By Kieron Gillen on August 16th, 2009 at 1:26 pm.
Sundays are for downloading Indie Strategy Games, sipping tea and compiling an enormous list of the fun and fascinating reading from across the week, while trying my jolly hardest to not link to some fine 80s indie miserablism which I found myself listening to this morning…
- RPS and assorted friends-of-RPS have been nominated for the GMAs. That is, the Games Media Awards 2009. I’ll hand you over to the justly nominated for specialist online writer, Simon Parkin to talk about it. While still clearly enormously silly, it’s… well, I was going to say “getting more credible”, but it’s still very silly. Just not as silly as before. We’re in the blog category, as opposed to last year, when we were in the website category. VG247 is in both, somehow. And Nowgamer -as much a website as Eurogamer or C&VG is – is in blogs. It’s gloriously mental. At least it’s a good excuse for a piss up, eh?
- Actually, while on the subject of Si-Si The Parkster, here’s his interview with Ex-Goldeneyer Martin Hollis about what he’s up to now and how he got there. Hollis is one of my favourite developers, because – er – he’s lovely. Sometimes it really is that easy. Great stuff.
- Over at Edge Chris Dahlen wonders whether we’ll ever play videogames on an interplanetary scale. He talks to NASA about it. Conclusion: Urban Dead’s more likely than Left 4 Dead 2. And not because Martians are big for the L4D2 boycott.
- Robin Clarkes’ had a busy few weeks, y’know. Retrospective on the ever-awesome Deluxe Paint. Arguing why APB MUST succeed. And most relevantly to RPS, a hefty over-view of the history of the Shareware game.
- Valve are studying sign-language for a deaf-Half-life character. Interesting.
- Talking about Devs I Like, I liked to Randy Smith’s new Iphone game earlier this week.Now he writes about the experience over at Edge. Er… making the game. Not me blogging about him.
- I haven’t gone through all of it yet, but the New York Time’s enormous piece on Rock Band Beatles and the whole rhythm-action-toy-game-thing is seriously hefty. Double-multiplier points for its title: While My Guitar Gently Bleeps.
- The web’s finest home of AARs, The Blue Casket, starts another one. It’s Peggle Noir. Yes.
- Popmatters’ Jack Patrick Rodgers on Final Fantasy VIII. Heartfelt and clever, but more than a little disingenuous when it claims that FFVIII was reviewed badly. FFVIII almost drowning in in reviewer semen was actually the moment my dislike of Final Fantasy hardened into an actual grudge. Those unskippable guardian forces are literally unforgivable.
- Lou Castle, now of Instant Action, thinks the industry is on a “Bad Spiral”. Specifically, spending all the effort to please whining sods like us lot.
- We haven’t done an interview DoubleBear on ZRPG because we thought it was probably too early. RETICULE THINKS US COWARDLY KNAVES!
- Very Cute. Bobsy obsesses over the Cricket and Spelunky simultaneously.
- Couple of pieces from Resolution. Firstly, Fraser McMillian on loneliness in Indie Games. Not in, “you have to be lonely to play them”. And the final part of that games-and-militarism series I’ve talked about before.
- Paul Wedgwood starts a dev-diary on the forthcoming Brink over at the Bethblog.
- Videogame advertising used to be amazing. You seen the Club Centipede advert for the Atari?
- Actually, before I go onto the less-game-related stories, just something I’ve been thinking about. The Sunday Papers seems to have been ballooning in recent times. Which is great, but I can’t but help feel by having so much stuff here, a lot of it’s going to be overlooked. I’m thinking of actually spinning more stuff into actual RPS posts, leaving a body of work for here, but moving stuff which perhaps needs more concentrated debate to their own story. I mean, to choose one from the last few weeks, the Abandonware Interview was probably a post in of itself. I mention this to feel people out. Of course, it wouldn’t even be an issue if we were the 20-posts-a-day style blog like Kotaku or whatever. It’s just that with our relatively low turn-over, it may appear a little odd. Or maybe not.
- I liked this fake NYT story about Peter Parker writing about his mutant room-mate.
- Lady Gaga: Puppet Of The Illuminati. One for the Deus Ex 3 writers to consider integrating, methinks.
- Jim loved this hefty conversation between Francois Roche, Geoff Manaugh and Warren Ellis over at Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today.
