Oh good god. I guess this is technically slashdot, but I thought this had all but disappeared on games.slashdot.
Of course it's non-existent in Japan. But that's hardly the work of an open market, of which Japan most definitely is not. It is open but only within the context of Japanese developers. Any Western company that attempted some kind of video game console infusion, be it Microsoft, GE, Coke, or whoever - it would inevitably fail because the Japanese have been influencing video games far longer and more extensively than Americans have. In fact, any kind of American video game software traditionally has done extremely poorly. They're two different words, Japan and the West, and to blame it on the fact that - surprise! - Microsoft is suddenly faced with an "open" market is just cutting and pasting from most of the other slashdot posts pre-1999.
There's open competition here in the United States in the video game console market, and yet the Xbox is doing better than the Gamecube. Is that because Microsoft is going around playing mafia with potential Nintendo allies?
No, it's for completely seperate reasons, and I won't insult your intelligence *that* much by going into obvious details as to why. Suffice it to say that while Nintendo has generally had some fantastic titles for the Cube, their third party support - like the N64 - has sucked ass. It has absolutely nothing - *nothing* - to do with an "open" or "closed" market.
Gamers are enthusiasts. Sure, there are the fanboys that are predisposed to criticizing anything except for [insert random console or - gasp - operating system - here], but by and large gamers are interested in, well, games.
There are several products that fall right in the vein of the N-Gage and the Phantom that gamers never vehomently criticized. The late Indreama was received fairly well by both press and public. The Wonderswan remains a cult hit. Gamers are generally excited about anything new.
But here's the thing. In regards to the N-gage, from the get-go Nokia has shown obliviously but inadvertantly flanted their ignorance of games, ranging from a website ripped straight from A&F, to outright insulting Nintendo. Moreover, the basic fundamental design of the portable reveals that it was not designed by anyone who had ever really played games, just looked at people playing games. The appearance of a Sony handheld on the horizon doesn't help either.
With the Phantom, what do you expect? It's called the *Phantom*. What's more, only one journalist claims to have actually seen it. It's pricey - $300 for the bottom of the line - and will be launching (snicker) at a time when the consoles will be no more than $100 a piece. Also, having an actual physical address and not swearing at story investigators over the phone might help.
Before we can take these newcomers seriously, they have to take us seriously. I think gamers are generally inclined to accept new things merely for the sake of novelty. Hell, look at how many gamers buy games on the first day before reviews even hit the web.
What does the N-gage have to do? Get more than rehash games. And dear god, fix that battery/cartridge issue. Stop advertising like you're mountain dew (for a good example, see Sony's ad campaigns)
The Phantom? Make a console and show it to more than one person.
Well, after canning nearly the entire Japan MS staff, I don't think that this is a way to seduce Japan into buying Xbox games. I see this as merely a way of tossing a proverbial bone, as if to say, "Here guys, we're still interested in you...a little." For all sakes and purposes, I really think Microsoft has pretty much written off Xbox as being any kind of viable system in Japan and is hoping for a revamp with an Xbox2
Which is a shame, because the Japan office managed to snag Otogi as an Xbox exclusive. I'm playing through that bastard of a game, and boy is it good. Makes up for Sneakers at least.
There's a vision buried just beneath the surface of Republic, one that indeed needed a freeform GTA-esque engine. I think that what happened is they built up the engine and then realized that they couldn't accomplish everything they would've liked, so instead used it but scaled back everything into a much more linear campaign mode.
That said, players of Republic will spend the majority of their time in the top boardgame view anyway. Here's some older but wiser games that I think Republic could have outperformed or equaled, but due to the oppresive capatalist shackles of the 3d engine, just can't quite do so.
Hidden Agenda is slightly more educational in nature and Hispanic/Latin in surrounding, but offers high replaying value due to the various idealogies. Shadow President is globally based and fundamentally differs from Republic in that instead of throwing a coup against a small dictator, you are the largest dictator in the world: President of the United States! Still, the political feel of the game is the same, even if you're on the other side of the coup (which is, admittedly, more fun in this case). And who can forget Chris Crawford's classic Balance of Power? The guys who made Republic, apparently.
Any I'm forgetting? (Tropico was already mentioned)
Your post is what I'm talking about. It's as naive as "the media" to merely accept GTA and Manhunt at face value as being not wrong as it is to accept it at face value as being wrong. "The media," or more apt general society overall, refuses to look beyond the surface at video games for their true potential.
Meanwhile though, 99% of all gamers are so ignorantly defensive of games like GTA and Manhunt, throwing around words like free speech and the like, that they refuse to examine the potential effects of those games on general overall society.
