The reason, clear and simple, is that - as always - we're a few years behind the Japanese. Video gaming will never go away, but the mass-market penetration boom of a few years ago was bound to end sometime, when people start realizing they're playing the same games they played a decade ago.
It's happened in Japan, but still pending in America. At least, that's my take on it.
Of course, being this far back, no one's going to see my comment. But I feel like pitching in my two cents anyway. Or ten cents, if you will (I'm an Apple fan).
I could talk about Microsoft's business practices, which are sure to bring an end to software innovation if successful. I could talk about security holes and the downfall of the Internet as we know it. I could talk about intellectual property concerns and the death of 'sharing' material.
But my bottom line is that Windows, and everything else Microsoft makes, is just plain shoddy. Obfuscating and lazy UI, shitty operation organization - and this is to say nothing of unintended problems.
Hardcore gamers only make up between 20-25 percent of the industry's annual software sales
Putting aside the fact that the 20-25% figure is obviously straight out of a marketing exec's ass, what, exactly, constitutes a "hardcore gamer" nowadays?
I joyfully remember Rare's fantastic N64 (and even SNES) titles. But after playing StarFox Adventures, and hearing about the GBA Banjo-Kazooie (Grunty's Revenge) from a friend who played it, I find it difficult to become excited about Rare's upcoming developments.
I do believe that somewhere in the last console generation, most of their development talent disappeared.
I took the test last year in C++ and this year in Java (my school offered no other way for me to learn Java).
The Java test was a lot harder than the C++; while last year's was largely about more general computer science concepts and basic, universal programming practices, this year's (at least the AB exam) was almost entirely on higher data structures like hash maps and binary trees.
Of course, they didn't skimp on the recursion either.
"I thought Microsoft was, if not an evil empire, at least a maker of substandard products that didn't deserve its success. The elegance of the Mac appealed to my design sensibilities - I took joy from its apparent "perfection".
[...]
The job I was offered had everything I wanted (Japanese content, customer-focus, design, technical content, good employee benefits, location, etc), except it was for the wrong company. I wanted to work at Apple - but they turned me down - quite rudely I felt given I was such a fan."
He admired Apple for its elegance and derided MS for its substandard products; he was rejected by Apple, but offered a job at MS.
Ouch.
It should be said that later, he comes to terms with MS not necessarily on the grounds that they make good product, but that they are a good business. Funny, that.
The copy of EGM that landed in my mailbox today had this to say:
First PSP Screen Shown Rings goes racing
Come November when Sony launches its PlayStation Portable (PSP), you'll be knee-deep in Shire...that is, if you pick up EA Games' Middle-earth-set kart racer tentatively titled The Lord of the Rings: Mordor GP. Scheduled for simultaneous release with the system, the promising racer follows the events of the film as you race on tracks situated all over Tolkien's world--from the hobbits' home to the foot of Mt. Doom. All the major characters from the movie will be playable, each with his own custom vehicle.
In a related note, VU Games has announced that it too is making a kart racer for Rings, based on the book license, for release around the same time.
If that doesn't convince you of the problem with EA's market dominance, I don't know what will.
Honestly, it would have been difficult to do a worse job on the qualifying crap. How can you take a single Final Fantasy on one hand, then use the other to decide between Diablo and its own sequel? How is it that only one among the Marios or Zeldas will progress, while an Age of Empires or GTA3/VC is guaranteed qualification? How can you put Chrono Trigger, River City Ransom, and Perfect Dark in the "potpurri" category?
And considering it was mentioned on the front article page, where the hell is Starcraft?
...is a horrible game, and you should never play it.
But my point is, it was aimed at children, the characters you could choose from were children, all of its content was child-friendly - the most violent things that ever happened were shooting fake targets and throwing wooden crates at a shark - and the game got a 'T' rating.
As a whole, Enter the Matrix failed the advertising test. By the end, I was indescribably sick of seeing banners for Intel and Nvidia.
But there was one thing that, though cheesy, remains in my memory: the Powerade machines. You could kick a machine, and a can of Powerade would come out. It wouldn't do anything, but it was a funny little touch, and a distraction from the ass-beatings elsewhere in the game.
I guess the moral of the story is that if you can make advertising interactive within a game, it has a greater impact.
...the most-searched-for game on GameSpot was [previously covered M-rated title] The Guy Game.
