Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The First Podcast
So here is the first of our bi-weekly podcast. To download the podcast Click Here.
Monday, January 26, 2009
How the economy affects the game market.
When we see the news about all of the layoffs and businesses closing we hear that the video game industry was recession proof. But we have started to see that that is not really the case. Now I’m not an expert on the whole money thing but this is the way I see things going. First, if people are laid off from their jobs and have little to no money coming in, it's probably a sure thing that spending money on games is going to be out of the question. So if people are not spending money on games then the development companies are not getting their money. If the development companies are not getting their money then they cannot pay their employees. If they can't pay their employees then the employees are going to be laid off. If they have little to no money coming into their households then they are not going to be spending money on games. If they aren't buying games then... well you get the picture.
Second we have the whole problem of the gaming companies putting out games that just suck. Let’s take a look at two of the three major consoles (I don't have a Wii and really know little about the system). I am going to leave PC gaming out of this for now mostly because I don't play PC games. In the past year and the one before, (2008 and 2007 for those who don't know) we had a land slide of games released. I know for a fact that in each of those two years I bought at least 10 games. 20 games in the last two years might seem like a drop in the bucket but let’s do the math. When you by a new game for the XBOX 360 or PS3, (and I mostly buy new games) the price you are going to be paying is around $59.99. Or $60 bucks a pop for the rounding impaired. So that’s $600 dollars a year or $1200 in only the last two years. Add to that the cost of replacement controllers, batteries, and/or XBOX Live. I’m now looking at having spent $1,350. I’d like to think I’m a normal gamer so let’s set that at as the average. That's a lot of money. If I was out of work then I would not be spending so much on the games and in turn the game companies would not get their money. The game companies not getting their money causes them to lay off workers they can't pay and we go down that whole ring-a-round again. Now let’s expand that logic to the people who have lost their job so far this year. As of this morning it was averaged that 185,000 people are now out of work. So let’s again do the math. 185,000 people times $1,350 equals a whopping $2.49 million dollars lost in revenue just this year alone. Keep in mind however that not all of these people are gamers. But even if say, a quarter of them are, that is still a loss of around $600,000. With that lost money not going to the game developers and publishers they are going to lay off more people and we are not going to get games from the people who are laid off and in turn there will be fewer games in the market this year and next.
What does all this mean for the games that do come out? Well I think first we will see games that use old tech and games that find the most audiences. I think that we will see games like COD modern war 2 using the same engine as COD 4. Game companies are not going to invest in new tech when they can use the old tech and make money. I think we have gotten to a point where companies are no longer looking to make a huge profit and have started at looking for a black balance. So with that in mind I think that we will start to see games that have the ability to reach the most people. Let’s face it, Gears of War 2 was f***ing awesome. But it was not a game that my wife, parents, or most people would play. Gears is a hardcore gamers game and I like it that way but in the current market game created for the hardcore are going to become more and more scarce. I think in the near future we are going to start seeing an influx of games that are for the family. I may not own a Wii but I can see what it is doing to the market. Families like playing games together and let’s face the truth; there are a lot more non hardcore gamers in the USA than hardcore gamers. I would say that there are twice as many people who play games that don't think themselves as gamers than there are people who call themselves hardcore. The whole Wii thing is proof of that. So last word on this is I think we will see fewer games released and of the games released many more will be created for the masses.
Third and last point on this. USED GAME SELLS WILL KILL THE INDUSTRY. Yes I said it. There are stores (which will not be named) that sells used games and that is going to put a major hurting the gaming world. Here how it 's going to go. First people are are going to have less money to spend but they still are going to buy games. They are going to try and find the cheapest prices they can and one of the biggest stores (again not named) has the used game market locked up. The problem with the whole used game is that one the numbers of game sold or not reported so the list of most sold game does not include used games and second the game companies does not get a single dime of that money. So their bottom line never changes. And we get back into point number one all over again.
So that is my rant about the economy. What are your thoughts?
--Tiberwolf3rd
Second we have the whole problem of the gaming companies putting out games that just suck. Let’s take a look at two of the three major consoles (I don't have a Wii and really know little about the system). I am going to leave PC gaming out of this for now mostly because I don't play PC games. In the past year and the one before, (2008 and 2007 for those who don't know) we had a land slide of games released. I know for a fact that in each of those two years I bought at least 10 games. 20 games in the last two years might seem like a drop in the bucket but let’s do the math. When you by a new game for the XBOX 360 or PS3, (and I mostly buy new games) the price you are going to be paying is around $59.99. Or $60 bucks a pop for the rounding impaired. So that’s $600 dollars a year or $1200 in only the last two years. Add to that the cost of replacement controllers, batteries, and/or XBOX Live. I’m now looking at having spent $1,350. I’d like to think I’m a normal gamer so let’s set that at as the average. That's a lot of money. If I was out of work then I would not be spending so much on the games and in turn the game companies would not get their money. The game companies not getting their money causes them to lay off workers they can't pay and we go down that whole ring-a-round again. Now let’s expand that logic to the people who have lost their job so far this year. As of this morning it was averaged that 185,000 people are now out of work. So let’s again do the math. 185,000 people times $1,350 equals a whopping $2.49 million dollars lost in revenue just this year alone. Keep in mind however that not all of these people are gamers. But even if say, a quarter of them are, that is still a loss of around $600,000. With that lost money not going to the game developers and publishers they are going to lay off more people and we are not going to get games from the people who are laid off and in turn there will be fewer games in the market this year and next.
