The Spike TV Video game awards are fast becoming the second biggest point in the year for reveals of new information about upcoming video games. E3 in the summer and the VGA's in the winter, with this in mind, I decided I would have a look at the trailers shown.
Metal Gear: Rising: Revengeance
This game has many issues, some of which I have written about previously. The tortuous development process, it seems, has not been kind to this game. Since the last trailers shown it seems like Kojima productions have wandered off to do something else instead, like some kind of ADHD child. It appears that Platinum games have stepped in and taken over the helm here.
Platinum games are good developers, they make novel and entertaining games. What they don't seem to do quite as well is story. Vanquish's story was an utter mess, I haven't played Bayonetta much more than the demo, even though I own the game, and Madworld was just silly gory dumb fun. It does not seem like a wise marriage to give a game series known for it's convoluted story, with long emotional cut scenes to a developer that appears stuck at the emotional maturity of a ten year old boy when it comes to storytelling.
I don't imagine that this is exactly what the producers are seeing, they have many art assets and even cut scenes already made. Plus a melee fighting game they can hand over to developers who have much experience with melee fighting games. Platinum will be able to make a cross between Bayonetta with Vanquish's graphics, plus have bucket-loads of gory sword fighting with people being diced. It will sell on that premise alone and most of the rabid Metal Gear fans will buy it anyway due to the franchise involvement. They will whine about it, but hey the money will have changed hands, in the end that is all that matters to the companies involved.
The trailer itself was the usual mix of daft samurai type nonsense with the musings on war that seems to accompany Metal Gear Solid. Raiden it seems will fight his nemesis Vamp in the game, and we see them facing off against each other. The game looks like any other hack and slash melee combat game. The slicing seen in the old trailers where Raiden was shown chopping fruit appears to still be in place, with a more simplified mechanic. It looks like that once you wear an enemies health down, you go into a bullet time type mode where you can slash the analogue stick wildly and be rewarded with dicing the opponent fruit ninja style.
Transformers Fall of Cybertron
The trailer shown is a pre-rendered sequence with high production values. In it we see the Autobots in trouble again as the Decepticons wreak more havoc on the surface of Cybertron. Optimus Prime is shown carrying a wounded bumblebee and things look bleak, we even have transforming into a dinosaur to look forward to.
This is just a teaser trailer, and announcement, however, if the game keeps up the good work of the last iteration I am down for a day one purchase.
The last of us
The trailer starts with a view out of a window, everything looks pleasant for a second, then as the camera pans inside, we see things are far from normal. The room looks dilapidated, there is a freshly dead man, bleeding profusely on the bed. A young girl runs past into the corridor, thumping can be heard upstairs. She runs up as if ready to give assistance, drawing a knife, she finds a bearded man fighting with another hooded man. The first man gets the better of the hooded man and either kills him or knocks him out.
The pair seem to know each other and the girl is told to search the downed man.
As the girl is searching the body some people run towards the room, making animal like snarling noises, are they zombies? The man grabs the girl and they hide in the next room, the monsters come in and start attacking the downed body. The man gets a revolver out and gets ready to attack. As he does one of the monsters hears him cock the gun and attacks first. The creatures head is wildly deformed. It grabs for the man, and the girl stabs it in the back, distracted by this the creature gives the man enough time to shoot it.
They run from the building, the man firing back at pursuing enemies. As they get outside the camera pans past them and out into the deserted, derelict, overgrown streets.
The girls voice narrates and she tells of how the man told her that the streets used to be full of people going about their lives. She, it seems, was born into this disastrous world and knows no other life, suggesting the disaster that occurred happened at least about fifteen to twenty years in the past.
The game is being made by Naughty Dog, which I believe, is a guarantee of quality. The trailer is introducing a mood and a feel, the older surviving male could be a Nathan Drake, the younger hard nosed, surviving girl I feel, will be the main character. This could foreshadow some co-op type gameplay where you take control of one or both of these characters. Maybe the girl for climbing around and the man when it comes to fighting and shooting. That’s sexist, I know, though she does look the more agile and acrobatic of the pair.
The game could be open world or it could be linear, at this point in time it's fun to speculate, yet unproductive. I am looking forward to more information on this game, and it's safe to say that it is a definite pre-order. Quite a lot of forum chatter seems to indicate a bit of zombie fatigue, can't say that I feel that way myself, there is always some fatigue or another going around. Vampires are passé and done to death one month, now it appears that it's the turn of zombies to be given a rest. Maybe by the time of release zombies won't be at quite such a saturation point.
Fortnite
The trailer shows some rather cartoonish characters blowing up a shop and gaining entry, they seem to be going looting. They then come to a blueprint type structure, which is then built in time lapse photography. A black blob like monster rises from the ground while they are building and steals the camera, it is shot for it's trouble. Time moves on again and it is night now, we see the characters firing up a generator in their fort and closing the gates. Monsters then arrive, with skull like faces, gunshots can be heard as a monster picks up the camera and leers into it.
Speculating on the trailer, it appears that players have to gather resources by day to build their fort, in order to survive the zombie attacks at night. A sort of cross between horde mode in Gears, Tower defense and Minecraft. Again we don't know what type of perspective the game will have, or how much action will be down to your fort design or your skill with a gun. I have to question wether this will be a full price £40 game or a downloadable £15 game. Also the big question is whether it will be solely multiplayer or will there be a single player campaign.
Diablo III
The segment shown sees a voice over talk of wars as angels and demons clashing. A girl wakes and we see this is her dream. She is in a large castle, an old man is with her. She tells the old man that they need to get him home, he is working on translating something and tells her that he needs to finish. He is worried about the forces of hell and what they are about to do.
The ground starts to shake, the old man tells the girl whose name is Leah that it has begun. A fireball shoots from the sky and lands in the room, knocking the pair off their feet. Leah gets to her feet and finds that the fireball has blown a huge whole down into a fiery abyss, the uncle is nowhere to be seen.
I would rather have seen some gameplay, this game is in beta at the moment, people are playing it out there in the world. I can't get excited for cliche story scenes, sorry Blizzard, please try harder.
Bioshock Infinite
An acoustic song with a breathy sad vocal, scenes of Columbia, hungry and sick people lying in the streets amongst the grandeur of the flying city. As the trailer progresses a montage of action scenes if shown, some we have seen already, like the bell tower landing in the street and the zeppelins firing down from above. These are mixed with new combat scenes showing gunplay and people flying around on the skyhooks. It seems that one of the reveals here is the face of one of the bad guys, it looks like we see someone in a bird suit, though it looks smaller than the giant Songbird that was seen chasing and fighting previously in trailers. Is this the pilot of the Songbird?
Again this game continues to keep up the high standard that I think will make it likely to be the best game of next year. I am really looking forward to playing this game, there is no need for further advertising or hype, just deliver the game to us now please and thank you Irrational Games.
Hitman Absolution
This appears to be a trailer made up entirely of in game graphics, which is to be applauded these days. The trailer shows Agent 47 entering a building and taking out the usual array of guards in gory fashion. He appears to be heading for a woman, we are unsure if he is rescuing her, or if this is his target. The woman is taken away by the guards before he can reach her. The final scene shows many guards pointing guns at a lift as the doors open. The lift is empty and the lights go out, then gun flashes illuminate Agent 47 as he mows down the guards.
It looks decent enough, previous games were quite good fun, with almost everyone else in the stealth genre abandoning it, it seems that IO interactive are being very brave or very stupid, time will tell.
Mass Effect 3
We see Shepherd talking to a Krogan, they need to get to a large spire seen in the distance. Enemies appear near them and the Krogan goes to fend them off. Shepherd starts running towards the spire. This appears to be a breathless suicide dash type sequence. The environment is a desert city, a large centipede type creature rises from the sand and attacks a huge Reaver that is shooting at Shepherd. As Shepherd approaches the spire the reaver and centipede continue to fight.
