If your girlfriend is not more intresting to you then your game console, then chances are good that she is not "The One" anyway.
The best test of this is to try to interrupt the gamer by offering Sex. In most cases, offering to play with his joystick should get him to put down the other joystick. If they turn you down, then one of two things are happening.
1) Your hideous, deal with it. 2) They are screwed in the head.
Men have ditched or ignored their women for many reasons. I am sure that there are intstances of guys watching the latest hockey / football / basketball game and ignoring their women for the duration. The only difference with gaming is that gaming can be done at any time.
The character of Horatio in CSI Miami is intended to be a very one note charcter. He is Intense. And not much else.
Horatio sounds grim and intense when going after murders. Or drug dealers. Or pornorgraphers. But he also sounds grim and intense when going after gamers, parking tickets, littering, and jay walking.
I bet he also sounds grim and intense when doing a presentation about bike saftey to kindergarten students. Or when he is playing with a box full of puppies. Or when he is squeezing on off while reading pornography. Or when he orders a pizza. Or when he talks about the weather.
Anyway, this particular CSI episode is no worse then the comparable Law and Order episodes. All crime dramas try to use current events to seem relevant and pop a rating when they can.
It was a demo unit at E3 2004, so they did get as far as having a few prototype consoles.
I would guess that they have just failed to get enough investors to actually launch. The idea is, oddly enough, becoming increasingly valid. But they have absolutely no credibility with anyone at this point, as near as I can tell. How is it tht anyone can still be willing to be associated with the Phantom console at this point?
I suppose that in his eyes, FPS Videogames really are murder simulators, in that the player goes around, kills people, and gets rewarded for it. Obviously, his ethical and moral beleifs oppose such things.
His rabid anti-video game stance, however, prevents him from being a true expert. He simply does not know enough about what he is talking about to hold a meaningfully informed opinion. He does not need to actually play a video game to get the idea that he would not like it. But he probably should not be able to testify in a court of law as any sort of expert on the subject. His blatant bias prevents him from accepting any information which does not conform to his world view. If someone agree's with him, he is right, and if they disagree, he is wrong. Anyone who cannot be reasonably convinced that they are wrong in the face of hard evidence contrary to their stated view should never be taken seriously on the subject in question.
The only writings that I have read that seemed more fucked up were the political writings of the Ultimate Warrior.
May they be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
While I seriously doubt that we will ever completly be rid of TV with commercials, I do suspect that at some point, that the TV viewing audience will be limited to the following:
1) Viewing Live Events 2) Viewing low quality shows 3) Those destitute enough to not afford to download favorite shows.
If viewers can pay to download a TV show they want to see, and keep it as long as they want, it will lead to several consequences. The first is that as noted in the article, the downloaded version of the show may be available in a higher definition. The second is that since its not broadcast, you wont have to worry about the FCC censoring naughty words or naughty images. The third is that the shows will no longer be forced to allow commercial breaks, and can run longer or shorter as needed by the story of that episode.
This in turn could create the possibility that the version of the show that gets broadcast will be the inferior version of the show. And if your a true fan of the show, why settle for the crappy version?
On top of that, once yoru no longer beholden to the schedule of the broadcaster, why be limted to watching only what they want to show you? If your a hard core sci-fi fan, why waste time with sitcoms? You could just download shows like every episode Star Trek, Battle Star Galactica, X-Files, Babylon 5, Firefly, and whatever else you actually want to watch. I am sure that the content providers will have no objections to selling to you from their back catalog.
When (not if) downloading a selected version of a TV show becomes viable choice, TV Advertisers will be largely screwed.
Many development studios are in a somewhat tenuous position. If they suddenly have no projects, they will implode. While there are some developers that will basically ream their employees to turn a quick buck, most developers dont try to deliberatly schedule a death march. But if the cash reserves are low, the dev studio is in a corner. At the end of any contract negotiation between a developer and a publisher, you basically hit a point where you have X amount of Dollars, or Y amount of Time to make a game of Z content.
