The Mammon Philosophy

When I was young (or so much younger than today) I used to hate Maridia, the token waterlogged area in Super Metroid. I hated how its passages would crisscross each other in a confusing fashion, how the quicksand could suck you into an earlier area if you weren’t careful, how you could gain access as soon as you had a Power Bomb but then couldn’t actually get anywhere without the Gravity Suit. It was a tease and a blockade all wrapped into one lousy late-game region, and it drove me nuts.

(more…)

This got past my radar on the weekend, but luckily a clarification put it back on front pages today: Electronic Entertainment Design and Research helps companies make profitable games… or not, as the article explains, detailing how different features (multiplayer, cross-platform design) can be hit-or-miss in terms of overall profitability. The big figure that everyone is tossing around from this story is the percentage of games that become profitable: 4% of all games that enter production, and 20% of those that reach the market.

(more…)

Dunno how I managed to miss this one, must’ve had something to do with my seething rage at the press yesterday. But Reggie Fils-Aime said yesterday that the big N was focusing on more user-generated content. Yeah, so I guess they like the whole “make your fanbase work for you” strategy now? Just as long as it doesn’t involve homebrew or translation patches, and I’m assuming mod chips are right out. So the real message here is “we like user-content, as long as it conforms utterly to the strict limitations of creativity that we’ve set out as the untouchable framework.” This is akin to asking someone to whistle a new chart-topping song while the oft-quoted boot continues stamping on your face forever and ever. Is that a little unfair? I guess a more N-friendly comparison would be that these grey-zone illicit activities are like driving on the wrong side of the two-way street. But I’m a safe driver, and it drives me crazy to get stuck behind a Sunday-grandma type who’s going ten clicks under the limit in a no-passing zone. Give it some gas or take the next off-ramp, Nintendo.

That said, I do eagerly await The Conduit and Madworld. Formulaic creativity through violence is definitely something I can get behind — there’s nothing I like better than a developer with an eye for more than the standard “shoot that guy” mentality.

Steve Crisp spoke to reporters today about the foundation being instituted in his son’s name to help underprivileged kids play minor sports.

Steve Crisp said his son was a hockey goalie, but stopped after his size became a factor. He said he believes children should be allowed to play whatever sports they want to.

“He got to a point where he was a little shorter than the other kids, and, you know, his position was kind of moved off the team, and we decided to quit minor sports at that point,” he said.

It frankly outrages me that this is the first we’ve heard of this particular detail. Every news report up until now repeated the same mantra about Brandon quitting sports due to his “addiction” to Call of Duty 4. Being removed from your chosen sport is a different matter altogether, and may even have been the event that drove Brandon to gaming in the first place. When you’re on a sports team, a number of things are set in place: the routine of practising, the excitement of competition, the camaraderie of your teammates. If you’re yanked off the team, all of those things go away, and they leave a void. If something new comes in and fills the void in a destructive way, it is not the new element’s fault. Don’t go telling me that he unequivocally had to quit because he was too short to play in goal. In that case, you move the kid to defense or forward. You do not simply walk away from the organization. That’s just shameful.

The first time I played Majora’s Mask, I felt simultaneously overwhelmed and unimpressed. On the one hand, there was almost too much to do: aside from the traditional dungeon staples, there were a multitude of sidequests (to the point that the game gives you a notebook to keep track of many of them) and tons of collectible heart pieces, masks, and other paraphernalia. But those same elements were something of a turnoff; the dungeons were great, but there were only four, and I was no big fan of lengthy treks to get one or two hearts at most. I think I still got most of the stuff, but I had no great desire to pick up the game and replay it.

(more…)

In the wake of the discovery of Brandon Crisp’s body, Future Shop decided to cancel two midnight launch parties for Gears Of War 2 in Toronto and Vancouver. And the National Post seems to think that it singlehandedly saved us from these parties.

“The Post called Future Shop on Thursday to ask whether it was appropriate, in light of Brandon’s death, for the store to hold a festive launch planned for last night across Canada for the new Xbox game, Gears of War 2. In the game, participants are embroiled in a genocidal war with subterranean locusts. On Thursday night the chain cancelled the parties outside its stores in Toronto and Vancouver.”

Emphasis mine to highlight another example of underinformed reporting — they make it sound like you just run around snuffing bugs, which is a slight understatement to say the least.

(more…)

So today, I almost decided not to play any video games for a week. Allow me to explain: the latest Brandon Crisp story at GamePolitics invited the attention of “Yawheh,” the wife of one of the professional search-and-rescue workers who was in the Barrie area. She issued this peculiar query:

Tell me something! what do you folks get out of gaming.

(more…)

I wrote this literally 20 minutes before the news broke that Brandon’s body was found. Once again, my heart goes out to the family.

(more…)