So, E3 is going on, and as always the big news is in the form of the Big 3's conferences. Of course, Nintendo didn't hold an actual conference, instead opting instead to do another Nintendo Direct, but we will include them anyways. This year's E3 is extra special, because it's the period of hype for the next generation. Information on the next round of consoles (sans the ailing Wii U of course) is just coming to light, people are forming their allegiances, and Microsoft and Sony are fighting tooth and nail to earn said allegiances. It's an exciting time to be a gamer, to be sure. So in honor of E3, I thought I would discuss my thoughts on the the big 3's E3 presence, and my thoughts going forward with the next generation.
Microsoft
If you've been following the information pertaining to the Xbox One, then you know that Microsoft had nothing to lose and everything to gain from E3. Their focus on non-gaming media and their stance on used games and internet requirements turned a lot of people off, at least among the vocal minority. On the whole I would say Microsoft put on a pretty good conference, though. People wanted to see games out of Microsoft, and they got them. Of course many of the games on display were in fact titles that will be available on PC and/or PS4, but people seemed pretty excited for the most part. I can't really claim that anything really caught my attention aside from Project Spark and Titanfall in terms of games, though I'm a fan of the in-built streaming capabilities. We know the PS4 has similar, but I would certainly prefer stream to Twitch (partnered with Microsoft) than Ustream (partnered with Sont). Oh, and there was a rape joke, that was fun.
When all was said and done, I don't really feel that Microsoft came out of their conference too much better of than they were, though. People said they wanted to see games, they saw games, and yet all they were talking about was the elephant who remains in the room, and the $499 price point. I feel like Microsoft tried to just sweep the talk of DRM under the rug and hope games would make people forget, but it doesn't seem to have worked. I think the better approach would have been to subtly show how the online requirements and DRM can work to the player's advantage. Obviously they aren't going to get on stage and discuss all the features everyone is up in arms about, they are there to build hype not draw attention to their detractors. Yet, if I had seen a good reason for an Xbone to be constantly online, then maybe my opinion on the console would change. Instead, we got Smart Glass awkwardly and aggressively shoved in our faces.
I think Microsoft has managed to seal their own fate on this one. As soon as they announced the price point that was all anyone was going to take out of that conference, and it's a doozy. What confuses me the most about the Xbone continues to be the question of demographic. Who is supposed to buy this thing? Microsoft has touted this thing as the one device that will take over your living room, seemingly aimed at everyone. Yet, between used game restrictions, online requirements and a $500 price tag, it seems to me they have managed to alienate every demographic in some way. Sure, it's understandable that packaging a kinect with it will drive the price up, but casual or non-gamers aren't going to buy this thing at that cost. The same is true of college students, whom I assumed was the primary demographic.
I don't know what Microsoft does going forward. It seems to me their only options are to back pedal, and hope they regain enough good will to not be a total disaster. Perhaps the more likely course of action is that they simply stick to their guns and try to stay lean and economical. No doubt regardless of whatever missteps the Xbone will still sell many, many units. If they can maximize their income from every unit, then maybe they can hang on. Either way, it would certainly seem Microsoft has thrown away any chance at the top spot in this generation.
Sony
In truth, Sony didn't need to do much. The advantage was theirs to throw away. All they had to do was show up, not murder any puppies, and be heralded as the great prophets of gen 8. Sony basically did just that, and then some. There were several games on show, including Final Fantasy Versus XIII (rebranded as FFXV) and Kingdom Hearts III, and indie titles like Transistor and Octodad. In truth the games were kind of secondary in this conference, to me any ways. It was predictably a bunch of trailers that didn't say much about the games in question. I will say that I was very impressed that Sony managed to get live demos of both Assassin's Creed IV and Watch Dogs, despite Ubisoft not doing a live demo of said games in their own freaking conference. There was also a first look at gameplay from Bungie's Destiny, which at first didn't do it for me, but as it went on and the RPG features came to light, my interest was piqued.
