The sad thing is that it was supposed to be the sequel to a game that was actually really good, Sea Dogs. The publisher in question is Bethesda Softworks, the guys behind that game that all of the geeks are currently jerking off over, Oblivion. So you can imagine how horribly disappointing the bug-ridden, unpolished Pirates of the Caribbean was.
"Normal" gamers won't switch because they'll spend most of their time in Windows so they can play their games, thus defeating the purpose of buying a computer that costs much more than a non-Mac equivalent. There's also the hardcore gamer that has to be on the bleeding edge of everything, and Macs don't allow that sort of crazy upgrading.
Casual gamers won't switch because they would've already switched to begin with if that was the only thing holding them back. Stuff like Solitaire and PopCap games has always been available on the Mac, and you don't need to dual-boot for it. (And no, if you're one of those gamers who plays a certain Windows-only game enough to where you're willing to use an OS you don't like just to play it, you fit in the first category, not this one.)
Who are the people that will switch?
People who always wanted to switch but have one little Windows-only application that they absolutely require in order to do their jobs. Now they can spend most of their time on OSX and only go to Windows to use that application. This also applies to people who in addition have a Mac-only application that they require (thus meaning that they had to use two computers before), though I expect there are far fewer of those.
People who want to test their work on all three major OSes with a minimum of hassle. Now instead of needing at least two computers, you can test the same HTML on all of the big web browsers using the same hardware, for example. Not only does this keep you from having to switch back and forth, copying files between computers and so on, but you also don't have to worry about hardware problems tainting your results.
People who are curious about OSX and are ready to get a new computer, but don't want to spend all of that money on something that'll turn into a doorstop if they don't like it. The people that don't like OSX can just use the Mac like a regular PC, while the people that do can make the switch fully.
At least some people with more money than sense, e.g. those people who want to switch because of gaming, even though this is logically untenable due to what I've stated before.
One thing that might happen is that these people switching will increase the marketshare significantly, which would encourage the big game developers to make OSX ports for all of their popular games, and then you'd see gamers start to switch. I'm sure this is what Jobs is hoping for. But it's not going to happen right away.
I thought the level caps in Chrono Cross were a great idea poorly executed. After you reach the cap, there's no way to turn off the wandering monsters, so you inevitably end up getting into completely pointless fights even if you have good reflexes and so forth. Then the battles take forever to load before you can run away. All of that combined with the boring, slow-paced story made Chrono Cross a very sleep-inducing game.
If you had enough patientence, you could make it through any FF game - from the first one on - just by mashing the "choose action" button.
Not quite. You'd have to be very lucky indeed to make it through FF3 with that strategy.
Then there's the fact that many of the FFs put their gameplay in the things surrounding the battle system, such as the advancement system and the equipment system. You may not have to min/max to make it through, but it makes it easier and more fun to do so. But with the exception of FF8, none of the FFs I can think of make min/maxing require much thought. FF6 and FF7, for example, only require you to level up (through button-mashing) Espers and Materia respectively to do most of the job, with a little bit of party-customizing and clever equipment use on the side. It doesn't help that most of those games give you items and abilities that completely throw off game balance.
I said that most of the late FFs have this problem, but really the FF series is just the most well-known example. The majority of traditional console RPGs made since Dragon Warrior (including the majority of ones popular with both the critics and the general population alike) have had little intelligent or even engaging gameplay to speak of. That sort of thing is generally reserved for computer RPGs like Fallout and Planescape: Torment as well as fusions between console RPGs and other genres (e.g. Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy Tactics).
Final Fantasy has always been about the story (which is funny, 'cause you can summarize every single one of them as "group of kids goes and saves world from evil")
You can summarize some of the greatest works of literature in about as many words. That proves nothing.
My local library has a lot of cool books with much more interesting worlds and characters.
Simply because one medium has superior stories to another doesn't make the other medium useless at storytelling. Sometimes people don't want to read text on a page, and sometimes people would like to partake of a literary work that has different advantages and disadvantages from prose. This is why things like the cinema exist. Video-game stories are just an extrapolation from that.
