A lot of it is, say you get a contract to build X, but you are going to use tools, Y, that you already have. Since it's a work for hire, they want to know exactly what Y is, so that they understand the scope of what X, which they're going to own, will be.
In practice, we usually say things like "Tool Z, which provides a propriatary method for generating ABC" -- fairly broad and non-specific, but clear. Then we make it clear that they are getting X, but not Y, and nor are they getting any improvements to Y that we had to make to create X. Sometimes they want an infinite, non-exclusive, transferable license to the improvements made to Y, and maybe even Y itself, but at that point, it's really deal specific.
Yeah, Halo 2. That's where you went wrong. Halo 2 is only ok. Halo 1 has better balance, more fun phsyics, better graphics, and in general offers a better -- if substantially less convenient -- multiplayer experience, especially on Blood Gulch, with all weapons and vehicles turned on.
1980s is a tricky one. Back in the 1980s, I was taught to write 1980's, but AP style says that 1980s is ok. Ok, to make this a little less off topic... dude should respond *very slowly* at the deposition.
I've played some epic 10-flag CTF matches in Halo 1 (Bloodgulch) that lasted 4+ hours. They were **awesome** although more of a twice-yearly than weekly event (of course, w/ Halo 1 you have to lug TVs to your LAN party). I think games with endurance modes are awesome... Anyone remember Infogrammes' 24-Hours of Le Mans Dreamcast game? The 24-hour mode was great (although you could save when you pitted).
Humidity will ruin your collection. If you need to keep your stuff with you down in mom's basement, you should invest in a good dehumdifier. Darkness is good though. I suggest the attic.
Human shields? I think the term you were looking for was "human weapons"
Seriously though, it's impossible to negotiate with someone who's opening position is a deal breaker, as in:
Western Civilization: "What can we do to make you stop hating us and trying to blow up our planes?"
Islamic Horde: "All you of you must die"
Western Civilization: "yeah, that doesn't work for us. How about... we send your goverment tons of money?"
Islamic Horde: "Um, we'll take the money, sure, but then, all of you must die."
Western Civilization: "Let's try this another way. What if we just leave all of you alone?"
Islamic Horde: "Well, to the extent it enables us to kill all of you, that works for us, but again, our basic position, and this is a deal-breaker, is that you must all die."
etc.etc.
The solution is not to look inward and say "what can we do to make them stop hating us?" It's to ask instead, "what can we do to make them understand that trying to kill us doesn't work as a strategy."
2000 - 3000 people don't die a day on US roads. In 2004, the last year for which records can be found in two seconds on Google, 42,800 people died on US highways, a rate of 117.26 a day.
So, in fact, getting on a plane the day terrorists plan on blowing up 10 airliners is actually more dangerous than driving.
And it there is an important difference between terrorist today and in days past. In the 1970s and 1980s terrorists took over planes, flew them to Beruit, hassled the passengers, maybe killed one or two, and eventually let everyone off the plane. An enourmous pain in the ass, especially to the people who died, but not world shaking. That expectation is exactly why most of the people on the 9/11 flights just hung out -- they didn't expect the terrorists to destroy the planes with them on them. More people died on 9/11 than in every previous episode of plane-based terrorist combined.
Finally, it was this bad during the cold war. Much worse in fact. To me the main difference is that the threat from people trying to destroy our civilization today is actually much worse than the actual threat from the Russians was.
That all said, The TSA's cargo-cult security style "oh, someone once did something bad with X, all X must be bad," is obviously super stupid. An El Al style detailed profiling of anyone wishing to fly would be significantly more secure, but probably not ameliorate the fears of people who a) believe all security methods are just the government "trying to take away their freedom," and b) then vote for people in favor of strong gun control.
Maybe if you tallied random school grades you'd get 70% as average, but that's because the quizzes are created to hit that average on purpose.
Yep, that's all I meant. Your average student will score 70%, becuase the tests are designed for average students to score 70%. So 70% for a game is something that most people can instantly identity with. Most games today, when you come down to it, represent a reasonable ROI for your entertainment dollar (the baseline quality has gone up dramatically in the past 15 years, IMHO), so many games getting 70%+ doesn't surprise me at all.
Since I actually read reviews, and don't just look at the scores, I know I vastly prefer to read a review by a fan on the genre (who might be more forgiving on the score) than someone who knows nothing about it, regardless of any grad inflation that may go on.