I think the biggest thing about this conference was the subtle things like the language they used. It seemed to me like every word in Sony's presentation was chosen very carefully, and it went a long way. I loved the referential humor that they knew the people watching the show would get. More to the point though, Sony clearly had been paying extremely close attention to what Microsoft's detractors were saying. Almost point for point, Sony had something to say about every one of the Xbone's weaknesses. Oh, you are obstructive to indie's? Here's 20 minutes of indie games on PS4. You restrict used games? Yea, we don't. They may have well have been shouting "PS4 does what Xbone don't", but instead they were just taking subtle jabs there weren't off-putting, but reassuring.
Then there was the final nail in the coffin. They announced the $399 price point, and it was all over for Microsoft. Not only is the PS4 significantly less restrictive, more powerful, devoid of major privacy concerns and just more gamer friendly in general, but it's $100 cheaper. That makes a big difference. That means more early adopters, which means more third party developers, which means more exclusives, which is ultimately all that it comes down to. The PS4 even has some small advantage in their Gaikai cloud streaming service, but what that ultimately ends up looking like has yet to be seen. On the whole, it would seem that the PS4 is in a decisive lead some 5 months before either console is released.
Nintendo
It's very strange to me that Nintendo seems so far removed from the competition of late. Ever since the last generation started it's felt like Sony and Microsoft have been duking it out, and Nintendo has been off in the corner doing their own thing. This has never been quite so apparent as with their approach to this year's E3. Sony and Microsoft are battling for supremacy, holding huge 2 hour conferences in E3. Meanwhile, Nintendo's console has been out for 7 months and they put together a 40 minute pre-recorded presentation from the empty 7th floor of their office in Japan. In truth, it really wasn't any different from every other Nintendo Direct that has been put out, except that it happens to have happened during E3.
In that light, I would say that on the whole, the presentation was pretty unsurprising. Every game that was shown was either an already announced (or, at least known to be existing) game, or a highly predictable one (zomg, who would have guessed! Mario Kart, ON THE WII U?!?!?!). Of course there isn't anything wrong with that. Nintendo has subsisted on their first party titles and handhelds for over a decade now. People love their Nintendo franchises. None the less, there is clearly a lot of excitement behind the announcement of the next Super Smash Bros (apparently entitled simply "Super Smash Bros" ?). With games like that, a closer look at Wind Waker HD, and another look at Platinum Games' Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta 2 it seems likely that Wii U sales will begin to pick up.
And then there was "X". The next game from Monolith Soft, the rumored Wii U successor to Xenoblade Chronicles. In truth, I think I'm more excited about this title than any other I have seen from E3 thus far. I mean it's like Xenoblade, but high def, with more awesome mechs, mechs which the player can ride, and it's a more proper RPG. It looks pretty amazing, and is the first Wii U title I have seen that really screams "you need this console. You cannot miss this game". Of course I was always going to grab a Wii U once Zelda games started being released, but X might finally be the first third part core game that really pushes the Wii U into peoples' homes.
So I've been on a bit of a Fire Emblem kick for a while now. A couple of months ago I finally played through Path of Radiance, and following that I made my way through Awakening. More recently, I'm in the middle of re-playing plain old Fire Emblem, the GBA game from 2003. I've found it kind of interesting to look at how the series has evolved over the past 10 years. Of course the series didn't ever leave Japan until 2003, but since then it has picked up significantly more widespread appeal. I can't help but feel like several of the changes made to the series since then were made in the interest of appealing to the new fans rather than the old. So with that said, today I wanted to talk a bit about choosing characters, and why it was better back in the day.
Several months ago Sony revealed their vision of the future with their announcement of the Playstation 4. They talked a lot about semi-interesting social features, weird and wacky things that most people probably won't care about, and how much easier it will be for developers of all kinds to make games for their system. They also showed a decent amount of gameplay footage, real gameplay that was not pre-rendered, including footage from a brand new IP. At the time reactions to Sony's conference was mixed. Some people were optimistic, many were unimpressed. The conclusion that I think a lot of people came to was that we will wait and see what this all means for games.
Today Microsoft held their own conference, and I wanted to talk about my immediate thoughts. Full disclosure: I've owned every Sony console ever released, and none of the Microsoft consoles. While I'm not the Sony fanboy I once was, it would be naive to claim I didn't still have some bias.
