Archive for the ‘Featured’ Category

IndieCade 2009 is now over and with it, a new batch of stunning independently (mostly) developed games have one won awards. Hosted this year in Culver City, CA gamers, developers, and press bustled about this small southern California town for four days of presentation, speeches, awards and most importantly, games! This year there have been a slew of comments comparing the young game awards to the Sundance Film Festival, which seems to sit well with the awards presenters who are taking aim at a growing demographic within the game industry that prefer artistically driven, creative games that are often free.

The primary difference between Sundance and IndieCade is that Sundance (and other, prestigious independent film festivals) tend to set trends for the coming years, inspire the mainstream or often times propel the careers of young directors and actors who successful display their film. IndieCade has yet to prove it can do this. By and large the indy genre remains inconsequential to the mainstream consumer base and publishers alike. Games tend not to influence much beyond other indy games and very few developers have been able to leverage their success as an indy developer into a larger career in the industry. Now, to be fair we have seen smaller, sort-of independent games such as Defense Grid: The Awakening, World of Goo and Braid tap into the mainstream and prove that indy (sort of) games are financially viable but the success of these games was in no way linked to IndieCade. It will be interesting to watch the growth and development of this niche and the award ceremony that caters to it and see if the comparisons that have been so common this year can hold water.

A full list of winners and links to their sites (or media) can be found here, on the IndieCade blog:

http://www.indiecade.com/index.php?/blog/entries/indiecade-applauds-2009-finalists-and-awardees/

The most impressive I’ve seen from the selection this year has to be Closure, developed by Tyler Glaiel and Jon Schubbe which is a platform puzzle game that uses beautiful and somewhat creepy art design, using light and shadow to guide a player threw increasingly complex levels. If you haven’t checked it out yet you really need to. Closure kicks open the doors for a new world of flash gaming creates an atmosphere for the player.

If you’re a Street Fighter nut like me, you’re probably aware of the recently announced Super Street Fighter IV that’s coming to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.  And if you’re already aware of Super Street Fighter IV, you’re probably aware of the new warrior, Juri, who was specially designed for the South Korean audience.

In a recent interview with Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono, he explains that that the president of Capcom pointed out the lack of a South Korean fighter in the game, and rightfully so. There is a huge fighting game fan base in Korea and the addition of a Korean character may certainly draw them to Street Fighter.

But alas, there’s already grumbling among the Korean player base complaining of her design. Yes, she’s no May Lee, but at least she doesn’t look like Blanka. (I have nothing but love for Blanka by the way!) Over-the-top design is part of what makes Street Fighter, Street Fighter.

Best Korean Fighter Designed Ever

Personally, I don’t let the backgrounds of the fighters dictate my like or dislike for them. I’ll stick with Guile and wtfbbqpwn any noob who chooses their character based on their nationality.

See Juri in action below:

Why There Is A Korean Fighter In Super Street Fighter IV [Kotaku]

Tokyo Game Show 2009

TGS 09 was a failure. The headlines have been saying this for several days now: attendance is down, several normally filled-to-bursting halls closed off, and even some of the remaining show space was dedicated to museum pieces of armor from the country’s history rather than games. Capcom’s Keiji Inafune, the creator of Mega Man and Dead Rising, even went so far as to go on record as saying, “Man, Japan is over. We’re done. Our game industry is finished.”

But why?

What has brought the industry that was so much a part of our gaming culture to its knees? In a few words: their attempt to imitate western development. America invented the video game, and for a long time, it didn’t know what to do with it. American game development companies certainly tried, but western-developed console games were looked down upon…and with reason. They usually sucked.

What western companies tried to do in the NES through Playstation eras was emulate Japan…but there are problems with that: an incomplete understanding of the culture that gave birth to the game being the most important. What need was the game supposed to address? What were the critical design philosophies that made this work, and what philosophies needed to be thrown out to address those needs?

History repeats itself now in Tokyo. For the last few years, Japan has been trying to create the sorts of games western developers might, because they need to garner a worldwide audience to make it in this world, and they perceive western games to be what everyone wants. In doing so however, they trip over their incomplete understanding of the culture that birthed the games they’re trying to emulate. The result are cries of Japanese developers not “getting it”.

There’s a nasty cycle building up: Sony and Microsoft develop the next big HD console. Game development companies need to amass huge budgets to take advantage of the graphics capabilities, so they begin looking to what other companies that have that sort of budget are doing, to see what’s selling well, and to see if they can do the same thing. And as the cycle of prettier and prettier looking games continues, the consumer is conditioned to be wary of games that don’t look like a photograph.

This brings us to TGS 09. What can Japan do at this point to save their industry? The answer does not lie in imitation. It lies in creating a game to fit a need within the society the developer is familiar with, it lies in innovation, and it lies within the advertising necessary to push acceptance through to the mass audience. Only when they’re not selling a product everyone else is making better, and only when they can educate potential consumers as to the merits of their game can Japan succeed.