I suggest there's a middle ground. There is a place and room for games like GTA3, but to merely say that they don't affect the way we think or view the world is just plain ignorant. If it is an art form, as you suggest, then it also has the potential to change the way people think. Shouldn't we then also be concerned if there is an 8 year old playing Manhunt? Yes, yes, the parents. So if the parents don't feed their children, or they neglect their children, to whom does the responsiblity fall? General society. Likewise, if a parent doesn't give a damn that their 10 year old kid is playing a game with prison rape and sexual brutality, shouldn't the rest of us care?
What can we do, as a society, to prevent that kind of thing from happening? I worked in an EB, and 4 out of 5 parents didn't give a damn what their 6-16 year old kid played. You can't tell me that thousands of 10 year old children playing games like Manhunt and GTA3/VC won't have a general effect on society. If you can tell me that, then this isn't art. It's mere shallow entertainment, and in that case who cares about a stupid little game is legislated?
I can hear it in your head; you're already coming up with those brisk gamer arguments against censorship etc etc. What I expect of the game industry and enthusiasts is to start thinking - not even doing anything, just thinking - about the effect that their creations have on people and society in general.
I was assistant managing an EB when REZ came out, and here's the exact lifespan of REZ: we received two copes in the day it was released. One, an employee bought. One of our regular customers bought the other copy. Within 5 days, the game had a "D" status in our POS, meaning that either it had been discontinued or EB had stopped restocking the stores from the warehouse for whatever reason. After a few calls to the home office on behalf of several stores in the district, we learned that Sega had stopped shipping REZ to retailers.
Needless to say, REZ quickly became one of the most sought after preowned titles. Several of our regular customers that found copies at Blockbusters and what have you would excitedly tell the staff where to direct other customers to find the game. I have a hard time believing that within a period of 5 days Sega had already ascertained that it had not sold enough copies to justify shipping any more copies.
But let's be honest. All the titles mentioned in Critical Hit are definitely not mainstream titles. Would they have sold better if the companies behind them pushed it? Possibly, but probably not. ICO had a very impressive marketing push behind it, including TV spots and several multi-monthly placements in major gaming magazines. It did not sell.
Basically, the problem is that the game industry hasn't reached the point that films have in terms of possessing the general depth of field to allow a "indie games industry" so to speak. Moreover, the nature of the industry doesn't really lend itself to support lesser selling games like the film industry does. At the risk of sounding elitist, go glance at the REZ reviews in gamerankings, and I think you'll agree that most of the reviewers (some of whom compare REZ to the Blue Man Group - good god) just "didn't get." Finally, the game industry hasn't had a "Blair Witch" of sorts; that is to say that there hasn't been a surprise lower-budget hit to suddenly sell millions of copies.
I think that in time we'll see the industry not only mature but logistically evolve enough to support a kind of arty-indy-sub-market. Until then? I guess these devs will struggle to get by; but isn't that always the plight of the underdog artist?
Good -great- points, really. GTA did an incredible amount of good for open-ended gameplay that I think we will yet see the true fruition of. Warren Spector is a huge fan of the open-ended gameplay in GTA3 but not of the violence.
My question though is: why? Why does Doom get the credit for what Ultima: Underworld had already done? Why did GTA3 get the credit for something that Sid Meier's Pirates! accomplished nearly 20 years prior? I think that it's not necessarily that violence pushes technology further; I think that a more apt description would be that violence in video games popularizes already developed but otherwise obscure technology/methodology. At least from the mere 2 pages on IGN, Manhunt doesn't seem to be doing anything that Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid before that, and Thief before that didn't already do. But the fact that it will be intensely violent and hence reap a massive amount of press coverage (and it doesn't hurt that it's Rockstar North) will mean that this stealth methodology may well be the next big thing.
Of course, despite being a different divisin of Rockstar, that's what everyone thought State of Emergency would be as well.
I hope that the games.slashdot crew is well versed enough that I don't have to go and link to a gazillione interviews with Miyamoto on why GTA3 and its kin aren't great for the industry. Manhunt only proves that violence without purpose in games is only escalatory. So Manhunt sells billions of copies. What subject content does Rockstar tackle next? There's not much left beyond the prison brutality espouged in Manhunt's (now defunct) promo website.
Meanwhile, in the other corner, we have Miyamoto who's busy making the Amelie-inspired Pikmin 2 and a revamp of Pac-Man. I think this represents the beginnings of a rift in the gaming industry. Rockstar and everyone trying to copy them on one side, and luminaries like Miyamoto, Spector, Wright, etc on the other side; essentially, people who see purpose-less violence as self-defeating.
Here's the paradox: if GTA3 and Manhunt are "art" as nearly every video game enthusiast espouses, then it does - as art is prone to doing - affect the way we think. If that's the case, then why not examine it? I am by no means suggesting that games like Manhunt should be legislated, but I think it's extremely naive of gamers to assume that GTA/Manhunt does not change our social consciousness. Shouldn't we then be concerned about its effect, be it good or bad?
