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Tag Archives: gaming press

When Popularity Trumps Principles

1 Comment Posted by 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 , , , , , , , , ,

Can we have some enthusiasm in the enthusiast press?

Leave a Comment Posted by on February 19, 2013

Does anyone remember the good old days when there was actually enthusiasm in the so called gaming “enthusiast press”? In truth, it probably wasn’t that long ago but it certainly feels that way. It’s where you went to see people who were super passionate about games talk about games passionately. You expected criticism and to see things that were bad called out but you also knew you were going to a place where people took gaming as seriously as you did. Somehow in the last year or two, the enthusiasm seems to have been sucked out and replaced with a dark bitterness that really is making me wonder why some of the people who still write about this entertainment sector continue to bother. I speak in general terms of course that don’t apply across the board but something’s amiss and I don’t get when doom and gloom became the hot topic to latch onto.

I say this as someone who is a cynical bastard. I’m happy when positive things happen but most of my life, I’ve taken the stance that if you assume the worst, you’ll be disappointed less often. Even as someone with that point of view, I find it amazing just how obsessed with negativity the enthusiast press is becoming and how they seem to take a short-term event and milk it with every ounce of dread they can. The most recent example of this is the poor sales month Nintendo had in January with the Wii U. Poor is putting it mildly, it was a number that would have been disastrous for one of the current 8 year old consoles to have, forget a machine that’s only a couple of months old. The Xbox 360 which came out in 2005 and is in all likelihood getting replaced this year outsold it by more than two to one. It’s bad, real bad, even for when trying to launch a new console in a world still deep in a recession, much as the media tries to deny it.

That should be reported as such but what most outlets immediately leaped to was a quote from everyone’s favourite unaccountable hack analyst, Michael Pachter. He is saying that the Wii U was a misfire and that he’s basically put Nintendo on death watch, saying he’s doubtful they can recover from the poor launch and that the 3DS can’t sustain them as a company. Now, I can talk for hours about this twit’s horrendous track record with predictions and how the press touts his few successes while ignoring his many failures but that’s not even the point here.

The Wii U launched with a lot of software but most of it was uninteresting. And as a Wii U owner clamoring for new games, how thin the release schedule is until later this year is a worry for me. However, while there’s no doubt that Nintendo’s in a tough spot right now and has a lot to prove, when did one bad month equal total and complete meltdown? Does no one remember that this is a company that is over 100 years old and which until recently, had never failed to turn a profit? Does anyone remember how the Gamecube is called a failure to this day, despite it actually selling quite well and making Nintendo money? Nintendo is one of the most resilient, continually successful companies in the history of the world and just come off the Wii and DS, two of the most successful, profitable consoles of all time but they’re doomed because of one bad month of Wii U sales. When Apple’s stock started to drop and they failed to meet expectations last quarter, criticism was dismissed at hate and the press said they would “innovate out of their stock slump.” Even by the objectively obvious double standard that Apple operates in, they seem to be the only ones able to do right these days.

Oh yeah, did I also mention that Pachter now sits on the board of a Skinner Box social gaming company that has a direct interest in seeing the console business fail? Yeah, just when I thought the man’s commentary couldn’t get less credible, that massive conflict of interest enters the fray. I’ve yet to see that pointed out anywhere else.

Sure, the short-sighted, largely clueless investors that hold Nintendo stock won’t be happy with the launch. A lot of them wouldn’t have been happy unless it sold better than the Wii, something that was impossible and Nintendo knew. But as is always the case with this company, a couple of good first party titles can easily turn the platform’s fortunes around. I’ll be the first to admit that they should have had more of those titles at launch and that some of them are much further in the future than they should be but they will come and they will likely move hardware. This isn’t the Vita, Nintendo has some of the strongest IPs in the world and those IPs sell machines. All of this is trivially easy to glean by looking at the history of the company, yet I’ve not seen a single article discussing this, not a single reporter raising these points. All I see are inflammatory headlines like “Pachter puts Wii U and Nintendo on death watch” and “Is Nintendo doomed?” Not only is the “enthusiast press” ignoring history for convenient headlines, they are damaging the very industry they are supposed to champion by writing stories like this that scare potential customers away from the Wii U. Hell, tomorrow we’re finally supposed to get the reveal of the PlayStation 4, the first glimpse of the next generation that people have been saying is years overdue. Yet even now, I’m seeing stories questioning whether this is too little, too late and if consoles even matter any more. What the Hell happened to the excitement, to the interest in seeing the good the future may hold? Controversy drives clicks and writing stories they know will start flame wars is part of it but it goes beyond that. When did the press become so damn emo?

Nintendo is a company facing many challenges right now, of that there can be no doubt. Gaming’s changing is ways that have never been seen before and were not predicted by anyone. Many of these are not good changes either but more on that in the future. I’m also the first to admit that the growing scandal over Aliens: Colonial Marines is enough to blacken the heart of even the most naive gaming enthusiast. But seriously guys, if you can no longer write about the industry that is the sole focus of your job as if you actually enjoy it, step aside and let someone in who can actually see the glass as half full one in a while. And for the love of everything, please stop using analyst quotes as the basis for your doom and gloom pieces. These people just want attention and they’re playing you like a two dollar banjo. When even a jaded cynic is thinking you’re being too cynical, you have a real problem somewhere. Gaming is supposed to be fun, let’s start talking about it as if it’s not a burden, at least once in a while.

Business, Coverage, Predictions, Video Games , , , , , , ,

The Humble Entitlement Bundle

Leave a Comment Posted by on December 4, 2012

In a move that was called a betrayal by many and lauded as marketing genius by others, last week Humble Bundle put up a new package by struggling publisher THQ. They put up a bunch of their relatively recent, largely high quality AAA PC titles under the traditional pay-what-you-want model of the Humble Bundle. This is an unprecedented move for a AAA publisher but given THQ’s massive problems, desperate times call for desperate measures. Given that most of these are older titles that aren’t selling well any more, a move like this gives them a small cash infusion and also drums up awareness of several franchises that have imminent sequels in development. Sales of these sequels are vital if THQ’s to have any chance of surviving more than a few months and a Humble Bundle where they get to raise some money while also supporting great charities seems like a fantastic idea to me. I already own every game in the bundle except Red Faction: Armageddon but already bought one to get that plus the soundtracks and another to gift to a friend. I will probably buy more.

Of course, this has not been without its huge share of controversy. A number of previous Humble Bundle community supporters as well as reporters Kyle Orland, high horse enthusiast Ben Kuchera and others have slammed this package saying it cheapens the Humble Bundle brand, is a betrayal of their values and many other stabs of hyperbole. Their complaints really boil down to the fact that this package doesn’t share many traits that previous Humble Bundles have. Among them are:

-These aren’t indie games, they’re all AAA releases from the same publisher.
-The money’s going to a heartless, evil publisher and not the developers.
-The games are not DRM free, they use Steam which is a mild form of DRM.
-They only run on Windows and not also on Mac and Linux as other Humble Bundle titles traditionally have.
-This is a cynical attempt from a dying company to milk a few extra dollars for their executives before they go under.

