Organization Anyone?

Most gamers sit and play video games for countless hours more for personal enjoyment than anything else. However, in the back of every gamer’s mind there is always the hope that someone will have the motivation to organize a tournament. Nothing pleases a gamer more than being able to test their skills against the best and be rewarded for their endless hours of time in front of the television

Needless to say when tournaments do actually get created gamers run around for several days in advance honing their skills preparing to showcase their talent in front of the crowd. Sleepless nights and undone homework are not uncommon in my experience with hardcore gamers preparing for a prize-offering tournament.

All those ideas in mind, is it any wonder that when a tournament turns out to be a disorganized crap shoot that does little to reward the best players, participants tend to be more than a little ticked off?

Recently USD played host to a Microsoft sponsored Halo 3 tournament (what else), and I can honestly say the thing was as much of a disaster as any tournament could be.

I was asked shortly before the tournament to participate by some friends who were missing a teammate, and I reluctantly agreed to play. I arrive in true nerd fashion carrying my own controller (don’t laugh almost everyone was) to a room full of confused people trying to figure out what was going on.

The guy running the thing was about as confused as it gets – especially for someone who said he had done this sort of thing more than once. The prize system turned out to be a lottery, where winning games got you raffle tickets and prizes were raffled off to winning ticket holders over the course of the evening.

Rather than systematically sift thorough each problem I saw in the running of the event I will simply say the event did little to reward the most talented players. Every match was a 16 player event involving 4 Xboxes. Less than no skill is required to win such a game. Players had no chance to demonstrate their ability or accuracy with various weapons; everyone was constantly being mowed down by the starting assault rifle (side note – who plays a tournament with assault rifle starts in Halo??). Victory involved little more than a team pairing off and cutting down the high school kids who had the misfortune to step into a tournament that was way over their heads.

The majority of the prizes ended up going to a team that was beaten several times by the team I had the good fortune to be asked to play for (I was not a major contributor to the teams success) which made the whole tournament look like it needed a little more planning. Luck of the draw seems like an odd distribution system for a “tournament.”

If you are going to spend the time setting up a tournament event at least have the common courtesy to provide the people who show up with a well organized talent based tournament.

~Skyler Dowling

Podcast Ep. 2: Continued discussion on “The changing demographic of the gamer”

If you’d like to listen to the podcast, just click the link right here.

The first written post is a sort of general overview of the topic. For the next few podcasts, I’ll be delving into the specifics of why certain types of people are playing video games, why the market has changed to accommodate them, and how the industry will change because of them.

In this first edition of the series, I talk about why females have become gamers, and how the industry might be scaring the next generation of female gamers away.

Again, to listen to the podcast, click right here.

- Drew Quandt 

The changing demographic of the gamer

Anyone who’s played video games has heard the stereotype that engulfs them. The anti-social, nerdy teenage male sitting in his parent’s basement, yelling at people over the internet through his headset and rambling on about mana points and such.

Whatever people want to believe, the type of people who play video games is changing. Who says so? The Entertainment Software Association, that’s who.

According to ESA statistics, women of age 18 or older make up a larger percentage of people who play video games (30%) than males age 17 or younger (23%).

Talk about breaking stereotypes.

In fact, the average age of a video game player, according to the ESA, is 33 years old.

It’s an interesting thought: the idea that those Wii commercials with the family sitting down and playing a rousing game of Mario Party is not all that unlikely. Why? Over two-thirds of household heads (69%) play video games.

That’s a large chunk of Americans who are settling in for a night with a joystick, and not necessarily the chunk that people like to believe.

You may think I’m pandering to the ESA by regurgitating such statistics, but those stats are the reason people are seeing changing views with the video game industry.

First of all, games have become “mainstream.” Madden sells a million copies every year, and has all sorts of national tournaments and a televised show to accompany it. Halo has become a pop-culture phenomenon, and the more recent Grand Theft Autos have attracted a wide variety of adults looking for a virtual playground. It’s trendy to have the Nintendo or Atari logo plastered on your clothing, or to carry around a DS or PSP much like you would an iPod. Games are cool.

Another way to look at the way games have become mainstream is through the way they’re advertised. Advertising for video games has taken a more advanced rout. In a lot of ways, certain games are advertised like movies. What I mean by that is that actual gameplay rarely shows it’s face in a national television ad. Instead, advertisers are putting together thirty seconds of cinematic cut scenes involving the story surrounding the game. Everyone knows it’s a video game, but the ad makes the game feel more like an experience, and less like Pac-Man or Pong.

Add to that the countless other items not directly related to the industry that are pandered towards gamers: energy drinks, snack foods, furniture, etc. and you have a whole culture being created, much like the culture around the modern film, television or music industries.

All of the effort by corporations is to accommodate the change in who’s sitting behind the controller. So, ladies and gentlemen, sometimes numbers do matter.

