what I meant, cheeky chap.
03/05/2009 at 19:59 Jim Rossignol says:
“It’s the same thing that happens in politics. If you openly criticized the Iraq War, you didn’t get the exclusive interview with Condoleeza Rice on Sunday morning.”
Although in political reporting neutral reportage and relevant questioning, rather than critical opinion, are what matters. Games journalism is about the score on the end.
03/05/2009 at 20:02 Bhazor says:
Greg seems to forget that the vast majority of any medium is awful.
For every The Wire theres a dozen Murphys Law.
For every fantasy masterpiece theres thirteen Wheel of Time Books.
For every Brasseye theres a hundred Last of the Summer Wine
For every World of Goo theres a hundred copies of Haze.
The average consumer has always made terrible decisions in contrast to the genre fanatics but years later only the best are remembered.
Who here had heard of the Twiggy game or The Eastenders Boardgame?
Who here has heard of Monopoly?
How is he defining boardgames, does Warhammer count? Does D&D count? They aren’t exactly challenged to stand out amongst the filth.
Also, the Ramones were Punk? Really?
03/05/2009 at 20:05 wiper says:
Jim: “no one goes into games journalism to get rich. And once in, they don’t throw it away for a few quid for a dodgy review.”
But how many journalists go in for a few years, burn out and leave? Do you think they might be more open to taking a dive, as it were?
And John: no PR worth his salt would think you were bribeable, you great big fuzzy bear, you :)
Both of you are coming from specialist, British games press backgrounds. Perhaps that is an area without direct bribery – it lacks the culture to do it. But how about the non-specialist press, the US Press, the French press… I’m not saying it’s in any way common, but I would be very surprised if there has not been a single case of it occurring anywhere.
But I’m not sure why I’m carrying on – I genuinely don’t think it really matters, and all I’m really doing is getting under all of your skins – it’s not meant as an attack on the profession, but it could be read that way. I’ll stop now. I have no beef with the game press, and I think people who go off on wild rants about how the press is crooked are completely off. And I certainly don’t believe that any of the games critics whose articles I enjoy are in any way ‘untrustworthy’. I just like to maintain a degree of cynicism in any given situation.
Lewis: people from Lesbos aren’t all female or interested in females, the Stoics weren’t all that stoic, not all Cynics were cynical and novels aren’t all that novel any more. Doesn’t change the understanding of the terms, and the same goes for the -gate ending, I’m afraid.
03/05/2009 at 20:07 wiper says:
PS: that wasn’t meant as a dig at the French, US or non-specialist presses, at all. Those were simply examples of cultures that might differ from the British specialist press.
03/05/2009 at 20:08 Inferno says:
Was dissappointed reading the comments to see all the multiwinia hate. I guess most people expected something deep from it. I never did. Me and my college friends picked it up upon release and thoroughly enjoyed the £10 it was worth. We didn’t play it expecting some deep strategy game full of skill and lots of thinking.
I played it and enjoyed the fact that an alien spaceship would occaisionally come down, suck up half the armies on the field before returning a minute later to wipe out one of us with a super powered species. It was cheap and fun with friends, hell the entire thing is free if you play it at a lan. I guess most of you just had over expectations and didn’t play with your friends.
03/05/2009 at 20:13 Stella Q says:
@Jim – Well, that might be the way it works in the UK with the publicly-funded BBC, but here in the good ‘ol USA where the major news outlets are privately owned, objectivity is a dinosaur. I wouldn’t be surprised if the New York Times gave Obama’s next speech a ’93′
03/05/2009 at 20:19 Bhazor says:
Reply to Jim and John
How are you defining a bribe? Does taking you to the pub count (to use Introversions example)? What about expenses paid trips for a play test? Free buffets at press screenings? What about goody bags?
Theres not just bribes but anti-bribes as well. PR people refusing you access after a low score. Loss of ad revenue and in the latest GamesTM Paul Davies from C&VG talks about having to physically throw out a PR guy.
I’m not saying this lot would sway you two or any RPSser, you’ve built up a reputation and all that, but what about the faceless hacks on corporate web sites.
