Good Mechanics Sell Games Regardless

Let me know if this situation has ever happened to you... This morning I am ready for work around 8am but I don't need to leave until about 10 past 9, so I figure hey; why don't I play a little Civilization 5. Now, being the elite member of the PC master race that I am it is no suprise that I have Civ's 3 through 5 installed on my computer at all time and am never afraid to revisit any of them when I'm sick of the current games I'm playing, but more on that later. All of a sudden I look up and somehow I have managed to advance time an hour in the span of about 5 minutes. "One more turn" I thought to myself as I ended up having to run to catch my train in the nick of time.

The Civilization series have always sold incredibly because they have been made incredibly well. Despite being PC exclusive turned based strategy titles (how quaint) they have always garnered commercial success for developer Firaxis and publisher 2K Games. Anyone who says PC gaming is dead just take a look.

My brother's roommate is someone that "core" gamers aren't a fan of. He owns a PS3 and an Xbox pretty much so he can play Madden. He isn't a nerd, and doesn't really care about video games as an artistic medium or as a sub-culture. I have seen him play one other game on his laptop and can you guess what it is? Why would a jock type Madden person be so into a PC exclusive turn based strategy title?

Because good mechanics and excellent execution sells games.

You can have a lot invested in story, or spend a lot of money getting top notch voice talent (Ghostbusters comes to mind), but in the end if your game is fun it will sell whether it is Angry Birds on the iPhone or Civilization on the PC.

I have been talking about it a lot lately, but let's look at World of Warcraft. WoW has an approximate active subscription base of about 12 million people worldwide. That is more than the entire population of New York city. Many of those people are poor sods who never cared about video games, who cared even less about online and multiplayer, and who got sucked in by about as solid of mechanics as we will ever see in a traditional MMO (grrr Rift). Despite being about as nerdy a PC exclusive title as you can get the game grosses more than the GDP of some developing nations. When you have perfect execution it doesn't matter what genre your game is or the appeal of the venue; it will make you money and make you loved worldwide.

By the way if my boss is reading this I don't think I can come in to work today as I'm not feeling well.....

Facebook Games: Bright new Direction or Evil Abyss?

There has been a lot of talk recently by both developers and consumers about Facebook games an their viability as a new direction for legitimate PC gaming. Many long time developers have been gravitating towards Facebook games in order to expand revenue and their audience. We all know about the millions of players and dollars Zygna has with their "ville" games, and all of the moms who are now being called the new "hardcore" gamers.

The question I have been struggling with is "Is this really a bad thing?" My jury is still out on that because I really don't think anyone has really tapped in on what would make a good Facebook game.

I recently started playing 5 Facebook games to really give them a shot; Oregon Trail, Cityville, Evil Genius, Pawn Stars, and Dragon Age Legends. I have, in the past, also played Mafia Wars (like many, many people). Mafia Wars I really grew to loathe because every single game play mechanic was designed with a skinner box mentality even more than say World of Warcraft, but I really wanted to see inventiveness, creativity, and really the extents developers could really push the freemium model (also they are mostly free).

The real common theme in every single game is waiting. You need to wait for energy to recharge, or crops to grow, or stamina to refill before you can continue. This can take hours through days. Want to skip it? Spend some in game currency that costs real life cash. You can spend as much as $99.99 in most of these games simply for the ability to play them unhampered for a little while (GASP! That would buy you both Fallout 3 and New Vegas on Steam and a heck of a lot more quality game play hours)!

We all (well most of us) knew that though. I think my biggest beef with Facebook games in general is the same beef I have with MMO's; everyone is trying to out Zygna Zygna the same way everyone is trying to out WoW Wow and you can't do it. Zygna started with Mafia Wars and since has just dominated to casual social scene with no one ever really able to do anything but copy their models. Every single game on Facebook has copied their payment and microtransaction model. There is no single Facebook game you can really get lost in without forking over $99.99.

What would really bring this genre forward is a standard profitability model that aped what most developers do for iOs and Android games. Release a "light" version that has tons of adds and a few missing features and also have a premium version for $5. Let gamers, be them house wives or "core" gamers like me have the opportunity to really get lost in a vision, not jump through hoops and pay $99 for the privilege of mechanics that, in my opinion just don't have the value.

Long story short I like the idea of Facebook games. Facebook has allowed millions upon millions of people to introduce themselves to the idea of gaming as part of your lifestyle in a safe and fun atmosphere. You can't take someone who has never really played games and let them play Portal, but they can figure out Farmville. That is really great, but many of them aren't really figuring out what true immersion is in a game, and that is really what we are missing.

The last thing I want to touch on is this rant posted from GDC this year. All I can say to the ranters is prove it. So far Facebook gaming is devoid of any real innovation outside of profitability models (well the one evil one). There is no one trying to earn our money, but rather trying to enslave us and our friends. Show us how it can be done, or become another Zygna wannabe.

Dead Island's Trailer is Amazing for a Few Reasons

Last night (EST) the Dead Island trailer was released to the world and has blown up like Hindenburg. This trailer is absolutely amazing (not perfect but I'm not here to bitch this post) and is the newest of very high quality dramatic videos with the setting as zombie apocalypse. The team at Polish developer Techland clearly understand what takes a campy subject like zombies and makes it real and human. This short isn't about the end of the world, it's about the end of a family.



It reminds me very much in tone to AMC's brilliant television show Walking Dead, based on the comic of the same name. Once again it is not a zombie show, it is a drama where the setting is zombie apocalypse.

With that said we can only speculate about the gameplay. IGN's announcement article describes the game as a first person melee game with RPG elements. You can have up to 4 friends playing together and coming in and droping out seamlessly. Not like L4D at all. This makes me really nervous about the game living up to the awesomeness of the announcement trailer as do we really need another L4D with little to no guns and RPG elements? Forget the zombie game part, don't we have enough FPS's with RPG elements?

Here would be GooseyB's Dead Island. Take the journey with me on this one. Survival Horror 4X RTS. Think Civilization meets RE4. You heard me. Early game you are tasked with exploring a giant, randomly generated map rounding up survivors and evading, not fighting the zombie hordes as they are sensitive to sound and would overwhelm you. Next it would be about establishing a basic society. Get a camp together, scavenge resources, keep everyone fed and safe. Do you make one big camp and pool resources at the risk of having a zombie outbreak wipe out all of humanity, or do you make smaller camps and spread your resources thinner? Once you get that handled it's on to starting up production and research to fight/end the zombie infection and then using developed soldiers to fight back. There would be so many tough decisions and emotion to the whole thing. Think World War Z the game!

That concept is already copyrighted guys; no stealin'! Bottom line lets hope Dead Island is as awesome as the trailer.