1. This is akin to a singing artist saying they are not going to sing on tune, because they did a survey and realized that the best selling artist can’t hold a note to save their lives…
2. A quick look at the top 10 will reveal that most of the top 10 is at 60 frames…
3. His poll states most people care about consistent frame rate but some of the top selling sub-60 games (Halo/Gta) are not known for their consistent frame rates… a bit of mixed message there…
4. Quality is always king, even if most of your consumers don’t get it, but in the long term if your quality suffers the industry will suffer (case and point: music industry).
5. Action games need to be at 60 frames, they are based on motor-reaction to visual stimuli. Do the math, 30 frames is half the stimuli, which means you are getting half the info to make instant decisions on. So what if most of you consumers suck cheese, your game should be gear not only at the layman gamer but at the olympian gamer.
Japanese game magazine Famitsu did a survey of the top most wanted sequels… check the full list here but i’ll give you a quick synopsis on the stuff i’m excited about! In parenthesis is the chance that a sequel will be made (yeah its just a guess).
#1 Sakura Taisen (100%)
#2 Shenmue (0.1%)
#9 Earth Defense Force (100%)
#15 ZOE (80%)
#18 Valkyria Chronicles (75%)
#21 The World Ends Without You (75%)
#22 Shadow Hearts (75%)
#24 Panzer Dragoon (80%)
#29 Oz (10%)
#30 Jet Set Radio Future (10%)
#37 Skies of Arcadia (10%)
Some surprises from my gaijen eyes:
Demon’s Soul (must be awesome haven’t played it yet but what i’ve seen seems very good)
OZ (Great action game, didn’t know it was received that well)
Bullet Witch (did i miss something here, may have to grab a copy now and see what all the fuss is about!)
and not many nintendo games on the list!
Edge article describes the debacle here. To sum it up: Sega’s Strategy RPG raked in the abysmal 33k units for the month of November.
Wow… where to start. A quality, critically acclaimed (87 avg), innovative title gets pretty much ignored in the states… who is to blame? Sega Marketing and Sales? Perhaps. Sony’s Marketing and Sales? It is a PS3 exclusive. Gaming press? 87 avg, they seem to have done their part. Ignorant Gaming Audiences? But Disgaea sells amazingly strong (100k+ in the west). Who knows? The sad truth is, the dev team (Overworks alumnus that created Skies of Arcadia and Sakura Wars) will think twice about releasing a sequel or a new title here in the states, and chalk it up to western audience’s taste or lack their of… true or not, it is quite sad.
I’ve noticed that there are people in our industry that think games will become a ‘legitimate’ artform (whatever that means) when we achieve or include ‘deep story telling’ (once again… whatever that means… i’m guessing they mean some type narrative that evokes ‘deep’ emotions). This, to me, is one of the many symptoms of our industry’s inferiority complex - a game is not as good as a movie because it doesn’t have a deep narrative. It’s possible that narrative is old fashion vehicle for involving the audience while interactive media is the new way. What’s the real purpose of a narrative anyway? My take would be to involve and keep the attention of the target audience (reader, listener or observer), well this happens by default in any interactive medium, and especially in games - the player is involved and a good game keep’s them involved.
The traditional form of narrative is almost essential to all non-interactive, passive, media (almost, i mean several music videos and/or commercials are quite enjoyable with out a traditional narrative - see an example below) but it’s not at all essential to involve a player in a game. In fact games can be said to create a narrative, much like a basket ball game has a story that unfolds naturally, MMORPG (for example) players constantly have tales to tell that were not hardcoded by a ‘deep involving’ story line but happened because of the mechanics in place. (There is a good gamedeveloper/gamasutra article from years back that discusses this idea of games create stories, gotta track it down…)
Music Video with no Deep Storytelling (but still highly involving)
Tetris (one of my favorite examples) may have a story (i guess) but it’s far from important to the player’s enjoyment of the game. RPG’s seem to need narrative to push forward but those narratives are sometimes very low quality compared to a decent (if there is such a thing) romance novel, let alone a masterpiece of literature and yet some of these games are just as enjoyable…
Another reason for narrative some would argue would be to evoke emotion, i also think it’s another sign of our industry’s ‘issues’ that we can’t even see that games evoke emotions, and in several cases they evoke emotions you just can’t get from other mediums. (Either we just can’t see this or, more likely, people who are championing this idea just dont really play games.) Prime example below.
Emotions from a game? The holy grail has already been found!
