What Would Matt Do

In case you haven’t seen it (and if not, what rock do you live under?), here’s the Elite. Looks purty, no? It also looks like it could be the first smack to the face of the console industry.

Why? Because Microsoft just updated the hardware on their console. So, now if you want to run the latest version of the 360, you need to shell out $479. That’s right, it costs more than previous versions. This isn’t the same as previous revisions of the XBox, the 360, the PS2, etc that all worked exactly the same as their brethren, this is a console with new internal features. Ok, not a huge deal. The Elite comes with HDMI, 120 GB HD and it’s black. Great, not a big deal. As a friend put, those are ipod features. Things that are cool, but not requirement to upgrade from the current 360 you own (unless you own a core system…then you must really hate MS at this point). So, even though the Elite is much cooler (it’s black!), you don’t really need it.

Unless, and here’s the really bad part, future games require more HD space (imagine 360 WoW). Then you’ll be sitting with a 360 that can’t play all the games released for the 360 because you don’t have the right hardware. Welcome to the PC, fuckers. This is the potential problem.

See, consoles are supposed to be anti-PC in the fact they are a platform that supports all games released for it. You make a game for the 360, it works. No worrying about video cards, amounts of memory, etc, because you know exactly what the hardware will be that you’re releasing for. That is the best of part of the console, games just work (for the most part…lets not even get into the current trend of more and more bugs in console games). If you buy a 360 game at the store, you take it home, you have no worries about your system being compatible, it just works.

So what happens when the PS3 releases it’s next version with a faster processor or the next 360 comes with a better video card? We’ll have different versions, we’ll have games that have support all types of system and worst of all, we’ll end up with games that require a specific version of the system. To be fair, this hasn’t happened yet. The Elite doesn’t do this, but it sure as hell opens the door. We are now one misstep from MS or Sony to losing the best part of consoles.

So while I’m looking at the Elite, going that’s pretty damn cool, I’m not too happy about it. First, I’m a 360 owner currently. I’m pretty happy with it, but I would love to have a HDMI connection. Not to mention the extra HD space so I can have more than a few demos and HD TV shows on it at once. Second, this seems like a warning shot. A shot across the bow, if you will.

I worry that this is the beginning of the end. That Microsoft just started the real console wars. That in the future we’ll see three or four (or more!) versions of same console from each manufacture and developers will not only have to account for that, they will end up developing games that only run on specific versions.

I predict in this generation or the next, we’ll see not only versions of the same console that have different components inside (beyond the ipod goodies), we’ll see games that require specific versions. And that’s the beginning of the end. Look what it did to PC gaming…

And to be fair, I could easily be over reacting, but what’s to stop Sony, for instance, at the end of the PS3 cycle, with an install base of 20+ million users of releasing a suped up version of the PS3 with newer components/features to prolong the life of the system? Nothing. As a matter of fact, it would make them a LOT of money. They’d be able to make a PS2 Slim like edition that wasn’t just visually better, but ran all of the now older PS3 games better and allowed them eek out another couple of years from the PS3 cycle AND get millions of users to rebuy. I can’t see any corporation turning that down.

What Would Matt Do: Hope I’m wrong.

All I can say is it’s a damn good thing Second Life isn’t actually a game or this news might be annoying.

Coldwell Banker has bought extensive tracts of property on the central “mainland” of Second Life. (Most companies own “islands” scattered all over.) It subdivided this digital land into 520 individual houses and living units, half of which it will sell and half it will rent.

If you read the article I linked from /. on money.cnn, you’ll see they aren’t in it to make money. Which we know is a lie, since companies don’t invest in things that don’t make them money. Now where they are trying to make the money, that’s a good question. They say they will invest the money they make back into Second Life. I assume that means either more advertising or more land, right? Wouldn’t it be awesome if all land in SL was eventually owned by Coldwell or those like them? Yeah, it would pwn. (I’m lying)

This brings about the larger question. It being fact that no MMO is used for advertising more than SL, does anyone but us geeks (i.e. - internet gaming asshats) know about SL? Is that the market Edwards is aiming for? And Coldwell the same? I’m just trying to understand what the market is. We all know that Linden Labs fakes their number of subscribers, so they don’t actually have the bajillions of subscribers they claim. So what is the rather market (compared to most other MMOs) they are trying to tap into here? Those retarded enough to wade through horrible UI to pay for virtual property (be it land or otherwise)? Are they big buyers/voters/etc? It’s almost as if these companies (and politicians) are going to Linden Labs and asking, does your game cater to such and such demographic? And LL, being crazy, is agreeing and using their cockneyed (sp?) to back it up?

