I don’t think the general public is quite ready for a controller-less system. First off, I find one of the most charming aspects of gaming to be that I can do it while relaxing on the couch with a beer. While things like Wii Fit have their place (in the closet, covered with dust, apparently), I prefer to keep my workout in the gym and my gaming nice and sedentary.
Secondly, while controller-less systems are touted as completely intuitive and natural, I think the casual market finds them the opposite. I had the pleasure of getting together with the HarlotFamily over Easter break to re-enact a Wii commercial: three generations all cozying up to the soulless glow of the big screen to do some virtual bowling. (And, you know, drinking heavily.) I’ve seen a lot of inexperienced gamers interact with regular controllers, and the way my family dealt with the Wiimotes was very similar: apprehensive, clumsy, and kind of confused. Maybe my family is just a little slow, but I think hardware companies might be overestimating the user-friendliness of motion sensing controllers. Multiply that by having to learn voice commands and gestures and interacting with a game system in a completely new way, and I think it could be quite a challenge for casual gamers.
Finally, unless Microsoft is planning on pulling a Nintendo-esque “What’s that, core player fanbase? You want games that don’t involve pretending to be a wedding planner or playing a musical instrument? SHUN!” reversal, I wouldn’t consider the 360 to be the most family-friendly platform. While I adore playing on Live, it is a hive of scum, villainy, and squeaky voiced 13 year old boys calling everyone some witty variation of “homosexual.” Somehow, I can’t see them calling up their friends via Natal and discussing what they’re going to wear to the party tonight. I realize that this whole thing is a push to get casual gamers and all, but I would caution Microsoft to be wary of pushing their former players out.
Despite all my snarkiness, I think it’s going to be a really neat toy. But whether game developers will be able to turn it into something lasting and innovative remains to be seen.
In case you have been living under a rock for the last two months, Microsoft did indeed announce their speculated motion-sensing peripheral for the 360, codenamed Project Natal, at E3. (For your geeky cocktail party needs, it’s pronounced na-TAHL, and it looks kind of like an evil robot head.) And, in case you had any doubts who M’s target market is, check out their simulated use trailer, just bursting at the seams with good clean family fun:
Aww, how utterly wholesome. Little Timmy can pretend to be a monster, Big Sis Sarah can get fashion advice, and Mom and Dad can snuggle on the couch watching Netflix movies in between all that family bonding!
(Oops, sorry. Did I get a little bit of cynic on you? Here, have a tissue.)
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s fantastic that motion-cap/facial recognition tech that sensitive will soon available for personal use. (The live demo from E3 is particularly impressive; bonus points for the blatantly bitchy shot at the Wii.) It’s definitely a revolutionary piece of equipment. But is revolutionary what their target market (read: casual gamers) really wants?
Let me know what y’all think… my answer will be forthcoming as well.
One of the most hyped events in a gamer’s year is coming up soon: yes, I speak of E3, claiming to be with 90% less suck this year. Regardless of whether it lives up to its claims of awesomeness, there’s already a lot of juicy gossip going around. Here are some of the more intriguing stories, ribbed for her pleasure:
- Rich Taylor, VP of communications and research for the ESA, says the public might be allowed in someday… but not this year, suckers.
- Atari says “thx but j/k” to showing up to the expo.
- Microsoft says via Twitter: “June 2009 will be an important month for Zune lovers. New product launch, that’s all I’m allowed to say. Hold off from buying an iPhone/Pre.” Unveiling a new portable gaming device, perhaps? (PS - Do any Zune lovers exist?) Also: they keep talking about something revolutionary, perhaps a camera motion capture system? Ooh, mysterious.
- Like many 3 year relationships, Sony might be trading in that old PS3 for a younger, slimmer model. Shallow, perhaps, but you gotta keep things interesting.
I’m really interested to see how E3 plays out this year. It’s kind of like our celebrity culture: we shrug when they do well, but it’s only when they fuck up that we pay attention.
MMOs have become pretty ubiquitous these days; it’s a safe bet that your clueless coworkers will at least know what World of Warcraft is, even if they look at you blankly when you launch into the finer points of theorycraft and epic lootz.
According to an article on MMORPG Examiner, however, there’s still a new market out there: the Middle East.
“The absence of MMO Game publishers in the region have resulted in the state of unawareness about the concept of MMO Gaming.
Many gamers in the region have no idea that there is a genre of games where you “live” at, play and interact with thousands of others, and improve your “game life” as you play your way through. Many starting players were confused at not being able to find the “Game Over” of the game, or at not being able to aim while shooting a monster.”
Seems a new company named Game Power 7 aims to change that, with a unique challenge: making MMOs more understandable to a completely different culture. GP7 took the free Asian MMO Rappelz and tailored it to their target audience.
