The calamity of casual games

In case you guys didn't know, I freelance for Games.net, which is GamePro's official videogame blog. While I've only contributed a few articles to them so far, I hope to do several more in the future. Now, I usually don't link back to my own stuff on other sites, but in this case I'll make an exception, seeing as how I support the topic I covered very strongly.

The article focuses on why I feel we need to stop classifying ourselves as "hardcore" or "casual" gamers, and I've tried giving legitimate reasons to back up my beliefs. Hope you guys enjoy the read!

[The Calamity of Casual Games]

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Quakecon Rage!!

Well thanks to a great effort by Shacknews, I lusted over a white text on black live blog of the press conference to end all press conferences (well for me anyway). Yup id hath spoken and it was good. Here are the highlights, go to Shacknews for the feed, I'll update here once I find some more coverage.

Firstly Enemy Territory Quake Wars. Due for October 2nd release in the US, Europe gets much respects and sees Splash Damage pulling their Euro Developer might and representing 4 days earlier on the 28th September. This is great news, "When it's done!" is great for the initial 3-4-5 years of development but as you're tasting the beta and tripping over previews it's good to get that date out there. Remember pre-orders score name reservation codes and some addition blag in the box.

RTCW2 or Wolfenstein 2 was mentioned but was lacking in video, screens and actually much detail . A big highlight, and really the only announcement as far as the game was the news the Threewave are involved in the online portion of the game, along with the original developers of RTCW online, Nerve Software. This is great news as both developers have a proven track record of providing a consistent and fun online experience. Single player details however were non existent with Raven still helming he single player portion of the game, instead news that there is to be a Wolfenstein movie in the pipeline helmed by Roger Avary was handed out, they didn't announce The Rock was going to be in the film, guess we can't say it'll be another sucky game movie just yet. :)

The DS saw a lot of love from the Carmack family with John's wife, Katherine, showing off Orcs and Elves. John also covered his ground up philosophy demonstrating how they build IP from a low platform and add on features rather than build to the top end and strip down on features. It's an interesting design philosophy for sure, I hope he pulls it off because it'll mean we see a lot more id stuff on phones, DS and Wii, with the PC, 360 and PS3 talking the ideas a lot further over time. Talking of the DS John has said he has a definite interest in making a Quake Arena style multiplayer game for it. The idea of cart sharing and the easy wifi of the DS appeals to him and he is prepared to design the game for long play times, even to the point of simplifying the game back to Doom 2 style deathmatch so you're not experiencing wrist cramp after 10 minutes. Nice!

Speaking of Quake Arena, it was also announce that id are forming a second tier team for the first time. This team will be developing a version of Quake 3 Arena under the title of Quake Zero and using the id Tech 5 engine. Perhaps most stunning is that this game will be 100% subsidized by advertising and as such is totally free to gamers. With the subject of advertising in games being a sore point amongst many, it's refreshing to see id lead the way in showing that it can bring definite positives to a gaming community.

Finally id Tech 5 and the new IP. Well actually id Tech 5 gets showcased tomorrow so we only got a glimpse of it in action before John revealed their new IP. Darkness, was going to be it's name and actually was worked on by id for a period of time. The game seems to have been a kind of Lost meets Far Cry and gets f**ked by insane id lunatics. However, the id guys just didn't feel right about he idea and dropped it off the edge of Q3DM17. No! Rage is the new IP and they only said that it they enjoy a "Road Warrior" style of game with lots of running people over as well as shooting them, looks like Mel is outta luck with the anti-semitic portion of the game. Perhaps we'll see more clues about Rage tomorrow.

I won't cover the usual Carmack commentary, instead let me teasingly summarize it in short word form so you click over to Shacknews for more. :) DX10, PS3 Architecture, physics, rocket building, Fusion reactors, Wii Ware and Live Arcade, Microsoft and Sony, retinal scanning and many many more. :)

Update 1:

Damn I'm stupid. I forgot the mention the entire back catalogue of id software is hitting Valve's Steam Digital Distribution service. Now I've got a lot of id software sitting on scratched up CDs in my loft so if $62.95 (10% off the regular price of $69.95) is going to score me all of id's games from Commander Keen right up to Doom 3 Resurrection, and I can have them on hand at the click of a mouse then hot damn it I'm prepared to pay for that and avoid the dust and spider bites. Steam is also offering packs of different flavours if you only like a slice of the id software cake. Check out the Steam website for more details on the packs. Hell, in the time it's taken me to write this I've actually bought them all. :)

