Geek Bravado

The blown hard arrogance of Parallax Abstraction.

On Nintendo

2 Comments Posted by Parallax Abstraction on April 30, 2013

I’m a Nintendo fan. Now, don’t read that as me saying I’m a Nintendo fanboy. I like to think I’m not a fanboy of anything, though I proudly proclaim to be an anti-fanboy towards certain things. Like many, a lot of my gaming history and literacy was formed on Nintendo platforms. I didn’t start gaming on the NES but I owned one and loved it to death, as I did the Super Nintendo. Both of these systems are the subject of many a Retro Flashback. I skipped the N64, got back in on the GameCube which I quite liked and own a Wii and a Wii U which I also really enjoy. The company’s history is varied and fascinating, having began over 100 years ago as a playing card manufacturer before evolving into the household gaming name they are today. They have brought a ton of innovation to the industry and take risks where others fear to tread. It’s safe to say without hyperbole that a lot of what the game industry has evolved into today can be traced back and credited to Nintendo.

The last couple of years, all has not been rosy however. After attaining stratospheric levels of success with the Wii and the DS–the latter of which is the best selling dedicated gaming system of all time–they’ve been on a pretty rocky path. They just recently reported their first yearly loss ever (remember, they’re 100+ years old), their stock has dropped substantially (though they are still one of Japan’s biggest companies), 3DS sales have picked up nicely after a very poor launch but are below expectations and the Wii U is doing very badly at the moment. More than a few in the press and in the “professional” analyst field have been decrying the company’s failures, saying Nintendo doesn’t know how to compete in the modern games industry, that they can’t sustain a hardware business and just need to start making games for already oversaturated and teetering mobile platforms. This culminated in last week’s announcement that they are not going to be holding a press conference at E3, instead holding media specific events and running a number of their Nintendo Direct streams, most of which are aimed at core fans. Indeed, many say the end is nigh for this gaming juggernaut.

Certainly, their challenges are many but a lot of this can be tied into the press needing something to write about in the void between now and E3 and their insistence that there always be someone to hate. It used to be Sony. They certainly provided a lot of fodder for that during the early years of the PlayStation 3 but with that company seemingly firing on all cylinders these days, Nintendo has come under the hateful gaze of the “enthusiast” press. There’s certainly a lot of valid criticism and many lessons that Nintendo has yet to learn. However, I do think a lot of this sentiment–which has gotten downright vitriolic at times–is uninformed and misplaced.

There are many reasons for that and I’m going to outline them here, just to give you readers some perspective when you’re reading all the doom and gloom on this company.

The first is the kind of company Nintendo are in general. In a business world that has become transfixed in the next quarter at all costs, Nintendo has always taken a long view. They don’t do things just for the next quarter, they build things to succeed over years. Some of their systems have launched strong, others not so much but with the notable exception of the Virtual Boy, every game system they’ve released has made money and often, done so while not being the top dog. The N64 was a distant second to the PlayStation 1, the GameCube was a distant third place last generation, at least in North America. Yet both of these systems were profitable in the end, even when Nintendo themselves called their sales disappointing. That’s because they managed to get good games on them which generated momentum and drove a steady curve upwards. The modern business market doesn’t like this. They like companies that come roaring out of the gate and leap from hit to hit, until they miss once and then they drop them like a hot potato.

The market wants everyone to be like Apple (something even Apple themselves are starting to falter at) and that’s not realistic. While Sony and Microsoft lose buckets of money for years at a time on their hardware launches, Nintendo quietly sits back with their often underpowered machines, slowly letting them grow and grow and usually, turning a profit on day one. The Wii was a huge exception to this rule but it was a fluke, one even Nintendo themselves didn’t see coming. The DS started slow and nearly everyone (chief among them the press) called it a ridiculous gimmick that would never catch on. How did that turn out? Companies that take a slower and steadier approach don’t make for exciting market narratives but Nintendo has stuck to this methodology in spite of that because it works. It’s one of their greatest strengths, not a weakness.

The Wii U has been a big exception to a lot of what I wrote above. The system apparently doesn’t make money on the hardware but Reggie Fils-Aime has claimed that the royalties from one game sale put it in the black. I actually think the system launched with a decent line-up but most of the games were met with a tepid response and while there does appear to be some good stuff in the pipe, they’re being drip-fed and the lack of information (even with E3 coming soon) is a big misstep. People who bought them want games and those who didn’t buy them need a reason to. Every day without more games is another day they give Sony and Microsoft the chance to steal their thunder.

They also completely bungled the message for the system. Naming it anything but the Wii 2 was a huge flub and even company President Satoru Iwata stated that a lot of people think the Wii U is just an accessory for the original Wii, an error you can’t fault anyone for making. The thing is, they can still fix that with good games, primarily from their internal teams. Nintendo has some of the best game developers in the industry and on top of that, they’re led by management that is not only skilled but who actually like and play games. Yes, Nintendo does need to court and nurture both indie and big third-party developers alike but their in-house talent always make games that both sell and show off whatever hardware they’re put on.

The games will come and I think as always, the Wii U will find success. Wii level of success? DS level of success? Absolutely not. But I have no doubt that Nintendo is aware that those days are over. The 3DS has a similarly difficult launch and then as well, many in the press said the era of dedicated handhelds were over and that the public had “moved on” to mobile games wholesale. Similarly, the games came and now the 3DS is doing very well. Now those same press types who should be eating crow are instead shifting their doom and gloom to the Wii U. The cycle continues.

Then there’s Nintendo skipping their E3 press conference this year. Many are saying that’s an admission of defeat and that they are conceding that nothing they show will be able to get any attention versus the big new console announcements Sony and Microsoft have. That was my initial reaction too. Then I thought about it for a bit and realised that I think most people are looking at this the wrong way.

I don’t think Nintendo dropping their E3 press conference says as much about them as it says about E3 itself and how important it really is to them. I said before that the press needs to stop whining about E3′s relevance and to a degree, I still believe that. But think about this for a minute. Sony and Microsoft aren’t announcing their new consoles at E3. They will certainly have a lot to show and talk about but Sony announced the PS4 months ago and Microsoft is announcing the next Xbox in May. These guys aren’t announcing at E3 either, they’re doing targeted, focused events dedicated to that separate from the press conferences. And that’s exactly what Nintendo’s doing. Many people (press included strangely) are acting as if that by not holding a press conference, Nintendo is essentially bowing out of E3 and that couldn’t be further from the truth. They still have a booth, they’re still showing tons of stuff to the press and sure, their Nintendo Direct presentations are watched more by the core than by casual consumers but the core is who ultimately spreads the message for you.

Nintendo knows that them showing games for a system that’s already out won’t get covered on Good Morning America like new systems from Sony and Microsoft will. Press conferences are expensive and rather than spend a fortune on what is frankly, usually a cringe-worthy show anyway, they’re going to spend less and speak directly to the press and their most evangelical fans. They’ll probably get the same amount of exposure at worst but they get to control how much information gets out and they get to do it for a lot less money. I don’t know about you but that sounds pretty damn sensible to me. And lest we forget, Nintendo’s not the only big industry player backing off at E3 this year. I still think E3′s important but Nintendo not doing a press conference says far more about the show than it does about them.

My point with all this is simple in the end: There’s a reason the phrase “Never bet against Nintendo” was coined and I think it still applies to this day. Yes, they’re a company facing difficulties right now but they’ve faced plenty before. They have an extraordinary management team of actual enthusiast gamers, they have some of the most valuable IP and developer talent in the world, they know how to make hardware and despite the fact that they seem to not always pay attention to the industry around them, they are still a humble company that’s learning from their mistakes. I say all this as someone who beat them with a stick about Wii U Virtual Console pricing. They aren’t perfect but they have consistently demonstrated that they can find a way to survive and thrive. For all the companies that have come and gone in the hardware space, Nintendo has been there and personally, I think if this upcoming console generation is the last as many will predict, Nintendo will still find a way to survive in it, even when Microsoft and Sony have left the building. That their business strategy doesn’t jive with the way most of the market wants things to work these days is in my opinion, a failing of the market, not Nintendo. I think more companies should take a long view approach to things and that the current market’s obsession with pump and dump strategies will backfire one day soon.

I admit that I do sound like a bit of a fanboy with how strongly I seem to be defending the company here. Don’t get me wrong, I think they’ve made and continue to make a lot of mistakes and as someone who got a Wii U right near launch, I want games and I want them now. But in their burning desire to always have something to hate on, the press and the analysts who want little more then attention have set their sights on Nintendo, ignoring their history of overcoming virtually all challenges and being a driving force in the games industry, even as those who beat them in the short term crumble and fade away. Dumping hardware and jumping into the mobile gold rush bubble is modern business thinking but doing so would be a long term disaster for Nintendo and in a few years, the same people telling them to do that now would be back deriding them for it. I think this is a company that not only has a lot of lessons to teach about the video game industry but about how to run a business for the long term in general. They may be the target du jour but I think their wisdom is ignored at our own peril.

