Silent Hill Book of Memories and Skyrim

Two completely different games I know.

Take a journey with me if you would please!

Joystiq reported that there will be an upcoming entry in the Silent Hill franchise entitled Book of Memories that will be predominantly a multiplayer experience. As I have mentioned before this will be an epic fail. Ultimately this move really encapsulates what is wrong with the AAA game industry.

A lot of publishers and developers see Intellectual Properties as brands to be exploited rather than living, breathing universes that are specific works of art.

It is what I will refer to as the Guitar Hero effect. Something is popular, so lets push the shit out of it rather than take the time to develop the property into something that evolves and is continually exciting. Silent Hill 2 was so good that even 10 years later just the name will help a game sell well. It has brand recognition. Multiplayer games sell well too so if we combine a brand name with popular mechanics it should be a hit right?

This is indicative of what the AAA industry does wrong, but it must be doing something right? Right?!?!

Of course it does! I can't remember or find where I read it, but I saw that some lead on Skyrim said "we just want to make the most awesome, giant RPG" (paraphrasing). That attitude, right there, is how you make the big bucks. Take your time (within reason of course) to make the best product you can. It's how Blizzard did is, how Id did it, how Valve did it, and why all of those companies continue to be profitable when Activision and EA are laying people off and closing studios left and right.

AAA games will always be great if the people with the money, talent, and resources recognize the power they have to create brilliant art rather than analyze trends and imitate and not innovate. If you are going to spend $20 to $30 million on a game, why not commit those kind of resources to creating the best product you can? If you do there will always be plenty of "me's" to throw our disposable income at you (and we will be happy to do so).

Next time why Nintendo is stupid (short answer Wii U) .

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.

Is Valve the new Activision??

Well of course not, but I have had a very interesting argument this morning about Valve's role as a developer with my friend equating them more to a publisher with evil corporation like tendencies.

It could be argued that the only original IP ever actually created by Valve is the Half Life franchise. Everything else they have ever put out have pretty much been mod's on their source engine, or of the original Half Life (which as I recall was developed on Quake 3 technology but I really don't feel like doing the research this morning). Team Fortress, Day of Defeat, Left 4 Dead, my beloved Portal, all started as mod's or indy project's before getting "swallowed" up by the evil, rich, corporate entity that is Valve. One could (and has) argued that this is akin to a large corporation buying up a lot of small business to merge them into the corporate bureaucratic fold. Has Valve evolved into a publisher/distributor rather than a developer?

Well of course not. They are a beautiful and effective amalgamation of every entity in our little world.

Valve have an uncanny knack for spotting and snatching up epic level talent. They see really brilliant developers and give them jobs and resources based on their idea's more than a resume. Valve has about every luxury in the development world and isn't constrained by a third party publisher demanding results and immediate profitability; setting deadlines and awarding bonuses on Metacritic scores. What Valve seems to do is give smart people access to more talent, better technology, and lots of money to create the greatest experiences available. I don't see that as being evil at all; I see it as fantastic practices for both us, the consumers, as well as any investors for Valve as a developer of software.

Why isn't every company in the video games industry like this? Well it's not easy to pull of and maintain. It's not "standard" play (for all my like minded SC2 fans out there). The only other company who was sort of running on this business model was Stardock, and well they made some decisions that brought them away from the whole publisher/developer/middleware thing.

Long story short Valve is great for our industry, is always thinking forward, and has created a great counter-business model to the Activisions and EA's of the world.

Now is Portal 2 available early?! If it is working today is gonna suck!!

Portal 2 Lab Rat is brilliant art, Valve is amazing at marketing and Here's Why

Spoiler warning! Another games are art rant incoming! Well that's not entirely true; in this case it's marketing is art. Hear me out on this one!