03/05/2009 at 20:19 Jochen Scheisse says:
Interesting take on the board game market, but unfair. There’s a lot of good boardgames and a lot of good publishers for those in the US. Granted, the big ones are mostly shit, but Fantasy Flight is a great example for a rather bold new company whose stuff I like.
03/05/2009 at 20:23 Sam says:
@Inferno:
Well, at the time Multiwinia came out, I believe I was one of the people trying to get others to buy it so that I *could* play with my friends. Precious few of them bought it, as it happens, and this was when I was being enthusiastic about it to them.
And, not I didn’t particularly expect “deep”. I did expect less random, and more Darwinia (which, again, RabidZombie is quite right to point out as the main cause of disappointment here).
03/05/2009 at 20:25 Rich_P says:
Isn’t exclusivity ultimately about money? Exclusive reviews, previews, interviews, etc. encourage people to buy your rag or read your website, which increases circulation and ad revenue.
PR people refusing you access after a low score.
That’s a problem for many journalists. Probably more widespread than outright bribes. As Slate’s media critic wrote about the Clinton campaign last fall:
Green had a story about infighting within the Hillary Clinton campaign in the queue at GQ magazine, one that couldn’t have made her people happy. The Clinton camp told GQ to kill it or lose access to Bill Clinton
03/05/2009 at 20:33 Jochen Scheisse says:
And all in all the boardgame article stinks in its conclusion. Boring people can blow the whistle all they want. Make your words dance, critics! Make them amuse me!
03/05/2009 at 20:37 Jim Rossignol says:
Wiper: “I would be very surprised if there has not been a single case of it occurring anywhere.”
Which, again, is a different thing to suggesting that it is a common, widespread practice, which is what was initially suggested.
03/05/2009 at 20:40 Meat Circus says:
I still find it interesting that it took Microsoft – MICROSOFT! – to point out to Introversion what was wrong with Multiwinia.
03/05/2009 at 20:40 wiper says:
“Which, again, is a different thing to suggesting that it is a common, widespread practice, which is what was initially suggested.”
Aye, an argument with which I do not agree, nor did I intend to appear to agree with.
03/05/2009 at 20:45 cheeba says:
@bhazor: None of those are terribly specific to the games press though, and could easily apply to just about any field with a few minor tweaks. Not bribery so much as general PR wankery that’s probably been around as long as critics have.
The only real problem there is with the rise of amateur critics, there’s scores of writers out there lacking the inbuilt shit-filter that those with a background in print journalism (like our RPS chums) have as standard.
This line of discussion always puts me in mind of what might be the definitive example of stroppy publisher syndrome, courtesy of AP2: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/ap2/dissent/brick.html
03/05/2009 at 20:50 wiper says:
I’m fairly sure that ‘general PR wankery’ has been around since long before writing. Making friends and influencing people has been an important concept for a loooong time.
03/05/2009 at 20:57 clive dunn says:
Well can i be the first person to offer John a bribe. I’ll give you 10 shiny pounds to say something nice about me.
03/05/2009 at 21:00 clive dunn says:
£200,000 will buy you an hour a week with David Cameron. I shit you not.
03/05/2009 at 21:01 Jochen Scheisse says:
I have two empty batteries (non-rechargable) with your name on it Kieron, if you have something nice to say about the season of Autumn.
03/05/2009 at 21:01 Novotny says:
Are you asking us to draw comparisions between John Walker and David Cameron?
03/05/2009 at 21:18 Bhazor says:
Reply to Cheeba
Charlie Brooker wrote a column about that stuff and suggested that is why he gave video game reviewing up as he could no longer be objective about the game.
Can’t find that article now but did find this
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/16/charlie-brooker-videogames
03/05/2009 at 21:20 Lewis says:
“Are you asking us to draw comparisions between John Walker and David Cameron?”
It is in both their professional interests to appeal to the kids.
03/05/2009 at 21:26 Novotny says:
Now you’ve made me think of clowns ;P
Sorry John
03/05/2009 at 21:27 clive dunn says:
Someone the other week compaired David Cameron with Iggle Piggle. I havn’t been able to watch The Night Garden since!