- You’ll have seen the Billion Dollar Gram. But in case you haven’t…
- The Smiths – What Difference Does It Make?
Failed.
16/08/2009 at 13:44 Legionary says:
Interesting reads, thanks.
16/08/2009 at 13:51 qrter says:
Personally, I see no reason why stories that you think deserve more attention should not get their own posts during the week.
I’m sure most people who read the Sunday Papers also read RPS during the week.
16/08/2009 at 14:06 Psychopomp says:
@Qrter
Because we like The Sunday Papers?
16/08/2009 at 14:18 Vandelay says:
Wow, some HL2:EP3 info finally. And one of the most intriguing info I’ve seen for any game. A deaf character that requires sign language to talk to? Will Gordon finally be able to talk? Will Alyx abandon Gordon for her old crush? Will Valve be able to squeeze more love and admiration out of us all by welcoming the hearing impaired more than they already do with their excellent subtitling?
I really hope there is more info coming out once L4D2 is out, hopefully news like HL2:EP3 is being bundled with Portal 2.
16/08/2009 at 14:30 Tei says:
Games in interplanteria scale, like EVE, Elite and a million other games?
16/08/2009 at 14:31 MrBejeebus says:
Alot of good stuff here
16/08/2009 at 14:37 Jim Rossignol says:
Tei: No.
16/08/2009 at 14:47 EGTF says:
What is always_black up to these days anyway?
16/08/2009 at 14:48 Dracko says:
You forgot something super important and awesome!
http://jordanmechner.com/blog/2009/08/unfinished-last-express-prequel/
16/08/2009 at 14:54 Kieron Gillen says:
Dracko: It is awesome, but the sort of thing I was referring to in my little editor’s note.
KG
16/08/2009 at 15:00 Helm says:
“Actually, before I go onto the less-game-related stories, just something I’ve been thinking about. The Sunday Papers seems to have been ballooning in recent times. Which is great, but I can’t but help feel by having so much stuff here, a lot of it’s going to be overlooked. I’m thinking of actually spinning more stuff into actual RPS posts, leaving a body of work for here, but moving stuff which perhaps needs more concentrated debate to their own story.”
Yes please.
16/08/2009 at 15:03 sfury says:
The Abandonware Interview was good stuff. Just saying.
16/08/2009 at 15:10 Schaulustiger says:
What Indie strategy game should I be downloading today?
16/08/2009 at 15:11 reaper47 says:
Lou Castle:
“Part of the reason for that is the opinion leaders that drive console sales or even high-end PC sales are oftentimes very core opinion drivers that want a 60, 80 or even 90-hour experience of incredibly rich content. And frankly, if you make a game that doesn’t deliver that you’re relegated to the ‘not as important’ [category]. Nevermind the fact that 80% of your people are not going to get past 10% of your game. What that means is you’re spending 80% of your money, or maybe more when you consider all the costs of assets, on an ever decreasingly small part of your market that happens to be the opinion leaders.
“And frankly, it’s not just about all the things we just discussed; it’s also about the rental [and used] markets. When retailers are taking the lion’s share of the cash because the game gets sold 5 or 6 times, that might seem like an advantage to the consumer, but what they’re really doing is driving up the price of the games or driving away the opportunity to have those kinds of experiences. Because once it becomes economically unfeasible, the well will dry, there’s no doubt.”
Uhm, BS?
I can’t think of a single “opinion leader” that judges games by the quantity of content anymore. In fact, I’ve been searching for such an information source quite desperately. The closest I could find are probably hardcore-gamer amateur reviews on mobygames.com, hardly “leading” anything.
At the same time, one of the best-selling games of recent times was 80 hour gameplay/$100 million production GTA4, which probably made half a billion dollars by now.
Secondly, there is a striving borrowing and used-sales market for books. Plus FUCKING LIBRARIES! And I don’t see any drop in sales there. In fact, Joanne K. Rowling would agree it’s absurdly profitable. Why do games companies whine, asking for special treatment there?
16/08/2009 at 15:17 Alex Hayter says:
I agree that some stuff tends to be overlooked in the Sunday Papers, and I like the idea of worthy articles being given their own posts.