I have too much invested in Mass Effect to not play the final part of the game, however Bioware seem to be really dropping the ball on this one as far as story and alterations to gameplay go. I liked the first one, the second dumbed it down and this looks to be more like Gears of War, hang on, no that's an insult to Gears. More like Quantum theory (Look it up, not that many people played it.) than the space based Rainbow six style, with huge interactive story RPG elements gameplay of the first one.
Command and Conquer Generals 2
This game is obviously a year and a half, maybe two years away, we aren't getting to see much at all. This looks like a high production value, non game rendering, it shows lots of tanks shooting each at each other in city streets. Which then pans out to show the aerial view more normal for Command and Conquer, interestingly the game appears to be using the Frostbite engine. Colour me unimpressed, though there is room in my life for strategy games, I used to be addicted to Red Alert, it's been a while since Realtime strategy games excited me. Maybe this one will be the one, though i am not holding my breath.
Rainbow Six Patriots
Tapping into the vein of discontent with the worlds financial systems and the fat cats who leech from them, this game seems to be treading some uncomfortable ground with it's story. I have to applaud Ubisoft for doing this as I don't think I have been looking forward to a game story as much as this one in a long time.
While the cause may be just, the methods are not, we see the Patriots, the terror group who are attacking the Wall Street elite, enter an office and strap a bomb to an executive. They then toss him out the window and detonate the bomb in the crowded streets below. I doubt blowing up the people you claim to be helping and represent is the way forward for a terrorist group. Anyway, the Patriots are the bad guys and you as a Rainbow team member will will be perforating them en masse come release of this game. Which, by the way, I can't wait for. Disappointingly the trailer ends with 2013, which is a shame, i'd like to play it sooner thanks Ubisoft, please employ more developers, you know you want to!
Alan Wake
I enjoyed Alan Wake at the time, though it was a very forgettable game. While it's story was clever, it didn't resonate all that well with me, which was surprising because it should have given it’s subject. The gameplay was decent enough, however after the first few encounters it never felt like anything else happened, you spent the entire game in the dark, fighting the same dark figures. While this complaint can be leveled at any game, Alan Wake just felt much more repetitive than many other games.
This new trailer seems to suggest that this game will be more of the same I’m afraid to say. I thought that Alan ended up as some kind of competing spirit of the lake with the darkness that was already there. How can he be back out physically running around in the world again? I am sure there is an explanation, after all the enemy could move things around and possess people.
I’m not sure about buying this, and for those that know my game buying habits this is a big deal. There would have to be some hook or promise to get me to come back to Alan Wake, we will have to wait and see what Remedy come up with.
The Amazing Spiderman
The trailer shows that Oscorp is making robots to guard New York against some kind of biological attacks that are talked of and not shown here. The robots, it seems, are not going to be our friends for some reason. A news broadcast shows the machines running amok and attacking people and buildings. Spiderman is seen swinging into action, then a huge robot drills out of the ground, we see Spiderman fighting it, as if it is a huge boss battle. It is too early to tell on this one, it looks more like a quickly made licensed game, to coincide with the movie release, which we all know does not usually bode well.
Tony Hawk and Tekken were also shown, and I suppose if you can't say something nice you shouldn't' say anything at all.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Shape of the game
There are cycles to all things it seems, the Lion King taught young children about the circle of life, who are we to argue with Disney? So, armed with the knowledge that we are all part of a great circle, how does this apply to the theme of the moment? I read an article where the future shape of games was discussed. The theme appeared to be that in the current economic climate the old models of gigantic fifteen hour first person shooters was over. Essentially as a question that boils down to do people want Skyrim or Angry Birds?
I am beginning to think I have some kind of greed complex, or maybe a desire to overstretch myself. I quite fancy playing Angry Birds and Skyrim, maybe a bit of Modern Warfare 3 followed by Cut the Rope. For me these games are simply that, just games, I am beginning to wonder if that is a symptom of age? Have I been around the circle and am seeing things come back around again?
The desire to make smaller, casual games, and have them become episodic, it seems to me, is nothing more than a symptom of the economic situation. Developers are feeling the pinch, as budgets rise to compete with the powerhouse yearly episodic titles like Modern Warfare and Assassins Creed, the price of failure is greater. If your huge budget game does not do amazingly in the sales wars, then there is a good chance that the gamble taken with the money to create the game will not be repeated. The publishers and investors simply won't tolerate a critically acclaimed game that flops in the crowded market. There will be no further cash given out for the well meaning developers, no matter how much they have learned, there will be no more cash for another try.
With this in mind it isn't surprising that the developers are making noises that the publishers are pushing up from behind the scenes. They want to see the end to the model that currently doesn't seem to be working. They also see success in for example the mobile phone market of things like Angry Birds. A game that doesn't push any technical envelopes, doesn't have any really coherent story, and the levels can be knocked up fairly easily, for an audience that seems to lap it up and pay for the same game over and over. Don't mistake that for a swipe at Angry Birds, I love Angry Birds and have bought and paid for each of it's iterations on several devices plus paid for the mighty eagle as well. I have played Angry birds for longer than some AAA titles on console and with that idea in mind, it occurs to me that I would have or should have paid £40 for the privilege.
Angry Birds is a fairly good example of what I like to call the convergence effect. Angry Birds was the right game, at the right time, the stars aligned, it was cute, it was what was needed on emerging smartphones, whose controls didn't suit current dual analogue stick gaming trends. Simply put, Angry Birds was lucky, it fell into it's success by accident, there is no other explanation, there are hundreds of games in it's genre, most of them were free flash games. The App store explosion and it's affordability made the convergence phenomenon, it could equally as easily been one of any number of other games that rose to the top of the App gaming pile.
What have developers learned from Angry Birds and it's peers? That basic games sell on smartphones and remakes of Doom sell only on nostalgia. There is a market for what could be called big budget games on smartphones, Things like Dead Space and Infinity Blade have done well. At the back of my mind, at least, runs that thought that this would be so much better if I was using a traditional controller to play with. Dead space, for one, I struggled more with the controls and getting it to do what I intended than anything the necromorphs did. Infinity Blade was a good example of a huge budget engine game that got retrofitted to the control scheme and basically turned it into an on rails movie with random swiping of the screen. I bought both for the iPad and went back to playing Angry Birds fairly quickly. It isn't that people like that simple retro game model on smartphone's merely that the control scheme dictates it.
What I would call a basic game, something like space invaders or pac-man, something with 2D sprites and simplistic gameplay mechanics evolved because of hardware. The shape and form of games was closely dictated by the power of the hardware they ran on. The business model for delivery has changed each time a new media for game storage was created. I remember when I first started being interested in computers and games, actually typing in lines of basic code from magazines like "Your Sinclair." The move to actual media like cassette tape, then to cartridge, CD, DVD, BLU Ray etc. allowed games to grow. There was an almost direct correlation between the availability of the storage space on the media and the power of CPU's and graphic cards to push polygons.
For most of the 80's and 90's platform games and side scrolling shooters ruled the world. People complained of being tired of platform games and top down or side scrolling shooters the way people complain of being bored with First person shooters today. There have always been attempts to bring 3D game to life, however it was John Carmack who seemed to single-handedly dragged gaming out of two dimensions with his work on Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake.
Once games designers freed themselves of the shackles of 2D they were loathe to go back. In the early noughties anyone making a 2D game would have been looked at as if they were insane. There are exceptions, I am talking generally, 2D and basic game-play games never totally went away. Like an infinite amount of monkeys producing Shakespeare, there are always a given amount of fans of anything at all in the world. Some people I think just like obscure things to be different from everyone else, though, that is their choice, and all power to them for making it.
