Yes, I think they're both broken. Just in very different ways. I'm not going to address Nintendo's online system for the Wii because it is so far beyond broken I don't have the time or the energy to describe all the issues, much less how to fix them. So, let's get on to my issues with the applicable services, shall we?
First, LIVE and PSN are very different beasts and take very different approaches to online console gaming. LIVE is Microsoft's house. They hold the reins, they call the shots, every company that wants their game on LIVE has to report to the big M and dance however they are told. This has a lot of benefits for the gamers. Performance has a universal standard it must live up to and all games have to support a certain feature set. This kind of uniformity makes navigating all of LIVE and using it's features from a games familiar and intuitive regardless of the game you're playing.
PSN, on the other hand, is a free-for-all. With the exception of certain quality standards, game developers are free to make their online setup work however they see fit. Trophy support wasn't even required for generous span of time after it was first implemented. This "anything goes" type of system does mean freedom for developers to make things work however they want, but it also means a lot less stability for gamers when compared to LIVE. But then, being an open platform is also the reason that PS3 is the only system on which you will be able to access Steamworks and play Portal 2 Co-op alongside PC players. (Side question for Gabe Newell: How's that crow tasting?)
However, both of these systems have serious errors. The PSN issues mostly come down to performance such as instability, slow download speeds as well as lacking some of the popular features of LIVE like the oft-mentioned cross-game voice chat and game-agnostic parties (not needing to be playing the same game to be in a party with someone). While the main issue with LIVE is that you are charged for the basic functionality of being able to play your games online. This is much more insulting when one considers the fact that games on 360 and PS3 cost the same, but on 360 you can only play the single player half of the game unless you hand over another $60 a year to Microsoft. This looks especially bad when PS3, PC and even the Wii offer players the ability to play online without any charge whatsoever. The features advantage that LIVE holds are relatively minimal and certainly don't equate to a $60 price tag. Even worse, this was recently increased from $50 without the addition of any new features in an attempt to justify the increase.
That seems to be the way of things with Microsoft's products though. Whether it's the PC world with the absurdly inflated price of a Windows OS or Office bundle or the cost of a new hard drive for your 360. Let's look at that hard drive example a little closer, to really drive the point home. A 250GB HD for the Xbox 360 costs $130, I kid you not. For that money, I could buy a 1 TERABYTE drive (that's 4x as big) for my PS3 and still have enough left over to buy a game. Microsoft customers are far too willing to simply smile and say "Thank you sir, may I have another?" so there's no reason for the big M to stop screwing consumers on the price.
What Microsoft should be doing, in a world where Microsoft is fair to its customers, is have the ability to play games online included in the free LIVE membership, but save all the other perks for paid, Gold members. Keep all the exclusive demos, and parties and cross-game voice chat, and even premium download bandwidth for Gold members, but don't rob your customers of some of the basic functionality included in a game that they already paid full price for. Especially when the online component comprises such a large part of some of your biggest titles. Where would Halo, Call of Duty or Gears of War be without their online multiplayer? Charging customers $60 for a game and then telling them they can only play half of it until they fork over another $60 is the type of fine print switcharoo that normally gets companies in trouble. So why do gamers keep letting LIVE not only get away with it, but convince themselves that it is a superior service for doing so?
PSN, in a somewhat similar fashion, needs to change up how their paid vs. free services are structured. While the paid service, PSN+, is still more or less in its infancy and as such has some excuse, why not get things going in the right direction early on? As it stands, unless you buy a lot of downloadable titles or the free game offered that month (if there is one) is something you really want to play, there's just not enough to the service to warrant paying for it. Sony is starting in the right direction with the background updates, where your PS3 will check for software updates, download and install them all by itself, and the upcoming cloud game saves, allowing you to save your game to a server instead of your system so that you never have to worry about losing them and can access them from any PlayStation 3 you sign in on. There needs to be more though, and that means addressing the issues PSN has had from the beginning. Download speeds for everything from PlayStation Store games and movies to title updates are horrendous. A file that may take a few minutes on my PC can take more than half an hour on my PS3. That's pretty damn unacceptable. There's also the features people have been asking for since launch. Mainly features that have been available to LIVE users since their service launched. Features like cross-game voice chat, so you can talk to your friend and ask him if he wants to play something without have to A) be in the same game already or B) be willing to type out your message for 20 minutes using the onscreen keyboard and being able to create and join a party with friends that might be playing a different game. Personally, I've only run into a handful of occasions when I thought those features would be useful, but I'm only one man and the masses see them as a necessity. And again, like LIVE, PSN+ should allocate some extra bandwidth to it's customers so that those paying for the service don't spend the same 30 minutes waiting for Uncharted 2 to update that the free members do. In the same way that a LIVE Gold membership doesn't have enough features to justify charging for what PSN (mostly) does for free, PSN+ doesn't have enough features to warrant paying for little "extras."