These are all perfectly valid reasons to not so much as pay a single cent to get the bundle as you indeed can but “betraying their principals?” Give me a damn break. A bunch of incredible games (a couple of which are barely a year old) are released for literally next to nothing and supporting charity at the same time but bunch of entitled prats still whine.

Let’s get this straight guys: Humble Bundle owes you nothing. They offer products that are sold with a certain pricing model. You pay a price, you get the products promised, that’s all. They has never made it part of their mission statement that all the games will be indies, DRM free or that they will run on platforms that are little more then AAA wastelands. There has been no ideological betrayal here, no principals mangled in the name of profits. It’s all in your arrogant little heads.

THQ is on the financial ropes. Did you honestly think they were going to endure the considerable work and cost to port older, high-end games to platforms that virtually no one plays high-end games on? Don’t you think they would have already done that if there was a market there? And so what if the developers aren’t directly getting the proceeds? Last I checked, THQ surviving means the studios who developed the games (all of which are still around) get to continue to exist and employ their teams as opposed to getting shut down or sold off for pennies on the dollar. If THQ does under before Metro Last Light comes out, what do you think is going to happen to 4A Games? Nothing good I can assure you. Yes, this is a desperation move and one they wouldn’t be doing if they weren’t in dire straights. However, as someone who loves AAA games and is frankly terrified at the pace of consolidation and shrinkage in that side of the industry, I say that if this allows THQ to survive and continue making games, it’s damn well worth it.

The values supposedly being betrayed aren’t Humble Bundle’s but ones the ones whining have superimposed on them. This kind of entitled whining toward an organisation all but giving away some of the best games in recent years is a shining example of the horribly named “first world problems” meme. It’s why the indie community has a reputation for being a bunch of whiny, self-righteous, pretentious douchebags. This is a reputation I think is largely unfounded but it becomes much harder to argue that point when I see things like this happen. Those who are saying they will boycott Humble Bundle in the future because of this “betrayal” are only hurting the future indie developers and charities the organisation supports, all in the name of making a pointless statement based on their own vicarious ego stroking. They and the reporters supporting them need to come down from their ivory towers. Humble Bundle helps charity, they aren’t one themselves and you never had a say in their ideals. If you think you can do this better than them, I implore you to go and start up your own organisation based on the nobler goals you seem to think you espouse.

As I write this, the bundle is currently sitting at $3.4 million raised from 606,473 contributors and there’s still almost 9 days to go. I believe this is already a record for Humble Bundle and if not, it surely will be by the time the campaign ends. The silent majority still seems to prefer to buy rather than bitch and I’m happy to see that. I was already hoping THQ would survive but if it does, I can now take extra satisfaction knowing it’s done so in spite of the entitled idiots who would rather see less good games made simply because an organisation betrayed principals they only wish it had. Get over yourselves people.

Business, Coverage, Culture, Video Games , , ,

Can we stop with NPD already?

Leave a Comment Posted by on September 10, 2012

When you’re into gaming and the industry to the unhealthy degree that I am, you like to know numbers. Numbers give a very simplistic, top down viewpoint on how well a game and by extension, the people involved in getting it to you are doing. If it’s a game I like by a company I want to see succeed, knowing it sold well brings a small grin to my face because it means that company gets to make more games and hopefully, more like the ones I enjoy. Unfortunately there has never been a wholly accurate way to track this data and new distribution methods are making the true picture even murkier. That doesn’t stop the click-happy press from trying though and the primary vehicle they use to do so is the monthly sales report from NPD Group, a research firm that’s supposed to specialise in this stuff. Like the myriad of analysts they love to quote with no accountability, every month a new NPD report comes out, gets regurgitated in the press with a bunch of uninformed predictions attached and the fans go nuts. The problem is, NPD’s report has actually gotten less and less useful over time but it’s still treated as a barometer for the health of the games industry and it needs to stop.

The NPD monthly report began a number of years ago, back when the only way to buy video games was in a physical form from a brick and mortar store. Even then it wasn’t great but it was certainly more accurate than now. As the industry has evolved and adopted more platforms and distribution methods, the report has failed to keep pace and their accuracy and usefulness have waned. Media outlets and game companies pay NPD a lot of money for it though and they have continued to push it in order to keep those subscription dollars rolling in.

This wouldn’t necessarily be bad as any data is better than none but the press never puts the increasing blurriness of NPD’s data into context and it’s still taken by many gamers (and the analysts looking to get quoted) as the true gospel. Right now, NPD numbers month over month are going down at a rather alarming pace, causing many to think the AAA games industry is in free fall. While it’s certainly not healthy and game sales are indeed down, using NPD data alone as a source of industry health is wrong and frankly, the kind of bad journalism that’s stinking up the enthusiast press. The big story this month is how Darksiders II apparently posted very disappointing sales numbers despite being the #1 title on NPD’s list, causing many to go into a panic since this was one of the games that was supposed to secure ailing THQ’s short-term future as they attempt to restructure and save their business. The problem is, the current state of NPD’s report itself makes most of this panic unwarranted, at least for now.

To get an idea of just how messed up NPD’s data is, here’s a few points of note:

  • They only collect data about game sales in the United States. Some different charts are kept on a few other countries but they’re from other companies and are never included.
  • They only count sales from brick and mortar retail stores and don’t even count all of those. Most independent retailers are not counted and Wal-Mart (the biggest retailer in the world and I believe second in game sales only to GameStop) was just added recently.
  • They don’t count digital distribution sales in any credible way. Most digital distributors (including Steam which is to that market what GameStop is to brick and mortar) don’t release sales numbers to anyone but the publishers they partner with. NPD very recently started providing guesses of these numbers but they have no idea what the true ones are. Given that almost all PC games are sold digitally now (with many other platforms entering that space as well), this is a critical and glaring omission. This is why there have never been NPD numbers for Xbox Live Arcade or PlayStation Network downloadable games and why they don’t cover the mobile market.
  • The only numbers released to the public are the console hardware sales and a top 10 list of games which isn’t broken out by platform. NPD used to put out more detailed stats and then distilled them down further. While AAA titles generally live or die by their first month sales, catalogue sales are also important but will never be in the top 10 if they aren’t Call of Duty, Nintendo or Blizzard games. THQ was actually profitable last quarter despite having no new releases at all because their catalogue sales were very strong. Some titles can indeed have long legs but the report doesn’t tell that.
  • Their sales numbers don’t take into account release dates. If a game comes out with only 5 days remaining in a month, it’s obviously not going to sell as many units in that reporting period than if it came out with 25 days remaining in the month. Some press discuss this but many don’t, nor do NPD themselves, electing not even to put release dates in their charts. These are critical for proper context of sales in a given month. Which flows nicely into my next point…
  • Their numbers are always released without context. They currently say overall sales are down year-over-year and while that true, some of this can be attributed to fewer games releases from big publishers as they are devoting resources to next-gen projects and taking fewer risks with what’s left in this generation. They also fail to mention how sales of most luxury categories are down across the board because the world is still in a massive recession that’s worsening in many places. That one or two outliers like Apple and Samsung buck the trend does not invalidate it. This isn’t entirely NPD’s fault. It’s the job of those reporting the numbers to provide context and most are not.

