Wii've got a problem

The Wii lacks quality third-party games. In my opinion (perhaps the best/worst disclaimer ever), this is why.

THE FUTURE!!!...? Back catalogues used to mean a lot less than they do now, but in hard years, the viability of a Sonic Mega Collection, or Grand Theft Auto (coming to XBLA) means a lot of easy, easy money. The Wii is a different system. It’s controller is different, and the games are not in high definition. If you were to create a truly innovative, mind-changing game, would you want to tie it down to programming that, no matter how successful the Wii is, will need costly revisions the next time gameplay shifts?

As for High Definition, if you are looking at your back catalogue, you probably realize you don’t want to spend time doing costly revisions… why do them? Almost every last TV bought in every last profitable market on earth is going to be in high definition. You can’t change the past, but why would you antiquate your catalogue by 2008 standards, let alone 2028?

The other problem is not the kids who will buy anything. We have our notions of how great it was back in the old days, but there was a lot of crap on the market place, released by top tier companies. We owned it, and it should be no surprise that the kids today are buying the same crap we did, just with a different cartoon character on the front.

The other problem is choices. I am aware how tetchy Japan is about releasing most of their products on non-Japanese consoles, but for the most part companies like Konami (with one exception, for now) and Capcom have no problem whoring on the two releasing on the two big systems. In markets like Europe and America (where the profit comes from) there is no incentive in exclusivity. Because of the Wii’s considerably less power, you lock yourself in to one market. I’m sure many a game designer would love to play with it, but who’s gonna pay them?

Finally, as anyone who realizes just how much corn is going for these days since ethanol became a topical solution to high gas prices, necessity is the mother of invention. And here, there is no need to. Unless your name is Atari, this generation is treating game companies very well. Maybe you release nothing but crap (which is selling). Maybe you release the glut of your titles on the Xbox 360. Maybe your company who had an exclusivity contract had a megahit, and now you only have to go public, twiddle your thumbs, and wait for the money to knock, buy you out, and give you enough money to start your own “dream” studio. There is simply no need for any other company other than Nintendo to reinvent their “wheel”. The market is too good. Nintendo needed a change after the Gamecube and N64. But as this decade has gone, no one else really has to. Sony may be in a pinch soon, and Squenix’ profitability is going to be measured in the low single digits until they can produce viable and timely games that can attract new customers.

Sad? Certainly, but the nice thing about the Wii means Nintendo gets to fight to live another generation, and it means they have a license to print money. But so long as everyone else is printing money, they won’t be breaking down their door.

I smell something, and it's not chili dogs

A brief addendum.

Sega is the one gaming company that delivers what gamers want, at least on a surface level. Their brands work. It may take the better part of a decade for them, but another sequel is always coming. One reason traditional Sonic games, and by extension the 3D ones, is that they rely on a gaming principle that is less and less excusable in each generation.

It’s the difference between “Aha!” and “oops, you missed”. Put another way, it is the difference between rewarding gamers for pulling the trigger, and accurately aiming.

Let’s step back from Sega and even consoles and reminisce about good old Commander Keen. Good game, that. It was an epic platformer with a large following. Puzzles were about placing yourself and jumping at EXACTLY the right moment. But, there were also plenty of “Aha!” moments. You could be running across a level, and oops something hit you in the head! Aha. It wore thin, and the styling never adapted, and the series languished. As in real life, people don’t like to be blindsided. We like a reason.

Back to Sega, every mainstream Sonic game from the 1^st to … and the Secret Rings relies on Aha!. The exploration factor, a larger world, is largely given. Even in Sonic Adventures, the “best” 3-D game, they pulled back the camera for some truly beautiful runs, but all the danger was up close. When you factor in the lack of smoothly going back in the latest game, when 100% completion is an imperative… you fail. Aha!

Mario games created a different strategy, and one that’s arguably better. When you miss, it’s usually pretty clear why. Very little is hidden in the way of an unexpected obstacle. Does this make for an easier game? To an extent, but it also lends to replayability, immersion, and fun. The game you are dealing with, the obstacles that you are dealing iwht, are completely on the screen that is in front of you, and each frame, each bit of game distance holds both a challenge and the solution for that challenge. In the “Aha!” style, the obstacle may be just out of the field of view. This is actually a less realistic model, because generally we can see what’s in front of us and react. Immersion lessens because you are dealing more with a flawed, less human game design that is likely to punish anything but rote memorization and repeated trial and error. In a Mario game, you deal with what is on the screen, and only what is on the screen.

Now some may say that it is simply because Sonic moves so fast, it rewards quick thinking and instinct. This is false. The vantage point is too close to react quickly in the old games, and in the new games, where the technology and level breadth is less an issue, the cameras in dangerous encounters are still tightly pulled in., something hidden, something new Aha!

How can I prove this is really an intentional part of the game design of Sonic? By taking out the Sega element. If you think and look at Sonic Adventures 2 for the Game Boy Advance, one of the best platforming games in a decade, you may notice it has more in common with a Mario game than a Sonic title. Thank Capcom! First and foremost, the points where speed and gameplay meet (instead of the faster speed of moving from one location to another) is greatly reduced. You face obstacles at a slower velocity. And what’s more, a good deal of the game is slowed down. You must react to what’s on the screen, and there is no “Aha” some indeterminately close distance away. You deal with what is on the screen. The vantage point for everything also shows a slightly pulled back camera from the earlier Hedgehog titles, to almost Mario scale. This allows you to see what’s going on, but it is also an issue of space management, garnering frames of location their individual challenges, not testing on how deftly you barrel on to the next one. As games become more immersive, even the two dimensional ones, consistently punishing the player for the unseen is a flawed strategy. And it’s dying.

