Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 366

Rocksmith 2014 Hands-On, F1 2013, At The Gates Alpha, Rob Daviau's New Boardgame Alpha Seafall, Twitter Questions, Your Emails and More!

Our final show live from Tahoe! Rocksmith 2014 hands-on, boardgames, Rob Daviau on Seafall, your questions and more.
We also update on the GWJ donation drive! Three days left!

To contact us, email [email protected]! Send us your thoughts on the show, pressing issues you want to talk about or whatever else is on your mind. You can even send a 30 second audio question or comment (MP3 format please) if you're so inclined.

Chairman_Mao's Timestamps
00.01.35 Rocksmith 2014
00.08.39 F1 2013
00.16.08 At The Gates
00.18.47 Seafall
00.27.53 Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detectives
00.36.23 Game of Thrones
00.39.50 Your Twitter questions!
00.47.51 Your emails!
00.57.12 Donation Drive update!

GWJ Donation Drive

Sean Sand's "The Outsider", read by Graham Rowat

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Show credits

Music credits: 

Hella - Broke for Free - http://brokeforfree.com/ - 39:18

Intro/Outtro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

Comments

Thanks for answering my question guys! I actually just wrapped up Shadows of the Colossus (free thanks to PS+) so Demiurge was right on the money there. I've never owned a Sony console so I missed out on this the first time around.

And I know Uncharted 1 has a rough reputation but I'm just not able to play the sequel without having at least tried the first game.

Having said that, I also picked up MGS4. Don't know HOW that's going to go down.

Valkyria Chronicles and Demon's Souls were the two suggestions I hadn't even considered. An interesting idea to check out down the line. And my girlfriend is too interested in Beyond:Two Souls not to get that eventually (and might as well throw Heavy Rain in there, too).

And I just wanted another opinion on the Killzone issue. Nothing worth checking out at all? I always thought they at least looked like neat set pieces.

Another mid-tier flight sim worth considering: AeroflyFS.

Never played it. I'll give it a whirl.

Actually, I'm only interested in GTAV on account of it's multiplayer. It'll be a Steam sale before I really care, given my past experiences with the series.

...why would anyone uninstall Civ V? madness.

Edit: also, you all completely sold me on Sherlock Holmes. My wife and I are going to order it.

Speedhuntr wrote:

And I know Uncharted 1 has a rough reputation but I'm just not able to play the sequel without having at least tried the first game.

...

And I just wanted another opinion on the Killzone issue. Nothing worth checking out at all? I always thought they at least looked like neat set pieces.

I reckon playing Uncharted 1 first is a good move. If you like it, you'll love the rest and their gameplay improvements, but if you started with Uncharted 2 first, you may find it hard to go back to Uncharted 1.

Killzone 2 and 3 are graphically pretty and decent shooters, just don't expect anything revolutionary. They do have some (albeit generic) setpieces, eg sniper section, turret section, stealth section, but they are executed competently.

If you have fun with LittleBigPlanet, I'd also suggest Ratchet & Clank (Tools of Destruction and Crack in Time).

InFamous 2 is also pretty good: scooting around a flooded New Orleans-alike with electricity powers.

BrandonCHFG wrote:

...why would anyone uninstall Civ V? madness.

I had the same thought!

On extra content for games that arrives late, there are a substantial number of games I buy a year or two after release. I'm sure others are the same and that extra content is a nice little bonus for us late adopters or an incentive to buy.

I still haven't purchased X-com: Enemy Unknown because I have no history with the series and have been busy scampering down other virtual rabbit holes. The new content is a god send (Most people go for pro-order bonuses. Enemy Within is my 'incredibly late to the table' bonus.)

Also, there will be a lot of people out there who may have purchased the game in the first couple of weeks but probably haven't even picked carefully at the corners of the shrink wrap yet or who played a token twenty minutes of the first mission before setting it aside for 16 months. For those people new content might bump the game to the top of their pile of shame.

SSX was released in the EU March 2012 I probably bought it at the beginning of the year and I just got heavily into it (superb game) in the last few weeks. All the online is incredibly active and I have people regularly friending me from the game.

