Leigh Alexander:
“Gamer” isn’t just a dated demographic label that most people increasingly prefer not to use. Gamers are over. That’s why they’re so mad.
So well said.
Intel has pulled an advertising campaign from video gaming website Gamasutra after it reportedly received a number of complaints from self-identified gamers upset that the site was championing fair gender representation in video games.
This is just embarrassing. If someone at Intel would have spent just 15 minutes looking into just how stupid #GamerGate is, this would have all been a non story. Instead, they now look like cowards.
I'm leaving Mojang. I’m not a CEO. I'm a nerdy computer programmer who likes to have opinions on Twitter.
Interesting to note two other character models exist besides the genie version- One representing his character in Mork and Mindy, and the other most likely Mrs. Doubtfire. All three models were datamined from an upcoming patch, and are not yet officially in the game.
From GameSpot's PR machine:
GameSpot did some shifting of internal resources as part of our long-term content and user engagement strategy. A few positions were impacted.
GameSpot will only be the beginning, as the Youtube trend continues. Written reviews and previews at large editorial driven sites with no personality just can't cut it anymore. I never understood why people would go to GameStop for reviews. Everything they published sounded like it was meant to go on the back cover of a game, indistinguishable from marketing.
Carolyn Petit, Tom Mc Shea, Justin Calvert, Maxwell McGee, Ryan Mac Donald, and Benito Gonzalez were some of those "impacted". It's unfortunate, but hopefully this will pave the way for some new creative endeavours. I didn't care for a lot of their content, but all of them were still incredibly talented, and I wish them the best of luck.
Even though Techcrunch is describing it as 'Netflix for games', it feels more like how cable TV packages channels. Let's just hope they never have "exclusive content" only available through the service.
I'm surprised to read how well the broadcast went over. Watching Twitter reactions to Dota 2 being on ESPN was almost as entertaining as TI4 was to watch. People on both sides seemed genuinely angry that it was being shown. I can understand the confusion for those who don't follow video games, but I'll never understand the weird inferiority complex so many of esports people seem to have. As if there is something inherently wrong with video games appearing on TV. Whatever your stance is over games like Dota 2 or Starcraft on being considered sports is (they're not), it's great to see them become more mainstream. Dota 2 on ESPN is no different than chess or poker, both of which ESPN also airs.
When Lorne Lanning and Sherry McKenna co-founded Oddworld Inhabitants in 1994, they had imagined creating a franchise similar to George Lucas' or Jim Hansen's.
And we thought we could do that organically, we thought we could do that with successes. But the fact is I sold over 5 million games at retail and I never saw one royalty cheque. Now if you go around and ask the rest of the developers who say, ‘Oh, we sold a million units!’ Ask them how many royalty cheques they’ve had and it’ll be, ‘Oh, well that’s a sore spot’.
Watch_Dogs WeareData is the first website to gather publicly available data about Paris, London and Berlin, in one location. Each of the three towns is recreated on a 3D map, allowing the user to discover the data that organizes the runs modern cities today, in real time. It also displays information about the inhabitants of these cities, via their social media activity.
Via twitter:
Friends, @BossKey will be working with Nexon to publish a Free2Play Sci-Fi PC arena shooter code named #BlueStreak. #BossKey #UnlockTheFun
The start of Valve's The International 4 starts today, with the first phase of playoffs. Matches are best of three, with losing team being eliminated. The finals begin July 18th and run through July 21st, at the Seattle Key Arena.
You can watch the coverage live on Twitch as well as the Dota 2 website.
David Fox (Former game designer at LucasFilm Games):
I'd say that the people that came to Lucasfilm Games, or the reasons we ended up here, are because we're all very much impressed with the type of work that George Lucas did with his films, and we appreciate film type experience. So we designed Rescue on Fractalus and Ballblazer with a conscious effort to create that feeling and bring it over into the games. The games themselves – each of them came about in different ways. Like in the case of Rescue, it started out with me sharing an office with Loren Carpenter, and him being an expert with fractals. Well, we were wondering what would happen if we could somehow incorporate that on a small computer. And then the game scenario came out of that, and went in that direction. So in that case we came up with the graphics idea first – the game came out of the graphics routine. The other two games, Koronis and Eidolon, just went in the other direction the ideas were first and the graphics followed.
People get too stuck up on Star Wars and adventure games when they talk about early Lucasfilm/LucasArts. Lucasfilm did make some other games, like Ballblazer or Rescue, as Fox mentions. While they might seem like simple concepts now, but in the early 80s these were strangely creative in their own way.
Jeff Gerstmann:
In the last few days there's been a lot of talk about what Giant Bomb is and isn't. What it stands for and what it won't stand for. A lot of people have made a lot of assumptions about what we do and how we act, and what we tolerate or even condone on our message boards and live chats. Most of this isn't new, but it's well past time to come out and say what this staff and this site stands for.
It's a little disappointing that things like this still has to even be said. For those unfamiliar, a few people had expressed disappointment and concerns regarding the new hires at Giant Bomb; specifically that they hired known quantities who were straight white males. Others began harassing and attacking those people by twitter, message boards, and other means.
