Epic boss says indie games are ruining everything

Which of course isn't true, but what they are doing is creating fantastic competition in the marketplace for our industry. It's funny how also Nintendo is crying that "mobile" games are ruining everything. Here is what I have to say to the Epic's and Nintendo's out there....

Stop Crying and Step Up Your Game!!!!!!

Before you ask I do believe all of the exclamation marks are necessary. Fact is that AAA games still sell and very well, but consumers, when presented with options, will be more judicious with their leisure dollars. We have options now guys and it will take more than generic shooters and Mario tennis to earn our money in this world economy.

Minecraft has sold almost 2 million copies. Is that because it is inexpensive or because it is really high quality? Steam just released a statement that the original Portal sold 4 million copies not counting Steam sales. Is that a coincidence?

That leads me to the easy Valve method (yes I am praising Valve in a post again. I've been doing it for weeks, why stop now?) of prototyping. I would imagine that the first Portal game cost very little to develop. They took a low risk experiment and packaged it in the Orange Box. When everyone was talking about "The Cake is a Lie" they said DAMN! We need to now invest the millions of dollars it takes to create a AAA title and it has been selling incredibly well! I can't wait to see the numbers when they come out.

It paints an awful picture that big game companies feel this entitled. It also speaks volumes to hear such a big part of our AAA industry like Epic say things like we are only motivated by price and not quality. I will be a full price buyer of a AAA game if I think the quality is there. I buy a lot of games for full price, regardless of length and mostly based on quality.

As a consumer I am not concerned about the future of the game industry at all! I fully believe we are heading towards a Renaissance where it will take less resources to create, market, and sell a brilliant game (once again see Minecraft). Yes this is scary for the people like Mike Capps who think they deserve our money just by existing, or from Nintendo who know that the Mario, Zelda, etc flock of geese will inevitably stop laying golden eggs. The industry will soon force the Epic's and the Nintendo's to evolve and let's face it; we all fear change.

Bottom line is of course we aren't going to just buy any ol' $60 title because the industry expects it. You have to work for my money and give me a good product. Quit yer bitchin' Mike Capps!

/epicrant

I played the Bulletstorm Demo and I still haven't Sexually Assulted anyone....

There has been a lot of buzz about Epic Game's shooter title Bulletstorm developed by People Can Fly, so I figured I would lower myself to the disgusting prospect of playing through the demo recently released. Despite the assertion by experts that violent videogames such as bullet storm turn seemingly normal people in to deranged rapists, I have not committed any sexual assaults as of yet. Granted the demo was only approximately 10 minutes of game play and I have no hard scientific data to back up the fact that playing the full retail release won't turn me in to such a deviant sociopath, but so far so good.

Now I'm not usually one who enjoys such games. By my disdain for the way shooter and action titles tend to be marketed to us, video game's core demographic, you would probably assume I would loathe and abhor the mere fact this game has been generating the excitement it has, but you know what; the demo was really fun.

From the beginning of the short tutorial video until the demo is over the game is driping with a campy, over the top gratuitous bravado that is very reminecent of Serious Sam. There was some plot about space pirates flying around but I didn't pay much attention and I really didn't need to. What's important is that this game has a brutal and childish flair for just running around murdering aliens.

This game seems to be going for what I call the "Die Hard Effect." You can do the same thing that has been done a million times as long as you do it better and with more style than everyone else. I didn't see anything new here, but what I did see was a fast paced, immature guilty pleasure shooter that looks amazing and seems to be fun where it counts. Let's see how this game does when it releases on February 22nd.