03/05/2009 at 21:31 Ginger Yellow says:
I must be one of the only people on here who loves everything IV have put out, including Multiwinia. And it’s funny to see Demigod get rave reviews, in some quarters at least, while Multiwinia got panned.
Incidentally, Uplink and Defcon are great games for netbooks.
03/05/2009 at 21:37 Dorian Cornelius Jasper says:
“Games journalism is about the score on the end.”
Which is a shame.
03/05/2009 at 21:54 Rich_P says:
And it’s funny to see Demigod get rave reviews, in some quarters at least, while Multiwinia got panned.
Why is that? I fail to see the relation between the two games.
Having purchased Darwinia and DEFCON, I can say that IV has awesome ideas. The games resulting from those ideas just haven’t been that fun for me.
03/05/2009 at 21:54 cheeba says:
@bhazor: Now you mention it, I remember reading that too, although I’m buggered if I can find it either, even filtered through the charlian. Shame, I’d love to read it again.
03/05/2009 at 22:01 Dinger says:
The Ramones are punk rock. Pere Ubu? That’s a matter of debate.
Roger Ebert could do a decent porn review. He screenwrote Bazoomamania exploitation films, for Chrissakes!
Zeno Clash’s enjoyment comes in part from being so short. As a 40-hour epic it would blow. Also, new UI changes don’t fix much. Toss weapons? What if I don’t like someone using them against me? And back=disengage replaces powerstrike with fishguns.
Anyway, the story, art and mechanics are unique and engaging, but all have flaws in their implementations. So, do buy it, but don’t expect a revolution.
If there’s a bias, perhaps it is that indie houses cannot and do not put out the same kinda game, but are judged on the same criteria.
03/05/2009 at 22:30 Radiant says:
But to call it ‘PR wankery’ is just shifting from one foot to the other.
Scores for games are so untrustworthy now that [RPS aside] I very rarely go to websites for game reviews any more and don’t get me started on Edge’s spotty reviewing.
03/05/2009 at 23:47 solipsistnation says:
Considering how basically every single first-person shooter, RPG, survival-horror game, and so on (including Zeno Clash!) includes some kind of detour into a sewer, there’s no way in hell I’d buy a game to give games realistic odors. Dang.
(Parts of Oblivion might be nice, though, what with all the prancing through fields picking flowers and all.)
03/05/2009 at 23:56 Tei says:
About Multiwinia: the art of war, 101. theres really only 2 importants bits on the art of war, focus … your diferent units focus fire, so you have superiority, you built that superiority. the second one is flanking. move so you attack your enemy not on the front (where he is strong) but on the flank. Multiwinia included code for this both bits of war. So was a very basic and abstract war simulator. If the game was lacking, war itself is something too simple.
Randomness’?… guys that dislike randomness on a game dont want a game, want a e-sport.
03/05/2009 at 23:59 raigan says:
“[Lewis - hope you understand that we can't have open accusations of corruption against a named site without one hell of a lot of substantiating evidence. We don't fancy getting our legs sued off. - RPS]”
Wait, what? Really?
From what I can Google, forum admins aren’t liable at all for what’s posted on the forums by the public — provided they have appropriate terms-of-service which makes this clear.
Otherwise it just seems crazy — what’s next, holding webhosts liable for storing the libelous text? ISPs for delivering it to readers?!
04/05/2009 at 00:16 redrain85 says:
Multiwinia always seemed like a bad idea, right from the get-go. It’s Darwinia, but this time with multiplayer! Woo! Darwinia already had a limited, niche appeal to begin with. Expecting people to jump at Multiwinia after they’d already been playing what amounts to the same game for such a long time, just didn’t make a lot of sense to me.
I also find it more than a little ironic how Introversion still tries to play the indie-cred card so much, after they’ve essentially climbed into bed with Microsoft. And did IV really think they wouldn’t get burned by them? Control freaks run Microsoft.
04/05/2009 at 00:23 Larington says:
The truth is, only people looking for validation on their opinion about which game is ‘better’ or ‘good’ ever really care about review scores. Anyone who actually cares what the game is actually like reads the goddarned review write-up. At least I hope so, otherwise they are decieving themselves in a way which is unhealthy both for the people who do it and for the games industry in general.
