Worth Reading: 05/31/2013

Not digging it every time a few on the GB crew say: "no games are coming out". This occurs on a lot of podcasts, I Love Mondays, and now at the start of this worth reading:

"We’re about to enter a period of the yearly gaming cycle where the regular flow of releases is going to slow down. For some, this is a bummer, since it means there aren’t any (or few) new games."

I went ahead and checked the new releases from now until September. This isn't a list of everything, just what I could easily discern from looking at Amazon and Giant Bomb for a few minutes.

@patrickklepek maybe none of of these will interest you at all this summer... but games are always coming out now!

I know I shouldn't purchase any of these games coming out over the summer. My backlog between the current consoles and my Steam library is gigantic. I certainly miss the time in my life where a summer off school allowed me to sit down and beat something like Dragon Quest VII.

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Thanks for sharing that Ashly Burch podcast, @patrickklepek. It was helpful in a variety of ways.

John Leguizamo is an awesome dude apparently! Let the fungus be among us.

If women want their gender to be represented in video games the way they want to, they should do it themselves. Right now they are asking others to do it for them. The truth is that women in most parts aren't really into making games. Men and women have different interests, that's why tech schools aren't filled to the brim with girls. I doubt that any studios will let anyone become a game designer from the get-go. The idea that the industry is hostile against women working there sounds ridiculous to me. Who wouldn't want women co-workers? At the end of the day games are made by guys for guys that like guys stuff. On top of that i doubt that publishers would want to focus on games that cater to the minority of the market.

There are privileges and responsibilities, women must work on the second to have the first. Otherwise its just bitching and moaning.

I think you're intentionally missing the point here.

Tropes vs Women: Just look at these dicks trying to protect their loved ones! Disgusting!

Gay marriage and sexism discussion, yeeep, this is Worth Reading...

@mrmazz: I can understand where she comes from, I believe she could research her preconceptions better and present her findings in a less sensational manner. Basically, I don't find her trustworthy.

Here it is!

Armikrog Kickstarter

@assinass: Whoa, they're making a spiritual successor? I didn't know! Sign me up.

@jackg100: I'm pretty sure she is taking a more academic approach to this and not journalistic either way you seem to be missing the point.

OK, that Damsels in Distress video had me nodding my head all the way up until the woman started comparing it to domestic violence. It's a dumb plot element that's found its way into too many games, but let's not insinuate that men playing them are fantasizing about beating up their wives.

@lively: Well, she is an extremist, and it shines through pretty well in most of her videos too. Of course, even if you are an extremist you could make valid points, but I would listen and care more about her opinion if she had made a non-biased study of the subject matter. Instead she had her opinion about how women are portrayed in games done already before she even started her research. I play a lot of games, I never had any problems with the tropes she's listed, nor can I say that they are even in a majority of the games I tend to play. There's a shortage of female protagonists sure, but just read up on "Remember Me". And you will soon understand that it isn't the developers fault, it is the publishers.

So basically I just think if she had approached the subject as a journalist, instead of a propaganda-pusher, her videos would have more merit. As it is now, I can't trust that they paint a real picture of how big the problem is. Or if it is really a problem to begin with. Since she is clearly trying to push an agenda, and not making an unbiased study.

I could go on pointing out all the wrongs I see in her videos, but I suppose it is a matter of perception in the end. When Max Paynes family is brutally murdered, I think it is horrible, and I can understand the emotions and why Max goes on a murderous rampage for vengeance. He loved them dearly. Anita sees it as someone destroyed his precious property... cause that is how guys think, right?

I found 3 things today

Armikrog looks amazing, I hope it gets funding, it deserves it

John Leguizamo isn't that bright (Vin Diesel, John) but I still loved some of his movies back in the day

Sam Lake is still my favorite

I say this as an old-school Rare fan: Donkey Kong 64 freaking sucks.

@lively: The iOS market is technically curated.

Playstation 4 will allow independent developers to self-publish. I don't know if that will allow them to set their own prices.

Armikrog looks amazeballs.

Well of course it's hard to prove anything, but given that the PC market, as well as mobile games have already gone down this path I'd say it's a pretty good clue to how things might operate.

