At the end of the month I like to take a look at what the industry is talking about and see where I'm going against the flow. These are opinion that seem to be prevalent in the industry with both fans and insiders, but I just can't seem to get my head around, important questions that are not being asked, or opinions that seem to run counter to what everyone else is saying.
I think “Child of light” is horrible news for Indie developers
I really, really enjoy indie games, and have dozens of them. I play a lot of video games “for work”. Sometimes I’m writing an article or a review, sometimes I’m just playing something because it’s so relevant to gaming that I won’t be able to blog effectively if I haven’t experienced it. Time is a huge factor, and it’s not often I get a chance to just play something for no other reason than the game itself. “A” list games rarely work for me. Sure, I would love to put 20+ hours into Monster Hunter, Dragon’s Dogma, or any other huge game just south of the “must play” territory, but I simply don’t have the time to invest. For this reason, I find more and more of my free gaming time going to Indie games that offer “bite sized” experiences that only take a few hours to fully digest.
The games themselves are often incredible. As an older gamer, I miss things like turn based action and RPGs with simple core mechanics, or mindless twitch two stick shooters ... the genres no big publisher is willing to gamble on any more. With the number of games I play, the willingness of Indie developers to try radically new ideas is also a huge plus as it breaks down the monotony of AAA experiences. Best of all, the games are cheap. Sure, you get what you pay for; production values are horrible, graphics are bad, and game play is never as refined as you would like, but I can live with that. Or at least I could.
This month, Ubisoft delivered a giant “screw you” to the indie community in the form of Child of Light, a game that flawlessly hits all the high points of indie gaming with a risky genre lacking mass appeal and the bold design choice of making the entire game (even the menu screen) rhyme. It’s also a very short game at a reduced price, but that’s where the “get what you pay for” ends. The graphics are breathtaking, the production values are though the roof, and the game play has the refinement you would expect from a top tier studio. It literally is everything that is good about indie titles, without any of the bad. And I hope it’s just a fluke. The future is not bright for the 8bit graphics minimalist platformer trying to get by on a unique premises and a $10 price tag if top studios starts green lighting similar projects. Kickstarter was the first nail in the Indie coffin, with high profile developers turning to it to get the money for games big publishers wouldn't fund, resulting in A list games released independently (but not by “indie” studios). With the break out success of Broken Age, Shadow Run, and several projects yet to be released, it looks like the big publishers learned their lesson and are not going to say “no” quite as often. I’m honestly not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing for us as gamer, but for the indie developer already facing long odds, it’s a kick in the head for sure.
I remember how much everyone sucks at E3
With E3 right around the corner, it’s no shock that many a message board and even a few professional articles are vigorously discussing who is going to have the better press conference this year. And why not? This is the World Cup of gaming, the one time of year we get to see our favorite teams firing on all cylinders and putting it all on the line with everyone watching. Sony has a lot to live up after what most consider a dominating performance at E3 2013. Microsoft, on the other hand, is fielding a new star player (and possible divine being) in the form of Phil Spencer and the hype train has been going full speed ahead for a month already. We can’t even discount Nintendo this year. Sure, they don’t have the main stage but they do have a Zelda game for the Wii U and a NFC announcement which could be the biggest thing to happen in a very long time. With all the excitement and anticipation it’s easy to overlook that the safe bet to answer to “who’s going to be awesome at E3 this year” is pretty obvious; no one. Traditionally, E3 main stages are complete horror shows.
I’m not saying their haven’t been some highs points in the past, but when you look at E3 year over year you find most main stage press conferences are mediocre at best and there have been a lot more exceptionally bad then exceptional good. Even the Sony 2013 conference was a lot weaker then we are remembering it. They started late slow, didn’t really show any games, and they were just “going though the monitions” before a single slide attacking a Microsoft misstep turned an absolutely forgettable show into the stuff of legends. Credit where credit is due, but let’s not forget the past. Before holding a special place in E3 history with the great “oh snap” moment in history, Sony was already famous for drawing “boos” from the audience on 3 separate occasions, awkwardly hyping PSV and PSP games that no one care about (or cheered about), showing us overpriced 21 inch TVs that no one wanted or asked for, and trying to sell CGI trailers as in game footage. “We still don’t have DRM, and we still let you play used games” isn’t going to draw the same response it did last year, and beyond that ... there isn’t a lot of rumors in the pipe for Sony.