Trying to get a user to cry is also touted around as some type of goal, well if you ever played any rogue-like with permadeath, i’m sure you’ve felt a deep sadness that rivals anything a novel can give you. When your level 99 character bites the dust in a serious of unfortunate events that you could’ve avoided if you had only not been so greedy, a sadness may just come over you or at least a sense of loss… this emotion was not triggered by any narrative but pure mechanics of the game…
Does story have a place in games? Of course it does, people identify with common narrative and since games are made for people it’s a good idea to link mechanics with some type of world backstory and carry the level progression through a narrative, but i don’t believe it’s essential to a masterpiece game. A game’s masterpiece-ness (lol) is in the interaction, they may have a great story or they may have a horrible story (Resident Evil 4’s story comes to mind), but if the game mechanics and tuning are perfect the experience will be as well - despite the story… I mean, it seems to me that the player doesn’t really need an excuse to go hunting zombies (or whatever they are…) so the weak story is quite forgiveable…
In my opinion games are the higher art form, since they can encompass both the interactive as well as the non-interactive, passive, arts (literature, movies, etc…) but the inverse is not true; passive non-interactive arts can not include interactive features and still be considered a movie, novel, etc…
Interesting and unbiased take on the numbers… I would believe that there can be a similar article that can be writteon abouth the PS3… both far from succesful compared to the Wii and DS… The bigger is better arm’s race in our industry has, so far, been quite suicidal (like all arm’s races o.O)… as, even on the powerhouses of today, it’s the small games that seem to garner the same if not more attention and revenue (XBLA’s, for example, UNO!?!?!?!?)… special thanks to greezycheezy for the link.
Alot of people i’ve talked to with-in and outside of the game industry have some strange ideas about what hardware is selling and what’s hot…
According to 4colorrebellion (one of my favorite sites) the NPD results are in and once again somevery interesting factoids can be gleemed (gleamed??? whatever) from this list…
No. 2 PS2 is outselling all other next gen machines (even sony’s own ps3 and xbox 360) but not the Wii
No. 3 DS is the largest selling machine period, out selling all other consoles by a decent margin…
Conclusions???
Take these with a grain of salt… Sony is still making cash, the release of the PS3 was premature and will most likely harm them more than if they let PS2 run its course…
Wii will be the dominant machine from now and into the future… 360 and PS3 (especially) dont have next gen experiences just next gen graphics… (of course i dont have a wii yet so take that with another grain)…
DS is the dominant (and most overlooked hardware by most western developers who mostly made a mad dash toward the not-so-green next-gen pastures of huge teams, giant budgets and low (to no) profit margins)… I’m guessing we will see some increase DS interest, but now we have to play catch-up, and we have to focus on gaming again not graphics… good luck!
Those are my 2 cents (which i usually dont share on this blog but i fel the inspiration)…
For many, the purpose of criticism is to have your opinion broadcasted, or simply jump headlong onto the popularity bandwagon. I feel that there is more to criticism than this, something more selfless, less self-centered than broadcasting one’s opinioin, or re-establishing financial reports. Here are my two major criteria for criticism:
To further the artform by rewarding works that bring innovation and precision to a craft and criticizing works that take from the artform, play it safe and offer nothing to the industy in return.
To further progess human culture not revert it. That is works that exploit humanity with out progressing it should be highly criticized, while works that do progress culture should be revered.
These two points illustrate what I feel a good artist’s (game developer’s) goals should be, to progress the industry (otherwise you are participating in industrial suicide) and to progress humanity (otherwise you are participating in cultural suicide). Works that accomplish these two goals are remembered in legend and studied far into the future. A critic should be able to identify such works and canonized them.
I feel the current approach to criticism is plain egocentric as it puts the indiviuals taste above the craft (and other individual’s taste as well). The craft should be nurtured and protected (by the critics) or else it will dwindle and cheapen. Especially nowadays when development contracts are based on average review scores, these reviewers should at least be more than just opinion-driven (millions of dollars are at stake!). Why do publishers give credentialess reviewers so much power is beyond me… but i digress…
And i must ask… so what? Am i the only one in the world who feels the press is blowing this way out of proportion? To take nothing away from the games or the effort the individuals have put into those games, but i feel all this focus on Clover Studios ignores the contributions of the other teams in Capcom. Who *gasp* are putting out just as original and cutting edge titles as Clover: Phoenix Wright, Dead Rising, Lost Planet, Monster Hunter, Wantame etc…
Basically Capcom is not in dire straights with the loss of the two lead developers and for the life of me I can’t understand why the press is so fixated on this studio’s closure… Inaba will most likely still be making games, so the industry won’t be at such a big loss…
Yoshiki Okamoto left Capcom long time ago and there was little to no fanfare from the press and arguably he was a more influential player in the history of Capcom and look… Capcom is still standing…
This article was brought to my attention by ever watchful fellow fanatic Ruffneck. Let me 1st state, I like to avoid making critques or reviews on games on this blog, especially before they have even came out, but the HYPE that Gears of War is getting is downright frightening. This article is an interview with the Marketers of the game! The Marketers! And this is on a so called Gaming Website. Something just doesn’t smell right, am I the only one who thinks this is a bit too much? Hopefully lesser known games will get an ounce of this attention from press and Microsoft’s marketing machine…