Every Manhunt/GTA-esque game casts a vast shadow on the game industry that obscures gems like Pikmin or Viewtiful Joe or Animal Crossing. Those are the games that should be on the forefront of the industry, not GTA or Manhunt. "Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial." Merely because we can makes games like Manhunt doesn't mean we should.
I remember the anguish - the ANGUISH - of coming home from school, myself and several friends working for days...no...weeks on the ULTIMATE TRADEWARS 2002 CORPORATION PLANET and then discovering that the Crystalline Entity, an add-in, had completely wiped us out. Everything went downhill from there. The corporation fractured into two or three congolmerates and I almost lost a best friend. Those were the good old days.
Ok. This is a good time to point out that the companies, in this case EA, ought to be the ones hosting these files and providing them for download. Demos are promotional material, and yet I don't even see EA hosting the file. How sweet of a deal is that for EA? At some point in the near future the gaming enthusiast community ought to demand respect from gaming publishers. From testing unfinished games (aka patches) to promoting *their* material (demos), the fan community takes up a huge amount of responsibility that the company ought to be the one bearing.
My prediction is that it's just downtime until Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles ships. That'll help move those units that are gathering dust.
Look, as good as FFCC looks, it ain't no Zelda. If there was ever a game to move Gamecube units, that game would be Zelda. What's worse is that Nintendo was *giving Wind Waker for free*. Mario, Metroid, Zelda - these are the big guns and they didn't really sell many GCs anyway.
Deus Ex was easily the best game I've ever played. Nonetheless, I couldn't help but feel shorthanded when I read that they had intended to incorporate more religious elements in DX. Here's hoping to see that crop up in DX2.
You probably haven't played KOTOR enough then. I played X-Wing and Tie Fighter and, yes, Rebel Assault back in the day and KOTOR is right up there with them in terms of recreating the Star Wars experience. You're also neglecting to mention Raven's Jedi Knight work. It's not groundbreaking but is definitely solid as far as FPS's go. And Level 5's work on Rogue Squadron/leader far outshines the Force Commanders of the Star Wars bunch.
The Lucasarts Indiana Jones adventure games I played as a kid were so amazing that I wanted so badly for them to do the same with Star Wars. KOTOR is right up there with those. It makes you feel like you really *are* Han Solo, or Luke Skywalker, or even Darth Vader. It takes some time to get into it, maybe a good hour or two, but KOTOR is easily one of the best Star Wars games ever crafted.
Hey, whether the delay is supposed or actual, I can swing Valve one - maybe even two - pushbacks. At least they had the anti-industry nads to not say a damn thing about it until it was (presumably) almost ready. That's what 3drealms *should* have done, but didn't. I much Valve's approach to PR than id or 3drealms, who either give false dates or allow their PR people to. Kudos, Valve.
I try not to use violence as an easy means of expression. It's easier to make people cry than laugh. It's easier to use violence than to describe particular emotions. And it's easier to use blood than to express a certain kind of terror in other ways. It's OK to use violence with quality and for a purpose, but I want to avoid using violence as an easy means just to seek stimulus. We don't have to use it if we have other creative means of expression.
also: People often talk about GTA. But I'm not sure whether that sort of extreme subject matter is always appropriate . . . I'm not convinced that being more realistic makes better games . . . we have to do something that movies cannot do.
I think you're right, Daetrin. It would be nice to see Nintendo's philosophy overextend Sony's. I doubt that's going to happen on the home console market though. Nonetheless, with the GBA selling as well as it is perhaps that's where Nintendo's philosophy will find a new home. Miyamoto's more interested in creating games inspired by the design of Amelie while US companies like Rockstar are trodding forward with prison brutality and hardcore violent pornography as inspiration. A crossroads indeed.
The responses to this story disappoint me. It shows why very few - if any at all - games ever address spirituality within the context of a video game.
That's sad, because it's an issue I'd like to see more of in gaming. I was thrilled when I read that Sid Meier's dream game (or was it Will Wright?) is recreating the missionary journey of Paul the Apostle.
What do the one-liner quips and kneejerk "The Bible isn't true" prove? Only that it may not necessarily be the gaming industry that's immature, but rather the recipients. Shame on you, for not seeing above your own isolinear views and beliefs to see the potential artistic creativity that could very well ensue if that same attitude didn't exist, be it towards Christian religion or otherwise. It's plainly much more shallow than anyone attempting a spiritual/religious oriented game.
I remember when oldmanmurray.com actually existed, one of their favorite games was that Christian first person shooter. Ironic that they were obviously more mature than most of the posters here.
In 5 years, the mass attempts at online venture by Electronic Arts will be included in at least the top 20, if not the top 10. Majestic, The Sims, canning Ultima 2...the list goes on.