The point is that this particular NPD report (which is the only one from them I can speak to) is hurling towards irrelevance. It’s numbers have never been wholly accurate but as the industry evolves and shares less data with them, they become even fuzzier. NPD is very careful to not point this out and the enthusiast press is doing the same because the doom and gloom stories they write with them drive traffic and controversy. There’s a reason the more credible sites like Giant Bomb don’t really talk about them, despite the most ravenous fans being there. Continuing to use this report (and the analyst quotes it spawns) as any kind of true barometer of the industry’s health is poor journalism, nothing more.

On the subject of Darksiders II, it’s premature to sound THQ’s death bell over these numbers but it is important to note that just because NPD’s report is not wholly useful doesn’t mean the game is doing great and we just don’t know. Publishers love to send out press releases when titles sell even as well as expected and that hasn’t happened yet. Ultimately, the best place to tell how well this and indeed every title has performed will be in the publisher’s earnings call. They may not reveal exact sales numbers but we will know if it met, beat or fell short of expectations. Until the companies for whom these sales truly count have their say, anything NPD says really doesn’t matter any more.

This is a two pronged problem, both in the NPD report itself and once again, the enthusiast press which falls asleep on their responsibility to provide context in order to aid sensationalism. There’s a reason you don’t see stories in the mainstream press talking about the next video game crash every time one of these declining reports come out. It’s partly because NPD numbers aren’t a huge deal outside enthusiast circles but also likely because their report doesn’t pass the smell test. When it’s easy for a total non-journalist like me to realise their data is a joke, what excuse does the actual press have? The publishers are not the best place to get accurate sales data either but whether they’re in the red or in the black is a better barometer for the industry’s health than anything NPD says. If you want to know how things are doing, read an analysis of publisher earnings. Don’t listen to NPD, don’t listen to the stories about NPD and especially don’t listen to the likes of Dent, Pachter, Broussard, Sebastian and all the other analysts who use them as a basis to get their names noticed and know no more or better than NPD themselves.

Business, Coverage, Video Games , , ,

Meet the new hotness, same as the old hotness

4 Comments Posted by on July 24, 2012

Remember when pretty much everyone in the games press and a good chunk of the industry said PC gaming was dead? Man, that seems like it happened so recently. That’s probably because it did. Only a year or two ago, you couldn’t look at a non-PC enthusiast site without seeing almost everyone condemning the platform as corpsified and one that would always play second fiddle to consoles in the home, saddled with half-assed ports of games that were designed for controllers and 720p first. Even with the huge rise of mobile and indie development, everyone said there just wasn’t a case for gaming on computers anymore. The usual bevy of nonsense excuses was offered: Piracy’s out of control! A computer than can run games is too expensive! PC gaming’s too complicated!

Then some time in 2011, the sentiment almost universally shifted and in the last couple of months, this seems to be the increasingly common viewpoint.

As a life-long PC gamer first and someone who also supports computers for a living, I’ve always thought similarly to Jim Sterling. I’ve owned every console since the PS2 and have a huge library of console games. I don’t dislike consoles at all, far from it. However, especially in recent years, the continued excuses I hear about why PC gaming can never be mainstream I always believed to be crap. Piracy is a huge problem on every platform from Xbox 360 to iOS, it’s just whined about more on PC. Virtually any computer you buy now can run games to some degree and even something as low as $500 can run AAA stuff decently if you don’t care about having all the settings maxed. Most reasonably equipped PCs can easily be plugged into a TV if you want to game on the couch and almost every new game has native controller support. And with the lessening frequency of driver updates and well as drivers, games and operating systems that keep themselves current automatically, it’s never been easier to be a PC gamer. I could sit my girlfriend or my Mom down with a new PC with Steam on it, say “Buy, install and play something.” and neither of them would have any harder a time doing that than they would putting a game into a console. Sterling also touches on how digital distribution means the actual games are almost always cheaper now as well. The standby excuses no longer apply and are just that, excuses.

Meanwhile, consoles have paid online services that are free on PC. Patching also became possible this generation which has given rise to the “release now, patch later” mentality that the absence of used to be their greatest strength. This is backed up with manufacturer “certification processes” that are supposed to ensure you get quality in the box. However, especially of late, we’ve heard many developers (especially smaller indies) complaining about how bureaucratic and slow they are and how more and more are finding the process not worth it. Even with this, we still get numerous games like say, every Bethesda release that are often barely playable at launch or the strange and continuing problem of most Xbox Live Arcade titles shipping broken online play. When you combine this with both Microsoft and Sony making games more and more secondary and trying to turn their machines into all-in-one living room devices, I think Sterling’s bang on when he says that consoles are simply becoming closed, less powerful and increasingly less friendly PCs.

Most indie developers have said that they both endured fewer headaches and made more money by releasing to Steam on PC or even the App Store than on any console service. Services like that allow you to create and release a game entirely on your own whereas Xbox Live Arcade requires that you have a publisher who cuts into your profits. Then there’s retail games where self-publishing hasn’t been a realistic option for over a decade. You can patch and update your game with ease and as often as you want on PC without penalty and contrary to the console certification philosophy, PC games that are broken at launch are no more or less common. In other words, PC not only has by far the largest number of potential players in the world, it’s the easiest platform to develop and maintain your game for.

Here’s the thing though: That’s been the case on PC for the better part of a decade now and it was the case throughout most of this time when people declared PC gaming dead. What amazes me is not only that the pendulum has swung back but that it’s done so with such speed that the pendulum’s practically warped by the G-force. The PC always does get a bit of a resurgence as a console cycle ends and given that this cycle has gone on way too long, a certain amount of that is expected. This time seems different though, with many developers big and small now speaking out against how frustrating the consoles are to work with and how many who have previously released on them aren’t going to bother anymore. Many say that between PC and mobile platforms, consoles are increasingly becoming irrelevant and that the next generation may be the last of them, at least in their current form. I don’t know if that’s true but I do know that PC and mobile are raising the bar of value expectations both from developers and consumers and if the consoles want to continue to have the great success they’ve attained, the large companies in charge of them need to stop slogging through the mud and learn to be agile and less controlling.