What does all this mean for the games that do come out? Well I think first we will see games that use old tech and games that find the most audiences. I think that we will see games like COD modern war 2 using the same engine as COD 4. Game companies are not going to invest in new tech when they can use the old tech and make money. I think we have gotten to a point where companies are no longer looking to make a huge profit and have started at looking for a black balance. So with that in mind I think that we will start to see games that have the ability to reach the most people. Let’s face it, Gears of War 2 was f***ing awesome. But it was not a game that my wife, parents, or most people would play. Gears is a hardcore gamers game and I like it that way but in the current market game created for the hardcore are going to become more and more scarce. I think in the near future we are going to start seeing an influx of games that are for the family. I may not own a Wii but I can see what it is doing to the market. Families like playing games together and let’s face the truth; there are a lot more non hardcore gamers in the USA than hardcore gamers. I would say that there are twice as many people who play games that don't think themselves as gamers than there are people who call themselves hardcore. The whole Wii thing is proof of that. So last word on this is I think we will see fewer games released and of the games released many more will be created for the masses.
Third and last point on this. USED GAME SELLS WILL KILL THE INDUSTRY. Yes I said it. There are stores (which will not be named) that sells used games and that is going to put a major hurting the gaming world. Here how it 's going to go. First people are are going to have less money to spend but they still are going to buy games. They are going to try and find the cheapest prices they can and one of the biggest stores (again not named) has the used game market locked up. The problem with the whole used game is that one the numbers of game sold or not reported so the list of most sold game does not include used games and second the game companies does not get a single dime of that money. So their bottom line never changes. And we get back into point number one all over again.
So that is my rant about the economy. What are your thoughts?
--Tiberwolf3rd
Sunday, January 25, 2009
OK, So I Like Too Human
Back when I first heard about Too Human I thought that it was a game that I probably wouldn't enjoy. I read some previews about it but never really saw anything that jumped out at me. Well the game was released and all of the major mags jump all over it for being a very bad game. Things about how after ten years of development you figure that the development team might get something right. The co-op sucks, the frame rate was bad, and that the fighting mechanics were the worst of any game. So i read all of these reviews and like everyone else I thought that the game was crap. Well about three weeks ago I went to a store and picked a used copy up for about 20 bucks. I came home and threw Too Human into my xbox for the first time and then about four hours later I was finishing the first mission and loving ever minute of it. I found that the game looks wonderful and the voice acting was top notch. When I got into the combat I found that it felt really good. The use of the two sticks, one for movement and the other for attacks, works great for the game. With the camera that is set in the third person and having the ability to zoom in and out, I found that I never had a problem with finding the action. I know that some have said that they fought the camera to much and that it took away from the game play but I found that if you were to use the camera control the way it was meant to be used, you could change your view point, that the whole battle was viewable. But that is just the way I see it. But back to the point, the reviews of Too Human were by far a better game than some reviews give it. So here is a couple of lines of the review found on teamxbox.com:
“For all its pomp and circumstance, Too Human fails miserably in a couple of crucial ways. Crucial if things like enjoying yourself and actually being compelled to keep playing are at all important to your gameplay experience. The controls are bizarre and hamper more than help; dealing at all with the camera is a huge pain and inconsistent across much of the game; the enemies are repetitive as much as they are derivative; the story and dialogue seems hackneyed; I could go on and I will. But to put it simply, playing Too Human was a highly unenjoyable experience...”
So lets look at some of the complaints we have here. First the camera, well I have already given my point of view on that. Next we have the levels and enemies. Well yes there are a lot of bad guys you have to fight at one time and yes the levels are pretty straight forward but lets look at the whole picture here. This game is nothing more that a dungeon crawler with a hellish loot system built into it. So with that in mind the levels are point to point for a reason. The enemies are many because if not then you would be playing tomb raider and who really wants that? And the fact that enemies are “repetitive”, well isn't just about every game out there full of repetitive enemies? How many German troops were killed in COD 1, 2, 3, and World at War? How many of the same bad guys do you hunt and kill in Oblivion? Repetitive use of enemies is something that gamers have been dealing with forever. I think most gamers know that if a company were to make a game with a different enemy for every battle, it would be insane. On to the next point and that was the controls. The way I see it the controls work great for the game. Would the same control scheme work in other games? Probably not. It worked for Too Human because of the type of game Too Human is. The game is about dungeon crawling and looting. Most games like this are found on the PC and you have mouse and keyboard controls. I think that Too Human did a great job of copying the feel of mouse and keyboard control using an Xbox controller. I mean really the control scheme works. You use the left stick to move and the right to select the enemies to attack. Sounds just like a keyboard and mouse to me. The last point that “ Too Human was a highly unenjoyable experience” is just wrong. I know every game made no matter how good or bad there will be people who love and hate them but Too Human is a good game. Game of the year, NO. But worth picking up and playing, YES. The story is good and the characters feel solid. The game play is good and fun, and I don't know about some but that is the reason I have spent SO much money on Xbox.