And if it wasn’t for branding, I’d argue that this style of gameplay would be relegated to only the most misguided and mediocre of games. But branding pays off, although usually not for the consumer if the product is inconsistent. And it is woefully inconsistent, and to be frank about it, always has been with this company. But we love our cuddly wuddly cartoons!

An Inconvenient Truth

An Inconvenient Truth

It is my unfortunate duty to try and help Angsty Gaijin end his own personal fairy tale. In his latest review, a pan, he is sorry that the company that he had to pan for phoning in a Wii-make was Sega. Well, I’m sorry to report this, but anyone who believes Sega is the same company as it once was is wrong. Sure, the name is the same, and they have a blue hedgehog, but more on them in a minute.

My point is that believing that Sega produces quality products is a lie you tell yourself because of the past. It has not produced a completely viable hit in a long time, longer than any development house currently still in business. They rely on brand cache, and unlike Nintendo or Square Enix they do not foster quality so much as shortcuts. This isn’t a shame. It is simply business, and whatever love you have of that house, it comes from the branding alone.

Sega once produced some great games, but now they cash in on remakes or innovative extreme versions. This doesn’t work.

Once recently I read on IGN that Mario’s shape and color scheme were made to fit the very basic constrictions of the game cabinet that would become Donkey Kong. Just think about that, this fat fuck of a plumber became the most recognizable icon in gaming, and it was created simply out of creativity.

Sonic was the product of marketing. Ok, ok. We need a Mario game, and uh, we need it to be MORE EXTREME! So what’s cool? Animals! What’s cooler than that? An animal in SHOES, fighting in levels of dramatic scope and zinging in and out. And it will be our mascot! We need a mascot to combat the plumber.

Sonic was birthed as an alternative, and the character was designed with the stated purpose of being cool.

The first thing about being cool is being yourself, and that is something that Sega only accomplished once, with the Genesis. Over 15 years ago.

The company had gone with the angle of “Let’s be the more extreme company”. The games were faster, Mortal Kombat was bloodier, the Xmen and Ninja Turtle games were better, and in Aladdin the title character carried a scabbard (whereas in the Super Nintendo version he was relegated to jumping and throwing apples).

And to top it all off, Sony soon decided to scream at consumers. SEGA!

The Sega Genesis was indeed an extreme system. Its brands worked, and its losers-don’t compromise approach to game design approach was in direct competition with Nintendo’s conservative mindset.

Now here’s where things get a bit tetchy for Sega. We grew up. And games demanded a certain level of quality.

As a person who has played many Sonic games and many Marios, well, let’s look at the list.

Altered Beast

Sonic games

Ecco the Dolphin

Nights

House of the Dead.

These are all common examples of what Sega is truly capable of. This perplexes me, because it is a list with holes.

Altered Beast is a short game with limited replayability. It was an early and heavily marketed bundle, but its length and gameplay wears thin.

Sonic holds a special place for many, but one has to let the story go. Mario games hold up better, they sell better, and the brand quality control is far more reliable. The level design, which punishes you for things not yet seen, is a staple that Sega never gives up. They like that “Aha!” even today. Gamers, I’ve found, are turned off.

Ecco- great idea, but looking at it now most gamers wouldn’t give it the time of day.

Nights- notwithstanding a mediocre sequel, this wasn’t a perfect game then, it wasn’t a perfect game now. Compared to the heavyweight titles that usually garner geek nostalgia, it’s merely ok. It’s fun and somewhat innovative, but the heart strings of geek gamers don’t pay bills. It didn’t the first time, it won’t on the Wii. The brand had a lot of marketing potential, but ultimately…meh.

House of the Dead is actually a fun game with a fair amount of universal appeal. The first problem is that arcades died. And somehow, inexplicably, playing Dam Dar Re Ram on Dance Dance Revolution was going to ensure you more female interest than headshotting a zombie. The second problem is a fairly weak peripherals. From the NES Zapper until the Dance pad, nothing caught on to an extremely marketable degree. That has since changed, but not for shooting games.

So right from the beginning, I would argue Sega had produced games that were fun, innovative, but stubbornly average. And as gamers got pickier, they would pick up on more nuance, see more seams. We were once gamers who played about 50 games. Now we have played hundreds. Small flaws then are unforgivables today.

And business happened to Sega too. The teams that designed these games are not the same, the company is not the same. This is perfectly natural, but somehow they never forgot to stop pushing the extreme angle. Even the system with the most sanguine and romantic name of all the consoles, the Dreamcast, was marketed and is still beloved by the hardcore gamers. Shenmue and Marvel Vs Capcom notwithstanding, the system and its games are niche items that need to stand on their own. The fans weren’t necessarily with them back then, there is little inclination for them to fall in line now.

So the company, needing cash, will pump out more Sonic sequels, and hope that the internets is right and more people will flock to their games. And they do this well, but the reason you see more mediocre products with the name Sega is because they are impatient, they go through cash too quickly, and if they ever asked gamers what they truly wanted fixed during game development, it doesn’t show.

The brand is done, guys. The company has churned out lots of innovation with no polish. Their old games don’t hold up. Their upper tier titles are decidedly mediocre (in sales and gameplay).Their filler titles do nothing more than pay some bills. This is not an impressive company. Wishing for that one perfect sequel won’t make it happen. Playing, rending, buying, hell, paying them any attention at all isn’t going to help. The brand needs to die, because they can do nothing but disappoint. Maybe the team will choose the Atari route and march on their way to becoming a failed license, or maybe overwhelming pride and arrogance will mean they’ll take their Sonic ball and go home.

