Jonah is in LA, TJ is at EVO, and who knows where Scott is.
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Episode 403: Jam and the HooligansEpisode 403: Jam and the Hooligans
The episode is a day late, sorry about that, folks. In this episode, we wish Paul was with us to discuss what he thought of the release of Jem and the Holograms in theaters. The banter is strong, but not overstuffed like last week.
Lots of news this week, however:
- Konami insists Hideo Kojima still works at company
- 343 Industries not ruling out PC port of Halo 5
- Rebellion rescues Kickstarter backers from GRIN’s bankruptcy
- Classic car combat RPG Autoduel may be making a comeback with inXile
- Pete Hines: Entire game not on Fallout 4 PC disc
- Vivendi seeking more shares of Ubisoft, board seats
The Question on the Week: Do you prefer first person or isometric RPGs?
Trading Used Games, Like Fraud?Trading Used Games, Like Fraud?
David Braben, founder of Frontier Developments, says retail outlets that buy and sell pre-owned games are “essentially defrauding the industry.” Although multiplayer gaming might not be a huge threat, the single player experience in games may die out because gamers play the game quickly and resell it back to places like GameStop for others to buy.
Developers don’t get a dime when a game goes traded, many gamers will “share” the single player experience with a single copy of the game by reselling it over and over. The end result, retail outlets make a good penny for marking up old games while developers see nothing. This is really how game retail outlets survive because the margins on video games is so damn low.
The story has been heard before, developers want a piece of the action so they’re taking steps to entice people to keep the game with renewed downloadable content on old games; you can’t experience the new content without keeping the game around longer. In the world of low margin games, high cost development and short-lived story lines the solutions to this problem aren’t exactly obvious.
Braben’s idea of a solution is to offer two versions of the game, a not for resale/rental version at a high price, say $160, and a low priced version that cannot be shared (heavily DRM’ed?) for $50. In essence, gamers would no longer be able to trade in games because the idea of spending double for a game so you can resell it makes no sense to most gamers (including myself.)
Episode 269: Roundtable Time and Spec Ops: The Line ContestEpisode 269: Roundtable Time and Spec Ops: The Line Contest
This week is a special episode as Jonah Falcon cooks up a true videogame roundtable and is giving away three Steam codes for the latest third person shooter, Spec Ops: The Line, while Paul Nowak reads this week’s gaming flashback Wally Bear and the NO! Gang.
The videogame roundtable has the crew discussing two topics: videogame violence and “play to win” premium game portals.
All that plus Reader Feedback.
To find out how to win a copy of Spec Ops: The Line, listen to the podcast and find out how!