What I’ve really learned throughout watching this huge and sudden paradigm shift is just how increasingly irrelevant and frankly useless the enthusiast press is becoming. The same people who were declaring the PC dead with certainty only a couple of years ago are now cheering it as the killer of consoles. These are the same people who said the DS and Wii were gimmicky and would never take off and that people would never want to play games on a mobile phone and that PC gaming was always going to be a niche for wealthy nerds. PC gaming never went anywhere and was never close to dead but people believed it because the enthusiast press said so. I’ve come to realise in recent months that the segment is really just an inter-feeding echo chamber based on opinions people pull out of thin air without any real empirical evidence. Time and time again, the enthusiast press proves itself to be pretty useless at understanding trends and what consumers actually want, only at taking wild guesses and stating them as fact. It frustrates me to see their word so often taken as law among gamers, even when it constantly flip-flops and is proven wrong by others who remain ignored. I don’t know how one goes about fixing this problem but I’ve been granularly moving further and further away from this segment of game coverage in the last couple of years and I think if they aren’t careful, a lot of other people are going to as well. If when the next Xbox and PlayStation come out, we start seeing coverage once again swinging back to the PC being irrelevant, I think perhaps it’s their own relevance they should check.

I’ve always been a PC gamer first and will continue to be, even though I will likely be all three new consoles when they arrive. I do wonder what the future is going to hold in this regard but the important thing to remember is that throughout the entire history of gaming (including one major crash), playing games on computers has always endured and grown, no matter what has happened to every other segment. I think consoles are important for growing the gaming audience but if the future is in fact one where open, expandable, decentralised platforms can once again be dominant, I think that’s ultimately good for everyone. Regardless of where you choose to do your gaming, make sure you make your choice because it’s where you prefer to be, not because it’s where the increasingly irrelevant press tells you to be.

Business, Computers, Coverage, Predictions, Technology, Video Games , , , , ,

So That Was E3 2012

Leave a Comment Posted by on June 11, 2012

This week went by super fast for me. Some of that was because work was a non-stop cascade of crazy but it was also because of E3. For as many faults as the show’s structure has, I love it. It’s loud, rambuncious, obnoxious and serves one singular purpose: To scream “VIDEO GAMES ARE AWESOME!” It’s funny because during the week of the big show, I get so caught up in consuming press conference streams, trailers, articles, podcasts and discussing everything at length on forums that it takes up all my free time and for that week, I never actually play any games. This year was no different, aside from a couple of tiny play sessions with my Vita during lunch. There’s always a lot of excitement and anticipation around E3 but this year had a very weird vibe both leading up to and during the show. There was the whining about the show’s relevance, but beyond that, there was a lot of uncertainty about what exactly we’d see. Vita aside, Sony and Microsoft are still flogging what is positively ancient hardware at this point and Nintendo was going to talk about the new WiiU and hopefully breathe some life into the 3DS but last year’s showing (filled with info that was subject to change) really had people confused on what to expect.

Now that the show’s over, I’ve been seeing a lot of really perplexing opinions from the enthusiast press. Many are complaining that the show was disappointing, nothing really impressive came out of it, that Nintendo disappointed really badly and the rest of the makers are pretty clearly just coasting until next year when they’ll presumably announce the next generation Xbox and PlayStation home systems. I’ll admit that this wasn’t my favourite E3 and there are past shows that have been better than this one but once again, the whining from the segment of the press who drives most of their traffic and hype from this show–who indeed should thank this show as a big reason for their field’s existence–really frustrates me. Also guys, what’s with the clapping at press conferences? When you’re there in a coverage capacity, you’re supposed to be journalists first and fans second. Applauding at what are really fancy sales pitches don’t do wonders for demonstrating your integrity. Stop it.

As a superfan of this medium and the AAA segment of it, I’d have done some morally questionable things to be able to attend that show and while I understand it’s bloody hard work for the press, seeing them pimp their coverage all week and then whine about how there wasn’t anything good to see drives me mad. Anyone who says there was nothing interesting at this year’s E3 either didn’t look hard enough or is outright blind. Several of the bigger publishers are certainly coasting on established brands while their front line teams crank away on next-gen hardware but that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone and in spite of that, we’ve seen several new IPs this year and the unique re-imagining of others. The amount of originality on display was more than I was expecting and even though my expectations were low, that’s saying something.

Not everything was as encouraging however. Those that coasted this year really coasted and some of those who really needed to hit their messages out of the park botched the swings to the point where they ended up being little more than bunts. The “big five” press briefings are always a good way to form some top-down impressions of the show as a whole so let’s start there. There were shining highlights but they were almost universally disappointing for different reasons. I’ve heard it speculated on podcasts that a lot of this was because the briefings are being aired on TV to a wide audience and as a result, they’re more strictly crunched for time and are focusing them around more mainstream appeal than they did before. If this is true, then I say they need to stop being aired on TV because all that makes these shows interesting was largely sucked out this year.

Microsoft – This beats EA as the most disappointing, only because EA actually showed games. This year, Microsoft was almost entirely focused on media features and their briefing gave a strong vibe that games were basically an afterthought. We got no new game announcements, some new (but largely old) footage of games we already knew were coming, a smattering of Kinect lip service and from then on it was media, media media. One can only imaging the bazillions of dollars that Microsoft must have spent to secure some of the content deals they announced but as someone who doesn’t give a crap about sports and who doesn’t live in the US and thus, won’t be able to get many of these, I just don’t care. Their SmartGlass feature which will allow supplementary content to appear on your phone or tablet looks like cool tech but the main thing I took from that was “Oh great, yet another thing to distract me from watching the damn show.” They even released the video showcasing all their cool looking Summer of Arcade titles after the show, they didn’t even run it as a sizzle real which would have taken two minutes. Microsoft pretty clearly thinks they’ve already got the gamers locked in for the rest of this generation and now it’s time to broaden to non-gamers to try to keep moving hardware until next year when I’m sure they’ll laser focus on the games again for Xbox: The Next One. There’s probably numbers that indicate this makes sense in some way but as a hardcore gamer, I was pretty annoyed. Gamers are what made the Xbox 360 the success it is and we’ll be what drives adoption of the next system. To leave us out in the cold to showcase a bunch of media features that you can get on boxes that cost less and have no subscription I don’t think is necessarily a willing formula.