Either way, I am of the opinion that Sega has not done anything good for gaming in quite a while. When your brands are more important than quality control, it is the gamers who lose. It’s the nerds who have fun memories clutching at foil. When we were kids, how it glowed in warm gold. But now, we can feel the material, hold it in our hands, and rip apart the magic. We were the element that made games like Sonic good, because we invested awe, and a need for some fast-paced, innovative fun. Then we changed, and Sega stayed the same. Relying on brands forever doesn’t win you any favors: Nintendo may bank on their big franchises, but they never rest on them. The company introduces a new and winning IP about every 6 years. When was the last time you could say that about any other company. The only other company that comes to mind is Blizzard, and again, quality breeds loyalty AND new customers.

Sonic was never for me, anyways. I preferred my games to let me react, let me explore. A few years ago there was this show that took Loony Toon characters like Bugs Bunny and made them into super anime-fied action heroes from the future. They were our same old lovable cartoon characters, but they needed to be extreme, in your face, and action packed for a more jaded viewership. Horseshit I say. They’ll never beat the happy accidents, the “Final” game with infinite sequels, the plumber whose pixels fixed on, the soldier who was created to explore a strategy game who got a paint job and a sexy computer program. You can’t create cool. You can only rehash and hope something sticks. And that’s where Sega is. And until gamers finally accept this, this will continue indefinitely.

So Naughty

Confessions of a Gamer

- I never played an online game until I was 26.

- I didn’t beat the original Super Mario Bros til I was 21.

- I have never owned a traditional fighting game. Ever.

- I didn’t own an FPS until I bought Halo 3.

- Never owned a portable system.

- I think Banjo and Kazooie sucks ass.

- Tony Hawk’s original series is amazingly addictive

- Sonic the Hedgehog is a douche.

- Mario Kart was the only multiplayer game I owned until… Mario Kart Double Dash

- I’m fine with what Sephiroth did in FF7. Anything to shut Aerith’s whore mouth up.

- Cait Sith was a dumb idea.

- I consider Link’s pursuit of Zelda to be one of the greatest gaming morals.

- When playing through FF6, I always renamed Shadow into O.J. (“he’d slit his momma’s throat for a nickel).

- I freaking loved the Home Alone games and considered them brilliant

- I only ever beat half of all Pilotwings challenges

- I have never owned a racing game

- I have never owned a music game

- I think Guitar Hero is for faggots (burning bundle of sticks)

- I prefer any controller made in the past 10 years to the Dual Shock.

- I’d buy a PS3 if it encoded and sent out DTS HDMA. It doesn’t (yet) so I won’t buy one.

- Too many quarters of mine have ended up in a DDR machine

- I didn’t own a video game shirt until they made them fashionably awesome 4 years ago.

- Celes was hot.

- Rydia too.

- Terra bored me to death.

- I have never beaten or owned a Castlevania game

- Haven’t actively PC gamed since the orginal Monkey Island

- That won’t likely change.

- The only game I want for the PS3 is Flow. That’s it.

- Shadows of the Empire was an addiction. A SERIOUS addiction of mine.

- Thought Crystalis was amazing.

- Pretend Mario Sunshine never happened.

- My SNES controllers were made by asciiware.

- Never really wanted a single Sega system

- Really wanted a Turbografx 16

- Wishes Lemmings would make a comeback

On Heath

So an actor not much older than I am died, and quite a few people are really sad about it. Whether it was suicide or not is unkown, and debating his motives, intentions are really unknowable. If it was suicide, he was a coward with issues. That's a big if at this stage, but I will say why this incident.

It is rare to find anyone so willing to try anything, and to use their gifts at their full cylinder. And to do so in your 20's is indeed amazing. To be performing at such a high level at the things you wanted to do... it is an amazing feat that more of us can say we envy than experience. Also because the guy was apparently gosh-darn likable. Affability is a quality that doesn't ensure success or happiness, but it is an important thing most people can't figure out.

He was really, really good. People may think his Joker is nothing like the Joker. But to the initiated to the darker world of graphic novels, that first trailer shows a Joker that would scare the crap out of the Joker from the early 90's. And given the realistic approach, that should tell you something. It looks to be an amazing performance, and when I see this movie with friends this July, we will wear black, only not because it's Batman.

On Monsters

On Apple:

The user base of Apple has been labeled recently as more liberal, and diversity tolerant than the national average.

Which poses an uncomfortable question… how on earth did this happen?

As I said previously, Apple’s philosophy cannot get its hands dirty with the poor the way Microsoft or Linux does. Or more to the point: it hasn’t. You would think this would be a great concern to its user base, but oddly it isn’t.

Their great philanthropy push is the one that had potential, but ultimately they are slaves to fashion. I’m referring of course, to the (red) label. The idea behind the (red) label is clothing and accessories that, after manufacturing and other associated costs, a small portion of money is given to the Aids fund.

This fails for several reasons. The first is that it doesn’t work. At the Gap, which has also embraced the label… much of the clothing is marked down to clearance. It was initially more expensive. Most of it is butt ugly. It costs more in general. The crass pricing shows that Gap still wanted their profit, and failing that, was willing to liquidate in search of profitability.

The (red) label is the laziest and greediest form of charity in modern times. And Apple has signed up with the (red) iPod shuffle. This is lazy beyond lazy.

True charity comes at the expense of profit or margin. Tying most of the products down to a specific color, as many do, means that the popularity (and profits) of silver and black will never be in jeopardy. This sort of philanthropy is nutless.