Firstly on a superficial level; Microsoft actually showed their console. So we are fully aware now how sleek it is, and how much room it will take up on your shelf next to the equally large Kinect 2.0. Also, it's called the Xbox One. Why? I know laughing at console names has kind of become the thing to do these days, but still... Playstation 4 is safe, it's unimaginative. Xbox One is confusing and doesn't really seem to be based on anything. So what do we call the original Xbox now? The original Xbox? Xbox fat? XLBox? For that matter, what snappy name do we use for this new console? XOne? XBO? XBone? Yea, let's go with XBone. Anyways, I digress.
On the whole, I would say Microsoft's console started out strong--ish. Very quickly I got the impression of a console which transforms your living room. It acts as the gateway to all the media you need, and in this capacity it seems like an intriguing device. However at the same time, it's an embodiment of the ADD society we live in. Being able to instantly flip between media with a voice command is undoubtedly cool. However pressing the input button on my remote isn't particularly troublesome. Being able to open up a secondary application on the side of the screen is quite nifty. However if I'm going to control it with my phone, why not just run said application on my phone to begin with? Not to mention, how do all these media features function if I don't have cable? Or I don't have Xbox live gold? Or Netflix? Or... INTERNET.
After that whole shebang was out of the gate, Microsoft's conference took a real nosedive though. From that point there was little to see other than how awesome sports are, unrelated interviews with Athletes, a Halo TV series, a partnership with the NFL, and gameplay footage of the next (multiplatform) Call of Duty, which wasn't actually gameplay footage. The talk of actual video games was surprisingly minimal, even more so than was the case in Sony's conference. As a result of all of this, a lot of people are decrying the console as nothing but a media box aimed at fratboys and casuals. What's more, it has been confirmed that there will be an activation fee for playing used games. Of course this also comes with the claim that users will be able to trade and sell games through the console, which is intriguing, but the used games thing seems to have caused enough rage that people don't read far enough to see the reselling games bit.
The immediate reaction to this reveal seems to be the internet freaking out, because their favorite console has turned into a media box aimed at frat boys. At first I was right there with this viewpoint, but I don't think I am any more. Sure, the demographic has changed so that I'm not a part of it any more. Dudebros and casuals probably make up the majority of the market these days, so it makes business sense to me. What does being a part of that demographic do for me, anyways? Why do I care if I'm being marketed towards? There will be video games right? Sure, we will certainly see what's up at E3. If anything the biggest problem here is that the demographic that watched this live presentation is likely the core gamers and not the dudebros. Now, the core gamers feel scorned. Sony's stock is apparently soaring, and a significant number of people are leaning towards the PS4 now.
In the end of the day, all I care about are the video games. Sure, Microsoft's presentation didn't do anything for me, but they have to sell their product. In today's market where virtually every title is multi-platform, it's exclusive titles that sell consoles, and I was promised 8 new exclusive IPs at E3. Features are cool. PS4 has features that are aimed at playing video games. XBone has features that are aimed at media consumption and general use. At this point we haven't an inkling as to which box will have the best library of games, and that is ultimately all I care about. Even in terms of usability and features, there is still a lot to be seen. Microsoft's conference was a small disaster, but this battle isn't done by a long shot. The internet just has to remember that the people watching the reveal live are not representative of the other billions of people on the planet.
I do have to admit though. It's incredibly disappointing that the most interesting part of the entire presentation, the segment they used to cap off the entire thing, was about Call of Duty. Which, beyond just being Call of Duty, is a multi-platform title.
Fire Emblem is a series that I have been a fan of for about a decade now, about as long as it has existed in North America. So you can imagine that I was pretty excited at the prospect of a new title on the 3DS, especially considering Radiant Dawn came out way back in 2007. Fire Emblem is just one of those series that speaks to me, it has interesting characters, tactical combat, immersive worlds, and yet remains a pretty simple product on the surface. Unfortunately I had to wait a couple months after it's North American release to pick up my copy of Awakening, but all is well. I have my copy now, and I'm just about done with it, so I thought I would share my thoughts on the latest installment in the Fire Emblem series.