Sony – They had one of the more engaging presentations and it was book ended by awesome new IP (Beyond: Two Souls and The Last of Us, both of which I want in my eyeballs right now). Like Microsoft though, they also dropped the ball in key areas to focus more on mainstream stuff, though at least it was focused on games. As a Vita owner itching for new content, I was both stunned and frustrated at how little they talked about the system. Most press and Vita owners left that show thinking Sony has basically left what’s far and away the best portable system out to die. It was later revealed that they had something like 25 games at their booth and more announcements were made during the show itself. They also have a ton of really interesting downloadable indie titles in the works, which weren’t even hinted at. They also waited until later in the week to reveal an incredible list of free AAA and downloadable titles that were already available and will be rotated on a monthly basis for PlayStation Plus members, something which finally made me pull the trigger on it. This neglect was apparently in service of doing a nearly 20 minute embarrassing glitchy demo of an augmented reality storybook for kids and pimping their PlayStation Suite service for Android smartphones, which has been a complete flop so far and I think will continue to be. They even went as far as to apologise for not giving the Vita the attention it deserves. They also waited until after the show to reveal a massive list of free Sony as a company is bleeding badly right now and largely ignoring the device they need to get their investment back on quickly at their press briefing was nothing short of idiotic. As the show progressed however, I quickly realised that Sony platforms are getting a ton of compelling content this year and I’m excited for it now, including the Vita.

Nintendo – They without question had the most to prove this year. The Wii has flared out badly, the 3DS had a bad start and the WiiU is their big chance to shut up those who are saying Nintendo should get out of hardware and make iOS games. They had not one but 3 different briefings, a video one talking about WiiU’s online features on Sunday, their main WiiU briefing on Tuesday and a dedicated 3DS show the following day which I missed. From what I understand, there’s a lot to be excited about for 3DS this year and Nintendo seems to have finally found their stride with it (funny how all the gaming press who said the handheld market had “moved on” last year were silent on that issue this year). They did a decidedly worse pitch for the WiiU. I went into this show excited to get one pre-ordered and probably still will but came out the other side pretty deflated. There were far fewer games announced than people were expecting and some heavy hitters were missing. One big pleasant surprise was the announcement that 2 WiiU GamePad tablets controllers can now be used simultaneously. Up to now, the announced limit was 1 so this is nice to see, even if it comes with the caveat of cutting the frame rate on the GamePads by half if both are in use. Pikmin 3 looks cool (though I’ve never been a huge Pikmin guy) but there was no mention of Retro Studios’ new title, there’s yet another New. Super Mario Bros. game coming (I like the series but the formula is getting tired), Ubisoft has a couple of neat titles on the horizon with ZombieU and Rayman Legends but other than that, the big third-party title they spent many minutes on was Batman Arkham City Armoured Edition, an update to a game that has been out for almost a year with gimmicky WiiU map and inventory features tacked on. I fail to see how they expect to find a new audience for this title on the platform but they seem confident. Their big closer was NintendoLand, supposedly their answer to WiiSports. It’s yet another minigame collection centred around the core idea of a theme park and though it seemed neat, most press who played the games thought they were underwhelming. There simply weren’t enough game announcements. They needed to rapid fire them to show how committed both Nintendo and third parties are to the platform and they failed at that, to the point where Nintendo’s stock took a hit after the show was over. Some in the press have said that Nintendo has been focusing on very short PR cycles lately, not talking about games until much closer to release. Since the WiiU isn’t due to ship until the holiday season, they theorise that we’ll see many more announcements before then and that they were light on announcements at E3 because it simply comes too early. That may be true but to give such a paltry offering at the show where mainstream media is watching seems like a massive missed opportunity.

EA – After their briefing, one of their executives did some damage control and came out saying that EA has several new IPs in the works but that they were all for next-gen systems which is why they weren’t talked about here. That was slightly reassuring but it didn’t really detract from the slimy feeling one gets from watching this conference. At least for 2012, EA is showing itself to be a company that’s creatively bankrupt. Their entire hour plus briefing did not talk about a single new IP. Everything was sequels, add-ons, stapling mobile/social garbage onto every title whether they needed them or not and putting on a brave face while begging people to resubscribe from Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Their announcement that it’s going to be free up until level 15 is cool and will get me to try it but I’m sure I won’t end up subscribing and I think it’s going to be fully free to play by the end of the year. They put a big bet on the subscription MMO segment and there’s just no success to be found there anymore. SimCity looks really cool and I love some of the new mechanics they’re introducing. But I don’t trust EA to do always-on DRM in a consumer friendly way (Blizzard does it best and they can’t even really do it right) and the inability to revert saves has killed the best part of the game, manually triggering crazy disasters on your established cities. I’ll probably end up skipping it. I do like the new Need for Speed meets Burnout idea that Criterion is taking with the new instalment in that series that’s inexplicably sharing the same name as the one that came out only 2 bloody years ago but it’s going to be yet another driving game I’ll probably get distracted from before I can finish it. The announcement later in the week that it’s getting a Vita release perked me up. Their attempts to force connectivity with other platforms into everything is gross and just seems like an attempt to hit marketing bullet points and trying to keep people always thinking about their games when they can’t be around to play them. I don’t have time to check stats and play pointless little side games for Battlefield 3 on my phone and those resources are best spent on making the core games better.

Ubisoft – Ghastly hosting choices aside (I couldn’t stand that YouTube flavour of the month but nothing is as bad as Mr. Caffeine), this was far and away the best show. When Yves Guillemot briefly came on stage to introduce the incredible looking new IP Watch Dogs, really all he should have done was yell “Triple A bitches!” and dropped his mic. Beyond some nods to casual franchises like Just Dance and an embarrassing, borderline sexist demonstration of ShootMania which did that game no favours, this was all about top-shelf, mirror shine polished titles for hardcore players like me. No unnecessary social and mobile connectivity, no  Assassin’s Creed is one of my favourite series of this console generation so I was already sold on the new one coming this Fall but their demonstration just blew me away more, unnecessary animal killing aside. Rayman Legends on the WiiU was almost enough to sell me one of those systems and from what I’ve been hearing of ZombieU, that might seal the deal in spite of its dumb name. They closed off with Watch Dogs which looks like Assassin’s Creed meets Deus Ex and I couldn’t be more excited for it. It looks like the kind of game I’ve been dreaming of for years now. Ubisoft clearly believes there’s a future in AAA and is driving almost all their company in that direction which is a very refreshing change. This is a company that doesn’t always do right by their customers but in terms of new ideas, they are the ones to watch in 2013.

There’s so much more that happened during the week beyond these press briefings but if you combine the vibe they all gave off into one, you get an idea of the show as a whole. They (plus a number of other surprising new titles that were discussed throughout the week) to me indicates an industry that’s in a bit of a holding pattern while it waits for the next generation  (even Nintendo, who should be in anything but that) and sees how emerging platforms continue to grow (or not as I think the next couple of years will show). Nonetheless, the industry still has some new and different ideas left in it that’s it’s working on them full steam ahead. Personally, this year has been a bit of a AAA drought for me so far (not that my pile of shame is complaining) but the second half of this year and in particular, the first half of next year is shaping up to be bonkers with a huge number of titles coming I think I’ll be really in to as well as a wide variety of people with different tastes and genre preferences. For all the questions of the show’s relevancy and whining that there was nothing interesting here, I’ve found tons to be excited about and if the future of all video games is dreck on iOS and Facebook, no one seems to have told the people at this show and they aren’t exactly stupid people who don’t know how to turn a profit.