That's all well and good. I'm sure that when news of them first broke, and upon their releases, games like BMX XXX and DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball were highly-searched items too. But to my recollection, it wasn't reflected in their sales figures.
An actual adult doesn't have to worry about getting a ride to the store from his parents, or hiding a dubious game from them. Conversely, anyone of any age can (and usually will) snoop around for information, screenshots, and videos on said game.
Plus, in many one-dimensional 'adult' games (like the ones mentioned above), the only motivation to buy or even see them is for the dirty bits. When you can find these online for free, why bother with the rest of the game?
I can understand not wanting people to mess up the ladders. So why not have ladder bans? There are systems for this that can work without keeping people off B.net as a whole.
I can understand wanting good players to be able to play with other good players. Which is why said people catch on and play private games with people they know.
What I don't understand is how Blizzard can keep doing things like this, just snapping its fingers and banning thousands of people. Do they really think that by getting rid of those who "don't play nice," those who do will spend enough money to make up for the lost customer base? Banning a huge sum of players on the off chance that other players will have a better time is a flawed business model, and no competent business would ever do it.
And if this trend continues, how long is it until Blizzard EULAs contain rules and guidelines on how you can play the game? How long is it until people who don't play along are just deleted?
Wouldn't it be nice if there was an alternate Battle.net clone for people who want to play on a huge network but don't want to deal with Blizzard's rules? You know, like bnetd. Whoops.
It keeps happening, a few people keep griping, and the mindless Blizzard junkies who have become zealous followers of every game the company makes keep praising Blizz for allowing them to play with less people. It's bound to crash and burn eventually. Right?
I've been a Lego fan most of my life too, but I have to say that I'm not surprised or terribly upset about the way this has turned out. Lego sets have become so ungodly expensive over the years (many $100+ sets having nothing to offer for their high price points other than "collector's series" or some other buzzword), it's no wonder more people aren't buying them.
I'm not sure what PS2 third parties have to offer in terms of wireless control, but Nintendo's first-party Gamecube Wavebird is an excellent product - no visible lag, and amazing battery life (I've had it for months, maybe a year, and only replaced the batteries once).
Of course, there are times when it cuts out for a brief moment due to what I can only assume is interference from the other miscellaneous wireless signals blasting through my home, but nothing's perfect.
Slashdot Mirror
The reason, clear and simple, is that - as always - we're a few years behind the Japanese. Video gaming will never go away, but the mass-market penetration boom of a few years ago was bound to end sometime, when people start realizing they're playing the same games they played a decade ago.
It's happened in Japan, but still pending in America. At least, that's my take on it.
I thought this was about Microsoft?
Of course, being this far back, no one's going to see my comment. But I feel like pitching in my two cents anyway. Or ten cents, if you will (I'm an Apple fan).
I could talk about Microsoft's business practices, which are sure to bring an end to software innovation if successful. I could talk about security holes and the downfall of the Internet as we know it. I could talk about intellectual property concerns and the death of 'sharing' material.
But my bottom line is that Windows, and everything else Microsoft makes, is just plain shoddy. Obfuscating and lazy UI, shitty operation organization - and this is to say nothing of unintended problems.
Putting aside the fact that the 20-25% figure is obviously straight out of a marketing exec's ass, what, exactly, constitutes a "hardcore gamer" nowadays?
Gosh, I love statistics.
How do you keep up a relationship without ruining your game-playing?
Seriously. Anyone?
Only 50 weeks away!
I joyfully remember Rare's fantastic N64 (and even SNES) titles. But after playing StarFox Adventures, and hearing about the GBA Banjo-Kazooie (Grunty's Revenge) from a friend who played it, I find it difficult to become excited about Rare's upcoming developments.
I do believe that somewhere in the last console generation, most of their development talent disappeared.
I took the test last year in C++ and this year in Java (my school offered no other way for me to learn Java).
The Java test was a lot harder than the C++; while last year's was largely about more general computer science concepts and basic, universal programming practices, this year's (at least the AB exam) was almost entirely on higher data structures like hash maps and binary trees.
Of course, they didn't skimp on the recursion either.
He admired Apple for its elegance and derided MS for its substandard products; he was rejected by Apple, but offered a job at MS.
Ouch.
It should be said that later, he comes to terms with MS not necessarily on the grounds that they make good product, but that they are a good business. Funny, that.
