That's where the confusion here is then. My dad isn't interested in owning or selling one. Every employee of the store got the same talk at an all hands. He didn't even know what it was until he asked me on the phone last night.
For what it's worth, I know that Wal*Mart does NOT do this. My father works there (Rockford, IL), and he was told by his manager that he couldn't buy one.
He's not even interested in it, but everybody got the same talk.
I don't know how they hooked it up. I like my XBox a lot, but the demo unit I played isn't going to make me go buy a 360 any time soon. Maybe it's not their fault at all. How much better can graphics really get anyway?
Maybe the one I played in EB wasn't hooked up correctly, but the 360 didn't look or feel like anything special to me. Playing the demo made me want to play Kameo, but it didn't look any better than a regular XBox game to me.
I'm not going to argue that KotOR isn't a great game, but how could it possibly be a _movie_ license? Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is a movie license. If anything, KotOR is a franchise license.
It uses the Star Wars name and concepts, races, and other things established in the films.
There is no film on which KotOR is based, and there never will be (that I've hear about at least). The events of the game don't impact the events of the films, and George Lucas himself has said that it (and every other piece of non-movie Star Wars entertainment aside from The Clone Wars cartoon, I think) is Expanded Universe and non-canon.
1. There are older games that these people like to play. If this is the case, maybe they aren't looking hard enough. How long has it been since these people bought a game? Are there any other factors (I don't own console X, and that game's an exclusive)? Other than that, I'm not sure, but at least they aren't buying games that they don't want.
2. They just don't like games. You can't force people to buy what they don't want. You can make the greatest FPS ever, but you're going to have a very hard time selling it to _me_. Why? FPSs aren't really my thing. Sit me down with a reasonable well-made turn-based or D20 based RPG set in a universe I love (KotOR, I'm looking at you), however, and I'll line up on release day. Just as my taste in games differs from other games, my taste in liesure activities differs from a bookworm's. He'll spend his money on mystery novels instead of games, and I'll do the opposite. Marketing and development can't change our tastes.
After re-reading my post, I need to clarify something. I don't think that innovation and new IP are bad. I just don't think they make for a guaranteed success.
With that out of the way, are all of those games considered failures? Star Tropics and System Shock both got sequels (I know I enjoyed both of those games). Psychonauts got more critical acclaim than any other platformer in recent memory (I haven't played it yet, but it's on my list). Was Grim Fandango a failure? I loved that game to death. I'm unfamiliar with Shardowrun so I can't comment on that one.
Which games are succeeding? I would think that the games that are succeeding are the games that are selling. I would also think that the games that are selling are the games that people (myself included) want to play.
If the games that people want to play are the ones that are succeeding, economics is working properly. We'll get more of what's good and less of what's bad.
Innovation != good. Fresh IP != good. Mario games sell because they're good. Zelda games sell because they're good. DOA games sell because they're good. If a game fails, it's usually because it's not a very good game. Not because nobody was willing to give it a shot.
Maybe I'm not the target demographic here, but I know I didn't buy 80 games this year. And I won't have bought 80 by Christmas either. I consider myself a gamer. I play a lot. I own all three consoles and all but one current portable (the PSP). I bought, maybe, 20 games this year.
As long as I'm not hurting for a good game to play, I don't care how many succeed.
This number would mean a lot more if we knew which games were counted as successes (for example, it would make me sad if none of the games I bought were counted as successes), but I think it would stand to reason that most of what gamers like (quality titles in all genres) is what's selling. And what's selling is probably what's counted as a success.
Fable is, too, but I prefer to play in the living room. Give a controller and the couch over an office chair and a keyboard/mouse combo any day.
My PC is for work; my consoles are for fun. I only play on the PC when a console version isn't available (right now, I only have Syberia, Syberia II, and Civilization III for the PC).
It's also all about price. Now that I could buy one for a reasonable price ($150) and there are 5 exclusive games I'm interested in (Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Fable, Jade Empire, and OddWorld: Stranger's Wrath), it became worth it for me to buy one.
I'm sure any third party games I pick up from now on will be XBox, too, but it took a while for me to buy it, and price was the biggest player (after all, you can pick up a GameCube with Super Smash Brothers Meleee for $100).
I didn't imply that the kid would buy one when it's available. I said that the parents should just set the money aside (since they can't hypothetically get a 360 with it), and then pick one up when they're available.
The kid gets the present, and the same money is spent (just at a little later time).
If you don't think your kid could take waiting for a gift, couldn't you just as easily spend that money of something else for him/her? There are 5 other gaming systems out right now (PS2, GameCube, XBox, DS, and PSP), and they can't possibly have every single shiny thing they want. Not getting one present can't (or shouldn't at least) ruin the holiday for somebody.
