Microsoft’s E3 Slagfest
July 16th, 2008
These comments are related to Microsoft’s E3 conference and showing. You can read an account here.
Considering that Microsoft has started loosing its grip on exclusive 3rd party properties to multiplatform-ism, unaided by weak first party support, they have done a fantastic job this E3 with the limited resources available. Much like my predictions, they flaunted their exclusives while added value to their already existing services.
As for their showing of casual games, I’m also quite pleased with how they avoided copying motion control and instead focused on key software to appeal to the casual audience (even though they still don’t understand them and everything except for Lips is destined for complete failure). The new front end and Mii styled rip offs are neat as well. What frustrates me though is how they have tarnished a more than solid showing with rude and outlandish comments regarding the “console war” and how the Xbox 360 is trampling all over it, casual gaming and the Playstation 3.
While Microsoft ought to be pleased about Final Fantasy XIII making the leap to their console, such a move doesn’t represent the pulling power of the Xbox brand at all, it represents a struggle to break even in a consolidating industry. This didn’t stop Microsoft’s cock headed gloating by Don Mattrick; “Final Fantasy joins a long list of former PlayStation franchises finding a new home on Xbox 360,”. He later raves of how Microsoft have been tallying the number of previous “Playstation exclusive” games making the switch to Microsoft’s console. Read the rest of this entry »
Three Steps to Success: Summary
July 6th, 2008
With these topics discussed it’s time for me to tease out some conclusions. Basically I wrote the past three articles to analyze what I see as our most significant issues holding our industry back from going to the next step. These are by no means guaranteed solutions but rather a few suggestions of my own that I think if adopted will do some good.
Implications with Classification of Hardcore and Casual
When using the terms hardcore and casual in reference to games we need to ensure that we recognize that they are just loose terms to roughly describe a set of games or players. Caution needs to be taken to not use them in a polarizing or overly definitive manner.
Fanboys and How to Deal With Them
The only way in which we can defeat fanboys is to embrace them and take on board their enthusiasm. Attempting to prove their interests invalid is unfair and not the kind of culture that we should be encouraging. Players should not feel pressured by others if they have a strong interest in a particular game, console, company or brand.
Game Reviews: Critique, Subjectivity and a 10 Point Scale
The checkbox way of analyzing games has to go, in favour of describing your personal reaction to the experiences within the game through critique. Subjectivity, much like fanboys should be embraced and we need to reform to a 10 point scale in order to alleviate ourselves of the petty arguments generated over a bloated grading system.
Implications with Classification of Hardcore and Casual
June 29th, 2008
Language is particularly interesting in that it is a vehicle for natural selection; language allows us to classify objects into groups. This simple convenience makes comprehending the environment we live in a much easier task. Unfortunately such a process is usually held in our subconscious and as such we are unaware of how dangerous it can be if we take control ourselves to simplify complex issues with this form of categorization. What this means is that every time we categorize something, (particularly new, foreign and/or complex) we run the risk of allowing this simple convenience to short sight crucial properties and implications as to what it is we are defining. Being in our subconscious, we don’t realize our own shortsightedness which turns simple, necessary categorization into flawed error.
This concept can be applied to language within our own sub-culture (video games). Several pieces of language fall victims to such short sightedness, simply put, we need a re-thinking of such vocabulary. But before I get to that lets take a step back and put this language under the microscope.
Read the rest of this entry »
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