The current resurgence in fairly basic gameplay 2D games rose with the smartphones and the new marketplaces found on games consoles. Console makers realised that online downloadable games were an opportunity too good to miss. Microsoft it seems can be given much credit for the rise of smaller downloadable games through their Xbox live Arcade. This forum exploded along with release of the console, fueled by titles like Geometry Wars, which was originally included as part of the big budget AAA title Project Gotham Racing 2.
It seems to me that twenty something developers, not old enough to remember, are looking at what they don't even realize is the past and thinking it is the future. Games don't need to go backwards, however, they also need to remember their roots at the same time. The market has opened up room for retro 2D games to see a new and justified lease of life on smartphones. The market is there now thanks to great internet infrastructure for truly episodic games, that allow people to only buy the next section of the game when they are ready to play it.
What shouldn't happen is for developers to imagine that this is what everyone wants, if I have learned anything in life from Abraham Lincoln, it's that you can't please all of the people all of the time. If something like Modern Warfare 3 is taking all your sales then that is just the school of hard knocks smashing down your door. If you can't compete with Modern Warfare at its own game then should you just give up? No, I don't believe that is the answer either. Investors should realize that some money is better than no money, budgets should be carefully managed and realistic expectations made. Surely it is just as profitable to have a stable of ten smaller games that sell reasonably well and keep everyone involved in food and clothing, than to try to compete with game franchises that gobble up super human profits.
I am beginning to think I have some kind of greed complex, or maybe a desire to overstretch myself. I quite fancy playing Angry Birds and Skyrim, maybe a bit of Modern Warfare 3 followed by Cut the Rope. For me these games are simply that, just games, I am beginning to wonder if that is a symptom of age? Have I been around the circle and am seeing things come back around again?
The desire to make smaller, casual games, and have them become episodic, it seems to me, is nothing more than a symptom of the economic situation. Developers are feeling the pinch, as budgets rise to compete with the powerhouse yearly episodic titles like Modern Warfare and Assassins Creed, the price of failure is greater. If your huge budget game does not do amazingly in the sales wars, then there is a good chance that the gamble taken with the money to create the game will not be repeated. The publishers and investors simply won't tolerate a critically acclaimed game that flops in the crowded market. There will be no further cash given out for the well meaning developers, no matter how much they have learned, there will be no more cash for another try.
With this in mind it isn't surprising that the developers are making noises that the publishers are pushing up from behind the scenes. They want to see the end to the model that currently doesn't seem to be working. They also see success in for example the mobile phone market of things like Angry Birds. A game that doesn't push any technical envelopes, doesn't have any really coherent story, and the levels can be knocked up fairly easily, for an audience that seems to lap it up and pay for the same game over and over. Don't mistake that for a swipe at Angry Birds, I love Angry Birds and have bought and paid for each of it's iterations on several devices plus paid for the mighty eagle as well. I have played Angry birds for longer than some AAA titles on console and with that idea in mind, it occurs to me that I would have or should have paid £40 for the privilege.
Angry Birds is a fairly good example of what I like to call the convergence effect. Angry Birds was the right game, at the right time, the stars aligned, it was cute, it was what was needed on emerging smartphones, whose controls didn't suit current dual analogue stick gaming trends. Simply put, Angry Birds was lucky, it fell into it's success by accident, there is no other explanation, there are hundreds of games in it's genre, most of them were free flash games. The App store explosion and it's affordability made the convergence phenomenon, it could equally as easily been one of any number of other games that rose to the top of the App gaming pile.
What have developers learned from Angry Birds and it's peers? That basic games sell on smartphones and remakes of Doom sell only on nostalgia. There is a market for what could be called big budget games on smartphones, Things like Dead Space and Infinity Blade have done well. At the back of my mind, at least, runs that thought that this would be so much better if I was using a traditional controller to play with. Dead space, for one, I struggled more with the controls and getting it to do what I intended than anything the necromorphs did. Infinity Blade was a good example of a huge budget engine game that got retrofitted to the control scheme and basically turned it into an on rails movie with random swiping of the screen. I bought both for the iPad and went back to playing Angry Birds fairly quickly. It isn't that people like that simple retro game model on smartphone's merely that the control scheme dictates it.
What I would call a basic game, something like space invaders or pac-man, something with 2D sprites and simplistic gameplay mechanics evolved because of hardware. The shape and form of games was closely dictated by the power of the hardware they ran on. The business model for delivery has changed each time a new media for game storage was created. I remember when I first started being interested in computers and games, actually typing in lines of basic code from magazines like "Your Sinclair." The move to actual media like cassette tape, then to cartridge, CD, DVD, BLU Ray etc. allowed games to grow. There was an almost direct correlation between the availability of the storage space on the media and the power of CPU's and graphic cards to push polygons.
For most of the 80's and 90's platform games and side scrolling shooters ruled the world. People complained of being tired of platform games and top down or side scrolling shooters the way people complain of being bored with First person shooters today. There have always been attempts to bring 3D game to life, however it was John Carmack who seemed to single-handedly dragged gaming out of two dimensions with his work on Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake.
Once games designers freed themselves of the shackles of 2D they were loathe to go back. In the early noughties anyone making a 2D game would have been looked at as if they were insane. There are exceptions, I am talking generally, 2D and basic game-play games never totally went away. Like an infinite amount of monkeys producing Shakespeare, there are always a given amount of fans of anything at all in the world. Some people I think just like obscure things to be different from everyone else, though, that is their choice, and all power to them for making it.
The current resurgence in fairly basic gameplay 2D games rose with the smartphones and the new marketplaces found on games consoles. Console makers realised that online downloadable games were an opportunity too good to miss. Microsoft it seems can be given much credit for the rise of smaller downloadable games through their Xbox live Arcade. This forum exploded along with release of the console, fueled by titles like Geometry Wars, which was originally included as part of the big budget AAA title Project Gotham Racing 2.
It seems to me that twenty something developers, not old enough to remember, are looking at what they don't even realize is the past and thinking it is the future. Games don't need to go backwards, however, they also need to remember their roots at the same time. The market has opened up room for retro 2D games to see a new and justified lease of life on smartphones. The market is there now thanks to great internet infrastructure for truly episodic games, that allow people to only buy the next section of the game when they are ready to play it.
What shouldn't happen is for developers to imagine that this is what everyone wants, if I have learned anything in life from Abraham Lincoln, it's that you can't please all of the people all of the time. If something like Modern Warfare 3 is taking all your sales then that is just the school of hard knocks smashing down your door. If you can't compete with Modern Warfare at its own game then should you just give up? No, I don't believe that is the answer either. Investors should realize that some money is better than no money, budgets should be carefully managed and realistic expectations made. Surely it is just as profitable to have a stable of ten smaller games that sell reasonably well and keep everyone involved in food and clothing, than to try to compete with game franchises that gobble up super human profits.
On-live to beat piracy?
A while back I wrote an article talking about the Chrome OS from Google. In it I discussed the opinion that the infrastructure of the world, especially the rural part of sunny Scotland that I inhabit, isn't anywhere near approaching readiness for such a futuristic concept as a totally online, cloud based computer operating system.
Such a luddite attitude is fairly backwards thinking, I wasn't saying there is anything wrong with the concept. I quite like the idea of a thin client that I hold in my hand and the heavy grunt work of securing and storing my data being done by a corporation that is to be heavily penalized for lack of security and loss of data. After all if I store my stuff at home on hard drives they might be susceptible to failure or accidental formatting. Recently one of my friends mistook my two terra-byte storage drive for the two gigabyte SD memory card I asked him to format. It also means that software and media is held and maintained by the companies who produce it. This means you can buy rights to use it, but don't have to install, update and otherwise maintain it on your machine. Your upgrade to a new machine is also less of a chore as you only have to sign into your new machine and everything will be as you left it on the old one.
