By Holliday , 7th July 8:11 am
Episodic content is quite a refreshing theory. I could do no better to highlight the benefits of pushing out game content in small chunks than what plagiarize has already stated. I’ve been attracted to the idea ever since it was hinted at more than a year ago. I remember Ritual’s clever little advertising campaign with the phony medication corp website that had hidden messages in the HTML. Having a game grow and develop based on the desires and response from the players is very captivating. Especially with Ritual’s stat collection system you almost feel like you have a small part in making the next episode. However, in order for episodic content to flourish there are some guidelines it should abide by or it may quickly loose its support. (I apologize for the image clarity, cell phone camera)
A strong benefit to the consumer of episodic content is/was the price. The episodes are cheaper than a full game for the obvious reason of less content. However, episodic content tends to go hand-in-hand with digital distribution. If it takes 3 episodes to tell a whole game’s story thats 3 separate boxes to get on shelves and publish. With digital distribution that cost is mostly wiped. There is still infrastructure cost for all the content servers but it is a one time capital investment that can be used for many games in the future.
However, less than 2 months after the online release of SiN: Episodes I find a boxed copy selling for $7.99?! I bought mine online for $19.99 mind you, as did many others. Honestly I feel a little ripped off now. Not that I don’t think SiN: Episodes was worth $19.99 but I feel more like a guinea pig. I thought buying online would save me money. SiN: Episode 1 is still selling for $19.99 on steam as well. I wouldn’t care if the overall price dropped (although it would seem a bit soon, more fitting would be right when the next episode was about to hit). It just makes me wonder if they can afford to sell a boxed copy of the game for $7.99 and make a profit how much are they making off of our $20 online?
I would like to embrace digital distribution and episodic content but if I am better off just waiting for boxed copies why bother?
By Holliday , 31st May 4:54 pm
Memorial Day never really struck me as one of the big holidays of the year. It was married to a day off of work (which I never got) rather than what was to be remembered. Grade school seems to implement a sort of “holiday ranking system”. The more days off of school one receives for any given holiday the more important and exciting the holiday is. To be honest, I, an American, had to Google Memorial Day this year.
For those who are not Americans (we are quite diverse here at Aelon.net), Memorial Day is quite simple. It is the day we remember those who fought and died in service for our country. From usmemorialday.org:
Memorial Day used to be a sacred day that was reserved for the remembrance of those who paid the ultimate price for our freedoms. Businesses closed for the day. Towns held parades honoring the fallen, the parade routes often times ending at a local cemetery, where Memorial Day speeches were then given. People took the time that day to clean and decorate with flowers and flags the graves of those the fell in service to their country.
In our fashion Memorial Day has become a retail and convenience holiday. It is a three day weekend where we have BBQ’s and parties. The real day of remembrance has vanished in a way.
Believe it or not, the real focus of this blog entry is to demonstrate how games have penetrated into our culture and can work to bring people together. No I don’t mean the kind of unification resulting in somebody’s mother’s sexual orientation being called into question. Nor do I mean a sample of today’s youth getting fired up over a peer’s desire for chocolate milk. So what do I mean? Listen to my story.
» Read all of “In Memoriam“…
By Holliday , 17th March 6:06 am
GRAW! Everyone’s favorite acronym (and crustacean mating call) is here, and lads, do I love it. I remember the days of my youth (because I am still living them) and I was playing Ghost Recon on the PC. I was hunkered down in the bush trying to creep up on a castle of sorts. I had my funky looking crosshair and things were tense. Then I saw, to the left, a squirrel run up a tree. “No way” says I. And I started looking for more squirrels. Death soon followed, not by squirrels but those terrorists who do not appreciate nature like I do. But the love was in the details. Ghost Recon was a great game and this new version is no exception.
» Read all of “Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter“…
By Holliday , 6th February 10:10 am
A couple times a week I push back the musical assault on my ears and tune into a couple of podcasts. One that I’ve been listening to since launch is the PC Gamer Podcast. As the name implies it is from the editors of PC Gamer Magazine and covers the week in PC gaming. The main speakers are the host, a quick shooting Dan Morris, and D.J. Stapleton, the more laidback assistant editor. While it started off pretty diverse the discussions have shifted onto a political plane more often than not. Perhaps it is because there is a lot of “the politics of gaming” events floating around recently, or it might be Morris’s rather evangelical crusade against gaming critics. However, somehow over the past month or so my perception of gaming has been bouncing all over the place.
In a recent podcast Morris reacts to an article in The Toronto Star headlined “Fatal crash linked to videogame”. You guys may have heard about this. A cab driver was killed when he collided with two teenage boys’ Mercedes Benz. A copy of Need For Speed was found in the car. Since Need For Speed is about street racing and the kids were street racing the game apparently caused the crash. But I am not going to go down that road we’ve seen far too many times already.
» Read all of “Come Together“…
By Holliday , 26th January 4:13 am
Some of you may remember this: I Hate Booth Babes.
Last year right before E3 I expressed my distaste for the “booth babe” philosophy at gaming conventions. Well perhaps I wasn’t alone in hoping that the industry was above this. It appears that this year’s E3 will actually ban booth babes. That is not to say models cannot be hired to wander around a company’s booth, but they will have to be properly clothed this time. According to the E3 handbook for 2006, “nudity, partial nudity and bathing suit bottoms” are banned from E3. Hefty fines are in place to actually enforce this rule as well.
The full chunk from the handbook also hints that people will not be able to get around the letter of the law: “Material, including live models, conduct that is sexually explicit and/or sexually provocative, including but not limited to nudity, partial nudity and bathing suit bottoms, are prohibited on the Show floor, all common areas, and at any access points to the Show. ESA, in its sole discretion, will determine whether material is acceptable.” So no one will be argueing “Sir, that is a Thong not a bathing suit bottom”.
The E3 officials have also stated that these dress code rules were always “in effect” at previous shows, however, there was no fine or enforcement ability in previous years. I am not entirely sure why they would bother to point that out because it makes them seem like they are fine with letting their laws be broken year after year.
Am I pleased? Actually yes. I think its great that the industry is at least trying to grow up. With all the heat gaming has been getting lately from poorly written game laws to game controvery I think we should not feed the beast any more than we have to.
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