In the end, it’s the changing face of a “video game player” that is making the market more viable and more mainstream. Much like movies, it may not be long until video games truly carve out their place in the entertainment industry.

Because, at some point not to far in the future, no one will remember what it’s like to have never played a video game.

- Drew Quandt

How Nintendo keeps turning back the clock and finding success

Nintendo as a console manufacturer was essentially left for dead during their Gamecube generation. They were clearly in third place when it came to the home console market, and some questioned if they would even remain a console maker for much longer.

My, how things have changed. Now the Big N is dominating the console sales charts with the Wii.

The question is, where can you attribute such a turn around in sales success?

Admittedly, the Wii is not a powerhouse machine with the capability of next generation graphics like the PS3 or 360. It’s games don’t push the envelope as far as new ideas or radical new franchises like Gears of War or Killzone.

In truth, extreme innovations and franchise rennovations were Nintendo’s mistake with the Gamecube: Mario with a waterspray cannon, Luigi with a vacuum in a haunted mansion, A cel-shaded Link, a double-team style of Mario Kart, and a first person Metroid.

What’s the theme? All of the characters and places seemed familiar, but everything about the games was just too different.

Then add the uniqueness of Pikmin, Mario baseball, and Eternal Darkness. All of which are quality titles, but fell far from the traditional style of Nintendo games.

That was Nintendo’s problem. People play Nintendo games to reminisce, and they couldn’t do that with most titles on the Gamecube.

With the Wii, Nintendo brought back a lot of familiarity in their franchises. A traditional Zelda, A more familiar style of Mario game play, even the concept of a first-person Metroid had a comfortable feel to it thanks to its market on the Gamecube.

The new concepts still exist, albeit in a different form: their control.

The Wiimote has allowed Nintendo to innovate while keeping people in familiar worlds. The Wii doesn’t have the power to produce fantastic graphics. However, with great art design, new and improved controls and a gamut of games from very casual to very hardcore, Nintendo has found success.

The hardcore gamers have the Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Metroid Prime 3. The middle-of-the-road people have Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy. New video game players have Mario Party 8, WarioWare: Smooth Moves, and WiiSports. All of these games combine responsive and innovative control schemes with fantastic art and game design. Those are the reasons why nearly everyone played Super Mario Brothers and a number of games on the NES. It was new, fun, addictive and accessable.

Those same reasons have driven Nintendo’s return to power. With the Wii, Nintendo has made their games new, fun, addictive, accessable and familiar.

Forget the Wii’s novelty. Novelty alone doesn’t sell tens of millions of units and create empty shelves 2 years after a system’s release. Nintendo is going back to their roots, all while bringing the video game industry, lots of money and the general public with them for one heck of a fun ride.

- Drew Quandt

EA has just offered to buy me for $1000

Over the weekend, mega-giant publisher Electronic Arts offered to buy Take-Two Interactive for $2 billion dollars. Scary, isn’t it?

This is the same Electronic Arts that just bought up BioWare and Pandemic Studios for their individual intelectual properties. EA has completely gone off of the deep end.

Let’s look at some of the creative property Take-Two has under their belt: 2K Sports (EA Sports’ only rival and current exclusive owner of the MLB liscence), Bioshock, and Rockstar Games, makers of multi-billion dollar franchise Grand Theft Auto.

Grand Theft Auto IV, one of the most anticipated games of 2008, is coming at the end of April. That game alone could make Take-Two half a billion dollars. EA was looking to purchase, essentially at a bargain rate, all the profits from Grand Theft Auto IV. That is literally how cocky EA has become: they think they can buy anything.

I personally have no problem with the purchases of BioWare and Pandemic. If EA stays out of their way when it comes to the developement of the games, and becomes the publishing and advertising monsters that they are for those brands, it’s best for both parties. However, Take-Two can and would handle themselves just fine without EA’s help.

What worries me more than the offer (which Take-Two essentially told EA to shove it where the sun doesn’t shine), is the fact that Take-Two would “be interested in negotiations on April 30th.” April 30th is the day after GTA IV releases worldwide.

I truly hope this is a joke. Take-Two is perfectly capable of staying independent. Rockstar Games and 2K Studios pump out plenty of quality titles by themselves. In fact, it’s safe to assume Take-Two has enough intellectual property that they can compete with Ubisoft as the third largest 3rd party publisher.

Hell, they would likely gain sales momentum from telling EA to step off all together.

So what does this all lead to:
1. EA should be reenvisioning their own brands, not buying new ones to bury.
2. Take-Two, you’re just fine all by yourselves. Let Grand Theft Auto IV rake in the millions to show EA you don’t need them.
3. Competition from 2K Sports is what made EA Sports improve their brands every year, and for some sports (NBA, NHL) still does. There is nothing better to improve the quality of a game than healthy competition. EA should embrace it, not acquire it.

