That is a very good point. In fact, I found a video showing what appears to be some people using a multitouch like interface such as this to control a presentation of 3d modeling. I think this will become the interface standard for interactive presentations in the future.
This can be an excellent idea. Buying out a small apartment complex or building one could really improve comradery and living in a complex with a group of like-minded individuals would be generally better than most apartment situations.
Nobody every mentions "Maabus" in these lists, though it clearly deserves a top spot. The only explanation for it constantly being overlooked is that no-one bought it, and those who did probably did not play it for more than a few minutes, despite a good deal of hype about it's release by the publisher.
The game consists of moving around, listening to the annoying Admiral, shooting monsters with your incredibly limited ammo supply, getting translator-thingies thrown at you (which actually help...) and, worse... SWAPPING DISKS CONSISTANTLY! Battles consist of clicking on the monster many times before finally you lay the smackdown on it. You only got 4 missiles, 3 lazer shots and 3 toxin things... WHAT AN AMMO SUPPLY!! Even the Space Marine starting out with a simple pistol was considered more powerful, right?
The game can be beaten in simply 30-45 minutes. Yes, you heard right. With all the time spent on this game, you figured itd be a long, lovely experience. Wrong. But actually, this is good... if it were longer you definately wouldn't want to finsh it. And there's only ONE PUZZLE in the whole game. That's it. Just one.
While in an ideal world I would agree with the points made in TFA, and there are many companies in the games world moving in this direction (Valve's Steam, for better or worse, is at the forefront of the "Kill the publisher" movement) eliminating the publisher from fundraising and distribution is not that easy. The biggest advantage of having a publisher is that the risk of producing the game is largely lifted from the shoulders of the developers. Once developers start bringing in venture capitalists and other sources of investment, they become culpable if the game fails at market. Not to mention that the shift from publisher to VC just passes the control of your game from the hands of the publisher to the hands of the VCs.
The second part of TFA, regarding digital distribution, is also flawed in the real world. They give examples of games already available for direct download and mention that waiting "half an hour" or so for a game is no worse than driving to the store. However, many modern games are pushing the capacity of DVDs to their limits, and already multi-DVD games have been seen. Most people simply do not have the bandwidth to download several Gigs in "half an hour."
While I commend what the article is trying to acheive, I simply do not think that changing the business model for game development and distribution is as easy as it makes it seem. Established game companies, like Valve, will likely need to take the lead in changing the model rather than the new developers. That said, there are definate advancements being made in that direction and I believe the model is moveing steadilly towards innevitable and positive changes.
The games industry today is hardly less formulaic than it was in what most gamers think of as "The golden age." I had a Nintendo, most of the games had glaringly simmilar gameplay. Same with early PC games, RPGs etc..
There will always be a multitude of remakes and rehashes of old ideas, but in between those are a multitude of original quality games. And Katamari Damacy is not the only one, just the one with the most press.
The only reason all the old "golden age" games seem so innovative and amazing is because we only remember the best of the 100s of mostly horrible games that were released each year. the only difference now is the massive amount of advertising the remakes get compared to the smaller ad budgets alloted to the innovative titles. You just have to look a bit harder.
Balancing character classes in a MMORPG is a quest the designers are doomed to fail, IMHO, but I really believe it is a goal that should not be sought after at all.
When character balance is usually brought up in a discussion about a game, two factors are used typically to demonstrate imbalance: Solo questing abilities and PVP abilities. If any class has an advantage in either of the two mentioned activites, the game is considered imbalanced. In the name of balance, all character classes are given the same strengths and weaknesses and all classes become warriors differentiated only in their method of kill. However, to me, a healer should not be able to PVP or solo fight as well as a combat class, and in a face-to-face battle, a rouge should lose to a warrior.
Character classes should define your role within the game. For example healers should exist to heal combatants and have only minor combat skill (and should level through using their main skill -- healing, not through the antithesis of that -- killing). In one on one PVP the Healer might be useless, but any large scale raid would simillarly be weaker by the absense of a healer in their party. By modelling the game this way, all balance issues become trivial and the game play would become much richer with a greater variety of play types.
