Can It or Use It?

Most of us have heard of Blizzard's cancelling of Titan as well as the reveal of Overwatch by now. It's also no secret that Overwatch is most likely what Titan evolved into. Take the Overwatch trailer for example. The ending scene that "the world could use more heroes" just seem like an MMO recruitment speech.

When Titan was cancelled, many were surprised that Blizzard was willing to do so after the time and money spent into making the game, even more so when we learnt that no employees were fired after the announcement. If we just look at other companies in the industry, we'd see that most news of game cancellation would be followed by a studio closing down, even if it were no fault of the developers. But I suspect that more of these 'bad' games would still be published anyway just so they can minimise the losses. But from the looks of things, the developed assets aren't actually wasted, but put to use in 'another' game.

Still, Blizzard's willingness to can games is respectable. Developers get attached to their games, whether it be good or bad. After all, the time and effort that one puts into a game is not to be underestimated, especially 1 of Blizzard's scale and quality. Blizzard has the advantage of being able to reuse their assets in other games, however, a privilege that not all studios have. Most studios work on only a game at a time, and publishers tend not to be so forgiving of a 'bad' project. And does the publisher actually have the right to take the assets and give it to another studio working on another game?

I guess we really can't blame a developer for not being willing to cancel a game that's not going to be too good. At times, developers may be so attached to their baby that they can't see that it is bad. Publishers will also pressurise the developers to publish something that they can at least recoup their losses from. But given time and resources, perhaps change can be made to make it more serviceable? Buggy games though, are less forgivable. All in all, much as I like to say so, but we can't really expect bad games to be cancelled altogether. We just have to exercise better judgement and not jump into games based on hype and marketing. Another repeat of the same lesson... Re you getting sick of it yet?

Why Cater to Casuals and 'Free' Players?

Nothing upsets a hardcore player more than to hear of his favorite series becoming more 'accessible' or 'casual friendly'. Certain games like the Souls series can be punishingly hard, and yet have a huge following. Yet in general, games are getting easier and easier, so much so that normal mode has become easy and easy is basically faceroll.

What we gamers sometimes fail to realize, is that it might not be the devs that make the call, but it is the publishers' attempt to get more sales. Hard and deep games might attract gamers looking for a challenge but a majority of gamers will not be able to get into it. It is no wonder then, that catering to casual gamers becomes very attractive.

That's not to say that devs don't have a reason to simplify their games too. No matter what, much effort have been put into making these games and it is natural that we want others to see the fruit of our labor. Blizzard's choice to include Raid Finder in World of Warcraft has allowed less hardcore players to experience their raids. Yes, it's more effort to create different difficulties, but the art assets, the encounter designs and the lore are not wasted. It also gives casual gamers something to do in the end game and keep them subscribed.

And when it comes to multiplayer games, having more players make for a vibrant community. Be it hardcore or casual, having a larger number of players is crucial at the very least, for the matchmaking to work. Even if they are non-paying players in a free-to-play game, devs have to keep them playing. Imagine having to queue for hours to get into a game. 'Casuals' do get better too, and with proper matchmaking, hard core players shouldn't run into the not so skilled (provided there are enough players playing; see where this is going?)

Ultimately, it boils down to good game design. A good casual and hard core friendly game should be easy to pick up, hard to master. And even then, the balancing between the hard core and casual will remain a delicate art.

Take Two Tablets and Call Me in the Morning

So I've been spending quite a bit of time on my iPad 2, gaming. Before I get called a casual gamer, let me say that, yes, I did play games like Candy Crush and some of the tower defense stuff on my mobile, but these few days were spent with XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Hearthstone. XCOM is pretty much the same game released on PC and the last gen consoles, minus some cinematic and without the expansions, but it works surprisingly well with touch controls. It was recently released on android, though it's a shame it's not compatible with my Nexus 7. As for Hearthstone, some might argue it's a casual CCG, and perhaps it is, but still, for a PC game to translate so well to a tablet is amazing. (Actually, not really. It was obvious right from the start Blizzard designed even the PC version to work with touch controls. Probably so it can be played on those Windows 8 PCs with touch screens.) Oh, and I'm excited to start on FTL for the iPad.

This has actually made me excited to see more games, especially turn-based ones on tablets. Heroes of Might and Magic, Civilisation, Age of Wonders, all these games have the potential to work on mobile or tablets if effort is put in to make it work. The lack of a 'hover over' and 'right click' might take some work, but XCOM could make a good reference, and FTL as well. But you better not take it the way of Dungeon Keeper, and do not make it free-to-play. Keep the games as they are.

Most of the games mentioned require at least an iPad 2 to function, but that's already pretty good. It's a bit harder to develop for Android because of the large number of configurations for Android devices, but hopefully, more of these games and be ported over with more compatible devices. As the specs of these devices get better with each coming year, more already released games will be playable with proper porting.