Scenario A: The Developer can try to do a death march, and heap on the uncompensated over time. The project has a shot at being done on time. This makes the publishers happy, and the employees homicidal. The resulting game usually sucks.
Scenario B: The Developer can instead try to let everyone stick to reasonable hours, and do the best they can in the time alloted. If the scope of the game is too large, at some point, a mile stone is missed. The employees are content, and the publisher is furious. So the publisher withholds payment, and the Developer cannot make payroll. The game is aborted, and the developer cannot find new projects because they have no credibility.
The only thing I see a union accomplishing is making Scenario B happen more often.
Twenty million is a non trivial amount of money. And I suppose he is doing some experiments of his own up there, but how much time does $20 million buy your average space tourist on the go? And how much return on investment are his experiments likely to generate for him?
If the duration of the stay is long enough, I suppose that you could conceivibly do some worth while research. I wonder what the cost would have to drop to for various large corporations to be willing to pay the cost to put some of their science people onto the ISS for prolonged research?
While I am a game programmer, I think that the opinion that banning the sale of used games is foolhardy. Of course it will likey cost the game publishers, and in turn the developers, a non trivial amount of money. The game industry has a vested intrest in preventing this.
However, the sale of used games most directly impacts 2nd and 3rd tier titles. Or at least, it the effect is much reduced for first tier titles.
If a game is worth keeping, it will likely be held onto. Many gamers like to reply games that they liked. But of a game turns out to be a less then perfect play experience, why hold onto it?
Good games that are sold as used are not going to sit on a shelf in a store very long, but mediocre games will sit for quite some time, be sold back soon, and will have a large effect on the total raw sales of a game.
Its pretty much impossible to buy a used copy of Tetris for exactly this reason.
In the off chance it matters, I am a game developer.
As long as it works without being overly glitchy, they at least clinch 2nd place.
They are promising to deliver the back library of the NES and SNES already. And you have clean backwards compatibility with the Gamecube, and this will keep the owners of gamecubes happy. And while the installed base of the Gamecube may not be as impressive as the Playstation 2, it is not inconsiderable either.
So you can get the nostalga buyers. And unlike the DS, I can easily imagine games that would use this tech that I would want to play. This has real possibilities.
Simply looking around in 3d space is now a resolved issue. Its blindingly intuitive to that purpose, and that alone will make many games much more playable.
Put a cursor on the screen, and you have a very viable mouse replacement. RTS games become much easier to do. You could probably make HomeWorld playable on a consle. Can you imagine doing that on existing consoles?
And while the video of people playing games with the controller shoes no shots of the actual gameplay, it does serve one important purpose. The fishing, 'conducting music', and other types of gameplay do demonstrate one thing. This controller will permit gameplay types that simply are not possible right now. And even if conducting an orchestra is not likely to appeal to the 16 year old, counterstrike demographic, it will appeal to some people. It will pull in entirely new sorts of gamers.
Between Nintendo loyalists and the new players, it can probably clinch 2nd place. And if the 3rd party publishers are intrigued enough to make a serious effort to port their games to exploit this controller, it can likely unseat Sony in the number 1 position.
The list does have 4 console games on it, 5 if you count Madden, but there are some key rankings I disagree with.
1) Ocarina of time should be higher on the list, somewhere in the top 4. The game is essentially as close to being perfectly made as any game can be. I do not think anyone who enjoyed the game can honestly pick out a part of the game that was particularly weak.
2) Everquest should be in the top 3. It basically proved that MMPORG's were a viable business model. And I also think that if you were to total up the number of man hours spent on that game, it would eclipse the rest of the top 10 handily.
3) Madden does not belong on the list. It is little more then an annualized re-hash of its self each time out. Any improvements to the series are strictly evolutionary, no revolutionary.