The main difference here is that while the PC is open, and the mobile app markets are self-published, the Xbox and PlayStation systems are curated. Curated markets means fewer titles overall, so perhaps there will be less competition, and less downward pressure on prices.

If I were to guess, I would say that we will see a lot of sales on Xbox and PlayStation, but with price cuts being slightly shallower than we're used to on Steam.

Microsoft and Sony may repeat their system of mandating certain price points for certain kinds of content, but I would again argue that they'll leave money on the table if they don't allow some flexibility there, and approve price cuts to drive more sales sometime after release.

You completely missed my point. I'm not discussing the merits of used games or if developers deserve to earn money, but the point that Steam sales somehow prove that developers will set a lower price point. Going on sale is different than regularly priced. I can get a game on sale during an Amazon sale.

Sometimes the regular price on Steam compared to on consoles can be $5-10 less than on console. It may be that they are passing on savings by going digital compared to a box copy. It may be because retail stores focus on console copies and pretty much ignore PC versions, so publishers don't have to deal with appeasing them. It may be partly due to no licensing fees or expected patching fees paid to the console maker. However, sometimes the publisher decides to sell the PC download for the same price as a boxed console version at launch. Both may go on sale afterwards, so pointing at Steam sales doesn't really prove anything.

There's a price difference between the console and PC version of Metro: Last Light, $49.99 to $59.99, respectively. Is there an incentive to bring that console price down that also keeps retailers happy? DmC has a listed price of $49.99 on both Steam and Xbox 360. There's a Steam weekend deal for $29.99. The current price on Amazon is $37.60 - not on "sale." The former price will go up afterwards until the next sale, until they do a permanent price drop to match the retailer price drop. Going on sale is not the point. Is there enough incentive for publishers to have more games priced at $49.99 than $59.99, or higher, on consoles?

Right now Sony allows publishers to set their PSN download versions to charge less than the boxed retail version. Not all of them take advantage of this. I haven't seen any download version of Xbox 360 game launch at a lower price than the boxed version, so I don't know is they allow it. Some download versions of games do go on sale on both consoles occasionally, and sometimes they get a permanent price drop. That is not the same as launching a game priced less than the average boxed version.

Again, pointing to Steam sales doesn't prove that publishers would be willing to launch their games at a lower price. The difference between PC prices and console prices may or may not be an indicator of their willingness, but that might be impacted by other factors.

In the first video, Anita says this: "In the game of patriarchy, women are not the opposing team, they are the ball".

I think that addresses a lot of what you're talking about. Yes, men are often the villain, but they are also the hero, the side-kick, and most of the supporting / nameless characters as well. Women are so often reduced to the MacGuffin, an object that drives the plot, but is essentially an inanimate object that others fight over, and has no real agency of its own, no real way to affect the story.

When the plot of rescuing a kidnapped girlfriend is functionally not that different from Wario going out to recover his gold, or Donkey Kong trying to recover his bananas, you know you have a problem.

Secondly, I really bristle when people use the word "agenda" like you just did, as if the desire for things to improve, and having the audacity to say it out loud makes you into some sort of extremist.

It's like when conservative Christians complain about "the gay agenda", as if wanting more civil rights is something to be mocked and ignored. Even worse is the suggestion that "we might actually listen to you, but you didn't ask nice enough".

@jackg100: The thing is, every other business have other sources of revenues than initial sales, and the only way around that is either DLC, microtransactions or online passes. Or other ways to cram money out of consumers that already bought the game once. If the stores that sold the games second hand would give a cut to the people who made the product I wouldn't have a problem with it. But the way things are, a resold game only makes the stores profit. Which is just plain wrong. Other media does not have this problem, because they have other sources of revenue. And a ban on second hand sales of games is to me the least annoying way to deal what is clearly a problem for developers.

Well that's their own damn fault. They have more revenue streams with DLC and online passes than say film or music. If they still can't figure out how to make money that's their fault. Also WHY do pubs and devs deserve another cut through used games? They don't, they already got their cut. Gamestop reselling used games after buying them for say 10 and selling for 40 is just exploiting a market which is good on them, unlike publishers they've figured out how to make money. A ban on used games would make the Video Game industry wholly unique to other entertainment entities and probably spur them into some other kind of draconian bullshit.

