Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 344

Sid Meier's Ace Patrol, Neverwinter Online, Iron Man 3 Spoiler Section, Game Dev Tycoon, The Most Important Things in Gaming (To Us), Your Emails and More!

This week Shawn, Cory, Elysium and Julian talk about the most important things in gaming.

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
00.02.13 Neverwinter Online
00.20.59 Game Dev Tycoon
00.28.04 Sid Meier's Ace Patrol
00.32.42 This week's topic: The Most Important Things in Gaming (To Us)!
01.06.23 Your emails!
01.30.24 Iron Man 3 spoiler section

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Show credits

Music credits: 

Intro/Outtro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

Freestyle - SGX - http://sgxmusic.com/ - 32:16

Crowdpleaser - SGX - http://sgxmusic.com/ - 1:05:54

Comments

I really felt Sean was a bit hard on Game Dev Tyccon, but the factor I haven't played Game Dev Story might factor in my opinion. I felt it was a great little game, with intricate mechanics. It's not doing anything horribly original, granted, but it does it very well. Not to mention that the sheer amount of potential combinations gives it great replayability. Definitely worth a 8 bucks and a recommendation in my book, particularly if you're a fan of the tycoon genre.

Shawn, if you feel you have too many fancy schmancy monitors or GPU's, I'll volunteer and take one off your hands...

Great talk about what's most important in gaming. It was really nice to hear you different opinions and particularly why you thought Kickstarter or interactivity was important. I believe Cory's take was very interesting, as it definitely resonated with me. I too have a backlog of games (that I still haven't played, some I'll probably never play at all), and feel that the value of games is an issue that should be addressed. While the price drops are good for the consumer, I too worry about the devaluation of games. We won't value a game as much if we spent 5$ on it rather than 60$, even if it is exactly the same game, right? And if you turn it around, sometimes you can play a game and decide that it "was worth" a lot more than what you paid for. I myself am not quite sure why I'm trying to get at, since a lot of things come into play: monetary value, emotional value, time spent playing...
It just seems like a very complex question which begs a larger answer than "F2P games are doing great" (which remains nonetheless true, some F2P games do well). Of course, I don't seem to have a ready answer myself!
Anyhow, great topic, was very much thought provoking.

On the first listener question... I really appreciated your response. Aside from the fact that the core gamer can always be female, there is a definite trend which you outlined perfectly. And no, Sean, don't worry, you didn't white knight, but you should try playing Walking Dead.

Awesome podcast, I really appreciate your hard work, GWJCC crew!

Certis wrote:
MeatMan wrote:
Aristophan wrote:

Elysium as Iron Man
Certis as Captain America
Demiurge as Thor
Pyroman as The Hulk

and featuring:

Rabbit as Nick Fury.

Elysium wrote:

Photoshop! This must be photoshopped!

Challenge accepted!

IMAGE(http://s16.postimg.org/cr6s3f3g5/image.jpg)

Clearly, Cory as Thor turned out to look the best, but I do like the thought of Shawn (the only Canadian on the list) as Captain America. :mrgreen:

I'm not ... I'm not comfortable as Captain America.

Julian as Nick fury is white hot, though.

Someone change that star to a maple leaf, stat!

padriec wrote:
Certis wrote:
MeatMan wrote:
Aristophan wrote:

Elysium as Iron Man
Certis as Captain America
Demiurge as Thor
Pyroman as The Hulk

and featuring:

Rabbit as Nick Fury.

Elysium wrote:

Photoshop! This must be photoshopped!

Challenge accepted!

IMAGE(http://s16.postimg.org/cr6s3f3g5/image.jpg)

Clearly, Cory as Thor turned out to look the best, but I do like the thought of Shawn (the only Canadian on the list) as Captain America. :mrgreen:

I'm not ... I'm not comfortable as Captain America.

Julian as Nick fury is white hot, though.

Someone change that star to a maple leaf, stat!

Unsurprisingly, there's a Major Maple Leaf character in the Marvel Universe

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/mm...

Eleima wrote:

I believe Cory's take was very interesting, as it definitely resonated with me.

Cory has probably been my favorite panelist the last couple of years. Whenever Sean/Shawn get carried away with some overbroad claim, he seems to speak for the rest of us and demands they justify their bullsh*t. I think that trend started with Flower.

And yes, Steam sales are a particularly troubling aspect of that price-value discussion, because there are some great little games I've heard about and which are on my wishlist that I'm only partially interested in playing, which I will only buy once they reach 75% off, and the same thing on my appshopper wishlist, which I only will play once they're free or maybe $1. Does this mean a lost full-price sale or does this mean I'll spend a discount price on something l otherwise would have completely skipped? Probably a mix of the two. And I'm probably not alone in doing this, either.