Chromebooks aren't setting the world alight as far as i can tell, the fact that I can’t tell is telling. Google, Samsung and Acer aren’t disclosing sales figures, what figures that are floating around indicate around the 50,000 mark. Which can’t be pleasing Google or their hardware partners all that much.
I am usually in the queue to try out a new operating system and it's associated hardware. The desire to this isn’t as strong with Chrome OS. It simply presents the user with the Chrome web browser as it runs on almost every other operating system. the only difference is that there is no way to quit to anything else, the idea being that everything runs in the browser. I tried some of the early builds of chrome compiled by a tinkerer called Hexxeh to run on my Asus EEEPC and found it fairly agreeable. As previously mentioned I still find myself moored in the realms of the physical. Having your data on a drive that is physically present is too ingrained to let go of easily.
Last time I wrote about cloud services, I talked about how music and video content producers must see the cloud. The possibility to give the user the same experience as watching a movie or listening to a music track, without them physically having a copy is their golden ideal. If the user never gets to keep a copy, they can't make a copy, at least not as easily. It is no wonder then that content producers want us to move in this direction.
As mentioned earlier this is not a one way street in favor of the content producer. The user is freed from buying storage and organizing it, freed from worrying about backups and data loss when devices break down. They don't have to clutter their house with cases filled with DVD's, or physically deal with discs and players. They just buy gadgets that fit their cloud platform of choice and are then free to access all their purchased music and movies where-ever they are.
The real point of writing this article was to consider the future of the games industry in the face of the increasing removal from reliance on physical hardware that the cloud represents. The games industry is already in a state of flux at present, the changes in fashion in computer hardware of late are making the crystal ball of the future very cloudy (pardon the terrible pun). Tablets, smart phones, Chromebooks, traditional netbooks and laptops are making the traditional model of a desktop PC seem quaint, somehow, antiquarian.
Into this mix comes cloud gaming services like OnLive, which promise PC quality games on a plethora of devices, including your HDTV via a small black box, or your phone or tablet. Basically just a controller and software with a need for a display, Onlive runs the games on a server somewhere in the cloud and streams the video to you, relaying your inputs as you make them. To me this sounds impractical and likely to lag badly, yet I am keeping my opinions to myself here, as I have not actually tried it out for myself in own home.
The advantages, as long as the internet provider you have can supply the bandwidth, and not penalize you for the amount of data marathon games sessions will involve, are legion. For the user, there is no need to go out and physically buy and install the game or for that matter download gigabytes of game content. Also no need to update the game with patches as they become available, that will be done on the server end by the games developers. Traditional PC gaming is an expensive affair, with a steep technical learning curve. With onlive you get the benefits of the best hardware, upgraded at no cost to you, without having to wrestle with graphic card drivers and other PC and windows mysticism.
For the games publisher the real dream advantage is that the games code doesn't ever leave the safety of server farms. I realize that this is a long way from being the present day reality, there are still going to be console and PC discs on the shelves, which are an avenue for piracy. What the industry executives see is the future where you don't ever have the games code on your own piece of hardware, only see the video of your play-through. You can't copy a game that you never have a copy of in the first place. You also can't resell your copy of the game to one of those leech like game store chains, who greedily take more profit for themselves from the second hand sales of games.
Not owning what you purchase is a difficult concept for many people, music and movies are never yours, that has always been the case. Buying a movie only gives you the right to watch it in your own home. Your rights to do much more with it are still severely restricted. I am beginning to wonder if this is the reason we are not seeing new consoles from Sony and Microsoft just yet. Are they waiting to see how the early pioneers of cloud gaming fare before they commit themselves to the road? The problem with that is that they might miss the boat and leave the market to Onlive or one of their competitors. I feel that it will be a long slow battle to change the mindset of the public beyond the early adopters and technophiles who eat up these kind of concepts. It is almost like some sort of Buddhist anti-possession philosophy, versus the capitalist hoarding of modern society. Interestingly enough Onlive are offering a free trial, maybe it's time to see if it works out?
Such a luddite attitude is fairly backwards thinking, I wasn't saying there is anything wrong with the concept. I quite like the idea of a thin client that I hold in my hand and the heavy grunt work of securing and storing my data being done by a corporation that is to be heavily penalized for lack of security and loss of data. After all if I store my stuff at home on hard drives they might be susceptible to failure or accidental formatting. Recently one of my friends mistook my two terra-byte storage drive for the two gigabyte SD memory card I asked him to format. It also means that software and media is held and maintained by the companies who produce it. This means you can buy rights to use it, but don't have to install, update and otherwise maintain it on your machine. Your upgrade to a new machine is also less of a chore as you only have to sign into your new machine and everything will be as you left it on the old one.
Chromebooks aren't setting the world alight as far as i can tell, the fact that I can’t tell is telling. Google, Samsung and Acer aren’t disclosing sales figures, what figures that are floating around indicate around the 50,000 mark. Which can’t be pleasing Google or their hardware partners all that much.
I am usually in the queue to try out a new operating system and it's associated hardware. The desire to this isn’t as strong with Chrome OS. It simply presents the user with the Chrome web browser as it runs on almost every other operating system. the only difference is that there is no way to quit to anything else, the idea being that everything runs in the browser. I tried some of the early builds of chrome compiled by a tinkerer called Hexxeh to run on my Asus EEEPC and found it fairly agreeable. As previously mentioned I still find myself moored in the realms of the physical. Having your data on a drive that is physically present is too ingrained to let go of easily.
Last time I wrote about cloud services, I talked about how music and video content producers must see the cloud. The possibility to give the user the same experience as watching a movie or listening to a music track, without them physically having a copy is their golden ideal. If the user never gets to keep a copy, they can't make a copy, at least not as easily. It is no wonder then that content producers want us to move in this direction.
As mentioned earlier this is not a one way street in favor of the content producer. The user is freed from buying storage and organizing it, freed from worrying about backups and data loss when devices break down. They don't have to clutter their house with cases filled with DVD's, or physically deal with discs and players. They just buy gadgets that fit their cloud platform of choice and are then free to access all their purchased music and movies where-ever they are.
The real point of writing this article was to consider the future of the games industry in the face of the increasing removal from reliance on physical hardware that the cloud represents. The games industry is already in a state of flux at present, the changes in fashion in computer hardware of late are making the crystal ball of the future very cloudy (pardon the terrible pun). Tablets, smart phones, Chromebooks, traditional netbooks and laptops are making the traditional model of a desktop PC seem quaint, somehow, antiquarian.
Into this mix comes cloud gaming services like OnLive, which promise PC quality games on a plethora of devices, including your HDTV via a small black box, or your phone or tablet. Basically just a controller and software with a need for a display, Onlive runs the games on a server somewhere in the cloud and streams the video to you, relaying your inputs as you make them. To me this sounds impractical and likely to lag badly, yet I am keeping my opinions to myself here, as I have not actually tried it out for myself in own home.
The advantages, as long as the internet provider you have can supply the bandwidth, and not penalize you for the amount of data marathon games sessions will involve, are legion. For the user, there is no need to go out and physically buy and install the game or for that matter download gigabytes of game content. Also no need to update the game with patches as they become available, that will be done on the server end by the games developers. Traditional PC gaming is an expensive affair, with a steep technical learning curve. With onlive you get the benefits of the best hardware, upgraded at no cost to you, without having to wrestle with graphic card drivers and other PC and windows mysticism.