True, but ETM also had a multiple-console release. The PC market isn't nearly as forgiving as ETM, as demonstrated by recent sales charts. ETM has held a very solid lead on every console but on the PC dropped below Vice City and the ever-present Sims games only a week after entering the charts.
Obviously, your point stands. But HL2 and DoomIII being released is like upping the ante on 3drealms more than they can pay.
The press approach of 3drealms is obviously an attempt at swinging the pendulum from their (former) contempory Ion Storm/Romero. The thing is though is that all they've done, what with the press release of Half Life 2, is contrast themselves with Valve. Valve never really said anything in regards to Half Life 2, and any kind of hope for a sequel was only hinted at by rumormongers.
The biggest problem facing DNF is that 3d games have advanced so damn much since Duke Nukem debuted, and I don't mean merely graphically. Obviously Half Life 2 will push that even further. Let's examine Medal of Honor. It's a fun, solid FPS and yet in implementation it doesn't really do anything we'd consider "new" (ala Tron 2.0, or Deus Ex). Still, MoH has so much more in it than anything Duke Nukem that anything even resembling the original DN will be nothing less than outdated. Unreal II, another example of everything done right but not great, showed us that good just isn't "good enough."
Basically, this: Duke Nukem is so fundamentally one dimensioned as a game structure that 3drealms has completely missed the viability of selling their game. I played the crap out of the original DN, but I can't see myself playing DNF with the same character and similar storyline when I have stuff like HL2 and Deus Ex 2 sitting around.
Malice, once merely an Xbox graphics demo, never really looked like more than just that: a graphics demo. For a while there, Microsoft picked up to publish themselves. They later dropped it, along with that absolutely atrocious Bruce Lee game, to Vivendi.
Me, I'll wait patiently for Psychonauts. If they cancel *that*, someone. will. die.
Sheesh. I know this is slashdot, but really. Enough with the anti-MS attitude.
If you have it hanging around, go read - I think it's last month's - Computer Gamer. The head of gearbox talks about how difficult it is to actually *dumb* down the Xbox version for the PC, since the GPU in the Xbox is highly specialized. Gearbox's difficulty in bringing it to PC was that it was so quickly and highly specialized to the Xbox nvidia GPU that they're having a difficult time being able to do the same graphic effects without the Xbox graphics chip.
Moreover, for greater proof that Halo was actually most certainly not close to being completed when Bungie was bought out, look no further out the repetitive game design only midway through the game. I think "very nearly ready" is somewhat of an exaggeration. Halo has three or four extremely well designed plainly completed levels (Silent Cartographer and the jungle/appearnce of the flood come immediately to mind), and then the rest are either rehash (like the last three levels) or along the lines of the cut and paste Library-esque level.
So, in summary a. I think you're being overly paranoid. I don't think there's an "original version" of Halo for MS is hiding within Bill's secrets valuts for the PC that's "nearly completed" If you can provide some links that prove otherwise, cough up.
and...
b. Saying the Xbox is a dumbed down PC is so 2001. Yes, it's a Celeron. Yes, there's only 64mb. But the GPU's specialized pixel shaders, running the CPU at RISC0, and the basic technical merit of having a set system standard provides advantages that a general PC just can't match.
And, quite frankly, I did look at some screenshots, and the xbox version looks as good, and in most cases better, than the PC screenshots. Sorry -shrug-. That obviously doesn't prove that the PC version wouldn't have looked as good, but it does disprove your indirect assertion that the PC screenshots look better than the Xbox version. Reference: http://www.psx2central.com/p ics/previews/halo1.jpg
Actually, it's not really Bungie anymore. If memory serves, it's Gearbox. Bungie probably has absolutely nothing to do with it. There was an interview just before E3 with gearbox and, of course, the big question was, "Why so long?"
Generally they said, without saying it, that the code was an absolute mess and that it was the most challenging thing they'd ever done as a company. No big surprise I guess, since it was PC/Mac, converted to Xbox, and done so on a very tight schedule.
So...sorry to burst your "Bungie secretly delaying this to run my fun" theory, but Halo PC has just been delayed for regular old, "It's hard to do" reasons.
Selling one or two a day is fairly incredible for something anything as obscure as Ikaruga. We're what's considered a high volume store, and for us to be selling nearly as many Ikarugas per day as we are NBA Street 2 is fairly significant.
Granted, I think it's selling well for our location because we had it in the demo unit. But that's my point. When people play it, they like it. It's a horrible lack of foresight on behalf of the industry that they haven't promoted this game more than they did. They aimed for the niche market, and that's what they got. I suggest they could have shot for more, as good as ikaruga is.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh good god. I guess this is technically slashdot, but I thought this had all but disappeared on games.slashdot.