However, I like the low turnover rate that RPS has, with more attention-to-detail given to each post than your typical gaming blog (like good spelling and grammar, which Kotaku often lacks).
The more RPS stays away from the micro-blogging trend of current times, the better.
16/08/2009 at 15:20 TCM says:
I tend to not bother looking at 60% of the stuff in The Sunday Papers, choosing instead to cherry pick the most interesting links as tabs, so I wouldn’t mind articles being spread out over the week.
16/08/2009 at 15:21 Jim Rossignol says:
“like good spelling and grammar”
Are you sure?
Re: Microblogging. Yes, our intention is to be a “read” rather than a feed. We want to cover the news, but to provide stuff to spend time reading too.
16/08/2009 at 15:22 Dante says:
Valve are studying sign-language for a deaf-Half-life character. Interesting. As a twist ending the camera zooms out to third person at the end of episode three to reveal Gordon has been signing his way through the entire series.
16/08/2009 at 15:26 Xercies says:
Umm…what can I say about that Lady Gaga thing, involved in some conspiracies as i am I can’t really call it crazy since i would be a hypocrite. But tis interesting to be honest what someone gets out if they think about symbolism a lot and see things that other people would think that are not there.
Anyway I do believe that the games industry cannot survive that long with this increasing budget of games. Which is a bit of a shame since the more simpler games don’t really have a great story and don’t have that much of a world to explore.
Heres my thoughts in a bit more detail
http://wiseassthinkers.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/random-musings-why-im-afraid-of-the-casual-gaming-revolution/
I really think that simpler games does not always equal good. And it would be a shame that we lose all these big RPGs and big games because a lot of people care about graphics being really really good. I’m one for less graphics and more gameplay since I still can play really old games with rubbish graphics and still enjoy them. It disheartens me when I see things in games journalists say “you wouldn’t want to play this because the graphics haven’t aged at all and everything looks shite” I say stop being so superficial.
16/08/2009 at 15:30 Kieron Gillen says:
Schaulustiger : Finally giving AI War: Fleet Command a shot after Chick had a rave about it.
Will link in.
KG
16/08/2009 at 15:37 Matt W says:
FWIW, the Sunday Papers is part of my Monday morning ritual, and I read pretty much all of it (sometimes takes until mid-week to cover it all, but I get there). I suspect people who are actually going to read things are going to read them regardless of how and when you present them; the one thing that is sometimes a shame is that the most interesting bits don’t get the discussion they deserve (usually because of lolDRM or similar), but at the same time in the bigger picture I suspect that the discussion’s not what it’s for.
Also, if you’re reform-minded, please don’t ditch the non-gaming stuff – it’s often the most interesting thing I read all week (and I’m not just talking about RPS content here).
16/08/2009 at 15:38 Kieron Gillen says:
Oh, we won’t be ditching anything. This is addition, not replacement.
KG
16/08/2009 at 15:39 Tei says:
Oh.. now that I have more readingenergy, it seems the interplanetary gamming is talking about playing games on space and other planets, with pings of >2000ms or >8min
Strategy games would do. Or singleplayer games. etc.
No that cosmonauts have enough time for that… the last time the cosmonauts was able to use his time to watch a movie, the movie was region locked with DRM and the cosmonatus was unable to watch such movie. Ha.
16/08/2009 at 15:42 bill says:
Did anyone read this story on the BBC?
Apparently game sales are bigger, but profits aren’t
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8201332.stm
PS/ this is the only thing i’ve heard about this Edinburgh Interactive thingy…
16/08/2009 at 15:44 nine says:
I would like to see the sunday papers split up. Not every day, but how about every wednesday too? A small header to dilineate between different sorts of stories too would be nice. “Games”, “Meta”, and “Cool Music” or something?
16/08/2009 at 15:53 Kester says:
@Dante: That would be excellent. It also has the amusing effect of making all the people in the HL universe who have made a comment about Gordon’s silent tendencies into utter bastards.
16/08/2009 at 15:54 mist says:
@reaper: producing a book takes the writer ~ 1 year, and maybe another year in manhours by the editor/publisher/etc. Total costs: ~100k.
Producing those games which get sold 5 times takes hundreds of people multiple years. Total costs: tens of millions.
As a natural result, making a profit with a computer game is going to require different sales numbers than making a profit with a book.
