Hostess Bars

There’s probably some garden-variety “stop accepting gifts from the people you’re assigned to cover” scandal around this Joystiq post, but hostess bars are a pretty common Asian practice and they’re not particularly sketchy… so this isn’t that big a deal. I didn’t go to any when I was over there, but my understanding is that plenty of people do.

UPDATE: Now this, my friends, is how you do “conflict of interest.”

Loot

So there have been a number of posts recently about the concept of loot (collectibles) in games, this being among the most recent, but I think the majority of them have missed what is for me the most interesting trend: games are increasingly becoming focused almost entirely on loot. Or at least, there’s a subgenre emerging that is.

At its most innocuous, you can see its effect in the addition of achivements and trophies. These have always existed since the days of RPG easter eggs, but have since become more and more ubiquitous - even PC games like Spore have started adding them en masse for such run-of-the-mill accomplishments as, well, playing the game: you get an Explorer’s Medal in the latter simply for moving your UFO around. The trophy system on the PS3 and 360 Achievements, along with Gamerscores, have driven the message further home.

One notch up, however, are those where the game can be significantly affected by these accomplishments. Consider CoD4, where you earn new powers and abilities that can be used even in multiplayer as a result of the collectibles and loot options. Consider what is probably one of the forerunners of this subgenre, Pokemon. At its essence, the game is a series of gear collections - you find Pokemon so that you can use the Pokemon to fight other Pokemon and capture them. Reiterate. In fact, the entire game is designed to serve as a showpiece for the Pokemon, reducing them to weapons that you might find in a typical JRPG. You can see similar echoes of this idea in Pokemon knock-offs and spin-offs.

Similarly, MMOs like World of Warcraft are premised entirely on the attractiveness of loot collection. Your primary reward for obtaining powerful items is the ability to collect even more powerful (or attractive) items, an artifact of the lack of a real plot, narrative, or differentiated challenges (you beat a weak enemy largely the same as a powerful one, albeit with fewer people and abilities).

I raise the issue for two reasons: first, it’s amusing to see people - including myself - so interested in obtaining things with essentially no value outside of the specific game in question. More to the point, I’m a little concerned about the potential implications… with a purely loot-centric environment, purely gameplay-oriented attractions may begin to become overlooked.

Spit Take

“EA, Activision Responsible For 75 Percent Of Q3 Console Releases” is a story that looks worse at first glance than it probably is.  This headline is a bad thing for gamers if and only if you accept three basic propositions as fact:

1.) The number of releases has stayed relatively constant (so that EA and Activision are crowding out other game publishers, rather than just increasing the number of total games released).  This seems demonstrably false.  Maybe EA and Activision are releasing a larger percentage of games, but that’s partly because they’re releasing a larger number of games as well.  Think about it this way: Year 1, you’ve got 100 games, and EA has 25 of them.  Year 2, the market grows to 200 games, but of that additional 100 games, EA has released 50 of them.  In Year 1, EA accounts for 25% of the total games in the marketplace; in Year 2, that percentage has grown to almots 40%.  Yet it’s hard to argue that gamers are worse off in Year 2 - there are 100 extra choices overall, and the market as a whole is growing.  Even if gamers don’t like the additional 50 games in Year 2, they’re not doing worse.

2.) The games EA and Activision are releasing are games that people wouldn’t otherwise want.  I don’t have empirical proof on this one, but it seems pretty logical to me to assume that - at least in general - EA and Activision wouldn’t bother releasing games that people perennially failed to purchase.  It may not be what we want to play all the time, but it’s satisfying someone.

3.) The quality of the sequels and other releases is subpar.  I tackled some of this in an earlier post, but the short answer to this is that EA is releasing a lot of crap but also a lot of reasonably AAA, original, high-quality stuff.  Similarly, the sequels being produced are perhaps a little lazy… but they’re not bad.

