Ask And Ye Shall Receive

Faithful commenter laesperanzapaz has requested some discussion of this Gamasutra commentary on the issue of whether or not GTA IV unfairly plays up stereotypes of (Balkan) immigrants in their protagonist, Niko Bellic.  I’m not sure how distinct my perspective is from that of the author, Simon Parkin.  I do think, though, that there’s a less oblique way to dispense with the criticism.

As far as I can tell, the only criticism alleged by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) is that making the protagonist an Eastern European criminal is unfair because Eastern Europeans aren’t disproportionately responsible for crimes.  The most obvious answer to this complaint, of course, is that the protagonist has to be someone, from somewhere.  So without any further evidence of anti-Balkan sentiment besides the mere fact of a character’s generic accent, it’s a pretty absurd allegation.  QED.

(By the way, if anyone you know gets their worldview on other ethnicities from Grand Theft Auto, they really shouldn’t be allowed out of their room.)

Gamestop “Overbooking” Pre-sales?

Via Kotaku comes the sad (perhaps already suspected) news that Gamestop will take your money to reserve a game, and not only will they not necessarily keep it reserved for you, but they actually are actively ENCOURAGING stores to break a calculated amount of pre-orders for “walk-in” customers:

“Your walk-in goals are calculated by multiplying your anticipated reservations by your historical Reservation Pick-up % on like titles. This amount is subtracted from your launch allocation to yield the amount of product that you can have set aside for walk-in customers. See below for the walk-in goals that have been set for your market. The number one district manager in each region in actual walk-in sales vs. goal will receive a $500 cash prize. The number one store in each region in walk-in sales vs. goal will be rewarded with a free copy of GTA IV regular edition for every associate on that store team.”

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Caveat Emptor, Analysts

I enjoyed this Kotaku piece, partially because it’s a vindication of what I’ve previously written.  Basically, it analyzes 10 predictions from 10 analysts and finds that even the best analysts are correct in their predictions only 60% of the time.  I’m not sure yet what the predictions were about, and 10 predictions is hardly a decent sample size, but it should be concerning that analysts are essentially no better than raw chance at making estimates about the future… since it’s what they get paid to spend all their time doing.  Amusingly, the worst analysts - e.g., Billy Pidgeon - are so wrong that you’d be better off assuming the opposite of what they tell you.

Not that I really pay attention to them in the first place… but caveat emptor.

Pointless Gear Watch: Wireless Wired Nunchuk Adapter

It’s generally a bad sign when I have to read an article twice to understand what the featured product is for.  It’s an even worse sign when it turns out to be this.  Not to be confused with Nyko’s wireless nunchuk (already a fairly pointless invention), this adapter attaches to existing wired nunchuks and makes them wireless.  This is a valuable product for individuals who like to repeatedly cross the room in order to play their videogames, those with twelve foot arms, and for other people who don’t exist.

The product retails for $20, compared to $30 for the standalone wireless nunchuk, making it slightly less worthless but $20 overpriced.

Thinking Of The Children

Kotaku seems as bored of these things as I am, but this op-ed seems worthy of note due to the way in which it manages to confuse rhetoric with argumentation.  An op-ed is, by definition, opinion, but the Christian Science Monitor is reputable enough to understand that they nevertheless require some sort of baseline logical structure.  Even if that “structure” is nothing more complex than “some scientist says X, therefore Y.” 

Yet Mr. Devereaux isn’t even able to cobble together a single argument to support the notion that a lack of “moral consequence” is somehow psychologically damaging.  He alludes to some of the studies we’ve discussed in the past - but they’re simply strawmen, since none of them are directly relevant to this claim.  He makes a passionate plea for discussion - but there’s no indication that something which is, at best, barely plausible is worthy of further comment.  The CSM should really know better than to blindly accept a submission simply because it screams - Maude Flanders-esque - “Think of the children!  Won’t somebody please think of the children?!”

Ridiculous Wii Design Decision #800

I’d stop complaining about terrible Wii design decisions, but they just keep popping up.  My girlfriend got Elebits, one of her favorite Wii games, for the holidays, and spent quite some time playing around with it on my brother’s console.  No worries, we figure - we can just copy the save files onto our SD card and continue the game at home.  Lo and behold: for some insane and inexplicable reason, Elebits save files can’t be copied to an SD card!  For what possible reason?  Who knows!  I understand that random VC games have similar problems.  Ridiculous.

And Something I Agree With Activision About…

While I’m very unhappy with some of Activision’s recent behavior, I thought it was only fair to point out something that I’m actually on the same page as them on.

A judge has denied The Romantic’s (singers of “What I Like About You”) request for an injunction against Activision to use their song in “Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s”.  What was their complaint?  That the cover (that they legally licensed) was too similar to The Romantic’s original version.

