This week, the gang follows up on Tim Sweeney from last week, and also discuss Dark Souls 2 modding, the “photorealistic” ant RTS Empire of the Ants, and Resident Evil 4 Remake crossing 7 million copies sold.
The news also includes:
Let us know what you think.
The podcast is back, albeit on a Saturday instead of the usual Friday. No Gaming Flashback or Gaming History, but a good chunk of news, though some of it only tenuously connected to videogaming.
The news this week includes:
This week’s Question of the Week is based on the Minecraft convention scam from last week, which the podcast discusses, “Have you even attended a convention devoted to a game?”
If you’re wondering where the podcast has been, it’s been in technical hell. Twice the podcast was recorded each week, and both times there were serious technical issues. This time, we’ve got it right, and even have Paul dropping by to discuss his new book, “Gaymers: the Difference a ‘Y’ Makes: How (and Why) to Make Video Games LGBT Players Care About“. Actually, it’s mostly dominated by a discussion of an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
Otherwise, the news items include:
The Question of the Week: “Who is your favorite superhero?”
Yesterday a rumor started which said Google was looking to purchase Valve Software, the makers of Half-Life, Team Fortress and, of course, Portal. While Valve Software boasts a 20-million unit sales on their archive of awesome games, what interest would google have in gaming?
From google’s own corporate mission statement: “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” How would gaming fit into the dynamic of organizing the worlds information?
Some have said they’d be interested in Valve’s Steam system for distributing games and products. That seems far fetched considering all the CDN solutions on the Net, especially those focused towards media related projects like Liberated Syndication (Wizzard Media), which we use to host our gaming podcast, or other video solutions which would fit more into the Google playing field (considering the large purchase of youtube.com)
Today, Doug Lombardi of Valve, pubically said that Valve Software is willing to be purchased but stated the Google rumor was “a bit of fiction.” (kotaku) While Valve Software has shown they can make awesome titles with stability and dedication, knowing their open to being purchased is slightly disturbing.
I’m always happy for those “little guys” that make it in the big world of cut throat game development, there is some satisfaction knowing the smaller developers are making big waves against publishers like EA and Activision. Valve has changed the way we download games electronically and continues to expand their dominion; if Valve Software was purchased by a bigger company, would we still get the same quality and innovation from the developers?
