EDIT: I forgot to mention that the blog is trying to be "community-driven" so we're actively trying to promote potential readers to submit us articles, reviews, whatever. So if you wanna do just that. Feel free to!
I'm currently in the process of developing my own website/community. Gammabit, which is currently located on a placeholder Blogger account. I had previously started this with several classmates in my journalism course, but several of them just stopped giving a shit, right when we launched phase 1 of the site. Convenient.
Unable to let my dream die, I'm continuing to work on the site with a couple of new people, but we need more help. And that's the point of this post. The site is supposed to encompass Video Games, Movies and technology. We have the first two covered, but the original tech guy and several others took off. So I'm looking for the the following: 1-2 people who are willing to write articles on and cover news, previews and reviews of all things tech-related. And I'm looking for someone who would be interested in coverage and etc. on iPod applications. I'm posting this on GiantBomb specifically because there is a wide-abundance of impressive writers on here. Also, just as a closing point, I'm attempting to start a "Street Team" as well, in order to spread the gospel of Gammabit.
Would anybody be interested in helping us out?
13 Comments
If any of you folks are interested, I'm working on a website. It's called Gammabit.
Me and my fellow Journalist classmates are in the process of putting together my dream, which is a community-driven, entertainment site. To summarize, it has all the things that are good: Video Games, humor, movies and technology. It's currently a very rough blog on blogger, but with your support, I hope to have this fucker grow, all we need is an audience, that's were you can help.
Considering we're trying to be community-driven, we want you to submit us reviews, articles, previews, news, etc. If it's good, relevant to our site and interesting, we'll edit it and post it. All we ask is that you provide us some good stuff. =D
So go ahead and visit the link above, write up some shit and tell your friends!
For those of you who actually gave a fuck, I completely rewrote my previous blog from the ground up, corrected some inaccuracies and just generally made it flow better. If you want to read, feel free to check it out on Bitmob.
I originally posted this on Gametrailers, but I felt it would be significant posting it here as well.
After watching the recent Bonus Round (A talk show on Gametrailers) discussion on company layoffs, it got me thinking. Aside from Downloadable games that grace every platform in existence now, how does an independent developer survive? Sure, downloadable games are the future, there's no denying that, but there are still a large number of people who are either without internet or are unwilling to purchase products through the internet.
These developers just can't go and develop a title to grace one of the many home consoles, it's expensive, requires a large amount of manpower and as the gentlemen on Bonus Round pointed out, Publisher's are less willing to take a risk on games developed by studios other than the one's they have in-house. It's not something that's financially viable and the publishers aren't willing to risk it. This not only will have an effect on the number of games that are released annually, but will likely affect the innovation and fun-factor of many future games. But how can a smaller developer survive if they don't strictly design download-only titles and publishers are less willing to risk publishing a AAA-title on a home platform? The answer is portable gaming.
Why Portable Platforms?
Publishers benefit from publishing on a portable platform for many reasons.
It costs less to develop for portable platforms.
Smaller development teams can be utilized.
Big publishers are more likely to take risks on a portable platform.
Smaller publishers often focus more on the portable market.
There's a larger market for portable gaming.
????
Profit.
Lets go into detail on these things.
It costs less to develop for portable platforms.
This statement may not be entirely true, but in general, portable titles wouldn't need as large of a budget as a console title would. Graphically, portable gaming is generally less powerful, this is not generally a negative thing as sprite-based gaming thrives in the portable market and even games that use a 3D engine are still capable of looking gorgeous, even due to the limited graphical capabilities a portable console has to offer. (A good example would be the DS version of Final Fantasy IV.)
A less expensive budget could also support a smaller staff as well, which gets into the next reason.
Smaller development teams can be utilized.
Independent developers tend to be made of smaller teams, from a profit standpoint, smaller teams would likely make more money per person, and it would be more affordable for a developer to enlist a smaller development team as well. On portable platforms, due to graphical limitations of the hardware, the developer doesn't need the personnel required to produce great graphics and gameplay, especially when compared to a developer on a more powerful home platform. Also, when compared to home platforms, there isn't a requirement to create a game that has Cutting-edge, 3D graphics. and more can be put into gameplay that is both innovative and fun.
Big publishers are more likely to take risks on a portable platform.
Due to less expensive development costs on a portable platform, larger publishers would probably be willing to take a risk on a game that does something out of the ordinary, something you wouldn't likely see on a home console unless a publisher is sure that it would sell.
Smaller publishers focus more on the portable market.
There are little to no publishes that focus exclusively on the portable market, but many smaller publishers seem to have shifted focus to the portable market over the home console market. It's possible many of these publishers feel that there's less competition with larger publishers and more opportunities to market their products.