Don’t count Nintendo out until they’re out. They can still surprise us all.

Business, Coverage, Predictions, Video Games 3DS, E3, Nintendo, predictions, video game industry, video games, Wii U

Dead Space as a metaphor for a flailing and directionless EA

Leave a Comment Posted by Parallax Abstraction on April 25, 2013

The Dead Space series is a weird one for me. As I’ve said before, I am a total wimp who doesn’t like horror anything but for some reason, Dead Space interested me from the moment it was announced and I’ve always been a big fan of it. Maybe it’s because it takes place in a sci-fi setting, maybe it’s because the story is mature but not terribly serious, maybe it’s because it’s not really a psychological horror title, I have no idea. The first game was a very pleasant surprise for me, the second game wavered a little bit but was still generally excellent. I also thought Dead Space Extraction was really good, if quite a shift in direction. Then came Dead Space 3 which I just finished last week. While I am looking forward to doing a New Game+ run in co-op (yeah, it has that but more on that later), I was generally very disappointed with Dead Space 3 as an entry in the series. While still generally well put together as a game, so much of it didn’t feel coherent with the hallmarks of the previous two titles and it feels like many of the elements I didn’t enjoy were just bolted onto a franchise where they really had no place in an effort to broaden the audience. Capcom had a similar problem with Resident Evil 6 and if sales of both of these games are to be believed, not only was the audience not broadened but it actually shrank as those who were already invested felt that the series had moved away from what they liked.

The more I’ve thought about this, the more I see the Dead Space series as a metaphor for Electronic Arts as a whole. This is a company that’s had a very turbulent few years. They went from being hugely profitable to losing buckets of money. Now they’re treading water again but only by wildly flailing from trend to trend in the hopes of catching onto what’s cool but never really succeeding in the long run. This culminated with the recent “resignation” of CEO John Riccitiello after yet another financial misstep and a series of embarrassing flubs such as the SimCity launch and the epic failure of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Yes, they were also voted Worst Company In America for the second year by The Consumerist readers but I’m not giving that any credit. Internet polls are dumb, The Consumerist is a site with an agenda and if you voted for EA over American banks and oil companies, you’re either ignorant or stupid. Nonetheless, this was also a black mark for them.

Everyone from gamers to critics to the handful of analysts that actually have a clue have one common theme among their reasons for EA’s troubles: They are a company that’s lost focus. There is certainly a lot of evidence to support that. They’ve been on an acquisition bender for several years now, buying up numerous companies in the casual, mobile and social game spaces for often hugely inflated prices just to secure them before competitors could. Most of these acquisitions have not worked out very well. PopCap has announced one new game and put out nothing new since they were purchased and EA seems to be rapidly exiting the social space as that bubble quickly pops, something the collapse of Zynga foreshadowed. Their mobile stuff is doing fairly well as far as I know but I suspect that may also change as that bubble begins to pop too. They are madly flailing their arms around in all directions, hoping that they smack their hand into a hit. I think this is no better demonstrated than with the Dead Space series.

The story goes that Dead Space was actually conceived as a skunkworks project inside EA. A bunch of developers were working on other stuff and had this idea for a AAA sci-fi horror game. They worked on a prototype for a while and when they thought it was ready, showed it to the top brass who decided to give it a shot, created the Visceral Games team and gave them the budget to build their title. This was right around when John Riccitiello joined EA as CEO, promising to change the company’s much maligned past ways with a big push into new IP and creative ideas. This seemed like a great idea and Dead Space was one of the first things released with this mindset. The whole story behind is was great and sounded like the start of a great creative endeavour. It was generally considered a very good game, though some die hard horror fans thought it was a little light on the deep scares. Personally, it was the perfect blend of horror and unique action that was needed to peak my interest and get me to pick it up. It didn’t sell great but placed very respectably for a new IP in the horror genre and well enough for EA to green light a sequel.

Dead Space 2 was still very good (some actually consider it better) but there were signs that it was veering a little ways off the course set by the first game. The protagonist suddenly found the ability to speak and there was a lot more character interaction and direct exposition, rather than just more organic, environmental storytelling. Combat became a greater focus and the scares became more obvious and less frequent. One big improvement was made in that the environments varied a fair bit more but there were also more than a few clichés thrown in, such as having to make your way through a creepy, abandoned nursery where you are introduced to the Crawler enemy which is essentially a mutated baby. Perhaps most jarring of all, a competitive multiplayer mode that exactly no one asked for was added. It was janky, unbalanced, half-baked and generally just not very fun. Worst of all, it was hidden behind EA’s stupid Online Pass paywall. Needless to say, the community for it withered quickly.

A lot of these changes (in particular the multiplayer) felt a lot like EA needed to check a certain amount of bullet points in a list in order to make sure Dead Space 2 was getting to as big an audience as possible. This was a time where every big publisher thought every title had to have multiplayer as a means to prevent people from trading games back in. It took a while but some eventually realised this doesn’t work. It still happens occasionally today (Tomb Raider anyone?) but more publishers are realising the key to keeping single player games in consumer’s hands is compelling DLC, rather than multiplayer no one wants.

This year, we got Dead Space 3 and it couldn’t be more of a departure for the series. Eyebrows were immediately raised when EA Labels President Frank Gibeau (who I’m convinced actively dislikes his company’s customers) came out in the press and basically issued a threat, saying that it had to sell 5 million copies in order to justify itself. That’s more than the entire series sales to date combined according to some estimates and anyone with half a brain knew that was a ridiculous target, especially for the third entry in the series that was largely using the same engine and assets. Why EA set such an unrealistic target is unknown but it screamed that they were setting this title up for “broader appeal” which is corporate speak for “shoehorning in every feature we can think of.” Did they ever deliver on that.

Dead Space 3 takes most the series existing concepts and dumbs them down, while adding more elements no one wanted. Ammo became far more plentiful and was turned from weapon specific to universal. The levels were designed so you always knew exactly where enemies would pop out, removing any essence of fear or tension. A bunch of boring side missions were added, almost all of which used copy/pasted environments. The story went from cheesy sci-fi to face palmingly stupid, with an ending that seemed final (if completely batshit insane), only to be opened wide for another potential sequel in the DLC. Instead of competitive multiplayer, they added full campaign co-op, removing what few fear elements the game had left. This addition felt like it was made at the last minute as the story conceits to justify it make little sense and the character created to be played by second player has about as much depth as a teaspoon. Ironically, the story and environments are so lame that I actually think playing co-op would be more fun. Lastly and most contentiously, microtransactions were added to this full-price, $60 retail title. To be fair, they were not required to have a full experience and only served to benefit people who basically wanted to play overpowered but having a “Press Y for Downloadable Content” prompt appear on every single workbench in the game was immersion breaking to say the least.

In the end, all this added up to make Dead Space 3 a soulless shell of an entry in an otherwise great series. It was no longer scary, it was no longer unique, it was just another dudebro-friendly, cover-based, third-person action shooter. Nothing of what attracted me to Dead Space in the first place was here. What we got was a creative series that had all the sharp corners sanded down and which was asked to fill out a bunch of checkmarks on some executive’s feature list, whether they were appropriate or not because “broader appeal” is somehow what they thought would guarantee it 5 million sales. Instead, what always happens when executives apply this stupid and misguided strategy is what we got. They didn’t attract any new players and many of the original lovers of the series were turned off. So far, Dead Space 3 has sold worse than even the first game and is by all accounts, a commercial failure, even if you apply more realistic sales goals to it. Yet another once great franchise with loads of potential was ruined by EA’s meddling and their attempts at obtaining “broader appeal” having the exact opposite effect.

This isn’t the first time EA has done this and likely won’t be the last. But you can look at the evolution (or de-evolution as it were) of the Dead Space series as very much a parallel metaphor for this company as a whole. They start off with something good and instead of iterating on it with new instalments, trying new things but doing smaller iterations and experimentation with new design ideas (see Ubisoft with Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry for great examples of this or better yet, some of Take-Two’s recent efforts), they try to make radical changes to it that make no sense, not attracting the new players they want but also driving the devoted fans away. Then they set sales targets that anyone with a brain could see are unrealistic, then blame the developers and kill the series off when it doesn’t work out. This isn’t how you run either a creatively or financially sustainable business. Change is good, iteration is good but it has to be done in a way that fits the product you’re trying to make, complimenting and enhancing it, not mutating it with elements from everything else that worked somewhere else before. When you do that, you just get this blob of indistinct sludge with no soul to it. That’s what we got with Dead Space, it’s very nearly what we got with Mass Effect (though it could still happen with Mass Effect 4) and by all accounts, EA has learned nothing from this and it’s what they’re going to continue trying.

