The Dark Side of Indie Game Development
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/13/12 at 03:05 PM CT
Last week, I gushed about independent game development and how Indie was the sole hope for the future of a medium becoming increasingly consumed with and motivated by profit. Yet even such a noble pursuit as Indie development can be corrupted by the desire to turn a quick buck. One need only look at the ‘libraries’ of smartphones and Xbox Live to plainly see that there is an overwhelming amount of crap produced by nobodies hoping to become the next “Angry Birds” Guys. These Indie ‘developers’ are treating game creation like gambling: If they buy enough lottery tickets, they’ll have to win big eventually, right? Wrong: The House (in these instances, Apple and Microsoft) always wins.
Indie developers need to be constantly vigilant, watching themselves to ensure they don’t act like Big Gaming publishers… because they aren’t Big Gaming publishers. Indie developers don’t have the reputations or the venture capital to release trash, market it to death, and get …
Independent Development and the Last Crusade
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/06/12 at 09:03 PM CT
The game industry is at a crossroads. What was once an entirely niche endeavor done by geeks, for geeks, has become a Big Business. What was once an artistic endeavor has become a commodity. What was once made on a shoestring budget now costs millions of dollars. Game development has changed, and in changing has lost everything that it once was.
When I look back at the history of videogames and my relationship with the medium, I recall a time, not so long ago, when game publishers were also developers. Everyone self-published their game software, thus they were only beholden to themselves. During this time, these developer-publishers built-up the reputations they continue to rely on. Good reputations are important in any business, and there were numerous stand-outs in the game industry whose excellent games made me come to trust them to produce great software time after time. I was a loyal customer to Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, Squaresoft, Enix, BioWare, InterPlay, Sierra, and even …
Obscurity Through Obscurity
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/29/12 at 11:23 AM CT
While Apple fanboys may bristle at the notion that the traditionally low market share of their favorite operating system was one of the primary reasons for its lack of viruses and other malware, the newly-increased market penetration of Apple-based OSes has seen a corresponding increase in exploits. It seems that “security through obscurity” was one of the main things preventing malware authors from taking an active interest in Apple’s platforms.
Security through obscurity is the idea that the fewer people know about something, the safer that something will be. In the world of console games, however, fewer people knowing about a platform leads to fewer sales of that platform and, ultimately, the death of the platform. Indeed, up until this 7th Generation of consoles, the primary cause of console failure seems to have been “obscurity through obscurity.”
Think about it: If you were in the market for a game console in 1985, would you buy the NES, the console that was so …
Atari Delenda Est
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/22/12 at 03:08 PM CT
Astute readers of this blog will have noticed that whenever I mention Atari, I follow it shortly with the Latin phrase delenda est. I do this in emulation of the great Roman statesman, Cato the Elder, who, during the Punic Wars, said the same thing about Rome’s enemy, the North African city-state of Carthage. Cato would tack-on this statement to all of his speeches, regardless of whether or not Carthage was even the topic at hand. Cato’s indignity was just, as Carthage was a tenacious enemy that plagued Rome with, not one, not two, but THREE wars, the latter two of which could have been averted had the Romans done the job right the first time.
Atari is much the same way. While the original Atari is, thankfully, dead and buried, the name continues to live-on, painting its stain across modern videogames. While it could be argued that the Atari moniker has endured due to its high name-recognition, naming a game publisher after the company that almost single-handedly destroyed the …
Vaguely Related Review: Steam
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/15/12 at 02:37 PM CT
From November 30, 1998 until December 2, 2003, I was a happy PC gamer. Prior to that, I had tried in vain, over and over again, to play games on my PC, but DOS, Windows 3.1, and Windows 95 all had issues with each other – and my hardware, apparently – which stymied every effort. I had collected a large stack of PC game boxes, some containing 5.25” floppies, some containing 3.5” floppies, some containing CDs, that I had either partially finished but could no longer play because some minor change to my system made the games suddenly decide to stop working, or had been unable to play at all, despite the fact that my $4000 PC (yes, it cost that much at the time) was unable to run them with hardware specs that were double the minimum requirements listed on the game boxes.