For the games publisher the real dream advantage is that the games code doesn't ever leave the safety of server farms. I realize that this is a long way from being the present day reality, there are still going to be console and PC discs on the shelves, which are an avenue for piracy. What the industry executives see is the future where you don't ever have the games code on your own piece of hardware, only see the video of your play-through. You can't copy a game that you never have a copy of in the first place. You also can't resell your copy of the game to one of those leech like game store chains, who greedily take more profit for themselves from the second hand sales of games.
Not owning what you purchase is a difficult concept for many people, music and movies are never yours, that has always been the case. Buying a movie only gives you the right to watch it in your own home. Your rights to do much more with it are still severely restricted. I am beginning to wonder if this is the reason we are not seeing new consoles from Sony and Microsoft just yet. Are they waiting to see how the early pioneers of cloud gaming fare before they commit themselves to the road? The problem with that is that they might miss the boat and leave the market to Onlive or one of their competitors. I feel that it will be a long slow battle to change the mindset of the public beyond the early adopters and technophiles who eat up these kind of concepts. It is almost like some sort of Buddhist anti-possession philosophy, versus the capitalist hoarding of modern society. Interestingly enough Onlive are offering a free trial, maybe it's time to see if it works out?
Online pass sell by dates?
Online passes have been in the news recently, specifically those provided by Electronic Arts. It appears that some online passes have expiry dates, specifically mentioned is Dragon Age II. It appears that some people have bought the latest iteration of Need for Speed and found that their pass had expired when they entered it. This seems to have been a problem with the system and those hitting this issue have had their code replaced.
The shock here is that the codes themselves have an expiration date at all. Online passes are codes that come in the box of new copies of games and need to be entered before the online features of the game become available to the user. The idea being that the original purchaser of the game should see no problems with their experience and be able to play as normal. However, should that user trade the game in the next purchaser will not have the online pass and won't be able to access the online features.
Second hand game sales are huge, nobody is denying that people have a right to sell games they have played and may never want to play again. Nor is anyone suggesting that users buying second hand games are doing anything wrong. What is wrong is the wholesale embracing of game trade ins and used copy sales that brick and mortar game retailers have adopted in the last five to ten years.
Some game stores put used copies in more prominent positions than new, they actively ask you if you would prefer a used copy rather than a new one. They are making more money from this practice and to be honest you can't blame them. This issue has got to the point that publishers and developers are seeing a problem. They see the sales figures for their game and obviously are seeing that there are more sales than they are getting paid for. I don't know the figures, though it's possible that if a game sells say one million new copies, then those new copies could circulate around the game stores multiple times. Would you personally be happy that your game appears to have sold three million times and you only got paid for one million of those copies?
The passes were designed to combat the problem, second hand buyers got a fully functional single player game, though if they wanted to play the multiplayer component they had to go online and pay for a new online pass code. The idea was met with a general wailing and gnashing of teeth, which it seems any notion other than giving away games for free is met with these days. Personally the online pass hasn't done much to upset me, I don't buy second hand games, I quite like the idea of rewarding the people who make the games I play. I know only a portion of the money goes directly to the developers themselves, like any entertainment industry there are others, just and unjust who get their cut.
I can't see any reason for the inclusion of an expiration on these online passes. Games do have their time in the sun, and most console games with mediocre multiplayer are barren wastelands even a year after the games launch. If the developers have dedicated servers and other infrastructure to maintain that is costing them money, then you can see the force in closing down older games multiplayer sides. If I were to buy a game new five years after it's launch, a stretch I know, but bear with me. I would expect the online pass to still function, what I wouldn't expect is to be getting that many other players to play online with. If a games multiplayer has expired then that is an unfortunate fact of life, some things are popular, some things aren't, live with it and move on. If I find that the online pass has expired, that just seems silly, shouldn't I be able to redeem the pass, even if I am redeeming something worthless? It was sold to me, it shouldn't expire as if the contents of the game box were perishable!
This means that those who buy games new, say a year after their release will have to be careful of the online pass. This is Electronic Arts absolutely shooting themselves in the foot, I buy many games, I usually buy them new, on or around release, I have limited time to play games and I have plenty of games that I bought new over a year ago which I am still getting around to playing. I do not want to clear my backlog and get to a certain game to then find that I can't play the online portion due to an expired code.
The message that this policy seems to be sending to gamers is that a game that is over a year old should not be bought new as there is a good chance you will have problems getting to play the online portion. Gamers shouldn't be directed to the used game aisle under any circumstances EA. With this move you are putting obstacles in the way of gamers who want to give you their money rather than the retailers.
The shock here is that the codes themselves have an expiration date at all. Online passes are codes that come in the box of new copies of games and need to be entered before the online features of the game become available to the user. The idea being that the original purchaser of the game should see no problems with their experience and be able to play as normal. However, should that user trade the game in the next purchaser will not have the online pass and won't be able to access the online features.
Second hand game sales are huge, nobody is denying that people have a right to sell games they have played and may never want to play again. Nor is anyone suggesting that users buying second hand games are doing anything wrong. What is wrong is the wholesale embracing of game trade ins and used copy sales that brick and mortar game retailers have adopted in the last five to ten years.
Some game stores put used copies in more prominent positions than new, they actively ask you if you would prefer a used copy rather than a new one. They are making more money from this practice and to be honest you can't blame them. This issue has got to the point that publishers and developers are seeing a problem. They see the sales figures for their game and obviously are seeing that there are more sales than they are getting paid for. I don't know the figures, though it's possible that if a game sells say one million new copies, then those new copies could circulate around the game stores multiple times. Would you personally be happy that your game appears to have sold three million times and you only got paid for one million of those copies?
The passes were designed to combat the problem, second hand buyers got a fully functional single player game, though if they wanted to play the multiplayer component they had to go online and pay for a new online pass code. The idea was met with a general wailing and gnashing of teeth, which it seems any notion other than giving away games for free is met with these days. Personally the online pass hasn't done much to upset me, I don't buy second hand games, I quite like the idea of rewarding the people who make the games I play. I know only a portion of the money goes directly to the developers themselves, like any entertainment industry there are others, just and unjust who get their cut.
I can't see any reason for the inclusion of an expiration on these online passes. Games do have their time in the sun, and most console games with mediocre multiplayer are barren wastelands even a year after the games launch. If the developers have dedicated servers and other infrastructure to maintain that is costing them money, then you can see the force in closing down older games multiplayer sides. If I were to buy a game new five years after it's launch, a stretch I know, but bear with me. I would expect the online pass to still function, what I wouldn't expect is to be getting that many other players to play online with. If a games multiplayer has expired then that is an unfortunate fact of life, some things are popular, some things aren't, live with it and move on. If I find that the online pass has expired, that just seems silly, shouldn't I be able to redeem the pass, even if I am redeeming something worthless? It was sold to me, it shouldn't expire as if the contents of the game box were perishable!
This means that those who buy games new, say a year after their release will have to be careful of the online pass. This is Electronic Arts absolutely shooting themselves in the foot, I buy many games, I usually buy them new, on or around release, I have limited time to play games and I have plenty of games that I bought new over a year ago which I am still getting around to playing. I do not want to clear my backlog and get to a certain game to then find that I can't play the online portion due to an expired code.
The message that this policy seems to be sending to gamers is that a game that is over a year old should not be bought new as there is a good chance you will have problems getting to play the online portion. Gamers shouldn't be directed to the used game aisle under any circumstances EA. With this move you are putting obstacles in the way of gamers who want to give you their money rather than the retailers.
Metal Gear Falling
For a series that is obviously long running and multi-platform, it appears that gamers of a certain generation appear to consider Metal Gear a Playstation or Sony related franchise. Undoubtedly the franchises golden years were founded on Sony machines, Metal Gear Solid one and two were both huge games for the PS1 and PS2. Metal Gear Solid 4 was a huge exclusive for the PS3.
