Sundays are for sitting in a darkened hotel room with your comrades in arms still snoozing, trying to compile a list of the interesting reading from across this week – and since I’ve been away, that’s a relatively sleight one – for the RPS readership’s delectation while trying to avoid sliding in a link to some manner of pop song. And then throwing some clothes on and heading back to my table on the Image stand at Comic-Con. Yes.
- Reading through this gamasutra piece on the charts about consumer research into buying upcoming games, and I hit an particularly eyebrow-raising snippet: “Elsewhere, Left 4 Dead 2 now ranks fifth among all upcoming titles, with the ratio of awareness to purchase intent the most notable statistic: six out of ten gamers who have heard of the title say they plan to buy it. Only Alan Wake, God of War III and Modern Warfare 2 have higher ratios. “This data point is the best indicator of franchises that have a passionate and loyal fanbase, and Left 4 Dead 2 has accomplished this feat in a remarkably short period of time,” says Williams.”. In other words, that boycott isn’t exactly catching on.
- How annoying. The piece where someone got very, very angry about the font on the Prince of Persia poster appears to have been deleted. I’ve rarely seen such fury over such things.
- The Reticule on Facebook games.
- Craig Lager on Empty Shell Protagonists. His point mainly being, with characters who are so empty the primary characters – and personalities of the game – become the supporting cast.
- Are games art? Are some people taking the piss? Yes and well done.
- Oh – the Runner. Week by week hyperreview of the divisive Parkour game.
- As Hit Self Destruct inches towards its close, he gets a bunch of games writers to write about any single moment which justified doing this crazy thing. I contribute, because I’ll contribute to pretty much anything. I an tres slutty
- Games journalists whining about games PR blog.
- Away from games, did you see Tom Wolfe writing about the moon landing anniversary? I read this and (re-read) Warren Ellis/Chris Weston’s Ministry of Space within a few hours and was left terribly depressed.
- Con hysteria reaches a peak when I find myself singing most of this at a passer-by. Who buys a comic. In fact, every time we sing, we sell a comic. Music totally is magic.
Failed.
Related Stories:
Considering the platform the game is judged on in the chart from the article, I don’t really see why the boycott would have any effect…
@Vin
It’s already been stated that each installment will be as long, if not longer, than Starcraft 1, and that if they did it in one go that we wouldn’t see Starcraft 2 for another four or so *years.* We’re already going to be lucky if we get the first part this year.
We didn’t have a problem paying $50 for that much content back then >_>
@Psychopomp
Honestly I’m not concerned about it for a number of reasons. For one, as you say, supposedly they’ll be long enough to justify the price (and it’ll be quickly apparent from fan response if they aren’t). For another, they seem to be focusing the design towards the South Korean MP market, so it’s not really a game that’s occupying a lot of my attention anyway.
However, I think a lot of people have lost faith in Blizzard since the old days, so I don’t think that even those people that ARE troubled by the “split in three” thing (rationally or otherwise) are inclined towards a “please don’t go that way” response. Blizz’s reputation, at least outside the WoW community, isn’t what it used to be (in fact it gets a lot more shit than it deserves, in my opinion, even though I detest WoW).
@Vin
I think http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitle6cd1cskka05i sums up my theory as to why so many people hate Blizzard, and throw so much vitriol at WoW/WoW players now.
Vinraith:
Just out of curiousity, how many hours have you played Left4Dead, total? Just a rough estimate — hours per week, number of weeks you’ve had the game.
@john t
Somewhere in the ballpark of 30, why? I played about 20 hours on the original maps, and managed to squeeze another 10-ish out of survival mode when it came out. I should probably go have a look at the SDK stuff now that the modders have had a little time to work. I’m sure the L4D2 announcement is stifling output to some degree but I’m sure there are some things worth playing anyway. It’ll be interesting to see if it’s the gameplay I (and my friends) are tired of or just the shortage of maps.
That PR whine fest thing was like beating on your 3 year old for acting like a 3 year old. They’re PR types, of course they gonna act like perfumed pond scum ;p
I think the main objection to the PR thing is that it’s whiny and inconsistent. “Don’t organise events in our work day, it’s not our job to look at games!” “Don’t organise events in the evening, it’s not our job to network outside of hours!”
Granted, some of them are dumb, like moving an embargo and messing up editorial planning, but still, it does need someone to sift through the shit and remove the whinier, less reasonable complaints.
Actually, one of the stupider embargoes I saw was for a Nature paper on the most distant quasar found. Firstly, who gives a shit about quasars, and if they break an embargo over one? Secondly, this embargo was printed above the entire paper, for free to anyone, on the online repository arXiv.
On the plus side, that Gaming Art article is pretty darn funny.
