Episode 452: Goodbye Princess Leia, Hello 2017

The year has ended, as the last podcast of 2016 was recorded last week, and released today. There’s much discussion that was cut out and saved for a future outtakes episode. Regardless, there’s plenty of show to go around, and the sound quality is also far better than ever thanks to Jonah getting a professional headset and mic.

This week’s news includes:

  • Nintendo registers trademark that could point to a SNES Classic Edition
  • Windows 10 may be getting a new “Game Mode” option
  • The next game by That Dragon, Cancer‘s dev is not what you’d expect

This week’s Question of the Week is “What game in 2017 might you buy that you normally wouldn’t?”

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Diablo 3 Content Creation PhaseDiablo 3 Content Creation Phase

Now that Blizzard feels their engine is solid, it’s time to move on to creating content for the full game. Jay Wilson, Diablo 3‘s lead designer, says the game engine is in an advance stage of completion and much of the art team has moved onto Act 2. Don’t read into that, he said game engine.

Blizzard is obviously not hurting for money, given the success of World of Warcraft and they’ve always taken their time with projects to make them solid products. Blizzard’s name is on the line and they’re brand consists of three major franchises: Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo. When you produce so few games you’re expected to do them perfectly.

How do they do it? As Wilson says, “If we haven’t rebuilt something five times it really doesn’t deserve to be shipped. That’s pretty much our policy.” (eurogamer) While a game engine is the foundation for a great game experience, the content is king. Blizzard is deep in the mire of content production so, although the engine might be solid, the final product is probably still far from complete.

End result, expect a high quality product once again from Blizzard.

Episode 345: Old in the ValleyEpisode 345: Old in the Valley

This week’s Jonah discusses an article about ageism in Silicon Valley, while Paul complains about an achievement ruining a casual game he’d spent $200 on. This week’s Gaming Flashback is Dance Dance Revolution.

The news includes:

  • Facebook acquiring Oculus for $2 billion
  • Valve’s Portal coming as Tegra 4 Android App to Nvidia Shield
  • Xbox One may allow loaning of digital games
  • Nintendo, Sony won’t attend PAX East

All this and a little Listener Feedback, with the Question of the Week being “Do you subscribe to videogame magazines now?”

Episode 240: ThanksgamingEpisode 240: Thanksgaming

It’s the episode just before Thanksgiving, and both Jordan and Paul have new jobs, as the latter settles into his new Los Angeles home. This week’s Gaming Flashback is the Atari 2600 game Kaboom!

The guys also discuss the following news items:

  • EA targeted for class action suit over Battlefield 3 PS3 bait and switch
  • Modern Warfare 3 makes $775M in 5 days
  • Square-Enix officially opens Montreal studio
  • Blockbuster has “ramped up the rental” of games, getting an “awful lot of support”
  • Rockstar eager to return to Bully IP

The question of the week: “How do you buy games most often these days: retail, online retailer, or digital distributor?”