In general, I’m cynically skeptical of the notion that there’s a stable of indie developers who would otherwise be producing brilliant masterworks, but are being shut out of the market purely because of the EA/Activision duopoly.  Making good games is hard.  Now, there are some arguments at the margins here that are completely valid.  There needs to be at least open competition for most of this to hold true; I don’t favor monopoly control of sports games, for example.  It seems pretty clear that sports gamers have little opportunity to get improved experiences largely because EA licensing prevents it.  But in general, this kind of story is more bark than bite.

Very Well, I Contradict Myself

So after my previous post, I find myself disagreeing somewhat with Kieron Gillen here.  I agree that there needs to be a place for people interested in “serious” games to find and discuss them.  The industry (and gamers) as a whole are better off when there are more games, and types of games, in the marketplace.  Yet Gillen seems to believe that these “serious” games are objectively better than the others because of their attitude… which seems to me to be misguided at best.

Gillen’s jumping off point is end-of-year awards, which generally tend to reward the most popular games over the most sophisticated.  I agree.  Movies and music tend to reward obscure critical favorites more than the gaming industry.  Yet Gillen seems to view this as a strong negative rather than a different viewpoint:

“[Critics fail] to understand their emotional response to the game is what counts, not some odd check-list of what a ‘great’ game should be. On the 360, Earth Defence Force 2017 is a better game than Gears of War. Stepping more PC and indie, Desktop Tower Defence is a better game than Supreme Commander. ”

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Posted in Geoff, Industry, Journalism | 6 Comments »

Too Cool for Too Human

There are times when the gaming community kind of annoys me.  This is one of those times.

Look, I know that Too Human had a somewhat disastrous showing at E3 2006 which turned a lot of people off from the game.  No matter how the game turned out, this, unfortunately, would probably keep some people away from the game no matter what.  I’m also quite aware that some people didn’t like the demo that was released for the game.  Certainly, the game has its share of issues, which I’ve also acknowledged.  And if the sort of Diablo-esque loot and skill system doesn’t appeal to you, well, that’s fine too.  I get that the game is not for everyone.

But the game has inspired a sort of vitriol among the community that just saddens me.  It’s not because I love the game and just wish everyone would play it (since the full game doesn’t come out until tomorrow I haven’t even played the full version yet). I expect I’ll like the game despite its flaws, but I honestly don’t care if anyone else does or not (except that, perhaps, it do well enough for them to finish the trilogy if I like it).  The thing that saddens me is how the gaming community can fixate on something and just repeatedly keep whipping away at it for no other reason except that it had a bad showing once, and the developer has the audacity to try and promote its own game after that.  While Too Human has been a whipping post ever since 2006, with its imminent release, some of the criticism borders on ridiculous.

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Manifest Narratives

Brainy Gamer kicked off a discussion of narrative by noting the number of different commentators who have stated a personal opinion regarding how gaming narratives should be constructed.  Michael Abbott refers to these opinions as manifestoes, as they make plain the nominal views of their creators.  However, although each of the opinions is interesting to read, it seems somewhat plain to me that taking a defined position on “gaming narrative” is far too reductionist to fully capture the dynamic of interest to each party.  So this post is an attempt to put some structure around the idea.

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Sentences Which Confuse Me

“Games like Wii Sports or Guitar Hero are popular not because of their perceived lack of depth or simplicity, but because they can instantly be picked up and played by almost anyone, whereas most games utilize every button on a 360 or PS3 controller, often in several different ways.”

- Going Gold #3, “Rotten to the Core“; The Escapist

I’m all in favor of not oversimplifying the range of gamer preferences into ”casual vs. core,” but this isn’t really proving the point.  As far as I can tell, complexity and simplicity explain a significant amount of the variation in those preferences.

Your Wish…

Commenter laesperanzapaz posts a link to this Variety article positing that gaming publishers exert too much control over the industry and requests some discussion.