PSN certainly has a laundry list of issues to work out, but its customers put up with them because they can still play games online for free. And while being able to play your games online is certainly a justifiable purchase to most gamers (why else do you think we pay for internet?) there's something to be said about the fact that LIVE is the only platform anywhere to charge an additional fee for access to features in a game that was already bought and paid for once. I enjoyed playing Halo: Reach online during the free trial offered on LIVE this past weekend, but with only a handful of exclusive titles on 360 there's not enough reason to purchase a LIVE membership when that money could buy me Dead Space 2 or Killzone 3 on my PS3, where I can play the multiplayer for free. And while I'm playing it over PSN, I'm still going to complain about the various issues and lacking features that everyone else has been complaining about for nearly 4 years now.
With an online component essentially being mandatory in modern games and replacing splitscreen play, both of these companies need to work on perfecting their online platform because they both need it in equal amounts. As for Nintendo...well they still don't think people want to play games online. And with the Wii and various DS iterations continuing to print money, there's really no reason for them to stop living in that fantasy world.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Go Forth and Calibrate.
Who likes to play games and watch movies in shiny HD resolutions? Of course you do, look at what you're reading. And anyone that's ever messed with the settings has probably wondered what they're "supposed" to be set to. There are several ways to attempt and line the settings up to how the source material is meant to look. These range from "eyeballing it" to hiring a certified Imaging Science Foundation (ISF) tech to come hook up all kinds of gadgets to your TV and professionally calibrate it...for around $400.The option most people take, assuming they take any, to attempt some kind of "pro" calibration is an optimization disk. This, itself, has quite a range of options to it as well. A few basic test patterns can be found on many DVD or blu-ray movies. The more dedicated can buy discs specifically intended for testing accuracy of colors, black levels, sharpness, tint, light levels and a number of other things. Calibrating an HDTV this way was limited for quite some time, as standard definition DVDs do not have the same range of colors and other, little(*ding* sarcasm detected *ding*), things as high definition video content.
Recently, Digital Video Essentials updated their offering to an HD version on Blu-ray. Other companies like Monster (most commonly known for grossly overpriced A/V cables) and even Disney threw down their own version of HDTV optimizer discs.
These discs will all do a fairly accurate job of giving you settings that will really make your TV's capabilities, and advantages of HD content, apparent to you. If you don't want to buy a disc just to get the settings on your TV at optimum, you can always rent it. Yes, Netflix has that. Or, you can get one for (mostly) free.
The answer to that "really?" that just popped in to your heads is the AVS HD 709 software. It's an open project that not only allows you to download free software for optimizing your HDTV, but also allows you to burn it to a regular dvd. And let's face it, if you have a blu-ray burner, you can afford to have a pro hook up your baby like it's going into the Matrix.
Yeah, that just happened.The key to this disc is that there's not really anything about Blu-rays, other than their storage capacity, that allows you to have HD movies on them. And since an optimization disc is a just a few minutes of mostly static patterns, there are ways to get appropriate HD content on a regular old DVD disc for HD display calibration. The catch is that you lose out on some of the more advanced features, (pop-up menus mostly) a couple of the more optional test patterns and the disc will only work in certain Blu-ray players. But there is a list of working Blu-ray players included on the same page as the various downloadable formats of the software.
There are three different version of the AVS disc in total. One for burning to Blu-ray, one for burning to DVD to be played on a Blu-ray player, and one for burning to DVD to be played on certain DVD players. Yes, the 360 and PS3 work for their respective media formats. Exhale.
There is also extensive instruction on the site regarding which format you should use, how to burn it to the media of choice and issues you may encounter with certain layer/format combinations. I recommend downloading the manual as well. Not only does the explain the why and how of each test pattern on the disc, with excellent detail on what your trying to do with that pattern, it has useful links throughout the PDF document. These include direct links to resalers of the optional color filters.
The THX glasses may seem like the way to go, being only $1.99. But the shipping always seems to be $8-$15 so that price quickly goes up to the point where it's better to just buy one of the discs that includes a filter. Plus, it only contains the blue filter for the basic test. I recommend the more "expensive" option. A $4.99 pack that has blue, red and green filters with shipping around $2. These are the same filters often used in filming, so they're absolutely adequate for you to optimize your TV settings. You'll honestly be quite pleased with the results even if you don't get any filters, but it is definitely an available option.
On the disc you will come to a menu with several options. The ones you're really interested in are the Basic Settings and Misc. Settings. The HD Nation video is also quite helpful as it will explain to you that basics of how to use the test patterns on the disc. This is not a substitue for reading the manual however.
In Basic Settings you will find some basic test patterns for setting black level, (usually Brightness on your TV's settings) white level, (contrast or picture) scaling, sharpness and color. The color test pattern actually requires a blue filter to use properly, but you can get an idea of what all the colors look like and if you can pick out the individual shades.
The Misc. Settings menu will give you more test patterns to check out the same thing. here you really need to check out the manual though, as some patterns are intended specifically for Plasma, LCD or CRT, etc. Here is where order the filter three pack really shows its advantage over the THX blue glasses. In the Misc Settings menu there is a pattern for adjusting all of the colors and tints of your display. If you TV has the options available (typically under Advanced or Expert or some other heading) you can really fine tune each individual color your display outputs. I'll say it one more time, read the manual.