Of course it's non-existent in Japan. But that's hardly the work of an open market, of which Japan most definitely is not. It is open but only within the context of Japanese developers. Any Western company that attempted some kind of video game console infusion, be it Microsoft, GE, Coke, or whoever - it would inevitably fail because the Japanese have been influencing video games far longer and more extensively than Americans have. In fact, any kind of American video game software traditionally has done extremely poorly. They're two different words, Japan and the West, and to blame it on the fact that - surprise! - Microsoft is suddenly faced with an "open" market is just cutting and pasting from most of the other slashdot posts pre-1999.
There's open competition here in the United States in the video game console market, and yet the Xbox is doing better than the Gamecube. Is that because Microsoft is going around playing mafia with potential Nintendo allies?
No, it's for completely seperate reasons, and I won't insult your intelligence *that* much by going into obvious details as to why. Suffice it to say that while Nintendo has generally had some fantastic titles for the Cube, their third party support - like the N64 - has sucked ass. It has absolutely nothing - *nothing* - to do with an "open" or "closed" market.
I can't believe this got modded up. Sheesh.
Gamers are enthusiasts. Sure, there are the fanboys that are predisposed to criticizing anything except for [insert random console or - gasp - operating system - here], but by and large gamers are interested in, well, games.
There are several products that fall right in the vein of the N-Gage and the Phantom that gamers never vehomently criticized. The late Indreama was received fairly well by both press and public. The Wonderswan remains a cult hit.
Gamers are generally excited about anything new.
But here's the thing. In regards to the N-gage, from the get-go Nokia has shown obliviously but inadvertantly flanted their ignorance of games, ranging from a website ripped straight from A&F, to outright insulting Nintendo. Moreover, the basic fundamental design of the portable reveals that it was not designed by anyone who had ever really played games, just looked at people playing games. The appearance of a Sony handheld on the horizon doesn't help either.
With the Phantom, what do you expect? It's called the *Phantom*. What's more, only one journalist claims to have actually seen it. It's pricey - $300 for the bottom of the line - and will be launching (snicker) at a time when the consoles will be no more than $100 a piece. Also, having an actual physical address and not swearing at story investigators over the phone might help.
Before we can take these newcomers seriously, they have to take us seriously. I think gamers are generally inclined to accept new things merely for the sake of novelty. Hell, look at how many gamers buy games on the first day before reviews even hit the web.
What does the N-gage have to do? Get more than rehash games. And dear god, fix that battery/cartridge issue. Stop advertising like you're mountain dew (for a good example, see Sony's ad campaigns)
The Phantom? Make a console and show it to more than one person.
Well, after canning nearly the entire Japan MS staff, I don't think that this is a way to seduce Japan into buying Xbox games. I see this as merely a way of tossing a proverbial bone, as if to say, "Here guys, we're still interested in you...a little." For all sakes and purposes, I really think Microsoft has pretty much written off Xbox as being any kind of viable system in Japan and is hoping for a revamp with an Xbox2
Which is a shame, because the Japan office managed to snag Otogi as an Xbox exclusive. I'm playing through that bastard of a game, and boy is it good. Makes up for Sneakers at least.
There's a vision buried just beneath the surface of Republic, one that indeed needed a freeform GTA-esque engine. I think that what happened is they built up the engine and then realized that they couldn't accomplish everything they would've liked, so instead used it but scaled back everything into a much more linear campaign mode.
That said, players of Republic will spend the majority of their time in the top boardgame view anyway. Here's some older but wiser games that I think Republic could have outperformed or equaled, but due to the oppresive capatalist shackles of the 3d engine, just can't quite do so.
Hidden Agenda is slightly more educational in nature and Hispanic/Latin in surrounding, but offers high replaying value due to the various idealogies. Shadow President is globally based and fundamentally differs from Republic in that instead of throwing a coup against a small dictator, you are the largest dictator in the world: President of the United States! Still, the political feel of the game is the same, even if you're on the other side of the coup (which is, admittedly, more fun in this case). And who can forget Chris Crawford's classic Balance of Power? The guys who made Republic, apparently.
Any I'm forgetting? (Tropico was already mentioned)
Your post is what I'm talking about. It's as naive as "the media" to merely accept GTA and Manhunt at face value as being not wrong as it is to accept it at face value as being wrong. "The media," or more apt general society overall, refuses to look beyond the surface at video games for their true potential.
Meanwhile though, 99% of all gamers are so ignorantly defensive of games like GTA and Manhunt, throwing around words like free speech and the like, that they refuse to examine the potential effects of those games on general overall society.
I suggest there's a middle ground. There is a place and room for games like GTA3, but to merely say that they don't affect the way we think or view the world is just plain ignorant. If it is an art form, as you suggest, then it also has the potential to change the way people think. Shouldn't we then also be concerned if there is an 8 year old playing Manhunt? Yes, yes, the parents. So if the parents don't feed their children, or they neglect their children, to whom does the responsiblity fall? General society. Likewise, if a parent doesn't give a damn that their 10 year old kid is playing a game with prison rape and sexual brutality, shouldn't the rest of us care?