The great examples are NASCAR and wrestling games. The typical NASCAR game review is like "well, if you like turning left a lot and you have a lobotomy, you may enjoy this... 3/5." Contrast that with Ivan Sulic's exceptionally well written review of NASCAR 2006: Total Team Control at IGN. Sulic ran down every parameter of the game, even going so far as to explain his play style, while doing the review. He didn't take the piss, and while it's clear he's a NASCAR fan, he delivered enough information to enable hardcore and casual fans to have everything they needed to evaluate the game. He scored it high (8.5) and obviously liked it. But, since it was the only NASCAR game to come out in 2006, according to TFA, it should be normalized to a 3. Retarded.
In the end, I decided that NASCAR 2006 wasn't for me, despite its high score (the total team control stuff seemed like too much work), so I bought Flatout instead, but it was a great example of why you need to read the review, not just the score.
Additionally, this notion that the "average" game must score 5 on a 10 point scale is retarded. If you have a 10 question quiz, your average person will probably get 7 right. That's why a 70% is usually a C (average). IGN, GameSpot, Game Informater, etc's scoring system may trend towards scoring 7 - 9, but that's simply in line with the way most people grade things on a 10 point scale. On a 5 point scale, you see a lot more threes, but so what? A 3 doesn't tell you any more than a 7 -- ultimately you need to actually read the review.
No one can make a law that prevents people from publishing, but there is no right in the First Amendment -- no matter what the NYT's lawyers would like us to think -- that enables a reporter to not reveal sources if ordered to by a court. And if the reporter tips off those sources that they're about to be raided, the reporter may be guilty of a crime, and there's no First Amendment protection against that either. Reporters are not above the law, bottom line.
$50! I paid $299 on ebay and that was a steal. Super Happy Fun Watermelon Millard Fillmore is sweet, although if you can find it, Super Happy Fun Watermelon Millard Fillmore Side Story X: Fourth Imperative of the Dieraga Monarch is a lot more sophisticated.
The other thing to consider is that the CEOs at the poorly performing companies knew the companies sucked, and only took the jobs for big bucks. I've been recruited to an inferior company, and offered more money, because they knew they had to pay more than the superior company I was at. This happens all the time, as inferior companies try to buy their way out of inferiority.
Off the very top of my head: Brain Age, Big Brain Acadamy, Pheonix Wright, and Trauma Center are all games that are not like games that have come before them. On PSP Lumines, Loco Roco, Metal Gear Solid Graphic Novel and Brooktown High Senior Year* are all, again off the top of my head, doing something different in the space.
* = this is being done by my company, so I am biased.
Well, I see it like movies to some extent. Some people just like summer popcorn movies (EA Sports games). Some people just like art house flicks (experimental PC games). Most people like a little of both, and don't mind some very well produced, but not necessarily super groundbreaking work, like the Sopranos (maybe Prince of Persia).
There's room for all of the above, but as an industry we can't concentrate on just making popcorn flicks. The other problem is that it's currently pretty hard (although getting easier, IMHO) to build a business model for "arthouse" games. The DS and PSP are both places publishers are really open to very different concepts, and Live Arcade and Nintendo and Sony's programs are also going to be great outlets for that.
I think Geometry Wars is the best current example (although I suspect you'll see more soon). If that had been an "indie" PC game, it probably would have won the Indi Games Festival at GDC, and maybe gotten 10,000 or even 100,000 downloads. But it never would have been the phenominon -- and money-making phenominon at that -- that it has been on Live Arcade. No, it's not experimental in a Jon-Blow-Experimental-Games-Workshop way, but it certainly is a far cry from current console fare.
(Not addressing your other points because they're all well taken, and obviously you understand that many of my previous comments were made partially in jest.)
Ha! Good point! Well, I come at it from an industry perspective. If people would just keep buying any new game because it was new, or it had a license slapped on it, it would make my job a lot easier! We could just license a Genesis engine from Acclaim and...
No seriously though, I guess I meant that the overall number of hardcore gamers isn't growing, and that does put limits on what kinds of games you can make: a deep, complex, fighting game is not going to get the greenlight as well as a game which has a better chance of appealing to a wider audience. That's what I meant.
Although, that said, you could probably make a good Live Arcade case for a new hardcore 2D fighter...
The only thing that's broken in the game industry is that magazines seem to have no other story list to draw from other than "videogames are broken."