People act like watching a video game is something new, when the Final Fantasy games have generally been more about bashing a button than thoughtful gameplay since at least FF6. Now-a-days you play FF for the story, and FF12 does nothing to make that any more or less true.
I actually played that game all the way through to its cancellation. The big problem was that EA unabashedly catered to the lowest common denominator, making everything as easy as pouring water out of a boot. And since the game came in monthly installments and had horrible pacing, you had about a week's worth of two-hour-a-day gameplay after which you had to wait for another three weeks to continue. The best parts of it were (1) the demo, which packed the gameplay of a regular monthly installment into three days and was quite a bit more stimulating, and (2) the optional side-game called "Majestic Revelations" that was ten times better than the game I was actually paying for. The free ARGs that other people have mentioned were a lot better, though less flashy and sophisticated.
Someone complaining about the lack of single-player RPGs on the PC when he's contributing directly to the type of game that's responsible for that lack? Who'da thunk?
You forgot to mention that an appeal to tradition would be "We've always done it this way, so stopping would be bad" when the argument in question is "Bullying has always happened, and stopping this game from being made won't change that," which is simply true by inductive reasoning.
I sat through each of the summon animations exactly once, since I wanted to see them. I never used summons in FF8 again after that, because that would've greatly reduced my offensive strength. Learn to play the game before you bash its gameplay.
Certainly not every single second of HL2 was fun, but an ideal game would be fun at all times. And WoW is nowhere near ideal; the unfun grind in question, combined with other bits of tedium such as having to do the same raid a bunch of times so everyone in the group benefits, makes up the vast majority of gameplay. This is why some useful idiots are willing to pay $60 so they don't have to waste time in WoW, but I've never heard of people paying any amount of money to have someone else play part of HL2 for them.
BTW, comparing video games to real life does not help the argument when you consider that the reason that video games exist is because they are not real life.
So you're comparing WoW grind (which is part of a game that's supposed to be fun) to doing chores in a house? Do you realize how silly that is?
Perhaps instead of paying $60 for money that has no value outside of the scads of fools that are addicted to WoW, people should pay $60 for a game that's actually good.
Do some real reasearch and you will find that Devil Dice was an idie developed product, on the Net Yaroze, and as a result was picked up by Sony.
And if Sony hadn't picked it up, then what would've happened? Surely you don't believe that the game would've ended up just as well-realized without Sony's support.
BTW, it should be noted that the original build of Xi (the Japanese name of Devil Dice) was designed as an entry for a contest that Sony held. If not for the contest, do you think that the game would have ever gotten past the drawing board?
So this game designer was already a Namco employee, correct? In that case, that's exactly the kind of scenario that Vogel hypothesizes, where someone who's getting a regular paycheck from a big developer is far more likely to bring a new idea to fruition than someone who has no support and doesn't know how he's going to pay next month's rent.
Project Offset: Not out yet. Also sounds only incrementally innovative, if the info page on the game's website is any judge. But hey, at least it's pretty.
Cave Story: Fun, but not really innovative.
Gish: Incrementally innovative regarding its physics engine, as Vogel said.
Devil Dice and Katamari Damacy: THQ and Namco are indie?
The rest of your post makes it clear that you didn't read the article very carefully, so I'm not going to reply to it.
I'm going to list the points that Jeff Vogel made, all of which many of you missed in your kneejerk rush to judgment. BTW, Vogel is responsible for the Avernum/Exile series of games, which are among the best indie games ever made, so I think he has some clue of what he's talking about.
1. He's talking about games made recently, as in the 21st century. Mentioning games like SimCity, Ultima, and Tetris damages his argument not a bit. The reason he focuses on recent games is because his argument is that many of the major innovations that are possible in video games have already been done. Quote: "I might humbly point out that this is simply a sign of the growing maturity of the art of game design. I mean, seriously. When was there last a truly new book that wasn't reminiscent of something that came before? Or play? Or movie?"