The companies that succeed the best over the long term are ones that understand their market, know what numbers something can realistically sell and cater to those markets with the best products possible, letting the creative people be just that. For all the deserved stick I give Apple, this is something they understand very well. EA is a company desperately trying to fill every niche in the hope that one will be so big that is will justify the investment in all the others. Rather than excelling in a few core areas, they’re doing at best mediocre in every area and that’s not how you create happy customers, which are ultimately what you need to create revenue for you. Given their years of losses and how they’re hanging onto profit with the skin of their teeth right now, you would think the undoubtedly large number of smart people at EA would realise this. Instead, we have a fired (sorry, “resigned”) CEO and if anything, EA doubling down on this failing strategy.

EA has a lot of talented developers who have demonstrated they are clearly capable of making great games. They need to pick a market, let their creative people make interesting things for that market and for the love of everything, stop trying to be all things to all people. No one can do that and trying to go after everyone ultimately leaves you with no one. When you let creativity rule the roost, money will often follow, though it may not be immediate. EA can and once did make the Dead Space that we the fans want. What we got was the furthest thing from that. If this is how they plan to treat everything going forward, they are not going to survive and I dare say, maybe they don’t deserve to.

Business, Culture, Reviews, Video Games AAA games, Dead Space, EA, Electronic Arts, video game publishers, video games

What’s the alternative to ad supported content?

Leave a Comment Posted by Parallax Abstraction on April 23, 2013

I intended to have more posts this month and have a couple in the brain hopper but between working on my YouTube stuff, my day job and some crazy housing related stuff that may be coming our way soon, something had to give and it was unfortunately this. I hope to rectify that soon.

There’s been a lot of discussion among enthusiast sites (principally gaming related) of late on the subject of supporting them with advertising and how a large and increasing number of users are running ad blockers. These ensure they get the content without having to see the ads which allow that content to be offered for free. It’s been a subject of debate in the background for some time but it came to a head recently with a post on Destructoid in which their head guy lamented the situation in the politest way possible. A while after, Ben Kuchera from Penny Arcade Report chimed in with his version of the situation, in which he states that the types of click-baiting articles many of us hate are necessary because they drive the ad revenue that allows more meaningful (and sadly, niche) pieces to be authored. It’s an interesting perspective, though as usual, skewed by Kuchera’s ego which led him to speak as if he was representing the entire industry and not his own site, which is run under a unique arrangement to put it mildly. John Walker from Rock, Paper, Shotgun took him to task in a better way than I ever could so just go check his post if you want to know more.

Normally I would just observe this debate and little else but as someone who recently started producing video content which I do hope to eventually make a bit of money from with, you guessed it, advertising, I’ve been thinking about this a lot more. I haven’t used an ad blocker ever. I see banner ads of all shapes, sizes and levels of obnoxiousness every day. I consume hours of YouTube content every month and most of it has pre-roll ads, post-roll ads and sometimes, even ads in the middle. None of it bothers me. Sure, I don’t like having to wait 15-30 seconds for an ad to clear before my video starts or worse, waiting 10 seconds only to have to click the Skip Ad button to avoid a longer one but I tolerate it.

The reason for this is simple: I’m being given content for free and that content creator has to pay the bills somehow. Ad revenue is a pittance to begin with. When I looked at how big I’ll have to grow my YouTube audience just to make enough per month to pay for my Internet bill, I thought it was a typo. When I then thought about people using ad blockers and watching the content I worked hard on for literally nothing, my first reaction was one of anger. It takes time and money to produce this stuff. I’ve already put almost $500 into my YouTube channel and will probably put another $500 into it within the next couple of months. This is on top of the several hours a week of my very limited free time I put into recording and editing the videos. You aren’t being asked for anything but 15-30 seconds of your time to watch an ad before 20+ minutes of content. And that’s too much to ask? Seriously? It’s amazing to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not making video content to get rich. I’m a realist, I know I’m not going to be the next TotalBiscuit and I’m not sure I want to be anyway. It’s a fun project first. I would like the videos to make enough money that it’s not costing me anything to produce them in the end but that’s my only real expectation. I get frustrated to think that some people are so short-sighted and entitled as to think that they can refuse to give the creators their pittance and still expect the content to come out, with the same level of quality, for free. This is the real world kids, it doesn’t work like that.

That said, I also know this is an issue that can’t be completely solved. People will always find a way to make ad blockers work and they will always find justifications for why they’re using them. They’ll say that ad networks sometimes deliver viruses (something that’s so rare now it’s basically a bullshit excuse), they’ll say they slow the browser down (you may want to consider using something faster than a Pentium II), they’ll say they’re distracting and make articles hard to read (I can do it and have major attention span issues, get over yourselves.) Whatever the reason, they’ll keep doing it and neither I nor anyone else can stop them. If you find a way to completely block out your content from those using ad blockers, guess what? That part of your audience will just go away and read/watch something else. You can either work within the constraints you have (however unfair they may be) or just get out of the game. It saddens me that many people are taking the second option. It also saddens me that the solution many are employing is sensational headlines and click-baiting stories, both of which are a plague in the tech and gaming press these days. Those types of articles aggravate me more than even the most obnoxious, auto-playing video ad.

While I do and will work the constraints of the audience, there is one thing many do that takes the entitlement to a whole new level and that I simply cannot abide. That is the people who go “You’re relying on an outdated business model and that’s not my problem!” Nothing drives me further up the wall than people who think themselves fit to tell someone else how they’re running their business wrong without offering a better solution. And worse yet, people who use that as a crutch to justify ripping a creator off. They did it with the music industry, they did it with movies, they did it with games and now they’re doing it with web and video content. They claim the “old ways” don’t work and need to evolve but they don’t step up when other evolutionary paths are offered. “I will pay you directly for this content, all you have to do is ask!” is an argument I see bandied about quite a bit. Has anyone ever thought that maybe no one’s doing that because those who tried it didn’t have their audiences step up? Don’t believe me?

Giant Bomb and the Whiskey Media family of sites tried this. They couldn’t pay the bills with advertising so they instituted premium memberships that removed the ads, got you access to exclusive content and a host of other benefits. Enough people (including myself) stepped up and paid for this to slow their cash bleed but it wasn’t enough to keep them afloat. Eventually, the company was split up and sold off. Jeff Gerstmann has since lamented in two of his Jar Time videos if they hadn’t sold, those sites likely wouldn’t be around today. The Escapist tried a similar approach with their site and was recently sold as well after a fairly well publicised period of financial hardship. In short: People love to say they’ll directly contribute to support content they love but in the end, most of them are all talk.

If you are one of those people who say that the enthusiast press (or any other industry for that matter) is failing because they are clinging to an outdated business model and you think you can do it better, I suggest–nay implore–you to start up a consulting firm because if your method works, you will make more money than you will know how to spend. The brightest minds in this industry can’t figure out another way to do it. If you’ve got one, you’re missing out on an opportunity to write your golden ticket. If you don’t have a better means, then just shut up because you don’t know jack shit and are just trying to rationalise not supporting something you’re getting for free just because you can. Ripping people off is one thing and that’s bad enough but chastising how they do business while sitting on your high horse with no better answers is way worse. I make content and if you want to block my ads, I can’t stop you, I accept that. But don’t tell me how I’m doing it wrong if you don’t have a better option.

As a creator who likes to think his content is worth the price of admission, all I can ask of you is that you whitelist my site and my videos on YouTube. Better yet, set your ad blocker to whitelist by default and only block the sites that have ads you disagree with. Give them a chance to demonstrate that they can’t do it tastefully before you pass judgement on them. The ads pay the bills (or at least some of them) and if people keep blocking them, something will have to give and in some cases, that’s already happening. Stuff costs money and if people can’t at least make that back, they won’t keep making the stuff. If you’re like me and you’re sick of seeing enthusiast journalism go down the toilet in favour of top 10 lists and click baiting, then step up and do your part. It’s really not a lot to ask and helps more than you may realise. At the very least though, if you do feel justified in blocking the ads, at least keep your opinions of how we monetise our work to yourself. If you have a better idea, we’ll listen but if not, we could do without your salt in our wounds.

Coverage, Coverage, News, Personal, Technology, Video Games ad supported content, advertising, enthusiast press, YouTube

Introducing Two Guys & A Game

Leave a Comment Posted by Parallax Abstraction on April 9, 2013

So hey, remember that YouTube show I launched a little while ago? If you haven’t been watching it and spamming the Hell out of it to everyone you know, go rectify that right now before you become a truly bad person. But wait, how would you like even more video content? I knew you’d be stoked for that! Well, wish and you shall receive!

I’m pleased to announce that the first episode of Two Guys & A Game is now live! So what the Hell am I doing launching another YouTube show when I’ve barely got Retro Flashback right and what’s this new one all about? To answer your first question, because I’m stark raving mad. To answer your second question will take a few more sentences. My good friend Dan (known as StylezXP) and I have been trying to figure out some kind of project to do together for a while. We’ve wanted to collaborate on something and we both have busy lives (him especially since he and his wife recently had a kid) so we also wanted something that would give us a reason to get together more often.