@Kieron’s section in Hit Self-Destruct.
The reasons behind that bit are dead-on for me as well. Recently started to see my name in print in PC Gamer, and I’m really glad the buzz doesn’t wear off, even after ten plus years doing it.
Something about the blast of information that print magazines provide stays special – blogs and websites are important, sure, but it’s a dripfeed of information, something to keep the sugar levels up. The monthly print outpouring is something to be looked forward to, to be savoured.
For me, anyway. I couldn’t cope with only online games writing sources, but so much of my writing and taste has been informed by wonderful magazines and writers – PCG, Super Play and N64 Magazine in particular.
“You know what I don’t understand? Why don’t I hear about people boycotting Starcraft 2 ? Sure there was much grumbling when it was first announced that you’d have to buy it 3 times for the campaigns but it seems people are ok with it now.”
They just announced two addon packs, which most successful RTSs are getting. Not every race having its own campaign in SCII isn’t a disaster either, it didn’t exactly hurt DoW as well, isn’t it?
L4D2 seems to become more popular with the Xbox360 crowd, not a good thing if you ask me because any extra L4D content has to be released on both platforms simultaneously by MS’s demand. Clarity on those issues (is there a max amount of DLC the PC and thus also the Xbox360 version of L4D can receive? Or will some if it be shipped with L4D2?) is what inspired the boycot, Valve have only themselves to blame by being so incredibly vague all the time.
I am buying the sequel but I can’t fault anyone for feeling a bit betrayed. Keeping up the boycot after new promises were made (“something” is coming, sigh) isn’t useful anymore imo, also because yeah, L4D2 looks good. But just taking it all in like nothing is wrong (which even the PC press are doing now without blinking) while nearly every paid reviewer clearly mentioned new campaigns were on the way… talk about selectively forgetting your own writings. There’s a lot of stuff wrong with the current L4D campaigns (closet camping) which are going to be fixed in the new L4D2 campaigns. Will those fixes ever come to the original game? So many questions, so Valve.
Again, announcing L4D2 at the Xbox360 conference didn’t help things at all, it only steered the direction of the franchise even more to consoles (proof are these stats) and that’s something we all have to worry about because games coverage in general these days is already way too centered enough on console titles as it is and any platform where people see paid DLC as a standard… it’s giving me shivers.
“The main character being the 2nd* most emo person in the universe didn’t bother them?”
Or indeed, the fact that noone involved actually looks Persian? I thought the whole “300″ kerfuffle was a bit silly, but if you’re going to set a film in a named country, at least have some people who look vaguely like they may be from that country.
P.
Seeing your name and your writing in a monthly videogame magazine is sweet, I’ll give you that. The initial euphoria kinda clicks and there’s a split-second of someone carrying you on their shoulders, rose petals raining, beautiful virgins dancing around you and fireworks going off. Or maybe something in line with that Beatles: Rock Band trailer. Then you walk out of the store, thinking how many dead trees were used to print your name and words and reach a readership of potential thousands. You kinda feel sorry for the trees but hey, everyone needs to make a living. And it’s not like I’m sucking on the planet’s vital energy. I’m no Shinra.
When I was given the chance to work with some of the finest videogame journos in Portugal, I was kinda held back. Since I always thought of myself as a talentless hack (and in videogame writing, too), I figured my jig would be up pretty soon. These were people who kept a previous magazine in circulation for over 10 years. These were people who worked on another short-lived project that gathered tremendous good will and talent, including Kieron himself as a correspondant. I was a guy that ranted on RPG Codex about the purity of number crunching. This was so not going to last.
Yet, the fourth edition of the mag is already out and I’m still part of the staff. I’ve even gotten a semblance of a salary, with more coming my way if I pour my heart and soul into it. There’s always two sides, really. I’ve already had my fair share of fame and infamy, with people on message boards claiming my articles were something of an eye-opener or pointless controversy. It makes you feel warm inside but also wakes you at night. They’re on to you, waiting to draw that dagger. Meanwhile, I’m out partying with the PR of Nintendo at Portugal, getting my first taste of exclusive games, meeting like-minded fellow gamers and people who’ve been writing about games in their own unique ways.
It’s going to be one hell of a ride but it’s true – nothing beats that moment when you first got the ticket.
Yeah, it was a good feeling seeing my article in print, until Edge published a better one on the same subject a month later. The fuckers.
Somewhere in the ballpark of 30, why? I played about 20 hours on the original maps, and managed to squeeze another 10-ish out of survival mode when it came out.
So about $1.50 an hour worth of an enjoyment. About the same as most people got out of most games. I don’t see how this is worth the amount of vitriol you’re spewing about it.
@john t
What vitriol?