2. He doesn't say that all innovation comes from big developers. He says that if true innovation comes, it will come from big developers. Why? Because only big developers have the money to really explore new ideas without having to worry about their employees' children starving to death. Quote: "Some would say that only people out on their own, free of corporate infection, are free enough to make something truly new. This is backwards. Only the people under control of a big corporation (with the corporate resources and paychecks that come with it) have the freedom to make something new. Not being afraid of starvation does wonders for the mind."
3. Some indie developers do innovate, but their innovations are only incremental, just like the usual innovations you see from big developers. (And yes, big developers do innovate on a fairly regular basis; pointing out Madden as if it's the only big-name game in existence does no one any favors.) They don't create new genres like they used to due to the first two points I mentioned. Quote: "These games are worthy and fun and contain innovation, yes. But incremental innovation. Not the new thing, but the clever twist on the old. In other words, the same sort of innovation that the big, corporate world regularly provides. And the sort of innovation you'd better get used to, because it's just about all you're ever going to get from now on."
Is it a bit cynical? Sure. But I think his argument deserves at least the amount of respect that would be shown by actually reading the article before you start bashing it.
It should be pointed out that he didn't say that Black & White et al. were truly innovative, just that they were the most innovative games of the past few years. (I assume he's talking about PC games, because I'd say that Katamari Damacy beats all three of the games he listed in that respect.)
Thank God, someone who disagrees with some of Vogel's conclusions actually read the article.
BTW, I played Democracy recently. Fun game, though I wouldn't call it innovative (The Hidden Agenda pops to mind as a very similar game) and it was quite buggy (a problem that plagues indie developers that Vogel didn't mention). Keep up the good work.
I have PERSONALLY seen more innovative titles get canned due to the inablity to see the vision or figure out how to market it in my time in the videogame industry than I can even begin to write about.
Kind of funny how you bash the guy when your thesis statement supports him entirely. If you'd actually RTFA, you would've realized that.
Slashdot Mirror
The sad thing is that it was supposed to be the sequel to a game that was actually really good, Sea Dogs. The publisher in question is Bethesda Softworks, the guys behind that game that all of the geeks are currently jerking off over, Oblivion. So you can imagine how horribly disappointing the bug-ridden, unpolished Pirates of the Caribbean was.
Rob
"Normal" gamers won't switch because they'll spend most of their time in Windows so they can play their games, thus defeating the purpose of buying a computer that costs much more than a non-Mac equivalent. There's also the hardcore gamer that has to be on the bleeding edge of everything, and Macs don't allow that sort of crazy upgrading.
Casual gamers won't switch because they would've already switched to begin with if that was the only thing holding them back. Stuff like Solitaire and PopCap games has always been available on the Mac, and you don't need to dual-boot for it. (And no, if you're one of those gamers who plays a certain Windows-only game enough to where you're willing to use an OS you don't like just to play it, you fit in the first category, not this one.)
Who are the people that will switch?
One thing that might happen is that these people switching will increase the marketshare significantly, which would encourage the big game developers to make OSX ports for all of their popular games, and then you'd see gamers start to switch. I'm sure this is what Jobs is hoping for. But it's not going to happen right away.
Rob
I thought the level caps in Chrono Cross were a great idea poorly executed. After you reach the cap, there's no way to turn off the wandering monsters, so you inevitably end up getting into completely pointless fights even if you have good reflexes and so forth. Then the battles take forever to load before you can run away. All of that combined with the boring, slow-paced story made Chrono Cross a very sleep-inducing game.
Rob
The version of FF8 I played didn't require you to draw magic at all.
Rob
If you had enough patientence, you could make it through any FF game - from the first one on - just by mashing the "choose action" button.
Not quite. You'd have to be very lucky indeed to make it through FF3 with that strategy.