And I don't know what kind of family everybody else grew up in, but when I was a kid Christmas was more about sledding, pecan rolls, hot cocoa, and time with the family than presents.
Does it really matter if there's a shortage of 360s this holiday season. The current generation will still have games released for it, right?
So what if little Johnny doesn't get a 360 under the tree this year. If getting your child a 360 for Christmas is that important and you can't find one, just set the money aside and pick one up when more are made.
It's not as though these things will be in short supply forever.
A little from Column A, a little from Column B
on
The ESRB Bites Back
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· Score: 1
It seems like the middle ground would be the best solution here.
Enforce the ratings as they are now. Not 17 yet? Then you can't buy GTA:SA without your parent/guardian there. If they decide you can handle it, they can buy it and give it to you (just like anything else). It's up to parents to decide what's right for their children.
This goes for all retail outlets, and money isn't always an issue. My imaginary child might not have $50 to blow on a game all the time, but you can buy Manhunt used for $12. It's not unreasonable to think that a 14 year old would have enough money for a $12 game. It's not just Best Buy and Fry's that need to enforce the ratings, second-hand shops need to play by the same rules.
Ratings are ratings; it doesn't matter how old the game is or if it's fallen out of the public eye. A parent can buy a used game for their kid just as easily as they can buy a new one.
I played with a PSP in a Sony store. It was disappointing. I have no idea if I'd like to play games on it. There was no UMD in the thing. In the Sony store. Where they sell PSP games and PSP movies.
It's not the one game to make me buy one, but Ready At Dawn's game, Daxter, continues to the story of Jak games, is a PSP exclusive, and actually looks better in some respects than its PS2 counterparts.
Slashdot Mirror
Methinks that Gabe and Tycho prove you wrong. Gamers have the capacity to be good people, just like everybody else.
That's where the confusion here is then. My dad isn't interested in owning or selling one. Every employee of the store got the same talk at an all hands. He didn't even know what it was until he asked me on the phone last night.
Sorry I wasn't more clear.
For what it's worth, I know that Wal*Mart does NOT do this. My father works there (Rockford, IL), and he was told by his manager that he couldn't buy one.
He's not even interested in it, but everybody got the same talk.
I don't know how they hooked it up. I like my XBox a lot, but the demo unit I played isn't going to make me go buy a 360 any time soon. Maybe it's not their fault at all. How much better can graphics really get anyway?
Maybe the one I played in EB wasn't hooked up correctly, but the 360 didn't look or feel like anything special to me. Playing the demo made me want to play Kameo, but it didn't look any better than a regular XBox game to me.
I'm not going to argue that KotOR isn't a great game, but how could it possibly be a _movie_ license? Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is a movie license. If anything, KotOR is a franchise license.
It uses the Star Wars name and concepts, races, and other things established in the films.
There is no film on which KotOR is based, and there never will be (that I've hear about at least). The events of the game don't impact the events of the films, and George Lucas himself has said that it (and every other piece of non-movie Star Wars entertainment aside from The Clone Wars cartoon, I think) is Expanded Universe and non-canon.
Great game? Yes. Move license? No.
It's not necessarily adult, but I've got some GameCube games that I wouldn't want my hypothetical young son playing.
Resident Evil (and its many sequels)
Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
Killer 7
Some of us would look to keep our kids from being exposed to guns and blood in their entertainment.
That could be taken two ways.
1. There are older games that these people like to play.
If this is the case, maybe they aren't looking hard enough. How long has it been since these people bought a game? Are there any other factors (I don't own console X, and that game's an exclusive)? Other than that, I'm not sure, but at least they aren't buying games that they don't want.
2. They just don't like games. You can't force people to buy what they don't want. You can make the greatest FPS ever, but you're going to have a very hard time selling it to _me_. Why? FPSs aren't really my thing. Sit me down with a reasonable well-made turn-based or D20 based RPG set in a universe I love (KotOR, I'm looking at you), however, and I'll line up on release day. Just as my taste in games differs from other games, my taste in liesure activities differs from a bookworm's. He'll spend his money on mystery novels instead of games, and I'll do the opposite. Marketing and development can't change our tastes.
Link? I'm always looking for fun, little PC games.
Oasis is the last one I found.
After re-reading my post, I need to clarify something. I don't think that innovation and new IP are bad. I just don't think they make for a guaranteed success.
With that out of the way, are all of those games considered failures? Star Tropics and System Shock both got sequels (I know I enjoyed both of those games). Psychonauts got more critical acclaim than any other platformer in recent memory (I haven't played it yet, but it's on my list). Was Grim Fandango a failure? I loved that game to death. I'm unfamiliar with Shardowrun so I can't comment on that one.