For a gamer brought up on Sony machines Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy are synonymous with the Sony brand. However the problem comes when you move outside the field of view of the gamer. If you look at the industry from the eyes of a business man, you know the people who are quite rightly only interested in making money. The people who are doing a job and have no passion or interest in the games themselves as artistic endeavors. Then you don't even consider brand loyalty as a consideration, unless you are the brand, and Kojima productions and others like Square Enix are not in any way shape or form a part of Sony. With that in mind why would you limit your market, why would you make a game for only one console on the market when you can make it for as many platforms as you have the staff and ability to create for.
Now while online forums are only a small vocal minority, they tend to be the type of minority that influence the herd. Media manipulation can sell a game, exciting trailers on rotation on the correct channels, magazine and billboard adverts can sell many games. The thing is that that sort of traditional advertising costs money. The buzz of a word of mouth campaign by excited gamers is free.
Metal Gear Solid: Rising was announced on stage by Hideo Kojima at a Microsoft press briefing. Now if you aren't well versed in the lore of the fanboy and console feuding then that sentence won't mean all that much to you. If on the other hand you are one of those people who enjoy supporting the team, then it has an awful lot of connotations. For the Microsoft fan, it was a huge coup, the creator of a major Sony exclusive, appearing on the enemy stage. Announcing that the next game in the series would be multi-platform. For Sony fans it was a gross betrayal, the loss of yet another long running exclusive franchise to the enemy.
For this betrayal there have been endless battering in the more fan war orientated blogs and press against the game. Strangely enough Kojima himself appears untouchable and gets absolved, as if he is being buffeted by the executives and deep down he would really want to stick with Sony products exclusively. First the Sony fans were desperate to make it clear that everyone knew Hideo Kojima himself wasn't developing the game personally. He would be overseeing the game and only giving final rubber stamp of approval. The fact that this game would see a more action focussed style of gameplay also meant that it wasn't really a Metal Gear game.
The game has seen relentlessly bad word of mouth, with every trailer being met with scorn. So much so it appears that the game was in danger of being cancelled, and has been taken back to the drawing board, before being given to a different development team. Like Ninja Theory before them, when making an exclusive game the fan buzz is endlessly positive, when making Heavenly Sword, Ninja Theory could do no wrong. One multi-platform game later and the Sony fans seem to believe every move on the developers part is a crime against nature. Of course taking over a long running fan loved property and rebooting it, is always a exercise in fanboy trolling from the start.
The point I'd like to make here is that while pleasing the fans is always a consideration, Kojima needed the money that could be made from a multi-platform game, however, they came out and announced it in a really poor way. If Kojima has announced Rising as a standalone game for the Xbox360 as an exclusive, I believe it would be out already and probably fairly successful. They relied on the goodwill of fans towards Hideo Kojima to pave over the wound of going multi-platform, imagining that Sony fans would not turn on the man considered a genius.
The Sony fans have not turned on Hideo Kojima, they have divorced him from the game. Rising now exists in some alternate world where it can be bashed with impunity and does not deserve the slightest bit of attention. The fact that it is now being made by Platinum games makes it even easier to bash, they made a Wii exclusive don't you know? They couldn't even be bothered to make the PS3 version of Bayonetta themselves!
Rising will still sell reasonably on the PS3, for all the fanboy noise, they usually still buy the things they find offensive and make all the noise about. It will sell reasonably on the Xbox also, although not quite as much as it would have it had released on schedule. Most Xbox360 users aren't that interested in exclusives, they aren't used to getting that many. What is wrong with this picture, is that, yet again, creators are being dictated to by considerations of money, business and the pressure from fans. All of which I feel publishers and executives should be doing their best to insulate their talent from. Let them work in a happy vacuum, where money is not a bother and they imagine that the fans love them. Making a game by committee is never a good choice, developers considered genius should be left to make the game they want to make, after all haven't they earned that right?
For a gamer brought up on Sony machines Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy are synonymous with the Sony brand. However the problem comes when you move outside the field of view of the gamer. If you look at the industry from the eyes of a business man, you know the people who are quite rightly only interested in making money. The people who are doing a job and have no passion or interest in the games themselves as artistic endeavors. Then you don't even consider brand loyalty as a consideration, unless you are the brand, and Kojima productions and others like Square Enix are not in any way shape or form a part of Sony. With that in mind why would you limit your market, why would you make a game for only one console on the market when you can make it for as many platforms as you have the staff and ability to create for.
Now while online forums are only a small vocal minority, they tend to be the type of minority that influence the herd. Media manipulation can sell a game, exciting trailers on rotation on the correct channels, magazine and billboard adverts can sell many games. The thing is that that sort of traditional advertising costs money. The buzz of a word of mouth campaign by excited gamers is free.
Metal Gear Solid: Rising was announced on stage by Hideo Kojima at a Microsoft press briefing. Now if you aren't well versed in the lore of the fanboy and console feuding then that sentence won't mean all that much to you. If on the other hand you are one of those people who enjoy supporting the team, then it has an awful lot of connotations. For the Microsoft fan, it was a huge coup, the creator of a major Sony exclusive, appearing on the enemy stage. Announcing that the next game in the series would be multi-platform. For Sony fans it was a gross betrayal, the loss of yet another long running exclusive franchise to the enemy.
For this betrayal there have been endless battering in the more fan war orientated blogs and press against the game. Strangely enough Kojima himself appears untouchable and gets absolved, as if he is being buffeted by the executives and deep down he would really want to stick with Sony products exclusively. First the Sony fans were desperate to make it clear that everyone knew Hideo Kojima himself wasn't developing the game personally. He would be overseeing the game and only giving final rubber stamp of approval. The fact that this game would see a more action focussed style of gameplay also meant that it wasn't really a Metal Gear game.
The game has seen relentlessly bad word of mouth, with every trailer being met with scorn. So much so it appears that the game was in danger of being cancelled, and has been taken back to the drawing board, before being given to a different development team. Like Ninja Theory before them, when making an exclusive game the fan buzz is endlessly positive, when making Heavenly Sword, Ninja Theory could do no wrong. One multi-platform game later and the Sony fans seem to believe every move on the developers part is a crime against nature. Of course taking over a long running fan loved property and rebooting it, is always a exercise in fanboy trolling from the start.
The point I'd like to make here is that while pleasing the fans is always a consideration, Kojima needed the money that could be made from a multi-platform game, however, they came out and announced it in a really poor way. If Kojima has announced Rising as a standalone game for the Xbox360 as an exclusive, I believe it would be out already and probably fairly successful. They relied on the goodwill of fans towards Hideo Kojima to pave over the wound of going multi-platform, imagining that Sony fans would not turn on the man considered a genius.
The Sony fans have not turned on Hideo Kojima, they have divorced him from the game. Rising now exists in some alternate world where it can be bashed with impunity and does not deserve the slightest bit of attention. The fact that it is now being made by Platinum games makes it even easier to bash, they made a Wii exclusive don't you know? They couldn't even be bothered to make the PS3 version of Bayonetta themselves!
Rising will still sell reasonably on the PS3, for all the fanboy noise, they usually still buy the things they find offensive and make all the noise about. It will sell reasonably on the Xbox also, although not quite as much as it would have it had released on schedule. Most Xbox360 users aren't that interested in exclusives, they aren't used to getting that many. What is wrong with this picture, is that, yet again, creators are being dictated to by considerations of money, business and the pressure from fans. All of which I feel publishers and executives should be doing their best to insulate their talent from. Let them work in a happy vacuum, where money is not a bother and they imagine that the fans love them. Making a game by committee is never a good choice, developers considered genius should be left to make the game they want to make, after all haven't they earned that right?