With the economy still not improving and another recession possibly on the horizon, the stakes for the AAA industry have never been higher. There’s definitely some creative seizures taking place due to that but there’s still a market for new ideas and those trying them aren’t just dipping their foot in the water, they’re diving in deep and making substantial and in some cases, ballsy bets. For me, the biggest disappointment this year was in the coverage itself. I’ve been following E3 closely for years now and never before have I seen such a ho-hum, torpor response from the people who like to call themselves the enthusiast press. Maybe they know something they aren’t sharing with the rest of us but what I took from this show was that there’s few new ideas, the console companies don’t care about gamers anymore and that the new and shiny platforms like the Vita are apparently dead, even though there were 25 games at the Sony booth and I rarely read a story about any of them. I’m not sure how you can call a platform dead when it’s screaming at you for attention and you just ignore it.

I’m actually sympathetic to a degree in that I think the enthusiast press is hearing a lot of the same unfounded and frankly dumb rhetoric about how AAA gaming is dying and iOS and Facebook are taking over the world and is beginning to drink some of the Kool Aid. I can personally attest to how it definitely seems like no one’s backing what you like when that’s all you see everywhere. For the fault of this year’s E3 (and there were many), it’s the one time of year when the AAA industry can scream about all the incredible gaming experiences you can’t get anywhere else and they still came out swinging this year. It’s an industry that’s in a hard place right now but they’re nowhere near dead yet and even if that’s their ultimate fate, they are going down in one Hell of a blaze of glory. Point out the faults when you see them but this is an event that should be cherished, not admonished. If you’re in the enthusiast press but can’t find your enthusiasm even at this time of year, then maybe you need to start writing about something else.

I see a great year ahead for those of us who love AAA gaming and I can’t wait for what’s to come.

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Some Ranty Thoughts On E3′s Relevance

2 Comments Posted by on June 4, 2012

So the big show starts today. Nintendo’s going to announce a new home console and a bunch of games will get announced and have more shown of them. Yet for some reason, this year’s E3 seems to be getting a real negative spin in the enthusiast press, even before the show officially opens. While hyping their own coverage up as one would expect, many sites are now posting articles questioning the show’s relevance. Some of the bigger publishers have their own events before the show and throughout the year which are cannibalising some of the hype. In addition, lower console sales (which are in line with the end of a cycle that’s gone on longer than anyone planned) are making everyone suddenly question if there’s value in a big flashy glitzfest for AAA gaming. Many mobile developers are also coming out of the woodwork to say that the show no longer means anything and it’s just a bygone relic of an industry that’s dying, the void from which they are filling in.

My first reaction to this is one of confusion more than anything. The enthusiast gaming press lives for this time of year, it’s when they get all the juicy details of upcoming releases they need to feed their users for the rest of the year and I would wager it’s by far their busiest traffic period. Why they are actively questioning the existence of a show that’s the bread and butter of what they do baffles me. I remember a few years back when E3 tried an experiment of becoming a much more slimmed down, streamlined affair. The theory was that the show had become too noisy, too gaudy and too sensational and it was costing publishers a fortune so by slimming it down, it would let the games speak for themselves and make it easier to cover and talk about. The results were a disaster with everyone saying that E3 had lost its soul and was in danger of losing the cultural impact it represented. The old formula was restored for the following year and now the same people are saying that the spectacle they once demanded return is no longer important again. In the span of a single year, the show’s perception for many has gone from being the go-to gaming event to being representative of a segment that might as well roll over and die while iOS dreck takes over.

I think the opinion of mobile developers is about as pertinent to a discussion of E3 as a Greenpeace member’s on the Detroit International Auto Show. With a couple of exceptions this year, the mobile industry doesn’t participate in E3, not because they aren’t welcome but because they choose not to. So why is their view on it at all important? If their industry and the disruption they love to tout that it’s having on the “traditional” games industry is so significant (because remember that one thing can’t succeed without something else failing an equal or greater amount), where is the annual trade show dedicated to mobile games? Given the lacklustre promotion and support from the mobile platform holders, I would think such an event would be extremely beneficial for them. There’s certainly enough money going around that segment to make such a thing possible. So where is it? If E3′s no longer relevant, what does it say about their perceived dominance over gaming today that they don’t have their own spectacle? To give them and their largely well, irrelevant point of view such a loud voice in the enthusiast press strikes me as a cynical attempt by outlets to drive clicks through controversy. The enthusiast press loves to do this and that’s bad enough unto itself but to do it over something so important to what they do is just stupid.

The thing that the enthusiast press and many hardcore fans have continually failed to understand is that even though we’re the biggest consumers per head of the goods hocked at E3 every year, the show isn’t meant for any of us. While E3 and the publishers who attend it certainly welcome any enthusiast attention they get, their targets are the mainstream media. CNN, USA Today, Good Morning America et al., the places that ignore gaming as a whole for the remaining 51 weeks a year, unless it’s to trumpet some clueless researcher talking about how they make kids violent. While we hardcore gamers like to think we’re the reason this industry makes so much money, we aren’t what driving 15 million+ sales of Call of Duty on an annual basis. Those are the people who have one console and maybe buy 1 to 3 games for it a year. That audience is who the industry has their sights focused on with E3 and the way you get the attention of the mainstream media they pay attention to is with flashy, loud, bombastic spectacles, everything the show does better than few others anywhere. This is why even as AAA publishers and platform holders like Sony and Nintendo struggle, they continue to spend millions on booths and press conferences.

In spite of all the doom and gloom prophecies I’ve read this past week, every major gaming site has E3 logos plasters all over their front pages, they’re all live streaming the press conferences and every podcast I listened to discussed at length their travel and coverage plans and what they were hoping to see. For a show that’s apparently lost its relevancy, everyone sure seems to be talking about it a lot. Last I checked, that was still the point of the thing. People pay attention to E3 in enormous numbers and until they stop doing so, I think there’s no question of its relevance. Perhaps if the enthusiast press wants to see AAA gaming grow and thrive, they should continue to embrace that which fosters growth rather than say “It’s all over but please keep reading and watching us talk about it!” and giving attention-seeking mobile developers exactly what they want.

Me personally? I’ll be streaming all the press conferences on my second monitor at work and I have my Visa primed and ready to pre-order the WiiU as soon as its available. Bring on the insanity, I can’t wait!

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Why does there always have to be a loser?

