In This Issue:
- Wiikly Rumors
- The Next Generation SciFi Game
- Developer Analysis
- Toys for Bob
- How the Hardcore Built...
- The Wii Remote
- On Immersion
The Tony Hawk franchise is one that has evolved through the years. Through roughly 11 games, we have seen the addition of a major story mode, BMX bikes, voiceovers, as well as an expected graphical update. These changes aren't monumental, it would be rather hard to change the formula of a skateboarding game. But one developer is taking that very challenge. Toy's for Bob, is currently working on Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam for the Wii.
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Welcome to the first edition of my new feature, the developer analysis. It occurs to me that many people do not know much about different developers and publishing houses, and that is part of the inspiration for this new section. Each update will take a look at a different developer or publisher, and how they relate to Wii. I'm not one for much introduction, so without further ado, lets jump in headfirst to Developer Analysis #1: Ubisoft.
A Brief History
Ubisoft (as it was known at the time) was founded in 1986 in France. It published a number of games through deals with Electronic Arts and Sierra Online. These games included Night Hunter and Iron Lord published for the Atari ST520, a personal computer which competed with the Commodore Amiga and the Apple Macintosh.
Near the end of the 1980's, Ubisoft began to distribute its games outside of France. Namely to the UK, US and Germany. They released a handful [...]
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Once upon a time, gaming had no stigma. The game console held a prized spot in the living room. Neighbors would come over to ooh and ahh over at the new machine. Fathers and mothers would smile at their children playing and play along with them. Girls frequently played. Old people played. When Space Invaders was released for the Atari 2600, people in town rushed around a console to look at amazement that the arcade game could be played on their TVs! At that moment, the Atari 2600’s sales began to take off.
Gaming was for everyone, and everyone played games. Fast forward to today. There is a sturdy wall that divides the gamer from the non-gamer. Like a boy’s treehouse, older adults are excluded. Girls are not allowed and constantly mocked. Games are seen by the mainstream as a waste of time and something only for children (or males who haven’t grown up). Instead of being a prized addition to the living room, the console is shunned. As soon as it is done being played with, it is frequently removed from the living room. Anything gaming related, such as a controller, is removed from the public area as if such practice was a dirty habit that one must be ashamed about.
How did this happen? People can blame the complexity of the controller and games all day, but the games industry didn’t start with this wall. Who to blame? And how do we fix it?
The blame I place squarely on the hardcore gamers who, through their own behavior, have turned gaming into an exclusive macho tree-house.
The Gold Standard of the Game Business Decisions
The macho tree-house was the original prison for games. Due to mostly technological reasons, games were confined to mainframes and the few universities that could afford them. Space War was a stroke of genius. But as technology accelerated, games stayed within their confines. A selected few people were able to play games if they went to the right university.
Since the game industry is cyclical, the games change but good business decisions remain forever. One can arguably learn 95% of how the games industry ‘works’ by studying the Atari era alone.
But what is the most important business decision of all that, like a stone tossed into a pond, keeps rippling the same waves throughout the time and cycles?
While university attendees saw in Space War only technology and amusement for themselves, Nolan Bushnel smelled opportunity. The masses would pay to play these video games similar to how they pay to play pinball.
Nolan Bushnel’s first ‘video game’ was “Computer Space”. The game resembled Space War with its gravitational pulls and space shooting. The game flopped, and Bushnel accurately predicted the solution would be a game that appealed to the masses. Thus, Pong was introduced and became the first commercially successful video game. I call the decision of a mass appeal title like Pong over the macho tree-house title Computer Space the gold standard of all future game related business decisions since the Pong vs. Computer Space can be applied to any game and any console from today, to the past, and forever in the future. Those fortunate companies, betraying the egos of friends and themselves, who would make games for the masses would be enriched while those who made games for the niche would fast sink into oblivion.
Stigma and Entertainment
In the entertainment business, there is a common pattern of successful franchises overshooting the market due to enthusiasts’ demand. The movie “Star Wars” in the 70s was a successful disruption of the ‘elite’ movies at that time period with their “deep plots” and all. Even to this day, those movie enthusiasts of the 70s [...]
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In recent years there has been a number of “Space Marine Games” that have been released. Some of them where good like the Halo games while others have been not so good like Unreal 2: The Awakening. Since I am a huge Science fan I figured I would write an article this week discussing what could be done to create an amazing next generation science fiction game that takes full advantage of the Wii's motion sensitive controller.
When Dark Sector was announced a couple years back many people said to themselves 'Not another space marine game'. This lead to the companies decision to completely scrap what Dark Sector was now having the story take place on Earth. Personally this disapointed me since Dark Sector looked much better a year and something ago then it does today. Another game thats being frowned upon is the new Turok game. Again “Generic Space Marine Game” seems to be what people think about when they see footage of the game. Personally it does look a little generic in terms of art style. In fact it is easy to compare this game with other Unreal Engine 3.0 games. That being said there is still some hope for the game in my opinion. While it may not be the next Halo it could be a decent game. Lets wait and see.
While there are a lot of science fiction games being put down there are several ones that are receiving a lot of attention. The two that come to mind are Gears of War from Epic Games and Mass Effect from Bioware. Both of these games look really good. A recently released [...]
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