There has to be an incentive, otherwise I do not see why they would even allow their games to go on sale on steam. It is a way to get a second wave of sales going, since the first two months is the most important ones in a games lifecycle, after they have passed sales might trickle in, but in order to get a big boost in sales you got to lower the price. The used market undermines that strategy though, since a lower priced game is out "good as new", I mean as long as the disc works it is for all intents and purposes the same as a new game. Especially in todays gamingmarket where the fluff-content of a box isn't a thing, other than for collectors editions and the like where a lowered second hand price might make sense. Still, I think developers deserves something for a used game, as it stands now the only ones making a profit on used sales are gamestores.

That's not really the same thing. The equivalent of those digital sales are retailer sales of physical copies. Some publishers do reduce the price of a digital copy compared to a physical copy, some don't. That's not exclusive to PCs either, since some PSN downloads are reduced. The question is would the publisher have an incentive to reduce the MSRP of a physical copy at launch from the current standard price.

Yeah, but to all gender stereotyping and not just that of women. Also, she is too much of a feminist to make her points valid, like for instance she says that when a woman is kidnapped and the hero has to go rescue her it implies that it was "his property getting stolen". While in my opinion it is just a way to motivate a hero to go rescue his loved ones, or seek revenge for them. How does that weaken women in any regard? And how is it wrong. It is a simple and understandable plot device.

She complains about women getting killed off by men in videogames. How many men are getting killed off by men in videogames? Heaps more. What percentile of antagonists in games are men, and how many are women? I haven't kickstarted anything to find out the statistics of it, but I believe men are in the vast majority. Does that mean that games are trying to paint men in society as evildoers that must be stopped?

If she was less concerned with pushing her feminist agenda I would be more positive to her videos. But she so blatantly interprets everything in the most negative way possible, like a politician trying to push an agenda.

I wouldn't say that, just look at steam for instance, or greenmangaming or any other digital distributor of games. Quite often we get sales on "newish" games, and I doubt we would be getting that if you were able to sell your steamgames.

The thing is, every other business have other sources of revenues than initial sales, and the only way around that is either DLC, microtransactions or online passes. Or other ways to cram money out of consumers that already bought the game once. If the stores that sold the games second hand would give a cut to the people who made the product I wouldn't have a problem with it. But the way things are, a resold game only makes the stores profit. Which is just plain wrong. Other media does not have this problem, because they have other sources of revenue. And a ban on second hand sales of games is to me the least annoying way to deal what is clearly a problem for developers.

Sarkeesian rules! There needs to be a heap of work done in regards to gender stereotyping in video games.

I find it ironic that with the amount of discussion concerning sexism in the industry here these days, the sponsored links inevitably include some cheesball, teen-wank material XX Hottest Women in Whateverdiscipline article.

@lively: Right, but the thing with the PC market is that it sees a lot more games of various production levels, whereas consoles only see AAA games outside of the downloadable space. More companies are willing to put a game on sale for real cheap on Steam since the game budgets tend to be more diverse.

If I were a betting man, I would put money on Sony and Microsoft doing exactly that, and the courts not doing anything to get in their way. That's the thing about capitalism in the first world; there are lots of exceptions to true "free market" ideals, and they are often allowed in favor of large businesses.

See, I'm not making the assumption that the Microsoft / Sony and the publishers will suddenly become philanthropic organizations and pass on all saving to the consumer; far from it.

I'm assuming that they'll act in their financial best interest in a way that will recover the most profits from their investments.

What Valve has proved time and time again with their Steam sales is that publishers can generate an incredible volume of sales if they lower the price drastically, either permanently or for short periods, in such a way where the total profit outweighs the lost marginal price per unit. Because the product is digital, and there is no overhead or barrier to doing so. Because less money (of which consumers only have a limited amount) is being sucked into the used game market, there is more available to be spent on these sales.

I refuse to believe that this consumer behavior is strictly limited to the PC crowd; in time the consoles will be able to do this as well.

Valve isn't some saintly anomaly giving its blessings to the PC gaming master race, they're just run by smart business men. I'm saying that Sony and Microsoft will be leaving money on the table if they don't do this, and as profit-driven organizations I don't think they intend to.