2 Comments Posted by on February 26, 2012

As I read both coverage and discussions of many modern amenities but particularly the technology we use to entertain ourselves, I am constantly reminded of this new famous Louis CK rant:

Though I feel there’s nothing wrong with having a gripe when a product or service you purchased isn’t acting as advertised, he’s completely right. Entitlement culture drives me nuts. People have become addicted to being upset and angry and latching on to very minor negatives to fuel that addiction. Failure has almost become a drug to our society and culture.

This past week, the PlayStation Vita launched and I bought one. I’ve been using it every day and I’m loving it. It’s not without fault and like most Sony products, it has a few head-scratching design choices. Overall though, it’s an amazing piece of technology and frankly I think it was a steal at $250. I have a 3DS and like that too but this has hooked me much more and will definitely be my first handheld of choice. However, were you to check with many video game enthusiast podcasts or forums, you will see waves of people nitpicking minor issues with the system as proof that Sony still doesn’t “get it” and how it’s a sure sign the product will fail and how iOS is taking over the world:

“Why are there multiple ways to go back in screens?”
“Why does tapping an icon bring up a launcher? I don’t want to launch my games twice!”
“Why does the wi-fi turn off in certain games?”

This is a small selection of what I’ve read. As someone whose job often involves teaching technology-challenged people, I facepalmed quite hard at hearing the level of stink being made about these points. These are all things that have reasons behind them and which are trivially easy to deal with once you’ve experienced them once. They require absolutely no additional time or effort and ultimately cause no inconvenience. I could sit my Mother down with the Vita and show her how to use it as well as I can within moments. Yet, these are treated as game breaking points by many. Forget that every competing device has its own quirks and frustrations, the focus is on how these minor issues–all of which can and probably will be fixed in future software updates, one of the great benefits of modern technology–mean the Vita is doomed.

The following sentiment is the most choice of all:

“Oh in a month, we’ll all be talking about how they’re all just sitting on shelves because you’ve gone back to gaming on your iPhone.”

This is always said by someone who doesn’t own a Vita and probably never will. Rather than just abstain from a conversation about a product they aren’t interested in, they always have to duck their head in just long enough to take a dump on those who do believe in it. This is done solely out of a desire to validate their choice by demeaning someone else’s. The enthusiast press is as guilty of this as anyone else. The Vita can’t succeed, even at its very competitive price because “the handheld market has moved on.” This is said with no empirical evidence beyond the fashion trend based, unsustainable growth of mobile gaming. I bought into the Vita not just because I like it but because I believe there’s a market for its kind of device and it’s a market I want to be a part of.

As someone who takes gaming very seriously, I would love to see a world where every medium can thrive. PCs, consoles, dedicated handhelds, mobile phones, social media, more games in more places is a good thing for the industry and the players in my opinion. But there seems to be a large and increasing number of people who want less choice and want only the things they like to succeed. If you’re not into the Vita, I totally understand that but how does its failure improve your life or your hobby and why spend time and energy being a cheerleader of its demise?

I use the Vita as the most recent example relevant to me but this exists everywhere across all things in modern culture from technology to politics to celebrities. There’s a sick sense of pleasure many seem to get by watching things fail and I think it’s a disturbing trend. What has happened in society that has made us so constantly angry, so spoiled, so entitled and so disturbed that we crave for things and people to lose? I have no professional or academic knowledge of such things but I’m sure it in some way involves people feeling better about themselves by revelling in the failures of others. But as someone who was depressed for many years and fixated on negativity (something I will discuss in another lengthy post some day), that never really helped me. I wonder if that was just in my case or if people do in fact improve their emotional standing in this way.

I think one facet of an ideal world is a bevy of choice, having things that cater to everyone’s wants and desires and being able to partake in the things that make you happy and ignore the rest. If I’m into something you’re not and vice versa, that’s great because having both available means everybody’s happy. But that’s not good enough anymore. People can’t just do what they enjoy, they can only be truly happy if everyone else is also into “their” thing and if everything else fails as proof that it was the one “proper” thing. It sounds eerily religious and though I don’t care for religion in general, I think those tenants applied to things as ultimately trivial as entertainment products is even more disturbing.

It causes you no more harm as a person nor takes any more effort to just hope for the best and that everything has a chance to succeed, including the stuff you aren’t into. That’s not to say that legitimate faults shouldn’t be pointed out and discussed or that people shouldn’t state why they won’t partake in something. However, I think rather than being stated in the context of how every minor issue is a sign of failure to delight in, they should be stated as how improvements can be made. A fault shouldn’t spell immediate demise, it should be something that can be improved so everyone’s happy.

As much as this post sounds like I’m putting myself on a pedestal, I’m really not. I say these things as someone who used to be a prime example of revelling in failure and who even now when I’m actively trying to break the habit, makes mountains out of molehills on a semi-regular basis. I’ve tried to cut back the amount of trivial whining I do and it’s tough sometimes because old habits die hard. This isn’t a new phenomena and maybe I’m starting to notice it more elsewhere because I’m trying to eliminate it in myself. It saddens and worries me to see our society so focused not just on seeing people lose but latching onto trivial concerns and actively encouraging it so we have more things to feel superior to. Happiness is ultimately found in improving one’s own life, not in tearing down others.

People need to try saying “That’s too bad.” when something fails rather than “See, I told you so!” I think we’d all be happier in the end.

Coverage, Culture, Humanity, Video Games , , , , , , ,

So Vox Games, who saw that coming?

Leave a Comment Posted by on January 4, 2012

I was rather taken aback today to see word spreading like wildfire on the Twitters that a bunch of seasoned gaming press veterans are joining forced to create Vox Games (or whatever it ends up being, apparently that name is only a placeholder), an entirely new–and independent–enthusiast video game web site set to launch some time in the near future. Among the founders are Russ Pitts, Brian Crecente, Chris Grant, Justin & Griffin McElroy, Arthur Gies and other names whom will sound very familiar if you follow the enthusiast press in the slightest. A number of these people recently resigned from long-held positions at other prominent outlets, sparking rampant speculation on where they were heading which they put to rest with their announcement today. They were mum on details of what specifically they will cover or the way they will cover it (judging from the timing, I get the feeling this idea was conceived, pitched and is coming together in a spur of the moment kind of way) but they stressed that they are being funded by an independent entity and not one of the large media conglomerates that largely make up the copy-paste, drab, soulless content factories of the popular gaming press today.

I’m surprised and happy to see that in an era of plummeting ad spend, layoffs, all-time low journalistic integrity and lack of public confidence in the gaming press, that someone has stepped up and decided to fund a new initiative with the dollars needed to unseat some well known talent from long held positions elsewhere. Video games are an important medium that deserves meaningful coverage, the likes of which largely doesn’t exist and when it does, is usually relegated to niche sites that can’t pay their talent well, if at all. Most mainstream sites are little more than click farms and the type of content they produce often draws with it communities that I and many others simply can’t be bothered to wade into. With this new initiative, this power team of journos have the opportunity to make something truly great and give it a unique voice that will draw in a unique crowd who clamours for depth and dare I say it, art in what they read about our hobby. A few years ago, a smaller group of veterans decided to pursue a unique angle and created Giant Bomb, a site driven by unique personalities, passion, and a desire to cover the medium in a different, yet entertaining way with a mix of written, audio and video content. Their staff is less than a dozen people but they crank out buckets of high quality content every day. It’s my favourite video game coverage site by far and is one of the only ones I check daily anymore. I don’t know if the Vox Games team plans to pursue a version of this angle or if they have their own vision to bring to the table. If anyone has the chops to make something different, it’s these guys.