Right now, at this very minute, Nintendo and the DS are demonstrating that it's innovation, not licenses or technology, that is selling software, and first and thrid parties on DS are benefitting. The same thing is happening on PSP -- look at Loco Roco's appeal and sales overseas.
The next-gen systems face some challenges, but no more than they ever have. As games move into a more mature phase of their existance, we have positives -- almost everyone under 30 has played games, and most continue to play games -- and negatives -- the percentage of people who buy new games just becuase their new isn't growing; instead most people are looking at the quality of the game itself before they plop down their sheckels.
The actual article is more reasoned than the Slashdot recap, but honestly, games don't face any more challenges than movies, TV, or any other media. Innovation is alive and well. Innovation doesn't have to mean better graphics or experimental gameplay. Look at Xbox Live Arcade, and Sony's and Nintendo's forthcoming online services. That's a HUGE innovation in the console space, and it enables new types of games on consoles that we simply wouldn't have seen otherwise.
Bottom line, the biggest problem with the game industry today, to me, are the jaded pundits, not anything else.
Edge is at most B&N in the SFBay area; I'm sure yours could special order it for you. Also check out RETRO GAMER and GAMEStm if you get a chance. All excellent UK pubs. PLAY is the closest US version. The editor, Dave Halverson is really passionate about his games!
Maximum PC is a fantastic airplane read. I don't keep up with PC tech on a dialy basis, but I read the mag nearly monthly, and I at least feel like I have some idea of what's happening in the hardcore PC front.
I worked for NextGen during its heyday, and I have to say I was very bummed when it died. It was really popular with industry people, but it was a tough ad sell once you had to go through agencies and not just directly to clients. Also, when they cheapened the production values (no more cover laminate) over the apopplexic disagreement of us on the editorial staff, I think it made the mag less sexy to advertisers.
That all said, I don't think a mag like Next Gen would work today; there was a large element of it that was educating a whole class of gamers about the absolute state of the art as we moved from 2D to 3D (I'm thinking about the features we did on AI and AL, 3D, the NextGen Lexicon, that '98 how to get a job feature, the in-depth technical coverage of the machines, etc.) and in a sense Next Gen readers really did know a lot more than readers of EGM or GamePro at the time. That isn't true today -- your average EGM reader is as well informed about games and the game industry as anyone else, and anything you don't understand (mipmapping or perspective correct texture mapping in the old days, bump mapping or normal mapping today), you can learn about with a four second Google search. I loved NextGen, but there's just not as much of a need for that kind of magazine today in terms of the info it presented.
Today, I think Game Informer and EGM and Play all do a great job with coverage that well exceeds what we did on NextGen in every area (compare Play's interview with David Jaffee to anything done in NextGen), but they all have their own unique tone, and I do miss NextGen's hardcore tone. I still think our salture to subscribers, where we ran every subscriber's name in a special HARDCORE campaign that lasted months, was one of the coolest things ever.
Slashdot Mirror
In practice, we usually say things like "Tool Z, which provides a propriatary method for generating ABC" -- fairly broad and non-specific, but clear. Then we make it clear that they are getting X, but not Y, and nor are they getting any improvements to Y that we had to make to create X. Sometimes they want an infinite, non-exclusive, transferable license to the improvements made to Y, and maybe even Y itself, but at that point, it's really deal specific.
Yeah, Halo 2. That's where you went wrong. Halo 2 is only ok. Halo 1 has better balance, more fun phsyics, better graphics, and in general offers a better -- if substantially less convenient -- multiplayer experience, especially on Blood Gulch, with all weapons and vehicles turned on.
1980s is a tricky one. Back in the 1980s, I was taught to write 1980's, but AP style says that 1980s is ok. Ok, to make this a little less off topic... dude should respond *very slowly* at the deposition.
I've played some epic 10-flag CTF matches in Halo 1 (Bloodgulch) that lasted 4+ hours. They were **awesome** although more of a twice-yearly than weekly event (of course, w/ Halo 1 you have to lug TVs to your LAN party). I think games with endurance modes are awesome... Anyone remember Infogrammes' 24-Hours of Le Mans Dreamcast game? The 24-hour mode was great (although you could save when you pitted).
Humidity will ruin your collection. If you need to keep your stuff with you down in mom's basement, you should invest in a good dehumdifier. Darkness is good though. I suggest the attic.