There is a larger market for portable gaming.
The market is probably the most important thing of all and portable gaming has a larger variety to cater too. Portable gaming covers everything, the young and old as well as catering to ever sort of gamer, be it a casual gamer, a hardcore one, or a senior citizen, there's something for everyone and all publishers seem to notice this.
This is strictly my opinion of things based on what I see and it makes sense. I'm no way an expert on the subject, but when you think about it maybe portable gaming is the future, especially for small and independent developers who don't want to be constrained to the smaller download-exclusive style of releases.
Now I want to hear what you think, do you agree with me? Is there something that you would change? Do I have it all wrong? Leave your opinions and criticism, this is something that could be discussed thoroughly.
64 Comments
I don't know how many of yous guys listen to Metal, but I shall blogeth none-the-less. Yesterday, after having my copy of Dissidia: Final Fantasy replaced (Which is a fucking fantastic game, I shall rant on that soon.) I also picked up the new Arsis album "Starving for the Devil."
I pretty much listen to every subgenre of metal to some extent, mostly Power Metal and similar sounding stuff. My tastes do stray into Death Metal territory, but I'm more fond of the Technical Death Metal variety, due to it's melodicism and ridiculous instrumental assaults I could never even come close to in my dreams. Arsis is essentially the top of the game in this now widely expanding sub-subgenre(?) and "Starving for the Devil" proves this.
The opening song "Forced to Rock" which has an almost bouncy and upbeat feel to it as well as "Half-past Corpse O'Clock" and "The Ten of Swords" all are extremely strong songs on the album and all have the strange upbeat vibes as well, something that seems to appear on the this and the previous album "We are the Nightmare. This whole upbeat vibe actually adds to the music and it helps Arsis stay distinct from the crowds of other Tech Death bands.
To put it simply, I love this album after a day, it's Arsis at the top of their game, many of the song titles and the name of the album have to do with Singer and guitarist Jame Malone's struggle with Anorexia, which caused him to lose a ridiculous amount of weight.
If this kind of thing interests you or you're intrigued at all, I suggest you go listen.
Thanks to the benefit of being anonymous over the internet, I'm comfortable sharing this with you. ...I love me some Kirby, my God do I love Kirby. I'm not ashamed to love Kirby by any means, it's just something I don't go around admitting to.
But I will say this, Kirby Super Star (Kirby's Fun Pak for all you European folk.) is probably my favoritest game of all time, it was the first game I actually made the choice to purchase (I didn't pay though, I was 5.) And I played the shit out of that game for years and if my SNES still worked, I'd still play it. This game pretty much shaped my entire childhood.
There was so much to love in that game. Tight multiplayer, minigames, all sorts of awesome game modes to play and the game was so bouncy and cheerful it demanded you to love it. How could you not?
The tragedy in all of this though, is knowing that there was a remake and not making any effort to own it. Not only is it a remake, but a remake I Can take with me almost anywhere. That truly is tragic. I shall go out and buy it when my wallet allows me.
But what about you duders? Does Kirby Super Star do to you what it did to me? Or is there something else that you hold dear?
How people willing throw way anything more than a penny for this garbage every month just defies all rational thought. The combat is about as complicated as a rock, the graphics would've looked dated back in 1996, there's no plot at all, the community is a bunch of elitist douchebags and calling it "The World's Best Free MMO" is clearly bullshit when you realize that Jagex completely ignores the free user base, giving them a minute region to explore and a total of 14 quests, whereas the idiots who pay get all the more interesting goods. At least give the free people something! Not the same garbage that's been there since 2001! It just blows my mind how people love this so much.
Sure, I can understand the acessibility considering it's browser-based and not exactly the most demanding game on your computer, but I'm sure even Jagex is stunned at how many people are devoted to this game. It's unreal!
Well, that was my rant. You can agree or agree to disagree, but nothing will change my mind. Runescape is le crap. The only thing worse is that god awful Tibia... And people are willing to pay for that too... What is wrong with this world...
I picked up Magical Starsign used the other day. It's not the most intuitive or challenging JRPG on the DS (or any other platform for that matter) but it's fun, it's got some neat things and the whole "Harry Potter in space" concept is kinda cool I think. Alas, from what I gather, this one pretty much went under the radar for many.
One of the best things about having a DSi is flipnote studio. So today, I share with you my crude and immature little animation. It's hilariously retarded, causing me and several friends to laugh our asses off.
So if you're just as mature as me and have a sense of humor, I encourage you to watch. And I guess it's NSFW. Also, but it on repeat, multiplies the hilarity.
Log in to comment