Personally, I like the semi-DIY route for HDTV calibration. You're the one that's going to be watching it all the time, after all. Whatever you do, you'll find yourself much happier with the results of a "properly" calibrated TV. At least when watching movies.
Games are a different matter. Games don't have the same universal standards for color and light depth, which is why you so often find a brightness, or similar, control prominent in the options menu. Some games even ask you to set this before playing. This will often lead to games looking far to dark when played on settings that have been calibrated for movie playback. There are a few ways around this.
The first is to utilize presets, as most modern sets have several presets that can be altered however you like. These are usually called standard, normal, cinema, movie, game, sport, vivid, etc. You should have the same set of adjustment options available to adjust for each of these settings. Use your calibration disc to calibrate everything the way you want it for normal TV and movie viewing. Once you're done, apply those same settings to whatever "mode" you want to use for games (Game is generally a good one) and pop in a couple games that you know have a brightness setup that uses one of those "increase until you can barely see the image" patterns. Now adjust the brightness setting on your set until you can just barely see the applicable image. Average this number out across multiple titles. Even Dead Space 2 seemed to take a lot more adjustment to make visible than Dead Space 1 did, so try a couple. This way, whatever your playing you should be at a black level that's just barely visible for the darkest parts of most games and can fine tune it from the game's settings if you need to. The other way is to find a middle ground between the movie black level and game black level and live with it. If you manage to have a set that works perfectly for both on the same settings well...aren't you special.
However you go about it, in the end you should find that your set is living up to its full potential of HD quality. And to make this a truly sweet deal, you did it for the cost of a couple minutes and a blank DVD. Big thank you to the people over on AVS forum that put this software, and accompanying instructions, together.
There are three different version of the AVS disc in total. One for burning to Blu-ray, one for burning to DVD to be played on a Blu-ray player, and one for burning to DVD to be played on certain DVD players. Yes, the 360 and PS3 work for their respective media formats. Exhale.
There is also extensive instruction on the site regarding which format you should use, how to burn it to the media of choice and issues you may encounter with certain layer/format combinations. I recommend downloading the manual as well. Not only does the explain the why and how of each test pattern on the disc, with excellent detail on what your trying to do with that pattern, it has useful links throughout the PDF document. These include direct links to resalers of the optional color filters.
The THX glasses may seem like the way to go, being only $1.99. But the shipping always seems to be $8-$15 so that price quickly goes up to the point where it's better to just buy one of the discs that includes a filter. Plus, it only contains the blue filter for the basic test. I recommend the more "expensive" option. A $4.99 pack that has blue, red and green filters with shipping around $2. These are the same filters often used in filming, so they're absolutely adequate for you to optimize your TV settings. You'll honestly be quite pleased with the results even if you don't get any filters, but it is definitely an available option.
On the disc you will come to a menu with several options. The ones you're really interested in are the Basic Settings and Misc. Settings. The HD Nation video is also quite helpful as it will explain to you that basics of how to use the test patterns on the disc. This is not a substitue for reading the manual however.
In Basic Settings you will find some basic test patterns for setting black level, (usually Brightness on your TV's settings) white level, (contrast or picture) scaling, sharpness and color. The color test pattern actually requires a blue filter to use properly, but you can get an idea of what all the colors look like and if you can pick out the individual shades.
The Misc. Settings menu will give you more test patterns to check out the same thing. here you really need to check out the manual though, as some patterns are intended specifically for Plasma, LCD or CRT, etc. Here is where order the filter three pack really shows its advantage over the THX blue glasses. In the Misc Settings menu there is a pattern for adjusting all of the colors and tints of your display. If you TV has the options available (typically under Advanced or Expert or some other heading) you can really fine tune each individual color your display outputs. I'll say it one more time, read the manual.
Personally, I like the semi-DIY route for HDTV calibration. You're the one that's going to be watching it all the time, after all. Whatever you do, you'll find yourself much happier with the results of a "properly" calibrated TV. At least when watching movies.
Games are a different matter. Games don't have the same universal standards for color and light depth, which is why you so often find a brightness, or similar, control prominent in the options menu. Some games even ask you to set this before playing. This will often lead to games looking far to dark when played on settings that have been calibrated for movie playback. There are a few ways around this.
The first is to utilize presets, as most modern sets have several presets that can be altered however you like. These are usually called standard, normal, cinema, movie, game, sport, vivid, etc. You should have the same set of adjustment options available to adjust for each of these settings. Use your calibration disc to calibrate everything the way you want it for normal TV and movie viewing. Once you're done, apply those same settings to whatever "mode" you want to use for games (Game is generally a good one) and pop in a couple games that you know have a brightness setup that uses one of those "increase until you can barely see the image" patterns. Now adjust the brightness setting on your set until you can just barely see the applicable image. Average this number out across multiple titles. Even Dead Space 2 seemed to take a lot more adjustment to make visible than Dead Space 1 did, so try a couple. This way, whatever your playing you should be at a black level that's just barely visible for the darkest parts of most games and can fine tune it from the game's settings if you need to. The other way is to find a middle ground between the movie black level and game black level and live with it. If you manage to have a set that works perfectly for both on the same settings well...aren't you special.
