This week Jonah and Jordan go it alone without Paul, which is unfortunately since the Gaming Flashback is the classic Nintendo 64 title Paper Mario. It might be just as well as the events of the last week made the crew ramble on about the industry at length, making the post much longer than usual.
This week’s impressive news items:
- John Riccitiello steps down as CEO of Electronic Arts
- Firaxis announces Brave New World expansion for Civilization V
- Will fans back an Alice 3 Kickstarter, asks American McGee
- Lord British explains Shroud of the Avatar‘s offline gameplay and DRM
- Facebook of Italian automobile company mentions “Gran Turismo PS4″
- Team Meat sitting out on developing for next-gen consoles
Lots of Reader Feedback, but no Question of the Week this week – just too much show.
The “year” Sony may be talking about is fiscal year 2009… which rolls into March 2010. Although Sony hasn’t tagged either title with an ETA, it’s being assumed that we’re talking 2009 until spring 2010. Given most games launch in the September and October time for the holiday season that leads us to believe it will either arrive for the holiday or slide to 2010. If the title isn’t ready for prime time by the holiday season, can you wait a full year for these games?
We purchased Rock Band 2 and the Drum Kit on the week of launch, having played on the drums for about a month we’ve already broke them. This time, however, it’s not the foot pedal, but the blue and yellow drum heads, now having smashed little holes in the center.
@John Riccitiello steps down as CEO of Electronic Arts
Hmm, no connection to Sim City? Me thinks not. Good point about EA no longer growing. Thing is, there is that much you can grow when all you have in mind is growing. Focus on the games, not on the slide shows for the board meetings.
I agree with Jordan though, the people guilty for releasing unfinished games is the customers. Greedy EA understands signals like “I’m not giving you my moneyz”.
@Will fans back an Alice 3 Kickstarter, asks American McGee
Some folks enjoyed the game (not my cup of tea though, but I’m irrelevant), so I don’t think he’ll have any issues with raising the money.
The problem is the IP. No amount of money he’ll raise from Kickstarter will get him the IP back. He’d better start working on something else. Keep the mad girl protagonist, keep the wacky universe. Ditch the names.
@Team Meat sitting out on developing for next-gen consoles
I agree with Jonah, the barrier of entry should be close to nil, even for the sake of diversity. But hey, I guess Ouya will just have a new developer shipping games for them …
Though I wasn’t available to fill in for Paul on this episode as Jonah noted, I’m indeed excited for Brave New World nonetheless. You can be certain it is to be front and centre for discussion on the next episode of PolyCast, the Civilization series podcast that I lead and produce.