Mario Versus Peta
Peta are an animal welfare organization, a private company, funded by donations. They have around 300 employee and operate in many countries. Their slogan is "animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment." They campaign to change the attitudes of the public and raise awareness of concealed practices being carried out by companies on animals.
So far so good, there are many companies out there farming animals in horrific inhumane conditions so that we can have burgers, make up and fur coats. I have no problem with Peta shaming McDonalds into spending a little more of their profits on making the life of their cows and chickens better than spending it on Ferraris for their senior executives.
Recently Peta ran a campaign on their website, the campaign features Super Mario. Mario has a history of collecting power ups during his games which give him temporary extra powers. These powers include a mushroom which makes him bigger, a flower that makes him go white and shoot fireballs, etc. The object of Peta's wrath is the tanooki suit, which it appears, in later games at least, where the graphics are better, to turn Mario into a furry suited cute teddy bear with a long stripy tail. This tail can be used to swipe at enemies and extend the length of Mario's jumps.
Now I can see where Peta were going with this, at first glance it appears that Mario is wearing an animal fur suit. Presumably the Mario team didn't intend the connotations that Mario is wearing a real fur skinned from some poor Tanooki. Maybe they did, I don't know how Japanese culture views the wearing of fur? Peta appears to be trying to educate any children who may be influenced by the plumber’s fashion sense of their views on the issue. Firmly stating that Mario is in the wrong to be killing an animal for it's fur to wear, even if presumably it can give him Princess saving super powers.
The campaign is in fairly poor taste if it is aimed at children. I do understand that they are trying to convey that there is a harsh world out there, where people are extremely unpleasant to each other and animals. The main thrust of the campaign is a flash game where you play as a skinned Tanooki, dripping in blood as you chase Mario through a blood drenched representation of the usually primary colored happiness of the Mushroom kingdom. The game is an appalling dull, keep on going and don't get hit by the screen as it relentlessly scrolls to the left type of affair, while you jump over the usual obstacles found in a Mario game. The game isn't the point, you aren't meant to play it, just get the message. That while Mario is a cute child friendly game, even he is, likely unwittingly, prolonging the cultural attitudes, that the wearing of fur is acceptable and killing animals for human use is an abused sin, not a right.
My first impression here is that while Peta were looking for publicity, and while no publicity is bad publicity for them, it seems that most people are likely to side with Nintendo and edge Peta into the wrong, not on the issue, but their treatment of it. Is it possible to be insensitive when pointing out the insensitivity of others? Well yes, someone may be doing something inherently wrong in your eyes, that doesn't mean you are entitled be as offensive in return!
It seems that the use of Mario has hit a nerve, with statistics suggesting that 250,000 people interacted with the game in the first day or so of it's release. Peta have backpedaled under intense media scrutiny and suggested that the publicity stunt was a joke. Nintendo for their part have been quiet, a statement from them on the issue merely states that Mario has transformed in his games into many things over the years. None of these transformations imply anything other than their function in the game.
Certain organizations, seem to feel they always have right on their side. In the case of Peta, who obviously believe strongly in their cause, they tend to be the kind of people who don't listen to the other side of arguments. They don't usually have to, when they are talking about people who breed animals in tortuous conditions, or only for their fur they are unshakeable in their opinion and conviction that they are right. In this instance they aren't talking about gigantic corporations or barbaric gangs of fur merchants. Well, Nintendo I suppose qualify as a gigantic corporation, though they have little to do with any exploitation of animals. What peta attacked here was a piece of thousands of peoples childhood, a still relevant cultural phenomenon. Mario is an inoffensive primary colour piece of childhood, what Peta thought would be a soft target jumped on their head and bounced off with a cheery wave.
So far so good, there are many companies out there farming animals in horrific inhumane conditions so that we can have burgers, make up and fur coats. I have no problem with Peta shaming McDonalds into spending a little more of their profits on making the life of their cows and chickens better than spending it on Ferraris for their senior executives.
Recently Peta ran a campaign on their website, the campaign features Super Mario. Mario has a history of collecting power ups during his games which give him temporary extra powers. These powers include a mushroom which makes him bigger, a flower that makes him go white and shoot fireballs, etc. The object of Peta's wrath is the tanooki suit, which it appears, in later games at least, where the graphics are better, to turn Mario into a furry suited cute teddy bear with a long stripy tail. This tail can be used to swipe at enemies and extend the length of Mario's jumps.
Now I can see where Peta were going with this, at first glance it appears that Mario is wearing an animal fur suit. Presumably the Mario team didn't intend the connotations that Mario is wearing a real fur skinned from some poor Tanooki. Maybe they did, I don't know how Japanese culture views the wearing of fur? Peta appears to be trying to educate any children who may be influenced by the plumber’s fashion sense of their views on the issue. Firmly stating that Mario is in the wrong to be killing an animal for it's fur to wear, even if presumably it can give him Princess saving super powers.
The campaign is in fairly poor taste if it is aimed at children. I do understand that they are trying to convey that there is a harsh world out there, where people are extremely unpleasant to each other and animals. The main thrust of the campaign is a flash game where you play as a skinned Tanooki, dripping in blood as you chase Mario through a blood drenched representation of the usually primary colored happiness of the Mushroom kingdom. The game is an appalling dull, keep on going and don't get hit by the screen as it relentlessly scrolls to the left type of affair, while you jump over the usual obstacles found in a Mario game. The game isn't the point, you aren't meant to play it, just get the message. That while Mario is a cute child friendly game, even he is, likely unwittingly, prolonging the cultural attitudes, that the wearing of fur is acceptable and killing animals for human use is an abused sin, not a right.
My first impression here is that while Peta were looking for publicity, and while no publicity is bad publicity for them, it seems that most people are likely to side with Nintendo and edge Peta into the wrong, not on the issue, but their treatment of it. Is it possible to be insensitive when pointing out the insensitivity of others? Well yes, someone may be doing something inherently wrong in your eyes, that doesn't mean you are entitled be as offensive in return!
It seems that the use of Mario has hit a nerve, with statistics suggesting that 250,000 people interacted with the game in the first day or so of it's release. Peta have backpedaled under intense media scrutiny and suggested that the publicity stunt was a joke. Nintendo for their part have been quiet, a statement from them on the issue merely states that Mario has transformed in his games into many things over the years. None of these transformations imply anything other than their function in the game.
Certain organizations, seem to feel they always have right on their side. In the case of Peta, who obviously believe strongly in their cause, they tend to be the kind of people who don't listen to the other side of arguments. They don't usually have to, when they are talking about people who breed animals in tortuous conditions, or only for their fur they are unshakeable in their opinion and conviction that they are right. In this instance they aren't talking about gigantic corporations or barbaric gangs of fur merchants. Well, Nintendo I suppose qualify as a gigantic corporation, though they have little to do with any exploitation of animals. What peta attacked here was a piece of thousands of peoples childhood, a still relevant cultural phenomenon. Mario is an inoffensive primary colour piece of childhood, what Peta thought would be a soft target jumped on their head and bounced off with a cheery wave.
Cool to hate!
In recent years there has been a backlash building against the Call of Duty series. COD has quite a long history in the world of gaming, with iterations released every year but one since 2003. The boom period for world war 2 first person shooters came and went, far too many competitors saw gamers overexposed to the setting. Medal of honor, Battlefield 1942, Wolfenstein, Brothers in Arms and Hour of Victory, to name just a few, made Infinity Ward reach for a new period in history for their next game.
The choice was wide open, and mostly well trodden, future or past, there were games out there already making their mark. They chose the present and Modern Warfare was born, to say it was successful was an understatement. World at war was a misstep, though not a serious one, the rest of the meteoric rise of he brand is well documented. Today the COD brand makes more money than any other entertainment product in any field, not just video games.