One of the more startling changes is the lack of chainmail bikinis, illustrated at the slideshow at the bottom of the article. While the characters mostly retain their “fantasy” look, GP7 decided to make the outfits much less revealing to keep to the higher standards of female modesty in their target countries. (Sorry, guys; no more making a female alt and dancing in your underwear in front of the AH. Tragic, I know.)
Also interesting was the process of removing any religious symbols; again, on the premise of making the game more understandable (and, obviously, less contraversial), according to Fadi Mujahid, GM at GP7: “the original story talks about three races and three gods, which is very odd to our culture. We had to modify that to make it about three nations and three kings.”
I have to admit, I initially rolled my eyes at the whole process of “censoring” a MMO. But reading more into the story, it seems like Game Power 7 genuinely wants to bring a new style of gaming to a new market on their terms. While it may seem overly conservative to Western gamers, I think it makes sense to err on the side of caution and avoid inadvertently killing the emerging market.
Video games are a great uniting force, and the more we have in common with people from different cultures, the more we’ll realize that we’re all just geeks at heart.
“It generally isn’t the reactions of the developers and publishers themselves that cause problems. It’s their perception of how the players will react that results in them making unwise decisions.”
I went to visit the HarlotParents for Easter, and I was sitting in the airport tapping away on Pixel (my new mini 9!) when I noticed something. The flight was headed to Orlando, so as usual there were tons of kids in the terminal, many of them glued to a Nintendo DS. But I was struck by the fact that there were no adults similarly equipped. (My own DS was tucked safely in my bag for later, naturally.)
Granted, kids with a handheld system are pretty much the norm; I know I spent much of my childhood absently following my mother around a mall while stomping Koopas. But game stores are awash with DS games marketed to adults, offering everything from cooking instruction to Japanese lessons. And, most notably, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, M-rated media darling and bane of parents everywhere.
“Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter had estimated that Chinatown Wars could sell 400,000 units—but as of March NPD, the game had sold only 89,000.”
Ouch.
The article goes on to make a few good points: most “older” DS players are women and might not be interested in GTA (what do they know?), or that people might have already bought the game for another console.
Interestingly, they’re not blaming Take-Two:
“Pachter reiterates his position that any sales weakness can’t be attributed to Take-Two—‘we can’t say that Take-Two made a bad game or marketed it poorly,’ he says. ‘Instead, they created an M-rated game for a largely E and T audience, and those DS owners who are legally allowed to buy an M-rated game are not particularly interested.’
‘The bottom line is that we’re very confident in Chinatown Wars’ potential for long-term success,” counters Take-Two. “We think it’s going to have a long life in the market, as we’ve seen with other GTA titles.’
However, Pachter maintains: ‘There’s no point making games for an audience that is not there.’
Audience Participation for extra credit: Am I wrong in my observations and adults in other cities are playing DS like crazy? Or could this be the death of M-rated games on the DS?
I played EVE Online about a year ago, just enough to have a little fun with the 14 day trial and then decide it was not for me. I will say it is a very unique game, and the culture (read: drama) surrounding it is pretty fascinating. One of the things that really stood out was the ability to level up your skillset while you were logged out of the game: queue up the skill you wanted to learn, go out with friends, and come back a little smarter.
The problem with the system was that you could only have one skill training at any given time, and if that finished before you could get back to the computer you wasted precious hours.
Well, if you are the proud owner of an iPhone, consider the problem solved with the release of a handy new app called Capsuleer 2.0. Features include skill tracking, server and buddy status, ISK management, EVE news and other cool stuff.
Massively has an interesting interview up with the creators that’s worth a read, particularly their process for streamlining logins to allow players easy access to their data.
While Capsuleer is a cool little toy, I can’t say I’m surprised to see it. In fact, I get the feeling it’s only a matter of time before we see more MMOs jump on the bandwagon and make themselves available to smartphone apps. Hell, I had a friend back in WoW who I swear spent more time “playing” the auction house than he did actually questing; I can see a mobile version of Auctioneer selling spectacularly well.
The question is, how addictive will it be to have 24/7 access to your MMO of choice? I’m reminded of the short story “Virus” by Neil Gaiman:
“Of course I spend a lot of time playing it.
So do my friends. And their friends.
And just the people you meet, you can see them,
walking down the old motorways
or standing in queues, away from their computers,
away from the arcades that sprang up overnight,
but they play it in their heads in the meantime,
combining shapes,
puzzling over contours, putting colors next to colors,
twisting signals to new screen sections,
listening to the music.”
Doing business on the internet can be interesting sometimes. It’s kind of like having a nice house; at first you want to invite all of your dearest friends and everyone they know to come hang out. Then you realize that the friends-of-friends have been stealing all your stuff, and so your solution is to shove everyone out, lock the doors behind them, and hire beefy security to make sure they don’t sneak back in. (For a more concrete example, recall the whole Spore debacle where EA decided it would be best to treat everyone like game stealin’ pirates immediately.)
