This news translates to that we'll get great games from movies like Rocky and Batman and...Enter the Matrix and... umm, er...
Well, what I really mean is that we'll take great games and turn them into great movies like Super Mario Brothers and Tomb Raider and... and... crap. All this means is that we're really screwed now.
Ah, that is the rub. A better passive spectator presentation built into the game is ripe for abuse outside a presentation. What you say is true, but I think a separate build would be needed; one that is *just* for televised or recorded showings. It would take extra effort on the part of the developer, but could pay big dividends down the line.
I've been wondering what those blue-boxed machines are in the back of the store where no one goes near unless they're looking for the bathroom. Next time I've finished my 44 oz. Dr. Pepper and I'm in my Dallas-area CompUSA, I'll have to give it a closer look.
Er, maybe after I've finished up and washed my hands first.
This is a serious question. How long can Nintendo keep using past titles and characters as their main source of creativity? Old NES titles being ported to the GBA, sequels to previous titles. Nintendo really hasn't shown anything truly new for a while now in terms of story or gameplay. Eventually this *has* to catch up with Nintendo.
Game prices have risen too high? Taking into account inflation, video game prices have been remarkably stable over the past twenty-five years. Back when the Atari 2600 was first released it cost $200 and game prices averaged $39.95. That's over 25 years ago. If you factor in the consumer price index that same cartridge costs over $100 today!
For someone who claims to be "old skool" you should be extremely happy that instead of paying $90 to watch two stick figures fire dots at each other like in Gunfighter, you get smooth, crisp graphics of actual people jumping and firing in slow motion with bullet casings falling to the floor and smoke rising from the gun barrel. Could things be better? Sure, there's plenty of room to improve and game design needs to catch up to the graphical side. But to defend your piracy because you're not getting "value"? Puleeze... you just like getting stuff for free.
I'm currently hosting the docket documents as they come in. I've seen several other people point to them so here's a quick update. (Shacknews must have gotten their info from my posts at Hardforum which where in turn picked up by Gamespot.) This is information that Gamespot hasn't been reported yet or Shacknews.
A latest check of the docket shows that the Infinium Labs lawyers forgot to file a Certificate of Interested Persons with the court. It's just a list of people who a financial stake in the outcome of the case. When it is filed on Infinium's part, it could provide a look at the backers of Infinium and who else is financially involved with the company.
In other news, the court ordered a mediation meeting as part of the process to get the two sides to settle. This has to happen by April 23rd. It's intended to be a face-to-face meeting with all parties, but I expect Infinium to go pro se and do a telephone conference. If a settlement can't be reached, then both sides will file a report to the court explaining why.
Until the Certificate of Interested Persons is filed, the case won't progress much until the middle of next month. I've got the docs, but haven't uploaded them my site yet being as they are from the court and none of the parties. If there's a lot of interest, I'll post 'em.
Infinium Labs has retained the following legal council in Texas. This is public information from the court docket.
Baxter W Banowsky
Banowsky Betz & Levine
790 Coit Central Tower
12001 N Central Expwy
Dallas, TX 75243
214/871-1300
Fax : 214/871-0038 FAX
Email: bwb@bblpc.com
Actually, that's a good point. It's unlikely that MS and Nintendo would use numbers simply because 3 is more than 2. A brain-dead consumer, not having a clue about the gaming marketplace, would just assume that the Playstation 3 is better because of that three. It infers that the Playstation is an entire generation ahead of the competition.
Maybe Infinium can get a jump on things and label their console the Phantom 5. Consumers will buy into that.
True dat. Perhaps we're taking this too seriously. We should take this excercise for what it is; something fun and entertaining. That is the purpose of the bracket system. I'll be rooting for the underdog when it happens.
The only problem is that it's using the bracket system. There's always a bracket where two really good games/characters go at it and knock one out. Who's to say that if that game were placed in another bracket, it could have either lasted longer or win it all.
As others will say, it'll end up being a popularity contest. The most recent games have a decided advantage while older games like M.U.L.E., Elite or Ultima IV will get killed off early. There just isn't any context for the vote. It's like pitting Canterbury Tales against Harry Potter.
So what's the best way to find out the Greatest Game of All Time? Sigh, there will always be debate. There will probably need to be some organization like the American Film Institute that will consist of developers, fans, academics and historians that will come up with a list. Perhaps the AAIA? Who knows...
Blame my facination with Mystery Science Theater 3000, my being a wiseass and being bored with nothing better to do than downloading a seven minute video and thinking I could do something funny with it.
Although I'm much thinner and have a lower cholesterol rate than Roger Ebert.