Doh, the link I had posted and then promptly greased myself up to watch was actually QuakeCon 2006's keynote. I should not drink and write. I'll update again when I find this years feed. :)

Update 2:

No sooner do I take down the link than up pops the files I was looking for in the first place.
Courtesy of QuakeUnity.Com

Rage footage [1m26s]
Absolutely stunning stuff and if you needed more proof id is back on form, the Rage logo rocks too. :)

Update 3:
Here is Todd Hollenshead's Keynote [15m10s] and of course John Carmack's keynote [1h05m]
Again props to RogerR at QuakeUnity.com for recording and uploading this excellent footage.

1Up has a piece on Quakecon and get Tim Willits to reveal a little more on Rage. It is Mad Max! Read it here

Shacknews has tidied up their live blog and produced a nice summary. If you think my post is too wordy you should check this out.

Don't forget id Tech 5 is getting its own 30 minute presentation right now, I hope we have some more news and video later today.

Update 4:
Okay this should wrap up the updates and Quakecon coverage. IGN currently have two videos up detailing the id Tech 5 demo and tools. It's all pretty stunning stuff and I sure there are some developers out there feeling exactly the same way.

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Suda 51 No More Heroes interview

Looks like Suda's aiming completely for the U.S. audience this time around. Glad to see that he doesn't plan to make No More Heroes all deep and insightful and is still going for the crazy, over-the-top, fun experience.

Also, I love how the interview starts with the music from the old No More Heroes E3 2006 trailer. Oh, and anyone notice the Snake statue and game posters behind Suda? Guess he really does love Kojima.

[Via Gametrailers]

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Dan Arey sheds light on Ready at Dawn

While I'm not a huge fan of the PSP, I have been watching my boss play a lot of stuff on his of late, and learned a fair bit about Ready at Dawn, the studio responsible for Daxter and the upcoming God of War: Chains of Olympus. Suddenly, I find myself quite intrigued by the creative minds behind the studio.

Why this sudden interest? I guess it's for the same reason that I admire studios like id. For a new studio, Ready at Dawn seems to be good -- really good -- at pushing the hardware of the PSP to its limits. Chains of Olympus looks like a freaking awesome game considering it's portable. I've always loved comparing exactly how much different studios can push the limits of the hardware of various systems. Square Enix, Nintendo, Mistwalker, Capcom ... and now RaD.

Speaking of which, GamesIndustry.biz managed to score a rather interesting interview with Dan Arey, a ten-year vet who left Naughty Dog to take up a position at Ready at Dawn. Here's the usual tidbits:

Do you think Ready at Dawn made the right choice when they started out by betting on PSP?

The principals at RAD had a well thought out plan, and they executed it to perfection. By not only developing and releasing Daxter on the PSP but making it one of the superstar titles on the console, they stood out quickly. It was part strategy, part hard work.

Then to follow it up with another well know franchise in God of War, but make their own unique game and story in the universe, and then rock the press with its technology... Well, that's something not every developer can do.

But RAD planned the work and worked the plan and all of this has been in preparation for their next big step. With a data driven engine that's platform agnostic, these guys are now in the amazing position to work on any platform they choose.

And here's a surprising bit of information one would never have thought of had it not been mentioned:

Is RAD sticking with PSP or expanding onto other platforms in the future?

The great thing about the RAD development pipeline is that it has been cross-platform - PSP / Windows - from the beginning, which means the technology can migrate to any platform. For example, I've seen God of War running on Windows; it's only for development purposes but it's still a kick to see!

The rest of the interview is pretty interesting, too. No big reveals or anything ... just some very general discussion about the direction the studio plans to take in the future. A fun read, in my opinion.

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Japanese Anime market 2006 growth = USD 2.026 billion

Looks like I was worried for nothing. Despite the fact that profits from DVD sales are plummeting every year, it seems this one aspect of the entertainment industry isn't nearly enough to keep the anime biz from being profitable ... not even close. According to ANN:

Japan's Media Development Research Institute announced that the Japanese anime market grew to 241.5 billion yen (about US$2.026 billion) in 2006. That is the highest level since the institute started surveying in 1990, and represents the third year of continuous growth. The institute credits movies like Tales from Earthsea, Pokémon, and Doraemon as well as the increase in television anime titles for the growth, but notes that the number of DVD titles has dropped. The market has grown 220 percent since 1990 (then at 106.9 billion yen or US$896.8 million) and 150 percent since 2000.

