February Video Game Culture Recap
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Nechrol
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There has been a mass of bunched gamer briefs over day-1 DLC regarding Mass Effect 3 and EA. EA has been tagged by some as the AT&T of the gaming world, some giant corporate monolith sucking money, and life out of its consumers like a global Ark of the Covenant.
Day 1 DLC is nothing new, it’s quite commonplace these days, and usually arises when a development team has finished the major workings of the game and has extra time on their hands. This is fair enough; people want more content for their game. I think the problem arises when gamers feel as if they’ve just dished out $60+ for a game, only to be greeted with a pop-up informing them they can access a new portion or character for a few more dollars. Some consumers feel as if they’ve not received enough “bang for their buck” and personally, it’s the reason why I’ll be postponing my purchase of the game.
I’m a completionist, and I remember buying Dragon Age and slotting it in my comp, and being assailed with DLC for new characters. It took all my restraint not to throw my wallet at the monitor, for some inexplicable reason I felt I was missing an integral part of the gaming experience by not having the character. I’m currently in therapy for it.
Day 1 DLC I can allow… barely, but what truly baffles the mind is the Razer peripherals they have released in conjunction with the game. You can pay around $139 for a keyboard, which allows you to unlock spurious extras in the game. The grand total of purchasing all of the merchandise and packages rockets the full price to over $800. You could say that to have the proper Mass Effect experience you have to have all the accessories, and there certainly will be die-hard fans out there that will gobble it up. I think the problem here, is that in some respects, gaming is like a drug and companies act as pushers, teasing you with jigsaw pieces of content laid out over different mediums because they know someone will want it. Pretty sneaky sis.
Some actual heart warming news in the world of gaming as Tim Schafer, of Psychonauts and the excellent Grim Fandango fame got Double Fine Production’s kickstarter project for Psychonauts 2 off to a great start. Minecraft’s developer Notch tweeted Schafer regarding the game and brought it to the attention of his legions of followers and the media. Soon, everyone poured into the kickstarter page and managed to surpass $1.4 million.
For those that don’t remember Psychonauts, it was a surreal and cerebral Platformer released way back in 2005 by Double Fine Productions with Schafer at the helm as lead designer. Despite garnering critical acclaim, the game sold poorly and was deemed a commercial failure. It’s a shame, the game was unique and had a great narrative but with the growing homogenisation of the industry, it just couldn’t pull in the masses.
On the upside, sites like kickstarter and Pledge music are giving more power back to the developers and artists by allowing the consumer to dictate what movies, games, and music they want to see. In a way, it takes the pressure of smaller companies and should hopefully show larger companies that always strive for the middle (read uninteresting) ground that fresh ideas and the continuation of more obscure and unique games are still viable.
Well, I went, I saw, and I played the Vita at its Toronto launch, and aside from my initial reservations toward its marketability, it turns out the masses went out and purchased it as if it came with free hugs and the ability stroke your head at night. They also generated around 2 million in software sales from the 25 applications that are available through their store.
However, these sales may appear lacklustre when compared with the 3DS launch, which over the same monthly period racked up around 3.61 million, beating out its own DS. What we also have to keep in mind is that the market share of handheld devices has sharply dropped over the past few years, Android and Apple taking a hefty chunk out of the pie. So I’d say Sony are still engaged in an uphill battle with their new device.
There’s been talk around the Valve office about the prospect of releasing a piece of hardware, perhaps similar in design to a set-top box, which will allow users to game without the need for a PC. In a recent interview with Penny Arcade, almighty Gaben said, “Well, if we have to sell hardware we will.”
It’s certainly an interesting concept, with the main targets being Sony and Microsoft. On-live already has something similar out in the market, which allows gamers to play via a streaming service. Where Valve would most probably hold more weight (-3 months) would be the fact they’ve evolved into a goliath in the PC gaming and distribution industry. By offering an easy method for the consumer to get their games, could this new piece of hardware be the next logical step on expanding into a larger and untouched market as far as Valve are concerned? If you’re wondering what the gaming bundle that will be released on the launch day is, it’s Half Life 3. It has to be.
Perhaps one of the most interesting and unique uses of a character creation function in recent times for a game that is mainly console based. The Tumblr sporting user character designs from the realms of anime, video games, and cartoons is nothing less than impressive, the numerous design options, and tweaks only limited by what people can dream up.
The best creation so far, (in my mind at least) has to be the South Park cast from “Good Times with Weapons.”