You're right. While the researcher conference is presenting the topics "Musical Byproducts of Atari 2600 Games" and "But Our Princess Is in Another Castle: Towards a 'Close-Playing' of Super Mario Brothers", the GDC is going a different route.
Topics like "Multiplayer Play: Designing Social Interaction in Games", "How to Write an Unforgettable Story", and "10 Tricks from Psychology for Making Better Characters" wouldn't interest the academics. "Creating the Right Mix of Static Versus Dynamic Content in a Massively Multiplayer Game" and "Entering the World: Cognitive Dissonance and Immersion in Electronic Games" is off-track. "The Philosophical Roots of Computer Game Design" is just speaking a totally different language from what universities are teaching.
Oh wait, my sarcasm is overtaking me. You see, these are questions that developers think about. We're selling a product and we damn sure know how things things work. To say that developers don't think about how a game can evoke emotional responses or how the social aspects of a game design can impact a game like Everquest is just ignorant. You think that these things just randomly happen during development? Developers don't just throw things in a compiler and see what sells. For that matter, Richard Evans used Heidegger as a major influence in creating the social AI routines for Black&White.
If this isn't proof of continuing ignorance then I don't know what is. Do me a favor and attend Toru Iwatani's "The Secret of Pac-Man's Success: Making Fun First" seminar. Perhaps you can learn a thing or two about what we already knew 25 years ago.
Being a former developer, half the article pissed me off watching academics talking out of their ass about something they know nothing about. The first intelligent thing I read was this:
"So far, the academic and the industry worlds, they're very far away," said Mr. Frasca, who intends to play a role of a bridge. "Developers do not read academic articles, and that's not going to happen any time soon." Academics generated animosity early on by judging games as violent. "They were also not gamers," he said, "which made it weird to listen to their analyses."
Which is why I'm taking whatever an academic currently says with a grain of salt. For the past thirty years, academics have totally discounted our industry and getting it just plain wrong. In my book, they are currently 30 years behind the curve.
There are plenty of journalists and historians like Leonard Hermann and Johnny Wilson that are getting it. Next week these "ivy-league" academics are holding a conference consisting of "a lawyer, a journalist, a composer, two professors, two lecturers and six graduate students will present papers with titles like 'Musical Byproducts of Atari 2600 Games' and 'But Our Princess Is in Another Castle: Towards a 'Close-Playing' of Super Mario Brothers.'" Too bad that they seemed to have forgotten to invite a few developers. Perhaps the academics would be better served by going to the Game Developers Conference two weeks later and learn a thing or to.
The early days of GEnie and AOL had games that were done in a micropayment fashion, only it was mostly by the hour, very similar to the gaming cafes you can find today. It works well for the occasional gamer, but it will nickel and dime you to death for games you really love.
If you try to apply this to games like Quake or Unreal Tournament where it's $.25 for each match then you quickly lose your casual fan base. Even if it was a fraction of that, I'd still be out $50 on the Unreal Tournament 2K4 demo right now.
It gets worse with RPG games. Pay a few extra cents for a fancy hat, a few dollars for that ring of regeneration. Twenty-five cents each time you descent into the Dungeon of Dispair! You'll end up with a situation just like at the arcades when one friend runs out of quarters and can't play.
"Dude, a bunch of us are going down to attack the Red Dragon in the Dark Dungeon. C'mon!"
"Sorry, after spending $4.32 in the expansion area to get my Crystal Sword, I can't afford it."
Those that can afford their gaming habits now have an unfair advantage. Arcade games used to offset this with skill allowing you to continue on one quarter, today's games often have killzones designed to make the player shove in more quarters. Online games would surely go down the same route.
I also can't think off the top of my head of an instance where a product went from a flat rate back to a hourly/micropayment rate. Even long-distance and cell phones are edging towards a flat-rate with unlimited calling time.
I'll repost my comments from [H]ard|OCP on the flick.
I'll get accusations of "not getting it" but... I want those 7 minutes and 48 seconds of my life back. The story of a little girl devastating the ecosystem of a forest with a viral plant just isn't for me.
I'll "critique" this on two levels: The story, themes and concept; and the use of the Quake III engine itself. Spoilers ahead!
I get all the artsy "flower must overcome obstacles" theme, but it also shows why computer scientists aren't very good at art... or botany for that matter. From the moment that our flapper '30s girl traipses through the forest, devoid of light or grass, we know something is going to happen. Perhaps it's the goosestepping of her walk or the Roland MT-32 music that clues us in that nothing can be this happy for this long.