This is not to say I don’t have sympathy for the creators of music and games; it must be quite infuriating to spend hours of hard work and not see at least a respectable monetary response. But at the same time, one has to strike a balance between protecting one’s work and alienating one’s fans.
One solution, according to Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, is to fire your security, fling open the doors and welcome anyone to take everything in the house, play with it, and make new things with it:
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t think music should be free,” Reznor says. “But the climate is such that it’s impossible for me to change that, because the record labels have established a sense of mistrust. So everything we’ve tried to do has been from the point of view of, ‘What would I want if I were a fan? How would I want to be treated?’ Now let’s work back from that. Let’s find a way for that to make sense and monetize it.”
Over the past year, NIN.com has quietly evolved into a series of interlocking services designed to deliver maximum benefit to the fans at minimal expense to the artist. To build it out, Reznor decided to use off-the-shelf resources — Blogger, Twitter, FeedBurner, Flickr, YouTube — rather than trying to duplicate what other people had already created. “They’re going to do a better job than we are,” he explains, “and they’re going to have a lot more resources to put into it.”
“We’re using what people are already using every day anyway,” adds Sheridan, a smaller figure with a three-day growth of beard and pale, wolf-blue eyes. “It’s media on the fans’ terms, how they want to use it, instead of trying to be like this” — he wraps his arms around his torso as if trying to hold himself in — “which is the old-media strategy.”
Their most recent project is creating an iPhone app which will function as a massive database and band-centric social network.
I suppose one could assume that NIN is being naive or that this is all a clever marketing ploy, but I personally would be much more inclined to fling money at a company that promotes creativity and works with the tide of the internet than one who sits with their fingers in their ears trying to pretend that the times aren’t changing.
Apparently it’s pro gaming week in my brain; funny how that works, isn’t it?
I’m pretty sure that all gamers have at some point fantasized about being handed big bags of cash (and having their image on gaming peripherals and heart-stoppingly caffeinated energy drinks) just for kicking ass at their favorite game. Unfortunately for the pro gamers of the world, the economy is taking a toll on cyberathletics as more companies decide sponsorships are a waste of money.
Witness one man’s tale of woe, covered in an article in the New York Times:
“...Video games may be as popular as ever — people in more than 65 percent of American households play, according to the Entertainment Software Association — but the professional sport of gaming has nearly collapsed.
Major companies have pulled sponsorships and several tournaments have folded. And in November, News Corporation and DirecTV unexpectedly shut down the Championship Gaming Series.
Rodriguez and more than 100 salaried players had their short-lived dreams dashed. He returned to the job he left in 2007, at Sam’s Club.”
The article goes on to say that the only viable circuit left is Major League Gaming, and they’re damn excited about it:
““We have driven everybody else out of the business,” Matthew Bromberg, the league’s president and chief executive, said in a recent interview at his office in Manhattan. “The history of league sports begins with one league.’”
Mhm. You and the economy, Mr. B, but don’t let me rain on your parade.
I do have to give MLG reluctant credit for keeping the pro circuit alive at all, but I worry that one company in control of the whole thing will make it a lot harder for new gamers to rise in the ranks. Still, I’m not too concerned; thanks to things like XBox Live, gamers gathered in living rooms everywhere, and tournaments at cons and other events, I think cyberathletics will make it through.
There’s been lots of talk lately centered on various consoles, so here’s a handy rundown of all the hot stories to impress your friends with at the next geek gathering:
First off, the rumors are true: Sony announces an upcoming price drop for the PS...2. Starting in April, you can pick one up for the “bargain” price of 99.99, but the question is, would you want to? The only thing I can see happening is unwitting parents buying one for the kids only to discover that all the hot new ultraviolent games that Junior wants to play are on PS3. Won’t someone think of the children?
Secondly, you might want to just hand over your wallet now: rumor had it that Blizzard and Microsoft were plotting (no doubt in their secret portable lair made of money and gold-painted women) together regarding the next gen of consoles. While the rumor has already been pretty thoroughly squashed (turns out they just like to “bounce ideas off each other"), a pairing would be a formidable force indeed.
And finally: if you unloaded an old game console to Circuit City before they went under, I hope you got rid of all your personal info, credit card numbers, and homemade porn (seriously?), because if not, some family is going to have a hell of a surprise with your old machine. Clearly, your console is taking revenge on you for kicking it to the curb.
So there you have it. If cheap consoles, an unholy alliance and the potential for someone else seeing your homemade porn can’t get a conversation started, you’re on your own.
