Worth Reading: 03/01/2013

Thank you.

I mean, I ostensibly thank you. Ostensibly.

@patrickklepek said:

I’m not convinced 1916 is really all that good

I played Slender. I played 1916. I'm really curious why you don't think 1916 is all that good... especially compared to Slender.

That Bombermine game is awesome. Great 15 minute distraction if you need a quick break.

You can put up as many articles as you want about how much money and time it takes to make a game, It's not going to change this generation of the internet that produces snarky comments and all around jerk-being. However, it could change the upcoming generation of internet users to be a bit more intelligent.

If you read GAF, it's apparent the majority of users are more concerned with who gets the better snide joke in than who actually created an interesting topic to talk about. In fact, most websites with comments are like that. Even our dear, ol' GiantBomb has comment strings like that some times, but luckily GB users have been much better all around.

Cannot be quoted enough. Each time theres a TNT or Casual Friday and Brad is on that laptop and suddenly pops up with "there's this thread here on Neogaf about.." my heart sinks. Somewhat similar to when that guy sent them the poster he made of the Bombcrew and they were all so amazed by it. Their genuine shock at seeing it was quite dismaying as that guy had a pretty large thread up for at least a week with the entire development process of how he came to make that image. The idea that they check the boards so infrequently to never have seen it was really a bummer.

Loving the discussion on this thread. On a separate note, I'm glad Delver's Drop was highlighted. I hope people will check it out. I'm generally wary of Kickstarter game development, aside from the discussion of cost/transparency, I literally have never received a game I funded in the 1.5 half I've been funding them.

Despite my hesitation, I contributed to DD because the game actually looks fun and its something I would play instead of a good cause I want to support which is my primary motivation most of the time. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a highly polished dungeon crawler. Above the forum rabble I always try to "vote with my dollars" as they say. If your not into SG or A:CM then don't buy those games, I certainly didn't. Chances are the internet noise will pass in two weeks and people will find something else to rage over.

Geeze Patrick, that Valve Layoff thing is extremely informative and interesting. Thank you very much for linking to that. Seems like that story snuck past everyone pretty quickly.

The saddest part about the whole Radical Fishing Clone story is that Ninja Fishing is just a much better game in every way

Am I the only one that finds these Cliff blog entries horrible?

Oh god, so many good links. I'm drowning.

For the most part I don't think gamers should care about how much games cost to make. They should only care if it was worth what they spent.

— Dave Lang

Actually, dude, I think I will. I've found that often, when money going into a project balloons (or rather, the "sales requirements" thereof), the project comes out far away from what I'd want.

Keep it simple, stupid. Bomberman. Thousands of players. Simultaneous. Go play it. Now.

Why isn't this a retail project? Konami gonna Konami...

And the reverse of this community being waved off whenever its mentioned by someone avoiding heavy mental lifting occurs too. Who's right? Is either party right? Pro-tip: it's neither.

People on this website spewing nonsense about things they don't understand? I don't believe it!

Nice to see Stuart Ashen get some love.

I think the main point people aren't seeing/are ignoring about Lab Zero, is the fact that they had to literally rebuild themselves from scratch and have ZERO funding (no pun intended) from the channels they were getting them before. Mike Z says Autumn Games DOES owe them money, but they won't see squat until the brouhaha with Def Jam is settled.

@patrickklepek said, "You are not the average player, you are someone who, ostensibly, has a huge interest in knowing more about how the sausage is made, and that does inform how you play and buy."

I knew it. Tricky is Abe Froman. The Sausage King of Chicago.

So many interesting articles to read, so little time..

I'm a freshmen Computer Science major and my teacher showed us that same video for Code.org. It was really informative and made me more confident in my decision to be a computer science major. Coding in Java is really hard and I struggled the first month or so but once you see the syntax and operations come together you really get a sense of accomplishment.

On Code.org there are links to sites like Khan Academy and Code Academy that have lessons on programming languages like HTML, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, and others. I started in on JavaScript and saw that the lessons are very well put together and I learned a lot in a two days. they also make it a point to track your achievements online so you can see your progression over time. I highly recommend Code Academy if you want to learn about coding and programming. Even if you aren't a computer science major you'll build a valuable skill that can really come in handy.

Hah. Hah. The sales backfired on the Wii U scalpers. <Does a little dance>

A great example of why up its own ass NeoGAF is no better if not somehow ever worse than a forum like Giant Bomb.

Sure you get an average level of literacy and being informed on video games... but otherwise you get people with these extreme agendas.

What a surprise that people have no comprehension of how much a person makes in a year, and how much that multiplied a couple of times (let alone 50 times for a decent sized studio) adds up to, ignoring things like several tens of thousands of dollars into submitting your damn game to certain services, or marketing costs, facility maintenance, hardware, etc. It's not cheap. I don't even want to think about how much it costs to run a studio like Bungie. I've been in their old studio, it was fuckin' massive, and had a hell of a lot of space for man power. And Bungie is the kind of place that leads get paid some real cash. It adds up quickly, and you can't just pay everyone $25,000 a year.

