Words uttered by Louis Castle on the success of Blade Runner at the E3 Workshop: The Inner Game: What Goes Into The Industry’s Best-Selling Titles.
He apparently considered being true to the story as a success – I thought that was quite charming! It seems failures have a lot to do about lack of sales. Tetsuya Mizuguchi listed Rez as a failure because of the lack of sales success: “I love Rez! I spent a lot of time and energy to creat it, but commercially it failed. Marketing said they couldn’t find any words to describe the game. ‘Is it a shooter? Is it a music game?’ So it was like a wall going up. I felt miserable…I still want to break this wall!” – yeah!! Go for it!! It’s a shame that a game doesn’t do well on the commercial market because the marketing staff are having a hard time defining what the game is! That definitely is a pathetic and useless wall!!
Category Archives: Gameplay
The E3 thing Part 1
I’ve had a crazy weekend…so I’m trying to get caught up with work and all the wonderful news out there! Ofcourse there’s loads of E3 stuff that needs to be documented, so I’m just going to do some link zenning here as I read!
First up Robin Williams plays Spore! Hillarious!!! Enjoy!
Player vs. user
Before I design some lethal weapon to kill the bird that’s franticly chirping outside my window telling me that I’m still nowhere and it’s morning – I thought I might vent out a bit in here!
Last year I had an incredibly difficult time discussing narrative with my fellow students in Games and Game Culture! They just refused to discuss with me the meaning behind the aesthetics of the worlds we were playing in. I remember someone, slightly frustrated with me, explaining to me that narrative is something that has happened. You can’t be playing narrative because narrative is story telling and you’re not telling a story. When I then (stubborn as I sometimes can be) emphasised that the whole geography we were in (Prince of Persia at the time) was basically telling us something, they usually sighed and gave me a whole song and dance that it was all code. When I then further persisted in stating that “well the game designer must have had some intention by designing this temple that I just can’t seem to get out of!” – respons: “No, Linn!!! It’s all just obstacle to reach your goal!”.
Am I cheating if I do this?
So…I’m really into a flow of writing (expect a post on what soon) and I’m trying not to get caught up with ‘who said what and did they really say that’ glitches that often lead me astray to even more interesting reading which in the end leaves me with an even more immense sense of low selfesteem!
But along the way I keep using the phrase ‘sanbox games’ and a question popped up in my head (I’m sure if you could look inside my head you would probably only see a big shiny question mark, anyways). So I thought that I would just use this blog to put the question out there instead of using an hour to track it down and loose my ‘flow’!
Does anyone know who came up with the term ‘sandbox videogames’? I feel very strongly that it must have been Will Wright – but then again, Henry Jenkins is a strong candidate as well. So if you know who started using the term and where first – I would love a little hint in the right direction! But I seriously do feel like I’m cheating by asking and not doing the fundamental research that I should do all by myself! Oh the morals of life and the desire to do things right!! Will they ever stop tormenting me?
Public Diplomacy Through Games
The University of Southern California has come up with the novel idea of hosting a competition to create a game promoting public diplomacy. I’ve been eagerly awaiting the results for months now!
The finalists’ presenations are now available and the winner is to be announced today.
Looking at these, I was searching for something creative and fun. As much as I adore and admire simulations such as Peacemaker – I was hoping something less ‘obvious’ would make the finalist list as well. I’ve often thought that the trick to learning in computer games is to hide the ‘message’ behind humor and absurdity. For a game to be truely successful in teaching something like the promotion of diplomacy, I feel it has to lure those who just want to go and have a great gaming time as well. I know of very few who play to learn something and having played my fair share of dreary simulation games for the jobs from my past (I’ll have to tell you about those some day! ) they usually don’t work (at least I can’t remember what I was supposed to learn).
I truely love the idea behind Hydro Hijinks, it actually made me think about Myst and the game of consequence.
The others are brilliant as well! Ambitious but lovely! I would however, love to see more fun and absurdity!
Anyways it’s a great initiative and a big ‘yay!’ to Second Life for making them all possible!
Oblivion rated Mature
Ok – I’m all for video games getting an age rating and that kids need to be that age in order to buy the game! I’m all for that, really! But when stuff like this happens, I get outraged!