- Drew Quandt | Online Editor

How Multiplayer Should be Done.

From time to time a game developer takes an existing series and totally revamps it. Sometimes the result is a disaster, other times the game emerges with new found life and gameplay value. Call of Duty 4 falls into the latter category. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is quite simply the definition of a well made game. Activision has completely regeared the gameplay style of earlier Call of Duty games and produced a game that has stunning performance in both single and multiplayer.

For starters no game can be called praise worthy without having a solid single player campaign to start from. CoD4 comes through in the single player realm with flying colors. Unlike so many shooters out there CoD avoids falling into the regular issues that plague so many FPS games today. Players will never find themselves running through endless corridors alone outnumbered a thousand to one, nor will they be left feeling helpless in the face of 50 tanks engaged in combat with 50 other tanks. CoD almost always puts you in a squad that requires the participation of you and other crew members to achieve stimulating goals.

Aside from the actual gameplay the campaign story line is also sufficiently complex to engage players. The plot jumps between your typical American gun slinging marine corps and a band of special ops British guys who have the moral integrity of a gun wielding monkey. The swaping between the two groups with their different play styles ensures that no gamer will ever have time to become bored.

In addition to playing as either a British or American ground soldier the game breaks things up occasionally by allowing you to man a helicopter gun, shoot a cannon of an airplane, and even go deep behind enemy lines as a sniper to assassinate an evil Russian guy. Really, who hasn’t wanted to play out a hit man style scene that didn’t completely suck?

In all, CoD’s single player alone is something that Activision could have hung its hat on, but they didn’t stop there. The multiplayer is where the game really shines.

From the first moment i entered an Xbox live CoD matchmaking server i could tell I was truly going to enjoy the game. No more would I wait 15 minutes for a suitable match, the server had me paired into a game within seconds. Halo 3 has a long way to go before it comes anywhere near the speed of CoDs matching.

First impresions aside, the further a player progresses into online play the more hooked they become. At first its all about the deathmatch, but soon players are unlocking new weapons and attachments that correspond to level (and in theory skill as well). Stage layouts are learned quickly and before long players progress into more tactical games that press their skills to the brink. There is so much more depth than the simple deathmatch and CTF gametypes of most shooters, its hard to describe the endless gameplay potential in CoD’s online play.

Players do not need to take my word for the greatness of CoD, its awards and achievements speak for themselves. Recently the game received awards for best overall game of the year and outstanding achievement in online gameplay from the 11th annual Interactive Achievement Awards. On top of the many game of the year awards CoD4 has received, last month the game even outdid Halo as the most played game on Xbox live. Halo has since regained the title, but when you consider CoD4 is multiplatform and PC based the number of people realizing that this game is so much better than any shooter out there is incredible.

The replay value and RPG style online gameplay of this game are sure to make it a favorite of many gamers far into the future. If you haven’t bought CoD already, you should. People are going to playing it for a good while.

~Skyler Dowling

Electronic Arts’ purchases are a two way street

The news that BioWare and Pandemic studios were both recently acquired by Electronic Arts is a big deal to gamers out there. If it isn’t to you, I question why you are reading this.

Either way, this is a key moment for the future of the videogame industry. Whether that future will be good or bad is debatable.

EA’s acquisitions of two young and promising development companies is likely a response to the merging of Activision and Vivendi Games to form a new powerhouse in Activision Blizzard. What made the moves different is Activision Blizzard was a true merger, EA simply bought intellectual property.

BioWare, the creators of Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Pandemic, the team behind Mercenaries, Destroy All Humans, and Star Wars Battlefront, both have some major projects that they are working on. EA now owns the rights to publish and make profit from future games like Mercenaries 2, Saboteur, and Jade Empire 2. They now have the rights to amazing intellectual property, and two of the best developers in the business.

Worse yet, EA also has the ability to control what BioWare and Pandemic create. Half of the reason these two studios have come to prominence is due to their innovation. If Electronic Arts decides to stifle those creative forces, they may have just wasted their money.

We see EA’s in house studios regurgatate its sports games every year (Madden only sees significant changes every 4 years or so). The Burnout series has started to, well, burn out. EA Sports Big has produced sequel after sequel, with the quality of the games deteriorating over time. Not to mention the Medal of Honor series, which has fallen to superior WWII shooters in Brothers in Arms and Call of Duty, both made by rival companies.

However, there are times where EA has helped those who produce unique experiences share them with the world. Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath was a fantastic, quirky and creative game without a publisher until EA stepped in last second to put the game out on the original Xbox. The Orange Box would have never made its way to the PS3 without EA. Crysis took the PC gaming world by storm, with much due to EA for publishing a game that has such insane hardware demands.