Moral of the story: Play up your strengths. Don’t be the one-off.

Earlier today, Apple announced its App Store digital distribution platform reached two billion downloads. That’s 500,000 downloads in just over three months from their July milestone of 1.5 billion downloads. Venture Beat reports that out of the 85,000 apps available for consumers, just fewer than 20% or 16,000 of those are games, making games the single largest category of software available through the App Store. Apple also announced that they have 50 million units on the market split between the iPhone and the iPod Touch that can utilize the App Store.

With Apple’s increasing interest in games and utilizing them in their already dominate role in media digital distribution, it’s not surprising that major game players such as Sony are taking a cue from Apple when preparing their own app stores. It will prove challenging, even for dominate gaming publishers  to offer a viable platform to compete with the App Store. Apple already offers an enormous consumer base, integrated media devices and low overhead for developers (especially indy developers); all of which will prove hard to chip away at. As other smart phone publishers ramp up their software offerings and Sony prepares to launch their PSP GO, which will be designed around a digital distribution platform, there will at least be healthy competition to keep Apple on their feet but for now, their spot at the top looks very secure.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/09/28appstore.html

It’s no secret: Aion is suffering from severe server queues.  NCSoft has been quick to respond to concerned and angry players that they knew that this would happen all along, and that their players’ concerns were not falling on deaf ears.

So what happened?  If they were so savvy, why didn’t they do anything to prepare?

According to their announcement, it was to avoid “adding new servers too quickly that are then underpopulated and don’t deliver a fun experience for players.” For this, I must applaud them.

Sure, we have to deal with hour-spanning waits to get in and create a new character, which I’m sure must be murder for those of us who have already been waiting for what seems an eternity for this game to come out. But how many times have we seen a game that simply starts pumping out new servers on demand when they first open? How often have we seen those games suffer from a severe lack of population density? Do we really want to deal with server merges in this game, too?

Having worked on some of those games myself, I will admit that there is a bit of difference between Aion and them. Aion has a mountain of hype behind it, and it holds the unique position of being a Korean pay-to-play. If this just another free-to-play game, or if it didn’t have the backing Aion has, denying so many players from immediate access would be murder, since most would have no problem leaving the game never to come back. But here, players are dually-invested, and Aion is in the distinct position of being able to look to the future, and only to the future.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not particularly excited for Aion, myself. Flying aside, I haven’t seen anything in it that’s got me too fired up. But I have to admit that it’s a fine good-looking game, and I have to acknowledge it when the publishers make the right call, no matter how painful.

Here’s to you, NCSoft. Now let me in your damned game.

Harvesting in FarmVille

Having recently come into a lot of free time that was neatly distributed into small nuggets that I couldn’t put towards anything meaningful, I’ve taken to playing some of the more popular games on Facebook. In particular, I became a fan of both of Zynga’s most popular offerings, “Mafia Wars” and “FarmVille”. (Yes, for those of you keeping track, this makes me a Mafia Farmer.)

I’ll admit that I was initially leery. The concept of flash games in a social network was a little bit awkward to me. I wasn’t going to find deep, meaningful gameplay. There would be no grand stories told in the methods of Halo or Final Fantasy, and further, it was all but guaranteed micro transactions – something that I feel can be implemented very badly in games – would be in.

To say that my concerns about the gameplay and storytelling were fully valid goes without saying. To say that I enjoyed it immensely nonetheless is something I was not expecting, however. There was plenty to enjoy about these games: very appropriate, beautiful art assets, quickly picked up gameplay, and compelling leveling up rewards all kept me interested and coming back for more.

The big thing that interested me in this however was the Facebook integration. Zynga and its fellow Facebook game developers have found quite the interesting strategy. One I hope will be developed and implemented in computer games and consoles. The strategy is this: social networks such as Facebook encourage people to interact with one another. There is a definite desire to linger after you’ve posted a comment on your friend’s wall to see if they’ll reply to it. Even further, sometimes, you want to talk to someone, but have nothing to really talk about.

This is where Facebook’s games shine. During that short amount of time that you’re sitting around and anticipating a reply, you can pop right into FarmVille, check on your crops, and still be present within Facebook’s network for when your friend replies to you. Further, these games advertise your achievements to your friends and attach a bonus that people can take advantage of within the game.

There’s also some interesting cooperative aspects. In Mafia Wars, your strength is measured not only in the guns and cars you own and the body armor you wear, but also in the size of your Mafia…which is populated by your friends who also play the game. You can assign positions for their characters, and they’ll occasionally pop in to help you, whether they’re online or not. You can periodically send them gifts that cost you absolutely nothing, or ask them for help when a rival Mafia is targeting you.