Sure enough, just like my five year-old who can trip over an ant, she tumbles to the ground, spilling her six peach-pit sized seeds of radioactivity. The girl cries probably because the radioactivity has stricken her blind because she doesn't pick up her precious seeds despite them glowing brighter than the Las Vegas strip. With the haunting crying of a Disney chipmunk, the scene rotates from above focusing on the now seven seeds on the ground. Fade to black.
Sometime later a maple leaf falls from an elm tree and covers one of the seeds. An albino crow decides to play god and eat six of the seeds. The radioactivity doesn't sit well with the crow, so he doesn't eat the seventh seed under the leaf, despite it's blinding glare. This allows the demon seed to take root and grow despite the lack of sun and water.
Bambi's mom, who didn't die at the hand of the hunter enters the scene. Mom carries the scars of the incident because she walks with tiny baby steps. With a crack of thunder, she steps on the budding weed. Not one to throw in the towel, a rainstorm revives the flower. With a "Feed me Seymour!" battle cry the plant stands upright once more.
Not all is well however. During the night, noxious weeds sprout up choking our hero. As he withers, the weeds taunt him with names, calling him "root" and "stamen". But our little plant has a trick up his sleeve. He sits there and takes it, distracting the weeds from their one true enemy! The sun! Yes, all weeds hate the sun. The weeds all promptly wither from the Vitamin K deathray while our plant soaks it in like a sponge.
With the weeds dispatched and our plant feeling like a hero, he waits until the sun leaves to unfurl his petals in triumph. He's on top of the world. He's conquered all. He's no pansy! Wait... those petals, those colors. Damn it, he is a pansy. He double checks Google Image Search. Yep, he's a pansy. He weaves around in disgust like a drunken sailor. Why me? Why was I born this way?
After a few drunken hours, the pansy suddenly finds himself in the death grip on the little girl. After being stricken with cancer, she came back to the woods to find tree back from yew trees to make Taxol when she stumbled upon the flower. Yanking with all her might, she tears the flower from his roots. Knowing it's just a matter of time now, the flower spews pollen in the futile hope that the girl has allergies. The pollen flows like blood in a Monty Python sketch complete with slow motion. It covers the forest in a Claritin haze that makes the forest ferns want to sneeze.
The pansy ends up in a vase with other flower corpses. With his last dying moments, the flower decides to make his last stand defying gravity by staying upright in the large open mouthed vase and convincing the others not to lose their petals. It's all for naught as they lose their color and end up resembling a Ted Turner colorized black and white movie.
Despite the tragedy, the happy music and scene at the end let us know that the girl only triggered a pansy infestation in the forest. Pansies don't need peach pits to spread! How silly! It only takes a single radioactive pansy to vomit enough pollen to spread in a dense forest. Ful
Slashdot Mirror
Well, what I really mean is that we'll take great games and turn them into great movies like Super Mario Brothers and Tomb Raider and... and... crap. All this means is that we're really screwed now.
Ah, that is the rub. A better passive spectator presentation built into the game is ripe for abuse outside a presentation. What you say is true, but I think a separate build would be needed; one that is *just* for televised or recorded showings. It would take extra effort on the part of the developer, but could pay big dividends down the line.
Ba-doom. Thank you. I'll be here all week.
Er, maybe after I've finished up and washed my hands first.
This is a serious question. How long can Nintendo keep using past titles and characters as their main source of creativity? Old NES titles being ported to the GBA, sequels to previous titles. Nintendo really hasn't shown anything truly new for a while now in terms of story or gameplay. Eventually this *has* to catch up with Nintendo.
Here are some early screenshots of the new monster.
For someone who claims to be "old skool" you should be extremely happy that instead of paying $90 to watch two stick figures fire dots at each other like in Gunfighter, you get smooth, crisp graphics of actual people jumping and firing in slow motion with bullet casings falling to the floor and smoke rising from the gun barrel. Could things be better? Sure, there's plenty of room to improve and game design needs to catch up to the graphical side. But to defend your piracy because you're not getting "value"? Puleeze... you just like getting stuff for free.
*Writing* Good grief, I'm one to talk.
The first documents were written by their lawyers in Florida, hence the poor spelling and writting. This counsel has only been recently retained.
A latest check of the docket shows that the Infinium Labs lawyers forgot to file a Certificate of Interested Persons with the court. It's just a list of people who a financial stake in the outcome of the case. When it is filed on Infinium's part, it could provide a look at the backers of Infinium and who else is financially involved with the company.
