...it's going to look so much more advanced than last-generation game consoles
Now there's an ignorant statement if I've ever read one. Since when did storage medium directly affect the talent and output of a development team? That's like saying your daughter will be a better driver if you buy her a Lexus instead of a Honda.
The articles responses sound more like what marketting thinks about it, rather than developers.
I'll tell you what developers think about it:
DirectX 10 is supposed to be Vista exclusive. Smart people know Vista is a pile. Of course Microsoft will shove Vista down people's throats eventually, but you're still being locked into a piece of software that will tank for the first 12-18 months.
Realistically there is very little the new API will offer in this generation of games, in some cases it detracts from it (Hellgate, which looked much better without the normal mapping), because Microsoft is buying out these folks in mid-development so they can say they've got support for this API and make marketting-articles like these.
Lastly, DirectX 10 is going on a platform that will rule out OpenGL. Not many people use OpenGL in the last few years, so, sadly, this is a minor point. But it's great to have choices, and to have your choices superficially limited always gets me in an uproar.
In a nutshell DirectX 10 is not bringing anything terribly new to the table, while removing very critical freedoms from developers in the first place. They will fill pages with positive bullet points on DX10, but when you plop down a DX10 title next to a DX9/whatever-else title in the end, they will not be noticably different.
we haven't seen any serious/obvious Mario milking attempts since the SNES days.
Um...
Mario Kart Mario Golf Mario Power Tennis Mario Super Strikers Mario Superstar Baseball Mario Party 1 Mario Party 2 Mario Party 3 Mario Party 4 Mario Party 5 Mario Party 6 Mario Party 7
Re:You know, Romero was a good designer.
on
Romero's New Gig
·
· Score: 2, Informative
There's a difference here though. Envisioning worlds does not make you a designer by any means. That's a concept, not a design. A designer makes a system of rules on how the universe in the game operates, and by universe I don't mean the "worlds" concept, I mean the gameplay systems and mechanics behind it that the player uses and interacts with to strike a balance between challenge and fun. I have nothing against Romero at all and agree with your post. I feel bad for the guy because he gets such loads of crap. I don't know how he keeps going after all that, personally. I do wonder what his mind will produce next, be it a steaming pile or an well executed piece of entertainment, we just have to wait and see, and hope people lay off the guy enough to let him get it done.
AOL sent him an apology and said the customer service rep was no longer with the company.
The problem here is that, in my experience, this is definitely a corporate decision to handle cancelation calls this way (and service and support calls too, some cases. I'm looking at you Sony). If what they're saying is true, some poor guy lost his job over the issue, when it was most likely management that gave him the direction to handle calls like this in the first place.
Piracy is a great way to try multiple applications before purchasing. It also helps expand the marketshare of companies who might otherwise be too expensive for some individuals to purchase. It also helps those who want to learn the software, and be familiar with it before entering the workforce (where their studio or employer will be responsible for purchasing the legitimate license).
So don't poop on piracy man. You're just being a tool of blind-faith for corporate greed.
EA is riding on this game as it's next major cash cow. Following grand-stupid-publisher tradition, they for some reason still believe it's a good thing to destroy hopes and dreams with all the hype before release.
The game is just cutscene after cutscene linked together by linear hallways of tiled textures and featureless surfaces. Marketting goes a long way for people who don't know what makes a good game. It doesn't matter that it's complete tripe, just that it's Mickey and Donald and all the bad Final Fantasy game characters.
Fact: Not everyone who pirates a game is a guaranteed sale/loss of a sale.
Fact: Pirated software is another model of distribution which helps create product recognition with your audience.
Partial Fact and Opinion: Many people, myself included, use access to pirated software as a tool for determining what games are worth our monetary support. I can not count the number of times that piracy has either a) saved me from buying a horrible piece of software that marketting led people to believe otherwise, and b) caused me to buy a game (many, many times) that I would have otherwise never looked at or had a chance to try in another form. I wish everyone had this state of mind. Obviously that's not the case, but I also feel that the latter group of individuals also encompass the demographic that would not grant your title a sale even if they did not download the title. That is, they are usually either downloading it for the sake of downloading it, or have no access to the funds to purchase games regularly.
There are as many beneficial reasons to piracy as there are negative aspects. The lies given by anti-piracy software developers are underhanded scare tactics, and not worth a publishers time. I hope the majority of educated individuals agrees when they weigh the facts in.
But it still needs to be said. There are throngs of unwashed masses out there that take the crap in these magazines seriously. I get sick of hearing people quote reviews from various news sources, as though most were legitimately awarding these games their scores.
"for example the on-screen map which is something that fans of the series have been longing for"
No it's not. Sometimes exploration of the unknown is preferred, especially in a game like Castlevania that features it as a major element. If you need a map to find your way around, maybe you should go watch a movie. Back in my day, *we* drew the maps.
I work in the industry, and have for 10 years now. We do not need to charge $60 a game to make ends meet. We could get by charging $20 per game and still turn a profit. I understand it very well.