Downloaded Neverwinter; it looks pretty hideous on my system. I'm going to try it out on my wife's, because the gameplay feels fun, even if I have the graphics turned down to 1997 mode.

Keithustus wrote:

And yes, Steam sales are a particularly troubling aspect of that price-value discussion, because there are some great little games I've heard about and which are on my wishlist that I'm only partially interested in playing, which I will only buy once they reach 75% off, and the same thing on my appshopper wishlist, which I only will play once they're free or maybe $1. Does this mean a lost full-price sale or does this mean I'll spend a discount price on something l otherwise would have completely skipped? Probably a mix of the two. And I'm probably not alone in doing this, either.

I see Steam sales (and similar discounts from other sellers) not as a negative, but only positive. I expect that these deep discounts result in a lot of people playing many more games than they otherwise would. I don't see how that devalues games as a whole and/or the gaming industry. Regardless of how low a full-priced/AAA game's price becomes over time, there will always be a large group of people who will buy the game at release (or sooner), as long as said game is good or at least expected/reviewed to be good.

MeatMan wrote:

I expect that these deep discounts result in a lot of people playing many more games than they otherwise would.

And now they have trading cards to reinforce this behavior.

That said, the biggest issue gaming (or at least the AAA sector) faces right now is that the audience isn't expanding at the same rate as the budgets. As far as mass-market entertainment goes, digital gaming is incredibly expensive and requires the largest time investment. We can rave all we want about the narrative in BioShock: Infinite, but that doesn't change the fact the game costs $60 at launch, the hardware to play it costs at least $300 and you're done with the experience in 8-16 hours. And we repeat the cycle every 5-6 years when new consoles come out.

You don't have that issue with books or card/board games. Music and movies have a much longer upgrade cycle (about 10 years) with the formats but with both those mediums moving to digital that's not always going to be the case.

Budgets can't indefinitely grow when these companies are basically fighting over the same 100+ million people they were fighting over back in 2000. This is why Nintendo tried to grow a larger audience with the Wii by making a large play for the casual/non-gamer audience.

The price of games needs to drop to a price point that can attract the average consumer, and, to a lesser degree, the price of dedicated hardware needs to (magically) get down to a more palatable point. Instead, publishers are just wringing us for more money each year with "innovative" business models like season passes, free to play, etc.

Hmm, after listening to this episode, YouTube recommended me this lecture by Ian Bogost:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTK2...

"In games players take on roles, and they make decisions in those roles that are constrained by the model that the game presents."
- an excerpt from the video.

Keithustus wrote:

And yes, Steam sales are a particularly troubling aspect of that price-value discussion, because there are some great little games I've heard about and which are on my wishlist that I'm only partially interested in playing, which I will only buy once they reach 75% off, and the same thing on my appshopper wishlist, which I only will play once they're free or maybe $1. Does this mean a lost full-price sale or does this mean I'll spend a discount price on something l otherwise would have completely skipped? Probably a mix of the two. And I'm probably not alone in doing this, either.

The iOS market, where people say that they won't spend $5 on a game that would have sold for $30+ on anything else, is a totally different problem, though. $1 isn't a sustainable price point for indie developers to be able to make games full time. Or for teams larger than 2 people that aren't Angry Birds.

The other thing to think about is how this is going to impact used games. Steam-like sales for console titles will probably hurt Gamestop more than anyone else, because the people picking up used games for $55 3 weeks after launch will probably be willing to wait a month or two to pick up the game for $30 or less. And that's a win for the publishers and the industry as a whole, because the money is going into developer's and publisher's pockets instead of into Gamestop's.

To some extent, I think there needs to be a value-renegotiation between creators and gamers about restitution and funding. A F2P "free" game isn't really free and people need to eat. When the creators put a low wall in front of the gamer and he or she's been having a good time, the reaction needs to be "alright, you earned that much already, I'll give a few bucks no prob," instead of being annoyed about how "free" wasn't really free. It never was.

If a gamer enjoys the time he or she spent on a game, there ought to be some implied social contract that pressures that gamer into spending a few bucks or so of money or else give up some of his or her time populating the game (grinding) so that the company can make some use out of him/her (hereafter just "him").

Steam sales is, I think, part of this value renegotiation. To some extent, the Steam sales are meant to be low-hanging fruit for gamers who don't have a lot of money. In that sense, it's a bit like piracy in its positive effects. It gets people gaming who otherwise would not game at all because they're too poor to afford it. The low price also allows other gamers who have money to buy a bunch and gift them around, producing a similar effect. Getting people gaming and keeping them gaming puts them in the mindspace of gamers and makes them want to spend however much spare money they have on being gamers - buying games, accessories, or paraphernalia.