Just because you can make a profit selling X with business model Z, really doesn’t mean that you can also make a profit selling Y with business model Z.
And game companies are not whining.. the guy here is noting a problem. “If making a game costs 30 million dollars, we need to sell 1 million copies to make a profit” (probable even more considering the share of the retailer etc). “if the audience for our product is only 3 million people, we’re going to have a real problem if 2.5 million of them are going to buy a used copy”.
you might say “well then don’t make a game that only has a maximum audience of 3 million people!”. Well yeah. That’s what the guy in the article was talking about. Eventually game developers will have to say “making game X is not going to be profitable considering the number of people who are likely to buy it… let’s instead make Wii Partygamez 2423″
16/08/2009 at 16:05 Arathain says:
I’d love to see a few individual posts on some of these articles. I love the Sunday Papers (and hope it continues) but I’d love to know more of RPS’s opinions on some of this stuff, and I’d be interested to see a more focused discussion. The comments on the Papers is understandably a bit diffuse, or focuses on one hot button issue.
The piece on Final Fantasy 8 was interesting. It’s the only FF game I almost finished, which must say something, given my attention span. I remember enjoying an interesting set of characters, and Squall’s progression to a functioning human being encouraged by Rinoa’s joi de vivre was emotionally engaging.
I found the ‘we all grew up together but just forgot’ twist very unsatisfying, though. I felt it came in the place of interesting backstories for decent characters, since in effect they all had the same one. I’m glad the author got something more out of it.
I still don’t know how I managed to sit through all those summon cut-scenes.
16/08/2009 at 16:12 Vinraith says:
Spool off anything you like, I tend to cherry pick pretty heavily anyway.
16/08/2009 at 16:13 Man Raised By Puffins says:
Huh, didn’t realise Deluxe Paint was used as a professional arts package. Good article that.
I dunno, the real illuminati might have just been cribbing ideas from Invisible War’s NG Resonance.
16/08/2009 at 16:15 Chris Evans says:
I too would like to see some more discussion of bigger topics spread out across the week, would provide a chance for discussions on specific topics. The reason I don’t comment much in the Sunday Papers is because everyone seems to end up talking about just one article and getting carried away with the debates.
16/08/2009 at 16:33 Cooper says:
Shorter Sunday Papers would be appreciated. Interesting stuff deserving its own link, if only as a short post on the main page is A. Good. Idea. (TM)
I don’t necessarily have hours on a Sunday to peruse these links, but can find the odd 20 minutes during the week here and there to tuck into specific pieces flagged up.
16/08/2009 at 16:34 The Fanciest of Pants says:
Cheers for another sunday papers.
I’m all for more RPS-endorsed linkage by the way, any time of the week.
16/08/2009 at 16:47 JonFitt says:
I think holding over the meaty discussion topics in The Sunday Papers for weekday posts is a great idea.
I often don’t have time to read them all and many stories get missed.
16/08/2009 at 17:02 Casimir's Blake says:
Keep in mind, this is the woman that gave us the execrable and relentlessly irritating “Just Dance”…
16/08/2009 at 17:10 Casimir's Blake says:
Argh, where is the edit function!?
The shareware article starts with a debateable fact already, which isn’t good news.
1993 onwards, no. DOS was still a mess of configuration issues, and DirectX was barely a twinkle in Bill Gates’ eye. I’d argue that sometime towards the end of the 90s, perhaps around the era of the Geforce 2, things became what they are now: PC + 3D hardware + Windows = Wintel gaming platform.
Not that I like it, just saying.
16/08/2009 at 17:15 Fraser says:
Bill, about Edinburgh Interactive, I was there with a dotcomrade and we covered it (and are continuing to do so) for a site called . Resolution have also just published my preview of APB which was based on a screening and developer interview at the event. My indie column over there next week will be to do with the scene in Toronto, again based on interviews (one guy from Capybara games and the president of Interactive Ontario).
Shameless self promotion I know, but hey, you threw me the opportunity.
16/08/2009 at 17:20 Fraser says:
Oh dear, I really badly messed up the HTML there.
Here are the links:
http://thunderboltgames.com/
http://resolution-magazine.co.uk/content/preview-apb/
16/08/2009 at 17:50 Mr Lizard says:
Based on that Billion Dollar Gram, the Illuminati are considerably better at managing pop singers (Lady Gaga, NG Resonance) than they are at secretly manipulating world events.
