Zenonia

A review from Kotaku sums up my feelings.  Regardless of the difficult movement controls, which are never even close to as crisp as Zelda, it’s a pretty astonishing achievement for an iPhone game and I’d recommend it to iPhone or Touch owners.

Sound And Fury, Signifying Nothing

I’m always struck by convention season, because it seems like a time in which we’re provided with enormous quantities of data but not much in the way of information.  E3 is a good time to reflect on this for me because it’s perhaps the oldest quintessential example.  We’ve been treated to days of end-to-end, wall-to-wall coverage of new games, ideas, and consoles.  And yet, all we’re really getting are glorified press releases - previews with some basic impressions and, if you’re lucky enough to be at the conference, a minute or two of hands-on experience. 

Perhaps just as significantly, we’re being shown the product of a great deal of effort rather than the creative process that generates that change.  In fact, it seems like the events that really move the industry are the small, incremental changes and concepts that occur throughout the year, while the release of a new game that sparks chatter online is rarely concentrated at the same time.  This is as much a function of the structure of E3 and related shows as anything else.  And yet, we’re pumped every time the latest show comes around.  Ironic.

Left 4 Braindead

Left 4 Dead was a successful game.  It reviewed well, sold a lot of copies on both Xbox 360 and PC and has built up a solid and dedicated community with its compelling co-op and versus modes, as well as some free updates released by Valve.  So naturally, Valve is making an (allegedly) improved sequel and announced it at E3.  So we have a successful game with a dedicated fanbase followed up with an obvious sequel.  Instant recipe for success, right?

Apparently not, as that dedicated fanbase for the game is apparently made up of whiny babies who aren’t satisfied with the dozens or likely even hundreds of hours of enjoyment they’ve already gotten for their $50-$60 game purchase.  A boycott?  Great… less whiny babies on chat for the sequel.  I admit that many of the new features that are being touted sound like they could be patched in or released as DLC for the current Left 4 Dead… but I’m sorry, I just don’t have that much sympathy for a group of alleged fans who not only have probably gotten well worth their purchase, but are probably the same kind of people that buy new Call of Duties, Maddens, Rock Bands and Guitar Heroes every year.

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Sony still doesn’t understand the price/value proposition

Sony just officially announced the PSP Go at E3 (which, as described by Kaz Hirai himself was not really a secret any more), which amounts to a slightly smaller PSP with no UMD drive and slide-out controller.  While I’m personally skeptical that a fully digital portable game device is something most consumers want, I could see how it could fill a particular niche in the market.  However, Sony appears intent on pricing the PSP Go out of consideration for, I’m guessing, the vast majority of their potential customers.  The PSP Go will retail for $250 when it debuts, compared to the retail price of $170 for the current PSP-3000 (the PSP-2000 can still be found and is even less than that).

So, let me see if I understand this.  I have a choice between a product with a larger screen, full backwards and forwards compatibility with games (UMD discs) that can be resold if necessary or another system that is slightly more portable (because its smaller), but doesn’t play UMD discs so cannot play virtually every game already released for the system and cannot be resold if you wanted.  I would think that the choice between those would be fairly obvious, and that’s before I even take into account any price.  Even so, the $80 difference would certainly be a big enough difference to seal my choice.  I’m sorry, the PSP Go basically adds no value to the PSP… in fact, it subtracts a tremendous value from it unless the only thing you care about is having something a little smaller.

Sony’s mistake here seems to be that they are pricing the PSP Go as an upgrade from the PSP 3000, rather than an alternative.  I haven’t seen anything to suggest that it is the former, so it seems very much the latter, and it should be priced to reflect that.

Complaining About Human Nature?

Michael Abbott of Brainy Gamer is disappointed with E3 because he views it as a “retrenchment” of “male power fantasies” where a lone male hero is sent out to wreak retribution and/or vengeance.  The message he concludes this sends to gamers:

‘We’re bringing you bigger, edgier, and more visually arresting versions of the games we brought you last year, and the year before that. Sure, we’ve got casual games too, and a new slate of appalling games for girls; but we know you know where the action is.’

Abbott is always thoughtful, and I appreciate his sincere pursuit of storytelling exploration in gaming, but I worry he’s blaming the effect here rather than the cause.  Yes, it’s true that many of these games are sequels.  But the publishers aren’t dictating that people buy them because of some desire to impose their demands on gamers - they’re making these games because the first ones sold well.  In effect, gamers told them to do this.  The fact that the topics aren’t particularly imaginative is perhaps relevant but a certainly reflection of mass taste rather than publisher obduracy.

This isn’t particularly surprising - elite tastes have rarely comported with those of the masses in any medium.  But I would caution thoughtful gamers and commentators not to take this as a personal insult, but rather a reflection of reality.  The terrible economic climate is necessarily making companies more risk-averse, certainly, but it’s not changing their priorities.  Rather, it’s cutting off the long tails of their production schedules, in which the riskiest and most experimental games tend to reside.

Finally, let’s be careful about blaming the victim.  It’s definitely reasonable to lament the lack of a given attribute in gaming today.  Yet we should be cautious not to minimize the progress made so far, nor to cast stones at our fellow gamers because we simply don’t agree with them.

Value Capture

Can someone explain to me the value proposition to gamers behind downloadable games from Xbox Live?  The only - and I mean only - benefits I can see from this development are for console manufacturers, since most everyone else loses.

• Retailers no longer get to provide distribution or act as a middle man for the publishers, losing revenue and margin.
• Publishers presumably lose margin to the console manufacturers (and may get cut out of the loop entirely, since their distribution and packaging functions disappear).
• Developers find that their choice of console is ever more important to their existence and lose even more negotiating leverage.
• Gamers get to pay essentially the same amount of money for a significantly cheaper product, yet have to compress it onto fixed hard drive space, lose the tangible product of a CD/DVD, and potentially subject themselves to ever more intrusive DRM and support restrictions (and anything else companies seize on to further “monetize” their content).

Perhaps more worrisome, I don’t see this even being reported in the mainstream press… it’s like gamers have decided to collectively plug their ears with their fingers.  Hopefully this does not catch on.

Back Up

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iPhones, Growing The Market

There’s a lot to laugh at in this Farhad Manjoo piece about iPhone gaming (the fact that iShoot has a pedigree going back at least to the DOS game Scorched Earth, for example), but I have to admit that I haven’t played anything besides my iPod Touch and Chrono Trigger DS in a while.  The industry always enters a hiatus prior to summer for reasons I’ve complained about before, but it was interesting to read that iPhone apps aren’t hurting DS sales (or presumably, PSP sales) either. 

It’s definitely a better mode of game delivery for casual titles than the PC, since the app store is able to better centralize and order content than the vast reaches of the internet, so I’m glad to see it getting ahead.

Good Point!

GameLife makes the sharp point that Take-Two’s lawsuit against 3D Realms is probably just a bid to get a hold of the rights to Duke Nukem Forever (obviously, the company doesn’t have a spare $12M lying around to give away to someone who almost certainly isn’t a key creditor).  Perhaps I spoke too soon.

Bionic Commando No Good?

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like the Bionic Commando update is particularly strong.  I liked the remake, so I’m surprised to see that a game which has essentially the same flaws (punishing you for minor mistakes, basically only one compelling gameplay gimmick) getting poor reviews.  Has anyone tried it?