Whodda Thunk?

I’m sure this is blowing the top business minds everywhere, but apparently giving people a free basically unlimited sample of something and then selling that something at a substantial discount will dramatically increase its use and sales.

I know, I know… Crazy, right?  But that’s the lesson we learn from the news that Epic’s Unreal Tournament 3 saw a 2000% increase in simultaneous players after allowing people to take it for a spin for free for a full weekend and discounting the game 40% off of its normal price on Steam.

Apparently, this result was so shocking that brilliant minds at Epic determined that they would extend the sale and do another free weekend.  Maybe it will be so successful that Epic will just feel compelled to permanently keep the game on “sale” and make every weekend a free one!

I guess Epic can’t take all the credit for this idea though… after all, this comes after Left 4 Dead sales increased 3000%, beating out even its own launch sales, after Valve discounted it 50% for a weekend.

It really is shocking… heavily discount a popular and well-reviewed game and its sales increase dramatically.  I never would’ve guessed.

Now, snark aside… I’m just glad that someone has finally realized that they can still have sales on digital items.  It seems that Microsoft is sort of getting the hint as well as they’re actually having weekly sales as well… though it doesn’t seem like it’s with things that are that interesting yet.  Why they don’t start discounting and having sales on some of their older catalog is beyond me, and the number one thing I am not looking forward to as we approach a discless gaming world.

A Dizzying Experience

My copy of Killzone 2 arrived last Friday and other than it (at least initially) seeming like another case of a game’s hype exceeding its accomplishments (and inflating its reviews), the game unfortunately has another nasty side effect on me: dizziness.

Now, this has happened to me before with maybe one or two other games, but this is *not* something that happens to me with every first person shooter.  I just played through Call of Duty: World at War with no problems and I’ve logged plenty of hours of time in Halo 3 and Left 4 Dead.  None of those gave me any problems.

So why Killzone 2?  I’m not really sure, though at least one part of the formula is probably because I’m playing on a 61″ TV.  Theoretically, I’ve made sure I’m sitting back at what’s considered the “ideal” distance, but at that distance, the screen still fills most of my vision (which is the point, really).  But since it doesn’t happen to me with every game, there must be some component of the game that makes it happen.

So, for Killzone 2 my guess is that it has to do with the framerate (which if I had to guess hovers at just a frame or 2 under 30FPS, but that’s just a guess) and the intended amount of motion that the game puts in in order to “simulate” a more lumbering sort of soldier-like movement.  Oh, and the menus and loading screens don’t help either, with all of them acting sort of “blippy” and moving around somewhat “jaggedly” for… some purpose I’m not really sure about.

In any case, I’ll have more to say on the game (which, while I do think has been somewhat overrated by some sites, but is still good… other companies will steal the way it does multiplayer, I guarantee it), but wanted to know if anyone else has been experiencing this with the game, and if there’s any way to help it.  It isn’t so bad that it’s impossible for me to play, but it probably does limit the amount of time I would sometimes like to play the game.  Maybe dramamine would help…

Sex is just a (mini-)game

God of War 3 director Stig Asmussen on whether God of War 3 will include sex minigame(s):

“If it works, and it plays into the experience, then we’ll do it,” he says. “If it doesn’t work, I have no problem saying “this is turning into a gimmick” and putting those resources somewhere else.”

Um, Stig… I hate to break it to you, but the sex minigames from all of the God of War games were always a gimmick.  I’m not sure if you’re trying to make sure your own addition to the pantheon of sex minigames has some sort of artistic merit or something, though for the game’s sake, I hope not. The minigames were always just a somewhat humorous little addition to the series and I have no doubt that another one will find its way into God of War 3 as well, whether it perfectly “plays into the experience” or not.

The Demo doesn’t Kill

I downloaded and played through (a couple times) the Killzone 2 demo last week and I’m still left with this overriding impression: “That’s it?”

That’s not to say that the game doesn’t have some potential, but just that the demo really doesn’t do a great job of showing it off.  Sure, it looks pretty, but it didn’t really blow me away as significantly better than, say, something like Call of Duty: World at War (which I just finished playing on the PS3 as well).  To be honest, it really doesn’t play much differently than Call of Duty: World at War either (you seemingly walk slower and a bit more “loosely”, and they switched a couple buttons around like the zoom in and grenades, but most of the other controls are the same).

And with such a short demo (it probably takes a maximum of 15 minutes to play… which is about how long it took me to get through it the first time after spending several minutes trying to figure out what “bridge” I was supposed to blow up and what “elevator” I was trying to get to), there’s just not much to sell me on why I should buy Killzone 2 if I’ve already played Call of Duty or other recent first person shooters (or why I should buy Killzone 2 over Call of Duty if I haven’t played either of them).