For me it is easy to gauge what I perceive to be good art because I have a very easy litmus test; did it place me in an uncomfortable emotional state? Whether it is the one rom com I can actually tolerate (Love Actually), a stupid movie like Dumb and Dumber or Jackass, or something truly brilliant like Gataca the common theme throughout all of the movies is that they push your emotions around like a pinball. When I play or watch a Starcraft 2 match I always feel my heart rate rise, I feel warmer, and I can feel the adrenaline start to pump. All signs of brilliant art.

I adore the contrast in tone between the Aperture Science investment ad's and the recently released Lab Rat comic. Both marketing vehicles are incredibly entertaining separately, but when taken together as a mass of propaganda for Valve's imminently released opus it could be the most effective communication of tone and theme I have ever been witness too. They are also damn well made. It is the tonal shift between comical and dark as hell; but still a little of each emotion in the other (much like a yin yang) that is really amazing. You have the uncomfortable humor of the investment videos and the dark experience of the comic.

It really seems to me that Valve is not afraid to market a new idea to the masses. It is really exciting they are not only putting out an FPS that isn't about soldiers shooting soldiers, and really isn't about shooting anyone at all, but that they are marketing it to the Madden and CODBLOPS masses (whom many of us PC Master Race look down upon and rightly so =P).

How is it that Valve, a company without a marketing department or firm, can come up with arguably the greatest campaign video game kind has ever seen and the best EA and Visceral can do is this?

What does Dead Space 2 say about Gamers?

EA’s Visceral Games has recently released the highly anticipated sequel to their 2008 space thriller (I wouldn’t go so far as to call it survival horror but that’s another rant) Dead Space to critical acclaim. Despite the pacing and atmosphere being more jumpy than scary I really enjoyed the first entry in the series. It was a very solid 3^rd person shooter, reasonably (but not remarkably) well written, and technically flawless. Bottom line it was a blast running around the Ishumura and blasting a bunch of weird alien like things limb’s off.

Like most people who enjoyed Dead Space I was very interested in playing the sequel. I enjoyed the full Isaac Clark costume they had to promote the game at last year’s PAX East, and in general appreciated the overall design philosophy that went into the game. I haven’t played it yet though because I have been struggling with the dilemma of supporting bad marketing and what Visceral and EA are doing and think about me through their marketing campaign.

The tag line for the game is “Your mom wouldn’t approve of this.” They have aired commercials on national television of crotchety looking old ladies going on about how it is so violent and disagreeable to them as an attempt to appeal to me, video games core audience of 24 to 38 year old males, to be more enticed to buy the game at full price.

I have 2 main issues with this campaign. The first being the obvious; I like my mom. She was kind enough to bring me in to this world and raise me with enough finesse for me not to require massive amount of therapy (debatable) or jail time. In my book that is a win. I would hope that enough professional 20 something’s like myself would have the same reaction. Second the commercial calls the game “violent, gory, and everything that you (I) would want in a game.” Now, like anyone who enjoys art and especially video games, I don’t mind violence one bit as long as there is a purpose. Violence for the sake of violence never makes a fun game. Ultimately, when done right where the violence is merely a result of the game world, mechanics, and writing, it is really a blast. Heck many of the best selling video games of all time, like Guitar Hero, the Sims, the Wii Sports games, and Tetris feature no gore or violence.

I think that Take 2 and Rockstar hit a home run marketing their GTA franchise and they have set the benchmark for marketing a violent video game to it's intended audience.

What does this marketing campaign really say about the attitude and perception of it’s consumer base for a game like Dead Space 2? Are we all just slobbering monsters who crave only the most graphic and depraved images? Are our escapist fantasies so enveloped in the act of gratuitous violence and not in the meaning and purpose behind it (being for noble or nefarious causes)? Do EA and Visceral think that this is the strongest selling point of their IP?

Now I have been wrestling with this dilemma. I know I will enjoy the game and it would probably, under normal circumstances, warrant a full price purchase for me. Can I, however, reward such a terrible view from the developer and publisher? It is not exactly Visceral Game’s first offense.