Not enough time for good and why Kaos studios closed

I have been doing this blog now since February (sorry for the recent infrequence of posting.... will resume 4 to 6 posts a week very soon as my schedule clears a bit) and in easily 66% of my posts I talk about the hard fact that the average gamer is not the 12 year old boy with negligent parents, or the college frat kid wasting $50k a year to get drunk and make bad decisions, but rather the average age of a gamer is 34. (Side Note: I link to that report so often but it is relevant in most every point I try and haphazardly make!)

Here is the thing though with people who are all grown up; they have outside obligations. Most of us have jobs, lives, etc and we don't have the 40 hours a week to game like many of us used to. Problem is with the lack of free time, the leisure activities we do engage in need to be as worthwhile as possible. Getting to my point....

Publisher THQ recently shut down Kaos Studios. Despite decent sales, the poor precieved quality of recently released FPS Homefront ended up being the final release from the New York based studio.

How did everyone not see this coming?

Saying the FPS market is saturated right now is like saying there are a few polygons in the models for Crysis 2. Thing is that the core demographic for these games, the "34 year old's", don't have enough time to play every FPS that comes out. We are going to only get the best titles that all of our friends are getting. We want new ideas that make the interactive medium more enticing. You can't just say "well we have an awesome story!" That only works in books and movies; it takes more to carry a game (see this post).

Right now the FPS war is dominated by the Battlefields, the Call of Duties, and the Halo's. Unless you are willing to spend millions of dollars and throw as much top notch talent as you got, you can not compete with a standard FPS. If you are clever you can try something completely different (upcoming post on why Left 4 Dead is the best FPS series in the last 4 years), but ultimately AAA publishers are not willing to put enough eggs in one basket and really take a risk on a product.

The video game industry needs to realize that the business model of good makes more money than great will not propel them to profitability. What I am really trying to say is that if I can only play one new game every couple months it's not going to be good. It's not even going to be great. I, and the core demographic whom I represent, only have time for the best.

How many layoff's from Valve have we ever read about? Even Blizzard?

I don't have time tonight but I really want to expand on this idea with my thoughts on publisher Kalypso, with whom I am very torn.

Battlefeild 3's existence

So I watched the 12 minute game play video for EA's COD killer and you can color me impressed. I have said before in this blog that soldiers shooting soldiers, being in space, or in a real life situation is a bit played out for me, but the 12 minutes of game play we saw had some of the best current gen graphics we have seen, had realistic and beautifully rendered and designed environments, had some incredible voice acting (and not just for a video game), and in general was incredibly well produced. It looks like what a Call of Duty killer should like and Activision should be quaking in their boots.



With that said I'm not impressed because, despite looking amazing, it still looks like soldiers shooting soldiers.

Of course it will sell well. It will get glowing reviews. I will get $15 map packs for the multiplayer. It will be a fiscal success for EA in the same vein as Madden. My issue is that it does nothing to take risks or move our industry forward.

Now, any number of people I know would call me a hypocrite citing that the game already clearly tackles a real world current event issue. We have young men and women from the US and many other countries all over the world fighting together against insurgency in the Middle East. We have makeshift revolutions going on in the Ivory Coast, Libya, sort of Egypt, and many other North African and Middle Eastern countries. What is going on right now is complex and mature and video games have not been afraid to tackle "modern warfare as a subject matter and setting.

Beef is that it's been done to death. It may look beautiful and may be expertly written and produced, but is it different enough to really resonate?

I actually played the original Modern Warfare about a year ago (I know, pretty late to the party but hello?! PC Master race here) on XBOX 360 and I was legitimately impressed then too. The game felt real and was brilliantly produced. It wasn't perfect, but then again what game is? I feel it was different enough that it resonated, but when I went online to play some of the acclaimed multiplayer there wasn't a match to be found.

War FPS's are the new Madden except we get 2 every year. They are more expensive roster updates and for every one that sells well it holds back innovation and our industry from real growth as an artistic medium.

PAX East 2011 Day 1

Well day one was quite amazing as to be expected. I did skip the keynote speech for reasons I already went over (and will prolly do a follow up to that soon anyways). Let's start with a few highlights for me.

[Quick side note, the pictures look like ass because they were taken with my phone camera. Taking a real camera today to get some MUCH better pics]

First off, I am happy to report that I am starting to think I was wrong about 38 Studios and Kingdoms of Amalur. Now full disclosure; I did get the shake Curt Schilling's hand, and as a huge RedSox fan, that is kind of awe inspiring. I didn't get any pictures though much to my chagrin. Anyways, the game looked reasonably solid, considering the gameplay demo we got was a pre-alpha build. One thing that really impressed me about Curt's attitude is that he is fully aware that KoA is not breaking any new ground as a fantasy RPG, but he wants it to be the absolute best. He is going for the Die-Hard effect (topic of a future post). The game right now looks an awful lot like Fable to me with more of a focus on fast paced, combo driven combat. To be honest the demo looked like a hell of a lot of fun, with really fast paced and visceral combat, beautiful visuals, and an interface that seemed very streamlined and functional, yet potentially as deep as many hardcore RPG nerds demand. Of course he is going to have some stiff competition in 2011.

I did spend some time in the expo hall as well checking out all the booths and what some AAA and indie developers had to offer and I am sorry to say there is really nothing new to report. Gears of War 3 looks an awful lot like GOW2, Battlefield 3 looks an awful like like BF2BC, COD, and all the rest of the military shooters to the point I couldn't discern (and I am sure it will sell accordingly), BioWare had a short playable version of TOR that looked exactly like it does in all the videos, and Bethesda had a multiplayer build of Brink for people to play that, once again, looks an awful lot like other online shooters on the market. Lots of fun to check everything out, but no new revelations.

On the floor I really enjoyed the Kingston booth, where they had EGiNcontroL playing Starcraft 2 against challengers from the crowd while being cast live by professional shoutcaster Day[9]. I have to say it is really exciting to be there, surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd, watching high(er) level live matches. There was one game when the challenger got almost all of his army blown up by blings and just hearing the crowd holler and jeer was almost reminiscent of any professional sporting event I have been to. It really makes me want to pursue my thought of getting a small, local tournament up and running (more to come on that).

Regardless there was a lot of gaming, a lot of Magic the Gathering, a lot of great booths and great sights, and I got to meet a lot of amazing people already. Day 2, here we come!!