Weather porn has gotten out of hand in the US. I was basically surprised we didn't see any WC reporters actually orgasm when Katrina hit New Orleans.
Seriously though, it's impossible to negotiate with someone who's opening position is a deal breaker, as in:
Western Civilization: "What can we do to make you stop hating us and trying to blow up our planes?"
Islamic Horde: "All you of you must die"
Western Civilization: "yeah, that doesn't work for us. How about... we send your goverment tons of money?"
Islamic Horde: "Um, we'll take the money, sure, but then, all of you must die."
Western Civilization: "Let's try this another way. What if we just leave all of you alone?"
Islamic Horde: "Well, to the extent it enables us to kill all of you, that works for us, but again, our basic position, and this is a deal-breaker, is that you must all die."
etc.etc.
The solution is not to look inward and say "what can we do to make them stop hating us?" It's to ask instead, "what can we do to make them understand that trying to kill us doesn't work as a strategy."
So, in fact, getting on a plane the day terrorists plan on blowing up 10 airliners is actually more dangerous than driving.
And it there is an important difference between terrorist today and in days past. In the 1970s and 1980s terrorists took over planes, flew them to Beruit, hassled the passengers, maybe killed one or two, and eventually let everyone off the plane. An enourmous pain in the ass, especially to the people who died, but not world shaking. That expectation is exactly why most of the people on the 9/11 flights just hung out -- they didn't expect the terrorists to destroy the planes with them on them. More people died on 9/11 than in every previous episode of plane-based terrorist combined.
Finally, it was this bad during the cold war. Much worse in fact. To me the main difference is that the threat from people trying to destroy our civilization today is actually much worse than the actual threat from the Russians was.
That all said, The TSA's cargo-cult security style "oh, someone once did something bad with X, all X must be bad," is obviously super stupid. An El Al style detailed profiling of anyone wishing to fly would be significantly more secure, but probably not ameliorate the fears of people who a) believe all security methods are just the government "trying to take away their freedom," and b) then vote for people in favor of strong gun control.
Yep, that's all I meant. Your average student will score 70%, becuase the tests are designed for average students to score 70%. So 70% for a game is something that most people can instantly identity with. Most games today, when you come down to it, represent a reasonable ROI for your entertainment dollar (the baseline quality has gone up dramatically in the past 15 years, IMHO), so many games getting 70%+ doesn't surprise me at all.
The great examples are NASCAR and wrestling games. The typical NASCAR game review is like "well, if you like turning left a lot and you have a lobotomy, you may enjoy this... 3/5." Contrast that with Ivan Sulic's exceptionally well written review of NASCAR 2006: Total Team Control at IGN. Sulic ran down every parameter of the game, even going so far as to explain his play style, while doing the review. He didn't take the piss, and while it's clear he's a NASCAR fan, he delivered enough information to enable hardcore and casual fans to have everything they needed to evaluate the game. He scored it high (8.5) and obviously liked it. But, since it was the only NASCAR game to come out in 2006, according to TFA, it should be normalized to a 3. Retarded. In the end, I decided that NASCAR 2006 wasn't for me, despite its high score (the total team control stuff seemed like too much work), so I bought Flatout instead, but it was a great example of why you need to read the review, not just the score.
Additionally, this notion that the "average" game must score 5 on a 10 point scale is retarded. If you have a 10 question quiz, your average person will probably get 7 right. That's why a 70% is usually a C (average). IGN, GameSpot, Game Informater, etc's scoring system may trend towards scoring 7 - 9, but that's simply in line with the way most people grade things on a 10 point scale. On a 5 point scale, you see a lot more threes, but so what? A 3 doesn't tell you any more than a 7 -- ultimately you need to actually read the review.
I can't wait for this! I hope the # of comments isn't indicitive of the sales potential, because I want this to succeed all crazy style.
It's not as cool to just "divert it," when you can blow it the fsck up.
$50! I paid $299 on ebay and that was a steal. Super Happy Fun Watermelon Millard Fillmore is sweet, although if you can find it, Super Happy Fun Watermelon Millard Fillmore Side Story X: Fourth Imperative of the Dieraga Monarch is a lot more sophisticated.
The other thing to consider is that the CEOs at the poorly performing companies knew the companies sucked, and only took the jobs for big bucks. I've been recruited to an inferior company, and offered more money, because they knew they had to pay more than the superior company I was at. This happens all the time, as inferior companies try to buy their way out of inferiority.