I can't even begin to express how overjoyed I am by this news. It has totally made my day. I learned an important lesson today: You really can't use distribution statistics to judge how well a market is doing. Regardless of whether or not one distribution format works, there are always several others to make up for it. Great news overall!

[anime.jp via Anime News Network]

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Sony's "last hopes" of catching up

When it comes to the game industry, everyone's an analyst. And I'm not talking Micheal Pachter "I-think-so-and-so-will-sell-well" type analysis. I'm talking "Sony-needs-to-do-this-or-they-will-die" type analysis. As if we didn't have a gazillion Mark Rein wannabes already flooding the Internet, Forbes feels the need to get in on the action, too.

Clearly having followed gaming trends all their lives, Forbes thinks they know what Sony needs in order to fix its near-shattered reputation, turn console development into a profitable venture once again, and fight off the Wii's grip on the market. Says Forbes's Clayton M. Christensen:

The seemingly simplest option is to just come up with a copy-cat version of Nintendo’s controller that works with one of Sony’s existing consoles.

While this would be the quickest path to market, it has some real risks. Nintendo’s system has been optimized around its controller. Simply sticking a motion-based controller onto an existing system could result in a highly disappointing product. The controller would remain an afterthought, as opposed to an integral part of the product.

The second option is to repurpose Sony’s “legacy” product (PlayStation 2) into a me-too version of the Wii. To do this, Sony would develop a new controller, lower the price of the PlayStation 2, and try to get game developers to create motion-based games for the platform.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't those two options nearly identical? If you had to repurpose the PS2 (a horrendous suggestion, might I add), obviously you'd need a different kind of controller to support the new direction. A new controller that couldn't and shouldn't be like the SIXAXIS for obvious reasons. Believe it or not, Option #3 is even more vague.

The final option is for Sony to try to “disrupt the disruptor.” Instead of following a me-too strategy, Sony could seek to truly develop a category-changing project. While this approach would take more time and require greater investment, it has the most long-term potential—if Sony can figure out a different measure of performance on which to compete in the video game market. For example, perhaps the company could take another run at the handheld market, where there still seems to be substantial room for growth.

Disrupt the disrupter? You mean take more risks by doing the crazy things Nintendo does when they're rolling in money and Sony's digging deep into their piggy bank?

As for taking another run at the handheld market, I think the company has been doing that for quite some time now, and the results kind of speak for themselves.

[Via Gamerush Entertainment]

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DICE's Mirror's Edge to put the "person" back in First-Person

Imagine Prince of Persia. Now, imagine it from a first-person perspective. That's the comparison Mirror Edge's senior producer Owen O’Brien makes when talking about DICE's in-progress acrobatic first-person game.

Acrobatic, you say? Now there's a first, eh? As Next Generation so rightly points out, providing the player with agility of any sort is almost entirely avoided in FPSes nowadays. DICE, however, hopes to change that trend.

“There’s always been a lot of focus on the gun in firstperson games,” says producer Tom Farrer, ruefully. “No one puts that much focus on the movement; how you move around the environment. We wanted to capture a real sense of physicality. Games like Unreal Tournament have movement – double jumps, rocket jumps – but it’s very abstracted. We wanted to place you in the world and convey the strain and physical contact with the environment.”

Ambitious, Tom. But what about the gun? What about the killing?

To that, Owen has an answer. According to him, the game is played more "through the character" and less "through the gun", something which I really think more FPS designers should keep in mind right from the get-go. The player character is an embodiment of you in a make-believe world. The guns are a means to spread hurt and death. However, the problem is, in most games the very point is to spread hurt and death, which is why weapons often take precedence over character.

Not counting the Metroid Prime series, which I will always respect for striking the perfect balance between exploration and shooting, most other first-person games have disappointed in the way of making you feel like you are the in-game character. If they can't do that, there's really no point of them being first-person is there?

The solution, apparently, is to focus on your body rather than your weapon.

“This is going to sound like typical developer hyperbole,” says O’Brien apologetically, “but when you play this game for a while it changes the way you look at levels in other firstperson games. You stop seeing obstacles and start seeing opportunities: ‘I could wall-run up there and jump there and do this and that’. Even on a very small rooftop everyone approaches it differently.”