What can we do, as a society, to prevent that kind of thing from happening? I worked in an EB, and 4 out of 5 parents didn't give a damn what their 6-16 year old kid played. You can't tell me that thousands of 10 year old children playing games like Manhunt and GTA3/VC won't have a general effect on society. If you can tell me that, then this isn't art. It's mere shallow entertainment, and in that case who cares about a stupid little game is legislated?
I can hear it in your head; you're already coming up with those brisk gamer arguments against censorship etc etc. What I expect of the game industry and enthusiasts is to start thinking - not even doing anything, just thinking - about the effect that their creations have on people and society in general.
I was assistant managing an EB when REZ came out, and here's the exact lifespan of REZ: we received two copes in the day it was released. One, an employee bought. One of our regular customers bought the other copy. Within 5 days, the game had a "D" status in our POS, meaning that either it had been discontinued or EB had stopped restocking the stores from the warehouse for whatever reason. After a few calls to the home office on behalf of several stores in the district, we learned that Sega had stopped shipping REZ to retailers.
Needless to say, REZ quickly became one of the most sought after preowned titles. Several of our regular customers that found copies at Blockbusters and what have you would excitedly tell the staff where to direct other customers to find the game. I have a hard time believing that within a period of 5 days Sega had already ascertained that it had not sold enough copies to justify shipping any more copies.
But let's be honest. All the titles mentioned in Critical Hit are definitely not mainstream titles. Would they have sold better if the companies behind them pushed it? Possibly, but probably not. ICO had a very impressive marketing push behind it, including TV spots and several multi-monthly placements in major gaming magazines. It did not sell.
Basically, the problem is that the game industry hasn't reached the point that films have in terms of possessing the general depth of field to allow a "indie games industry" so to speak. Moreover, the nature of the industry doesn't really lend itself to support lesser selling games like the film industry does. At the risk of sounding elitist, go glance at the REZ reviews in gamerankings, and I think you'll agree that most of the reviewers (some of whom compare REZ to the Blue Man Group - good god) just "didn't get." Finally, the game industry hasn't had a "Blair Witch" of sorts; that is to say that there hasn't been a surprise lower-budget hit to suddenly sell millions of copies.
I think that in time we'll see the industry not only mature but logistically evolve enough to support a kind of arty-indy-sub-market. Until then? I guess these devs will struggle to get by; but isn't that always the plight of the underdog artist?
Good -great- points, really. GTA did an incredible amount of good for open-ended gameplay that I think we will yet see the true fruition of. Warren Spector is a huge fan of the open-ended gameplay in GTA3 but not of the violence.
My question though is: why? Why does Doom get the credit for what Ultima: Underworld had already done? Why did GTA3 get the credit for something that Sid Meier's Pirates! accomplished nearly 20 years prior? I think that it's not necessarily that violence pushes technology further; I think that a more apt description would be that violence in video games popularizes already developed but otherwise obscure technology/methodology. At least from the mere 2 pages on IGN, Manhunt doesn't seem to be doing anything that Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid before that, and Thief before that didn't already do. But the fact that it will be intensely violent and hence reap a massive amount of press coverage (and it doesn't hurt that it's Rockstar North) will mean that this stealth methodology may well be the next big thing.
Of course, despite being a different divisin of Rockstar, that's what everyone thought State of Emergency would be as well.
I hope that the games.slashdot crew is well versed enough that I don't have to go and link to a gazillione interviews with Miyamoto on why GTA3 and its kin aren't great for the industry. Manhunt only proves that violence without purpose in games is only escalatory. So Manhunt sells billions of copies. What subject content does Rockstar tackle next? There's not much left beyond the prison brutality espouged in Manhunt's (now defunct) promo website.
Meanwhile, in the other corner, we have Miyamoto who's busy making the Amelie-inspired Pikmin 2 and a revamp of Pac-Man. I think this represents the beginnings of a rift in the gaming industry. Rockstar and everyone trying to copy them on one side, and luminaries like Miyamoto, Spector, Wright, etc on the other side; essentially, people who see purpose-less violence as self-defeating.
Here's the paradox: if GTA3 and Manhunt are "art" as nearly every video game enthusiast espouses, then it does - as art is prone to doing - affect the way we think. If that's the case, then why not examine it? I am by no means suggesting that games like Manhunt should be legislated, but I think it's extremely naive of gamers to assume that GTA/Manhunt does not change our social consciousness. Shouldn't we then be concerned about its effect, be it good or bad?