According to the Washington Post the ESRB has now changed the rating of Oblivion; The Elder Scrolls to Mature which means: “suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language”.
Isn’t that a bit extreme?
And it also seems like they’re blaming Bethesda for the nude patches created by the gamers themselves! That’s just ridiculous! I actually do understand that hidden sex games is a problem, but when gamers themselves are creating stuff – it’s just wrong to blame the game developers! Shame on them for inspiring creativity!
Where would technology be today without the wonderful creativity of horny geeks?
Update: Guilded Lillies knows far better than I what this is all about! They give a great account about what this is all about! I still think the ESRB is overreacting, but I also agree that Bethesda should know better after the Hot Coffee incident and I’m not comfortable with them using words like ‘hackers’.
It seems like the discussion has focused on the modding and not the ‘blood and gore’ dilemma. I would love to find out what ‘blood and gore’ was presented to the ESRB and what they’ve now recently found that’s offensive. And if the problem truely is the nude modding, should the X-Box version of the game not stay on Teen as there are no modding capabilities there?
Math and Games
So…I never hear about the really cool things going on at this university until it’s too late! I’m sitting here drinking my morning coffee and I drop by mortenjohs’ blog, Globular Game Log Online. From what I can gather the guy’s Bergenese and currently living in Lyon, France which makes this even more frustrating!
He informs me that there’s a seminar today at 14.15 at Høyteknologisenteret with the title “On combinatorial precursors of Sudoku”; This talk, a sequel to that by Randi Moe in January will attempt to place Sudoku in the historical setting of combinatorial research, sparked as it so often has been by recreational puzzles and games that turn out to have more serious applications.
Now…fair enough! It does sound a bit too advanced for my little mind but I was intrigued when the description of the seminar led me to “All kinds of mathematical games are a good thing” which apparently there’s some dispute about.
But alas! I can’t go! I found out too late and my schedule today can’t be shifted last minute! I’m not too upset, as I’m sure the lingo would be completely greek to me! But I thought maybe I’d pass the information along if someone reading this would be interested!
Wooo hooo!!! I won!!
Glorious Wonderland had a competition to win Guild Wars Factionsand I freakin won a copy!!!
I never win anything! So this has to be fate! It’s in the post! Oooh! I’m sooo excited!
Maybe this is my week and I should play the lottery, apply for jobs and enter loads of really great competitions!!!
Things to say on a bland day!
I`m in one of those moods where absolutely everything is boring today! You know the feeling? Life is just kinda bland today!
So I wasn’t suprised when I just wasn’t impressed by games.net’s pop-up World of Warcraft video. It was ok, don’t get me wrong…but it could’ve been much better!
Although, in this state of boringness my mind fixated on one fact. According to this video, 16 percent of the way over 6 million subscribers, are women! Which I thought was rather odd, because 80 % of the WoW players I know, are women! Bizarre isn’t it? Ofcourse now I’m not counting those who’ve quit playing the game because it was too addictive! Which led my mind onto another thing! A few months ago, a friend of mine was complaining about a personal problem! He had moved into his girlfriends flat and felt that he had no space of his own! It was becoming quite a strain on their lovelife and he was considering giving the whole thing up. And what do I suggest? “You know, you should start playing a MMORPG! That will give you some space and time to yourself! You’ll be able to completely relax while she’s sitting on the coach watching tv!”.
Turns out, he started playing WoW, loves it and even better, they’re both incredibly happy and loving their life together!! Now…the satisfaction of giving sound love advice is satisfactory in itself, but it being bringing gaming into the relationship and it actually working? That’s just… Man!! I’m good! He he!!
Games For Health
So...Games For Health is hosting an event right before E3 (May 9th if you’re in the area). They’ve made a promotional video which I think deserves some attention here. You’ve got to admit that this is a brilliant initiative.
I’ve started my own secret campaign here in Bergen! I’m sending e-mails to different departments at the university on different games and topics I think are relevant to them. I very seldom get any response, ofcourse! But what do I have to loose?
Remember What The Dormouse Said 