Microsoft’s philanthropy is personal and also company-based. You can say that the company’s charity is publicity; its owners charity is decidedly not going to mark away years of hostile moves. It makes inroads that could be argued to lead to profit, and this is true. Every saved life that is later educated on a cheap Windows version may be a customer someday. The key here is the maybe. The key here is that something is being done.

Linux makes inroads because they are cheap, but their mission is also genuine, and also a form of marketing. Even Linus Torvalds admits that the system must make a profit SOMEDAY. But it is inroads such as this that are not cool, but will end up making fans the world over. It will help educate the uneducated. It will bring technology to parts of the earth that are as close to hell as you can imagine. You will NOT find the Macbook Air, clean and sleek and pure as snow, near such people. Linux is the antithesis of cool; geek may be in, but searching for the right wireless drivers is not.

I’m beyond caring about the fiscal reasons, the fact is that something substantial is being done. And those efforts eclipse those by (red). And thus, by Apple. The program itself is not a bad idea, but by the time companies have implemented it, it lacks any real tooth, relying solely on niche cache. The problem being that ultimately if people don’t like the product, they won’t be moved to buy it. And money isn’t given.

Apple loves to gloat and be abrasive and smug, but when it involves things that truly matter, they have zero bragging rights.

This is embarrassing. What concerns me is that so many people of a certain view turn a deaf ear, white ear buds in. Is this the price of cool?

It’s fine if Apple wants to run with the big dogs. It is fine if they want to compete aggressively. But this is the big issue for the next 20 years of computing, and they have been unwilling to step up to the plate. Ultimately, we vote with our money. And millions are voting against their ideals in favor of white shiny. And that makes me red.

Cloverfield confounds me. People complain about the shaky cam, but we are rarely spoiled by this good a shaky cam. The first thing about most shaky cam work is that it involves violent cuts. The action on Cloverfield is mostly seamless, so it is easier to focus. Watch the Bourne series’ car chase scenes- the effect of a bouncing camera and multiple split second cuts is jarring. In Blair Witch, you were talking about a low grade camera. This makes it harder to focus. No hand camera is as good as the one they filmed Cloverfield with, and few are as focused and stable.

My reaction to this movie is the most disturbed I have been by a movie ever. Ever. It got to me where I couldn’t sleep. It depressed me. And I never want to see it again. The only time I want to bear witness sheer terror like that again is if I’m actually there. The feeling of helplessness coupled by immersiveness of the story and camera work… it’s something that wasn’t enjoyable. But it was still good.

The creature is… hell. Whomever conjured this deserves an Oscar and a punch to the face. They have created an abomination, which no matter how impressive still offends me. I will never imagine anything like this, and I’m really, really proud of that. The spores it gives off are less frightening, but what they do to a cute girl is an image I can’t erase out of my head. My senses were offended. I am glad I saw the movie, but I will never, ever see it again. It will not sit in my bookshelf, and I will leave the room if it is on. There are just some things I have no desire to see.

Interwebs

I was asked recently what I thought about the whole ethics thing that’s currently going on (such as Gertsmann-gate, et al).

This dismays me because I thought I had my point clear: the rating system is broken because of the internet. And only a bonafide internet solution can fix it.

Here are some facts that are lost in the hyperbole surrounding this issue.
1. The "money" is already firmly entrenched at every level.
2. You cannot, and will not change this.
3. No reviewer can safely do their job under the current environment.
4. Integrity pays the bills... to a point. Yes, Penny Arcade may make a killing and still being honest, but their annual budget is less than Grand Theft Auto 4's upcoming ad campaign. In a game of numbers, integrity loses to marketing's sheer number strengths. You use game reviews as either a sales percentage booster, or as a necessary write-down. And minimizing that write down is worth millions and millions of dollars.

Any viable solution is going to have to account for the money, and THEN it must address how fraught doing business on the internet is.

Let me explain. On the internet, you can find people who agree with you 100%. I cannot point to one thing on the internet (and that includes 2 girls 1 cup) wherein you couldn’t find somebody who shares the same viewpoints and interest.

Think about that. No matter how reprehensible, illogical, or batshit perverted the idea, you can find legion on the internet.

What does this mean? Well, from a psychological point of view, it means even bad ideas can find a place to grow. It means that you are UNDERSTOOD. There is something very final about writing down something. That more and more of people’s lives are being posted and portrayed on the internet, we find a simple breakdown.

When someone did something dumb in the past, the near universal peer pressure meant that, if sanity didn’t take hold, then usually the thought of being egged at the grocery store did. One is never as powerful as many.

Now video games are a small part of this, and it is to the genius credit of some of these shady companies that they have discovered it. A reviewer’s score doesn’t mean a hill of beans in any town. Marketing is all about numbers; and you can only hope to subtract numbers with people like Gertsmann.

Now to Wikipedia for further examples- Wikipedia is an awesome source of news and information, but you have to remember that ANYONE can post. And when anyone can post, anything can be valid. So my big deal with the internet is that everything can and will be valid.

So the dilemma of trying to appoint an integrity-based or revised hard score (such as stores for movies) seems to be applying a 20^th century solution to a 21^st century problem. Integrity can be profitable (see Penny Arcade), but to truly help inform and create, there has to be a lot of outside the box thinking.

Considering the services that a good reviewer can mete out to the reader, I find this issue important. But there is something about current scoring that offends people. It’s not so much that they disagree. They are OFFENDED.

And that’s the larger issue, I think, than advertising. Because disagreements are fine, but offense is what every last consequence regarding game reviews started out with. So you need to find a way to placate the advertisers, the journalism, and the public. You can’t do it with integrity alone.

So as I see it.there are two options. Fix the internet so people can learn to spot, vouch, and respect integrity and learn discretion, or fix the way people perceive reviews. The first is a foolish venture. The second way is to take the arbitrary scoring ball and go home.