I have tried to get some other friends on my friend list to at less rent Too Human and they always ask one question. “What can of game is it? Is it an RPG, action/adventure, or what?” and I really don't have good answer for them. I just tell them that it is fun. It has RPG stuff like Mass Effect and it is an action game like Ninety-Nine Nights, but it has this whole loot system that you find yourself always messing with. So it really has a lot of good points. But along with the good there is always something bad. And here are what I found to be some downers about the game (not enough bad to cancel the good). One thing is YOU ARE GOING TO DIE a lot. Let me repeat YOU WILL DIE A LOT! When you die in Too Human there is the little 15 second cut scene where a Valkyrie will fly over you and take you to the after life (and yes it is weird that a god dies and goes to the after life). It is a reset, you get full health back but your weapons and armor take some damage. And in playing the game I probably have seen that cut scene at least 100 times. It does get old. But what I found was that when I died and waited for the Valkyrie to come I could rest my hands and take a quick breath to get ready to finish the fight I was in. So when you're up against fifty enemies and you finally get killed after destroying half of them, it was nice to sit back a second and catch you breath. And that folks was really the only real problem I found and after awhile I started to look forward to the rest in the middle of a really heavy battle.
So I have rambled enough about how I feel about Too Human. Let me know what you think.
--Tiberwolf3rd
“For all its pomp and circumstance, Too Human fails miserably in a couple of crucial ways. Crucial if things like enjoying yourself and actually being compelled to keep playing are at all important to your gameplay experience. The controls are bizarre and hamper more than help; dealing at all with the camera is a huge pain and inconsistent across much of the game; the enemies are repetitive as much as they are derivative; the story and dialogue seems hackneyed; I could go on and I will. But to put it simply, playing Too Human was a highly unenjoyable experience...”
So lets look at some of the complaints we have here. First the camera, well I have already given my point of view on that. Next we have the levels and enemies. Well yes there are a lot of bad guys you have to fight at one time and yes the levels are pretty straight forward but lets look at the whole picture here. This game is nothing more that a dungeon crawler with a hellish loot system built into it. So with that in mind the levels are point to point for a reason. The enemies are many because if not then you would be playing tomb raider and who really wants that? And the fact that enemies are “repetitive”, well isn't just about every game out there full of repetitive enemies? How many German troops were killed in COD 1, 2, 3, and World at War? How many of the same bad guys do you hunt and kill in Oblivion? Repetitive use of enemies is something that gamers have been dealing with forever. I think most gamers know that if a company were to make a game with a different enemy for every battle, it would be insane. On to the next point and that was the controls. The way I see it the controls work great for the game. Would the same control scheme work in other games? Probably not. It worked for Too Human because of the type of game Too Human is. The game is about dungeon crawling and looting. Most games like this are found on the PC and you have mouse and keyboard controls. I think that Too Human did a great job of copying the feel of mouse and keyboard control using an Xbox controller. I mean really the control scheme works. You use the left stick to move and the right to select the enemies to attack. Sounds just like a keyboard and mouse to me. The last point that “ Too Human was a highly unenjoyable experience” is just wrong. I know every game made no matter how good or bad there will be people who love and hate them but Too Human is a good game. Game of the year, NO. But worth picking up and playing, YES. The story is good and the characters feel solid. The game play is good and fun, and I don't know about some but that is the reason I have spent SO much money on Xbox.
I have tried to get some other friends on my friend list to at less rent Too Human and they always ask one question. “What can of game is it? Is it an RPG, action/adventure, or what?” and I really don't have good answer for them. I just tell them that it is fun. It has RPG stuff like Mass Effect and it is an action game like Ninety-Nine Nights, but it has this whole loot system that you find yourself always messing with. So it really has a lot of good points. But along with the good there is always something bad. And here are what I found to be some downers about the game (not enough bad to cancel the good). One thing is YOU ARE GOING TO DIE a lot. Let me repeat YOU WILL DIE A LOT! When you die in Too Human there is the little 15 second cut scene where a Valkyrie will fly over you and take you to the after life (and yes it is weird that a god dies and goes to the after life). It is a reset, you get full health back but your weapons and armor take some damage. And in playing the game I probably have seen that cut scene at least 100 times. It does get old. But what I found was that when I died and waited for the Valkyrie to come I could rest my hands and take a quick breath to get ready to finish the fight I was in. So when you're up against fifty enemies and you finally get killed after destroying half of them, it was nice to sit back a second and catch you breath. And that folks was really the only real problem I found and after awhile I started to look forward to the rest in the middle of a really heavy battle.
So I have rambled enough about how I feel about Too Human. Let me know what you think.
--Tiberwolf3rd
Saturday, January 24, 2009
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