4) I find it highly suspicious that the top 4 games on the list were all PC titles.
Making that complaint is akin to complaining that you cannot buy a Whopper at Mc Donalds. Sony needs its platform to be successful. Why should it accomodate the needs of those looking to write multi-platform code that can only potentially hurt its market share?
Sony must make the PS3 as easy to program for as possible, but that does not at all mean that it should keep its architecture even remotely compatible with competing platforms.
Besides, it may just backfire on Sony. Having done well in one hardware generation is no guarantee of success for the next generation. Being able to leverage its previous successes are important, but people eager to play PS2 games are not going to buy a PS3 to play those games if they already have a PS2 and would rather play X-Box 360 or Revolution titles.
I think that most people who do not speak up in class do so most often out of the fear of proving themselves stupid infront of their peers.
People who are afraid to voice unpopular opinions will probably not be made more bold in any event.
I recall watching a tv special about the use of this sort of device. One trend was that when used in a "Do you understand" type of question, the teacher can get a much better idea about how well the lesson is being understood, and can go over it again.
I expect that Walmart might drop the game, since they try for the family friendly image. However, the game is pretty much a guaranteed seller, and Walmart will put the bottom line before all else.
But really, can any of you think of anyone who will suddenly decide not to purchase this game when they otherwise might have?
Game companies make their money off of the royalties per game sold. They also hope to make money on the console its self, but they dont make nearly as much.
If the primary use of the PSP is to play SNES games published between 10 and 15 years ago by a competitor they discount as being minor, what does that say about the games made by Sony today?
Crunch time works when its used in the event of "Shit happens, and we need to get Task X done by Day Y". For that purpose, it does indeed work.
Crunch time fails when its used in an attempt to save money.
Death marches happen when a project is under staffed or under scheduled. Either someone did not want to pay for 2 or 3 extra programmers, or did not want to pay for a few extra months of development. So your left with a short fall of X amount of man hours to get the job done on time. So you put the extra burden on the other employees. Sometimes it can work. Sometimes it cannot.
Bad crunch time happens when someone gets greedy, or when someone screws up with time estimates for a project.
To put it most simply:
Crunch can be used to fix the mistakes of a dev team. It cannot be effectively used to fix the mistakes of management / publishers.
In controlled doses, Crunch works. It is perhaps even necessary. Shit happens, and you have to meet a critical deadline, so you work late for a few days in a row.
Death marches dont work. They just result in angry workers and an increased rate of errors.
And yes, I am a game developer, and I know all too well what I am talking about.
Sit down, power on the game and play it for exactly 15 minutes. How much fun did you have?
Probably not much. You probably managed to walk around a bit, get into one, maybe two fights. Or go to a town and bought some stuff, and watched most of one cutscene sequence.
Lets try that with Metal Gear Solid. In that case, you probably wandered around a bit, maybe hid from some enemies, and maybe got a key.
Both of those are fine games. But neither is one your likely to sit down and play if you only have 15 minutes to kill. If you want to have an enjoyable experience in either of those games, you probably play for at least one hour.
I dont think that he is so much against games that have 20 hours of linear play. I think he is against games that pretty much require you to dump two hours into a single play session.
With a game like Final Fantasy, if your going to play it, your probably going to try to clear at least an hour of your time to play it, probably more. Halo probably takes what, about 30 mins for each level?
Compare this to Wario Ware. You can pick it up, play for 15 mins, and walk away. Your not going to beat the entire game in 15 mins, but you are going to play a decent chunk of it. Animal Crossing is much the same way, you play it for short bursts of time, but you will likley pick it up more often in a given day.
I personally think the sweet spot is about 5 to 15 mins for a single level, and expect the player to play for 30 to 35 minutes. If you give a player the opportunity to safely put the game away every 15 minutes without losing progress, you will prevent a great deal of frustration from very casual gamers.