The first thing that makes this title stand out from the rest of the series is simply the degree of freedom and customization one has over their characters. It's actually somewhat reminiscent of Sacred Stones in this, and also in that you can spend time fighting non-integral battles for experience. Awakening has three main systems for customization. Firstly, every character has a pool of classes that they can change to, and subsequently learn skills from. Each person typically has about 3-5 classes they can access, and it's interesting choosing which classes to spend time in, which skills to pick up. Each character also has 5 total skill slots, giving a pretty high degree of customization per character. Even beyond this though, is the ability to marry characters together. Doing so eventually gives you access to a new character in the form of their child, who inherits potential classes, base stats, stat growths and even a couple skills from their parents. It all combines for a pretty complex system that allows for a lot of long term planning.
While I'm a huge fan of the customization Awakening allows, the unfortunate fact of the matter is that the positives to this game more or less end there. That's not to say everything else about it is terrible, just not quite up to par with the rest of the series, in my opinion. Ironically, the very things that make the game so fun (to me anyways) also have a lot of not so great repercussions. It all comes down to pacing, really. Fire Emblem games typically ferry you immediately from one battle to the next with some storyline in between. In Awakening you can spend hours messing about, grinding baddies, playing DLC, fighting spot pass teams etc. While having all of this extra stuff to do can add a lot of meat to the game, it also completely removes all efforts at pacing. What's more, how you choose to build your army matters a lot less when you have as long as you need to make up for your mistakes and grind your weak characters. If you are like me, you end up so absurdly powerful that the story missions are a joke. Even the story suffers. Goofing off for hours between chapters removes all intensity from the plot. I really cared about what happened to the worlds of Elibe and Tellius, but the story behind Awakening feels really weak, I don't feel engaged in it.
Beyond the actual storyline behind whatever world Awakening takes place in, I feel like the characters themselves suffer a lot from this games open-endedness as well. For one thing, each character being able to re-class into so many different classes really hurts their individuality. In previous titles, a character's class defined who they were. When you can so easily switch a character's class, who they are starts mattering a whole lot less. They stop being a person and start being "Mercenary #3". It doesn't help that graphically, each character is only distinguishable by their head. In their base class they have a unique body, but as soon as they promote that goes away. Every Sage for example, friend or foe, has the same body, which just gets weird. It's especially odd when that body has physical characteristics that the character in question really shouldn't have, or varies drastically from that of their previous class. I personally consider this a much graver sin than any palette swap ever was..
Sadly, the character issues don't end with individuality, either. One other way that Awakening bucks the series' norms is in how it handles support conversations. Often times in the past, each character would only be able to support a handful of other characters. What's more, each character could often only get a limited number of supports. Neither is really the case in Awakening. Characters can support just about anyone else (from their own generation, anyways), and there is no limit to how many supports a character can have. This also ties into the marriage system, in that marriage occurs when two characters reach an S level support. At first this seems like an overwhelmingly good thing. It means support options aren't so restrictive, and each character has an incredible amount of dialogue with which to build their personality and relationships. What's more, Awakening doesn't resort to having pre-canned generic conversations like Radiant Dawn did. However the sad truth is that in the end of the day, the result isn't significantly better.
The problem lies in the fact that each character has precisely one defining characteristic, and the pure volume of writing that has to be done for each possible combination. Seeing how each character would interact with another is occasionally interesting, but after seeing several supports it invariably begins to tread old ground rather quickly. I get it, the mage is studious. The thief likes candy. The archer is a flirt. It would be nice if support conversations dug a little deeper like that, as has been the case in previous games. When it comes to romantic relationships things aren't any better, either. Because there are so many marriage options, the pairings are often quite unconvincing. I didn't see a single proposal that wasn't painfully contrived. Yet, each support feels like it's leading towards marriage. Even if a character is already wed, anyone else who gets an A support with that character will seem to be blatantly flirting. It's like characters in this universe don't know how to have a friendly relationship with the opposite sex without throwing a ring at them.
In the end of the day, Fire Emblem Awakening is a very odd game to assess. The level of planning and strategy it affords is significantly higher than previous installments. Yet, every other aspect of the game feels significantly more shallow. If there was ever a question that Fire Emblem should stay a linear game, I think Awakening proves the point. Being able to go off the beaten track totally ruins the game's pacing, both in terms of challenge as well as in removing intensity from the plot. Having characters that are so flexible and support conversations that are painfully generic lead to uninteresting characters that lack individuality. What's more, being able to level up at will removes any danger that your characters will ever die. Combined, I found I just didn't really feel like I cared all that much about my characters, or the world for that matter. Even the battles themselves feel less strategic and more like going through the paces.
