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National Geographic Getting Into Video Games
penguin_dance writes "The AP is reporting that National Geographic is getting into video games. National Geographic Games, a subset of the parent company, will 'work with game publishers to turn its material into games for PCs, consoles and handheld devices.' The first title is out for the PC and iPhone. It's a hidden-objects game called Herod's Lost Tomb, and is built around their program on King Herod and an article in the magazine. They also plan to publish and distribute games for the console market, including PS3 and Wii, and the handheld market as well. 'The games will be drawn from a broad range of content and themes across National Geographic's properties.' National Geographic: Africa will be out next month, from Sony. Other upcoming titles include Rain Forests and Greencity. Also available this month will be National Geographic: Panda for the Nintendo DS."
National Geographic games: rated Adults Only for scenes of intense animal violence and occasional photos of tribal women in traditonal garb showing their boobies.
I can't remember the last time I saw something about videogames posted to slashdot in which DRM issues didn't become the focus. Here we have a game that is not released yet, and the first post is "Will it have DRM? Because that sucks. Spore and walmart suck because of DRM."
Why always fixate on DRM? Do people here actually play games, or is trying to defeat DRM everyone's preferred entertainment?
Car analogy:
Imagine there was a gas station selling a special "HP+" gas that made the car more fun to drive, but had a chance of ruining the engine, requiring a rebuild before the car would work again.
You are saying "why worry about how often it ruins the engine, it gives a +100HP boost!"
The GP is saying "will this gas break my engine like some of the other HP+ fuels out there?"
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
having looked at the screen shots for Herod's Lost Tomb, and having played History Channel's Great Battles of Rome, i have to say i'm not too impressed with these TV-based educational games. educational games are simply a bad idea in the first place. aside from Oregon Trail, i can't think of any other educational game that delivers on its promises of making learning fun.
perhaps it would be different if National Geographic established their own internal development studio and actually invests in it by hiring good in-house developers. however, contracting outside developers to create IP-based games will inevitably result in bland and poorly developed shovelware--just like majority of licensed games.
good games have to come from developers who are passionate about the title they're working on. this is much more likely to happen if the game is an original creation of the studio developing it since the developers are given creative input and are free to try out their own ideas. but with IP-based licensed games, developers are simply contracted to implement other people's ideas and are given very little creative control.
at least with something like a comic-book character or famous franchise like Star Wars or Gundam it's still possible for the developers to get excited about their work. but how is any developer supposed to get excited about creating a game based off of a NatGeo TV special? it's such a blatant money grab. the games will no doubt be produced as budget titles aimed at little kids in kindergarten or 1st grade.
"having looked at the screen shots for Herod's Lost Tomb, and having played History Channel's Great Battles of Rome, i have to say i'm not too impressed with these TV-based educational games. educational games are simply a bad idea in the first place. aside from Oregon Trail, i can't think of any other educational game that delivers on its promises of making learning fun."
What? You never played Rome:Total War? There's even a reality mod for the thing.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
...a FPS game based on the National Geographic articles that depict the mating habits of gazelles. Edumacational!
The ESRB people are going to have a field day.
A morning without coffee is like something without something else.