But we’re trapped of course, by our assumptions about what games must have or must be and thats a far greater risk to the development of unusual games than pretty much anything else. I recently glanced at a single comment on a gamasutra story and there was someone bemoaning the lack of replayability in Fable 2 and I hesitated at that comment, tempted to point out that I’ve gotten plenty of replayability out of the likes of Fable, Deus Ex, Startopia, Beyond Good & Evil, etc etc – And all this just by playing through the game again, maybe a year later. People don’t bemoan books for having a lack of re-readability, at least not without looking bloody silly in the process.
Also, maybe Introversion would prefer to think of themselves purely because they’ve been exposed to the same anti-corporate mantra of videogame fandom the rest of us have? Is it really so terrible to try to aspire to better things, even if its difficult to realise those dreams in the face of the impracticalities of small and big business?
@raigan – Better safe than sorry, better safe than sorry. She told me she was immune… Whose out there? I’ll ring this bell! Don’t think i won’t… Better safe than sorry…. (Hmm, better cut back on Left4Dead a bit)
04/05/2009 at 00:38 Tony says:
I picked up a boxed copy of Darwinia, and I’m still adamant it was worth my £15 for the manual alone.
I haven’t laughed that much since I looked at the old Ultimate Doom and Doom II bundle manual.
04/05/2009 at 00:45 Ginger Yellow says:
“Why is that? I fail to see the relation between the two games.”
Well, they’re both war of attrition games where you don’t have direct control of the units, for a start. I’m not claiming they’re particularly similar, mind, but the diametrically opposed reaction strikes me as a bit odd. Personally I love them both.
04/05/2009 at 03:12 Wisq says:
Well, heh. When I saw “no bridge simulators?” I assumed you meant engineering puzzle games where you have to make bridges that will support a certain load or activity. And I have no idea how you’d make that interesting for very long …
As for the real subject matter — yes, please, yes! Someone needs to make a real space simulator, no more of this “tiny fighters battling it out at visual range” crap. Every game I see that promises to do it more “realistically” just means they’ll throw some Newtonian physics in rather than pretend you’re flying through air.
I believe I speak for many when I say I would pre-order the first game that promised (in no unspecific terms) a true starship bridge experience and looked even vaguely capable of delivering. Bonus points for multistation gameplay, with multiple players manning stations under the captain’s command in place of AI crew, i.e. what “Dangerous Waters” does for submarine simulation.
Also, regarding The Nameless Mod … as a long-time legitimate Deus Ex owner, I am deeply shamed that I forgot to play this. I must remedy this grave injustice immediately.
04/05/2009 at 03:57 solipsistnation says:
@Wisq: “Well, heh. When I saw “no bridge simulators?” I assumed you meant engineering puzzle games where you have to make bridges that will support a certain load or activity. And I have no idea how you’d make that interesting for very long …”
Have you never heard of Pontifex? There’s a whole genre out there… Here you go: “In Pontifex you design and test bridges. Pontifex uses a complex physics engine which allows the construction of many different types of bridges. Once your design is completed, you can test the strength of your bridge by sending a train across it. Depending on the quality of the bridge’s design, the train will either pass over safely or plummet into the river below. The 3D engine lets you view your bridge from any angle, including a first-person “strapped to the front of the train” view. Many different levels are included, from simple to complex, and a level editor allows you to make your own levels to trade with others.”
How could that not be totally fascinating? (Well, if that’s the sort of thing you’re into.)
04/05/2009 at 04:04 Andy`` says:
Meh @ starship bridge simulators.
I was going to follow that up with a little rant over the many, many problems with starship bridge simulators, but tbh my brain’s now stuck in a little loop trying to figure out how to make a bridge simulator that could actually be worth playing. You see, Bridge Commander did somewhat show that it was much easier to make a fun game out of letting the player control a big lumbering ship than it was to let the AI control a big lumbering ship and have the player hope they did well, and you don’t really sacrifice much in the process. Except maybe, just maybe, there’s a way to make throwing orders around more beneficial, even if only just a little bit, than controlling the ship directly. Hmm.