Fire Emblem Awakening isn't a bad game, it just isn't good in the same ways that previous titles were. It's not a game about strategic battles, interesting characters and a tense war for power. Those things are there, they just take a back seat. Awakening is all about planning out your characters, watching them become beastly, and then spending $3 on DLC maps that take 20 mins to beat. A part of me wants to see what the game is like on the more absurd difficulty levels; maybe more challenge would solve a lot of the game's problems. A larger part of me feels like I've had my fill of this particular title. It's a quality title, I'm certainly not disappointed to have played it. It just didn't scratch the itches I expected from a Fire Emblem title.
Back in the 1980s, when the video game industry was young, it suffered a pretty massive crash. Between 1984 and 1985 total revenues dropped by a whopping 97%, and people thought the fad had passed until the NES came around. Back then the industry had no infristructure and basically subsisted on Pac Man clones. Things are very different these days, but still people constantly claim that the market is headed for another crash. I don't personally believe this is possible any longer, now that we have things like indie developers, digital distribution and a generation of people who grew up playing video games. None the less, I do believe that the AAA market, big budget games, are headed in a bad direction. While I don't think you could call it a "crash", it seems to me that AAAs are in the process of "crashing". In no particular reason why, here are my top 5 reasons why:
1) DRM / Piracy
Piracy has become an incredibly common thing in recent years. It's quite easy to get an illegitimate copy of anything digital, and the chances of any real repercussions are incredibly slim. As a result, there is a large number of people playing games for free, depriving the developer of that sale. I don't think there is any question that this is a bad thing, good games can't get made if developers go broke. However at the same time, there really isn't any proof that piracy actually negatively effects a game's sales. It can be argued, for example, that a person who pirates a game may have never bought it to begin with. Nobody can say for certain what effect piracy has, but what we can say for certain is that game makers (understandably) don't like it. In fact many of them end up sinking ridiculous amounts of time and money into trying to prevent their game from being pirated. This is known as DRM.
DRM comes in many forms, but all of them are designed to bar illegitimate owners from playing a game. The problem is, it doesn't work. Not for video games. There are some very smart people out there who treat DRM like a challenge to be overcome, and working pirated games are usually distributed on the internet within hours. So if DRM doesn't restrict pirates, who is there left to restrict? Only legitimate users. The issue here is that while piracy probably isn't good for the industry, DRM definitely isn't. Game makers obsess over the potential loss of income that piracy may or may not cause, and as a result waste time and money fighting a battle they will always lose. The fact of the matter is that it's not uncommon for legitimate owners to suffer at the hands of DRM, while pirates have no such restrictions. The game experience is actually better for the people who obtain the game illegitimately.
2) Publishers
Now I want to start by saying that publishers get a pretty bad rap. They are often seen as "the enemy", the evil greedy businessmen pulling the strings from the shadows. In reality however, publishers are not all bad. In reality, many (perhaps even most) exceptional games would never have seen the light of day if not for publishers. However with that said, which games publishers do and do not choose to fund has a very real effect on the direction that the industry goes.When all is said and done, publishers invest their money in a game in order to see a return on that investment. AAA games are expensive, and publishers have to choose very carefully where to spend their money.
Creating high caliber games is a risk. The reason this is a problem is because it means publishers aren't as likely to invest in a game that can't guarantee success. Games that aren't a sequel or a Call of Duty clone could lose a publisher a lot of money, those risky investments aren't attractive. However on the flip side we see mobile games rising to prominence because they aren't so expensive. Big studios can sink a relatively small amount of time and money just spitballing. The problem with all of this is because the market is now being driven by things that don't necessarily appeal to "core" gamers. As the risks inherent to a AAA title increase, the kind of titles we see become less and less creative, and more and more samey. Gaming has become a mainstream hobby, but those that made the industry what it is today aren't who publishers are worried about any more. It's not wrong for publishers to want to make their money back, but the unfortunate fact is that ever increasing aversion to taking risks is leading to a market that is increasingly stagnant.