Despite the possibilities, I'm still conflicted and a bit fearful sometimes. Will all the porting take time away from developing new games, and will devs choose to just throw out a lazy port to make a quick buck, or choose a free-to-play model that totally pisses off the fans? Unfortunately, the possibilities of screwing it up are just as endless...

MMOs, MOBAs and Over Saturation of Genres

It seems that everyone wants a piece of the pie, when it's already stale and what's left are basically left overs. World of Warcraft was massively successful, and then came Rift, The Old Republic, DC Universe Online, and so on. League of Legends led the MOBA free to play market. The FPS boom, RTS era, indie platformers of recent times; games of the same genre tend to follow after a particularly successful game.

This method of jumping on their bandwagon might have worked in the past with the traditional purchase-once-and-play payment model. This is especially true with single player games with fans looking for similar experience on completing a game. Unfortunately, this doesn't work with free-to-play games and MMO due to their persistent nature. Gamers can't possibly carry their character or progress to a totally new game, can they? And if they have pumped money into their game, then it's even less likely for them to switch. Even competitive FPS titles of this generation have a levelling system so gamers are encouraged to stick to a single game, or risk losing all the progress they have made.

Why are companies willing to spend money developing something that is already on the market, and, more often than not, already holds most of the market share? What ends up being released, tends not to differ enough as not to be considered a clone of the first game, fighting for the very people who are invested in the first game. Try as I might, I can't think of a reason. What we've seen in the case of MOBAs is companies like Blizzard trying to differentiate themselves by catering to casual players; other games like Smite and Awesomenauts mixed things up by changing the perspective or even 3D to 2D. Considering the hype behind Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm, perhaps targeting a different audience is the key?

What we gamers get, though, is games with different twists, and possibly, merging of genres resulting in new and innovative game play while outright clones are most likely just going to die out. Competition is always good, as been said on this blog multiple times, so if companies are willing to throw their money away, I guess I'm not going to complain. Well, not too much.

Kicking Pains

Kickstarter, how mistaken I was to not have seen the negatives of this particular form of supporting game creation. Or rather, I had missed out some crucial elements when I last posted about this, elements which have now become much more visible as more projects move on to their final phase of completion.

Kickstarter is still A powerful way for people to vote for the games they want created with their wallets, and indeed we have seen how big some of these wallets are, but we are now seeing how some small and new developers (and even some established ones) are unable to properly handle and manage the funds offered to them. There are games that fail to live up to their expectations and promises, and worse, some that are not even completed due to the studio running out of funds.

Understandably, some of these developers lack the experience to plan how much they need, and so set unrealistic goals at the start or as their stretch goals. But even experienced ones like Double Fine have fallen into the trap. Some have resorted to early access or even second a second kicking of Kickstarter campaigns (though most supporters wouldn't be too happy and would really love to give them a kicking). Let's hope they don't promise too much for the second campaign!

This is a risk that people have to take when kick starting games. Some studios are reputable, but as we've seen, that doesn't guarantee anything, though it helps. And what happens when the game is out and it sucks? While some might argue against this point of view, to the consumer, it is much like a pre-purchase, with a risk of not getting anything back. And if we really think this is worth it, it's a risk we should be willing to take before dropping money in. It's helpful to the developer who can see how much people want this, and also for us to get a game which we might otherwise not even get to see.

Hopefully, people can learn to consider such risks, and also do a bit more research before dropping their money in. Also, developers need to be more responsible and hopefully learn from these failed projects. It'll be a shame to see good quality projects failing the funding because people are too weary, and yet, they do need to be aware of where their money is going and who they are supporting.

I'm still looking forward to a completed Planetary Annihilation, War for the Overworld, Worlds of Magic, Godus, Asylum, Star Citizen and other games that I may or may not have supported. Mighty No. 9, I'm waiting!

The Real Cost of Next Gen

Finally, we've enough information on the next generation consoles, the PS4 and the next Xbox (I know it's the Xbox One, but that's what the first Xbox is being referred to as). There was a lot of rumours and backlash with regards to used games for both systems, but now the companies have come out and assured us that there will be no restrictions with regards to that (for now). The rate at which policies and decisions are made and change makes it uncertain whether this stand will be taken throughout the console lifespan, or just for launch to get people into the market. But whatever it is, gamers have won (again, for now).

The issue of used games is a tricky one, because for one, devolopers don't get money from sales of these games, and the profit goes to the retailers. There are arguments for developers, and there are arguments for us, the consumers and we definitely know the savings we can get, but is it fair for retailers to make all the money?