Then one day, we were reminiscing about all the co-op games he and I have played together over the years. We both love the co-op experience but it was made further unique in our case because we often did a kind of Mystery Science Theater 3000-style snarky commentary along with the games we played. We enjoy the titles we play but some of them were not exactly pillars of narrative delivery and we enjoyed taking the piss out of them while we played them through. We had talked about how awesome it would have been if we could have recorded those experiences. And then it hit us: Let’s do this but on the Internet! And thus, Two Guys & A Game was born.

We know there’s a ton of YouTube game content out there and a lot of it is Let’s Plays. Neither of us are really big on those types of series and most of them are dreadful. We didn’t want to do that unless we could bring our own unique flair to it but our banter is what we think makes the difference. We plan to play a variety of different games from different eras on various platforms but we are starting with the latest release in the Army of Two series. These have been guilty pleasure games for StylezXP and I so we figured it was a great one to start off with. We hope to do episodes that are an average of an hour in length, though some may go longer or shorter. We hope to do these on a regular basis but given how busy both our lives are right now, we can’t guarantee they’ll be coming on an exact schedule. The best way to find new episodes is to subscribe to my channel and keep an eye on the official playlist. We will play whatever game we are currently working on to completion before moving on to the next one. We may also do special one-off episodes dedicated to things like spoiler discussion or talking about the history of a game series we both like. The co-op comedy is the meat of the series but we plan to roll with other things too.

Just like Retro Flashback, this series is an evolving thing and both of us are coming at this with minimal experience both in commentating and production. You’ll notice that the commentary audio is pretty bad in the first video. It took me literally an afternoon to get the dual headset recording working with my laptop and capture software and what we got is the best I could do and that was after a lot of post processing on Sound Forge Audio Studio. I’m hoping to improve it more as we go forward and should the show gain some traction, I will consider investing in a portable mixer and some more professional grade microphones. That’s not in the financial cards for me this month though so I hope you’ll bare with me. I’m still confident in saying that even this first attempt sounds better than a lot of Let’s Play content on YouTube. There’s also a bit of an issue mid-video that required a bit of a gap in our recording but I think I covered that in a way that will make you grin.

We really hope you guys enjoy this new series. If you do, please consider subscribing to the channel, giving a thumbs up to the videos and telling your friends. Even a mention on Twitter, a post on a message board or a link on Reddit goes a long way in helping us find an audience. We also welcome any feedback, positive or negative, just as long as you offer it in an intelligent manner. Please comment away if you have something to offer. We’re really excited to be doing this and I hope we can entertain a bunch of people with it. So, without further ado, check out the first episode below!

Coverage, Culture, Personal, Video Games Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel, Let's Play, video games, YouTube

My Special Perspective Review of Amnesia: The Dark Descent

3 Comments Posted by Parallax Abstraction on March 28, 2013

I’ve never done a game review on this blog and my intent was not to for the most part. Aside from the fact that no one really cares what I think about a particular video game (who could blame them really), there’s a million and one other places out there to get reviews that do a far better job than I. However, there are certain circumstances where I think I may be able to lend a unique perspective on a title based on personal experience. Amnesia: The Dark Descent for the PC, developed by tiny Swedish team Frictional Games, is most certainly one of those times. The game is approaching two and a half years of age so anyone who has considered buying it likely has by now but I wanted to write down my thoughts on it as I come at this title from a different angle than most and to my great surprise, it actually didn’t live up to its hype for me. I still think it’s a great title and astounded that it was made by a tiny team but it has some major flaws, most of which I think can and will be address in the forthcoming sequel, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.

After a long series of delays due to life happening, I finally did my single session playthrough of the entire game last Sunday as my second Extra Life 2012 stretch goal. This was a goal I purposefully set high, thinking it would never be met and I only just made it thanks to the absurdly awesome generosity of some people. I absolutely detest horror. Books, movies, TV, games, I don’t like any of it. This type of content thrives off of the rush people get from being scared but I’ve never seen the point of that rush, though I respect those who can work it into pleasure. Consequently, this has made me into a triple-A grade weak sauce. I’m a guy who has a hard time getting through DOOM 3 and F.E.A.R, two games that very much relied on cheap jump scares. Amnesia doesn’t do this at all, it instead take the Lovecraftian route, aiming to just spend 10-12 hours messing with your head and making you fear what could be, rather than what is.

I won’t discuss the plot at length as there are plenty of places to find out about it. The story is not necessarily straightforward or easy to follow but that’s also kind of the point. Since I spent my time with the game interacting with my viewers while playing, I wasn’t able to give it the level of attention it deserved. I did enjoy it though, particularly the voice acting which delivered much of the important character events. Quality voice acting is not common in indie titles and it’s clear that Frictional put a lot of effort into this aspect, a very smart move. If there was no voice in the game or worse, if it was poorly acted, it would have taken a lot away from the impact. Amnesia is all about atmosphere and this is where things really shine, or rather not literally. The environments are dark, depressing and terrifying and while not a visual stunner of a game, it still manages to be striking in places, even more impressively when you realise that these guys wrote their own engine for it too.

The core mechanic of the game involves the balance of keeping yourself in light as much as possible but also hidden from view of the enemies. You can’t fight anything, only run away and when you’re in the light, you are more exposed and easily spotted. However, staying in darkness for too long will cause you to go mad, adding in visual distortions, misleading sound cues and eventually, hallucinations and unconsciousness. You have a lantern as well as tinder which can be used to light fires and torches in the environment but both of these are limited and can’t always be relied on. Should an enemy spot you, your only hope is to either book it to one of the doors that transition you from one environment to the next or into a room where you can close the door and hide in a closet or dark corner until your pursuer gets bored and leaves. Everything in the environment that you can interact with you do so by clicking on it and moving your mouse so as to mimic the desired motion of your character’s hand. You literally pull doors and objects open and can grab and throw things. This has been a hallmark of all Frictional’s titles so far. It feels a bit clumsy but also really immersive. Trying to get your hand to co-operate to close a door when you’re being chased by a monster is truly terrifying. Having no map can also make both evading pursuit and regaining your bearings after doing so a challenge, though being able to ditch a monster simply by going through a “loading screen door” is a bit jarring.

Beyond just the voice work, Amnesia has some of the best atmospheric sound design I’ve heard in years. Since you often can’t see much, you’re relying on your ears to help guide you as much as your eyes. The sound can be deceptive though as once you spend too much time in the dark, your brain will play tricks on you, making you think things are present that aren’t. The insanity effects are often very subtle, just enough to make you pause and question whether or not you heard something. This little uncertainty can create incredible feelings of isolation and dread. There is one major fault though which after a few enemy encounters, really breaks some of this tension. When an enemy spots you, a very specific announcement sound is made. This sound is so different from the others, it’s almost cartoonish. When you hear it, you know an enemy will be on you soon and you know to turn around and run. The sound never changes, it never fails to play and it always seems to play at the same volume, regardless of the enemy’s distance from you. The difference stands out so significantly, it makes me wonder what the motivation behind designing it this way was. Enemy encounters are purposefully rare but this always makes them obvious and as a result, less scary. Either changing up the sound, not playing it at all sometimes or making is blend in more with the insanity effects would have gone a long way.

Another disappointment that I discovered while playing one of the game’s final areas is that many of the enemy encounters are scripted. Several times near the end of the game, I died in an area and respawned, only to have the same enemies sound off their presence in the same location. This is a common design practice and makes sense in some circumstances but in a game that’s all about tension, a lot of it is lost when after failing an area a couple of times, you’re able to plot out when and where the enemies will appears. At that point, you’re just running a pre-determined gauntlet and that’s not entirely the point of a game like this. The main goal of most areas as well involves either simple environmental puzzles or going on a quest to find an item which allows you to move on. There’s little variance and aside from one memorable section near the end where you interact with another character and a terrifying area where you’re trying to evade an invisible water demon, this is most of what the story involves. It’s not that bad and really, it’s the journey itself and the atmosphere that are the biggest selling points but a little more variety would have been nice.

My biggest complaint by far is the massive periods of down time in Amnesia. There are several sections where the game goes out of its way to let you know that you are in no danger whatsoever. The areas are brightly lit, you can see far ahead of you and there is no music playing or it’s “happy music.” These areas usually have a bunch of puzzles to solve but they can be spread across several different rooms and in some cases, took me well over an hour to complete. These are devoid of any tension or horror whatsoever and I would estimate that at least 25% of the entire game is played this way, something that really shocked me. This is one area where I freely admit that the way in which I approached the game may have distorted my impressions. It’s pretty clear that Frictional did not intend or expect people to play through the entire story in one sitting. I suspect that had I played in several shorter sessions rather than one big marathon, I would have found these periods of down time less of a drag and more interesting. I get that they can’t have the tension turned up to 11 the entire time, lest the player become numb to it or worse yet, bored. Having down time is not a bad thing in and of itself but I do think they could have condensed them down somewhat.