Reflexive scoring matrices solve this problem the same way Netflix or Amazon helps guide decision making without ever losing the ability to change one’s mind. By eliminating the arbitrary number, you effectively take the main sting out of the reviewer bee.

But the stinger you gain is even more impressive. Suddenly, game companies cannot focus their ire on one or two dissenting reviewers; they have to be concerned with the public. A reviewer is free of the entirely reactionary scorn that has plagued them for a few years. Reviewers can still work because their opinions matter. If, using the reflexive matrices showed that they were not “in tune” with the average gamer, then business and nature would take its course. Jeff Gertsmann may be fired because no one on this planet may agree with him, but it wouldn’t be about advertising. In effect, you deal with the real issues and concerns that people have, all the while eliminating corruption. Not a bad affect.

My problem with the reviewing system is that it’s already fundamentally broken. The problem with the matrices is that it would rely solely on user input. And of that, there are thousands of ways to count,. What does your Xbox Achievement points say about your interests? What does your Virtual Console say? Your PS2 memory card? Your Gamefly queue? The amount of data that is available to create a broad, multi-faceted picture of an individual as a gamer is already out there in one form or another. Harnessing that effectively is tricky, but I believe it can be done.

Integrity is very important, but we are naïve to think we can simply eliminate the overwhelming pressure of money. Even Kane and Lynch sold a million copies, despite all the bad press. The only way you can change the dance is if you change the song. There is no quick fix to this, but the gaming industry needs to keep itself in check via sales and reviews. ET the Atari game bombed, and with good reason. It sucked. Unless you can redirect how money is spent (and it’s clear bad press isn’t enough), there will forever be influence. People might actually buy ET. There are too many jobs on the line to take this other than seriously. A review may not take into account the reader, and a reader may not take the reviewers point of view into account. If you change the way people look at both parts, you may have a fighting chance. Anything else is doomed to a constant battle.

this is why i need more math.

Right now I am Pandora.com listening to music. The theory behind the song selection is ingenious: it uses metrics (and a hella back category) to find and recommend came based on those metrics.

This is one of the most fascinating bits of technology, and you can read more about it here at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Genome_Project. I have no qualms endorsing this page (my roommate and I are pledging a donation). But this is solving a lot of problems in how to expand a category.

Pandora is one way that the music industry can do well, because it can expose you to new music acts and interests, and it’s clear from the mainstream advertising that it is viable. It’s not a perfect service, but what it delivers is greater than any competitor. And this is actually an article about video games, but Pandora is a good start.

Criticism of game news is a hot subject on the internet, so what the hell. Like any criticism, it’s flawed, the metrics are flawed (Twilight Princes 8.5 zomgwtfbbq). Yet the internet is at its best when transparency is prevalent. What if a game score never changed? Reviewers forever and always will have biases. I will generally trust a review from Angsty Gaijin when I take his biases into account.

But unlike Metacritic, which is the Rotten Tomatoes of gamedom, I propose a metric that measures both the critics response and the reviewers response. This way, a game’s score is constantly in flux; and ultimately, gamers can prevail. Game critics can say their peace, but their score will be waited.

What excites me more idea is about my thoughts on bias. I can’t ignore it. There is an average score that we all have in our mind. I consider Final Fantasy 7 to be a barely passable video game, Angsty Gaijin considers it the pinnacle of gaming.

Does that mean a score can’t be counted? Well, gamers take their shit seriously. The nice thing about metrics is that it can help with averages. I have to take Angsty’s RPG views with a critical eye, because I have a different point. He thinks Ocarina is ok, but to me it is the game my yardstick.

So the score will always change… yet a reviewers opinion remains valid. And sales remain sales, and it puts the power back in the hands of the consumer, the advertiser, and the reviewer.

And what’s the main idea of this. Person to person scoring. The score is like a dating site, almost. I may have tastes that match up with IGN editor Matt Cassamassina’s references and scores a bit more than angsty, so the score for Twilight Princess will reflect that (say a 9.3). Another person may take a dimmer view on the Zelda universe, and based on the metrics of past games their individual “predicted score” would change. Of course humans have free will, and they can fall in love with a game and change their scores. Maybe they’ll realize they’re falling out of love with an old genre, and it suddenly opens up new doors for gameplay. When everyone sees a different score, it means you can take what a critic says seriously, get your point across, and maintain a level of civility that is not existent using current scoring systems.

Invariably, a Halo lover may give that game their highest score. And a system recommends them Half Life 2 (a given). Say you rather detest that game, and the next game you recommended is Every Extend Extra. Suddenly you’re at Everyday Shooter, and then you’re at Guitar Hero, which leads a Halo player to Samba De Amigo.

Maybe it only makes sense to me. But I believe this system would guarantee higher sales on the increasingly digital catalogue of old games. It would push developers harder (never a bad thing) and critics are spared the venom and infamy of numbers, all the while remaining valid. It would make gamers better, make gaming smarter, and invariably lead to more money for gaming companies (even Midway and Ubisoft).

Try Pandora with something other than J Pop. It may become clear. I need more math…

The Cult of Cool

The Cult of Cool

The Macbook Air is an absolutely fascinating case study, and I think, a metaphor for everything that people see negatively in Apple. But even moreso, I believe the Windows Guy/ Apple Guy ad exemplify this point better.

Apple is a dick.

People find the commercials funny, and sales numbers show that the stability of the OS, the admittedly pristine design choices, and the unprecedented marketshare of the iPod has paid off. Apple’s stock grows, and I hum along.

Apple existence in the public eye is of 3 things.

