This week comments on the crapshow that is going on with most of the third party publishers. That, and some updates to games that people really care about.
The news includes:
Let us know what you think.
This weeks gaming podcast tackles the history of Full Throttle and the history of the SCUMM script system created for Maniac Mansion. We’re also hitting up some game news, talking a bit more about games that have changed our lives and taking to heart some great user comments.
Activision and Sony battling it outThis weeks question of the week is of the user-submitted style! Krud asks, “If you could only play four games (w/o new DLC for the foreseeable future), what four would you choose?”
This gaming podcast closes out the year of 2009, we’re going to put in our predictions for the year, we’re going to hear a few comments from listeners and flash back to a game that has yet to be (but is old enough to flash back): Duke Nukem Forever. You’ll also, finally, get the first impressions of Assassin’s Creed 2 and some game news including:
We’ll also ask for your predictions on next years gaming excitement. What are your predictions, in the game industry, for “twenty ten”?
Gaming is mainstream and growing, this is obvious to most video game enthusiasts. Even Jack Thompson has failed in taking down the industry in his efforts on video game violence and general FUD. In order to survive in a mainstream environment publishers and developers are going to target a broad demographic to make them as much money as possible.
The game industry, like other entertainment avenues, is a risky business in which publishers have to pick titles they “predict” will do well in the market while passing on other “risky” propositions. While a the good ol’ shooter title will break sales records, the market cannot rely on one genre to carry the business especially considering many of these titles are forgotten within two months from launch. Publishers are going to be forced in expanding their reach to “family games” in order to finance new blockbuster titles.
Enter family gaming.
The idea of designing a “family” game isn’t new to our industry, as a matter of fact, it’s one of the oldest cornerstones of video game entertainment. Pong, Centipede, Pac-Man, Space Invaders and many other classic titles were no doubt playable by the entire family, but things have changed. We’ve evolved from hit titles like Donkey Kong to hit titles like Halo. We migrated from 2D gaming to full 3D adventures and pixel graphics to pixel shaders, but where do we go next?
Nintendo has the correct vision for the next stage of the video game industry and it involves bringing the entire family into gaming. It’s mainstream, right? Mainstream isn’t your dad playing a video game in the basement after the kids go to bed, it’s replacing Sorry with Spore and bringing out Wii Sports and having little family tournaments. We must respect what the big titles have done for the industry in merchandising, novels, sequels and spin-offs but we should not rely on them to carry us into the next generation of gaming.