Amnesia has 3 possible endings (technically 4 but the last is something you only really get by accident) and the choice I made got me the “good ending.” I thought it was a satisfying enough conclusion and though I haven’t seen the other endings yet, I imagine they are good as well. The story does wrap up and doesn’t really end on any cliff hanger which I will give props to Frictional for. Other than going back for the multiple endings or to play with the developer’s commentary enabled (which I would like to do some day), there is no real replay value to Amnesia but that’s not really its intent. There is a “custom story” option available which is essentially the game’s version of mod support. As I understand it, there are some great custom stories available but I haven’t tried any.

Despite the flaws I listed above, I still really liked Amnesia: The Dark Descent and it scared the crap out of me multiple times. I’m hoping to cut together a freak out highlight reel at some point soon. Even though having the Twitch chat room kept me grounded and removed some of the fear, I was absolutely terrified on some occasions and if I was playing this by myself, I don’t know if I could have managed to finish it. Many horror aficionados have called this the scariest video game ever made and while I don’t have the experience to question them, I could totally believe it. For such a small team, Frictional Games truly created something special here and they are to be commended for that. Everything I’ve criticised could be refined and polished for Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and given the supposed great success of this game, they hopefully have the resources to do so. I still don’t like horror and this game hasn’t sold me on getting further into the genre but that I both finished this and did so in one sitting is something I will wear as a badge of honour on my gaming career. The experience I had with Amnesia: The Dark Descent was unique and not something I’m going to forget any time soon. When critiquing a game, I think that’s some of the greatest praise that can be levied. I really hope Frictional Games meets continued success.

Reviews, Video Games Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Extra Life, Frictional Games, live stream, video game review, video games

Introducing Retro Flashback

1 Comment Posted by Parallax Abstraction on March 24, 2013

After months of gestating in my head and exhaustive preparation, I’m super excited to announce my new YouTube project, Retro Flashback! I’ve been jonesing to get this out to the world for a while and the day of my final(?) live stream for Extra Life seemed like the perfect time to maximise synergies.

So, what’s this all about and why should you care?

After finally getting a turbulent few years of my life normalised last year, I got bit by the creativity bug. I wanted to make something that I could use to apply my kind of scarily large knowledge of video games to in a unique way. I also have some knowledge of video editing thanks to a freelance client of mine and while I’m certainly no expert, I know my way around the process well enough. The problem is, there is already a massive excess of video game related content on YouTube and good chunks of it that are very good and have large audiences as a result. Just throwing my voice into that chorus (especially when I’m to say the least unskilled in comparison) didn’t seem to be the best thing to do.

Then I noticed that aside from some game play footage and the occasional Let’s Play, there’s a serious dearth of retro game coverage on YouTube. I’m a huge retro gamer and I used to be a pretty serious collector at one point before I went too far down the rabbit hole and got myself into some pretty serious debt buying rarer stuff at inflated prices. I actually ended up selling that collection (mostly at a loss) both to help right my financial ship and also to teach myself a lesson about excess. Nonetheless, my knowledge of and enthusiasm for retro games is pretty substantial and I thought this would be a great opportunity to put that to use.

The show gets its primary inspiration from the likes of TotalBiscuit’s WTF Is… series and Giant Bomb’s quick looks. They idea is that the personalities do first impressions of usually new games. It’s a simple formula, just them talking over captured game play footage but they bring a lot of informative and unique discussion. Their videos are not Let’s Plays, which is generally just someone narrating themselves playing a game with no insight or in some cases, not talking at all. I don’t really care for that and I wanted to do something more interesting. That’s when Retro Flashback was born. The idea is that I will do a similar style of presentation to the shows I mentioned before but discussing not only what the retro titles are about but also what made them good (or bad), why people should (or shouldn’t) seek them out and how they can do so.

I was listening to a podcast a while back and in discussing some other topic, the hosts got off on a tangent about how gaming discussion is starting to change. For the first time in history, we have a generation of young people who didn’t grow up with some of the most iconic titles from the beginning of mainstream video game culture. Up until this point, everyone not only knew what Super Mario Bros. was, everyone had played it at least once. That’s not so much the case any more. Obviously, you don’t have to know everything about the history of video games to be able to appreciate them but I thought it would be really neat to do something where people who are deep into this hobby but never had the chance to experience its beginnings could see some of what it was like and hear someone who was there talk about the roles many of these older titles had in what we play today. The tag line for the show is “Showcasing gaming’s roots for a new generation” and that’s what I hope to accomplish with it. My hope is that I can encourage more people both young and old to go back and experience some of these iconic titles for themselves or at least learn something valuable about them.

Giant Bomb is actually kind of doing something like this with their Encyclopedia Bombastica series but that’s cool. I hope to do my show more regularly but even if not, there are a lot of older games out there so I think there’s room for lots of participants. Plus, the Giant Bomb guys are awesome. I have no restrictions on what types of games I will cover or what systems I will cover them on so expect to see a wide variety of things from both old consoles and computers. So far, I only have capture setups configured for NES and Super NES and it’s actually not as easy to do as each one has its own unique quirks but I’m confident I can get everything working with the tools I have at my disposal. You will notice that a lot of the videos will be in 480p. This is because most older games are in 480p (often 360p) and there is literally no benefit to encoding at the more demanding 720p. Trust me, I tested it. When I do captures of updates retro titles from consoles and the like, I will be encoding at 720p where it fits.

I do not take direct requests for what games to cover because I have no specific coverage plan and am going to talk about what I like at the time. However, I’m maintaining and ever-expanding list so I welcome people to submit ideas both here and in the comments on YouTube. I know what YouTube comments can be like and should the show get popular, I know I can’t avoid them turning into what YouTube comments often do but I’m going to hold myself to a policy of only dedicating a set amount of time to reading and answering comments and only responding to the intelligent ones. Some people like TotalBiscuit like to engage with the idiots but I have neither the time or energy to deal with those people. Your comment doesn’t have to be praise or agreement and I welcome all feedback so I can improve the show but if you can’t comment intelligently, don’t expect a response.

It’s also worth noting that I have no experience doing this. My editing skills are competent but minimal and I have no vocal training. Currently, I’m just using a Razer Carcharias headset mic which sounds OK but not great but I do have plans to upgrade to a Blue Nessie microphone once they go on sale. Just in practising for the series, I’ve improved my commentary skills a lot but I have a long way to go. I’m doing this series as much for the challenge as the fun so the journey’s going to be half the experience of it. If you find my commentary not to your liking, that’s cool. I encourage you to leave suggestions for how you think I can improve and then check back a few weeks later so see if things have maybe changed. I’ve been polishing this for a while but the one piece of advice every YouTube personality has offered is that you need to eventually just put your stuff out there and iterate. So that’s the plan!

I hope to do a couple of episodes of the show a week but that’s only my goal, not a guarantee. I’ve spent the last couple of months coming up with a streamlined production method that should allow me to crank them out quickly but I also have a day job, a side business, a girlfriend, two cats, a dog, and a desire to play a lot of newer games too so depending on my free time, it could be more or less. I also have terrible upload speeds at home which require me to take the videos into work to post them, though I hope that will change soon and with it, that I’ll also be able to do some live streaming stuff as well. My eventual hope is that I will be able to monetise these videos, either directly through YouTube (though I hear that’s really tough when you use captured footage) or by maybe securing partnership with a network at some point. Unlike TotalBiscuit and others, I have no desire to make a full-time career out of this. I think it would be cool but also incredibly risky and I’ve lived a risky career life for too long so I’m happy with the stability I have now. Making money from them is secondary though, for me this is about the challenge of doing it and also what it can hopefully bring to those who want to learn more about where gaming came from. It’s an important subject and I hope I can contribute to a greater understanding of it for some people.

So yeah, that’s my more in-depth explanation of Retro Flashback. I really hope you all enjoy the videos and again, I welcome any and all feedback, as long as it’s given intelligently. Below, you will find a shorter video version of the intro as well as the first episode which is of Code Name: Viper for the NES. Enjoy everyone, I can’t wait to show you more!

Coverage, Culture, Personal, Video Games Retro Flashback, retro video games, video games, YouTube

The EApocalypse

Leave a Comment Posted by Parallax Abstraction on March 8, 2013

Man, it’s been a shit year for Electronic Arts so far hasn’t it? Rarely in the good graces of gamers at the best of times, the world’s second largest publisher (and once the largest by a country mile) has just been drowning in controversy in 2013. Between the microtransactions in Dead Space 3 to the continuing fustercluck that is the launch of SimCity with its always-on DRM, the company is just swimming in bad PR and furious customers. Don’t get me wrong, it’s reaping what it’s sown and it deserves all the ire that it’s getting. Never before have I seen a company so Hell bent on going to war with its own customers and expecting to come out the other side smelling of roses and money…alright, maybe Zynga.