16/08/2009 at 18:09 reaper47 says:
@mist:
The hatred of the games industry towards used game sales is striking. I’m not talking about this article in particular, but for example, I recently saw the creators of Assassin’s Creed list the used games market next to piracy. As if they were even remotely comparable (I think they are, actually, but probably not in the way the companies think of either).
I find it disappointing, especially, how quality is absolutely ignored in the equation, like it isn’t even a factor! Why did “Lady in the Water” flop? A $75 mil production? You’re not seriously telling me it was piracy? Or the “used video” market?
I don’t like how much thinking game execs seem to spend on fighting windmills, while staying ignorant towards anything even remotely related to quality or consumer goodwill. I really don’t need “used games” as yet another excuse why games have to be made more shitty to sell. Or need even more ridiculous DRM…
16/08/2009 at 18:11 dartt says:
I’m all for more posts but my work output wanes as yours waxes; I fear for my job…
16/08/2009 at 19:01 Hermit says:
“Lady Gaga: Puppet Of The Illuminati. One for the Deus Ex 3 writers to consider integrating, methinks.”
It’s been done. Lady GaGa and NG Resonance are the same artificial construct.
16/08/2009 at 19:11 invisiblejesus says:
Another ignorant Yank question regarding used game sales: do retailers actually stock used PC games in any significant quantity on the other side of the pond? Console games obviously have a thriving used market, but I’m not aware of any store in my region where I can expect to find used PC games in a noticable quanitity. Is this a US thing? Maybe a New England thing and if I go out west or south it’ll be different? I’ve heard comments about the damage used game sales does to PC gaming (again, not talking about console games), but when I actually walk into a store and look at what is actually on the shelves I see a couple small shelves of new PC games, no used PC games at all, and then tons of new and used console games.
16/08/2009 at 19:16 Vinraith says:
@invisiblejesus
It’s no different down here in Kentucky. A few new PC games on the shelf, no used PC games anywhere in a retail store, and tons of console games (new and used) all over the place.
My understanding (from having this discussion on other boards) is that used PC retail is more common across the pond. Here in the US it’s an internet-only thing as far as I know, though I’ll freely admit to buying a LOT of used PC games via eBay and the like in years past. These days, between restrictive DRM and digital download sales, there’s increasing pressure to just buy new and cheap.
16/08/2009 at 19:25 Freudian Trip says:
From living in the UK for the last few years I’d say that it’s almost impossible to find NEW PC games at retail let alone used.
Wheres that picture of HMV’s ‘PC Game of the Week’ being Norton Anti-Virus when you need it?
16/08/2009 at 19:37 Andrew says:
Used pc games is a sadly almost non existent in uk retail stores these days. The only shop that really has any at all is Playtime and CEX. Heck all the other stores wont even take pc games back due to silly fears of piracy and people buying games that wont work on their pcs.
16/08/2009 at 19:47 arqueturus says:
@reaper47
While I agree with the general gist of your arguement, I’m not sure books and software can be compared to each other as the piece references the production costs. I’m sure the production cost of a book doesn’t really compare to a game, in fact I wonder if it’s easier to make a profit from a book than a game.
16/08/2009 at 19:50 Xercies says:
Yeah I don’t see how used PC Games can kill the industry when there are basically none out there, and I don’t think the people selling some on ebay are taking out that much money from the industry. Its just another piss poor excuse from the companies who are bloody greedy.
I wouldn’t even be surprised if they were owned by the Illuminati.
16/08/2009 at 19:54 Robin says:
@Casimir’s Blake: It’s meant to be a theory, not a fact. :)
Interestingly a lot of the people who have disputed my arbitrary 1993 cut-off point have argued that it’s too late, citing earlier Sierra, Origin, Lucasarts, etc. PC titles – most of which had a very limited reach in the UK, unless they were ported to other platforms (e.g. the Amiga) as well.