Oh, and real futuristic space combat (I laughed, I did!) is a boring beast really – everything would be out of visual range to the point that you’d just be shooting at dots on a map. Or diamonds, if you’re Tom Clancy. If that’s what’s considering to be bridge simulation, then maybe we should also make more realistic war simulators where you stick pins in a map to get your subordinates to fire rockets there, and hear about the results of your pin-sticking skills over a radio a few minutes later.
Oops, I may have ranted a little bit :(
04/05/2009 at 07:40 James T says:
Amen to that. Accusations of bribery show a pretty crude understanding of how media is influenced; Herman and Chomsky’s five filters are a better illustration of what’s wrong in games reportage/criticism; see ‘funding’ and ‘sourcing’ in particular. Once a site hires reviewers with exceedingly… ‘tolerant’ critical faculties, or at least accrues reviewers who have particular tendencies toward certain genres/series/etc, they have every reason to choose who reviews what according to what will least rock the funding boat. Shady back-room deals are a pointless PR hazard when the funding model of most games journalism does that job without any reviewer having compromised their opinion, or any non-ad-based money having changed hands.
04/05/2009 at 07:55 Wisq says:
@Andy: There’s varying degrees of separation. For example, in a flight simulator, if you want to turn a certain direction, you manually use the stick, adjust the control surfaces, and get yourself going that way. In a sub simulator, you issue an order to go a certain direction or dive to a certain depth, and your crew handle the monotony of actually making the turn / dive, leaving you free to ponder the larger picture.
To go back to Dangerous Waters as an example, turning and diving are simple, boring actions with important, engaging results — they can get you a better view of an area that was previous in your various sensors’ blind spots, or they can let you work on evading an incoming torpedo. In both these cases, the place you want to be is watching the sonar or managing your torpedoes and countermeasures, not actually sitting there adjusting the control surfaces, degree by degree. Or, you could leave sonar auto-crew turned on and go do target motion analysis (TMA) of the sonar data. Or you could leave auto-crew TMA on and just make the high-level tactical decisions about what to do when.
As per the example above, command shouldn’t be about sitting in a chair twiddling your thumbs between the occasional important decision. You should have the ability to station-hop, to take over a particular station and (hopefully) do a better job than the AI. By letting you be as hands-on as you want, you get to always play the most interesting part of the ship, much as a captain might directly supervise and coach his/her more junior crew members as needed.
Of course, micromanagement also leaves you a little less aware of the overall picture you might have if you were watching the big tactical map instead, say. So you make tradeoffs between parts of the ship’s operation that need fine-tuning right now, and parts that can be left to the decent-but-not-perfect AI.
And, I know about theories on “real” futuristic space combat. I’ve read a lot on the subject. And believe me, shooting at dots on a map can still be fun for many reasons.
Going back to Dangerous Waters, the main activity pattern is, you detect the enemy vessel on sonar, you manoeuvre a bit to get better sonar readings for a more precise fix on their position (and to help degrade their fix on your position). You also need to figure out what kind of vessel they are, and whether they’re hostile or not. You almost never know for certain, and just have to make educated guesses based on what you do know, and then decide whether you’re certain enough to fire on them.
Say you get a decent fix — remember, this is all still just guesswork, either by you or by your TMA auto-crew — and you’re confident enough to fire a torpedo or two at the enemy vessel. It’s not just a matter of watching the dot approach their dot and blow up. Maybe they start to evade, and by the time your torpedo gets where they ought to be, they won’t be there. You have to continue to track them and guide your torpedo to them, but it’s hard when they’re actively evading, and you’ve now got the noise of your own torpedo in the way.
Or maybe they fire back at you around the same time. Now you’ve got a lot more to do. Did they fire because they had a fix on you, or did they just hear your launch and fire a snapshot back on the same bearing? How likely is it that you’ll get hit? How long can you help guide your own torpedo in before you have to break to evade?
Alternatively, you don’t need to be “real” per the technologies of today, you just need to take a few key concepts and apply them consistently. You may decide that some particular aspect of (what we see as) “real” future warfare is undesirable, and modify some aspect of the technology to discourage or prevent it. But if you do that enough in isolation, you just end up with a lot of arbitrary, artificial restrictions. Most modern mainstream sci-fi (mainly TV and movies) suffers from this — “they can do [tactic X], so why can’t they do [much more effective tactic Y] which is simpler to do anyway?”. Better to decide how you want things to play out, then come up with a consistent scenario that provides that.