Beyond SL being the most talked about MMO in proportion to it’s number of actual users, I just ain’t getting it.

What Would Matt Do: Wonder what kind of magic dust Linden Labs uses to summon so much media attention to a game that is absolutely not about sex at all.

Who is Denis Dyack you ask? Well, that’s the same question I asked when a friend brought his name up in curses on IRC. I was told, he’s the effing head of Silicon Knights, the creators of the yet to be released Too Human. Not being one to be left out on asshole insights, I looked him up and listened to him on a REALLY long 1up podcast (time to kill can be a good thing).

After listening to that, I wasn’t so sure. He sounds like he’s both, upset that his game got panned and upset that the industry works the way it does. I also wan’t sure if he really runs his company like a crazy house (the makes of Pariah was used an example). I honestly don’t care about that last part as I don’t have to work there. But if you’re looking into working there or work there now, you might care.

On to a piece Mr. Dyack had published yesterday. Whatever else he is, he’s right about the industry being screwed up when it comes to Previews of the game. The analogy he uses is a good one:

Imagine Peter Jackson standing up in front of an audience of film critics and saying, “We’re going to take the character of Gollum and make him look human, but he will be all CG. We are confident it will look great as we are using the latest in motion capture and computer rendering technologies.”

See, in the past, I’ve argued Previews of games aren’t critical enough. But I’ve come around on that one. It doesn’t make any sense to have previews at all, from a development point of view. From a developers point of view, they have to show unfinished code/artwork/game/etc to outsiders that don’t have anything but their word how it’s really going to look. From a Previewers point of view, they aren’t seeing the final game. PA coined a term (I think it was them) the other day, calling screenshots of games with all the fancy photoshop and the like effects on them Bullshots. That’s a perfect term, but I think it should be expanded to cover every single Preview shot from the game.

I want to get off on a rant about Previews being bad for the industry and so on, but I’ll let Denis cover it for me:

Marketing plans for individual games may vary widely, but in general a game has a two- to three-year development cycle. The first preview screen shots are shown as early as six to nine months after the game’s development begins. A demo is shown to the media somewhere around the one-year mark in the development cycle, usually at a trade show or the game’s publisher event. Review copies are handed out to print media a month or two before the game is finished and then given to online sites to review right when the game is finished.

This preview and review process is the problem our industry faces: the media and game-opinion influencers are making pronouncements about a game way before it is even finished or even near completion. Notice that at every point in the development and marketing timetable, the press is seeing the games before they are actually complete

Exactly. By having previews of the game, trying to generate buzz, etc about the game before it’s ever released, you’re showing a game that not only isn’t finished being developed, but not finished being designed in many cases (if it’s any form of the Agile development methodology, it’s very much not finished being designed, etc). So now you’re seeing a game that isn’t finished visually, coding wise or design wise. What’s the point of that?

As a personal note, I don’t like most Previews. They aren’t useful for determining if I’ll like the full game, they don’t/can’t give me a real idea of what the released game is going to be like and they often include or exclude things that do / do not make into the full game. That’s more than useless.

But that’s my opinion. Not the game publishers. That’s the problem. Publishers see it as an essential part of the development process. Dyack suggests they just stop.

All that is required is that publishers adjust their cash flow planning to reflect the delay in the release of the game.

That one sentence makes me wonder about Mr. Dyack’s sanity level. Most publishers not only require the above mentioned Previews at different stages, they write them into contracts, they plan marketing around them, etc. It’s big business and it’s not going to change by one developer simply saying, “come on guys, lets do it differently.” No matter how logical it is.

Previews are and will continue to be the real hangup in the development cycle and until they can be shown an actual money improvement in changing the system, they won’t change. It’s their nature. If it works, why change. It could be mean less money! The only thing the Publishers actually care about. Just like any other publicly traded company, the dollars made this quarter over last quarter is the absolute bottom line. That’s a big problem, not just in the game industry, but in general, when it comes to changing the status quo of any system.

So what’s the solution? I don’t know if there is one beyond self publishing, which is not an option for 99% of the development houses out there. It costs a lot of money, requires a lot of know how they don’t have and hasn’t worked great in the past for those that have tried it. Or coming up with some proof that cutting out Previews would be a good thing. Maybe a developer with a proven track record taking a stand and saying, “Nope, no previews until X number of months before release.” Maybe.

What Would Matt Do: Well, I’ll hope that not only Publishers wake up and see the flaws of the current system, but that I get a nice new moon pony. It’ll be great!