…
@reaper47: Where are the chain retailers giving over a substantial part of their floorspace to selling used DVDs and hustling their customers into trading them in? Used game sales are OK in moderation, but when I hear about companies like GameStop making them the core focus of their business, obviously that’s not in the best interests of publishers (who can’t negotiate fair wholesale prices) or consumers (who have to contend with artificially high retail prices, increasingly ridiculous ‘limited editions’ and ever-dwindling choice), and ultimately it’s not sustainable. Sure, some publishers are going to use it as an excuse for poor performance, but the fact is the only games that aren’t getting clobbered by preowned are mega-franchises like Call of Duty. As good as they are, they’re not ten times better than everything else on the market.
16/08/2009 at 19:59 KindredPhantom says:
I do wish Square-Enix would release Final Fantasy on the pc again.
Final Fantasy 8 seemed more grounded fantasy compared to the massive word eloping final fantasy’s 7 & 9. It has a certain charm to it and was the first to introduce a card game mini-game which i lost patience with.
16/08/2009 at 20:00 Heliocentric says:
I get loads of low budget titles used. Often stuff i would never ever try at the prices the portals like steam and gamersgate want. Hell, often times i’ve been able to register the key with a service. Be it steam, blizzard or the multiplayer servers.
As a karmic retribution of sorts i found that the new copy of age of mythology doesn’t support multiplayer because the publisher (ubisoft) put a generic key on every box. Blah!
So yes, when the retail and digital price is high, i know there is no activation issues and the key is likely okay (when the game is practically new) i’ll snap it up 2nd hand.
So i’m the guilty party you are talking about. I never actually trade in though.
16/08/2009 at 20:05 We Fly Spitfires - MMORPG Blog says:
Great links, thanks! Will need to slowly read through them :P
16/08/2009 at 20:07 Casimir's Blake says:
Thanks for replying Robin. I would be tempted to agree that 1993 is probably the most appropriate year for which to claim the start of the “DOS gaming era”. VGA became widely used, Soundblasters became a standard, as did the “joystick/MIDI” ports, and – of course – Doom came out. Perhaps also we could say that Shareware grew up: it didn’t mean half-baked graphics or gameplay any more. Titles like Doom or In Pursuit Of Greed (remember that?) could stand up to “commercial” releases of the time, quite easily.
But yes, about 1998-1999 this all gave way to Windows and 3D acelleration. Hence my comment.
Otherwise, though, it was a superb article and – having grown up, and enjoyed many games in that era – I thoroughly enjoyed it.
16/08/2009 at 20:07 Heliocentric says:
I need to add that 2 years ago i got a mint condition copy of system shock 2 for £3. A game which otherwise exists only in myth. If system shock 2 was actually available anywhere legally digitally i’d buy it again of course. So i guess what i’m trying to say is, get that shit on gog, steam and gamersgate.
16/08/2009 at 22:14 Dracko says:
KG: I expect a huge entry soon, then!
16/08/2009 at 22:17 ascagnel says:
I loved reading the article on Lady Gaga. If there’s any celebrity that’s batshit insane, she’s it.
Plus they wouldn’t have to do much to make her look like a mechanically-modded character for a cameo in DX3.
16/08/2009 at 22:27 Larington says:
Wasn’t DirectX originally owned by someone else and then later bought out by MSoft after they realised its value to their OS?
16/08/2009 at 22:59 BinhoF says:
I dunno, where I lived in the UK there were a lot of used PC games for dirt cheap. I picked up Max Payne for 1 pound, and JK: Dark Forces II for 1 pound as well.
I don’t have much trouble finding PC Games…Aside from Fallout 3, which I havn’t been able to find anywhere, neither in the UK or in Holland …so I had to torrent it.
Here in holland, in one store in the Hague they sell their old (pre-2000!) stock for good prices. I picked up X-Wing Alliance and X-Wing vs. TIE-Fighter for 15 euros each, in the original cardboard boxes with all the original manuals and everything! They also have stuff like Wing Commander, and I think I even saw the original Tomb Raider in there.
16/08/2009 at 23:39 wcaypahwat says:
I’ve only got one store nearby (australia) that sells second hand PC games.
They’ve had barely any stock rotation in 3 years, and 90% of what they have can be had for half price as a budget re-release. But its good if you’re a sucker for original box’s and such.
17/08/2009 at 01:32 perilisk says:
Actually, it makes Gordon an utter bastard, since we’re pretty sure he can hear if the gamer can hear. Faker!