For example, David Weber’s ‘Honorverse’ series certainly isn’t the most realistic or best sci-fi out there — it’s definitely in the “space opera” category — but it has very few “why didn’t they do [Y]?” moments. His space battles play out somewhat like modern naval battles, but not just because he arbitrarily says so. Instead, he came up with a single piece of technology (the ships’ drive system) with a few key characteristics that have a lot of long-reaching implications — all of which he explores thoroughly, rather than just leaving unused potential lying around. And it’s consistent and fun enough that it might make a pretty decent game, too.
Combat flight simulators and space fighter games are fun for the same reason an FPS game is fun, with a mix of twitch gameplay and short-term tactics. Naval combat games can be just as fun, but they’re more like survival horror games, with a mix of suspense and longer-term tactics. In both cases, every action you make might get you killed, it’s just a question of how soon and how fast. I just want a space combat game that sits firmly in the latter category, rather than just being “flight sim in space”.
04/05/2009 at 09:45 Kadayi says:
Its all well and good Jonathan Blow asking for people to not to use walkthroughs, but it a demand flying in the face of most peoples ever diminishing free time (Note: Most of us work these days and have other commitments.) There isn’t a gamer I know of my generation who presently doesn’t have at least 6 – 8 unfinished/unstarted games in their gaming inbox at any one time. Sure ideally I’d have loved to have figured out every puzzle, but the reality is unless it was obvious after 10 minutes of noodling it was was head to walkthroughs time (if nothing more than to figure out how to approach something rather than solve it entirely). Unlimited noodling is a luxury few of us can afford when it comes to time expenditure tbh.
04/05/2009 at 10:01 Lewis says:
RPS people: Sorry for the name-naming… I was trying to keep it rather clear that *I* wasn’t pointing fingers, and was instead trying to illustrate that even the most feverent accusations don’t ring entirely true. But yeah, the name-naming was sloppy. Apologies.
04/05/2009 at 11:54 Mr Lizard says:
So Introversion’s last hope is a download-only console conversion of a game that’s already flopped twice on PC? Best of luck.
Maybe they would do better if they spent less time trying to appeal to PC Gamer and more time trying to appeal to PC gamers. They are the Gay Dad of game developers.
04/05/2009 at 11:58 Lewis says:
“They are the Gay Dad of game developers.”
What?
04/05/2009 at 12:04 Gap Gen says:
I gather PC Gamer are rather sick of the Gay Dads winking at them in the corridor all the time.
04/05/2009 at 12:19 James T says:
Late-90s indie pop one-hit-wonders (there was one hit, right? They had one tune here in ‘Straya, at least; I didn’t like it much), pushed by the NME as “saviours of rock”, no-one liked ‘em, splat. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Dad
04/05/2009 at 12:22 cheeba says:
To those missing the reference: Gay Dad were a famously shit indie band formed by a music critic, who used their knowledge of the music press to become much higher profile than their actual talent warranted. At least I think that’s what he was getting at.
Edit: what James said.
04/05/2009 at 12:23 Muzman says:
And so the conversation segues neatly from Introversion’s woes to “Indies get a free ride”
04/05/2009 at 12:31 Tei says:
I think who gets a free ride is a editorial decision. If you really want to, is fair to give a free ride to X. Say X could be open source, indie, microsoft games or whatever. Theres a no such thing as a unbiased opinions, if is a opinion is biased, else.. is not a opinion at all. The people like Fox News is dishonest not because his “news” are all lies, but because pretend are objectives.
How would I choose my bias? lets favor gamers!.. lets say, I don’t care if your game is open source, or indie, or comercial, or adware, If your game is fun to me, I will pimp it.
And If this is not biased enough, lets add pro-activity: If a game is good, and has litte to no publicity, I will talk about it. Probabbly thats the bias that Indie games get: free publicity made by cool people, because withouth that free publicity, these games will die unknom to the masses.