I have to say, when you sign over your song knowing that it’s going to be “covered”, you can no longer complain if it’s too similar unless you have a very specific agreement that gives you “final approval” or something to that effect over the cover.  I doubt that Activision, or the developers, would really want to deal with that kind of restriction when creating their covers, so it’s not surprising that this is not part of their agreement.

In any case, if you’re that easy to “cover” and imitate, maybe you should just be happy that you wrote a song that’s well-known and well played so that you actually can make a ton of money off of it, even when you’re not singing it.

Activision’s F-You To Consumers Part 2

The Boston Globe has a bit on the videogame “Guitar Wars”, that is, the brewing battle between Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and their respective publishers.  Regarding the compatibility patch that was blocked by Activision, the newspaper managed to get a quote out of an Activision spokesperson stating that “we believe we should be compensated for the use of our technology.”  You know, they’re absolutely right.  They do deserve to get paid for people to use their technology.  What the hell is Harmonix thinking?  That they can just waltz into the music game business (that they created) and use any ol’ controller that they want to and people wouldn’t have to pay for it?  That’s crazy talk!

Oh wait… that’s right, people are ALREADY paying to use their technology.  You see, whenever someone goes up to a register with a copy of Guitar Hero 3, they’re buying that technology.  You might even say that they’re… compensating Activision for the use of their technology!  I know… rocket science.  It’s amazing that Activision has managed to come as far as they have without apparently understanding this very basic tenet of business (you know, selling a product to people for a profit, aka, being compensated for selling their technology), but I guess they’ve just gotten lucky so far.

Maybe Activision thinks this is savvy business, because what they THINK they’re doing is pissing off purchasers of the PS3 version of Rock Band who can’t yet buy another controller to play the game, but this is stupidly short-sighted.  To begin with, Activision isn’t selling stand-alone guitars for the PS3 yet either, so people would similarly have to buy 2 copies of Guitar Hero 3 for PS3 if they wanted an extra guitar now.  It’s stupid to think that these Rock Band customers (who would only be really pissed if they wanted a second controller right away) will be going back to Guitar Hero to buy 2 copies of the game just because they can’t get an extra guitar for RB yet.  Activision is also blowing an easy opportunity for easy money.  EA/MTV/Harmonix have promised that stand-alone controllers will be available in January, but the game released in November.  Had Activision simply allowed the compatibility, they would easily sell even more copies of the game to people who need an extra controller and don’t want to wait until January.  Perhaps they’ll realize their mistake, but by then it’ll be too late for them to really capitalize on RB’s guitar issues.
Something still confuses me, though. Sony basically sided with Activision on this issue by not allowing the patch to be released for the PS3.  However, the PS2 version of Rock Band just released and, according to the Boston Globe article, IS compatible with the Guitar Hero 3 PS2 controller.  If Sony sided with Activision for the PS3 version, why didn’t Sony block the release of a compatible Rock Band on the PS2 as well?  Is it simply the fact that the disc is shipping compatible (without a patch)?  If that’s the case, could Harmonix offer replacement discs with the compatibility patch for PS3 owners?  Could they just issue a voluntary recall? Could Activision do anything?  I’d love to see this happen and the fireworks that ensue.

Activision Gives a Big F-You to Consumers (Updated)

It was bad enough that Activision was making dumb excuses for not supporting the Rock Band guitar in Guitar Hero, but now they’ve really topped themselves. According to Harmonix, Activision has actually blocked Sony from releasing an already complete patch for Rock Band on the PS3 that would enable compatibility with the Guitar Hero Les Paul PS3 controller. I only hope that they don’t end up trying to take legal action to have Harmonix actually remove GH guitar compatibility from Rock Band, but it wouldn’t surprise me at this point. I’m not sure exactly what the legal specifics are for why they can prevent (or cause) another company from patching a game they don’t control, but frankly, I don’t care. It’s ridiculous and completely anti-consumer.

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How Not to Learn a Lesson

You’d think that with all the controversy surrounding media hype, inaccurate previews, publisher pressure and the internet’s eagle-eyed denizens who, among other things, are able to discern the number of pixels actually used in games, that publishers would wise up about releasing doctored gameplay photos of their games.

You’d think that this would be even more the case with Guerilla, the team responsible for Killzone 2, since they were already criticized for trying to pass off a CG trailer as gameplay footage back in 2005 and actually given somewhat of a reprieve this year when they showed a real gameplay trailer that actually came somewhat close (according to media reports anyway) to matching the fake 2005 one.  But some people apparently just don’t learn from their mistakes, as Guerilla has admitted that recently released screenshots are “the tiniest bit touched up.”  Here’s the comparison shot provided:

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