With this status COD joins the ranks of mainstream entertainment, no longer a nerdy past-time. This has resulted in most internet denizens proclaiming it the worst game ever created, an affront! How could any self respecting developer churn out add on packs for the same game, year after year displaying no talent whatsoever they cry! This obviously isn't the case, COD games are usually great first person shooters, they have their flaws, all games do. If any games sequels are nothing but add on packs, then all of them are, that argument is a dead end applicable to all game series, not just COD. What really is wrong with COD? The answer is nothing, it simply isn't the done thing to like the most popular choice. There must be a name for this phenomena, I couldn't find one so I decided to examine it.
When a piece of entertainment reaches a critical mass and garners a specific amount of fans, it appears to reach a tipping point where it becomes more popular to complain about it than like it. Does this cultural phenomena have its roots in individuality? People like to feel distinct from every other bag of water, protein, fat and other assorted minerals on the planet. When in reality we all seek the love and acceptance of our fellow sacks of organic compounds. This desire for individuality it seems directs us to seek modes of dress that are different from our peers, listen to alternative music than what is popular and profess to like the most impenetrable books and movies.
Elitism also rears its head here, it is generally accepted that the more complex a piece of work is the better it becomes. If everyone likes something then it must mean that it appeals to the lowest common denominator. Certain people can't abide being lumped in with the proles, if something has a massive amount of fans then it must be generic and bland. Hence the games are painted as the same core, with bland rehashes of the same maps over and over again. In the same way that critics have told pop stars off for using the same three chords, movie directors for the same explosions and car chases.
The complainer is essentially telling the world that they have a broader pallete than you proles. That you wouldn't know a decently written piece of music, or a well crafted game if it smacked you between the eyes. The people who complain about COD are vocal about the problems with COD, yet you won't catch them letting slip what it is that they actually do like. It is easier to destroy than it is to create, it is easier to find fault with established works than suggest improvements. The complainers have thrown stones for so long they have started to enjoy it, and can't find a way out of that rut.
The next consideration here is cool factor, the ineffable face of cool is something that can't be scaled. Something is either cool or it isn't, and even that status can be revoked on societies whim. Hipsters, if such a creature exists, flit from new entertainment experiences to the next sucking the cool from them like vampires. If they slow down they risk becoming unstuck, like sharks, needing to keep moving forward.
When a new piece of entertainment appears, something that those concerned with it genuinely feel is new, they take ownership of it. For example, A band arises from a small town music scene, the locals are the first to hear, they get it, love the music. Years later those people are special, because they were in on the ground floor, insiders, who may even know the band personally. Eventually that wears off as the band are never back in the small town, everybody and their dog has their album from iTunes, when these insiders used to get a copy from the band themselves. Eventually the circle is complete and this super fan realizes they are nothing but one of a million fans and that ownership turns to frustration and hate.
Does age play a part, is the hate of all things popular simply a phase everyone goes through? Hating the world of the peer group you don't belong to, or the entertainment landscape your parents inhabit. A damaging and caustic phase that a large portion of the world seem to inhabit at any one time. It would be easy to lay the blame on the teenagers for this, though it isn't only limited to teens. There are plenty of forty and upwards people who are unable to label something unpalatable to them as anything other than the most offensive thing on the planet.
There is another possibility that influences this hate machine, the media. Media is big business, there are companies behind most of the large print and web based media outlets. Could bias in the media have influence on a whole franchises future?
COD is bigger than the ability of an army of naysaying hipsters to dent it's status as top dog at present. One thing is certain though, COD has flipped into the "cool to bash" category. While it will have another few years of high status and record earnings, the sound of that indie band from the small town tuning their instruments can be heard, the insiders are already proclaiming them as COD killers.
The choice was wide open, and mostly well trodden, future or past, there were games out there already making their mark. They chose the present and Modern Warfare was born, to say it was successful was an understatement. World at war was a misstep, though not a serious one, the rest of the meteoric rise of he brand is well documented. Today the COD brand makes more money than any other entertainment product in any field, not just video games.
With this status COD joins the ranks of mainstream entertainment, no longer a nerdy past-time. This has resulted in most internet denizens proclaiming it the worst game ever created, an affront! How could any self respecting developer churn out add on packs for the same game, year after year displaying no talent whatsoever they cry! This obviously isn't the case, COD games are usually great first person shooters, they have their flaws, all games do. If any games sequels are nothing but add on packs, then all of them are, that argument is a dead end applicable to all game series, not just COD. What really is wrong with COD? The answer is nothing, it simply isn't the done thing to like the most popular choice. There must be a name for this phenomena, I couldn't find one so I decided to examine it.
When a piece of entertainment reaches a critical mass and garners a specific amount of fans, it appears to reach a tipping point where it becomes more popular to complain about it than like it. Does this cultural phenomena have its roots in individuality? People like to feel distinct from every other bag of water, protein, fat and other assorted minerals on the planet. When in reality we all seek the love and acceptance of our fellow sacks of organic compounds. This desire for individuality it seems directs us to seek modes of dress that are different from our peers, listen to alternative music than what is popular and profess to like the most impenetrable books and movies.
Elitism also rears its head here, it is generally accepted that the more complex a piece of work is the better it becomes. If everyone likes something then it must mean that it appeals to the lowest common denominator. Certain people can't abide being lumped in with the proles, if something has a massive amount of fans then it must be generic and bland. Hence the games are painted as the same core, with bland rehashes of the same maps over and over again. In the same way that critics have told pop stars off for using the same three chords, movie directors for the same explosions and car chases.
The complainer is essentially telling the world that they have a broader pallete than you proles. That you wouldn't know a decently written piece of music, or a well crafted game if it smacked you between the eyes. The people who complain about COD are vocal about the problems with COD, yet you won't catch them letting slip what it is that they actually do like. It is easier to destroy than it is to create, it is easier to find fault with established works than suggest improvements. The complainers have thrown stones for so long they have started to enjoy it, and can't find a way out of that rut.
The next consideration here is cool factor, the ineffable face of cool is something that can't be scaled. Something is either cool or it isn't, and even that status can be revoked on societies whim. Hipsters, if such a creature exists, flit from new entertainment experiences to the next sucking the cool from them like vampires. If they slow down they risk becoming unstuck, like sharks, needing to keep moving forward.
When a new piece of entertainment appears, something that those concerned with it genuinely feel is new, they take ownership of it. For example, A band arises from a small town music scene, the locals are the first to hear, they get it, love the music. Years later those people are special, because they were in on the ground floor, insiders, who may even know the band personally. Eventually that wears off as the band are never back in the small town, everybody and their dog has their album from iTunes, when these insiders used to get a copy from the band themselves. Eventually the circle is complete and this super fan realizes they are nothing but one of a million fans and that ownership turns to frustration and hate.
Does age play a part, is the hate of all things popular simply a phase everyone goes through? Hating the world of the peer group you don't belong to, or the entertainment landscape your parents inhabit. A damaging and caustic phase that a large portion of the world seem to inhabit at any one time. It would be easy to lay the blame on the teenagers for this, though it isn't only limited to teens. There are plenty of forty and upwards people who are unable to label something unpalatable to them as anything other than the most offensive thing on the planet.
There is another possibility that influences this hate machine, the media. Media is big business, there are companies behind most of the large print and web based media outlets. Could bias in the media have influence on a whole franchises future?
COD is bigger than the ability of an army of naysaying hipsters to dent it's status as top dog at present. One thing is certain though, COD has flipped into the "cool to bash" category. While it will have another few years of high status and record earnings, the sound of that indie band from the small town tuning their instruments can be heard, the insiders are already proclaiming them as COD killers.
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