As for the overall duration of a game and playing it to the end, that is another debate, and is determined more by the kind of game and intended audience. Miyamoto is known for making games where 40% or so are secrets or optional. You dont strictly need every heard container in a Zelda game. You dont need every single star / shine in a Mario game. You can finish the game pretty quickly if you stick only to the essentials.
As for my prefrence, I think that a game should not outlast its enjoyability. If a new user gets bored without finishing the game, you need to cut down on the elements that are taking up the extra time and make them optional.
Games that have great appeal and will sell huge amounts of units that cannot be replicated on a PSP.
Obviously, this is not for typical hard core gamers, but I dont think Nintendo much cares if its getting its money from a 19 year old acne ridden starwars geek or a 32 year old soccer mom.
This game probably wont do quite as well in North America, however. It will do quite well if Nintendo can get demo units exposed to the kind of gamer that would buy it.
It is quite clear that Nintendo is doing a great job running a profitiable company. Nintendo is making money on all of its platforms in this generation of games.
It could be argued, however, especially with the difference in the installed user base, that only Nintendo is able to make a meaningful profit out of its Gamecube platform.
Its not enough for Nintendo to be profitiable and backing the Gamecube. They also need to make sure that Capcom, Namco, Sega, Electronic Arts, Konami, Activision, THQ, Midway, and Ubisoft (and all the others I have missed) are also making a healthy profit off of their console. And if the typical consumer is of the belief that only children play the game cube, then only children and Nintendo die hard fans will play that system.
If the financial backbone is Nintendo die hard fans, then only Nintendo will be able to satisfy them. And lets face it, Nintendo makes awesome games, and I dont think there are many other companies out there capable of putting out that calibur of game.
If they can make Revolution easy and cheap enough to develop for that publishers cannot help but make money developing for it, it will be supported.
When I was at E3 2004, it seemed that Media badges were allowed to skip past most lines. Media badges were also able to get into some areas I could not.
It could be that you simply did not properly exploit your media badge.
Or it could be a combination of Media Badge + Big Name.
On the other hand, I am in the development end of this business. I cannot say that the troubles of small gaming media matter to me nearly as much as the problems of smaller developers.
I do agree that Cox probably has no business being represented at the show, but Cox is probably Big Money. And money does apparantly matter.
I would suggest going where your more appreciated. Everyone and their karking dog would be covering the new Zelda game. You could always hunt around for the smaller developers out there and see what they have to offer.
I was at last years E3, as were many of my co-workers. In addition to being a media function, it also lets developers get a look at the competition. E3 serves the following purposes.
1) It shows up new games and hardware to the gaming media.
2) It gets alot of developers and publishers together in the same place, allowing for deal making.
3) It gets alot of publishers and retailers together, giving the retailers an idea of whats coming out, and helps them decide what to put on the shelves.
4) It lets developers see what other developers are up to, and serves as a reality check for your own game. It also gets the delopers out from behind their desks to do something resembling a vactation. It also lets you catch up with friends working for other companies, allowing us to network a bit, let each other know if a given employer sucks or not, etc.
I went to E3 as a develper, and was handed an Exhibits Only badge. The booth babes are getting a bit over done, but they are there more for the retailers then anything else. The booth babe gets the retailer to walk over to the display, and perhaps even see the game.
Nintendo already has problems getting 3rd party games onto their platforms. Especially 3rd party exclusive games.
This particular loss is not a fatal one, but they cannot afford to lose 3rd party support. Its hard to convince retailers to give you shelf space if you cannot guarantee them something worth selling.
Slashdot Mirror
If your girlfriend is not more intresting to you then your game console, then chances are good that she is not "The One" anyway.
The best test of this is to try to interrupt the gamer by offering Sex. In most cases, offering to play with his joystick should get him to put down the other joystick. If they turn you down, then one of two things are happening.
1) Your hideous, deal with it.
2) They are screwed in the head.