17/08/2009 at 02:40 krl says:
I don’t mind it ballooning, as it is my favorite part of RPS. I probably look forward more to this than any other post. Great stuff as always.
17/08/2009 at 04:16 Saul says:
Break off and expand as much as you like– the more RPS to read, the better! I read almost every story you blog about during the week, but it is hard to get through the entire Sunday Papers, so I tend to cherry-pick. Would help if you directed more attention toward the “important” ones.
17/08/2009 at 05:11 Shalrath says:
“At the same time, one of the best-selling games of recent times was 80 hour gameplay/$100 million production GTA4, which probably made half a billion dollars by now.”
Not to mention that ’80 hours of gameplay’ is a pretty liquid number, not to mention different to different people. Some would say the goddamn Mario 1/2/3 series of games is 80+ hours, because it often took that to master it. I’ve put 80+ into Fallout 3 and Mass Effect, but I’m willing to bet you could power through it in 6-8 hours.
I think what people DO want is QUALITY gameplay that lends itself to replayability. I don’t need a game that takes 90 hours to beat. I need (want) a game that I WILL spend 90 hours playing.
Queue the value of TF2 vs. Call of Duty 4 (for me.) I disliked the multiplayer (I had a series of screenshots showing me dying four deaths in a row to the same strafing run on my spawn), and I absolutely HATED the walk to ‘x’ and enemies stop clown-car-exiting the 10×12 room singleplayer. So to me, it’s about a game that brings me back.
17/08/2009 at 06:44 Gpig says:
I still have a few tabs open from last weeks sunday paper that I didn’t finish reading(but will). I like not having the sunday papers spread out across the week but it does suck that usually only one thing will ever really get discussed in the comments (DRM, it’s always DRM) and the things that either seemed to raise some interesting points or effected me have very little discussion. I don’t think the photoessay of trailer trash would get it’s own newspost though.
(and again, I wouldn’t want it to. I feel like shit if I try to keep up with too much so this is the only game blog I read because it doesn’t keep up with every little thing that comes out of the industry like I’m training to be a gaming historian. I wouldn’t want to have 10 news posts every day. I already have that problem when I don’t check for a few days.)
17/08/2009 at 07:12 LewieP says:
@Freudian Trip
For future use:
http://savygamer.co.uk/2009/04/hmv-do-not-get-pc-gamers.html
17/08/2009 at 07:45 uberman says:
To be honest, the main reason I hoped the interview would be a post and not a Sunday Paper was because the posts come up on the ‘Revisit an old story’ panel. I often find myself picking through odds and ends because of that panel. The Sunday Papers are a little more transitory, while the posts seem to be blessed with a kind of permanence.
It’s not too late, Keiron ! IT’S NEVER TOO LATE !
17/08/2009 at 07:53 uberman says:
By the way, that’s how we spell your name here in Bangkok. Not a typo, no sir.
17/08/2009 at 08:45 Lars Westergren says:
Ahh… Final Fantasy 8, the game that killed off my *very* brief affair with JRPGs (which started with FF7). I really can’t see how anyone can call the writing, the love story or the coming of age stuff as profound…
But what made me really actively dislike it was all the glaring plot holes. Mind you it was almost 9 years since I played it, and maybe I missed something, but this is what I remember. (Obvously, *SPOILERS*)
- Protagonists supposed to be a world elite military force, but act like whiny spoiled arguing 13 year olds, with discipline that wouldn’t be acceptable in junior scouts.
- They can “draw” power from enemies by hopping forward one step and frowning at them. How does this drawing ability work metaphysically? Why can’t anyone else do this? Is no-one freaked out by these kids who draw life force remotely from everyone like vampires? Never explained, never mentioned again and taken for granted after the initial tutorial battle.
- Everyone suffers from collective amnesia, just so they can go “Oh so we all knew each other as kids, even the evil sorceress queen we have been fighting! How profound!” Why did they all get amnesia all at once?
- There is a mythological country, which turns out to be slightly more technologically advanced than other countries and takes up half the area of the planet, yet they remain a myth and have no contact with anyone else. Why? How? (a power shield that protects against being detected by everyone and everything apparently).
- Protagonists all dream about 3 soldiers in enemy army. Then you meet them in the game on the other continent where they have become the rulers and everyone goes “Yay! The people we dreamed about! Cool!” Why did they dream about them? What was the point?