“Doing the cool moves is relatively easy,” explains Farrer, “but you want to maintain a flow – that’s where the skill element is introduced. Coming to the bottom of the zip-line you want to time your landing properly so you can continue to maintain that speed and carry on moving, whereas if you fail you may stumble, slow down or even fall over.”

But enough quoting from me. If you like the little tidbits I've been throwing out so far, I'd recommend reading the entire interview over at Next Generation. FPS is, in my opinion, the most stale genre in the industry today, and any attempt to bring something new to the table is most welcome.

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Working In Japanese Game Development:: The Facts

Gamasutra has an interesting editorial up on about how working in the Japanese game development industry isn't as impossible as some believe it to be. Part 1 of their two-part editorial features a look at some facts about working in Japan and eliminating certain misconceptions people have about the same. A very interesting read, in my opinion.

[Working In Japanese Game Development: The Facts]

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SDCC: Classic Iron Man movie armour revealed

That's just one of the many snaps over at Newsarama of Iron Man's very first armour in the upcoming movie. Looks good to me!

[Full gallery here]

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SDCC: Warren Ellis on penning Astonishing X-Men

For everyone who follows comics: Stop whatever the hell you're doing and get this. Warren Ellis is the new writer for Astonishing X-Men.

The last Astonishing writer Joss Whedon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame, did an excellent job of changing the focus of the X-Men from being just mutant rights activists to superheroes once again. All this while tightening up the core group of the X-Men and choosing to really flesh out an existing cast of characters instead. Indeed, as Whedon's Astonishing arc nears completion, a lot of us feel we know Scott, Hank, Logan, Kitty, Peter and Emma (OK, maybe not Emma) a lot better.

This is where Mr. Ellis picks up. Speaking with Newsarama, he let on to a bit of what he has in mind for Astonishing X-Men: Second Stage.

The metaphor of mutantcy has meant many things to many people over the years. It's been code for adolescence, for race, for sexuality, for politics and probably a dozen other things. I want to see what it actually means in the 21st Century. This, to me, is interesting work: to take a sounding of a franchise that has meant so much and so many things to so many people over the years, and to see what else it still has to say; to look forward and see how this badge of X -- which didn't have the cultural load it carries today when Lee and Kirby generated the idea -- can be made to mean. Also, I think planes will probably crash, beer will be drunk, people will get stabbed and certain characters will have what Joss called "the crazy weasel sex." But there will be no crying. This is very important. There is too much crying in science fiction these days.

I assume "no more crying" is Ellis's way of saying "There will be no more random mutant deaths and resurrections.", which, in my humble opinion, is only a good thing. Just to make things clear, the team you see in Second Stage might not be the same one as in Whedon's series. Ellis says he's still thinking about what to do in that regard. In fact, I think some of you might quite like what he had to say about what he plans to achieve in Second Stage.

NRAMA: Rounding out this interview, is there anything specific that fans can be looking forward to reading when they read Warren Ellis' Astonishing X-Men?

WE: Oh, the usual, you know. Raping your childhoods, using my position to destroy everything you love, displaying opinions you may not agree with and writing with my own voice and personality. All the things people hate in commercial comics these days. And yet, all the things I am specifically hired for. It's a funny old world.

Sounds good! Personally, I can't wait. I can see Astonishing X-Men growing into the "Amazing Spider-Man" of the X-books. Considering Uncanny X-Men has been a constant disappointment this past year, I'd love to see that happen.

[Full interview here]

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SDCC: CLAMP & Dark Horse present: Mangettes

In an extremely enthusiastic attempt to reach out to their international readership, boy-loving female superstar manga-ka group CLAMP has struck up a deal with Dark Horse to publish an all new original series simultaneously in the United States, Japan, and Korea. Surprising? Not really, seeing as how CLAMP and Dark Horse have been in bed together for a while.

CLAMP’s original manga with Dark Horse will be launched simultaneously in the United States, Japan, and Korea. The story will come out in a small digest consisting of about eighty pages each, which will then be collected into trade paperbacks with bonus material. CLAMP and Dark Horse are coining the bilingual term Mangettes to describe this innovative new format for manga distribution. This digest format, or Mangette, signifies CLAMP's personal wish to reach their large international readership by now speaking to them directly as artists through Dark Horse, and on a basis of equality with their Japanese fans.