Steam is a good idea gone bad. The good is that it offers digital distribution. Why is that good? Distribution is one of the few reasons that game development houses require publishers. It is very difficult for an independant company to get a game on store shelves, if not impossible. If digital distribution becomes standard, the publishers will lose some degree of control which will allow development houses more freedom. I might be stretching, but services like Steam and xStream could help make games innovative again and allow garage developers a chance back into the industry.
Despite all that, Steam was horribly implemented. There is no reason you should have to run the distribution software while playing the game (This is a particuarly BAD form of DRM when the program is constantly calling home), the software takes way too much of your system resources for it's primary purpose, and the extra features it provides besides content downloading should really be in a different app or built into the game itself.
Let's hope xStream is better...
I read this and almost cried. Why don't game developers use the same design techniques and standards as other major software developers? Using hard-coded string values? Hard coding the software to run at 60 Hz? Pushing your memory budget so close you cannot fit a few more characters of text? Not only that, but game engines are re-written from scratch for virtually every new game; the wheel is re-invented 12 times a month in any given project.
I am sorry to be insulting, but the reasons you have given for the difficulty in localization are all due to sloppy, poorly thought out code. Every generation of systems take more and more time to develop for, but simply standardizing certain game engine components, and re-use and modularization of code could reduce that by an order of magnitude. Part of this is the fault of publishers, part the fault of the general mentality of programmers in the field, most of which have never worked on a project not in the industry.
One likely repercussion of this merger is that Gamestop will now likely be able to charge more for shelf space in their stores. Where previously, game publishers would have to pay both chains seperate fees, now Gamestop can claim that the fees they are receiving are worth double. While this is not likely to have a big effect on the consumer, it will make it more expensive for small and indie publishers to have their game represented on a store shelf.
As mergers like this happen in the retail world, and the larger publishers such as EA, Microsoft and Sony gobble up more and more development and publishing houses, it is likely to become less and less likely to find anything but the blockbusters on the shelves of stores. If the indie gaming community is to survive, there needs to be a push towards innovative distribution methods that do not require such a huge upfront cost. (I'm looking at you Valve... make steam friendly and you could revolutionize the industry)
Because it is for X-Box, not PC. In order to release a title for a console system, complicated contracts and agreements must be made between the console maker and the publisher. You can't just press DVDs for X-Box and sell them. Not only would they not work, they would be illegal to sell. Valve would likely have a difficult time getting microsoft to allow them to self publish the game for X-Box.
This doesn't even consider the shelf space purchasing and advertising that is likely needed for a big budget release as this.
These are the sort of considerations that are killing the garage game industry; except for PC games, it is now almost impossible to distribute games without a publisher.
Slashdot Mirror
That is a very good point. In fact, I found a video showing what appears to be some people using a multitouch like interface such as this to control a presentation of 3d modeling. I think this will become the interface standard for interactive presentations in the future.
Video Here
This can be an excellent idea. Buying out a small apartment complex or building one could really improve comradery and living in a complex with a group of like-minded individuals would be generally better than most apartment situations.
There is a review at gamefaqs http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/review/R6
From that review:
While in an ideal world I would agree with the points made in TFA, and there are many companies in the games world moving in this direction (Valve's Steam, for better or worse, is at the forefront of the "Kill the publisher" movement) eliminating the publisher from fundraising and distribution is not that easy. The biggest advantage of having a publisher is that the risk of producing the game is largely lifted from the shoulders of the developers. Once developers start bringing in venture capitalists and other sources of investment, they become culpable if the game fails at market. Not to mention that the shift from publisher to VC just passes the control of your game from the hands of the publisher to the hands of the VCs.
The second part of TFA, regarding digital distribution, is also flawed in the real world. They give examples of games already available for direct download and mention that waiting "half an hour" or so for a game is no worse than driving to the store. However, many modern games are pushing the capacity of DVDs to their limits, and already multi-DVD games have been seen. Most people simply do not have the bandwidth to download several Gigs in "half an hour."
While I commend what the article is trying to acheive, I simply do not think that changing the business model for game development and distribution is as easy as it makes it seem. Established game companies, like Valve, will likely need to take the lead in changing the model rather than the new developers. That said, there are definate advancements being made in that direction and I believe the model is moveing steadilly towards innevitable and positive changes.