- A flying fortress. Who built it like that? Why? If you can make it levitate, why not put some bloody cannons on it?
… to me it felt like the writers just sat down with some nifty concept arts and a checklist of the “musts have things” in a Final Fantasy title – “a strange flying vehicle, going into space and under the sea at some point, mecha enemies, emo kids with self-esteem and other emotional issues relevant to 13-year olds, a big disaster wiping out someones home town at some point, etc” and then wrote a thin story around it.
One of the three soldiers (was his name Laguna?) where in early press releases described as an investigative journalist, and was hinted at being an occasional transvestite, possibly a bisexual, and mystically linked to the hero somehow, but the ear-piercing shriek of puritan outrage from fans seemed to have made the developers scrap a large part of that plot, which may be why the subplot of the three soldiers you dream of are so pointless.
I also didn’t like how the girls who, even though one of them is a senior instructor at a military academy, immediately lets the boys, especially Squall, take charge. They are passive, shy and chaste, so they are good girls. Independent women are evil tyrants who dress in clothes that show their boobs. I got this vibe of, if not mysogany then at least fear of adult sexuality.
17/08/2009 at 08:53 Psychopomp says:
“…but the ear-piercing shriek of puritan outrage from fans…”
JRPG fanboys/fangirls are the reason the genre is so stagnant.
Look at FFXII, a game that actually tried to push the genre forward, and is reviled by said genre’s fans for “not being a real RPG.” Hell, the only reason the obligatory bishonen exists, is because they realized they could hope to sell a single copy to their fans without one. Early versions of the story centered completely around Basch. They threw Vaan in, and pushed him out of the way as soon as possible, to make room for the *actual* main characters.
As for the amnesia in FF8, the guardian forces slowly cause you to lose your memories. It’s never implied that they lost them all at once.
17/08/2009 at 09:04 Lars Westergren says:
>As for the amnesia in FF8, the guardian forces slowly cause you to lose your memories. It’s never implied that they lost them all at once.
Ahh, I see. So I did miss something. Thanks.
17/08/2009 at 10:06 Ginger Yellow says:
So, is one of you going to be doing a Wot I Think on AI Wars? Tom Chick’s description of it as Sins meets Tower Defence sounds very enticing, but, well, Tom has strange taste in games. And it sounds like the demo doesn’t really give you much of a feel for how the gameplay develops.
17/08/2009 at 10:26 Shkspr says:
Lou Castle is, quite frankly, smoking crack if he’s going to spin shitty console games sales as being due to games getting sold “5-6 times”. Even GameStop, whose core business plan revolves around used sales, still sees three times as many new games sell as used games. Let’s run a few numbers.
Let’s say that a retailer, on a US$60 copy of Halo 3, earns about $12. That’s actually more than they usually get, but it’ll make the math easier. Let’s also say that this retailer buys used copies of Halo 3 for US$14, and sells them for $50. That’s actually less than they usually offer to buy it for, but again, easy math is good.
Like GameStop, this retailer makes about half of their gross profit on used games. So for every $36 they make on used game sales (one copy of Halo 3), they will also make $36 on new game sales (three copies of Halo 3). As a check, let’s figure up the total profit for the retailer under this scenario: US$72 total on 3 $60 new games and one $50 game adds up to a gross profit margin of 31.5%, which is actually a little higher (but then, I made the math easy) than the actual gross margin GameStop enjoys of 27% or so. All those old sports games from 3 years ago and lackluster shooters nobody cares about anymore actually bring the profit down a bit.
This isn’t about retailers sucking up 2.5 million of the 3 million potential sales on a title by cutting the developer out of 80% of their profit. We’re talking about the retailer pocketing US$72 rather than $48 of the $230 that has been spent in toto on four pieces of software, and developer revenues dropping by 25%. It’s still a significant chunk, but I’ve got got a saying I like to use to describe the book business: a new bookstore can stock the 30,000 best selling books on the market. A used bookstore can stock the 30,000 best books of which the public would rather have two dollars than own.
If the games industry really wants to make up that “extra” 10% of the gross the retailer is taking (and that is keeping it afloat), maybe it should stop making games people are going to want to trade for $14 after a couple weeks.