Every Manhunt/GTA-esque game casts a vast shadow on the game industry that obscures gems like Pikmin or Viewtiful Joe or Animal Crossing. Those are the games that should be on the forefront of the industry, not GTA or Manhunt. "Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial." Merely because we can makes games like Manhunt doesn't mean we should.
hearing enemies thing is . . . I'd go so far as to say revolutionary.
-cough-THIEF-cough
I remember the anguish - the ANGUISH - of coming home from school, myself and several friends working for days...no...weeks on the ULTIMATE TRADEWARS 2002 CORPORATION PLANET and then discovering that the Crystalline Entity, an add-in, had completely wiped us out. Everything went downhill from there. The corporation fractured into two or three congolmerates and I almost lost a best friend. Those were the good old days.
Ok. This is a good time to point out that the companies, in this case EA, ought to be the ones hosting these files and providing them for download. Demos are promotional material, and yet I don't even see EA hosting the file. How sweet of a deal is that for EA? At some point in the near future the gaming enthusiast community ought to demand respect from gaming publishers. From testing unfinished games (aka patches) to promoting *their* material (demos), the fan community takes up a huge amount of responsibility that the company ought to be the one bearing.
My prediction is that it's just downtime until Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles ships. That'll help move those units that are gathering dust.
Look, as good as FFCC looks, it ain't no Zelda. If there was ever a game to move Gamecube units, that game would be Zelda. What's worse is that Nintendo was *giving Wind Waker for free*. Mario, Metroid, Zelda - these are the big guns and they didn't really sell many GCs anyway.
Deus Ex was easily the best game I've ever played. Nonetheless, I couldn't help but feel shorthanded when I read that they had intended to incorporate more religious elements in DX. Here's hoping to see that crop up in DX2.
You probably haven't played KOTOR enough then. I played X-Wing and Tie Fighter and, yes, Rebel Assault back in the day and KOTOR is right up there with them in terms of recreating the Star Wars experience. You're also neglecting to mention Raven's Jedi Knight work. It's not groundbreaking but is definitely solid as far as FPS's go. And Level 5's work on Rogue Squadron/leader far outshines the Force Commanders of the Star Wars bunch. The Lucasarts Indiana Jones adventure games I played as a kid were so amazing that I wanted so badly for them to do the same with Star Wars. KOTOR is right up there with those. It makes you feel like you really *are* Han Solo, or Luke Skywalker, or even Darth Vader. It takes some time to get into it, maybe a good hour or two, but KOTOR is easily one of the best Star Wars games ever crafted.
Hey, whether the delay is supposed or actual, I can swing Valve one - maybe even two - pushbacks. At least they had the anti-industry nads to not say a damn thing about it until it was (presumably) almost ready. That's what 3drealms *should* have done, but didn't. I much Valve's approach to PR than id or 3drealms, who either give false dates or allow their PR people to. Kudos, Valve.
directly from miyamoto:
I try not to use violence as an easy means of expression. It's easier to make people cry than laugh. It's easier to use violence than to describe particular emotions. And it's easier to use blood than to express a certain kind of terror in other ways. It's OK to use violence with quality and for a purpose, but I want to avoid using violence as an easy means just to seek stimulus. We don't have to use it if we have other creative means of expression.
also:
People often talk about GTA. But I'm not sure whether that sort of extreme subject matter is always appropriate . . . I'm not convinced that being more realistic makes better games . . . we have to do something that movies cannot do.
I think you're right, Daetrin. It would be nice to see Nintendo's philosophy overextend Sony's. I doubt that's going to happen on the home console market though. Nonetheless, with the GBA selling as well as it is perhaps that's where Nintendo's philosophy will find a new home. Miyamoto's more interested in creating games inspired by the design of Amelie while US companies like Rockstar are trodding forward with prison brutality and hardcore violent pornography as inspiration. A crossroads indeed.
The responses to this story disappoint me. It shows why very few - if any at all - games ever address spirituality within the context of a video game.
That's sad, because it's an issue I'd like to see more of in gaming. I was thrilled when I read that Sid Meier's dream game (or was it Will Wright?) is recreating the missionary journey of Paul the Apostle.
What do the one-liner quips and kneejerk "The Bible isn't true" prove? Only that it may not necessarily be the gaming industry that's immature, but rather the recipients. Shame on you, for not seeing above your own isolinear views and beliefs to see the potential artistic creativity that could very well ensue if that same attitude didn't exist, be it towards Christian religion or otherwise. It's plainly much more shallow than anyone attempting a spiritual/religious oriented game.
I remember when oldmanmurray.com actually existed, one of their favorite games was that Christian first person shooter. Ironic that they were obviously more mature than most of the posters here.
In 5 years, the mass attempts at online venture by Electronic Arts will be included in at least the top 20, if not the top 10. Majestic, The Sims, canning Ultima 2...the list goes on.