3) Pre-Orders
The issue with pre-orders is actually one that has only really cropped up in the last couple years. I've never really seen an issue with putting money up front for a game I know I want day 1. I still don't see an issue with the core of this concept, but the problem is that publishers (and retailers) are catching on in a big way. It seems to me that the entire way that a game is marketed is shifting. Perhaps I'm just being naive, but I feel like the focus used to be on selling copies by making a good game, whereas now it's more about hype. It seems like every game these days needs to have some fancy pre-order bonus, and a different reward for buying from Gamestop, Best Buy and Amazon. It's all about convincing the consumer how much they want the game before it's even released, and some games sell millions in pre-orders.
That's really where the problem lies here. Publishers want to cement the financial success of their game before it even has the possibility of being panned by reviewers. That's ok, marketing, building hype, and selling as many copies as possible are all their job. The problem is that the consumers are falling for it. We get so wrapped up in the hype, we have pre-order bonuses waved in our face, and we don't even know if the game will be any good. We live in an age where mediocre, or even bad games can be financially successful if they are marketed well. Apparently we can't even trust the truthfulness of trailers and demos. Why would we then continue to pre-order games instead of waiting at least a few hours after release? Maybe if consumers had a little more patience and were a little less obsessed with pre-order bonuses we wouldn't have to worry about another Aliens: Colonial Marines.
4) Bad DLC / Microtransactions
I want to be very clear upfront here: DLC and Microtransactions are not inherently bad things. The concept of spending $5 on a game I love is actually pretty appealing to me. If the developer did a good job, then they deserve a little extra from me. Having that secondary form of monetization can go a long way too, and it makes selling a $60 title a bit less of a crapshoot for the developer. The problem is that microtransactions have proven to work pretty well, and now everyone wants a piece of that pie. As a result it feels like every other game out there is either pay to win, or chopped up and sold as DLC. It's surprisingly rare to find a game that lets you spend $60 and be done with it, and even more rare that the base price is dropped as a result of them nickle-and-dimeing you.
The problem here is that the core of a game has to be able to stand on it's own, and has to be a complete package. If you chop off an important part of the story just to charge $5 for it, that's only going to make people mad. If you chop any piece off, really. DLC is supposed to be an addition to the game, not something that say, is already on the disc, but can't be accessed without a fee. Poorly implementing your paid content is one of the best ways to really wreck an otherwise decent game. I don't want to get a megabeamsword +6 when I pre-order the game, I don't want to pay for an in-game currency for a title I already spent $60 on, and I don't want to feel like my game is incomplete without the $20 season pass.
5) Graphics Over Gameplay
This is an argument that has persisted for a long time now, and yet it only gets more and more true each year. Graphics are always marching forward, it's virtually the only reason we even need another generation of consoles or better graphics cards. Yet if you were to ask anyone who has been gaming for at least 10-15 years, chances are they would say that the best games were released in the 1990s and 2000s. Granted a lot of that is likely nostalgia, a lot of those games were graphically impressive for their time, and there are certainly recent games that are also very good. However despite all of this, it seems like the AAA industry doesn't know how to make a game without blowing most of their budget on polygons. Plenty of people will tell you that gameplay is what makes a game good, and they aren't wrong, but the spending is where I feel the real issue lies.
The fact that AAA games are so expensive to make isn't doing anyone any favors. Good graphics can add to an already fun game, but they can't make an experience. If anything, style and aesthetics are more important than fidelity, and they are both less expensive. This all leads back to what I've already talked about in regards to publishers. Expensive games are risky, risks are bad when you want to make money. When you can sell 3.4 million copies of a game and still consider it a failure, then you have a real problem. It's hard to imagine a world where AAA games having lower expectations and more reasonable budgets wouldn't produce better games.When every title doesn't have to be a smash hit to succeed, you can afford to take bigger risks. That is the path back to an industry with imagination, niche appeal, and AAA titles that can actually make games that are as good as the indie developers who have a fraction of the budget. It sure would be nice to see more titles that focused on fun instead of explosions.