CLAMP and Dark Horse chose the term Mangettes to describe this revolutionary format, whose Japanese pronunciation, mangetsu, means “the full moon.” The two kanji in mangetsu also have the individual meanings of “fulfilled” and “monthly,” reflecting what will be a monthly appearance of each CLAMP Mangette.

According to CLAMP, “Mangettes are a completely brand new experience for us, too, and we’re really happy to be working on this. And we’re really looking forward to the day when we can bring you this new story from CLAMP, and the day when we can meet our fans face-to-face to hear what you think about Mangettes!”

Good news for all those who love CLAMP. While I'm not a very big fan of their works (save for X, which unfortunately, is on hiatus), I am happy to see that such collaborations are indeed possible. Overseas publishers and Japanese publishers and manga-ka getting closer can only be good for the industry. Nice going, Dark Horse.

Now, let's just hope that this new CLAMP series is a little different from the style they've adopted in all their other stories.

[Via Manga Jouhou]

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Hotel Dusk: Gameplay and design analysis

This is the most awesome thing I have seen on a blog to date: a gameplay analysis attempt. The analysis was done by a staff member of Game Design Reviews, who was recording his girlfriend playing Hotel Dusk on the DS. It looks like his analysis came along rather magnificently, as he as some very interesting things to point out. Here's an example of some of what you can expect to see:

Another, related detail is that the biggest audible response I recorded during the session was exactly at that moment where she broke the key (minute 44). You can Listen to it here. It seems that this particular event had the biggest emotional impact. It was quite surprising for me seeing that much emotions created by a dumb suitcase and not from the hour talking with people. One explanation would be that when interacting with people, the player's avatar is talking and the player only occasionally directs the conversation. As a result, the player feels less responsible for what is happening. When interacting with objects, the player is acting on his own so the feeling of responsibility is much greater. I have already mentioned how responsibility might be the key to understand emotions in games.

Tons of charts, videos and writing involved here, but it is totally worth it if you're into dissecting games and what makes them enjoyable. I'd advise playing Hotel Dusk before you give the article a read of course.

[Via Go Nintendo]

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TOKYOPOP Talks Digital and Web 2.0

We've heard it time and time again. Web 2.0: the future of the Internet. It's affected every corner of the entertainment industry, from games to comics to manga. That said, it isn't surprising at all that TOKYOPOP has embraced the concept with their new Web 2.0-enabled site.

In addition to this, TOKYOPOP is also charging full steam ahead down the path of digital distribution. While all their user-uploaded content and online manga has been free for viewing so far, they are brainstorming different ways for this to be another profitable area for them.

Speaking with Newsarama, Jeremy Ross, TOKYOPOP’s Director of New Product Development shed a little light on some of what the manga publisher has planned:

“The TOKYOPOP website changed radically in July 2006 and became a place where users could upload their manga or comics for free. It’s a popular site. We get over a million unique visitors per month, and each visit is long. Fellow users vote on uploaded manga & comics using “POPS”, or popularity points. The most popular uploads rise to the top of the rankings. We’ve approached creators who caught our users’ & editors’ attention and are working with some now.

“We've recently launched TOKYOPOP 2.0, which builds on this base. The prior online manga and user profiles with manga and comics carry over. But there’s a lot of new features and a whole new site structure to explore.”

TOKYOPOP offers “shared-copyright contracts" to manga creators, which essentially means they make money off of their works in all the fields that TOKYOPOP is, if their material is published.

“One area where we do have revenue that will be divided according to our agreements is the successful mobile manga viewer we launched on all major cell phone carriers with our partner uclick. Our manga anthology for handsets commands the majority of subscription sales so far, and the business has been steady with a nice growth curve. On Verizon alone, we have had tens of thousands of users download the free trial each month with a healthy conversion rate to paid subscriptions.

“We have recently initiated a manga Pilot program in which we contract with a promising creator to create a pilot chapter that will be displayed on our website, then voted on and commented on by fans. Based on an evaluation of popular response and our editors’ reactions, Pilot creators may then be offered a shared-copyright deal for a complete series.”

Sounds good. Now, if only TOKYOPOP would focus a little less on content that leans more towards "manga" rather than "comics". I know TOKYOPOP believes OEL is the future of the print entertainment industry, but personally, I'm not a big fan of that belief.

[Newsarama via Manga Jouhou]

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