In other news, the court ordered a mediation meeting as part of the process to get the two sides to settle. This has to happen by April 23rd. It's intended to be a face-to-face meeting with all parties, but I expect Infinium to go pro se and do a telephone conference. If a settlement can't be reached, then both sides will file a report to the court explaining why.
Until the Certificate of Interested Persons is filed, the case won't progress much until the middle of next month. I've got the docs, but haven't uploaded them my site yet being as they are from the court and none of the parties. If there's a lot of interest, I'll post 'em.
Infinium Labs has retained the following legal council in Texas. This is public information from the court docket.
Baxter W Banowsky
Banowsky Betz & Levine
790 Coit Central Tower
12001 N Central Expwy
Dallas, TX 75243
214/871-1300
Fax : 214/871-0038 FAX
Email: bwb@bblpc.com
The latest info on the case can always be found at whereisphantom.com and the Hardforum.
Links to the essential court docket documents:
KB Networks Civil Cover Sheet.pdf
Infinium Summons
Infinium Motion to Dismiss
Let Adam Sessler be next to go!
If you play online, where are the chee-tos? Oh, can I have a Mountain Dew?
Maybe Infinium can get a jump on things and label their console the Phantom 5. Consumers will buy into that.
I'm assuming that this will directly translate to more beer, bigger boobs and bigger guns in my new games.
BTW, if I'm responsible for getting the most GRIT into Doom 3, do I get some cool prizes?
Playstation 3 this Christmas? Hardly. 4Q 2005 at the earliest according to Sony.
Hmmm... according to the rules, using the BFG involves flipping the board over, sending the pieces flying and then running home crying to mommy.
Brian, stop playing on "Easy". Try switching the difficulty to "Nightmare". There ya' go.
True dat. Perhaps we're taking this too seriously. We should take this excercise for what it is; something fun and entertaining. That is the purpose of the bracket system. I'll be rooting for the underdog when it happens.
As others will say, it'll end up being a popularity contest. The most recent games have a decided advantage while older games like M.U.L.E., Elite or Ultima IV will get killed off early. There just isn't any context for the vote. It's like pitting Canterbury Tales against Harry Potter.
So what's the best way to find out the Greatest Game of All Time? Sigh, there will always be debate. There will probably need to be some organization like the American Film Institute that will consist of developers, fans, academics and historians that will come up with a list. Perhaps the AAIA? Who knows...
Although I'm much thinner and have a lower cholesterol rate than Roger Ebert.
Topics like "Multiplayer Play: Designing Social Interaction in Games", "How to Write an Unforgettable Story", and "10 Tricks from Psychology for Making Better Characters" wouldn't interest the academics. "Creating the Right Mix of Static Versus Dynamic Content in a Massively Multiplayer Game" and "Entering the World: Cognitive Dissonance and Immersion in Electronic Games" is off-track. "The Philosophical Roots of Computer Game Design" is just speaking a totally different language from what universities are teaching.
Oh wait, my sarcasm is overtaking me. You see, these are questions that developers think about. We're selling a product and we damn sure know how things things work. To say that developers don't think about how a game can evoke emotional responses or how the social aspects of a game design can impact a game like Everquest is just ignorant. You think that these things just randomly happen during development? Developers don't just throw things in a compiler and see what sells. For that matter, Richard Evans used Heidegger as a major influence in creating the social AI routines for Black&White.
If this isn't proof of continuing ignorance then I don't know what is. Do me a favor and attend Toru Iwatani's "The Secret of Pac-Man's Success: Making Fun First" seminar. Perhaps you can learn a thing or two about what we already knew 25 years ago.
Consider yourself 0wn3d.
"So far, the academic and the industry worlds, they're very far away," said Mr. Frasca, who intends to play a role of a bridge. "Developers do not read academic articles, and that's not going to happen any time soon." Academics generated animosity early on by judging games as violent. "They were also not gamers," he said, "which made it weird to listen to their analyses."
Which is why I'm taking whatever an academic currently says with a grain of salt. For the past thirty years, academics have totally discounted our industry and getting it just plain wrong. In my book, they are currently 30 years behind the curve.
There are plenty of journalists and historians like Leonard Hermann and Johnny Wilson that are getting it. Next week these "ivy-league" academics are holding a conference consisting of "a lawyer, a journalist, a composer, two professors, two lecturers and six graduate students will present papers with titles like 'Musical Byproducts of Atari 2600 Games' and 'But Our Princess Is in Another Castle: Towards a 'Close-Playing' of Super Mario Brothers.'" Too bad that they seemed to have forgotten to invite a few developers. Perhaps the academics would be better served by going to the Game Developers Conference two weeks later and learn a thing or to.