You seem to have missed my point.
Which games are succeeding? I would think that the games that are succeeding are the games that are selling. I would also think that the games that are selling are the games that people (myself included) want to play.
If the games that people want to play are the ones that are succeeding, economics is working properly. We'll get more of what's good and less of what's bad.
Innovation != good. Fresh IP != good. Mario games sell because they're good. Zelda games sell because they're good. DOA games sell because they're good. If a game fails, it's usually because it's not a very good game. Not because nobody was willing to give it a shot.
Maybe I'm not the target demographic here, but I know I didn't buy 80 games this year. And I won't have bought 80 by Christmas either. I consider myself a gamer. I play a lot. I own all three consoles and all but one current portable (the PSP). I bought, maybe, 20 games this year.
As long as I'm not hurting for a good game to play, I don't care how many succeed.
This number would mean a lot more if we knew which games were counted as successes (for example, it would make me sad if none of the games I bought were counted as successes), but I think it would stand to reason that most of what gamers like (quality titles in all genres) is what's selling. And what's selling is probably what's counted as a success.
Anecdotal as it may be, I point you at both Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic and Jak II.
Both games feature game-halting bugs which come about through no fault of the player.
In Jak II, the player is penalized for doing side missions early (Kiera disappears and the game halts because she is required for a required mission).
In Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, the player can be stuck because s/he fails an awareness check to trigger a cutscene.
Console games have bugs, too, and they're less prone to see fixes than their PC counterparts (although XBox cames _could_ be fixed via Live).
Why do these HTML articles have more than one page anyway? We're not reading a magazine with physical pages.
As much as I'd like a FF XII demo, I won't be buying it _because_ it's bundled with the Dragon Quest VII game.
I played the demo of that one, and it sucked. A lot.
Fable is, too, but I prefer to play in the living room. Give a controller and the couch over an office chair and a keyboard/mouse combo any day.
My PC is for work; my consoles are for fun. I only play on the PC when a console version isn't available (right now, I only have Syberia, Syberia II, and Civilization III for the PC).
It's also all about price. Now that I could buy one for a reasonable price ($150) and there are 5 exclusive games I'm interested in (Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Fable, Jade Empire, and OddWorld: Stranger's Wrath), it became worth it for me to buy one.
I'm sure any third party games I pick up from now on will be XBox, too, but it took a while for me to buy it, and price was the biggest player (after all, you can pick up a GameCube with Super Smash Brothers Meleee for $100).
I didn't imply that the kid would buy one when it's available. I said that the parents should just set the money aside (since they can't hypothetically get a 360 with it), and then pick one up when they're available.
The kid gets the present, and the same money is spent (just at a little later time).
If you don't think your kid could take waiting for a gift, couldn't you just as easily spend that money of something else for him/her? There are 5 other gaming systems out right now (PS2, GameCube, XBox, DS, and PSP), and they can't possibly have every single shiny thing they want. Not getting one present can't (or shouldn't at least) ruin the holiday for somebody.
And I don't know what kind of family everybody else grew up in, but when I was a kid Christmas was more about sledding, pecan rolls, hot cocoa, and time with the family than presents.
Does it really matter if there's a shortage of 360s this holiday season. The current generation will still have games released for it, right?
So what if little Johnny doesn't get a 360 under the tree this year. If getting your child a 360 for Christmas is that important and you can't find one, just set the money aside and pick one up when more are made.
It's not as though these things will be in short supply forever.
It seems like the middle ground would be the best solution here.
Enforce the ratings as they are now. Not 17 yet? Then you can't buy GTA:SA without your parent/guardian there. If they decide you can handle it, they can buy it and give it to you (just like anything else). It's up to parents to decide what's right for their children.
This goes for all retail outlets, and money isn't always an issue. My imaginary child might not have $50 to blow on a game all the time, but you can buy Manhunt used for $12. It's not unreasonable to think that a 14 year old would have enough money for a $12 game. It's not just Best Buy and Fry's that need to enforce the ratings, second-hand shops need to play by the same rules.
Ratings are ratings; it doesn't matter how old the game is or if it's fallen out of the public eye. A parent can buy a used game for their kid just as easily as they can buy a new one.
You've never had your GameCube freeze?
What games did you get with it? Would you be willing to part with it? If so, how much?
I played with a PSP in a Sony store. It was disappointing. I have no idea if I'd like to play games on it. There was no UMD in the thing. In the Sony store. Where they sell PSP games and PSP movies.
Good job, Sony. Good job.
It's not the one game to make me buy one, but Ready At Dawn's game, Daxter, continues to the story of Jak games, is a PSP exclusive, and actually looks better in some respects than its PS2 counterparts.