I started watching ZDTV back in 2000. I couldn’t wait to hear what Adam Sessler and Kate Botello had to say about the latest games. I remember the announcement of the PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox. All of which quickly became dominant forces in my life. I remember spending nights playing Ratchet…
This deserves to be reblogged. R.I.P X-Play.
(And yes I know I haven’t been posting here, hoping to again very soon)
Lately there have been a few culprits in the gaming industry releasing what are essentially incomplete games. By incomplete I imply that they have been missing key features or modes of the game, missing options that should have been available in the game at launch and in some cases are ultimately not prepared for release at all. There is no doubt that in some cases economic problems come forward thus creating time constraints. But in others it just baffles me why a developer or publisher will force out a particular game at a certain time. This will usually only lead to worse reviews for the product, and create more anger with the consumers. This is a trend that game developers need to avoid, because it is not a good way for the industry to be accepted in.
As E3 has just passed for 2012 I thought I should jump in and do my own response to it. Sadly this year due to being busy I was only able to live-stream Microsoft’s conference. Most of my experiences have been with demo videos posted on various streaming websites, and I haven’t really looked much into the hardware side of things. Because of this I’m instead going to discuss a few games that stood out to me at E3 this year. While there are many games that look really good, there will be some that won’t be on this list due to my opinion of them not particularly changing at all after the event. I want to focus on what really stood out as something different, surprising, or worth noting from E3 itself.
At the end of 2010 I managed to get my hands on a PC (somewhat) capable of actually playing some games. I quickly got my hands on The Witcher developed by CDProjekt RED. As an avid RPG fan I was quite simply amazed. It was not perfect and had its faults, but what it strived to do it nailed. However, as my eagerness for the soon to be released sequel rose, it was only to be crushed by the fact I would not be able to play the game on my PC. Sitting there annoyed for several months I was relieved to hear that the game would be getting an Xbox 360 release. I was not expecting something on par with the PC version, but I put my faith in who I believe are incredibly talented developer. After a long wait I finally obtained The Witcher 2, and by all means was it well worth the wait.
Okay so I haven’t been posting on here for ages due to being busy with university but also lack of motivation. I have decided however that I am going to be writing what I call ‘Spotlights’ for particular games and anime. I already have my first one done I will be posting it shortly after this post. Hopefully this time I can get into more of a routine and post regularly.
As games have grown as a medium it has essentially turned more into a business focused development cycle rather than purely out of interest in creating video games as it used to be. Certain publishers have become massive powerhouses and control a large amount of the industry, or at least in the sales department. But for these publishers to please investors, etc. they must gain as much profit as possible. Because of this the big publishers have begun to notice that they can release more games in franchises, more frequently and still make huge profit since fans of these games want to play them so badly. Once this reaches a certain amount of games, or the releases become too frequent we start labelling them as ‘milking’ the franchise. Personally I think that the ‘milking’ of certain franchises has not been entirely beneficial, or otherwise I feel like certain franchises are not living up to their full potential.
As the gaming industry has grown over the past few years gamers have become more concerned about getting a ‘bang for their buck’. The fact is no one wants to pay the full price for a game on release if it is only going to last them roughly 8-10 hours. Because of the increase in games being released and because of this urgency to gain value from our purchases we often turn to multi-player to be the main factor of worth. I however have a few huge problems with what this mentality has caused for the industry. Not only do we see far too many games trying to compete in the multi-player scene, but also we have seen several very successful single player game franchises also jump on board this bandwagon when they really do not need to.
Decided I will allow questions, that is if anyone has something intriguing that I want to answer.
Digital Distribution has become a major part of the gaming industry. Because of digital distribution we have seen the rise of major gaming platforms such as Steam. But even its services have greatly complimented the two major console networks Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. This massive growth and acceptance of being able to digitally access files has allowed new ways for game developers to sell their games. In this post I don’t want to talk about how digital distribution makes it easier to access games, or anything to do with convenience. Rather I want to talk about how such a service allows games to be sold in a manner that is different to just buying a full game at a price.