(Yesterday I had two messages form a gamer I didn't know. The first was a friend request. The second was a written message. I opened it, wondering what I was about to read. The entire text, recreated here for your delectation, was 'ssx.')

I enjoyed Killzone II's multiplayer. I prefer class-based shooters, and it was certainly slower paced than COD (read: good for old folks). Also, the objectives change from time to time, so it keeps you on your toes.

However, I couldn't get through the single player campaign.

Higgledy wrote:

On extra content for games that arrives late, there are a substantial number of games I buy a year or two after release. I'm sure others are the same and that extra content is a nice little bonus for us late adopters or an incentive to buy.

Thanks Higgledy. Yeah, that's definitely a large part of what I was trying to ascertain in my question, but even more generally: What's the motivation behind developers expending time, money, and resources behind creating new content and basically giving it away for free, when they could otherwise be selling it as DLC, or just moving on to create a brand new product or full-on sequel? As I see it, there are a few potential motivations:

  • "Free" advertising and marketing, by way of the announcements of new content.
  • Entice new players to buy the product, now that it's bigger, better, etc.
  • Draw current customers back to the game. This can be meaningful if you have an in-game revenue stream (such as an real-money store), or for multiplayer games which really need many people playing to lure new customers to buy in.
  • Long-term strategy of building goodwill towards their customer base, in the hopes that customers will appreciate having free content given away after the initial purchase, and be more likely to buy subsequent products.

What about everyone here? Do free content updates succeed at drawing you back into a game, or luring you to buy?

PS3 suggestions: Dragon's Crown, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, Vanquish, Bayonetta

re: free update frequency
I think Vanillaware is doing great with it's updates to Dragon's Crown.
First was a welcome change to controls.
Then they added menu interface niceties, then some more gameplay tweaks.
Latest adds cross-platform online multiplayer.

Planetside 2, while an MMO, is also doing pretty well. They seem to have slowed a bit though.
There are but so many weapons you can make if you want balance.

merphle wrote:
Higgledy wrote:

On extra content for games that arrives late, there are a substantial number of games I buy a year or two after release. I'm sure others are the same and that extra content is a nice little bonus for us late adopters or an incentive to buy.

Thanks Higgledy. Yeah, that's definitely a large part of what I was trying to ascertain in my question, but even more generally: What's the motivation behind developers expending time, money, and resources behind creating new content and basically giving it away for free, when they could otherwise be selling it as DLC, or just moving on to create a brand new product or full-on sequel? As I see it, there are a few potential motivations:

  • "Free" advertising and marketing, by way of the announcements of new content.
  • Entice new players to buy the product, now that it's bigger, better, etc.
  • Draw current customers back to the game. This can be meaningful if you have an in-game revenue stream (such as an real-money store), or for multiplayer games which really need many people playing to lure new customers to buy in.
  • Long-term strategy of building goodwill towards their customer base, in the hopes that customers will appreciate having free content given away after the initial purchase, and be more likely to buy subsequent products.

What about everyone here? Do free content updates succeed at drawing you back into a game, or luring you to buy?

Yep, I think those are them. I might throw in that, between "major" projects, or as a side thing, devs might let some of their more passionate folks build stuff they wish they could have gotten in at launch. It also can be a place for people to work above their station, going from level designer to DLC lead, for example.

wordsmythe wrote:

I might throw in that, between "major" projects, or as a side thing, devs might let some of their more passionate folks build stuff they wish they could have gotten in at launch. It also can be a place for people to work above their station, going from level designer to DLC lead, for example.

Ah! Both are excellent points. Thanks Wordsmythe!

wordsmythe wrote:

It also can be a place for people to work above their station, going from level designer to DLC lead, for example.

Egosoft have been doing this with the X-Universe games for a little while. The last Albion Prelude update (and at least one of the Terran Conflict updates) were basically community-made and then endorsed and distributed by Egosoft.

It let them add stuff to freshen a game that had been out for a while, without assigning people away from the game in progress.