It’s not like Microsoft is in a stronger position. With the PS4 outselling the Xbox One in its first year by a impressive amount, the Wii U on an upswing and questions about performance and even DRM still persisting to this day, MS has a lot of questions that gamers want answers to. Questions they are almost surely going to ignore ... and that’s a good thing. While everyone is speaking to Phil’s “all about games” press conference as the perfect strategy, it really just a matter of necessity. MS has spend the last 5 years fumbling every major communication about the direction of Xbox and the last two blundering every single aspect of the Xbox One’s branding. I’m impressed that Phil has figured out the only real chance his team has is to shut the hell up about everything that isn’t a flashy trailer and willing to go that route, but it’s far from encouraging that he needs to do that in the first place. At the end of E3, we are going to know the Xbox One has a ton of games coming, but we won’t know any more about how the new Direct X is going to increase performance, we won’t know if the resent GPU increase will make any difference, and we won’t know what’s going on with Kinect support for the people who bought one early.
At the end of the day, nothing will change for either system. Arguments will be made that the Sony failed because the PS4 still doesn’t have any games, and MS failed because they didn’t do anything to show me why the Xbox isn’t just a less powerful PS4 ... and both sides will be right. Without an “OMG” moment, nothing is going to change in the perception of gamers, and when you spend a few million dollars to do just that and fail, it’s kind of a big deal. This year, it will be Nintendo that will steal the show ... by not being there. After spending the last few years shipping in a full orchestra to play movements from “Symphony of the goddesses”, letting Miyamoto run around in cos-play, and jamming to some Wii Music beats Nintendo has realized that they don’t’ really get E3, and E3 really doesn’t get them. I think we’ll see their second live stream show deliver a much more “Nintendo” message then we’ve seen in years. And that’s a very, very good thing.
I’m not sure giving up a month of sales was a great idea
I love the Kinect. Just the simple things; how it will log in my wife when she enters the room, allowing her to jump into multi-player without a sign in. The ability to control Netflix with my voice while eating. Being able to start up any game on my harddrive without having to find it in a menu. My wife loves Just Dance, the only game I’ve ever played using motion controls. It’s a fantastic add on, but even I would be hard-pressed to justify its $100 value to anyone else simply because it’s situational and personal. So it’s fantastic news that Microsoft has finally listened to gamers cry for a cheaper sku without a Kinect, and the $399 Xbox One is a reality. The response was extremely positive, with MS fanboys calling it a victory for MS as the champion of gamers by showing they are willing to listen and react. Even the most cynical Sony fanboy has to admit it shows a encouraging change in direction from the “you’ll buy what we sell you and LIKE it” days under Don Mattrick. Just about every major retailer has weighted in as well, saying interest in the Xbox One has increased significantly. So it’s in the books; this is a clear cut, undeniable win for the Xbox One! Or ... is it?
Due to this announcement, sales of the Xbox One for May are a write off. Between waiting for E3 bundles or the new $399 SKU, there has never been a WORSE time to buy an Xbox One. This coming at a point where Xbox Hype is greater than ever, and in a month that saw the release of the first truly hyped next gen game multiplatform game, Watchdogs. For anyone wanting to play that game day one on a new system, the choice was obvious; I can pay $500 for a system that going to be $100 cheaper in a few weeks and includes hardware that might lose core support, or I can just buy a PS4. Rather than leverage the up-swing in Xbox press to sell more units, they told everyone to wait a while, or buy the competitor if you need something right now. Worse, if Sony has a good E3, or MS a bad one, all the Xbox One hype from the last month could vanish without it ever translating into sales. It’s hard to see this as anything but a misstep; there was no need to make the announcement until the SKU was on shelves.
Did I miss anything? What did YOU notice this month that everyone else seemed to miss? Let me know in the comments!
No comments:
Post a Comment