And that works the other way around. AAA games often gets and create more information than really need. Like everyone already see the same 3 screenshots. So some AAA games deserve less atention.
And nothing of this is related to RPS, since RPS is a blog. If the authors want to create 15 articles about his cat, is Ok.
04/05/2009 at 12:32 matte_k says:
So much fire! Just because it’s the internet doesn’t mean you HAVE to be angry :)
However, glad to see the humour creeping back in, as the posts above show…
Edit: Ahh, as opposed to actual Gay Dads? Got the reference now, I stand corrected.
I can appreciate that on any given subject there will be a difference of opinion here, but it seems that there’s a lot less positivity about many things in the comments threads these days. Surely there’s something we can all enjoy? (And no, i’m not suggesting we all hold hands and sing and live happily ever after, i’m just suggesting a little less bile being ready for distribution…)
04/05/2009 at 13:37 jay says:
But that would require a higher amount of empathy and a lower amount of narcissism then gamers seem to be capable of. Sigh….
04/05/2009 at 14:20 Xocrates says:
@Mr Lizard: Flopped… twice? Darwinia was a success.
04/05/2009 at 15:09 Mr Lizard says:
Hmm, maybe. Although the evidence suggests a moderate success at best.
EDIT – also this.
04/05/2009 at 15:24 Xocrates says:
By Indie standards (back then, at least) Darwinia did fine. Although admittedly Defcon did significantly better.
And what’s the relevance of the second link? That was made days after Darwinia Steam release, which was the point at which the game really took off.
04/05/2009 at 16:20 Mr Lizard says:
I have no idea what Darwinia’s sales were. All I know is that noises coming out of Introversion at the time and subsequently suggest they would have liked it to have sold more, which in itself indicates that a new version of Darwinia could fail to sell in sufficient numbers to sustain the company Introversion has become, which would be a great shame.
04/05/2009 at 16:28 Chris says:
Darwinia was a lot of fun. I hate RTS, but I loved Darwinia. I never even looked at Multiwinia because I don’t want to play a MMO game. I don’t even want to play an online game. I think Introversion completely misunderstood their Darwinia audience, thinking all those Darwinia sales would translate to Multiwinia sales. It didn’t. Single player gamers didn’t want it and multiplayer gamers that didn’t buy Darwinia couldn’t have cared less.
Developers, don’t make MMO games. Period. The market is saturated already. You’re going to crash and burn if you pour resources into an MMO. There is no niche for you to carve. The halls of the dead developers is littered with people that tried to put out an MMO.
04/05/2009 at 17:13 aoanla says:
Chris: Erm. Multiwinia isn’t an MMO. It’s a RTT game with a lot of randomness.
04/05/2009 at 17:14 Xocrates says:
Hum… Multiwinia is not a MMO.
Also, Multiwinia history is a bit more complicated than that, indeed the game wasn’t supposed to exist in the first place. Multiwinia was created as a necessity (imposed by Microsoft) to add multiplayer for the XBLA release. Since IV decided they didn’t want it to be an half assed add-on, they turned it into a full game. Notably, they considered naming it something completely unrelated to Darwinia (while keeping the graphic style) so as to denote it was supposed to be a completely different game as opposed to a pseudo-sequel (they eventually decided against it as everyone, community included, was calling it Multiwinia before it had been officially announced).
Additionally, if you read those blog entries by Chris Delay, he’ll note he didn’t even want to develop Multiwinia, especially since the Darwinia series had given them countless troubles.
04/05/2009 at 17:33 Xercies says:
I have to say it isn’t me saying “Oh my god he has a different opinion to me he must be bribed” in fact I find that kind of insulting. I’m not a scores man i don’t say oh my god they got an 8 it was defintily a 5. i just look at things in a different way I look at the bigger conspiracy here. Yes it’s not widespread and yes it’s very hard to track any evidence down, probably because they are very good at hiding what they do. Sometimes it will slip but still people ignore it. It’s not widespread but saying it might not happen and it doesn’t happen is wrong as well. Its many shenanigans, it could be PR guys blackmailing, or bribing a publication which goes down to the writers. It could be the writers called up to there head offices and getting a nice meal for free while they play there games. It could be all these things and they have happened. It’s very murky but like people have said why should we care, we only sometimes pay for games based on reviews.
