Category: Big Corps Are Evil (Page 12 of 14)

Buy Yourself a Cursed Iguana

April 28, 2005 / Damion Schubert

Is there a dev studio that you’ve always wanted to bring to your knees? Idlenews humbly suggests that what you need is the cursed “Fischbach’s Iguana of High Acclaim“, the stuffed mascot of two defunct Austin studios, which is on sale on eBay for a current bid of $102.50.

Supposedly forged unknown years ago in the shadow of Mt. Bonnell, and forged by the first of the Acclaim kings, after the destruction of the Austin Army, its whereabouts became unknown for many moons…

It eventually surfaced in the small studio known as Ion Storm, where it’s true and potent powers soon drove the studio into despair. After a valiant effort, the power of the Iguana won through and another studio had perished through its damning gaze…

Could whoever buys that thing get it the hell out of Austin for me? kthx.

Is SOE hoisting their own petard?

April 27, 2005 / Damion Schubert

In the broken windows thread, Aufero had this sharp piece of insight.

SOE has been responsible for drilling into many, many people’s heads over the years that selling in-game assets for real world cash is cheating. It’s due in large part to their own efforts on the subject that it will continue to be perceived as cheating in the games they started with those policies in mind.

True, true. Continue reading

Sony Does the Macarena With the Devil

April 20, 2005 / Damion Schubert

Sony has come full circle – in the days after the launch of EQ, they were the company most likely to ban or sue customers that dared used eBay to bypass the mindblowing fun that was their advancement grind. Now, instead, they will fight fire with fire. And there was much factual reporting, intelligent discussion as well as gnashing of teeth.

My honest opinion? I’ve been trying to convince people to try this exact approach since I was toiling on UO2. Why? Because at the end of the day, the biggest problems with eBay and MMOs are service issues that are solvable if the trades can be secure (as illustrated by the lovely cartoons on Sony’s explanatory site). Continue reading

The Politics of Contract Design Work

April 4, 2005 / Damion Schubert

A lot of people here and there are slamming the Themis Group for being dropped by another company (the Saga of Ryzom people). Having never worked with them, I really don’t know how good this group is. But my experience with being a contract designer when I was with Ninjaneering has given me some perspective that makes me want to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Turbine escapes Eye of Vivendi, seizes One License

March 28, 2005 / Damion Schubert

For months, little information has come out from Turbine regarding their MMO based upon the hottest fantasy license in the world. In retrospect, it seems inevitable. Vivendi has been trying to build a Middle Earth Online for nearly a decade as far as I know of, including two attempts to build it at their Sierra studio. Their first attempt was cancelled near the beginning of UO2 development. Which was a lifetime ago. When looked at that way, from a business perspective it’s absolutely shameful that some version of MEO wasn’t up and running when the Peter Jackson movies were providing joygasms to the entire geek universe. Continue reading

The Place of 3D on the Handheld

March 28, 2005 / Damion Schubert

I’m not going to join the general mindless adolation of the new PSP platform that’s happening around the web (and how interesting to see that there are still plenty of boxes on the shelves). To be honest, the new age of handhelds depresses me for one reason — they brought 3D to the handheld. This is the beginning of the end of what made the handheld so cool to a developer. Before this, the handheld was still a place where a team of 6 guys could make a hot shit, gameplay-driven little game. Now, the handheld is in the ridiculous arms race that has engulfed the consoles. Continue reading

Taking the Long View of WoW

March 18, 2005 / Damion Schubert

On the heels of Blizzard’s announcement that they’ve reached the 1.5 million mark, Thor Alexander (former UO2 AI guy and currently editor of the recently released Massively Multiplayer Game Development 2) asks an interesting question: could WoW kill Blizzard? Sure, this seems like an absurd question, until you realize that in retrospect, UO killed Origin (and, I might add, outlived it). Salient quote:

It reminds me of Origin back in 1999 after the success of Ultima Online when the studio announced that it would forsake any further single player game development in favor of all MMP games. When I asked my project manager about the radical shift I was enlightened to the fact that UO had brought in more revenue then all single player Ultima games combined.

Sony Picks On Imaginary WoW Problems

March 15, 2005 / Damion Schubert

Apparently, the SOE marketing department plays on a different server than I do (found by MMODIG). I’ve had no significant downtime on my server, and no queues since launch. Hint: if your server population is listed as ‘Please Mommy Make It Stop’, perhaps you should consider switching realms.

I wish there was some visibility to how effective this PR campaign of Sony’s was. Positioning yourself against the competition’s flaws is all good and well (”the uncola”, “we try harder”), but if you haven’t nailed a flaw that really resonates with your playerbase, you’ll just come across as small and bitter.

Does this flaw resonate? I don’t know. I do think that most people would rather wait in line for the cool club than get a drink immediately with the one that’s lame. Which means that Sony’s problem should be, first and foremost, to change the perception of their game. Personally, I think they should advertise on their strengths — more content and more elder game. This should be a powerful message as people start to get their characters to the end of the WoW content train.

Game Drool and the Game’s Press

February 10, 2005 / Damion Schubert

Game Drool is a cool new blog that talks about the industry from a game journalist’s point of view. Very interesting stuff. Primary problem: not enough updates, and it ain’t Bloglineable. Continue reading

Turns out, you can put a price tag on market dominance

February 3, 2005 / Damion Schubert

Kotaku (currently the best game news site up, IMHO) claims that EA paid half a billion dollars for the rights to the NFL, spread over five years. That’s half of the rumored number that was flying around previously, I feel required to point out that Kotaku lacks a link that shows where that information is coming from, merely a sketchy description of accountant’s comparing EA’s public records before and after the transaction. Continue reading