However you go about it, in the end you should find that your set is living up to its full potential of HD quality. And to make this a truly sweet deal, you did it for the cost of a couple minutes and a blank DVD. Big thank you to the people over on AVS forum that put this software, and accompanying instructions, together.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Bulletstorm: Everything Old is New Again...Maybe
Ahhh Bulletstorm, from unknown, to potential sleeper hit to regular guest star on Cliffy B's Twitter feed, the game's momentum just seems to keep growing. My enthusiasm, on the other hand, maxes out at "curious" at best. While the game does seem to have the potential for some serious fun, I have some issues with the "kill with skill" combat system at the core of most of the hype that ranges from serious potential for fun-killing repetitiveness to the fact that it's not as original as the parties involved would like you to think.
Full Story (360)
Full Story (PC)
Full Story (PS3)
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Beyond Good & Evil HD. It's Not a 2, But I'll Take It.
The good folks over at Joystiq have posted a trailer for the forthcoming LIVE and PSN HD re-release of (sorely underappreciated) cult hit Beyond Good & Evil. Since I played the original on PC, the addition of HD resolutions means little to me, but I can get excited about anything that encourages new gamers to discover this little gem and possibly renew interest in a sequel. Now if only someone could post a release date...
Pleased to Meet You, Hope You Guessed my Name
There's an interesting editorial over at IGN about whether or not Activision is the most evil company in the world. While a lot if it is pointless fluff (comparisons to Pfizer, BP, Halliburton etc.) there are some good points in the latter part of the article. There's also the irony of an IGN article tackling such a subject in an editorial. You know, IGN, a company with a notorious reputation for giving overly favorable reviews to games or movies that pay hefty prices for advertising on their site. Yeah, those guys.
As much as I love using IGN as a resource, since they've got all kinds of tentacles in every bit of the world of video games, the bigger they gotten (I've been following them since they were Imagine Games Network) the more of their integrity seemed to be for sale, and the less professional some of the writing seemed to get.
Hey! We can get away with a lack of professionalism in our writing here, it's a blog. So there.
I digress.
I'm not going to get too much into the IGN article, you can follow the link and read it for yourself if you're interested, instead I'm going to give my take on the question of just how full Activision's evil-o-meter is. Since I've already stated that I worked at Activision recently, you are free to grab your grain of salt and hang on to it for everything that follows, but keep in mind I am still a gamer, and I still love Tim Schafer. Onward.
The biggest issue with thinking of Activision is evil is thinking of it as a singular entity, rather than a company made up of people. To say Activision is evil is to say that every employee of Activision is evil (or bad or crooked or greedy or whatever else the general gaming population associates with Activision) which is simply not the case. The people I worked with in the QA department were some of the nicest, coolest people I've ever had the privilage of working with. This includes the Senior testers, Project Leads - you know, the general boss types - and not just my fellow testers. So already the idea that everyone at Activision is out to trick gamers into paying as much as they can for whatever crap Activision poops out should be busted. There's more to it than that, however.
Actvision is just the publisher, they're "the money." They don't have as much influence over the actual games as many people seem to think. Activision provides the funds to pay the salaries of the people that do makes the games (Infinity Ward, Treyarch, RoboModo, etc.) as well as take care of advertising and actually getting those games on shelves. Any issue you have with the game itself falls on the name of whatever developer you find sharing space with Activision on the back of the box.
This reputation of being "evil" didn't materialize from nowhere, however, so there must be some merit to it, right? Scooping up Red Octane and the Guitar Hero name while kicking the company that created the franchise, Harmonix, to the curb is a move that can only be described as douchetastic. A similar descriptor could be applied to leapfrogging developers on the Call of Duty franchise in order to release series entries on an annual schedule. A move that almost certainly led to the infighting and implosions that affected Infinity Ward. What about kicking Double Fine to the same curb as Harmonix, then attempting to sue EA for the rights to Brutal Legend once it looked like there was some serious buzz about it? Douchetastic to the max. But, who is responsible for all these actions really? Individuals. More specifically, businessmen.
Businessmen trying to maximize profits for themselves and for shareholders. These people are not interested in whether or not their company's game does something new, or "pushes the envelope" or if the game's audience thinks it was a real improvement over the previous incarnation. They're only interested in whether or not people buy it and, so long as people continue to buy Call of Duty and other such games in record numbers, there's no reason to change the way things are going. But this is the struggle that has existed between publishers, developers and gamers since almost the inception of the video game industry. Gamers want some new experience, some significant improvement, developers want to push the limits of their ability and publishers simply want as large a return on their investment as possible. Do the higher-ups at Activision employ some of the more dastardly methods in order to accomplish that goal? Absolutely. But a few years ago the same thing was being said about EA, who is now considered the "good witch" to Activision's wicked witch. Which means some of you need to consider the fact that I'm trying to work in a good Wicked analogy here.