Then there's the fact that many of the FFs put their gameplay in the things surrounding the battle system, such as the advancement system and the equipment system. You may not have to min/max to make it through, but it makes it easier and more fun to do so. But with the exception of FF8, none of the FFs I can think of make min/maxing require much thought. FF6 and FF7, for example, only require you to level up (through button-mashing) Espers and Materia respectively to do most of the job, with a little bit of party-customizing and clever equipment use on the side. It doesn't help that most of those games give you items and abilities that completely throw off game balance.
I said that most of the late FFs have this problem, but really the FF series is just the most well-known example. The majority of traditional console RPGs made since Dragon Warrior (including the majority of ones popular with both the critics and the general population alike) have had little intelligent or even engaging gameplay to speak of. That sort of thing is generally reserved for computer RPGs like Fallout and Planescape: Torment as well as fusions between console RPGs and other genres (e.g. Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy Tactics).
Final Fantasy has always been about the story (which is funny, 'cause you can summarize every single one of them as "group of kids goes and saves world from evil")
You can summarize some of the greatest works of literature in about as many words. That proves nothing.
My local library has a lot of cool books with much more interesting worlds and characters.
Simply because one medium has superior stories to another doesn't make the other medium useless at storytelling. Sometimes people don't want to read text on a page, and sometimes people would like to partake of a literary work that has different advantages and disadvantages from prose. This is why things like the cinema exist. Video-game stories are just an extrapolation from that.
Rob
People act like watching a video game is something new, when the Final Fantasy games have generally been more about bashing a button than thoughtful gameplay since at least FF6. Now-a-days you play FF for the story, and FF12 does nothing to make that any more or less true.
Rob
Q: Will these accounts have access to the caverns?
A: Yes. There will be no restriction on areas while playing the demo.
--PlanetSide Reserves FAQ
Rob
I actually played that game all the way through to its cancellation. The big problem was that EA unabashedly catered to the lowest common denominator, making everything as easy as pouring water out of a boot. And since the game came in monthly installments and had horrible pacing, you had about a week's worth of two-hour-a-day gameplay after which you had to wait for another three weeks to continue. The best parts of it were (1) the demo, which packed the gameplay of a regular monthly installment into three days and was quite a bit more stimulating, and (2) the optional side-game called "Majestic Revelations" that was ten times better than the game I was actually paying for. The free ARGs that other people have mentioned were a lot better, though less flashy and sophisticated.
Rob
How could anyone have predicted this turn of events!?
Rob
Someone complaining about the lack of single-player RPGs on the PC when he's contributing directly to the type of game that's responsible for that lack? Who'da thunk?
Rob
You forgot to mention that an appeal to tradition would be "We've always done it this way, so stopping would be bad" when the argument in question is "Bullying has always happened, and stopping this game from being made won't change that," which is simply true by inductive reasoning.
Rob
I sat through each of the summon animations exactly once, since I wanted to see them. I never used summons in FF8 again after that, because that would've greatly reduced my offensive strength. Learn to play the game before you bash its gameplay.
Rob
Certainly not every single second of HL2 was fun, but an ideal game would be fun at all times. And WoW is nowhere near ideal; the unfun grind in question, combined with other bits of tedium such as having to do the same raid a bunch of times so everyone in the group benefits, makes up the vast majority of gameplay. This is why some useful idiots are willing to pay $60 so they don't have to waste time in WoW, but I've never heard of people paying any amount of money to have someone else play part of HL2 for them.
BTW, comparing video games to real life does not help the argument when you consider that the reason that video games exist is because they are not real life.
Rob
Oh, come on. Surely you can do better than that.
m
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populu
Rob
So you're comparing WoW grind (which is part of a game that's supposed to be fun) to doing chores in a house? Do you realize how silly that is?
Perhaps instead of paying $60 for money that has no value outside of the scads of fools that are addicted to WoW, people should pay $60 for a game that's actually good.
Rob
Do some real reasearch and you will find that Devil Dice was an idie developed product, on the Net Yaroze, and as a result was picked up by Sony.