True, but ETM also had a multiple-console release. The PC market isn't nearly as forgiving as ETM, as demonstrated by recent sales charts. ETM has held a very solid lead on every console but on the PC dropped below Vice City and the ever-present Sims games only a week after entering the charts.
Obviously, your point stands. But HL2 and DoomIII being released is like upping the ante on 3drealms more than they can pay.
The press approach of 3drealms is obviously an attempt at swinging the pendulum from their (former) contempory Ion Storm/Romero. The thing is though is that all they've done, what with the press release of Half Life 2, is contrast themselves with Valve. Valve never really said anything in regards to Half Life 2, and any kind of hope for a sequel was only hinted at by rumormongers.
The biggest problem facing DNF is that 3d games have advanced so damn much since Duke Nukem debuted, and I don't mean merely graphically. Obviously Half Life 2 will push that even further. Let's examine Medal of Honor. It's a fun, solid FPS and yet in implementation it doesn't really do anything we'd consider "new" (ala Tron 2.0, or Deus Ex). Still, MoH has so much more in it than anything Duke Nukem that anything even resembling the original DN will be nothing less than outdated. Unreal II, another example of everything done right but not great, showed us that good just isn't "good enough."
Basically, this: Duke Nukem is so fundamentally one dimensioned as a game structure that 3drealms has completely missed the viability of selling their game. I played the crap out of the original DN, but I can't see myself playing DNF with the same character and similar storyline when I have stuff like HL2 and Deus Ex 2 sitting around.
kiiiIIIIiillllll...mmeeeeEEEeee.....
Malice, once merely an Xbox graphics demo, never really looked like more than just that: a graphics demo. For a while there, Microsoft picked up to publish themselves. They later dropped it, along with that absolutely atrocious Bruce Lee game, to Vivendi. Me, I'll wait patiently for Psychonauts. If they cancel *that*, someone. will. die.
Sheesh. I know this is slashdot, but really. Enough with the anti-MS attitude.
p ics/previews/halo1.jpg
j pg
j pg
d ex .html?page=3
If you have it hanging around, go read - I think it's last month's - Computer Gamer. The head of gearbox talks about how difficult it is to actually *dumb* down the Xbox version for the PC, since the GPU in the Xbox is highly specialized. Gearbox's difficulty in bringing it to PC was that it was so quickly and highly specialized to the Xbox nvidia GPU that they're having a difficult time being able to do the same graphic effects without the Xbox graphics chip.
Moreover, for greater proof that Halo was actually most certainly not close to being completed when Bungie was bought out, look no further out the repetitive game design only midway through the game. I think "very nearly ready" is somewhat of an exaggeration. Halo has three or four extremely well designed plainly completed levels (Silent Cartographer and the jungle/appearnce of the flood come immediately to mind), and then the rest are either rehash (like the last three levels) or along the lines of the cut and paste Library-esque level.
So, in summary
a. I think you're being overly paranoid. I don't think there's an "original version" of Halo for MS is hiding within Bill's secrets valuts for the PC that's "nearly completed" If you can provide some links that prove otherwise, cough up.
and...
b. Saying the Xbox is a dumbed down PC is so 2001. Yes, it's a Celeron. Yes, there's only 64mb. But the GPU's specialized pixel shaders, running the CPU at RISC0, and the basic technical merit of having a set system standard provides advantages that a general PC just can't match.
And, quite frankly, I did look at some screenshots, and the xbox version looks as good, and in most cases better, than the PC screenshots. Sorry -shrug-. That obviously doesn't prove that the PC version wouldn't have looked as good, but it does disprove your indirect assertion that the PC screenshots look better than the Xbox version.
Reference:
http://www.psx2central.com/
http://www.psx2central.com/pics/previews/halo2.
http://www.psx2central.com/pics/previews/halo3.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halo/screenin
Actually, it's not really Bungie anymore. If memory serves, it's Gearbox. Bungie probably has absolutely nothing to do with it. There was an interview just before E3 with gearbox and, of course, the big question was, "Why so long?" Generally they said, without saying it, that the code was an absolute mess and that it was the most challenging thing they'd ever done as a company. No big surprise I guess, since it was PC/Mac, converted to Xbox, and done so on a very tight schedule. So...sorry to burst your "Bungie secretly delaying this to run my fun" theory, but Halo PC has just been delayed for regular old, "It's hard to do" reasons.
Selling one or two a day is fairly incredible for something anything as obscure as Ikaruga. We're what's considered a high volume store, and for us to be selling nearly as many Ikarugas per day as we are NBA Street 2 is fairly significant.
Granted, I think it's selling well for our location because we had it in the demo unit. But that's my point. When people play it, they like it. It's a horrible lack of foresight on behalf of the industry that they haven't promoted this game more than they did. They aimed for the niche market, and that's what they got. I suggest they could have shot for more, as good as ikaruga is.