In order to play the Killzone 2 demo I had to pre-order the game from Gamestop, but playing the demo was actually making me question whether it was still worth getting the rest of the game at the full $60 price.  Based on my skimming of some reviews, it sounds like the multiplayer is where the game really excels.  If that’s really the case, Sony really should’ve included some multiplayer or even made it the focus of the Killzone 2 demo, because I think they’re ill-served by the one currently out there.  I actually think the game will probably turn out better than the demo, but the fact that the demo is a Gamestop exclusive right now is probably a good thing for Sony, as I’m honestly not sure how many people this demo would sell on the game who weren’t already almost definitely buying the game (and yeah, that includes the priceless fanboys who will love the game no matter what and are actually upset with Adam Sessler’s 5/5 review of the game.  Wait until they see Edge’s review!)

Wanted: Bullshotters

IGN pounced on a job posting from Activision that had the following description:

“The Art Services Screenshot Associate provides support services to all engaged departments: PR, Marketing, Production and development studios to produce high-quality screenshots, model renders and other art assets. Typical end use will include screenshots for editorial, packaging, advertising, manuals and more, as needed…

Perform advanced retouching of screenshots and teach skills to others as needed.”

I suppose I shouldn’t be making a bigger deal out of this than it is, since we all know this happens and I personally never really scrutinize screenshots now as I find it very hard to judge a game by them anyway (movies have spoiled me), but still… Hasn’t anyone heard of “truth in advertising”?

Making things harder is not a business strategy

Or at least, it’s not a very good one, as it makes absolutely no sense.

Sony claims that the PS3 is “intentionally hard” to program for so that, I guess, over the course of its life its full potential will be “unlocked”.  As an example, SCE Chairman Kazuo Hirai points to the God of War games and how great they look compared to earlier PS2 titles.  Perhaps there’s some truth to what he’s saying here, in that it’s good for a console to still have “unlockable” potential as it gets further into its life, thus allowing it to last longer.

But as far as creating a competitive console, this obviously makes no sense.

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Good deal

In a recent interview, Microsoft’s Robbie Bach mentioned that the current generation of console hardware will probably last longer than the last generation.  This is actually something I myself predicted not too long ago because of the financial crisis, but I think it actually makes a good deal of sense for other reasons as well.

1) The current crop of consoles debuted at higher prices than the previous gen, and therefore are still pretty expensive.  Certainly, they’ll come down in the next 2-3 years, but the cheapest PS3 is still a ways away from getting into the “mass-market” range, and even the cheapest, somewhat incomplete $200 360 is still not quite at “mass-market” pricing (and, of course, the Wii is still selling out all the time at it’s original launch price).

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Happy New Year!

2008 turned out to be a much better year than I expected it to be as far as games went, which is what’s ultimately delaying my “Best of” list.  But what will 2009 bring us?

Right now, I can’t think of all that much, but 2008 originally looked similar.  Off the top of my head, here’s what I’m looking most forward to:

1. Resident Evil 5
2. God of War 3
3. Fallout 3 DLC
4. A new Rock Band?
5. A new Zelda?

I’m also keeping an eye on Killzone 2, as it’s getting better previews than I expected.  We’ll see, though.

What’s everyone else looking forward to?

Duly missed

Kotaku points out a post at thegamereviews.com that notes that this is the first year in a decade that didn’t see a new Zelda game released.  This is actually something that perhaps most people don’t really think about, instead only thinking about the “main” games in the series, but as it turns out, I’ve played to completion nearly every game on that list (I never played Link’s Awakening and Majora’s Mask, and have not completed Phantom Hourglass).

I knew there was something missing this year.

The President should play videogames

Kotaku links to a Leno sketch which reveals a supposed portrait of George W Bush holding an XBox 360 controller (which is obviously fake).  While it’s sort of funny to think that perhaps all of our country’s problems are due to a President who just played videogames all the time, I wouldn’t mind if our President, and for that matter, any of our political leaders, actually played SOME video games.  There are a few reasons for this:

1. Videogames are becoming an increasingly bigger industry, estimated to exceed $57 Billion in revenue worldwide this year, a 35% increase from 2007 despite the worst financial crisis since the great depression hitting.  It seems like our political leaders should have some understanding of this increasingly important industry.
2. Relating to this, playing videogames is a relatively cheap form of entertainment which is easily done at home, something extremely relevant as people stay in their homes more often during the financial crisis.
3. The more our leaders understand video games, the less they’ll demonize them, and the less they’ll be used as a scapegoat rather than focusing on our real problems.

Barack Obama has mentioned before that his daughters have a Wii.  I realize that he is going to be the leader of the free world in a little under a month with far more important things to think about and work on, but I hope even then he has a little bit of time to play it with them sometimes.  Even Presidents need a break once in awhile and if he is able to use even just a tiny fraction of his extremely minimal free time to do something millions of people worldwide also do with their own free time every day, I’ll take it.