Issue 8 - SCANDAL AT 30 MILLION BYTES
Submitted by Perrin on Wed, 01/04/2009 - 15:34
Another long and not so topical issue this week as we take a glance at the gaming media. Rob being part of this has rather a lot to say, some of it even interesting. In bollocks of the week we try to avoid the OnLive issue and take a look at indie gaming business models. In you shouldn't play this Rob defends the best duck hunt game in years and Perrin slags off a Lord of the Rings title. We are getting very professional at all this aren't we?
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Our reader question for this week: What BIG ISSUE would you like us to cover?
The big issue of the moment
The big issue of the moment is about the effectiveness of the IGDA and what it is good for. This sore spot has been swelling up for over a month now based on the comments of Mike Capps and it looks like its about to puss out into mainstream in posts like this one: http://playthisthing.com/mothers-dont-let-your-children-grow-be-game-dev..., where you will find relevant links to video and igda forums furore and so on. The gist is, how come the IGDA isn't condeming Mike Capps "crunch is necessary for good games" comments.
Now I know this website isn't about the developer's side of things or even understanding that perception. But what is interesting is how little people planning to go into the games industry even understand their future peers. E.g. after a while people see past the dream factory and get to the point of saying no to exploitation. Also interestingly it's surprising how like the Fans some developers are - e.g. console biases, no life and fairly geeky.
So maybe a topic could be Fans, horrible as the subject matter may be, it's still often fascinating how this hardcore culture works. From the goon squad getting involved in the politics of Eve Online to the customer who wants Brain Training 2; topics on moments in the history of gaming when fans achieved something significant to the PR mistakes; maybe talk about brand association (e.g. people like EIDOS games instead of liking a particular developer) or the snobbishness of gamers towards anything seen to be too cute. It's a potentially endless bitch session though :)
Failing that maybe just try a big issue on "Developers" - who are they?
Big Issue: I was talking
Big Issue:
I was talking about Starcraft with a friend and we both came to the conclusion that we have no clue how the heck it's a freakin Sport in Korea. Perhaps a look at gaming in terms of 'sport' and celebrity status in our current age, I mean I hear that even MMO's have 'Legendary players' so how exactly have this seemingly steady growth of next generation celebrity risen up from the ranks of the computer chair bound masses?
Good idea, that. I don't know
Good idea, that. I don't know if we'd do a whole episode about it, but I think as Starcraft 2 gets closer that's something both Perrin and I will be pretty excited about, and we should definitely talk a bit about the insane culture that's built up around the original game. I've actually been to see the filming of a pro Starcraft game which was being broadcast live on TV in South Korea - it was a really, really weird experience...
probably still more
probably still more interesting than Pro snooker.
Big Issue! How about some
Big Issue!
How about some kind of discussion about how games as a whole are much easier than they were back in the day. Games used to be all about getting you to pump more and more change into arcade machines, but now since they're almost all on home systems, blah blah blahhhhhhh.
Or alternatively be META AS FUCK Y'ALL and do it all about gaming podcasts - other ones you like, the work involved in making one, etc.
BIG ISSUE Why are there not
BIG ISSUE
Why are there not more berets in video games. I believe that perrin would be able to give a frank, intriguing and belittling conversation about the lack of this wounderous article of clothing within video gaming culture.
Chris Hecker rants about and
Chris Hecker rants about and advises journalists: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UTlBvhx0OM
These days developers do feel like commodities for the news press core. What's interesting though is that the vocal hardcore who find a cultural resonance with sites like kotaku and the eurogamer comments threads and make up the readership are increasingly a smaller (if reliable) part of the market. Your mother, is now the market. Also I see the specialist press and hardcore fans growing up eventually and realising their passion is devoid of honesty and will turn to a journalism that can provide that in their time-poor lives. If anything I suggest that now is a great time for journalists to hold off on the pressure to publish stories quick and emmerge out the back end of this culture for indigestion of news as a nice shiny and reputable sweetcorn of good journalism.
While I agree to a large
While I agree to a large extent with your sentiment (although frankly, you wouldn't believe how hard it is to do what you describe - the second anyone with the title "publisher" or "manager" gets involved in a site, they want to downgrade your standards of journalism in favour of cheap hits and advertising revenue, and it's bloody hard to fight against that when they have the power to hire and fire you), I feel that I should express how absolutely horrified I am by your extended metaphor :(
Apologies about that,
Apologies about that, although sometimes a metaphor can bring a colonoscopy of focus to a notion.
To the problem of pressue all I can suggest is that there isn't room for many kotakus, i.e. only one can be first at the end of the day. There's no point in being another site with no journalistic standards that comes second. So each publication needs to position itself according to comparative advantages - that might not mean being the biggest site, but it does mean fulfilling a position better than any other site.
Um so if management is suggesting you join the race to the bottom then they're shit management by trying to change things only within their domain of skill (deadlines, milestones and wages) instead of "leveraging" yours as an competitive advantage.
BIG ISSUES?! I guess stuff
BIG ISSUES?!
I guess stuff like:
MMOs, not just playing them but how they affect business models, where they put PC gaming, also related genres like MMOFPS and smaller multiplayer gaming. Maybe just multiplayer gaming in general, covering everything from xbox live voice chat abuse to MMO addiction.
Region locking, region restricted releases, staggered release dates. I think you touched on it in the piracy ep, that to play some import games you HAVE to mod your console so it can play copies, even if you pay for every game you ever own
how consoles are converging with gaming PCs (mandatory installs, updates, harddrives, use as media centres, live patching, multiple different models, DLC etc). Pretty much only Nintendo is attempting to remain 100% "plug in and play" for all their games, is the array of different options putting off casual gamers getting a 360 or a PS3?
in a topic related to games/movies, why are the Japanese better at representing a franchise in multiple media (TV show, game, movie, comic)? or maybe they're not and it's just that we see the cream of a big and generally crappy crop.
Damn you Rob. I was
Damn you Rob. I was incredibly indifferent about owning MGSTouch, now after two sets of praise about it I brought it. Damn you.
As for your Big Issue's next week, well seeing as the DSi is out on Friday how about talking about that and how the small new features will add little to DS market to begin with, but how mind-fucking-annoying Nintendo has now made the DS to develop for.
Noooooooooooo! I meant a
Noooooooooooo! I meant a remake of the two games I suggested, brand new, updated graphics, etc!
Big topic for next week: Perrins m.....no. Here's a few -
Game Controversy - Hot Coffee, Manhunt 2, Dead Rising banned in Germany, Jack Thompson, etc!
Modern Warfare 2 - Dissect the new teaser trailer for a full 3 hours, etc!
Games -> Movies - Where does it go so very, very wrong? What about movies turned into games? ETC!
Retro - Do what a lot of magazines do and have a look at retro games and consoles, etc!
GO GO GO GO! Make sure there is some knob creek or JB in the next episode please!
P.S. What happened to the prizes you were going to give away a few episodes ago?