Episode 484: Letters!

This week’s podcast was delayed in publishing thanks to the holiday week being more hectic than usual. However, better late than never, and there’s even some listener feedback included!

The news items include:

  • Valkyria Chronicles 4 is mobilizing for deployment in the west in 2018
  • Clicker Heroes 2 developer abandons microtransaction model citing ethical concerns
  • Rainbow Six Siege is getting a high-tech ninja named Vigil
  • Minecraft is adding tridents, shipwrecks, dolphins and coral reefs in Spring 2018

Let us know what you think.

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Has Rare Lost Touch With The Gaming Industry?Has Rare Lost Touch With The Gaming Industry?

In an interesting interview this week at 1up.com, Peter Moore, now at Electronic Arts, believes the skillset that Rare holds is a bit dated for our gaming industry. Moore, best known in his role of VP at Microsoft in their Interactive Entertainment Business division, understands how great Rare and their games once were but seems to believe the industry has passed them by.

Looking at their latest Microsoft titles, mainly Perfect Dark Zero, Viva Pinata and Kameo: Elements of Power, it’s not hard to believe his statements as fact. None of the titles have blown away a market full of Grand Theft Autos, Halo’s and other top selling titles. None of their games hit the epic review scores of Bioshock or Crysis. It’s not all first person shooters are taking the big sales numbers; Spore was given rave reviews by online review sites (sans Amazon) and that’s a completely different style of game.

Popcap’s Peggle has had more fame and glory than some of the bigger titles from Rare, probably made with less money. Is Rare a dying breed of developers with no good direction to react to the changing ways of the game industry?

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Episode 573: A Very Special Returning GuestEpisode 573: A Very Special Returning Guest

This week, Paul fills in for Scott, who has more pressing issues than discussing videogames, though some very serious topics about them do pop up, such as how misogyny became pronounced in the hobby. The Gaming Flashback is one of the legendarily panned titles, Bomberman Act:Zero.

The news for this week includes:

  • Video game spending reaches record high during pandemic
  • Epic Games Store keyless integration with other digital stores announced
  • Minecraft sales now exceed 200 million (from PC Gamer)
  • Star Citizen will hold a free fly event starting this week

There’s also some Listener Feedback from longtime fan Ralf from Germany.

EA Listens To The Public: No SecuROM In The Sims 3!EA Listens To The Public: No SecuROM In The Sims 3!

simsIt seems Spore was the staging point for the SecuROM revolt and the massive amazon 1-star reviews and backlash have not gone on deaf ears. Electronic Arts has opted to leave SecuROM out of The Sims 3, an upcoming release for just that reason.

“We have heard your requests over the past months and here is our plan for The Sims 3,” Sims development head Rod Humble stated on the official website. “The game will have disc-based copy protection – there is a serial code just like The Sims 2. To play the game there will not be any online authentication needed. (casualgaming.biz)

We wonder, did they do this primarily because of the Spore revolt or because the demographic for The Sims is even more casual than that of Spore? Casual gamers expect a casual experience from install to un-install because they don’t want to be hassled with silly copy protection. Or, perhaps casual games like The Sims is less likely to be hacked because it’s not a “hardcore” game?

We’re sticking with the thinking that this is a “good faith” jesture to the gamers for how they “rocked the vote” on the last title as The Sims is one of the best selling series on the PC gaming platform. Lots of sales with lots of fans, why interrupt that momentum with ugly DRM whiplash?