If you haven’t been living under a rock the past few weeks, you’ve heard about the eight attorneys fired by Gonzales’ office, the outcry of political motivation for their firings, and his chief of staff stepping down. Amid rumors of the firings being called for by Rove, memos wondering if Bush shouldn’t just fire all ninety-three U.S. Attorneys on the start of his second term and calls for Gonzales to either be fired or step down, Bush came out yesterday and made a defiant, if ill advised, statement that basically said, “Better stop off, bitches!”

Yet, in this case, I recognize the importance of members of Congress having — the importance of Congress has placed on understanding how and why this decision was made. So I’ll allow relevant committee members on a bipartisan basis to interview key members of my staff to ascertain relevant facts. In addition to this offer, we will also release all White House documents and emails involving direct communications with the Justice Department or any other outside person, including members of Congress and their staff, related to this issue. These extraordinary steps offered today to the majority in Congress demonstrate a reasonable solution to the issue. However, we will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants.

I love the boldness of the statement in starting to say he sees the importance, no wait, the importance Congress puts on the matter. Everything in his speech was hostile and basically put out there not as an olive branch he suggests in it, but as a slap to the Congress at almost every step. I found it pretty funny listening to it yesterday.

So today? Congress answered back:

A House Judiciary subcommittee today authorized subpoenas for Karl Rove, President Bush’s political adviser, and other senior White House officials in the investigation into the firing of eight United States attorneys.

Democrats said the subpoenas, approved on a voice vote of the panel, would not be issued immediately but could provide leverage for Congress in trying to win the testimony of the aides being sought.

“We have worked toward voluntary cooperation on this investigation, but we must prepare for the possibility that the Justice Department and White House will continue to hide the truth,” said Representative Linda Sanchez of California, chairwoman of the subcommittee on commercial and administrative law.

That’s awesome. We aren’t issuing them yet, but we could…at any time! So Bush says, don’t defy me, I’m the boss here. And the Democrats answer back with a warning shot off the port bow. Awesome.

–

Now, lets not think that Democrats all of a sudden got a back bone. What’s really happening is they are feeling a bit stronger after the 2006 election and are trying to do anything they to make themselves look good and the administration look bad for the 2008 election. Which is smart and yet, still doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. Ah well, it’s politics.

This funniest part? This is easily one of the lesser crimes Bush’s staff has committed during his time in office and yet here we finally have something the Democrats are standing up and shouting about.

We also have one of the fired attorneys writing up his story in the NYTimes. Interesting read.

I’m looking forward to the coming days of both sides saying they are trying to get along and neither actually doing so or trying to do so. I love the barely guarded contempt in Bush’s speeches and the pretend by the Democrats that this is all on the up and up they just want to see justice done. This is good shit.

What Would Matt Do: Get some popcorn, dim the lights a bit and watch in amusement as politics continues as normal and yet not.

So I haven’t been updating as much… I know that. I know that you, my one loyal reader, probably don’t care, but I feel the pull of the site when I don’t post something in a couple few days. Problem is, nothing has really made me cranky in the past couple of weeks. Sure, there is drama on the internet still and lawsuits, but nothing is really hitting my “that sucks!” button. I’m too busy playing SupCom, Company and WoW (I know) to rant/worry that the PC game industry is dying (it is, slowly), or that games are/aren’t art (they are).

But, it being the circumstances that I am once again playing WoW (damn you woman!), I must once again whine about the lack of socialness in a MMO in general and in WoW in specific. Just a little.

Why do I keep harping on this subject? Because I’m a social butterfly and I need an outlet in my games. Bluh. No, because I’m playing in a game that expects me to group with others (not requires, in the case of WoW, but expects) to complete parts of the game. And how does it go about this? It does it by giving you a lousy (now updated) Looking For Group interface and that’s it. They want you to manually remember if you’ve grouped with people before, they want you use their now confusing (not overly, but not n00b friendly either) interface to find group members and to advertise yourself in it and they want to somehow divine if the player you’re inviting in is even worth it. Bluh.

Call me needy, but you know what I want? I want to have a list of everyone in the zone with the quest I’m currently on, same list they can see if I’m on the quest (sure, opt out is fine). I want automatic ratings for people I group with (you get a +1 because I didn’t manually say you sucked or were good, now when I go to group again, I’ll see I didn’t mind grouping with you last time). I want friends lists that talk to each other. I want LFG channels in every zone. I want it to be easy to setup groups and find other people that don’t suck,e tc, etc, etc. I’m silly that way.

So my wife and I play WoW, grouping with the occasional person, trying to steer clear of asshats, while not really knowing because we don’t even remember if we’ve grouped with someone before. WoW is a single player game with a bunch of other people competing for the same resources. It’s an odd bag.

What Would Matt Do: I won’t stop playing yet, I’m still having fun being a Warlock since I’m still in the lowbie levels.