The fact the new hires were all straight, white males was a valid complaint in my opinion. The staff of Giant Bomb even noted that the criticism was a valid discussion and spoke out against the attackers. While I wish the new members nothing but the best of luck with their new roles, I admit I was a little disappointed in who they chose, especially after knowing some of the extremely talented people that did apply.
Every so often, Google puts out a fun, time wasting game. The idea behind Smarty Pins is simple. You choose a category, and a question is shown. It's your job to drop the location marker as close to the answer as possible before you run out of miles (points). All it's missing is the cheesy music and some cartoon villains, and you have a new Carmen Sandiego game.
From his twitter:
I'm officially coming out of retirement to make video games again.
Stay tuned here for details in the next 7 days!
#DontCallItAComeback
Not really a surprise he's returning to making games; it was bound to happen. But, I am sincerely interested to see what he comes up with. While many will shrug and say 'who cares?', with being the creative head behind Unreal and Gears of War franchises, I believe whatever he makes next has the potential to be great.
Between this and Nintendo Treehouse, it's a little scary how good companies are getting at presenting information on games that mimic press and 'games journalism' sites. I believe we'll start seeing a lot more controlled media like this directly from developers/publishers as time goes on.
So I guess I'm developing an indie game now.
I started A Life Well Played as an experiment of sorts. I wanted to return to blogging, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to write about. I just knew I wanted to talk about geeky things, since everyone in my little circle always seems to be asking what I think about this gadget or game. I built the site in a way that I could easily expand it, and explore different avenues for posting. Examples include the blips from E3, the features from PAX as well as the 2012 Video Game Report.
In November I decided to take a break from this site and explore ideas for making it more of a social platform, in the vein of Medium or Svbtle. But, as I was developing it, I had to ask myself, is this really something I need to be making? When I get an idea, often times I have a habit of going off on tangents, exploring every other idea that stems from the original. Sometimes they're even better than the original, sometimes they fail horribly. The great thing is, I can usually reuse some of the code for another project. As such, most of the code for the system I wrote was rolled back into Replica (The current content management system I wrote that powers this site), so it wasn't a total loss.
I partially modeled ALWP after the Penny Arcade Report. The site was a inspiration to me, and one of the reasons I wanted to return to blogging. After the site was shut down earlier this year, I made the conscious decision to return to this site. For now, I plan on returning to what I've been doing; curating a linked list of daily video game/geeky news, but also writing more.
Last week it was unearthed by modders that Watch Dogs for PC contained various unused files and related to the game's 2012 E3 reveal. By making a few tweeks, players can bring back the look from the old trailer. It didn't take long before the Internet cried foul, suggesting Ubi had deliberately toned down the visuals on PC.
Ubisoft:
The dev team is completely dedicated to getting the most out of each platform, so the notion that we would actively downgrade quality is contrary to everything we’ve set out to achieve. We test and optimize our games for each platform on which they’re released, striving for the best possible quality. The PC version does indeed contain some old, unused render settings that were deactivated for a variety of reasons, including possible impacts on visual fidelity, stability, performance and overall gameplay quality. Modders are usually creative and passionate players, and while we appreciate their enthusiasm, the mod in question (which uses those old settings) subjectively enhances the game’s visual fidelity in certain situations but also can have various negative impacts. Those could range from performance issues, to difficulty in reading the environment in order to appreciate the gameplay, to potentially making the game less enjoyable or even unstable.
Given just how buggy the game has been from personal experience, I believe the truth, like usual lies somewhere in the middle. Ubisoft most likely took the easy way out of reducing the game's quality to improve the overall performance, not for nefarious reasons as some suspect, like trying to promote the console versions over PC.
That said, the game mod does look beautiful. For those interested in trying it, download links and more information on it can be found here.
At 14, Tobias wanted to make a game, not just any game, but his dream game. So, started work on 'Tobias and the Dark Sceptres'. 13 years later, nearly half his life, he finally finished it. Tobias and the Dark Sceptres may not be the greatest indie game ever, or even a great game for that matter, but I admire him for sticking it through. It's a compelling work of art, and it's beautiful to watch his talent grow as the game progresses.
Because there is still just a tiny little bit of life force to suck from Final Fantasy VII franchise. At some point you have to assume Square will develop enough high resolution assets to just throw together a FFVII re-make.
Steam, CryEngine, Unity Engine, and now Unreal Engine on Linux. It's amazing how far Linux (and Mac) gaming has come in just the last couple years.
I think the issue that causes a lot of this emotion around money is the fact that, we, as a society like to think that the harder you work, the more money you make. This also speaks to the humility of these developers. There are far too many people who would happily take the sudden millions of dollars without giving much, if any thought to the morality of their situation.
Serena is a short point and click adventure game developed by both fans and developers, available on Steam for free on Mac, PC and Linux platforms.
Nick Earl, Senior Vice President of EA Mobile:
We’ve reimagined this classic title and built it specifically for mobile platforms, giving longtime Dungeon Keeper fans a new way to delve into the fun of this legendary title on the go.
Dungeon Keeper has always been a childhood favorite of mine. Even the game was always comedic, the remake has been cartoonized to the point it feels like a cheap knockoff of the original. Still, the same minions, rooms and goals all still remain intact.