The thing about this though is that is really doesn’t have to be this way. EA doesn’t have to be this way. What’s going on down in Redwood Shores?

I am generally not a fan of big business and the way it tends to treat its customers and this is the case in the video game industry as well. Big publishers love to push the bounds of unreasonableness to see just how much gamers are willing to take. It drives me nuts, as it does to constantly see the argument trotted out that businesses exist to make money and therefore whatever they do in the interests of that is OK because it’s what they’re supposed to do. That’s bullshit. You know how businesses make money? By building a loyal base of customers, not driving them away. Without your customers, your business has no money. I mean, duh? If you are a CEO who thinks the needs of your short-sighted shareholders should trump the needs of the customers who actually generate value for those shareholders, you are doing it wrong.

At the same time, I do understand the plight of these companies and even sympathise with it to a degree. Like it or not, big publishers are important to a large segment of gaming. Those big, expensive AAA titles we all like so much? Big publishers need to exist and thrive for those to get made. A couple of bedroom programmers aren’t going to make Battlefield. Kickstarter isn’t going to fund the next Mass Effect. You can’t make a Dead Space experience for a few grand and sell it for 99 cents. Millions of people want these games and big companies are how they get produced. The games industry is a tremendously risky one, regardless of the level you’re trying to compete in and we live in a world where people want everything right now, they want it to be better than last time and they want it either free or as close to free as possible. It’s an almost untenable situation and is at odds with the very core of how some of the best interactive experiences have been created. As a whole, the industry doesn’t know how to handle it yet.

Some companies are handling it much better than others and they’ve done it by being focused on what they’re good at and catering to it while trying to push forward in their chosen space. For all of Ubisoft’s faults, I think they’re a great example of this. While they’ve dabbled into other facets of gaming such as mobile and social, their focus has remained hardcore AAA titles with another segment dedicated to family and casual games, almost all on consoles and PC. They’ve also managed to do this and continue experimenting and iterating on even their biggest money making franchises. They’re not necessarily raking it in but they’re weathering the current storm the game industry is in much better than most. I think THQ may have ended up in a similar position had they been able to hang on longer. I’ll talk more about Ubisoft’s philosophy in a future post but I use it here to demonstrate the stark contrast with EA.

For many years dating back to the 90s, EA was seen as the evil boogeyman of the game industry. They grew their fat wallets by releasing full priced updates to sports titles every year that were little more than roster updates and they were famous for buying studios that ran on creativity and running them, their people and their franchises into the ground. They frequently released games that were overpromised, buggy and often outright broken without supporting them properly. They drew near constant hate from gamers everywhere but always had their stable of sports franchises to tide them over. And time went on and game production costs rose, this formula waned and the EA money train began to slow.

Enter current CEO John Riccitiello. Fresh off of selling the powerhouse studio combo of BioWare/Pandemic to EA for a ginormous pile of money, he took charge of the company as a whole and came in with lofty ambitions to reverse their fortunes. His words were music to the ears of gamers. He said EA’s quality was poor, that there was no originality in their games and that a wave of new creativity and business models to go with it were necessary if EA and indeed the publishing industry as a whole were to survive and grow. He planned to completely reform not only EA but the entire idea of what a video game publisher was about and he was going to do it by trimming the fat and focusing on quality and new ideas. It all sounded great and for the most part, none of it’s come true. I won’t spend another 1,500 words detailing all the Riccitiello ambitions that haven’t come to fruition. I link to Jim Sterling’s Jimquisition series a lot but he often does a great job illustrating points I want to make better than I could. Check out his Why Do People Hate EA? episode to see just how badly EA has flubbed what sounded like a fantastic vision that John Riccitiello entered with.

The company has gone from one that wanted to embrace new ideas to trying to throw its seed into every pot available in the hope that something will take root. In the last few years, they’ve gone on another acquisition bender, buying up several prominent companies in the mobile, social and casual game spaces, all for ludicrously inflated prices. And almost none of them have panned out. They bought the companies when they were hot and just like the EA of the past, they were either left to stagnate or were interfered and meddled with to the point where their uniqueness and creative soul were drained from them and they didn’t bare the results desired. They did initially put a lot of effort into new IP and franchises but after a couple of these didn’t work out because not everything’s a sure bet, they got scared and retreated back to stagnant safety.

The only semi-new things we see from EA any more are their constant, desperate attempts to chase after what’s hot at the time. Not being able to make Battlefield a yearly series, they’ve been desperate to find something to compete with Call of Duty and that’s led to the largely dreadful attempts to reboot Medal of Honor, recently shelved after the piss poor latest title in that series. Hungry for a piece of the World of Warcraft pie, they poured an estimated $200 million into developing Star Wars: The Old Republic, an immensely ambitious effort to make the Star Wars MMO everyone wanted. Except they just made it exactly like WoW with a Star Wars skin and no one cared. The game was a flop and cost the company a fortune. Rather than understand that CoD and WoW are juggernaut outliers and that they should focus on building their own ideas rather than go head-to-head with those, they tried to latch on to their success and failed miserably. EA went from being a company with a bold desire to chart its own course to one wildly flailing its arms around, hoping that it would hit something, anything that would prove to be a cash cow as big as the two Activision tripped over.

When none of those things worked out, EA doubled down on mobile games and core console titles. Except rather than try to make unique and appealing experiences in those arenas, it just made all of its franchises an indistinct sludge with no single amazing thing you could point at them for, all in the interests of “broader appeal”. They took Dead Space, one of the only horror games I liked and turned it into an action series with multiplayer no one asked for in the second game and co-op no one asked for in the third one. They padded the third with a ton of boring side missions, bloating it to a ridiculous, unnecessary size. On top of all that, they stuffed Zynga-esque microtransactions in, shoving the option to artificially buy progress for real money into your face every time you opened a crafting bench. Never mind that the previous two games made money by selling less copies and having no microtransactions. Rather than look inward and figure out why their costs got so bloated and rein them in to keep the game focused and the sales requirements reasonable, they basically threatened fans by saying it had to sell an obscene number of copies to justify its existence. Let’s not also forget how what many consider critical story elements were cut out of Dead Space 3 as well as Mass Effect 3 to be sold later as DLC.

Then we have the new SimCity, a game that with its very name alone would have been a money press. Of course, that wasn’t good enough. They crammed it to the seams with always-on DRM, made the city size laughably small and piled on half-baked social features that were forced on players in order to drive engagement through overexposure (i.e. how most Facebook games work) and sell people DLC. No one asked for any of this, gamers weren’t cramming for smaller cities and forced social integration. We all just wanted a new SimCity but now we have an online-only game that as of this writing, doesn’t work.

To me, the new SimCity embodies a near perfect representation of the modern EA: A company who is desperately trying to be a jack of all gaming trades and is not just a master of none but not even competent at any of them. It treats its paying customer as adversaries and not allies, a relationship that’s poisonous to everyone. The company is acting completely contrary to the incredible vision that John Riccitiello came in with and I think that’s so sad. Reverting back to their old ways hasn’t helped either. They lost hundreds of millions over the last few years and are only just barely clinging to profit right now. Their financial future is far from certain, even with the stable of hits they do have.

Had he been able to execute his ideas the way he expressed them to fans, I think it could have been an amazing thing, a creative and business revolution in an industry that desperately needs both right now. Why has this vision rotted away so badly? Did Riccitiello just lose faith in his own ideas? Were EA’s shareholders just too clueless and short-sighted to give him the time necessary to do it? Given that he hasn’t yet been ousted from his position as CEO (though there have been rumbling of this before), they obviously mustn’t think he’s doing that bad a job. I really don’t want to hate EA. I don’t want to hate any publisher. I think competition is good and the more people that make games, the better we as gamers are. I also love the big AAA franchises and want to see more and better ones get produced but the way EA is doing things right now is not sustainable. They need focus and clarity, they need to pick an area of gaming and put all hands on it. They need to let creators create for a while and be willing to take some risks. And most of all, they need to stop treating customers as cash machines and start rewarding their loyalty and make them feel welcome. This all sounds so basic but it’s apparently too hard for the average shareholder to comprehend.

I don’t know how they’ll do it but EA needs to tell the market to sit down and shut up for a while because only happy customers who want to spend money with you will generate long-term growth. People are only willing to be fleeced for so long before they’ll move on and then you have nothing. SimCity could be the tipping point for a lot of people and the lessons it is giving are ones that should be burned into the minds of not only EA but their competitors who think that their model is the right one to follow. EA needs a revolution and if not that, a major correction. It’s time to let one of those happen.