And if Sony hadn't picked it up, then what would've happened? Surely you don't believe that the game would've ended up just as well-realized without Sony's support.
BTW, it should be noted that the original build of Xi (the Japanese name of Devil Dice) was designed as an entry for a contest that Sony held. If not for the contest, do you think that the game would have ever gotten past the drawing board?
Rob
So this game designer was already a Namco employee, correct? In that case, that's exactly the kind of scenario that Vogel hypothesizes, where someone who's getting a regular paycheck from a big developer is far more likely to bring a new idea to fruition than someone who has no support and doesn't know how he's going to pay next month's rent.
Rob
Excuse me, Sony developed Devil Dice (THQ published it in America), but my point still stands.
Rob
Project Offset: Not out yet. Also sounds only incrementally innovative, if the info page on the game's website is any judge. But hey, at least it's pretty.
Cave Story: Fun, but not really innovative.
Gish: Incrementally innovative regarding its physics engine, as Vogel said.
Devil Dice and Katamari Damacy: THQ and Namco are indie?
The rest of your post makes it clear that you didn't read the article very carefully, so I'm not going to reply to it.
Rob
MULE had been done before? Where? What about Archon, Pinball Construction Set, One on One, Starflight, and so on?
Rob
I'm going to list the points that Jeff Vogel made, all of which many of you missed in your kneejerk rush to judgment. BTW, Vogel is responsible for the Avernum/Exile series of games, which are among the best indie games ever made, so I think he has some clue of what he's talking about.
1. He's talking about games made recently, as in the 21st century. Mentioning games like SimCity, Ultima, and Tetris damages his argument not a bit. The reason he focuses on recent games is because his argument is that many of the major innovations that are possible in video games have already been done. Quote: "I might humbly point out that this is simply a sign of the growing maturity of the art of game design. I mean, seriously. When was there last a truly new book that wasn't reminiscent of something that came before? Or play? Or movie?"
2. He doesn't say that all innovation comes from big developers. He says that if true innovation comes, it will come from big developers. Why? Because only big developers have the money to really explore new ideas without having to worry about their employees' children starving to death. Quote: "Some would say that only people out on their own, free of corporate infection, are free enough to make something truly new. This is backwards. Only the people under control of a big corporation (with the corporate resources and paychecks that come with it) have the freedom to make something new. Not being afraid of starvation does wonders for the mind."
3. Some indie developers do innovate, but their innovations are only incremental, just like the usual innovations you see from big developers. (And yes, big developers do innovate on a fairly regular basis; pointing out Madden as if it's the only big-name game in existence does no one any favors.) They don't create new genres like they used to due to the first two points I mentioned. Quote: "These games are worthy and fun and contain innovation, yes. But incremental innovation. Not the new thing, but the clever twist on the old. In other words, the same sort of innovation that the big, corporate world regularly provides. And the sort of innovation you'd better get used to, because it's just about all you're ever going to get from now on."
Is it a bit cynical? Sure. But I think his argument deserves at least the amount of respect that would be shown by actually reading the article before you start bashing it.
Rob
It should be pointed out that he didn't say that Black & White et al. were truly innovative, just that they were the most innovative games of the past few years. (I assume he's talking about PC games, because I'd say that Katamari Damacy beats all three of the games he listed in that respect.)
Rob
Thank God, someone who disagrees with some of Vogel's conclusions actually read the article.
BTW, I played Democracy recently. Fun game, though I wouldn't call it innovative (The Hidden Agenda pops to mind as a very similar game) and it was quite buggy (a problem that plagues indie developers that Vogel didn't mention). Keep up the good work.
Rob
I have PERSONALLY seen more innovative titles get canned due to the inablity to see the vision or figure out how to market it in my time in the videogame industry than I can even begin to write about.
Kind of funny how you bash the guy when your thesis statement supports him entirely. If you'd actually RTFA, you would've realized that.
Rob
You've obviously missed the point. Here's a clue: EA used to be just as innovative as Will Wright was.
Rob