The sexy computers

1. The iPod
2. The computer “that guy” from work uses.
3. The love of journalists everywhere. It’s not so much that we use Macs, it’s just that, while Macs control a greater share of the market, it is disproportionate to the amount that is written about them.

And that last problem, I think, produces two problems. In smaller communities, Apple is “the big city thing”. The Apple stores are hundreds of miles away. The local stores don’t carry them. And the local paper has Walter Mossberg’s weekly tech column, provided to the local paper by the Associated Press. For the uninitiated, he is a Washington-based tech columnist, and every one of two articles he writes is about… you guessed it, Apple Computers.

All of this amounts to a great lack of show but plenty of tell when it comes to the big A. I would further contend that the journalists are doing Apple plenty of fiscal favors, but to the detriment of real journalism. The Apple fawning is becoming free advertising to a company that rather enjoys it but… well, it gets funny.

And not in the “ha ha” way. Journalists have made their position quite clear that they want the world to be running on Mac OSX. Some do want Ubuntu or another Linux variant, but they are the Sonic Burger to Apple’s Subway (and no one wants to admit they eat at McDonald’s).

But the dreams of journalists and Mac enthusiasts should be tempered with a simple fact.

Apple has a business strategy that makes Microsoft look like a soft kitten.

That’s not calling Microsoft gentle. That would be false, contrary to years of buy-outs, antitrust suits, and other bits of badness. Oh yea, the blue screen of death. We can never forget you.

But Apple can never, EVER, be as big as Microsoft. They can never, ever win. If they won, computing would suck ass. Apple as it exists now has the philosophy of the fascist, not of the greater good. The everyman image in jeans and grinning at the nerd is a lie.

First of all, they build their own hardware. While Microsoft was guilty of bundling software and choking competition, for the market to be OSX dominated would result in lawsuits contending that other companies would be forced out of the market. And it’s a valid point. The Fortune 500 companies like HP, Dell, Acer, and Lenovo would be left out in the cold? That won’t result in lawsuits. Nope, not at all.

And software bundling? Apple never got the memo that nations look very poorly on that. All the neat functionality and tools of Mac would have to be stripped in a Apple world, or face the hate of the European Union.

Apple’s business philosophy can never be more than the feisty, if arrogant and charming, underdog. They can never mount a serious challenge unless they abandon their cache. And they know this, and they exploit this.

Back to the new Air laptop, it is a system of intense simplicity. So much so, that things people generally like (optical drives, firewire, more than one USB) are left out in the cold. But it’s thin, and that is also in. It carries a great deal of appeal, and will sell like mad.

Ultimately, Apple can never win. They strive for better, but they need the big gorilla to make themselves look good. Without it, it would be discovered that they are no alpha male. They are a smartass, who may have some good ideas but trades business acumen and practices for smarmy marketing and products that a great deal cannot afford. Cheap laptops are a coveted benchmark for much of the world. As naïve as a Windows-based effort would be, it would be impossible to fathom OSX in such a way. It can’t. Even taking out the efforts of Bill and Melinda, Apple can never get their hands dirty with the poor the way MS does, the way Linux does. That wouldn’t be cool. They would have to deal with cheaper manufacturing. As for the semi-poor to the thrifty, Apple can’t go there either. Even the Mini mac cannot compare to what one gets with an E-Machine or a Dell. They are ultimately in a hard position.

So when Mac has a commercial showing how cool they are, I cringe. They may be cool, they may get many things right, but they can never dominate. No matter what the journalists say. Their marketshare and stock has a ceiling, and if they ever hit that ceiling, the company will be forced to change what people love about them, or it will stagnate due to a lack of growth.

In the 1980’s, Apple computers was lauded for the commercial that alluded to big brother with giant screens, and a defiant woman throwing some heavy rebellion at it, shattering the illusions. But Mac would be the worst big company, as their decaying relationships with music groups shows. They control the pricing, and they have demands of their user base with their price point (no screen on an iPod for the budget crowd, for example). Cool has become their control. And is cool more important than computing?

Ultimately, never. And the effectiveness of cheap computers, of a diverse marketshare, of philanthropy, workhorse models, can save lives, build economies, create jobs, and actually encourage competition. When I see Steve Jobs giving a presentation, the giant monitors behind him, the journalists drooling and dripping at his every “one more thing”… I’m reminded of an old 1980’s Apple commercial. And I despair, for there’s no woman in a speed suit. Just idiots drooling and falling over themselves obeying. Ironic? Sad. Bad business.

Maybe I’m missing the point about Apple. Maybe the point is never to usurp Microsoft. Maybe the point is just to be cool. But I can’t justify the consistent selling of cool computing to be the subject of journalism en masse. And if that is indeed the bias, we are not discussing business, we are not even discussing technology. They are accidental marketing, and the world can’t be let in on the joke. They are “better” without actually being better, and that unfortunate head is slowly beginning to show. If a stock does indeed have a ceiling, it is ultimately a bad move for investors, and for consumers. And I believe that it is coming.

At last, my arm is complete

However long the road, I invariably find myself drawn to the cello. It has been 8 years since the last time I played the cello for as long as I have tonight.

It was one of the most singlehandedly gratifying things of my life. It is a sweet old habit, the quiet one I don’t brag about (unlike my writing, fashion, and athleticism. Haven’t you heard?).

And so this article is about how Final Fantasy lost me.

The reason we give things up are usually for at least one of three reasons. The first and most obvious is that we lose interest. The second is that our hobby is no longer profitable. The third is a lack of time. And as an age of Japanese gamers moves into the aggressive world of the working class, I don’t find it surprising that their overall RPG sales drop. The big games, of course, sell like hot cakes. But the big games? They don’t do as well.