I do temper my optimism with a healthy dose of caution however. While these are all well known gaming journalists and some of them I have a great respect for (such as Russ Pitts), others have run sites that comprise big parts of the problem with games coverage today. Crecente was the long time Editor-In-Chief of Kotaku, a site known for poorly written, lazily researched content and rumour mongering that many would not use words like journalistic to describe. The McElroy brothers are funny guys with insightful things to say but they are the biggest purveyors to Joystiq’s snarky editorial tone, which often makes light of very serious matters and doesn’t foster a lot of serious discussion. And while Arthur Gies has cultivated a fairly big following from the inexplicably still popular Rebel FM podcast, he has developed an ego you could fill a city block with and I’m not sure his idea of how game journalism should work (such as stating how a review should be taken as one person’s opinion while also taking every opportunity to dump on reviewers he personally disagrees with) is an idea that should be adopted as standard practice. The thing is though, all of these guys operated under different–and much larger–corporate overlords before and likely had a lot of their editorial policies and their site’s “voices” if you will, dictated to them. When they are allowed to pursue an editorial vision that they are in charge of, the voices will become entirely their own and that is an exciting prospect. I doubt many of these guys would have so quickly left the otherwise comfy positions many of them held were they not enthralled at the idea of having real creative freedom.

Vox Media (the site’s backers) is not run by these guys and they will still have superiors to report to but like Giant Bomb’s parent Whiskey Media before them, if they are smart and forward thinking, they will run the business side and let the editorial team do what it does best. Even if certain members of this team bring with them traits I don’t personally care for, more voices in the gaming press and particularly ones without “corporate thinking” behind them are needed more than ever. I really hope they can pull it off and I’m very excited to see what Vox Games turns into. Good luck guys, don’t screw it up!

Business, Coverage, Video Games , , , , , , , , ,

The Gaming Press Needs to Thicken Its Skin

1 Comment Posted by on November 3, 2011

When I dare to venture out of the one or two sane forums I frequently use, I’m still amazed when I see the number of people who want to get into the gaming press. I’ve only briefly toyed with the thought but aside from realising very quickly that I can’t write worth a damn, I also realised what a terrible job it must be most of the time. You get lousy pay, usually have to move to one of the most expensive cities in North America, the average gaming site has about as much stability as a dot com startup in 2001 and perhaps most of all, it’s a thankless job. Most of the feedback on your article will be filled with vitriol and hate from the people who disagree with you and in turn, the people who come in with an equally vitriolic counterpoint. Those people come in not to defend your work but to defend their position which may also happen to kind of coincide with yours. In many cases–especially with reviews–it can seem that your job is simply to write things for others to fight over, often without even fully reading it. However, when you take a step back, it’s easy to see that most of the time, the only people who post in the comments and forums of gaming sites are people with an axe to grind and not enough of a life to find something better to do. I would wager that the ratio of views on a review to the number of comments is probably dozens to one, meaning that the squeaky wheels are the vocal minority and generally, best left ignored. So why is it that the members of the gaming press who are best equipped to understand this, seem to be the ones least able to?

There’s dozens of these controversies to choose from but the latest revolves around Eurogamer’s 8 of out 10 review for Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. In summary, they really liked it but found the gameplay formula very linear, tightly scripted and similar to the previous two games. As a result, they gave it what they thought was a fair use of the 1-10 point score scale. Eurogamer is one of a very few sites who try to make proper use of the scale, which is really a 7-10 scale at most other sites. Their score was also among the lowest given to the game and as a result, fanboys who would have bought it anyway and just wanted their pre-existing opinions validated went into rage overdrive. An even more negative review on A.V. Club also kicked the hornet’s nest.

Almost immediately, both Eurogamer themselves and other members of the gaming press leapt to the defence of reviews, criticism and rehashed the same arguments they do every time about objectivity, personal opinions and how scores do and should work. In doing so, they gave weight and credence to the morons who made this a big deal in the first place and insulted their sane and rational audience by assuming we all paint with the same brush. I am well aware of the irony of diving further down that rabbit hole by writing this but I think this angle is an important one that I haven’t seen explored elsewhere. Why does the gaming press have this burning need to always defend itself against people being dicks on the Internet?

Anyone who has used the Internet for more than a few minutes knows that many perfectly nice people in real life can become vicious and cruel when hiding behind a screen and anonymity. After a few more minutes, it also becomes apparent that these people are the ones who vent their anger and frustration with other aspects of their lives in forums and comment sections and that they can’t possibly represent a large segment of people because if they did, society would have starved to death long ago. They’re the outliers of the Internet population, the savages who choose to life in the gutters because there are no rules there. You don’t see newspaper columnists writing editorials defending their craft from the people who comment, nor do you see it happen in the speciality press for other media like movies, television or books. Entrenched, partisan fanboys exist in all these places and on some topics, their vitriol can far surpass that which gamers generate. So why is the gaming press the only one that feels the need to frequently come out to defend not just what they say but the way in which they say it? Why are they in a perpetual crisis of confidence?

I’ll be the first to admit that the art of true journalism is dying fast in the corporate media world and the gaming press is certainly as big a victim of this as anyone else. There have been plenty of payola scandals, firings due to pissing off publishers or PR agencies and nearly every big game is reviewed by the press being sent to a luxury, all expenses paid event that is heavily curated and controlled by the very people they are supposed to be critiquing. There is not a lot of journalistic integrity left and aside from a few chosen sites, I don’t even really pay attention to reviews anymore. There are many out there who truly believe in what they write though and that’s great. But if you really have confidence in your content and want to see it respected, the best thing you can do is put it out there and let it speak for itself. If you rightly feel that the commenters don’t matter and that you’ll never please them, then stop validating their viewpoints by addressing them. Let them revel in their filth while the silent majority gains knowledge from what you say.

It’s like if you don’t want to listen to racist, homophobic 13 year olds on Xbox Live. The easiest way to do that is simply to take off your headset. You can still play the game without it and you’ll often have a lot more fun. In other words, haters are just gonna’ hate and for that reason, they don’t matter. Be proud of what you do and let that pride show in your work. Mounting a defence after the fact only degrades it and you. Other media has evolved to realise this, the gaming press needs to as well.

Coverage, Video Games , , ,

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