"Next-gen games, because of graphics, coding, voice acting, cinema scenes and everything else gamers expect, cost more to make."
This is only partially true. The cost of games is up, however the industry's profits are so massive that it would really just barely eat into them to cover the advancing demands for quality and developement. The real reason that prices are being driven up is because forecasts for industry earnings foretell another crash of the market within the next 2 - 5 years. The decision to fix prices on games is so earnings can stay up for the those select few that stand to make a good amout of profit (EA executives Bing Gordon, Larry Probst, I'm looking at you) can come out ahead when everything falls apart, and the only people standing to lose anything are the developers and their jobs.
I work in the industry, and I can tell you that this article hits the nail on the head. You see so much more marketting now than every before because the corporate money men want to get their cash and run, and let the developers take the fall when it all comes down. I love capitalism!
Just google the thing, for damns sake. You'll be lucky to find a freakin' trace of any of the terminology or supposed associated franchises in the entire history of the web that concerns this fiction piece of work.
I think it's a hilarious and fun project they're doing, but the fact that anyone would seriously support it as a legitimately existing franchise (at least before it existed in it's recent wiki form) just shows how absurd some people can be. We live in an age where people will make fan sites for 70's TV sitcoms that a total of 2 people in the human world even viewed. I don't know how anyone could think something with such purported cult-popularity could exist without a single trace of its existence anywhere else.
This doesn't even include the fact that one of the PA authors menitoned on the website on Wendesday that it was indeed a hoax.
So yay Penny Arcade and all that, for putting together a fun and interesting world from scratch and within a few days. I think it'd be a great foundation for a future franchise to be created from as a joke; something everyone will laugh about in the future when we think about how it was whisked into existance from nothing by a group of bored geeks.
"Comics" have artwork. "English-language manga" is a collectin of bad drawings that attempt to mock a style of visual storytelling that most of the authors have only seen in another culture.
Slashdot Mirror
Now there's an ignorant statement if I've ever read one. Since when did storage medium directly affect the talent and output of a development team? That's like saying your daughter will be a better driver if you buy her a Lexus instead of a Honda.
The articles responses sound more like what marketting thinks about it, rather than developers.
I'll tell you what developers think about it:
DirectX 10 is supposed to be Vista exclusive. Smart people know Vista is a pile. Of course Microsoft will shove Vista down people's throats eventually, but you're still being locked into a piece of software that will tank for the first 12-18 months.
Realistically there is very little the new API will offer in this generation of games, in some cases it detracts from it (Hellgate, which looked much better without the normal mapping), because Microsoft is buying out these folks in mid-development so they can say they've got support for this API and make marketting-articles like these.
Lastly, DirectX 10 is going on a platform that will rule out OpenGL. Not many people use OpenGL in the last few years, so, sadly, this is a minor point. But it's great to have choices, and to have your choices superficially limited always gets me in an uproar.
In a nutshell DirectX 10 is not bringing anything terribly new to the table, while removing very critical freedoms from developers in the first place. They will fill pages with positive bullet points on DX10, but when you plop down a DX10 title next to a DX9/whatever-else title in the end, they will not be noticably different.
Sorry for the ranty-rant.
Um...
Mario Kart
Mario Golf
Mario Power Tennis
Mario Super Strikers
Mario Superstar Baseball
Mario Party 1
Mario Party 2
Mario Party 3
Mario Party 4
Mario Party 5
Mario Party 6
Mario Party 7
There's a difference here though. Envisioning worlds does not make you a designer by any means. That's a concept, not a design. A designer makes a system of rules on how the universe in the game operates, and by universe I don't mean the "worlds" concept, I mean the gameplay systems and mechanics behind it that the player uses and interacts with to strike a balance between challenge and fun.
I have nothing against Romero at all and agree with your post. I feel bad for the guy because he gets such loads of crap. I don't know how he keeps going after all that, personally. I do wonder what his mind will produce next, be it a steaming pile or an well executed piece of entertainment, we just have to wait and see, and hope people lay off the guy enough to let him get it done.
The problem here is that, in my experience, this is definitely a corporate decision to handle cancelation calls this way (and service and support calls too, some cases. I'm looking at you Sony).
If what they're saying is true, some poor guy lost his job over the issue, when it was most likely management that gave him the direction to handle calls like this in the first place.
"The "Protect & Serve" type of police..."
We don't have that kind here in LA.
Fuck this site and their one-word-a-page ad-ical.
That's some doublespeak if I've ever read it.
I played this extensively at E3. Shadowrun in name only.
And actually, the description they are eager to avoid that is mentioned in the article; "counterstrike with elves", is probably the most accurate .
Maybe the extensive review is a tribute to the OS in question: Bulky and unnecessary.
All I have to say is http://www.nliteos.com/ (nlite Windows software) to the rescue.