The games industry today is hardly less formulaic than it was in what most gamers think of as "The golden age." I had a Nintendo, most of the games had glaringly simmilar gameplay. Same with early PC games, RPGs etc..
There will always be a multitude of remakes and rehashes of old ideas, but in between those are a multitude of original quality games. And Katamari Damacy is not the only one, just the one with the most press.
The only reason all the old "golden age" games seem so innovative and amazing is because we only remember the best of the 100s of mostly horrible games that were released each year. the only difference now is the massive amount of advertising the remakes get compared to the smaller ad budgets alloted to the innovative titles. You just have to look a bit harder.
Balancing character classes in a MMORPG is a quest the designers are doomed to fail, IMHO, but I really believe it is a goal that should not be sought after at all.
When character balance is usually brought up in a discussion about a game, two factors are used typically to demonstrate imbalance: Solo questing abilities and PVP abilities. If any class has an advantage in either of the two mentioned activites, the game is considered imbalanced. In the name of balance, all character classes are given the same strengths and weaknesses and all classes become warriors differentiated only in their method of kill. However, to me, a healer should not be able to PVP or solo fight as well as a combat class, and in a face-to-face battle, a rouge should lose to a warrior.
Character classes should define your role within the game. For example healers should exist to heal combatants and have only minor combat skill (and should level through using their main skill -- healing, not through the antithesis of that -- killing). In one on one PVP the Healer might be useless, but any large scale raid would simillarly be weaker by the absense of a healer in their party. By modelling the game this way, all balance issues become trivial and the game play would become much richer with a greater variety of play types.
Steam is a good idea gone bad. The good is that it offers digital distribution. Why is that good? Distribution is one of the few reasons that game development houses require publishers. It is very difficult for an independant company to get a game on store shelves, if not impossible. If digital distribution becomes standard, the publishers will lose some degree of control which will allow development houses more freedom. I might be stretching, but services like Steam and xStream could help make games innovative again and allow garage developers a chance back into the industry.
Despite all that, Steam was horribly implemented. There is no reason you should have to run the distribution software while playing the game (This is a particuarly BAD form of DRM when the program is constantly calling home), the software takes way too much of your system resources for it's primary purpose, and the extra features it provides besides content downloading should really be in a different app or built into the game itself. Let's hope xStream is better...
I read this and almost cried. Why don't game developers use the same design techniques and standards as other major software developers? Using hard-coded string values? Hard coding the software to run at 60 Hz? Pushing your memory budget so close you cannot fit a few more characters of text? Not only that, but game engines are re-written from scratch for virtually every new game; the wheel is re-invented 12 times a month in any given project.
I am sorry to be insulting, but the reasons you have given for the difficulty in localization are all due to sloppy, poorly thought out code. Every generation of systems take more and more time to develop for, but simply standardizing certain game engine components, and re-use and modularization of code could reduce that by an order of magnitude. Part of this is the fault of publishers, part the fault of the general mentality of programmers in the field, most of which have never worked on a project not in the industry.
One likely repercussion of this merger is that Gamestop will now likely be able to charge more for shelf space in their stores. Where previously, game publishers would have to pay both chains seperate fees, now Gamestop can claim that the fees they are receiving are worth double. While this is not likely to have a big effect on the consumer, it will make it more expensive for small and indie publishers to have their game represented on a store shelf.
As mergers like this happen in the retail world, and the larger publishers such as EA, Microsoft and Sony gobble up more and more development and publishing houses, it is likely to become less and less likely to find anything but the blockbusters on the shelves of stores. If the indie gaming community is to survive, there needs to be a push towards innovative distribution methods that do not require such a huge upfront cost. (I'm looking at you Valve... make steam friendly and you could revolutionize the industry)
Because it is for X-Box, not PC. In order to release a title for a console system, complicated contracts and agreements must be made between the console maker and the publisher. You can't just press DVDs for X-Box and sell them. Not only would they not work, they would be illegal to sell. Valve would likely have a difficult time getting microsoft to allow them to self publish the game for X-Box.
This doesn't even consider the shelf space purchasing and advertising that is likely needed for a big budget release as this.
These are the sort of considerations that are killing the garage game industry; except for PC games, it is now almost impossible to distribute games without a publisher.