All the old cliché’s are still as robust as ever. But today’s gamer is a busier gamer, on the whole. In fact, I feel as though RPG’s have been cleaved in two groups: the people with no time to play, and the people with too much time.

The people with no time to play look at the World of Warcraft with disgust. How on earth is it comprehensible that people can spend 30 hours a week in search of … fake armor? I have my ideas, but the crux of the people who are anti online RPG’s bring up the waste of time as reason number one. The latest Final Fantasy clocks in at about 120 to 170 hours, which is a fraction of the amount of time World of Warcraft can demand. Still, that’s an awful lot of time.

The second group with too much time, well, forgive my arrogance. This expanding group doesn’t have more time, but they do make it. Time is not wasted, it is borrowed against something else. And to many, this is an acceptable trade. The single player experience is far too… short. Unexpansive. The linear story format is cliché’. Sexy haired angsty guy with issues must save the world with girls in various states of vulnerability. Secondary characters are good, then they backstab you, then they are good, then they are dead. And 170 hours? You realize, that’s about a month of World of Warcraft, or Everquest. Totally not a good use of time.

And I would argue that these two camps have split firmly as lonely adolescence convaleces into various states of adulthood. And the middle group, obsessed with turn-based combat, impressive visuals, and expansive stories that would make Joseph Campbell proud, are largely left maligned. My associate and best friend, Angsty Gaijin, is in such a camp. Increasingly, he is in the minority. It never fails to shock him how mainstream the success of Final Fantasy 7 was. Indeed, the varsity quarterback of our high school claimed his favorite video game was the same one as Gaijin. Angsty will never believe me, of course. But the split happened, and it won’t go away. The problem is that, for all the pains of old school RPG’s and leveling up using archaic systems, there was never that long to go before you could go on to another event or large battle. There was simply too much to do, and the tedium was broken quickly. Final Fantasy 7 is where the line in the sand was drawn for gamers. It was the last stand. To truly beat the game was to commit to a time sink of leveling up. Every game after that is arguably shorter, the world smaller. Part of this is due to graphical constraints, but it doesn’t change this simple fact. The two dimensional world was more varied, more expansive, and gave you a greater sense of scale than the most impressively rendered Bahumut.

The later games are still impressive, but where once your imagination worked to fill in all the blanks, it is all drawn out in perfectly rendered scenes. There is a theory called the uncanny valley about advanced robotics. Go Wiki it. I think the more realistic these games have become, the more attention and scrutiny is drawn to them. The more two dimensional their characters feel less real because their personalities are that of a cartoon. Westerners excuse this as a simple difference in style, but anime succeeds on the emotions and personalities on display in a story, moreso than any robot or cliché.

There is a movement amongst RPG enthusiasts to blame the current black condition of the RPG on story vs. gameplay based roleplaying games. And while there is that disconnect, it does little to explain the international numbers. With games stamped with Squenix still veritable moneymakers, it is quite clear that even the old mainstays have a near universal appeal.

My final problem with final fantasy is that despite the technical leaps that have happened, the games are so much… smaller/

- no more world maps to surf an airship over: This is the big one. The sense of epic scale is lost.Why should I care if the world looks more real? The imagination does wonders to fill in the blanks. As the games have gotten more 3D, they have gotten smaller.

- The stories of the earlier games shows diverse story telling. It has gone formulaic. I understand that with more money and stock on the line, that it is better to build a decent game that sells rather than risk it all. But this is a lie. Throw your mechanics to the wind! Bravery is often rewarded in this industry. It just takes braver stockholders. Yes, many of the original characters were one-notes, but they were a lot more fun. Cloud is not fun. Locke is.

- Too much leveling, not enough eventing.

- You can’t cheat your way to better leveling. The earlier games would allow even a novice to find an enemy, waste a half hour, and play another 3 to 4 with no serious issues. Nowadays? Don’t make me laugh. That disconnect cost them casual gamers.

Final Fantasy forgot that it was scale, not graphics… story, not alleged epic sweep… that got many gamers going. The final drop of poison for many gamers is the leveling. Some gamers want a lot more, some gamers want less. The happy medium is not found in any recent Squenix game. And so, they’ll slowly suffer sales, each one slightly more disappointing than the last. Which will, of course, make them consider making a “Safer”, more like Final Fantasy 7 game. They’ll miss the point, the gamers, and eventually, the money.

Downloads Disturb Me

At Appleworld 2008 today, Steve Jobs announced that iTunes was taking what I would consider a BAD route. Temporary downloads of movies from every major studio.

My problem with finite ownership is that it only fills the stopgap of storage. What perturbs me is that you have only 24 hours to rewatch something once you watched it. Even the hated Blockbuster is more generous with the length of time you can watch a new release in.

So are we trading rental time periods for perceived ease? I’m of the opinion that this is very unfriendly to the consumer. iTunes is successful when the product is given perceived ownership of a song in its replayability. Looking at the first incarnation of Zune, which dabbled in temporary song downloads, the idea was a veritable and embarrassing flop.

And this is where movies are headed? Say what you will about Blu Rays, confusing formats, or the problems in discs. The storage issues of downloads will be a scapegoat for the continuous revenue streams via short-term viewing windows long after terabyte drives are the standard.

Regarding region locks and my previous post:

-There are 3 region locks. America is actually in the same region as Japan. Thusly, the anime quandary is answered in this generation like never before.

-The thing that I always tell people in regards to business decisions is to follow the money and all the answers are clear. In the case of region locks, this is no different. Currencies cost different things, and the map for Blu Ray’s locks are fairly clear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Region_codes

The first zone contains major markets (such as Japan and the United States) where most movies are very profitable. These are also markets that are fairly strong despite the depreciation of all the currencies.