Business, Predictions, Video Games DRM, EA, Electronic Arts, microtransactions, SimCity, video game industry, video games

Video Mayhem: Amnesia Live Stream Date & My New YouTube Show Launches the Same Day

1 Comment Posted by Parallax Abstraction on March 7, 2013

Hey, do you remember when I did that Extra Life thing a while back? Remember how I said if I hit $2,000 raised for the charity, that I would single session the scariest game ever made and that it would be hilarious to watch me suffer horribly? If you watched the show, you may even know that I hit $2,000 during that day because a bunch of amazing people (including a bunch I’d never met outside that Twitch chat) were incredibly generous/insane. You know how it’s been months and I still haven’t done the Amnesia show? Well, that changes this month! My single session playthrough of Amnesia: The Dark Descent will be broadcast live for everyone on Sunday, March 24th, 2013 starting at 3PM EST and going until I’m done!

I feel bad for keeping people in anticipation of my on-camera suffering for so long but life just got nuts. We underwent (and are kind of still undergoing) a merger at my day job which has been a crazy amount of work and between that, our amazing (but also time consuming) new puppy and a bunch of other stuff, I just haven’t had a lot of energy at the end of the day lately and well, this will require a lot of that. In addition, there were rumblings that my ISP would finally be able to start offering sufficient upload speeds that I could maybe do the show from home instead of the board room at work. Sadly, those speeds are coming but not until later this year so it will still be an office thing. Things are finally starting to normalise though and I’ve booked a week of vacation starting the day after the live stream so that I can get some rest and possibly check myself into an institution to recovery from the nervous breakdown playing this game will actually cause.

Even if you didn’t watch my other two live streams (which are archived on my Twitch channel if you want to see them), you won’t want to miss this one. For those not in the know, Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a PC game released in 2010 that is considered by many to be the scariest video game ever produced. People who are big horror fans have a hard time finishing it. I detest all things horror and watching me play through the whole game (which can range from 7-10 hours in length) will be must see television. It’s going to be miserable for me and hilarious for all of you. I will archive this show as well but being able to see it live and mock me in the Twitch chat will be way cooler. It’s going to be a blast!

However, there is a dual purpose to this day and I hope that you will all indulge me and assist me in getting the word out. In the last year, I’ve been bitten by the bug to do something creative and I’m finally putting that into motion. During the live stream, I am going to be launching a brand new YouTube show called Retro Flashback! I won’t go into details here as I’ll save that for another post and for the live stream but it’s going to be a semi-regular YouTube program devoted to showing game play of retro video games with me providing commentary about the titles, their development, what made them good and how they created to the makeup of gaming history. I’ve never seen another show like this and since I have a frankly embarrassing amount of video game trivia in my head, I thought this would be a great way to showcase the great games of the past to a generation that maybe didn’t get a chance to experience them. More details will be forthcoming later so watch this blog for more!

What I’m hoping you all can help me with is getting the word out, both about the live stream and my new show. I’m going to be running a little contest the day of the stream to try to get some subscribers to my YouTube channel to get an audience going. I haven’t decided on the number yet but if people can get the word out and I can hit that many new subscribers during the show, I’m going to commit to doing yet another single session live stream of another highly regarded horror game, Condemned: Criminal Origins. I think this will be a good incentive to get people to spam their friends a bit and can help me get the foundation going to grow an audience.

I am super excited about this and would really appreciate everyone’s help. Please retweet this blog post and tell people to pack in for the show on the 24th. I think we’re all going to have a great time (even if it drives me mad) and I can’t wait to show you all Retro Flashback and hopefully get it out for more people to see. See you on Twitch!

Culture, Personal, Video Games Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Extra Life, live stream, Retro Flashback, video games, YouTube

When Popularity Trumps Principles

1 Comment Posted by Parallax Abstraction on March 5, 2013

If you’re a reader of this blog or really just a savvy media consumer, you don’t need me to tell you that DRM sucks, it doesn’t work and it only serves to punish customers for a fight against piracy that is unwinnable. This doesn’t stop companies trying of course and a quick Google search will find you all the examples you need. In the gaming space, the most egregious and obnoxious form of DRM comes in the “always-on” variety, where you have to be constantly checking in with a publisher controlled server to make sure you aren’t stealing anything. Several companies have tried it and the gaming community has rightfully screamed from the rooftops about it pretty much every time. Like other DRM, it also hasn’t worked and it’s caused nightmares for the legit customers. Don’t get me wrong, pirates are thieves by my moral compass but creating headaches for the people who aren’t stealing from you isn’t how you solve the problem. My lifestyle puts me in a position where I do tend to have fast Internet that’s reliable and always available but that’s not the point. If I’m not playing a game online, there’s no need for me to be online and I don’t want a product I paid for being tied to a short term focused company’s infrastructure.

The problem the gaming community (and to a lesser degree the press) have is that when they take up a fight over principle, it only tends to last until it requires them to sacrifice something popular or that they really want. Oh sure, gamers will scream about boycotts and refusing to support the evil publishers trying to strip us of our rights to do with our purchases as we see fit but if it means turning down the new shiny, as a whole we’re frankly pathetic. Now, I don’t necessarily have a problem with this. Personally, I hate always-on DRM but I don’t judge you negatively if you choose to not take up arms against it and purchase titles that use it. I think the concept does damage to the gaming medium and I don’t think it should be supported but who am I to tell you how to spend your precious money and free time? If you support it, I think you lose the right to bitch about it for a while but that’s about as far as I take it.

This was perhaps no better demonstrated than with Diablo III. This is a game that can be 100% completed solo without interacting with another living soul. Many including myself prefer to play it this way, at least our first time through. Nonetheless, it requires an always-on Internet connection, even when you want to play by yourself. This was most certainly always-on DRM but it also served the dual purpose of also making sure Blizzard’s horribly balanced and broken Real Money Auction House was always shoved in front of you, tempting you to spend more money for a game you already paid full price for. On top of that, they made such a mess of it that the servers were unreliable for days after launch, rendering paying customers unable to access their games. Even to this day, Diablo III is still subject to lag issues. It didn’t need to require an always-on connection but it did and Blizzard did so with this game because they knew it had a rabid fanbase that would bitch and whine about it but line up to buy anyway. And they were right, it’s sold north of 12 million copies as of this writing.

Fast forward to now and we have a new hyper anticipated title about to launch, the reboot of SimCity. From what I’ve been reading, this looks to be a really neat, fresh take on the idea and people seem to be loving it but like Diablo III, it also requires the Internet to be up at all times to play it, even by yourself. Yes, there are a multitude of social features as well but none of these are required, yet the constant connection still is. Beyond that, these forced social features remove many of the things people previously loved about SimCity (such as being able to revert back to previous saves and have fun with the manually triggered disasters) and from what I’ve read, some of them aren’t even that well implemented and could stand to screw up people’s games due to factors they can’t control. In other words, it’s another game forcing online down people’s throats, even when it doesn’t make sense. Like Diablo III, EA carefully chose this title to try this new initiative because it’s a crazy popular series and they know people will line up for it. And once again, they appear to be right.

I was stupid and bought Diablo III. I shouldn’t have, I compromised my principles as a staunch opponent of always-on DRM but I was suckered in. I regret it to this day because beyond that issue alone, Diablo III is a poor entry in the series with dated visuals, dumbed down game play and frankly, it’s just not a very good game. Diablo I and II were better as are both Torchlight games. I refuse to be suckered into making the same mistake again with SimCity, at least not while it’s at full price. Disregarding that I don’t want social hooks shoved down my throat in every game, I also don’t trust EA to do right by their customers on this. For Blizzard’s faults, one can never accuse them of not supporting their games. The servers for the entire Diablo series (including the first entry released in the 90s) are still online and Diablo II was receiving patches mere months before Diablo III’s release, even though it was more than a decade old. I have no fear of the Diablo III servers going away any time soon.

EA on the other hand is a company that shuts off servers for two year old sports games in order to force people to buy newer versions that are basically just roster updates. They drop support for games at a frightening pace and have no regard for players that might want to keep playing them, not when there’s slight iterations to be sold again at full price. I have no confidence that they will do right by SimCity players in the long term. They have a history of not caring about their customers and treating them as adversaries more than allies. There’s a reason that EA is often considered the “most evil” publisher, even when they have Activision as their chief competitor.

Nonetheless, now that continuing the fight against always-on DRM means once again having to choose between principles and sacrificing the new shiny, many gamers and indeed reporters in the enthusiast press are not only glossing over the concerns but belittling and dismissing those who continue to have them. Once again, if you’re cool with purchasing titles that utilise this method, feel free, even if you were someone who derided the practice at one time before. People’s opinions can change, even if it is just to justify not having to sacrifice something popular. But exactly what gives you the right to wave off those who do have a problem with it and continue to state it?