All this talk of how Activision is a publisher and as such is run by businessmen, rather than gamers, can't be complete without mentioning the man every gamer looks upon as Satan's earthly minion: Bobby Kotick. While the level of direct involvement Kotick had in some of the more dubious actions I've mentioned is something I can't comment on with any kind of accuracy, the man's reputation in the public leaves little doubt about how his company came to be considered "evil." Let's review some of his more recent appearances in the news: Lost a lawsuit levied against him by a law firm because he never paid them for providing defense in a sexual harassment suit that he also lost. A suit which was birthed from the "company" he and five friends created to manage their private jet in order to get tax write-offs for the use of said jet. Doesn't exactly create a warm and/or fuzzy feeling in regards to the man. But this kind of behavior isn't exclusive to Activision, the video game industry or even businessmen. Isn't one of the reasons we have "class warfare" and an arguably malfunctioning economy due to CEOs, VPs and the like preferring to dissolve entire buildings full of people that live from paycheck to paycheck rather than forfeit the profits that allow them to drive two Bentley's and have a "summer home" on an island whose name takes practice to pronounce properly?
When it comes down to it, Activision isn't really evil. It's simply a publisher run by a businessman displaying some of the most despicable traits associated with both. I'm sure if the public was able to dig deep enough they'd find there were people besides Kotick responsible for some of the most offensive decisions the company has made. Maybe not. So perhaps there are individuals in charge that could easily fall into the definition of "evil" but their actions are representative of only themselves, not the entire company. The worst thing I can think to accuse Activision, as a company, (rather than specific individuals) of is laziness. Rather than take the huge profits created by their biggest franchises and use them to branch out into new, potentially groundbreaking and risky IPs, the people in charge of the company simply rests on their laurels; assured that the next Call of Duty game or World of Warcraft expansion will buy Kotick another jet.
Should this change, and Activisions starts using those profits to take risks, birth new franchises or simply allow adequate development time on current franchises to create a truly "new" incarnation (again, much like the about-face EA did not too long ago) gamers will simply find another company to paint the evil target on. Because that's just the nature of video games, and I'm as guilty of it as anyone else.
As much as I love using IGN as a resource, since they've got all kinds of tentacles in every bit of the world of video games, the bigger they gotten (I've been following them since they were Imagine Games Network) the more of their integrity seemed to be for sale, and the less professional some of the writing seemed to get.
Hey! We can get away with a lack of professionalism in our writing here, it's a blog. So there.
I digress.
I'm not going to get too much into the IGN article, you can follow the link and read it for yourself if you're interested, instead I'm going to give my take on the question of just how full Activision's evil-o-meter is. Since I've already stated that I worked at Activision recently, you are free to grab your grain of salt and hang on to it for everything that follows, but keep in mind I am still a gamer, and I still love Tim Schafer. Onward.
The biggest issue with thinking of Activision is evil is thinking of it as a singular entity, rather than a company made up of people. To say Activision is evil is to say that every employee of Activision is evil (or bad or crooked or greedy or whatever else the general gaming population associates with Activision) which is simply not the case. The people I worked with in the QA department were some of the nicest, coolest people I've ever had the privilage of working with. This includes the Senior testers, Project Leads - you know, the general boss types - and not just my fellow testers. So already the idea that everyone at Activision is out to trick gamers into paying as much as they can for whatever crap Activision poops out should be busted. There's more to it than that, however.
Actvision is just the publisher, they're "the money." They don't have as much influence over the actual games as many people seem to think. Activision provides the funds to pay the salaries of the people that do makes the games (Infinity Ward, Treyarch, RoboModo, etc.) as well as take care of advertising and actually getting those games on shelves. Any issue you have with the game itself falls on the name of whatever developer you find sharing space with Activision on the back of the box.
This reputation of being "evil" didn't materialize from nowhere, however, so there must be some merit to it, right? Scooping up Red Octane and the Guitar Hero name while kicking the company that created the franchise, Harmonix, to the curb is a move that can only be described as douchetastic. A similar descriptor could be applied to leapfrogging developers on the Call of Duty franchise in order to release series entries on an annual schedule. A move that almost certainly led to the infighting and implosions that affected Infinity Ward. What about kicking Double Fine to the same curb as Harmonix, then attempting to sue EA for the rights to Brutal Legend once it looked like there was some serious buzz about it? Douchetastic to the max. But, who is responsible for all these actions really? Individuals. More specifically, businessmen.