The second zone contains countries of burgeoning markets (such as the European Union) where the currency is growing at a fairly rapid rate.

The last zone contains all the areas where copyright e protections are largely unenforceable. It also contains the dirt poor. You couldn’t sell them a Spiderman 3 DVD for 14 dollars American. You could sell it for 2, and make 2 dollars over 0 dollars.

If you follow the money, Blu Ray region locks make perfect financial sense. If you had a product for several distinct markets with marked currency trends, it would be financially irresponsible to let the market devalue your product prematurely. No investor would touch you, which leads to less content. As frustrating as this is, it will get worse with downloads. Look at the disparate prices and availability of games on the Wii, which is a reasonable system, and imagine what kind of approach large Hollywood studios will take.

Feeling Blu

And so the interwebs explode with the news that Time Warner has gone Blu Ray. This is no idle move. With this latest acquisition, the Blu Ray camp gains ubiquity with every consistent money making franchises, and the only two currently active moneymakers on the big screen (Harry Potter and James Bond).

Now it would be enough for me to say it's quits and done for the competition, and that this format war is over. And that would be enough to flame me incessantly.

But this article is not about how the Playstation 3 was a Blu Ray player 1st and a gaming system 2nd.

This is about change. No one, including myself, could ever posit that Sony was a kind, consumer-oriented company. But I do believe that they have made decisions that have made digital entertainment all the more accessible in ways that HD DVD never could. They have literally saved us from themselves.

The going consensus in the industry is that downloads are the future of entertainment, and for the large part, they are exactly correct.

There are benefits to digital downloads for us and for the media creators (let us call them MC's)

- The Consumer doesn't have to pay as much overhead costs for the content
- The Consumer doesn't have to drive to get the content
- The Consumer is fairly competent at downloading.
- The Consumer is paying for content, and has done so for the past 5 years with no hint of trepidation.

- The MC's don't have to pay large factories to churn out discs. The licensing rights (admittedly pennies) are nonexistent.
- The MC's, beyond the cost of a powerful server, do not pay much for doling out their media.
- The MC's get to set regional prices, eliminate disc-based copying, and effectively suffocate piracy by making access to a computer AND to content far easier than a DVD player and a "friend of a friend who knows computers".

And this, I believe, is where we are headed. But by the next round being Blu Ray, we delay the onset of pure digital downloads to answer some very fundamental questions, which MC's have unanimously failed to answer.

And moreso than the DVD player, I believe the flaws in their approach stem from looking at the iPod the wrong way.

When someone downloads a song from iTunes, it cannot be copied as easily as an mp3, or a DVD. Can it be done? Certainly. Is it as easy as copying a CD, or an mp3. For the population at large, that answer is no.

So we create content that we can sell a la carte, a la iTunes. If it sounds brilliant, it is, and it is going on right now, from Redmond to Tokyo and everywhere in between.

But the iPod is awesome because it is small, tiny, versatile, and portable. The problem with MC's is that they think you only wear earbuds.

- The iPod can be a DJ. Plugged into via a composite cable adapter, a special plug, or a compatible dock and the iPod is no longer a portable music player, it is THE music player. You can entertain 1 to 1,000,000 with a single iPod and a length of cable.

- The iPod can show movies. Not at a great resolution, but they go.

-Can go in the car. The sheer ubiquity of "iPod ready" stereo receivers should be a warning sign.

- You can take thousands of bits of entertainment with you.

The problem with digital downloads is that you cannot do any of those things that the iPod (or even DVD's, for that matter) do so well that no one even notices it.

Here are the questions without answers...

-How in the hell are millions of terabytes going to flow on a network that's tapped out as is? and more importantly...
-Who the hell is going to pay for the network upgrade?
- can you entertain an entire crowd?
- Can you take it in the car to entertain your kids? Yourself?
- is there a hard drive on this planet that could hold a decent high definition movie collection?
- Is your content goign to be restored by the MC's even if your hard drive breaks???

Whether it is Xbox Live, Valve, Virtual Channel, anything but iTunes... the answer is no. You cannot take it with you. It is not portable. Your ownership is not forever. It is ours and you rent it.

Until content providers can answer those questions, digital downloads are impossible at best, useless and constrictive at worst. And the signs are negative to the MC's realizing this.

Enter Sony.

Blu Ray can change the game because they are so damn big. The content on the disc is so great, so demanding, that if this standard does usurp DVD's it sets a very large (and largely unattainable) benchmark for downloads. The sheer gluttonous size, the excellent picture quality, the promise of a theatre master audio track... no cable company, satellite, or MC has had the madness to say they can approach it.

HD-DVD's... they simply set the bar lower. The transition would be a bit more seamless from discs to downloads. They also lacked region locks, which ensured that consumers would lap it up not knowing that in the minds of the MC's, this was a delay in exection, not a full pardon.

HD DVD was a technology that had reached its limit early. Transformers on HD DVD is a beautiul disc, but the video data was so huge that they had to compress away any next-gen audio track, settling for the same track as the regular DVD.

That is not to say Blu Ray is perfect, but it provides unreasonably high expectations for consumers with the benchmark in content, and provides MC's the thing they covet most: DRM, region locks, and money.

If you can imagine what the world will be like with current digital plans, you need only plug in the headphones on your mp3 player and say to yourself "this is all I can do".

Feel a disc in your hands. It is scarcely no more real than a file, except for the mass of trillions of atoms. But so long as the disc is in your hands, what you do with it is your choice. And that will make all the difference.