Off the very top of my head: Brain Age, Big Brain Acadamy, Pheonix Wright, and Trauma Center are all games that are not like games that have come before them. On PSP Lumines, Loco Roco, Metal Gear Solid Graphic Novel and Brooktown High Senior Year* are all, again off the top of my head, doing something different in the space. * = this is being done by my company, so I am biased.
There's room for all of the above, but as an industry we can't concentrate on just making popcorn flicks. The other problem is that it's currently pretty hard (although getting easier, IMHO) to build a business model for "arthouse" games. The DS and PSP are both places publishers are really open to very different concepts, and Live Arcade and Nintendo and Sony's programs are also going to be great outlets for that.
I think Geometry Wars is the best current example (although I suspect you'll see more soon). If that had been an "indie" PC game, it probably would have won the Indi Games Festival at GDC, and maybe gotten 10,000 or even 100,000 downloads. But it never would have been the phenominon -- and money-making phenominon at that -- that it has been on Live Arcade. No, it's not experimental in a Jon-Blow-Experimental-Games-Workshop way, but it certainly is a far cry from current console fare.
(Not addressing your other points because they're all well taken, and obviously you understand that many of my previous comments were made partially in jest.)
No seriously though, I guess I meant that the overall number of hardcore gamers isn't growing, and that does put limits on what kinds of games you can make: a deep, complex, fighting game is not going to get the greenlight as well as a game which has a better chance of appealing to a wider audience. That's what I meant.
Although, that said, you could probably make a good Live Arcade case for a new hardcore 2D fighter...
Right now, at this very minute, Nintendo and the DS are demonstrating that it's innovation, not licenses or technology, that is selling software, and first and thrid parties on DS are benefitting. The same thing is happening on PSP -- look at Loco Roco's appeal and sales overseas.
The next-gen systems face some challenges, but no more than they ever have. As games move into a more mature phase of their existance, we have positives -- almost everyone under 30 has played games, and most continue to play games -- and negatives -- the percentage of people who buy new games just becuase their new isn't growing; instead most people are looking at the quality of the game itself before they plop down their sheckels.
The actual article is more reasoned than the Slashdot recap, but honestly, games don't face any more challenges than movies, TV, or any other media. Innovation is alive and well. Innovation doesn't have to mean better graphics or experimental gameplay. Look at Xbox Live Arcade, and Sony's and Nintendo's forthcoming online services. That's a HUGE innovation in the console space, and it enables new types of games on consoles that we simply wouldn't have seen otherwise.
Bottom line, the biggest problem with the game industry today, to me, are the jaded pundits, not anything else.
Just change the definition of death by adding the word "irreversably" before ceased, and you'll be fine.
U R prolly teh 1337 h8r ftw
Edge is at most B&N in the SFBay area; I'm sure yours could special order it for you. Also check out RETRO GAMER and GAMEStm if you get a chance. All excellent UK pubs. PLAY is the closest US version. The editor, Dave Halverson is really passionate about his games!
Maximum PC is a fantastic airplane read. I don't keep up with PC tech on a dialy basis, but I read the mag nearly monthly, and I at least feel like I have some idea of what's happening in the hardcore PC front.
Seeing how well the camera did from underwater was also pretty cool! And unexpected!
That all said, I don't think a mag like Next Gen would work today; there was a large element of it that was educating a whole class of gamers about the absolute state of the art as we moved from 2D to 3D (I'm thinking about the features we did on AI and AL, 3D, the NextGen Lexicon, that '98 how to get a job feature, the in-depth technical coverage of the machines, etc.) and in a sense Next Gen readers really did know a lot more than readers of EGM or GamePro at the time. That isn't true today -- your average EGM reader is as well informed about games and the game industry as anyone else, and anything you don't understand (mipmapping or perspective correct texture mapping in the old days, bump mapping or normal mapping today), you can learn about with a four second Google search. I loved NextGen, but there's just not as much of a need for that kind of magazine today in terms of the info it presented.
Today, I think Game Informer and EGM and Play all do a great job with coverage that well exceeds what we did on NextGen in every area (compare Play's interview with David Jaffee to anything done in NextGen), but they all have their own unique tone, and I do miss NextGen's hardcore tone. I still think our salture to subscribers, where we ran every subscriber's name in a special HARDCORE campaign that lasted months, was one of the coolest things ever.