People are extremely expensive. $150,000 is like 3-4 people for a year. Or, it's the wages/salaries of 3-4 people, who have no where to work and nothing to work on.

I don't think they worked "a lot harder." And as I recall (not from the era) most of those games were made by a small (even by today's indie scene) team, not a large studio. The majority of cost for a game's development is just paying wages/salaries.

I'm not sure what this sentence means?

Articles like this really remind me that the games industry is still young ,and quite Immature. So are the journalists bloggers that write about said industry.

The issue wasn't the cost of games, or the funding campaign, or some silly forum comments. The issue was that their publisher was in a legal battle, and was short on funds. I'm no right winged economics preacher, but if a business looses its backing, it goes out of business. If there's no demand for a certain game, then the business closes down unless it iterates a new product that does fulfill consumer demand.

It seems people like to preach the economics of salaries, but everyone likes to ignore the fact that game dev studios are businesses. Why should game dev studios be entitled to survive, while other business simply shut down? Its all well and good to make the games that you want to make, but don't come a crying when there's no money stream.

People like Patrick likes to knock large franchises, and first person shooters but the thing is there is a demand for such games. It follows the sensible route of "Shit man people really want these games! Lets make them!", then you add your own personal touches to the concept to make it unique. Instead the games industry fancies itself some kind of art-scene" Hey man I got this obscure idea for a game that will be so cool! Shit man lets make it!" then by great astonishment no one buys the obscure game, and the business looses its funding.

What most people fail to understand, is that the brilliance of such studios like Naughty Dogs, and Bungie lies in making games that the consumers continuously demand, but then they place their creativity in the details and fine tuning of the concept.

Its not the only way to make games though, and admire the entrepreneurial spirit of indie studios, but please stop crying when new wacky ideas don't work out. Don't beat the dead horse, let it go and go and try to make something new. Its not like there isn't a new dozen indie studious forming every day.

-Jonathan Blow's Arch Nemesis

Awesome read.

I find Neogaf as good or bad as any other forums, but on a bigger volume of traffic. I dislike 90% of it, but comes there on a casual basis for the remaining 10% in which I find pertinent gaming information, recent news/release discussions, thoughtful user debates and analyses and the local giantbomb threads. I am respectful to those giantbomb staff that tolerates the rest of the community to read it, not being closeminded enough to avoid it altogether.

I can find worst threads and users on the smaller official giantbomb forums, which makes me cautious when navigating through them, and similarly, the giantbomb forums has a bad reputation, especially in topics regarding the staff, from my reading experience. I don't doubt many would stick to comment sections and live chat.

Even though I'm never going to want to be part of neogaf community, I find lurking there is fine, as long as you don't take everything seriously and get trolled or frustrated by part of the community.

I would call them a different flavor of the PA forums which I also go to.

You pointed it out your self, they had the demand by the backing of their fans all of which get the character that they are developing, it really is just a pre-order system where the more well off fans can give more money if they wish to the developer of the game they love. I don't see a problem here this type of business should be embraced in the gaming industry.

@rollout: The Giantbomb forums lack proper moderation which is the biggest drawback. While the SomethingAwful forums might seem super uptight, at least you don't get a bunch of trolls and gimmick users because they get reported and banned right away.

What's interesting is that 1916 even seems to be the older one of these two. It was released back in 2011 and Slender in 2012 if I'm not mistaking.
Both are pretty good examples of atmospheric avoidance games.

@humanity: Agreed, just a tad more moderation could make it more popular and then the GB team would be more inclined to post on it. As of now, I think the GB staff goes to places that just have population, where they're sure to be heard.

The number of people on GAF saying that they could do that work by themselves is ridiculous. There was even some guy just out of school (still looking for work, mind you) that said it would take a week to draw and animate the new character.

Thank you. :)

Most of those comments not believing the cost are from people that don't understand how ANY business works in general, let alone video game development.

Or they work for free and have no overhead and unlimited time.

I don't really know why, but every time Patrick says 'ostensibly' I get the urge to pat him on the head. I don't think I've ever seen him use the word within a context in which it actually made sense. Which is awesome.

Very well said. Demand is the foundation of any industry. Any crusade for the pretension that "higher art" is an obtainable objective for the gaming industry is futility absurd and naive. You rightly pointed the finger at someone who needs to realize this is a truth, regardless of how much whining they do about it.

"...there were loads of commenters who could more quickly believe this was a conspiracy and Lab Zero Games were scam artists or lazy. That strikes me as a certain kind of crazy, and suggests to me there need to be many more stories about game development to drive it home."

First of all, you have be some sort of ignorant monkey person to be that dumb. Lazy? C'mon - they had video of their new character-in-progress IN THEIR PITCH VIDEO. Clearly these guys know what they're doing and mean what they say - the proof is right in front of you, dipshit. It's awesome to see an in-development character too, with just black and white sketchy linework, but that's just my opinion.