Businessmen trying to maximize profits for themselves and for shareholders. These people are not interested in whether or not their company's game does something new, or "pushes the envelope" or if the game's audience thinks it was a real improvement over the previous incarnation. They're only interested in whether or not people buy it and, so long as people continue to buy Call of Duty and other such games in record numbers, there's no reason to change the way things are going. But this is the struggle that has existed between publishers, developers and gamers since almost the inception of the video game industry. Gamers want some new experience, some significant improvement, developers want to push the limits of their ability and publishers simply want as large a return on their investment as possible. Do the higher-ups at Activision employ some of the more dastardly methods in order to accomplish that goal? Absolutely. But a few years ago the same thing was being said about EA, who is now considered the "good witch" to Activision's wicked witch. Which means some of you need to consider the fact that I'm trying to work in a good Wicked analogy here.
All this talk of how Activision is a publisher and as such is run by businessmen, rather than gamers, can't be complete without mentioning the man every gamer looks upon as Satan's earthly minion: Bobby Kotick. While the level of direct involvement Kotick had in some of the more dubious actions I've mentioned is something I can't comment on with any kind of accuracy, the man's reputation in the public leaves little doubt about how his company came to be considered "evil." Let's review some of his more recent appearances in the news: Lost a lawsuit levied against him by a law firm because he never paid them for providing defense in a sexual harassment suit that he also lost. A suit which was birthed from the "company" he and five friends created to manage their private jet in order to get tax write-offs for the use of said jet. Doesn't exactly create a warm and/or fuzzy feeling in regards to the man. But this kind of behavior isn't exclusive to Activision, the video game industry or even businessmen. Isn't one of the reasons we have "class warfare" and an arguably malfunctioning economy due to CEOs, VPs and the like preferring to dissolve entire buildings full of people that live from paycheck to paycheck rather than forfeit the profits that allow them to drive two Bentley's and have a "summer home" on an island whose name takes practice to pronounce properly?
When it comes down to it, Activision isn't really evil. It's simply a publisher run by a businessman displaying some of the most despicable traits associated with both. I'm sure if the public was able to dig deep enough they'd find there were people besides Kotick responsible for some of the most offensive decisions the company has made. Maybe not. So perhaps there are individuals in charge that could easily fall into the definition of "evil" but their actions are representative of only themselves, not the entire company. The worst thing I can think to accuse Activision, as a company, (rather than specific individuals) of is laziness. Rather than take the huge profits created by their biggest franchises and use them to branch out into new, potentially groundbreaking and risky IPs, the people in charge of the company simply rests on their laurels; assured that the next Call of Duty game or World of Warcraft expansion will buy Kotick another jet.
Should this change, and Activisions starts using those profits to take risks, birth new franchises or simply allow adequate development time on current franchises to create a truly "new" incarnation (again, much like the about-face EA did not too long ago) gamers will simply find another company to paint the evil target on. Because that's just the nature of video games, and I'm as guilty of it as anyone else.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Time Travel
So yes, once again there has been a large...LARGE gap since the last installment of new content here on Higher Tech. I'm only one man, what can I say? Oh right, I can say the most recent gap was due to my employment in Activision's QA department. True, even when we were doing 12 hour days 6 days a week, I did have time to write something here...I was just afraid to.
I tend to get excited and go off on tangents about related gaming topics and other theories and info whenever I write something; you may have noticed this. While accidentally letting slip some small secret about Tony Hawk: Shred (my first project) may have gone unnoticed, any kind of leak related to Call of Duty: Black Ops (my second project) would have quickly gotten me fired, if not sued. So I'm sorry to the 5 or 6 of you out there that read this, but you're simply not worth staring down the barrel of Activision's legal department, much less forfeiting my long fought for first step into the video game industry.
In any case, some form of regular content should be appearing here again soon. At least until my gig at Naughty Dog starts in March. That's right, Naughty Dog. Uncharted 3. Be jealous, it's OK.
In the meantime, feel free to get more regular updates from my Twitter feed. Though far less informative, you'll usually still find video game related stuff, and it's always nerdtastic. Occasionally funny too. Woo! Ah hell, just go...
I tend to get excited and go off on tangents about related gaming topics and other theories and info whenever I write something; you may have noticed this. While accidentally letting slip some small secret about Tony Hawk: Shred (my first project) may have gone unnoticed, any kind of leak related to Call of Duty: Black Ops (my second project) would have quickly gotten me fired, if not sued. So I'm sorry to the 5 or 6 of you out there that read this, but you're simply not worth staring down the barrel of Activision's legal department, much less forfeiting my long fought for first step into the video game industry.
In any case, some form of regular content should be appearing here again soon. At least until my gig at Naughty Dog starts in March. That's right, Naughty Dog. Uncharted 3. Be jealous, it's OK.
In the meantime, feel free to get more regular updates from my Twitter feed. Though far less informative, you'll usually still find video game related stuff, and it's always nerdtastic. Occasionally funny too. Woo! Ah hell, just go...
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Gettting my Game Face on.
At the suggestion of friends from The Game Cookery, where most Higher Tech articles can also be found, I've decided to begin chronicling my efforts to break into the video game industry. Of course, at present, I'm past the part where I swept my girlfriend off across the country to find more entry level positions in the land of the setting sun (California) and started making contacts you'll probably be wanting some prologue.
So, uummm...
So, uummm...