Well, we're hearing of GameStop getting into a bit of a pinch, and brick and mortar stores seem to be struggling more and more, so is selling new games really profitable for them? If it isn't, then is it fair for them then that they have to work with such a small profit margin? And if it isn't, then shouldn't they get to profit from used games? Perhaps then, to make it fair, publishers should drop the price for retailers so they make more money, and retailers should share the profit from used games. But then, development studios are closing down as well, which makes me wonder if the games industry is really sustainable, and will it be even worse with higher graphical fidelity expected of them in the new generation of consoles?

Have we reached a stage where only the popular games will survive and new IP that don't perform to the standard of the Call Of Duty's will be axed and their studios closed? Will new IP be such a major risk that we'll only see creativity from Indies? Such a scenario is a scary thought, and might spell the death of even major publishers when the franchise they've been milking finally dies.

Could us gamers then stop picking on graphics and instead give more focus on gameplay and game mechanics, as well as creativity and storytelling? Perhaps then, game development costs can come down and retailers, publishes, developers can survive, and probably bring the savings to consumers as well. We are already getting less and less from our game boxes - no more thick manuals and little collectibles, and games are getting shorter in favour of better graphics. Perhaps it is time to look at new methods of game development...

Free to Play, or Just a Demo?

I wonder how many people have actually heard of Age of Empires Online before they started out on Steam. The latest addition to the Age of Empires series takes a turn towards the MMO genre, adding quests, crafting, experience points and levels to the mix, and it is "free to play".

I tried the game initially when it just came out. But the lack of units at the start, plus the fact that you could never have access to major content until you paid for it turned me off. It didn't help that these content were expensive.

Recently however, The devs have started to listen to their players and have made major changes to the game. (Report from PC Gamer and official site; and a summary and review of the changes) Empire points can be earned and used to unlock content previously only accessible by paying. The leveling curve has also been adjusted, plus a few other changes. I have started trying it out again because of these and the game's actually pretty enjoyable.

Is it actually ok when free to play is just a demo? Personally, I feel it is alright, as long as it is stated upfront that there are content that you will never get for free. Of course, the devs might change their mind later like for AOE Online. But if you make your game an MMO, meaning you want many players involved in the game, making it a demo might turn some people off. Plus in a game like AOE Oline, a proper pvp ladder would require a substantial number of people. In the case of AOE Online, in order not to let paying players have an advantage, ranked ladder is only for paying players, so this further shrinks the player base.

The issue here is the price. Each faction here was $20 if I don't remember wrongly. Granted, the devs need to make money, but lower costs for important parts of the game should be a given. Paid content should be non-essentials, so people can skip those and people who want to support the company can pay for them. The most common thing would be vanity items to show off, or experience boosts.

That said, the case of Gas Powered Games showed how the free to play model could close the gap between consumer and push game development in the right direction. Gamers are hoping for great support for the games they play, and they actually care enough to give feedback instead of leaving to play another game. If devs can sieve out the real issues from the loads of complains, they can truly create a masterpiece even if the game didn't kick off well. But then again, if you've been to any forums for games, especially Blizzard's, you would know there is really a lot of crap to sieve through...

Kick it, start it.

www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/08/21/when-kickstarting-fails/

This particular article reminded me of this post that I have been meaning to write.

Games have moved into Kickstarter territory. For independent developers, Kickstarter gives them a chance at creating and publishing their games without having to submit to the whims of publishers like EA or Activision, and yet still be able to get the funds for game development.

It does come with it's flaws of course. Kickstarter isn't exactly built for advertising games development. For starters, other projects tend to take precedence on the main page; and even when you go into the games sub-category, it doesn't differentiate well between computer games, mobile phones, board and card games and so on. There's also a noticeable lack of differentiation into genres, making hard to look for the kind of games you might be interested in inside the haystack.

Funding in itself is a risk. There's no guarantee you'll get the product eventually. Like the article I posted stated, sometimes it's not because of the person who started the project, but many other things can and will affect the success though the project in question wasn't a game development and that In facts shows how much uncertainty there is as game development is a much more complicated process.

There are projects though, where the games are pretty much in the alpha stage and where the makers actually have something to show people who are willing to help out. The money basically is for the final stages of the project and a form of support to let the developers know that people are willing to buy their game and that encouragement can sometimes be worth more than monetary support.

All in all, it is a good platform for the development of games and also a good way for gamers to show support for indie devs. Kickstarter needs to work on the games section though, and indie devs should try to make sure the influence of big name publishers doesn't contaminate their projects (EA is eyeing crowd funded games). Devs need to have more to show before setting up their project on Kickstarter and supporters need to remember their donations will not necessarily give a return. As long as these risks are taken into account, crowd-funded games have a potential to compete in the gaming market.

Edit: Kickstarter actually allows you to seperate board and card games from video games, but that's about it.