Men have ditched or ignored their women for many reasons. I am sure that there are intstances of guys watching the latest hockey / football / basketball game and ignoring their women for the duration. The only difference with gaming is that gaming can be done at any time.
END COMMUNICATION
The character of Horatio in CSI Miami is intended to be a very one note charcter. He is Intense. And not much else.
Horatio sounds grim and intense when going after murders. Or drug dealers. Or pornorgraphers. But he also sounds grim and intense when going after gamers, parking tickets, littering, and jay walking.
I bet he also sounds grim and intense when doing a presentation about bike saftey to kindergarten students. Or when he is playing with a box full of puppies. Or when he is squeezing on off while reading pornography. Or when he orders a pizza. Or when he talks about the weather.
Anyway, this particular CSI episode is no worse then the comparable Law and Order episodes. All crime dramas try to use current events to seem relevant and pop a rating when they can.
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It was a demo unit at E3 2004, so they did get as far as having a few prototype consoles.
I would guess that they have just failed to get enough investors to actually launch. The idea is, oddly enough, becoming increasingly valid. But they have absolutely no credibility with anyone at this point, as near as I can tell. How is it tht anyone can still be willing to be associated with the Phantom console at this point?
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I suppose that in his eyes, FPS Videogames really are murder simulators, in that the player goes around, kills people, and gets rewarded for it. Obviously, his ethical and moral beleifs oppose such things.
His rabid anti-video game stance, however, prevents him from being a true expert. He simply does not know enough about what he is talking about to hold a meaningfully informed opinion. He does not need to actually play a video game to get the idea that he would not like it. But he probably should not be able to testify in a court of law as any sort of expert on the subject. His blatant bias prevents him from accepting any information which does not conform to his world view. If someone agree's with him, he is right, and if they disagree, he is wrong. Anyone who cannot be reasonably convinced that they are wrong in the face of hard evidence contrary to their stated view should never be taken seriously on the subject in question.
The only writings that I have read that seemed more fucked up were the political writings of the Ultimate Warrior.
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May they be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
While I seriously doubt that we will ever completly be rid of TV with commercials, I do suspect that at some point, that the TV viewing audience will be limited to the following:
1) Viewing Live Events
2) Viewing low quality shows
3) Those destitute enough to not afford to download favorite shows.
If viewers can pay to download a TV show they want to see, and keep it as long as they want, it will lead to several consequences. The first is that as noted in the article, the downloaded version of the show may be available in a higher definition. The second is that since its not broadcast, you wont have to worry about the FCC censoring naughty words or naughty images. The third is that the shows will no longer be forced to allow commercial breaks, and can run longer or shorter as needed by the story of that episode.
This in turn could create the possibility that the version of the show that gets broadcast will be the inferior version of the show. And if your a true fan of the show, why settle for the crappy version?
On top of that, once yoru no longer beholden to the schedule of the broadcaster, why be limted to watching only what they want to show you? If your a hard core sci-fi fan, why waste time with sitcoms? You could just download shows like every episode Star Trek, Battle Star Galactica, X-Files, Babylon 5, Firefly, and whatever else you actually want to watch. I am sure that the content providers will have no objections to selling to you from their back catalog.
When (not if) downloading a selected version of a TV show becomes viable choice, TV Advertisers will be largely screwed.
Welcome to the Revolution!
END COMMUNICATION
Many development studios are in a somewhat tenuous position. If they suddenly have no projects, they will implode. While there are some developers that will basically ream their employees to turn a quick buck, most developers dont try to deliberatly schedule a death march. But if the cash reserves are low, the dev studio is in a corner. At the end of any contract negotiation between a developer and a publisher, you basically hit a point where you have X amount of Dollars, or Y amount of Time to make a game of Z content.
Scenario A:
The Developer can try to do a death march, and heap on the uncompensated over time. The project has a shot at being done on time. This makes the publishers happy, and the employees homicidal. The resulting game usually sucks.