Prologue
I love video games. I still believe the best Christmas present I ever received was a Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Before then I'd only ever played my friends' systems. That gray box with purple buttons was my induction. I played every game I could convince my mother to buy, and played them over and over. Yes, I'm somewhat ashamed to say I used a Game Genie sometimes, but I was a "newb" in the most literal possible sense.
As the years passed I grew to appreciate games for the unique artistic medium that they were. I found my greatest delights in uncovering some new way to approach the challenges presented rather than simply reaching the end and saving the princess/the world. I began to understand that video games were entirely unique in the realm of entertainment mediums. Unlike the passive experiences found in books or movies, games didn't tell you a story, they asked what your story was, or at least what version you liked best.
From the most basic, story-devoid, premise of Space Invaders which simply asks "Would you be able to survive an oncoming horde of aliens that move faster with each new wave?" to the most recent open-world game that simply asks "What would you do if...?" before trailing off into possibilities to numerous to be listed on the whole of the Internet, video games provide the opportunity for the play to take what story they're given and make it theirs.
The best works of art, movie, novel, painting or sculpture leave room for interpretation, the opportunity for the audience to take away a slightly different experience than the person next to them. These same works of art only improve with multiple viewings. But when was the last time you watched Citizen Kane and had an entirely different experience? Kane will always die, Rosebud will still be a sled, your (realistic) interpretation will always have very definite limits.
With a game, however, you can go back and see how the story were different if you were the bad guy, or if you had saved this person, or killed that one, or gone left instead of right, or managed to get the ice beam before the fire beam. Even the most linear game allows you to ask "What if I had been fighting 20 guys instead of 12 or what if those 12 guys had been MUCH better fighters?" and then opens the floor for you to play out that story. It's exhilarating to find something you haven't experienced before, some mechanic or application of it that you had never seen until that very moment. There are few things as rewarding.
Video games are not the story of what has happened, they are the story of what is happening. This is true whether the game is telling you a story or asking you to come up with your own. It was before I even fully understood this that I understood something far more important, I wanted to make video games.
Unfortunately I allowed myself to believe that a "career" in video games was childish and that, as a "genius" (but who believes IQ tests, really?) I needed to become a lawyer or a doctor or a CEO in order to be counted as successful. So off to college I went, a PS2 in one hand and a Pre-Med curriculum in the other.
As a grew to dislike the complete lack of stimulation medical science offered for my more creative desires I spent more time reading and writing about games, taking my Playstation, and Gamecube, apart talking about games with whoever would listen and, occasionally, even playing some. This led to a lot of skipped classes, but with my grades averaging somewhere around a B in most cases the professors left me alone.
My right brain would leave me alone however. Facing a future that would leave me unsatisfied and (Current Doctors, back me up on this) without a social life, I finally changed my major to Computer Science and decided to pursue a life of making video games.
This decision came too late, however, as my financial aid would not fund more than four years of college and I was in no position to afford a college education without that aid.
I was stuck.
But I wasn't beaten. I continued to do what I could with what I had. I kept up on all the latest trends and major game releases. I read about the new hardware and software being employed. I built, rebuilt, customized and repaired PC's in my small, western New York town to keep what up with what technical skills I had. I played everything I could, opting for standard editions over "special" or "limited" to ensure that I had the budget for a larger number of games. I hunted down classics I had missed out on to see what they had to teach me about design. I applied to every company I could think in an attempt to at least get feedback on what they were looking for. I bought Paid to Play and Break into the Game Industry and filled them with bookmarks on things I needed to memorize. Through all of this, I worked on my own design documents. Some of them never made it further than outline a basic mechanic I wanted to use someday, others blossomed into full game concepts, all of them engaged my mind in ways that nothing else ever could.
While doing all this I also worked a "real job" and saved up what money I could, no easy task with the *cough* crooked *cough* holders of my "private student loans" breathing down my neck. But I did it, I had saved up enough money that I could grab my girlfriend and move to the place most saturated with game studios, including some of my all-time favorites: California. If I couldn't get a degree then I would push my way into the industry by jamming my foot in the door labeled "Quality Assurance."
Once again, however, my timing was terrible. The video game industry was in bad shape, teams were being let go, entire studios were shut down, the Southern California market was over-saturated and studios were moving out. QA positions were nearly impossible to come by without previous experience. Again, I was stuck. But I was stuck in a better position.
Far from the middle-of-nowhere from whence I had come, the industry was all around me. I still encountered numerous people that had no idea what a "Game Designer" was, but for every 1 of them there was someone at a different stage of the same journey I was on. I was hopeful.
So, once again, I found myself working what jobs I can, including some "acting" as an extra for a less-than glamorous MTV show, while saving money to either buy myself an education in game design or programmers and artists confident in my ability to design something worthy of all their time and effort. I continued to read and write about everything in the world of video games. I continued to play every game that has something to teach me about the medium, or simply show me what its best can be. I continued to search for any and every opening or unpaid internship studios offer while claiming "Yes, I do want to spend my life working at this desk," in order to support the one thing I really do want to spend my life doing.