Piracy is a great way to try multiple applications before purchasing. It also helps expand the marketshare of companies who might otherwise be too expensive for some individuals to purchase. It also helps those who want to learn the software, and be familiar with it before entering the workforce (where their studio or employer will be responsible for purchasing the legitimate license).
So don't poop on piracy man. You're just being a tool of blind-faith for corporate greed.
LocoRoco looks great. Underneath though, isn't it just Katamari's art direction with Gish's gameplay?
EA is riding on this game as it's next major cash cow. Following grand-stupid-publisher tradition, they for some reason still believe it's a good thing to destroy hopes and dreams with all the hype before release.
This guy is a *total* asshole. Worked with him for years at Interplay. Just a cock and a half. Very bitter about this PR announcement.
Thanks a lot Time magazine! Nice guys finish last after all I guess.
The game is just cutscene after cutscene linked together by linear hallways of tiled textures and featureless surfaces. Marketting goes a long way for people who don't know what makes a good game. It doesn't matter that it's complete tripe, just that it's Mickey and Donald and all the bad Final Fantasy game characters.
Fact: Anti-Piracy software developers are doing the same thing that regular software developers are trying to do: sell software.
Fact: Anti-Piracy software does not stop piracy.
Fact: Anti-Piracy softare adversely affects legitimate players.
Fact: Not everyone who pirates a game is a guaranteed sale/loss of a sale.
Fact: Pirated software is another model of distribution which helps create product recognition with your audience.
Partial Fact and Opinion: Many people, myself included, use access to pirated software as a tool for determining what games are worth our monetary support. I can not count the number of times that piracy has either
a) saved me from buying a horrible piece of software that marketting led people to believe otherwise, and
b) caused me to buy a game (many, many times) that I would have otherwise never looked at or had a chance to try in another form.
I wish everyone had this state of mind. Obviously that's not the case, but I also feel that the latter group of individuals also encompass the demographic that would not grant your title a sale even if they did not download the title. That is, they are usually either downloading it for the sake of downloading it, or have no access to the funds to purchase games regularly.
There are as many beneficial reasons to piracy as there are negative aspects. The lies given by anti-piracy software developers are underhanded scare tactics, and not worth a publishers time. I hope the majority of educated individuals agrees when they weigh the facts in.
But it still needs to be said. There are throngs of unwashed masses out there that take the crap in these magazines seriously. I get sick of hearing people quote reviews from various news sources, as though most were legitimately awarding these games their scores.
"...We wanted more instant gratification: kill, get treasure, repeat..."
That's not gratifying in the least. Try again.
"for example the on-screen map which is something that fans of the series have been longing for"
No it's not. Sometimes exploration of the unknown is preferred, especially in a game like Castlevania that features it as a major element. If you need a map to find your way around, maybe you should go watch a movie. Back in my day, *we* drew the maps.
I work in the industry, and have for 10 years now. We do not need to charge $60 a game to make ends meet. We could get by charging $20 per game and still turn a profit. I understand it very well.
"Next-gen games, because of graphics, coding, voice acting, cinema scenes and everything else gamers expect, cost more to make."
This is only partially true. The cost of games is up, however the industry's profits are so massive that it would really just barely eat into them to cover the advancing demands for quality and developement.
The real reason that prices are being driven up is because forecasts for industry earnings foretell another crash of the market within the next 2 - 5 years. The decision to fix prices on games is so earnings can stay up for the those select few that stand to make a good amout of profit (EA executives Bing Gordon, Larry Probst, I'm looking at you) can come out ahead when everything falls apart, and the only people standing to lose anything are the developers and their jobs.
That's about it.
I work in the industry, and I can tell you that this article hits the nail on the head. You see so much more marketting now than every before because the corporate money men want to get their cash and run, and let the developers take the fall when it all comes down. I love capitalism!
Just google the thing, for damns sake. You'll be lucky to find a freakin' trace of any of the terminology or supposed associated franchises in the entire history of the web that concerns this fiction piece of work.
I think it's a hilarious and fun project they're doing, but the fact that anyone would seriously support it as a legitimately existing franchise (at least before it existed in it's recent wiki form) just shows how absurd some people can be. We live in an age where people will make fan sites for 70's TV sitcoms that a total of 2 people in the human world even viewed. I don't know how anyone could think something with such purported cult-popularity could exist without a single trace of its existence anywhere else.
This doesn't even include the fact that one of the PA authors menitoned on the website on Wendesday that it was indeed a hoax.
So yay Penny Arcade and all that, for putting together a fun and interesting world from scratch and within a few days. I think it'd be a great foundation for a future franchise to be created from as a joke; something everyone will laugh about in the future when we think about how it was whisked into existance from nothing by a group of bored geeks.
"Comics" have artwork. "English-language manga" is a collectin of bad drawings that attempt to mock a style of visual storytelling that most of the authors have only seen in another culture.
"...gimmicky tricks like normal mapping."
Yes, it's barely a step up from the games of yore and their gimmicky texture maps.