Scenario B:
The Developer can instead try to let everyone stick to reasonable hours, and do the best they can in the time alloted. If the scope of the game is too large, at some point, a mile stone is missed. The employees are content, and the publisher is furious. So the publisher withholds payment, and the Developer cannot make payroll. The game is aborted, and the developer cannot find new projects because they have no credibility.
The only thing I see a union accomplishing is making Scenario B happen more often.
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If I am viewing a site, and there is an ad that annoys me, I will then tell adblock to block everything from that domain.
Popups get blocked. Ad's with any sort of sound get blocked. And ad's that take up too much screen space are blocked.
The rest I can tune out.
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Twenty million is a non trivial amount of money. And I suppose he is doing some experiments of his own up there, but how much time does $20 million buy your average space tourist on the go? And how much return on investment are his experiments likely to generate for him?
If the duration of the stay is long enough, I suppose that you could conceivibly do some worth while research. I wonder what the cost would have to drop to for various large corporations to be willing to pay the cost to put some of their science people onto the ISS for prolonged research?
END COMMUNICATION
While I am a game programmer, I think that the opinion that banning the sale of used games is foolhardy. Of course it will likey cost the game publishers, and in turn the developers, a non trivial amount of money. The game industry has a vested intrest in preventing this.
However, the sale of used games most directly impacts 2nd and 3rd tier titles. Or at least, it the effect is much reduced for first tier titles.
If a game is worth keeping, it will likely be held onto. Many gamers like to reply games that they liked. But of a game turns out to be a less then perfect play experience, why hold onto it?
Good games that are sold as used are not going to sit on a shelf in a store very long, but mediocre games will sit for quite some time, be sold back soon, and will have a large effect on the total raw sales of a game.
Its pretty much impossible to buy a used copy of Tetris for exactly this reason.
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In the off chance it matters, I am a game developer.
As long as it works without being overly glitchy, they at least clinch 2nd place.
They are promising to deliver the back library of the NES and SNES already. And you have clean backwards compatibility with the Gamecube, and this will keep the owners of gamecubes happy. And while the installed base of the Gamecube may not be as impressive as the Playstation 2, it is not inconsiderable either.
So you can get the nostalga buyers. And unlike the DS, I can easily imagine games that would use this tech that I would want to play. This has real possibilities.
Simply looking around in 3d space is now a resolved issue. Its blindingly intuitive to that purpose, and that alone will make many games much more playable.
Put a cursor on the screen, and you have a very viable mouse replacement. RTS games become much easier to do. You could probably make HomeWorld playable on a consle. Can you imagine doing that on existing consoles?
And while the video of people playing games with the controller shoes no shots of the actual gameplay, it does serve one important purpose. The fishing, 'conducting music', and other types of gameplay do demonstrate one thing. This controller will permit gameplay types that simply are not possible right now. And even if conducting an orchestra is not likely to appeal to the 16 year old, counterstrike demographic, it will appeal to some people. It will pull in entirely new sorts of gamers.
Between Nintendo loyalists and the new players, it can probably clinch 2nd place. And if the 3rd party publishers are intrigued enough to make a serious effort to port their games to exploit this controller, it can likely unseat Sony in the number 1 position.
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The list does have 4 console games on it, 5 if you count Madden, but there are some key rankings I disagree with.
1) Ocarina of time should be higher on the list, somewhere in the top 4. The game is essentially as close to being perfectly made as any game can be. I do not think anyone who enjoyed the game can honestly pick out a part of the game that was particularly weak.
2) Everquest should be in the top 3. It basically proved that MMPORG's were a viable business model. And I also think that if you were to total up the number of man hours spent on that game, it would eclipse the rest of the top 10 handily.
3) Madden does not belong on the list. It is little more then an annualized re-hash of its self each time out. Any improvements to the series are strictly evolutionary, no revolutionary.