You're 100% right though Patrick, in that you journalists should have many more stories about this kind of thing until we stamp out dumbass ignorant gamers. The worst part? I bet those same assholes are the ones using the microtransactions in games like Dead Space 3. Clearly, they have no idea about the concept of value, worth and how to be responsible with their money. "$15 for a new COD map pack featuring 2 old maps from the last game? AWESOME. $150k for a new character in a game (I don't play) from an indie developer? That's bullshit!" *sigh*

I guess when you work as a refrigerator repair man, you don't know how "big business" video game creation can be. Or anything in the entertainment industry really, but hey, that's for us college graduates to worry about! Fucking NeoGAF losers...

@clush said:

does it keep you up at night, leaving you fevered and distressed without succor?

Are you speaking generally, or specifically in regards do Skullgirls? If you're suggesting the Skullgirls developers should have given up on the game entirely, despite the fact that fans jumped at the chance to help fund the continuation of the game, that would be ridiculous.

If we're talking a situation where some indie developer made a game that few people cared about and then tried to crowd fund a continuation of it and didn't meet their goal and then proceeded to complain that nobody helped support it then I'd agree. But if you have fans that are devoted enough to help support the continuation of said game why would you not even try?

Blown away by how accurate and great that Farcry video is!

@beaudacious said:

Referring to yourself as "Jonathan Blow's Arch Nemesis" implies that you are anywhere near his level of rigorous thinking about game design. You have one of the most foolish, short-sighted approaches to thinking about the video game industry that I've ever seen.

There's room for both. Film has room for both blockbusters and arthouse films. It's the same with books and music; James Joyce, Fugazi, Michael Crichton, and Ke$ha all manage to exist within their respective mediums, and criticism has found room for all of them. If I don't like Call of Duty, it's not because I'm some pretentious douche who can't just enjoy a good time. It's because I no longer find first-person shooting compelling, or because I don't like to be barraged by violent images, or because I find the writing trite and cliched. Other people can enjoy Call of Duty all they want. It's the uproar on forums like this one (though it's even worse on many other websites) whenever games try to do new stuff that "games should just be fun and WHY DON'T YOU WANT GAMES TO BE FUN" that really gets on my nerves.

Naughty Dog and Bungie are fine at what they do. Naughty Dog has really good adventure story characterization and technically impressive streamlined level design; Bungie revolutionized the first-person shooter on television and they understand encounter design in a way that not a lot of studios did at the time, or even do today. But I still find their games dull. I'm not saying they're shit, I'm just saying I don't like them. I prefer games like Thirty Flights of Loving, or Myst, or your "nemesis"'s upcoming game The Witness. There's room for all of this in the game industry, but for some reason I can't talk about why I find Cart Life more interesting than Halo 4 without some "fun factor" crusader trying to crawl up my ass.

Yes, how dare he continue to make arguments in support of his point. Everyone knows that you're only allowed a single article to support an idea on the internet. Then you're just supposed to ignore the community and forget about the topic completely. THAT'S journalism for you. I know this is the internet, so please, note sarcasm.

*shrug* I like Patrick's articles but I am amused by how "religiously" some people read them just to criticize it. You guys are doing Patrick and GB a big favor. :)

As for the topic, a business needs to strike the balance that works in the market it plays in. It doesn't matter if a game cost $150 to make if only 2 people buy it where worst is spending $150,000 for the same 2 players. If it is turning out that big budget productions in certain genres aren't gaining enough profit, then maybe they need to move on. As much as I do not want to entertain the idea, I wonder if producers are putting too much money into big productions. The next big test of the "AAA Game" is going to be Bioshock Infinite...

To me it feels like the industry is in a transition for the "single player campaign" style game where "persistent online" has altered if not weakened the entire field. I don't know what it will take to fix them but I am suspicious of the idea that altering them for micro-transactions and DLC helps. For instance, the Scrolling Shooter used to be all the rage where I don't think those games are going to suddenly stage a comeback with micro-transactions peppered through them.

"Everyone agreed it was a crazy deal, and still there were loads of commenters who could more quickly believe this was a conspiracy and Lab Zero Games were scam artists or lazy."

Conspiracy theories: Like fundamentalist religion for atheists.

They require no basis in fact, no supportable evidence, incredible ego, and a need to convert others. Best of all: any evidence to the contrary can be brushed off as the skeptic being "a part of it" or "sheeple."

I wouldn't call Tevis Thompson essay brilliant more of a glorification of the first two Zeldas and piss on its future installments. A long winded speech of the good old days and how Nintendo has f****ed it up since. Zelda ain't perfect and while Skyward did some things right there's room for improvement and expansion of what a Zelda is but reading that article is just tiresome.

HOLY SHIT THAT DUDE IS VAAS

@darkest4: Please, continue telling us about your expertise in journalism.

So I just keep waiting.

Gallery

Hey, random I know.

@bvilleneuve: I never said there's no room for such games? Just that people need to stop dramatizing a business loosing its funding. I also don't like Halo, but to say that Halo is anything short of a success in all aspects is quite short sighted.

@patrickklepek i trust you and your views explicitly! Now get on the phone and develop a TressFX beard already!! SWOOSH