04/05/2009 at 17:51 Chris says:
Sorry, not MMO I guess, but every preview I read said “Multiplayer Online version of Darwinia”. Yea, ok, sounds like a multiplayer focused version of Darwinia, hence no sale. I just assumed it meant MMO rather than MO RTS.
I still think it mis-targeted the Darwinia audience. I guess if it’d been billed more as a skirmished base Darwinia battles with multiplayer support, maybe I would have looked at it. I never saw any mention of single player support in Multiwinia period. Even the name doesn’t really imply single player was an option (though, reading a wiki entry, I guess it had bots to play against).
04/05/2009 at 18:01 Xocrates says:
That’s the thing really, they weren’t targetting the Darwinia Audience, but everyone thought they did.
04/05/2009 at 18:06 Robin says:
Greg Costikyan’s absolutist view that games can’t be artistically valid if they’re commercially exploited is hopelessly adolescent.
Whichever punk band you want to use as an example of that movement’s ideology, we wouldn’t remember them now if they had refused to engage with corporate world to the extent of getting a record deal.
But then has Costikyan made any game this century, or anything you could easily class as a computer game, ever? He’s a refugee from a dead form that has nothing to say about games (by which I, like most people who aren’t aging American dorks trying to hijack the conversation to legitimise their nostalgia for their irrelevant teenage hobbies, mean computer and video games) beyond how terrible everything is. Asking his opinion of the modern world is like asking a deaf, arthritic teddy boy about hip-hop.
(You may now resume bitching about Introversion.)
04/05/2009 at 18:51 Gap Gen says:
Xercies: You say it is hard to track evidence down, but then you give a list of concrete examples for which it should be possible to track evidence down.
05/05/2009 at 07:02 James T says:
Costikyan called them “The Talking Heads!” *punches him out*
05/05/2009 at 12:22 Lewis says:
Xercies: the problem is you’re repeatedly ignoring comments from people who actually work within this business. You’re also failing to define your own terms, and then moaning when people misinterpret what you’re saying.
Does a nice meal constitute a bribe? No. It constitutes politeness and friendliness. If a publisher offers me some free grub, I’m sure I’d thank them profusely, and would think very highly of them as people. It has no bearing on what I think of their game, though, and that’s where your assumption is flawed.
People being paid actual cashy money to write a positive review is obviously far more problematic, but it simply doesn’t happen. Exclusive access in exchange for high scores? Yeah, it happens, very rarely. And it’s usually pretty straightforward to see where it’s happened. And as such, it’s exposed. No problems.
Everything you’ve said in this conversation has been heavily loaded with no real justification. You look at the bigger picture with “this conspiracy”? What conspiracy? So yes, maybe it is a bit insulting to suggest someone’s shouting “FOUL” every time someone disagrees with their opinion – but when you say things like that, or “GTA 4 must have got a free ride with its 10/10s because it’s one of the most boring games I’ve ever played” you don’t help your cause.
05/05/2009 at 13:57 Ginger Yellow says:
The vast majority of my Multiwinia games have been single player (less through choice these days, but still). It’s no different from playing skirmish games against the AI in other RTSes.
05/05/2009 at 16:05 Sam says:
Lewis: Well, actually, if a publisher offers you some free grub and it makes you feel highly of them as people, you are likely to, at least subconsciously, transfer some of that good feeling to their games. This isn’t really a controversial concept.
So, it does have a bearing on the marks you will arrive at.
However, this is still very different from bribery, conspiracy or any other kind of malfeasance, as you point out.
05/05/2009 at 19:32 James T says:
There is, of course, an ethical problem in accepting gifts of any kind from devs/publishers. Unfortunately, “BRIBE CONSPIRACY!!!!” talk clouds reasonable discussion of it. Read my link from earlier, Xercies (er, not the Gay Dad one); it’s not like games writing — or any published writing — MUST fall into exactly two Manichean camps of “completely untouched by the industry funding model” and “accepting packets of cash under the table”.