One day, however, I came across a little group called The game Cookery and, well that's the next part of the story so you'll just have to wait.
As the years passed I grew to appreciate games for the unique artistic medium that they were. I found my greatest delights in uncovering some new way to approach the challenges presented rather than simply reaching the end and saving the princess/the world. I began to understand that video games were entirely unique in the realm of entertainment mediums. Unlike the passive experiences found in books or movies, games didn't tell you a story, they asked what your story was, or at least what version you liked best.
From the most basic, story-devoid, premise of Space Invaders which simply asks "Would you be able to survive an oncoming horde of aliens that move faster with each new wave?" to the most recent open-world game that simply asks "What would you do if...?" before trailing off into possibilities to numerous to be listed on the whole of the Internet, video games provide the opportunity for the play to take what story they're given and make it theirs.
The best works of art, movie, novel, painting or sculpture leave room for interpretation, the opportunity for the audience to take away a slightly different experience than the person next to them. These same works of art only improve with multiple viewings. But when was the last time you watched Citizen Kane and had an entirely different experience? Kane will always die, Rosebud will still be a sled, your (realistic) interpretation will always have very definite limits.
With a game, however, you can go back and see how the story were different if you were the bad guy, or if you had saved this person, or killed that one, or gone left instead of right, or managed to get the ice beam before the fire beam. Even the most linear game allows you to ask "What if I had been fighting 20 guys instead of 12 or what if those 12 guys had been MUCH better fighters?" and then opens the floor for you to play out that story. It's exhilarating to find something you haven't experienced before, some mechanic or application of it that you had never seen until that very moment. There are few things as rewarding.
Video games are not the story of what has happened, they are the story of what is happening. This is true whether the game is telling you a story or asking you to come up with your own. It was before I even fully understood this that I understood something far more important, I wanted to make video games.
Unfortunately I allowed myself to believe that a "career" in video games was childish and that, as a "genius" (but who believes IQ tests, really?) I needed to become a lawyer or a doctor or a CEO in order to be counted as successful. So off to college I went, a PS2 in one hand and a Pre-Med curriculum in the other.
As a grew to dislike the complete lack of stimulation medical science offered for my more creative desires I spent more time reading and writing about games, taking my Playstation, and Gamecube, apart talking about games with whoever would listen and, occasionally, even playing some. This led to a lot of skipped classes, but with my grades averaging somewhere around a B in most cases the professors left me alone.
My right brain would leave me alone however. Facing a future that would leave me unsatisfied and (Current Doctors, back me up on this) without a social life, I finally changed my major to Computer Science and decided to pursue a life of making video games.
This decision came too late, however, as my financial aid would not fund more than four years of college and I was in no position to afford a college education without that aid.
I was stuck.
But I wasn't beaten. I continued to do what I could with what I had. I kept up on all the latest trends and major game releases. I read about the new hardware and software being employed. I built, rebuilt, customized and repaired PC's in my small, western New York town to keep what up with what technical skills I had. I played everything I could, opting for standard editions over "special" or "limited" to ensure that I had the budget for a larger number of games. I hunted down classics I had missed out on to see what they had to teach me about design. I applied to every company I could think in an attempt to at least get feedback on what they were looking for. I bought Paid to Play and Break into the Game Industry and filled them with bookmarks on things I needed to memorize. Through all of this, I worked on my own design documents. Some of them never made it further than outline a basic mechanic I wanted to use someday, others blossomed into full game concepts, all of them engaged my mind in ways that nothing else ever could.
While doing all this I also worked a "real job" and saved up what money I could, no easy task with the *cough* crooked *cough* holders of my "private student loans" breathing down my neck. But I did it, I had saved up enough money that I could grab my girlfriend and move to the place most saturated with game studios, including some of my all-time favorites: California. If I couldn't get a degree then I would push my way into the industry by jamming my foot in the door labeled "Quality Assurance."
Once again, however, my timing was terrible. The video game industry was in bad shape, teams were being let go, entire studios were shut down, the Southern California market was over-saturated and studios were moving out. QA positions were nearly impossible to come by without previous experience. Again, I was stuck. But I was stuck in a better position.
Far from the middle-of-nowhere from whence I had come, the industry was all around me. I still encountered numerous people that had no idea what a "Game Designer" was, but for every 1 of them there was someone at a different stage of the same journey I was on. I was hopeful.
So, once again, I found myself working what jobs I can, including some "acting" as an extra for a less-than glamorous MTV show, while saving money to either buy myself an education in game design or programmers and artists confident in my ability to design something worthy of all their time and effort. I continued to read and write about everything in the world of video games. I continued to play every game that has something to teach me about the medium, or simply show me what its best can be. I continued to search for any and every opening or unpaid internship studios offer while claiming "Yes, I do want to spend my life working at this desk," in order to support the one thing I really do want to spend my life doing.
One day, however, I came across a little group called The game Cookery and, well that's the next part of the story so you'll just have to wait.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)