When Black Isle and BioWare got their hands on the D&D videogame license, things suddenly got better. All of their products were designed to run in Windows, and they all worked in Windows. Sure, I couldn’t …
Easter Eggs
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/08/12 at 03:34 PM CT
Easter Eggs have been a part of videogames for as long as videogames have existed. While the initial Easter Eggs – the ones that defined the term – were more vanity pieces where the programmers slipped-in an inside joke or other small, hidden detail, the concept evolved over time. The term soon became associated with hidden goodies and bonus features in a game that could be unlocked by dedicated players. Easter Eggs reached their height during the last two generations, in which games like “GoldenEye 64” and the ‘Ratchet & Clank’ series featured formalized menus to help players keep track of their discovered Eggs and to activate/deactivate the associated features.
But now that dear old Easter Bunny has been bought-out by Big Business with an interest in maximizing profits. Few 7th Generation games contain Easter Eggs or unlockables, instead holding back those fun, silly options as paid add-ons via DLC. Extra costumes, extra music tracks, extra equipment, extra levels: …
Disposable Gaming
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/01/12 at 02:46 PM CT
For most people who proudly call themselves “Gamers,” videogames are more than just a timewaster. For these people, among whom the entire MeltedJoystick staff (okay, maybe not Alex) counts ourselves, videogames are a beloved hobby. Gamers enjoy playing, collecting, analyzing, and replaying the games in our libraries. Those of us who have been gaming for a long time can go back and replay old favorites and compare them to new releases, experiencing the ways in which game developers improve or worsen their craft over time and observing the evolution of gameplay mechanics.
In this way, classic games from the 8-bit and 16-bit eras are like classic works of literature: Modern readers may only care about “Twilight,” “Harry Potter,” and “The Hunger Games,” but without earlier works ranging from Greek and Roman myths to Shakespearean plays, modern literature wouldn’t exist. Some of these aged writings are still eminently readable today… some are not. But by looking at …
Nintendo-Hard
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/25/12 at 12:28 PM CT
The MeltedJoystick team has been playing quite a bit of “Rayman Origins” lately, which is a challenging, traditional 2D Platformer. The fact that this game has a bit of challenge to it has prompted Nick and myself to get into an argument about whether or not it should be classified as ‘Nintendo-Hard,’ with Nick voting in favor and me voting against that designation.
So what exactly is Nintendo-Hard? No, it’s not what occurs in a Nintendo Fanboy’s pants when he sees a mint condition copy of “Little Samson” in a pawn shop for $5. Nintendo-Hard is a term applied to 8-bit games on the classic Nintendo Entertainment System (which was commonly called just ‘The Nintendo’ by its users). Typically Nintendo-Hard games weren’t even made by Nintendo themselves (though there were a few), but by other long-haul Japanese developers like Capcom and Konami, or even clueless Westerners.
According to TVtropes: “The game mechanics that make a game "Nintendo Hard" were often …
Noli Me Tangere!
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/17/12 at 03:37 PM CT
According to Christian mythology, the risen Jesus yelled, “Noli me tangere!” when one of his disciples tried to touch him to confirm that he was real and not an apparition. Whether you believe that or not, Jesus did get one thing right: Touching is bad.
Specifically, I’m referring to the current trend for every game console, computer, and other electronic gadget to incorporate a touchscreen. While touchscreen gaming began mostly as a Nintendo gimmick with their DS handheld, the fact that Apple hopped on the finger-friendly bandwagon has prompted technology hipsters to proclaim it the BEST. TECH. EVAR., which, of course, has prompted everyone else in the gadget industry to adopt the technology, whether it makes sense or not, just to get their hands on some of that sweet hipster cash.
I admittedly don’t have a lot of experience with touchscreen-controlled gaming, simply because my experience with the DS has been so profoundly negative as to turn me off on portable gaming …
Vaguely Related: ReDigi
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/11/12 at 02:28 PM CT
The advent of the digital marketplace has done a lot for intellectual property peddlers, drastically improving their ability to put media in front of consumers’ eyeballs. By cutting out scores of middle-men, digital distribution enables a la carte purchases where once albums and bundles reigned supreme, places Indies toe-to-toe with Big Media, and allows for overall lower prices due to the removal of physical packaging and minimum production numbers. These changes from the standard retail model are good for both producers and consumers.
However, all is not rainbows and roses. Thanks to increasingly desperate and tyrannical overreaching by the producers of intellectual property, the copyright system has become a legal minefield, shrouded in a tangled morass of poisonous webbing. While it may be easier to purchase intellectual property than ever before thanks to digital distribution, it is now more dangerous to even think about intellectual property than ever before thanks to the …
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