Is Advancement In Gaming Sustainable?

Games are rapidly becoming more and more impressive graphically, musically and in terms of scope. As the next generation of consoles appear starting with the WiiU and followed by Sony's and Microsoft's next gen consoles, games will require more money and manpower to churn out. Costs of making games will increase and so will the profit that investors expect from developers.

What concerns me is that now games need to sell much better than before to be considered a success. Kingdoms of Amalur did pretty well in my opinion, selling 330, 000 copies, yet the studio closed down. There are many other studios shut down, or faced layoffs by EA and Activision.

If this is going to be the pattern of things, we may well see a drastic drop in creative titles from big name publishers, instead just getting remakes, sequels and established IPs. Creative titles will come from Indie devs, usually without the high production values from publisher funded games. The 'middle' budget games will slowly disappear and it's sad because this is normally where new franchises appear.

Mechwarrior Online Open Beta

Mechwarrior fans rejoice. MWO is finally in open beta. Interest players can sign up at their website here: http://mwomercs.com/signup?utm_source=mainMENU With Hawken also on the horizon, mech fans have a lot to look forward to. These games are also free to play.

Beta's have started to become a sort of demo for testers, as well as for YouTubers to get the word out. This is different from the days when beta was held to test the game before launch. Such testing is now reserved for closed beta. This is especially so for free-to-play games, where it is not uncommon for a player's progress to be carried from beta into the complete game, giving them a head start. But then again, anyone who is interested in the game would have joined in the open beta anyway. I guess free-to-play games can take this route because they are going to get into the hands of gamers free anyway, so there's no worry of letting players play too much and as a result, they don't buy the game.

There generally shouldn't be an issue in this shift of focus of the beta test, except when a game developer decide to use the beta as it was originally meant to be - as a test for bugs in the game. What is also often seen among gamers is whining and crying about not being able to get into beta. Gamers now see beta as a chance to play the game before anybody else, often overlooking the true purpose. As a result, when things don't work as they should in such cases, there are actually some who will go out of their way to bash the game and paint it in a negative light. So while it is true that most developers have now polished up their game, do note that there will be bugs. So have fun, but don't let the presence of bugs affect your impression of the game.

Wii U making things hard for Nintendo fans?

Following its announcement that the Wii U will be region locked, Nintendo has revealed that the system's voice chat will be limited to certain games, and will only work through the use of third party microphone plugged into the GamePad. With the basic set having only 8gb of hard disk space and the buzz regarding the system's lack of improvement over the current generation's consoles, it makes one wonder if even catering to hardcore gamers will help market the system to people other than Nintendo fans.

I was this close to making this the first console that I get on launch, partially due to the interesting launch line-up but mainly because it's backwards compatible (which is extremely important in the first few months of a console's life when games are few), but the region locking turned me away.

Perhaps I'm spoilt because I own a PS3, and the ability to play games from different regions allowed me to freely import and play games that are not ported over to the US system. That plus the sour taste the Wii left me when Fatal Frame 4 did not reach the US, and Fatal Frame, or Project Zero 2 was only released in Europe. The last few great games for the Wii, The Last Story and Xenoblade Chronicles took so long to be ported I lost interest in the system and games.

I've been reading on the reasons for region locking. Apparently it prevents people from purchasing games from 'cheaper' regions and also from importing a new release before it's been ported to their region. The benefits to this are purely for the local publishers responsible for the porting. The first reason can't be solved otherwise, but if the local version is readily available, most people would buy that instead, considering the language issues. As for the second reason, if developers can control the sale of their games and have world-wide releases, can't they also ensure the ports of different regions are already done before the release of the games?

It's curious that during this age of digital distribution, blue-ray and online connectivity that Nintendo would still stick to these 2 generations-old practices. Is this company really the innovative company that  brought us the touchscreen and motion control?

XCOM: Enemy Unknown Remake Seems like a Worthy Successor

The new XCOM might be worth checking out, if you haven't pre-ordered it that is.

Linux for the Game, Steam takes on Consoles

Steam is really going all out to increase it's market share. A statement was made by Gabe Newell, boss of Valve, that Windows 8 is bad for gaming (Windows 8 is a catastrophe), and later came the announcement that Steam plans to sell software other than games, will be on Linux and has a 'console mode' in big picture and the rumoured Steam Hardware.

But people are suspecting that the main reason that they said Windows 8 is bad for gaming is probably because of the App Store set-up that will be used in the upcoming operating system which will interfere with Steam's business as well as compete for sales of software. Interestingly, Linux, or more specifically, Ubuntu has a store like in the form of Ubuntu Software Centre. And frankly, even if Microsoft decide to move into sell software, which it already does, we all know how that will probably turn out (check out the disaster which is Games for Windows Live if you want to see how successful they are).

So is the statement made by Gabe Newell valid? I guess it's up to consumers to decide after testing out the OS. But I've always believed competition is good for the consumers, so Linux coming up as a gaming OS is a good thing, but then again, Steam being everywhere now makes it a kind of monopoly; and having too many games on the client means it's a huge risk should something happen to the account. I'm glad there are distributors for Linux and Mac games like Desura, but most games aren't made for those Operating Systems, yet. Making games for Linux is understandingly difficult because of the different distros, however, for Mac, it should be rather straight forward since not only is the OS more or less the same on all machines, but configurations for hardware is much less diverse than that of the PC, so optimizing should actually be simpler, which makes it strange why there aren't more games on that.

Like it or not, Steam is one of the major distributors in gaming, so bringing that over to Linux is a great thing. Hopefully, more developers will move into supporting more Operating Systems so Windows won't be the only one gamers have to work with.

For further reading in support or against Windows 8 gaming:
You're being lied to, Windows 8 isn't bad for gaming
The Windows 8 gaming defense
Windows 8 is not good for gamers

Kickstarter - Pangenic (a new horror, XCom like game)

Fans of XCOM rejoice! Besides the upcoming remake of our beloved strategy series, we can look forward to a new game along the same vein in Pangenic. Instead of aliens, the enemy is a virus that mutates wildlife, turning them into killer mutants. While this plot device isn't exactly original, combining it with XCOM style research and map planning makes it seem pretty interesting. The game still needs more support so do check it out if it's the kind of game you're interested in.

 

Kickstarter page here.

D&D RPGs on sale at GOG

If you're into classic D&D system based RPGs of the past like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Icewind Dale, GOG.com is having a sale for the whole collection for US $30.01 until Friday, September 21 at AM 9:59 GMT. The fewer games you get from the collection, the lower the discount you'll get.

Weeklong Promo: Diamonds of D&D