Is it just me, or is ADD becoming just like laziness and obesity, in that researchers find that everyone (at least in America) has it?
I'm sorry, there was nothing I could do.
Dear sweet Gunpei, I hope so.
If that doesn't convince you of the problem with EA's market dominance, I don't know what will.
Honestly, it would have been difficult to do a worse job on the qualifying crap. How can you take a single Final Fantasy on one hand, then use the other to decide between Diablo and its own sequel? How is it that only one among the Marios or Zeldas will progress, while an Age of Empires or GTA3/VC is guaranteed qualification? How can you put Chrono Trigger, River City Ransom, and Perfect Dark in the "potpurri" category?
And considering it was mentioned on the front article page, where the hell is Starcraft?
...is a horrible game, and you should never play it.
But my point is, it was aimed at children, the characters you could choose from were children, all of its content was child-friendly - the most violent things that ever happened were shooting fake targets and throwing wooden crates at a shark - and the game got a 'T' rating.
So it's not a one-way street.
It's just an example of adaptation overcoming natural evolution.
Now, if there was a simple way to make working flight wings out of household appliances, then we'd have a stew going.
So, I guess I shouldn't take any of it seriously.
As a whole, Enter the Matrix failed the advertising test. By the end, I was indescribably sick of seeing banners for Intel and Nvidia.
But there was one thing that, though cheesy, remains in my memory: the Powerade machines. You could kick a machine, and a can of Powerade would come out. It wouldn't do anything, but it was a funny little touch, and a distraction from the ass-beatings elsewhere in the game.
I guess the moral of the story is that if you can make advertising interactive within a game, it has a greater impact.
That's all well and good. I'm sure that when news of them first broke, and upon their releases, games like BMX XXX and DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball were highly-searched items too. But to my recollection, it wasn't reflected in their sales figures.
An actual adult doesn't have to worry about getting a ride to the store from his parents, or hiding a dubious game from them. Conversely, anyone of any age can (and usually will) snoop around for information, screenshots, and videos on said game.
Plus, in many one-dimensional 'adult' games (like the ones mentioned above), the only motivation to buy or even see them is for the dirty bits. When you can find these online for free, why bother with the rest of the game?
I guess this just shows what happens when you decide to release original (with the exception of PoP, although that's negotiable) titles.
It's a sad state of affairs, really.
I can understand not wanting people to mess up the ladders. So why not have ladder bans? There are systems for this that can work without keeping people off B.net as a whole.
I can understand wanting good players to be able to play with other good players. Which is why said people catch on and play private games with people they know.
What I don't understand is how Blizzard can keep doing things like this, just snapping its fingers and banning thousands of people. Do they really think that by getting rid of those who "don't play nice," those who do will spend enough money to make up for the lost customer base? Banning a huge sum of players on the off chance that other players will have a better time is a flawed business model, and no competent business would ever do it.
And if this trend continues, how long is it until Blizzard EULAs contain rules and guidelines on how you can play the game? How long is it until people who don't play along are just deleted?
Wouldn't it be nice if there was an alternate Battle.net clone for people who want to play on a huge network but don't want to deal with Blizzard's rules? You know, like bnetd.
Whoops.
It keeps happening, a few people keep griping, and the mindless Blizzard junkies who have become zealous followers of every game the company makes keep praising Blizz for allowing them to play with less people. It's bound to crash and burn eventually. Right?
I was planning on buying an iPod sometime soon, too.
Shame.
I've been a Lego fan most of my life too, but I have to say that I'm not surprised or terribly upset about the way this has turned out. Lego sets have become so ungodly expensive over the years (many $100+ sets having nothing to offer for their high price points other than "collector's series" or some other buzzword), it's no wonder more people aren't buying them.
I'm not sure what PS2 third parties have to offer in terms of wireless control, but Nintendo's first-party Gamecube Wavebird is an excellent product - no visible lag, and amazing battery life (I've had it for months, maybe a year, and only replaced the batteries once).
Of course, there are times when it cuts out for a brief moment due to what I can only assume is interference from the other miscellaneous wireless signals blasting through my home, but nothing's perfect.
Andrew Plotkin is amazing. Mac users should try his System's Twilight freeware game, which is somewhere between charming and mind-bending.
If Narcolepsy has even a shade of the stuff Plotkin used in Twilight, conceptually or in puzzles, it can't help but be great.