All of this makes for very compelling social gameplay. It encourages you to give, encourages you to advertise the game to your friends, serves as a fun, consistently recurring icebreaker, and offers a compelling enough experience that it tempts you to come back even when you’re not waiting for that next comment. I’m very interested in following this strategy: will we see the next iteration of game development for computers and consoles taking advantage of this concept?

An emerging theme at this year’s GDC in Austin in the growing importance of not only the younger audience but that of the entire family unit as well. A number of advantages are already well known about this demographic and the first is often counterintuitive; kids can drop big bucks on a game. Second, establishing brand loyalty at a young age is increasingly important in an oversaturated market.

So the big question this year is; how do you tap into this market?  Panelists Jesse Schell (Schell Games), Laralyn McWilliams (Sony Online Entertainment), Sheri Graner Ray (Schell Games), Matthew Schwartz (Cartoon Network) and Megan Geiser (Her Interactive) delve into the strategy behind reaching this new demographic and converting the younger audience into a paying audience. The key is not only to appeal to the children in a variety of ways but to target and earn the trust of the parents, so that their children will be able to spend money on the title.

While developing a game where both children and parents can enjoy is ideal, it’s no simple task. Children grow, behavioral patterns change, and it all happens in a span of a few short years. The panelists state that parents will help kids play until they reach five or six years old, but by the time they reach the age of eight, the tables begin to turn and parents need to seek help from their kids. They argue that at age twelve, kids are already worrying about perception and social acceptance, and that boys especially become hypersensitive about “kiddy” stuff. As a result, they get turned off. So what do they enjoy? According to Schell, the older boys associate high difficulty and competition with a good, adult game. However, that doesn’t necessarily appeal to the girls. So to cut the edge off of competition, he argues that there should be an emphasis on player progression, but more importantly, rewards, because it keeps player engagement.

Parents, however, do not need to get too involved with actual gameplay and mechanics. The panel argues that oftentimes, parents enjoy watching from the sidelines, and that they get their enjoyment from simply watching their kids. They also believe that in order to get parents to open their wallets, parents need to see their kids excited about the game, and they need to be constantly reminded about the game. So not only is it important to design a game where players can simply hang out, but to keep parents in the loop and engaged by providing rewards and incentives so that they know their kids are still enjoying the game they play.

Since its launch last April, Free Realms has become a force to be reckoned with in the casual MMO front.  On Wednesday morning I had the opportunity to sit in on the GDC keynote speech given by John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment.  With quite some pride, he clued us in on many of the techniques he used to bring Free Realms to its current state – and why shouldn’t he be prideful?  In a genre that has a core demographic in its 30s, he’s captivated a youthful audience that, until now, has largely been untapped.

I’m of course writing about tweens and younger.  One of the design goals in Free Realms seems to have been giving parents something to do, so that parents and children can play together.  And rest assured, when I someday have an eleven year old child, I look forward to playing games with him.

But make no mistake: the game we play will certainly not be Free Realms.

It’s no secret that this game is casual to its core.  One does not go to Free Realms seeking challenge, and Mr. Smedley himself mentioned in his speech that they found the wrinkles in quests and job progression that players weren’t getting past easily, and smoothed them out.  And yes, while this certainly isn’t the only easy game on the market, there are still plenty of challenges for more “serious” gamers to pursue.  So, what’s the problem here?

As an industry, gaming is beginning to move past its adolescence.  We’ve all been impacted by the first games we played, and those games are the measuring stick by which we gauge our future gaming experiences.  Now we’re looking at a generation that could well grow up playing Free Realms, a game that deliberately throttles the challenge.  We’re already seeing examples of major games with no possibility of death (Prince of Persia and Fable II come to mind), and as long as we train our young to play easy games, we’ll only see more in the future.

What makes this particularly bitter is that we’re finally seeing studies that show how challenging games can do things like improve a surgeon’s accuracy with a knife (handy for when you only want to be stabbed in the right places) or help keep you sharp well into old age, and now we’re looking to scale that challenge back?

I suppose I can’t really fault SOE for this.  They’re a money-making enterprise, and keeping frustration in any form out of Free Realms was a necessary step to keep the younger market, whom they’ve discovered to have a shorter attention span.  When television first came out, many idealists saw the opportunity for it to become the greatest educational tool the world had ever known.  Instead, companies just like SOE – companies that need to make money – created a great mass entertainment machine that churns out lowest common denominator-style shows by the dozen, only very occasionally striving to produce something clever or original.  It breaks my heart to see games following a very similar path.

I realize that it probably can’t be stopped.  I also realize that, in the end, it probably doesn’t really matter which road gaming follows.

I’ll just have to content myself with being a grumpy old man when that time comes.