The thesis of the article is that, unlike the movie business, which has varying power sources in studios, stars, networks, agencies, and presumably directors, the gaming industry buck stops only with the publisher.  Therefore, developers essentially see their value expropriated and their contributions marginalized.  In those rare instances where developers are able to break out of the mold (think Blizzard), they’re purchased by publishers eager to control them. 

My reaction: partially true. 

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Do We Really Want An E3?

E3 went out with more of a whimper than a bang this year, and the consensus seems to be that it was largely unsuccessful - especially compared with the festivities of years past.  That said, do we really need the glitzy, booth-babed E3 of yesteryear?  I’d argue that we’re all better off with the party in its current state.

Previously, E3 served a few functions: it celebrated the past years’ winners and losers, it provided enormous quantities of new game and company information, it provided a glamorous spectacle for attendees, and it conveyed a sense of accomplishment - a monument to the idea that gaming was mainstream and important.  Yet most of these rationales are now at best passe and at worst counterproductive.

First, we have a multitude of ways to reward the successful and mock our failures.  Gaming awards are almost ubiquitous online and have a number of offline venues as well.  As a result, it’s no longer as important to have a single, unifying event to highlight such things… we have made reporting largely self-sustaining.  Second, E3 encouraged many companies to hold their news and important announcements for the festival itself.  But this wasn’t really very good for gamers; we had to wait for an artificial deadline to receive news that now trickles out on a near-constant basis.  If there were no bombshell announcements this year, it’s because those announcements have become much more evenly distributed.  Third, the spectacle itself benefited industry insiders and well-connected journalists, but was largely inaccessible to the rest of the gaming population (even if you were able to travel to California in the first place).  As interesting as E3 sounded, it wasn’t possible for most people to attend.  You’ll forgive me if I begrudge the luckier amongst us their sushi canapes and late-night parties… I understand why they’re missed, but I doubt the majority of gamers will be losing any sleep over it.  And the money can probably be better spent.  And finally, gaming has attained, if not mainstream acclaim, at least legitimacy.  We no longer need to proclaim our value to the world; gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry that commands its own respect and marshals its own heroes and villains onto the global stage.  As a result, the need for such a spectacle as E3 has waned, becoming incorporated into the daily actions of hosts of marketing and PR professionals, gaming media, and interested bystanders. 

So will we lose anything with E3?  I continue to think that the ESA is an important organization, at least as far as its mission is concerned (if not the ESA in particular).  Gaming may have achieved a measure of respectability, but like all media it will remain a target of opportunistic politicians, unscrupulous journalists, and demagogues everywhere.  Having a group dedicated to fighting against those perceptions will, I think, remain as critical in the future as it does now.  And that’s why I’m concerned to read speculation about the ESA being further weakened by the poor E3 showing and its recent membership departures. 

I’d also suggest that E3 offers some value in unifying what is a highly fragmented market under the same roof - showing the connections between hardware and software platforms across the gaming spectrum.  But in general, the bad probably outweighs the good.

Stop Reflexively Bashing EA

EA takes a lot of flak from gamers and the gaming press, and some of it is undeserved.  For example, the idea that EA publishes nothing but me-too sequels: see Penny Arcade’s amazement that the company is publishing Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space, two of the more anticipated games coming out of E3 this year.

But EA is also the company publishing Spore.  And Rock Band.  And Crysis, and the Sims, and a ton of other intriguing games that are or were - if not fully ahead of their time - at least doing their part to move the industry forward a little bit at a time.  Sure, they put out a ton of crap as well, and they, like any other large company, milk franchises long after they stop becoming interesting.  But the firm’s doing a decent job attempting to decentralize its management of the group’s developers, and it seems like it’s starting to pay off. 

There’s a tendency for gamers to put on blinders once they’ve categorized a company, and EA is no exception.  Viewing them as the Evil Empire is far too simplistic for what’s really going on there.  And it’s silly to be so shocked by outcomes like Dead Space, because anyone paying tatention to the industry can see that complexity.