4) I find it highly suspicious that the top 4 games on the list were all PC titles.
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Making that complaint is akin to complaining that you cannot buy a Whopper at Mc Donalds. Sony needs its platform to be successful. Why should it accomodate the needs of those looking to write multi-platform code that can only potentially hurt its market share?
Sony must make the PS3 as easy to program for as possible, but that does not at all mean that it should keep its architecture even remotely compatible with competing platforms.
Besides, it may just backfire on Sony. Having done well in one hardware generation is no guarantee of success for the next generation. Being able to leverage its previous successes are important, but people eager to play PS2 games are not going to buy a PS3 to play those games if they already have a PS2 and would rather play X-Box 360 or Revolution titles.
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I think that most people who do not speak up in class do so most often out of the fear of proving themselves stupid infront of their peers.
People who are afraid to voice unpopular opinions will probably not be made more bold in any event.
I recall watching a tv special about the use of this sort of device. One trend was that when used in a "Do you understand" type of question, the teacher can get a much better idea about how well the lesson is being understood, and can go over it again.
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I expect that Walmart might drop the game, since they try for the family friendly image. However, the game is pretty much a guaranteed seller, and Walmart will put the bottom line before all else.
But really, can any of you think of anyone who will suddenly decide not to purchase this game when they otherwise might have?
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Game companies make their money off of the royalties per game sold. They also hope to make money on the console its self, but they dont make nearly as much.
If the primary use of the PSP is to play SNES games published between 10 and 15 years ago by a competitor they discount as being minor, what does that say about the games made by Sony today?
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Crunch time works when its used in the event of "Shit happens, and we need to get Task X done by Day Y". For that purpose, it does indeed work.
Crunch time fails when its used in an attempt to save money.
Death marches happen when a project is under staffed or under scheduled. Either someone did not want to pay for 2 or 3 extra programmers, or did not want to pay for a few extra months of development. So your left with a short fall of X amount of man hours to get the job done on time. So you put the extra burden on the other employees. Sometimes it can work. Sometimes it cannot.
Bad crunch time happens when someone gets greedy, or when someone screws up with time estimates for a project.
To put it most simply:
Crunch can be used to fix the mistakes of a dev team. It cannot be effectively used to fix the mistakes of management / publishers.
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In controlled doses, Crunch works. It is perhaps even necessary. Shit happens, and you have to meet a critical deadline, so you work late for a few days in a row.
Death marches dont work. They just result in angry workers and an increased rate of errors.
And yes, I am a game developer, and I know all too well what I am talking about.
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Sit down, power on the game and play it for exactly 15 minutes. How much fun did you have?
Probably not much. You probably managed to walk around a bit, get into one, maybe two fights. Or go to a town and bought some stuff, and watched most of one cutscene sequence.
Lets try that with Metal Gear Solid. In that case, you probably wandered around a bit, maybe hid from some enemies, and maybe got a key.
Both of those are fine games. But neither is one your likely to sit down and play if you only have 15 minutes to kill. If you want to have an enjoyable experience in either of those games, you probably play for at least one hour.
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I dont think that he is so much against games that have 20 hours of linear play. I think he is against games that pretty much require you to dump two hours into a single play session.
With a game like Final Fantasy, if your going to play it, your probably going to try to clear at least an hour of your time to play it, probably more. Halo probably takes what, about 30 mins for each level?
Compare this to Wario Ware. You can pick it up, play for 15 mins, and walk away. Your not going to beat the entire game in 15 mins, but you are going to play a decent chunk of it. Animal Crossing is much the same way, you play it for short bursts of time, but you will likley pick it up more often in a given day.
I personally think the sweet spot is about 5 to 15 mins for a single level, and expect the player to play for 30 to 35 minutes. If you give a player the opportunity to safely put the game away every 15 minutes without losing progress, you will prevent a great deal of frustration from very casual gamers.
