Zen Of Design

The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer

Month: July 2015 (Page 2 of 2)

Derek Smart Would Like To Talk About Star Citizen and Crowdsourcing

July 7, 2015 /

Yes, the Derek Smart who spent the 90s promising the moon before discovering that game designs should be small enough that they’re achievable.  Anyway, he’s learned a lot on the way, and that’s helped him forge some opinions on the current state of Star Citizen in the face that a planned FPS module of the game might not make it in, despite being originally promised.  And, for what it’s worth, I think he may have a point, and that point comes down to what it means for Kickstarter and games in the future.  But first, the basic conversation starter from Derek:

“This game, as has been pitched, will never get made. Ever. There isn’t a single publisher or developer on this planet, who could build this game as pitched, let alone for anything less than $150m.

Smart posted a longer update detailing his logic behind this, and to his credit, cites his own experience making the ultimate space game as a good start.

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Fire Emblem’s Terrible, Horrible Gay Conversion Romance

July 6, 2015 /

Say what you will about Hatred – it’s a mediocre game that manufactured outrage in order to generate a modicum of buzz so that the Perpetual Outrage Machine would be duped into buying a few copies.  But hey, at least they were aware of, and were trying to be, offensive.  It’s harder to get a good read on what’s going on with Fire Emblem.

A mere week after confirming that Fire Emblem Fates will release with Same Sex marriage options in them, a move that was generally cheered given that Nintendo has been slower on the update on dealing with these sorts of things.  However, this week people playing the Japanese version of the game report a different kind of lesbian romance – one which is, er, borderline Gay Conversion Therapy and nonconsensual to boot.  From the blog that brought this to light.

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Peter Moore Recounts Red Ring of Death

July 3, 2015 /

I’ve been part of million dollar fuckups before.  I can’t imagine adding three zeroes to that.

“And, I am trembling sat in front of Steve [Ballmer], who I love to death, but he can be an intimidating human being. Steve said, ‘okay, talk me through this.’ I said, ‘if we don’t do this, this brand is dead.’ … He said, ‘what’s it going to cost?’ I remember taking a deep breath, looking at Robbie [Bach], and saying, ‘we think it’s $1.15bn, Steve.’ He said, ‘do it.’ There was no hesitation.”

A solid read.

Australia, Land of the Banned – Now Affecting Steam?

July 2, 2015 /

Australia is still a repressive gauntlet of government game censorship.  However, recently they switched to a new ratings scheme which makes things marginally better.  It used to be that the equivalent of R-Rated games were ‘denied classification’ which effectively banned them.  Since 2011, though, they’ve instituted a new rating that was the equivalent of Mature games.  Games that were previously banned before 2011 were welcomed to reapply.  It’s still censorship and should be opposed by game lovers and creators…. but it’s better than it was.  I wrote about this previously here.

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Getting Diversity to Speak

July 1, 2015 /

Today Tauriq posted a request that all of his followers who are currently boardwarrioring to defend him (I would assume including myself) instead take that time and energy to actual substantial change in  minority developers in games.  He writes.

Lots of folks are trying to show me support. I really appreciate it, but what I would appreciate more is if you took your energy in fighting battles with people who don’t care about me to raise the voices of minority folk. Maybe use this time to try get more people employed who aren’t straight white men.

Fair enough, although it’s still easier said than done.  We still need to do more work encouraging more girls and minorities into pursuing careers in STEM.  Thankfully, large corporations in the industry are taking this seriously, including Intel’s efforts.   EA also took efforts to do what they could when I worked there.  Last year, I went to Laredo as part of one of these programs to talk to kids about how cool it is to make video games – you could tell from the looks on their faces that none of them had even considered that as a possibility before.   Continue reading

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