This Just In: Bobby Kotick Is a Moron

[Josh]

our fucking hobby.

Get a new hobby.

[Yoshi]

I don't go down without a fight.

STFU

[StriderKyo]

how you use CRM tools in delighting and satisfying the expectations of your audiences.. it's something no other company [Bungie] talked to [could offer]."

OMG I'm dying here.

This clown is unreal.

[Shin Johnpv]

Wait, what? Casuals and the "experiencing" to me overlap quite a bit.

I don't think they do. I think the "experiencing" group overlap most with the "hardcore" group. Those are the folks that seem the loudest to me clamouring for more epic narrative, and games to be more like hollywood movies. The whole big budget AAA experience games, like your Call of Duties, and shit. I see the casuals that people complain about as the group buying brain age, and things like that. I don't think the "experience" group and the casuals overlap at all.

And both groups suck balls. To be perfectly clear, I am talking about games where the narrative dwarfs the gameplay. I think story is a good thing, but it has to be secondary, unless its a genre like adventure, where story has always been the focus.

I can agree with this. There are some Genres, like RPGs or some adventure genres where Story is a stronger focus. I don't think the people talking about "experiencing" are just talking about story though. It's the whole hollywood big budget this game/movie is an EVENT type attitude. Its the shit with spending 50 million on a game to turn it into an experience, instead of pouring that money into gameplay. Maybe I'm taking the experience thing differently. I just am so sick of the way games are handled now adays. It just feels like this gen keeps trying to just copy hollywood, that developers just want to be making interactive movies and charge us through the nose for it.

edit: And per NZE's quote, Warren Spector rules, but you all already knew that... except probably Compass.

I agree with this as well, Spector does indeed rule.

[Drewbacca]

This has nothing to do with Bungies publishing deal with Activision. NOTHING.

Also, Halo MMO confirmed. 20 dollars per month

Pretty sure Microsoft owns Halo, though.

Nope. Apparently I am wrong - Yahoo Answers to the rescue.

Just kidding I am always right. Microsoft owns Halo - Bungie must be working on a brand new IP that will probably completely fall short of expectations.

[Dyne]

Pretty sure Microsoft owns Halo, though.

Yup. From Wiki

"As outlined in a deal between the two, Microsoft would retain a minority stake and continue to partner with Bungie on publishing and marketing both Halo and future projects, with the Halo intellectual property belonging to Microsoft.[23]"

But they won't make that mistake again.

"Under Bungie's agreement with Activision, new intellectual property developed by Bungie will be owned by Bungie, not the publisher, a rare agreement in the video game industry."

[James]

You can't experience a game without playing it, any more than you can taste food by lounging in front of Food Network all day.

I like a good story in my games when and as necessary, but it's never been that important overall. First and foremost games are about doing things that feel fucking awesome, and everything else is secondary to that. I may have mentioned this before.

More on topic, Bobby Kotick needs to go sell cars, real estate, or anything else that can be viewed as a commodity instead of the output of a creative process.

James

[Yoshi]

I don't think they do. I think the "experiencing" group overlap most with the "hardcore" group. Those are the folks that seem the loudest to me clamouring for more epic narrative, and games to be more like hollywood movies. The whole big budget AAA experience games, like your Call of Duties, and shit. I see the casuals that people complain about as the group buying brain age, and things like that. I don't think the "experience" group and the casuals overlap at all.

This may all be semantics, but I see four groups:

1. hardcore - They import stuff that doesn't come out here and have to have the best version of everything. They know what was missing from the US version of Castlevania III and thus needed to try the Famicom version.
2. gamers - They probably have a couple systems and might buy some off the beaten path games but mostly just buy all of the big name games: Madden, Call of Duty, Halo, Final Fantasy, etc. and follow the industry enough to know which games those are.
3. casuals - These asshats own one console and/or one portable. They focus on a small set of genres, likely sports or FPS. They don't generally follow the industry and just lick their finger and see which way the wind is blowing.
4. non-gamers - aka old people and women, these people buy WiiFit, Brain Age, and other bullshit that inflates Nintendo's system sales and gives that company's moronic fans pseudo facts to hide behind.

There are probably shades of gray, but those are the major camps the way I see it.

[Yoshi]

You can't experience a game without playing it, any more than you can taste food by lounging in front of Food Network all day.

Totally agree. This is why the 198X stuff was so odd to me when I heard it.

[MechDeus]

Is it that time again for people to wage war on definitions of hardcore and casual?

I see the casuals that people complain about as the group buying brain age, and things like that.

Are you just talking about old people and women, or people in general that don't normally play videogames? Considering the entire trend styles towards easier to play games, huge hype machines, and giant commercial pushes strikes me as them trying to appeal both to people that play a lot of games and also people that buy maybe one game a year (probably not counting Madden).

Something like Halo, in a comparison of something like Star Trek, will most likely never appeal to certain demographics but they can certainly try to push hard to appeal to the largest possible audience. The latest Star Trek movie was engineered to appeal to brand new audiences, but still isn't going to largely capture the specific Bridges of Madison County target demographic. To that end, you can't really blame any particular group for the rise of games that are built on advertising, it's pretty much just the nature of appealing to people in general.

Besides that, we have such a ridiculous range of games these days, I'm not even sure what people are bitching about for having some event games occur. Cave is still making shit like it's 1992, Minecraft is like the greatest game from 15 years ago that we all forgot about, games that rely on atmosphere like Amnesia are only improved with technology, and so on. Event games often fuel developers who also make stuff just for fans (hello, Capcom) and help build the industry, which in turn can give more press to lower profile titles simply by virtue of having a larger audience with varied tastes.

If anything, we have more awesome games per year on an increasing rate.

Its the shit with spending 50 million on a game to turn it into an experience, instead of pouring that money into gameplay.

Most of that rising cost is because of the cinematics and such, if those weren't there then that money wouldn't magically go into gameplay and make it better somehow. Their time, focus, and how the project manager handles the groups is the bigger issue.

Also: answering to stockholders.

The only reason publishers and dudes like Kotick do this shit is because their games don't sell. [...] They buy it, beat it, get bored of it, and sell it. The hype train rides all the suckers in for the first few weeks, and said suckers take the next rail to Next Big Thing-ville.

So no one buys their games, evidenced by people buying their games? These consumers then sell said games in order to purchase the next big release, which somehow further proves this point by demonstrating that people continue to buy their games?

Do you ever read what you write, and wonder if it makes sense?