As for the overall duration of a game and playing it to the end, that is another debate, and is determined more by the kind of game and intended audience. Miyamoto is known for making games where 40% or so are secrets or optional. You dont strictly need every heard container in a Zelda game. You dont need every single star / shine in a Mario game. You can finish the game pretty quickly if you stick only to the essentials.
As for my prefrence, I think that a game should not outlast its enjoyability. If a new user gets bored without finishing the game, you need to cut down on the elements that are taking up the extra time and make them optional.
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Games that have great appeal and will sell huge amounts of units that cannot be replicated on a PSP.
Obviously, this is not for typical hard core gamers, but I dont think Nintendo much cares if its getting its money from a 19 year old acne ridden starwars geek or a 32 year old soccer mom.
This game probably wont do quite as well in North America, however. It will do quite well if Nintendo can get demo units exposed to the kind of gamer that would buy it.
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It is quite clear that Nintendo is doing a great job running a profitiable company. Nintendo is making money on all of its platforms in this generation of games.
It could be argued, however, especially with the difference in the installed user base, that only Nintendo is able to make a meaningful profit out of its Gamecube platform.
Its not enough for Nintendo to be profitiable and backing the Gamecube. They also need to make sure that Capcom, Namco, Sega, Electronic Arts, Konami, Activision, THQ, Midway, and Ubisoft (and all the others I have missed) are also making a healthy profit off of their console. And if the typical consumer is of the belief that only children play the game cube, then only children and Nintendo die hard fans will play that system.
If the financial backbone is Nintendo die hard fans, then only Nintendo will be able to satisfy them. And lets face it, Nintendo makes awesome games, and I dont think there are many other companies out there capable of putting out that calibur of game.
If they can make Revolution easy and cheap enough to develop for that publishers cannot help but make money developing for it, it will be supported.
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When I was at E3 2004, it seemed that Media badges were allowed to skip past most lines. Media badges were also able to get into some areas I could not.
It could be that you simply did not properly exploit your media badge.
Or it could be a combination of Media Badge + Big Name.
On the other hand, I am in the development end of this business. I cannot say that the troubles of small gaming media matter to me nearly as much as the problems of smaller developers.
I do agree that Cox probably has no business being represented at the show, but Cox is probably Big Money. And money does apparantly matter.
I would suggest going where your more appreciated. Everyone and their karking dog would be covering the new Zelda game. You could always hunt around for the smaller developers out there and see what they have to offer.
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And Yes, I do make video games for a living.
I was at last years E3, as were many of my co-workers. In addition to being a media function, it also lets developers get a look at the competition. E3 serves the following purposes.
1) It shows up new games and hardware to the gaming media.
2) It gets alot of developers and publishers together in the same place, allowing for deal making.
3) It gets alot of publishers and retailers together, giving the retailers an idea of whats coming out, and helps them decide what to put on the shelves.
4) It lets developers see what other developers are up to, and serves as a reality check for your own game. It also gets the delopers out from behind their desks to do something resembling a vactation. It also lets you catch up with friends working for other companies, allowing us to network a bit, let each other know if a given employer sucks or not, etc.
I went to E3 as a develper, and was handed an Exhibits Only badge. The booth babes are getting a bit over done, but they are there more for the retailers then anything else. The booth babe gets the retailer to walk over to the display, and perhaps even see the game.
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Nintendo already has problems getting 3rd party games onto their platforms. Especially 3rd party exclusive games.
This particular loss is not a fatal one, but they cannot afford to lose 3rd party support. Its hard to convince retailers to give you shelf space if you cannot guarantee them something worth selling.
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They want more money? I want more money first!
I am a game programmer. The industry as a whole tends to short change the developers. This is pretty well documented with the "EA Spouse" incident.
On top of that, the job that the voice actors do os not nearly as important as other aspects of game development that are inadequately compensated.
I would have probably taken the trouble to throw something at these twits if I had been able to get to E3 this year.
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