“Television is the first truly democratic culture - the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want.” - Clive Barnes
While I have a natural “scream and run” reflex regarding reality television, I steadied myself for the sake of journalism and took a look at a show that’s been getting a lot of publicity with the geek set lately: WCG Ultimate Gamer.
It has all the trappings of the standard “reality tv” setup: people with wacky fashion sense who, thanks to the miracle of selective editing, would probably fit neatly into any bad teen movie (The Jock, The Punk, The Guy with the Stupid Colored Contacts). The staple tropes of phony alliances, jealousy, backstabbing, and carefully crafted sexual tension were out in force. The premise of the series is people playing “real life” versions of video games and then the games themselves; the first episode featured Rock Band 2, so in addition to playing the game they had to get up on a real stage and sing a song in front of The Donnas.
I do have to give credit to producers for picking “normal” people to be on the show; they all compete at some level or work in the games industry, and for the most part present themselves as friendly and social. Granted, there’s a little goofiness, but that’s definitely part of the charm of being a geek.
The thing that struck me most was the final elimination round, which consisted of two of the competitors playing The Offspring’s “Come Out and Play” in Rock Band 2. Specifically, the full studio audience, who were cheering like they were paid for it, as if they were watching something other than two people standing mostly still, clicking away at plastic guitars.
For a point of reference, I’m the type of girl who will tolerate watching someone else play a game as long as I get to go next. Granted, Ultimate Gamer at least adds some human interest with getting to know the gamers in question, but do people enjoy watching other people game?
I would argue that the entertainment in video games is in actually playing the game. Seems obvious, but in the age where gamers have dedicated fans (and rightly so; there’s some amazing talent out there) and ESPN is covering the Major League Gaming Championship on prime time TV, it seems that gaming has also become a spectator sport. Some gaming genres naturally lend themselves better to this than others; I’d be much more inclined to watch a buddy run around in a shooter than watch them slog through a text-heavy RPG. Sadly, I think watching someone play Rock Band falls into the “boring as fuck” category; wonder if the audience was actually excited, or if they just clapped when the APPLAUSE sign lit up?
In any case, WCG Ultimate Gamer is a relatively interesting show. To my shame, I find myself wanting to check out the next episodes; not only to see if watching the contestants play other game types is any more entertaining, but also to see some amazing pro gamers at work.
Apparently the game developers at Titmouse (tee hee) have been spying on my brainwaves:
Described as an “over-the-top action game about an Alien Bounty Huntress who comes to earth in search of the creature that killed her father, only to find herself caught in a blood feud between rival gangs of Vampires and Zombies,” Fistful of Blood will contain “enough aliens, zombies, vampires, guns, blood, gore, vengeance, and sexy chicks… to take down a stampeding elephant.
I have no idea what’s going on here, except that it appears to involve head-sized gems, co-op play, lots of explosions, candy colors, top hats, and Verdi’s “Dies Irae,” and that’s good enough for me. You’ve really got to hand it to The Behemoth; they take basic 2D graphics and the ever classic side-scrolling platformer concept and add an incredible amount of personality and style. One could argue that the gameplay looks a lot like Castle Crashers (except for more opera and less castles) but I think that TB’s just found a very specific niche and they’ve been successful enough to continue running with it.
Downer: 2010. Oh well, a little teasing never hurt anyone.
Gone are the days in which a simple ad in a gaming magazine with some busty chick (who may or may not have had anything to do with the game) was enough to sell the product. Hell, gone are the days of gaming magazines; my free year of Game Informer got a cursory glance every month before being flung aside for the infinite-scrolling info porn that is my RSS reader.
How does one compete? By advertising your game in a manner that will make people pause that scroll wheel and see your wacky idea. A few of my favorites lately:
Resident Evil 5 is rolling out a scavenger hunt in Trafalgar Square, London. But don’t bring the kids - you’re hunting for severed body parts, with the grand prize being either a trip to Africa or permanent psychological scarring if you go diving in the wrong dumpster.
A little more subtle is the new Bioshock2 teaser site, There’s Something in The Sea. The news broke today that it’s probably just your big sister trying to scare you, but the site is pleasantly creepy and updated frequently enough to keep things interesting. (Fun fact: leaving the site tabbed behind a stack of other ones, promptly forgetting about it, and then returning to your computer a few hours later and wondering if it’s possessed is quite entertaining.)
Finally, one that truly brightened up my day: Brian Crecente over at Kotaku posted a series of motivational postcards he’s been getting promoting the Wii port of Dead Rising. (Personal favorite: “Humanity: it’s whats for dinner.") If they ever end up poster-sized, I’m totally getting all three for the HarlotLair.
It’s nice to know that even if a game ends up sucking, the ad campaign provided some decent entertainment. Props to all the agencies involved.