This is where the line is drawn. Does EA force it’s newest development teams to create endless sequels to Mass Effect and Mercenaries, therefore running those series in to the ground much like Burnout? Does EA step back and let BioWare and Pandemic do their thing and just be there to distribute it to a mass audience?

Say what you will about Electronic Arts and their business ethics, but the only way to get the most out of Pandemic and BioWare is to be their publisher, not their developer.

- Drew Quandt | Online Editor

Blizzard Tainted by Huge Profits

Long has Blizzard Entertainment been the premier developer of PC games. Blizzard has been responsible for many great titles including Starcraft, Diablo, and the infamous World of Warcraft. Throughout its history Blizzard has produced games that challenge current computer hardware and press the envelope of creative gaming development.

Recently, however, Blizzard has devoted all of its energies into its cash cow - World of Warcraft. Wow, as the game is affectionately known, boasts nearly 8 million users, each paying a monthly subscription fee of around 15 dollars. With that kind of money rolling in its hard to blame Blizzard for neglecting its former role of producing new and innovative titles.

Obviously Wow will not maintain its current subscription rates indefinitely, and the rumors about Blizzards next developmental project are already circulating around the net. Despite many peoples’ hopes for new titles that focus on stepping away from blizzards current obsession with Massively Multiplayer Online Games that require a monthly subscription, it appears Blizzard will be developing another MMO title. Recently the World of Warcraft forums displayed a blizzard post that announced the new job postings the company had were intended to fill positions needed for the development of a new “unannounced” next-gen MMO.

Blizzard has found its niche in massive online games, and as long as astronomical numbers of people continue to play it seems unlikely Blizzard is going to provide gamers with the groundbreaking titles they crave.

~Skyler Dowling

Pac-Man Falls to Capitalism

Yesterday I was feeling a bit bored and certainly not up to doing any homework, so I logged onto Facebook to play one of the greatest games ever created – Pac-Man.

I scroll down the application list and – what is this?!?! – The Pac-Man application has been replaced by U-arcade or some such nonsense.

There is a message from the application creators that can be read once the “arcade” is opened up. Basically it sounds like Bandai/Namco, the company that owns Pac-Man, gave the application creators 24 hours to remove it from Facebook.

Pac-Man is closing on 30 years old; it is about time Namco realizes the game is too much a part of public domain to be regulated so obsessively.

Practically every kid who has taken a programming class has made some sort of Pac-Men emulator, the game is no longer a marvel of human ingenuity, it is a simple game that people like to pass the time with.

Namco should be happy websites like Facebook support their game, it provides free advertising for Namco’s Pac-Man games designed for consoles like the Gamecube. . No one is going to go spend money on an original Pac-Man title when there are so many knock offs on the market. Allowing third parties to use their signature game will only bring acclaim to Namco’s image and boost sales of new Pac-Man titles.

Pac-Man is an American icon, no one wants to see him slip into oblivion, but if Namco continues to try pulling profit out of a 27-year-old game indefinitely people are going to stop playing it altogether. Then Bandai/Namco will really have trouble saving its failing image.

~Skyler Dowling

Another Sequel?

In the video game world there is always one game that everyone wants to own. Every console has had a groundbreaking game somewhere in its past. The Atari had Pong, original Nintendo (NES) had Super Mario Brothers, Nintendo 64 had Goldeneye and the Zelda games, and the list continues all the way up to the next generation consoles. Until recently most would have agreed that no next-gen system had any game to hang its hat on. Then Halo 3 hit the market and everyone went crazy buying it up with proclamations of the greatest game ever made.

Halo 3 is not the game players need to look for to define the Xbox 360 in the history books; it is hardly different from any of the older versions and lacks the groundbreaking innovation that great games of the past displayed.

That is not to say Halo 3 is a bad game. It posses a finely tuned balance that Halo one and two lacked, but you cannot make a great game just by creating a better version of an old one The older version of a tuned game is clearly the innovative one. “Tomorrow Never Dies” for Nintendo 64 had far superior mechanics and graphics than “Goldeneye”, but everyone knows (well maybe not everyone…) “Goldeneye” was the better of the two.

Like so many areas of entertainment, video games are falling into a dangerous cycle of repetitive sequel production. Game developers fear branching out and trying new game production techniques for fear of creating an unmarketable product. Gamers are left with games that repeat themselves over and over. Seriously, Halo 3 uses some of the same maps that halo and two had (Blood Gulch or Lockout anyone??). Where is the innovation? Where is the originality that comes with game production? It is a sad day when the only thing to look forward to is ANOTHER sequel to an ancient game.

If Xbox live matches me three times in a row with slayer on Guardian again there might be trouble. I am ready for a new game that blows my mind without building on something I have seen or played before.

- Skyler Dowling