The people who make snarky comments such as those linked above seem to think that just because the Internet is full of blowhard protests that rarely amount to much, that they never amount to anything and that’s just not true, even on this issue. Ubisoft, who were among the very first adopters of always-on DRM announced a few months back they were scrapping the practice, specifically because of feedback from consumers. People spoke with their mouths, keyboards and wallets and a big company listened. There’s other examples of this working elsewhere too. Yes, there’s a lot of meaningless whining on the Internet that doesn’t have any action backing it up. But that’s not representative of all Internet protests and when enough people speak up, companies do listen. The only way anything we don’t like changes is when people speak up in numbers and keep speaking up until change is realised. If you have a passionate dislike for something and don’t make noise about it, you can’t blame anyone but yourself when nothing changes.

Some of us are able to stick to our principles, even when it means turning away from something we want. I’m turning away from SimCity (at least for now) and I will also turn away from any future game console that requires a constant Internet connection and/or which blocks used games and rentals. I’m fully aware when I say such a thing that I caved on Diablo III. I regret that decision to this day and believe me, as someone who loves SimCity and really likes what I’ve seen of the new one, it pains me to say no to it but I will do so. If you don’t care, that’s your choice to make and I hope you enjoy the game for as long as EA permits you to play it. However, avoiding it is also my choice as well and if you have an issue with me both making it and openly saying why so that others can be better informed, feel free to get on the high horse you rode in on and piss off, be you forum poster or journalist.

Business, Coverage, Video Games Blizzard Entertainment, Diablo III, DRM, EA, Electronic Arts, gaming press, Maxis, PC gaming, SimCity, video games

We’re Not Entitled to Backwards Compatibility…Sort Of

2 Comments Posted by Parallax Abstraction on March 1, 2013

So as everyone on Earth knows by now, the initial reveal of the PlayStation 4 took place last week. It’s been discussed to death already and I don’t have a ton more to add except that a) I was stunned by how much Sony didn’t screw this presentation up as they so love to do and b) the complaints about them not showing the physical hardware are dumb because it’s just a black box you’ll put under your TV and never look at anyway. If you want to hear more, I appeared on an episode of my buddy Chris Cesarano’s Downloathable Content podcast and we had a great discussion about the whole thing. I went into the event kind of expecting Sony to bomb it and came out actually pretty excited for the PlayStation 4.

The one subject Sony dodged during the show and only got on record about after was whether the PS4 would be backwards compatible with the PS3. Since the two systems are so vastly different under the hood (they are less apples to oranges and more apples to dragonfruit), I didn’t expect the PS4 to be able to play PS3 retail games. With Sony’s acquisition of Gaikai and their extensive hyping of that technology during the show, I did expect that they might offer compatibility through online streaming as a viable option. Their responses to questions about that in several subsequent interviews has essentially been “We hope to do that one day but definitely not at launch and we’re not really talking more about it right now.”

This has created a bit of a firestorm among hardcore gamers, many of whom thinks Sony is making a big mistake by omitting backwards compatibility and that it actually owes this to their fans, both to reward historical loyalty but also to preserve the PlayStation legacy. Probably the best articulation of this argument I’ve seen is this video in MovieBob’s Game OverThinker series. Now, I like MovieBob and a lot of what he does and I frequently agree with him. When it comes to this subject though, I think he and those who share this viewpoint are acting both very spoiled and entitled and also just simply being unreasonable. However, I also don’t think we’re entirely wrong for demanding backwards compatibility, at least when it comes to digital purchases.

The whole notion of backwards compatibility is actually relatively new, only really becoming a thing since the PS2. Previous generation systems were largely not compatible with those that came before and the story goes that PS2′s case, it was a happy accident because Sony apparently put the PS1′s processor in the machine to act as an I/O controller and it was trivially easy to add in native PS1 playback support along with that. In the case of Nintendo with the Wii, GameCube and Wii U, those systems were able to be backwards compatible because they’re all essentially the same architecture underneath, each just being a slightly tweaked and faster version of what came before. Backwards compatibility was a nice value add for the hardcore and that’s all it was supposed to be. Sony continued this trend with the PS3 initially by putting the PS2′s Emotion processor in it, ensure 100% backwards compatibility. It was cool but here’s the thing: The PS3 was also “Five hundred and ninety-nine US dollars.” That was in large part because of two things: The crazy, insane, expensive Cell processor and putting the guts of a PS2 in it. Backwards compatibility was eventually downgraded to software emulation to cut costs and when maintaining that became too difficult, it was scrapped from the PS3 altogether, at least for PS2 games. A lot of people got upset then and a lot of people are getting upset about it not even making an appearance on PS4.

Here’s the thing though guys: You aren’t owed backwards compatibility. It was a nice novelty once before but we can’t have our cake and eat it too. In this economy and with the shifts happening in the game industry, no one’s going to buy a $500+ PS4, at least not enough to make it viable. Sony needs to be able to make this system powerful and also affordable. They can’t do that if they have to put an expensive Cell processor in the thing, in addition to everything else needed to support it. Given that the vast majority of people who say they want backwards compatibility rarely if ever actually use it (I have a launch PS3 and have probably played less than 3 hours of PS2 games on it), it simply doesn’t make business sense for Sony to incur the costs of that. Charging everyone more for a feature only a few want and will largely ignore is bad business. If we don’t want another “Five hundred and ninety-nine US dollars”, sacrifices have to be made and I think backwards compatibility should be at the front of things to cut. You have a PS3, you can play all your disc games already and like with the PS2, you’ll be able to buy PS3s for at least a couple of years to come. If you’re concerned that your PS3 may die soon, buy another one when they get cheaper. It’s as simple as that. If you aren’t prepared to pay for the feature and expect everyone else to also pay for it (including those that don’t want it), then you don’t get to have it. Sony has no responsibility to support old technology in perpetuity, not for your convenience or “gaming’s legacy.” If you’re not going to buy a PS4 because it won’t play PS3 games, your priorities are broken. You don’t buy new hardware to play old stuff.

Here’s the thing though: I’m fine with this argument for disc based games but digital games and content are a whole other story.

If I want to play any of the myriad PS3 games I have sitting on Blu-ray discs, I will always be able to do that. I have a PS3 and if PlayStation Network is ever taken down, I may not be able to play games online any more but I’ll still be able to put the disc in and access any parts of my physical library that I wish. This is not so with digital games. Any content I have purchased from PSN only survives as long as I can keep it downloaded on my system and even then, some of it likely requires a server to respond to it before allowing me to play. This is content I paid for but if PSN goes away, it disappears into the ether. That’s not right and it’s not fair. If I paid for a game, I believe I deserve to always have access to it in some way. Now, should Sony one day declare that PSN for PS3 is going away and gives me the option to download everything unlocked, that would be great but it’s unlikely they would do that or that all of their publishing partners would let them. This is not an issue with discs but with digital content, I have no control over my access to it.

For disc based content, I consider this a non-issue because I can just put it in the old system and have access to it. But if Sony cannot guarantee that PSN for PS3 will be up forever, I do believe they have a responsibility to paying customers to make those products available in the future, whether through native backwards compatibility or a streaming option I can get for free or a nominal upgrade fee. Microsoft and Nintendo owe us no less. I suspect in the future when Apple decides to bring iOS out of the Windows 3.1 interface era and makes a major upgrade to it, a similar problem will occur but will cause a much bigger mainstream outrage. This is a problem that’s been largely solved on the PC with services like Steam but of course, the PC is a much more open system and thus, it’s much easier to solve there. It’s not insurmountable for the console manufacturers though and it’s a problem finally being brought into the limelight for them.

Media companies want everyone to move to a new “digital age in the cloud” and the gaming industry is probably one of the biggest proponents of this. They are desperate to cut out retail and the poisonous leeching effect is has on the profit margins of an already razor-thin profit industry. However, it will only take a few missteps like what Sony is doing with PS3 digital purchases to sour the public at large on the concept. I’ll tell you what, I’m definitely going to think a lot longer and harder about what digital purchases I make on the next consoles if I know there’s a chance they may be temporary and become unavailable to me one day. Digital distribution is critical to the game industry’s future but it can’t be a one way street and they have to make it worth our while to buy our games online instead of going to a store and physically owning it, especially if they want to keep charging the same prices. Whether you’re making a game console or a closed mobile operating system, you have to start thinking about the future as well as the present if you’re going to deliver software electronically. People might be willing to lose a bunch of $1 apps in a few years, I doubt they’ll be so accommodating with $10, $15 and $60 games.

Business, Coverage, Culture, Predictions, Video Games backwards compatibility, game consoles, PlayStation 4, Sony, video games

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Geek Bravado

On Nintendo

Dead Space as a metaphor for a flailing and directionless EA

What’s the alternative to ad supported content?

Introducing Two Guys & A Game

My Special Perspective Review of Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Introducing Retro Flashback

The EApocalypse

Video Mayhem: Amnesia Live Stream Date & My New YouTube Show Launches the Same Day

When Popularity Trumps Principles

We’re Not Entitled to Backwards Compatibility…Sort Of

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