This post on NeoGaF (yea I know) pretty much summs up why I think this type of thinking is wrong. Why should I, a consumer give up rights for something that no other industry dose because the people in charge have failed to adapt a new buisness model. This is captalism they deserve their fate. Besides from what it appears Microsoft (and Sony possibly) are thinking about doing might not really hold up in court which isn't something anyone of them want.

The problem with this argument is that people who make it live in a fantasy world where console manufacturers and game publishers pass the savings on to the consumer. In today's heavily bottom line driven game industry, the result of no used games isn't lower prices, its just no used games.

It brings a tear to my eye seeing conversations happening about self-aware media consumption and female representation in video games. I just kind of wish similar conversations were happening about anime, but maybe I'm just not looking in the right places.

Hey Patrick thanks for pointing out that podcast, I didn't know about it before but now I have at least 20+ episodes that I wanna listen to from it, and it seems legit. Thank you.

I'm of the same opinion. The used game industry is a parasitic drain on the videogame market, and I'm pretty sure that if it were removed from the equation game prices would fall, and the developers would see more of the revenue back so they can use it for making more / better games.

I had to sound like a broken record, but it's worked out pretty well for the PC.

Total Biscuit makes some solid points about second hand games, and that they are hurting the industry more than they are aiding the consumers.

@hassun: There is no publication. Medium is basically a way to share ideas in more characters than a tweet allows in a more public space beyond your personal blog.

Edit: Ah, you're pointing out a typo.

@patrickklepek ""On Consuming Media Responsibly" by Jenn Frank for" might be missing the publication name or something.

@brechtiandinnertheater: I think probably my strongest criticism of Anita would be that she tends to leave herself open to attack when she makes fairly bold, short, declarative statements. More explanation and careful choice of language would help a lot to shore up these weaknesses.

In my opinion, most of these statements are actually reasonable and defensible once you really explore them, as you did in your post just now, but a lot of people who already are emotionally predisposed to dislike her argument tend not to want to put in the energy to try to unpack her logic and understand where she's coming from.

As such, it's the more surface-level and inflamatory interpretations of what she's saying that gain traction and fuel more backlash.

holy shit that edcrab tweet is spot on

Here's the article I was referring to earlier.

Edit: Don't read the comments.

@sergio: I don't think that the Damsel in Distress trope is inherently a negative portrayal, especially when as you say it's handled correctly and not taken out of context. Take Ico, for example. As I mentioned in an earlier comment, I love that game. I think of it as a singular artistic achievement in a medium where such accomplishments are only just becoming possible. And largely it's the game's exploration of that very trope that I love about it so much: the hand holding, the sense of duty you feel towards Yorda as her protector, the fear you feel when the shadows come and drag her away. Is it sexist? ...Maybe. But only in the context of so many other games utilizing the exact same trope, a point I think Sarkeesian was attempting to articulate with her long list of games. Having so many games try to hit the same point ultimately cheapens it, and I think the overall effect is indeed sexist. And perhaps that is a flaw in how she presented her argument: You could take many of those games and remove them from the context of all the others, and they'd probably be fine. But the context remains.

I think Sarkeesian and her supporters are simply arguing for diversifying the types of stories that games can tell, and perhaps that's what her opponents are failing to understand: What she's proposing isn't taking away these games we know and love, such a proposition would be ridiculous. We want there to be more games, and as you yourself say, a wider variety of protagonists to play as, including gender, or better yet, more choices. She repeatedly points out in her video the lack of choice given to the player, the way that the only option presented, in many cases, is violence against women. I think that's the most insidious aspect of the portrayal of women in video games. And think about what the alternative would be: more choice, more options.

I don't know about you, but in RPGs, I always dump a large quantity of my skill points into whatever the conversation option is, the option that opens up more branches of dialogue, the opportunity to perhaps have Commander Shepard talk his way out of a situation before resorting to gunfire. Those are some of the most memorable moments in those games, some of the most satisfying solutions. And for the most part, I think both sides agree with this. We love moments like those. Who would really rather those choices not be there, even among those who would ultimately choose the path of violence when given the choice?

What I'm trying to say is it's not just women who are negatively impacted by strict adherence to these tired and often misogynistic tropes, it's all of us.

@patrickklepek this game seems soooooo up your alley http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/524168447/the-stomping-land?ref=live

@brechtiandinnertheater: *sigh* trying to have a civil discussion, and then that...