If you try to apply this to games like Quake or Unreal Tournament where it's $.25 for each match then you quickly lose your casual fan base. Even if it was a fraction of that, I'd still be out $50 on the Unreal Tournament 2K4 demo right now. It gets worse with RPG games. Pay a few extra cents for a fancy hat, a few dollars for that ring of regeneration. Twenty-five cents each time you descent into the Dungeon of Dispair! You'll end up with a situation just like at the arcades when one friend runs out of quarters and can't play.
"Dude, a bunch of us are going down to attack the Red Dragon in the Dark Dungeon. C'mon!"
"Sorry, after spending $4.32 in the expansion area to get my Crystal Sword, I can't afford it."
Those that can afford their gaming habits now have an unfair advantage. Arcade games used to offset this with skill allowing you to continue on one quarter, today's games often have killzones designed to make the player shove in more quarters. Online games would surely go down the same route.
I also can't think off the top of my head of an instance where a product went from a flat rate back to a hourly/micropayment rate. Even long-distance and cell phones are edging towards a flat-rate with unlimited calling time.
I'll repost my comments from [H]ard|OCP on the flick.
I'll get accusations of "not getting it" but... I want those 7 minutes and 48 seconds of my life back. The story of a little girl devastating the ecosystem of a forest with a viral plant just isn't for me.
I'll "critique" this on two levels: The story, themes and concept; and the use of the Quake III engine itself. Spoilers ahead!
I get all the artsy "flower must overcome obstacles" theme, but it also shows why computer scientists aren't very good at art... or botany for that matter. From the moment that our flapper '30s girl traipses through the forest, devoid of light or grass, we know something is going to happen. Perhaps it's the goosestepping of her walk or the Roland MT-32 music that clues us in that nothing can be this happy for this long.
Sure enough, just like my five year-old who can trip over an ant, she tumbles to the ground, spilling her six peach-pit sized seeds of radioactivity. The girl cries probably because the radioactivity has stricken her blind because she doesn't pick up her precious seeds despite them glowing brighter than the Las Vegas strip. With the haunting crying of a Disney chipmunk, the scene rotates from above focusing on the now seven seeds on the ground. Fade to black.
Sometime later a maple leaf falls from an elm tree and covers one of the seeds. An albino crow decides to play god and eat six of the seeds. The radioactivity doesn't sit well with the crow, so he doesn't eat the seventh seed under the leaf, despite it's blinding glare. This allows the demon seed to take root and grow despite the lack of sun and water.
Bambi's mom, who didn't die at the hand of the hunter enters the scene. Mom carries the scars of the incident because she walks with tiny baby steps. With a crack of thunder, she steps on the budding weed. Not one to throw in the towel, a rainstorm revives the flower. With a "Feed me Seymour!" battle cry the plant stands upright once more.
Not all is well however. During the night, noxious weeds sprout up choking our hero. As he withers, the weeds taunt him with names, calling him "root" and "stamen". But our little plant has a trick up his sleeve. He sits there and takes it, distracting the weeds from their one true enemy! The sun! Yes, all weeds hate the sun. The weeds all promptly wither from the Vitamin K deathray while our plant soaks it in like a sponge.
With the weeds dispatched and our plant feeling like a hero, he waits until the sun leaves to unfurl his petals in triumph. He's on top of the world. He's conquered all. He's no pansy! Wait... those petals, those colors. Damn it, he is a pansy. He double checks Google Image Search. Yep, he's a pansy. He weaves around in disgust like a drunken sailor. Why me? Why was I born this way?
After a few drunken hours, the pansy suddenly finds himself in the death grip on the little girl. After being stricken with cancer, she came back to the woods to find tree back from yew trees to make Taxol when she stumbled upon the flower. Yanking with all her might, she tears the flower from his roots. Knowing it's just a matter of time now, the flower spews pollen in the futile hope that the girl has allergies. The pollen flows like blood in a Monty Python sketch complete with slow motion. It covers the forest in a Claritin haze that makes the forest ferns want to sneeze.
The pansy ends up in a vase with other flower corpses. With his last dying moments, the flower decides to make his last stand defying gravity by staying upright in the large open mouthed vase and convincing the others not to lose their petals. It's all for naught as they lose their color and end up resembling a Ted Turner colorized black and white movie.
Despite the tragedy, the happy music and scene at the end let us know that the girl only triggered a pansy infestation in the forest. Pansies don't need peach pits to spread! How silly! It only takes a single radioactive pansy to vomit enough pollen to spread in a dense forest. Ful