There is a certain amount of contraction in terms of new game purchases, but I think that ought to be renegotiated as well. Right now, gamers seem a little miffed when they purchase a game at full price and then it gets put on sale a few weeks later.

I don't.

Even if I don't actually get to play a game immediately (Steam crap delayed access to XCOM for me for 2 months!), my purchase of a game at full price is a vote of confidence for the team that made it and its publisher. It's reverse-Kickstarter. I want more games of that type, so I'm willing to punt in extra money. I even bought Slingshot, even though I don't really care about the side missions. It was an opportunity to punt in more money, and since I've spent weeks playing XCOM, I thought it worth punting in a little more for a chance of more content being made down the line.

Like KS, this is not a sure thing by any means. It's a just one vote and it could get sidelined by any number of things. But I want to cast that vote, and the way to do it is to buy at full release price. I wouldn't have forked over less money even if I was able to. I want to pay that much.

Keithustus wrote:

A spiritual successor to a game from more than ten years ago, by a new company, missing several of the producers....not the type of Kickstarter to which I normally contribute. They may have pretty videos and characters and whatnot, but that's a long way from gameplay worth buying. If I thought Eternal Darkness was the greatest game of the generation, sure, but I'll be satisfied waiting on metacritic on something like this.

Also: Dyack's last game was Too Human?

Geez what a trouncing this project got on your podcast! I was truly depressed to hear it.

I kicked in for $50 on the original web-site Paypal option, and have been participating in the forums there, including the order of the unseen "hidden" section, for weeks now. It's been great. I've been interacting directly with developers and other fans. We've been kicking in ideas and things we'd like to see, setting up our own polls for posts we make, using an interesting rating and scoring system to highlight worthy content.

But the forum environment there can be a bit insular, and outside "The Order" there are PR issues--the ones you expressed withthe original terms of service, which they addressed by launching the Kickstarter but which also put them in the situation of "hiding" their initial swell of donations outside the Kickstarter, hurting the perception.

Then of course there were all the articles from Polygon giving so much credence to the "shadow company" perception of Precursor Games (I think it was the Player One podcast that used that term, or was it yours?), and the coverage on the podcasts like yours warning people away, and of course the original Kotaku article on the development of X-Men Destiny which presented anonymous interviews with all kinds of disgruntled ex-employees.

That's why in one day and a little under an hour Denis Dyack is going to post a vlog update, answering questions from the Kotaku article. Presumably you will be able to find it on their YouTube channel.

I donated in this because I am invested in it, which is what Julian stated should happen, true. But I think people should also be able to donate to a kickstarter just because they want the game. Or they could donate because they want a style of game that seems endangered, the Good-Looking Horror Game, that has production values, but that AAA publishers won't make anymore unless it has WAY MORE SHOOTING AND MICROTRANSACTIONS than I want right now. Or because you'd like to see and underdog redemption story for Denis Dyack, instead of some sort of black-balling from the industry.

So I guess tune in tomorrow to see if he can change your opinion.

Imbarkus wrote:

Or because you'd like to see and underdog redemption story for Denis Dyack, instead of some sort of black-balling from the industry.

I'm sorry, but starting with the wholesale theft of code down to the level of comment typo's doesn't make for a heartwarming redemption story. It's so ethically questionable that I don't believe that Dyack deserves any money for anything going forward.

Demiurge wrote:

I'm constantly amazed that you folks make it to the end of these podcasts, let alone want us to do more post-credits segments.

Originally we were going to have Sam Jackson recruit Sands to the Avengers post-credits, but he didn't like the craft services table.

As I hadn't finished Bioshock Infinite and I don't have the long commute to my job, the Conference Call fell out of my rotation for a while there. Listening to the past few episodes I missed this week, including this one, honestly have been helping pull me out of a funk.

I don't get to have conversations about games like you guys have on the podcast as often as I'd like, but this podcast really is the next best thing. And it actually has driven me to do some writing again, as it gets the brain gears turning and such.

With some podcasts, you really feel that hour-long stretch. With the conference call...no, not really.

Unfortunately all the podcasts from the past few weeks have blended together, and I'm not sure if Rabbit discussing Ocarina of Time so much was this episode or another, but I wanted to put a strong push on Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon if he hasn't already picked it up. I found the puzzles to be just mind-bendy enough to give me pause to think, yet figuring them out was also quite natural.

Granted I'm going to be 28 years old soon, so I have what, 20 years of gaming experience that his son doesn't have? But if he likes those "Oh, so you can burn the cobweb!" things, then Luigi's Mansion is littered with those.

But most of all, the game has character and personality like I haven't seen in a Nintendo game in a while. When reflecting back on Mario Galaxy and NSMB and such, all of a sudden all those characters seem more like icons, or chogos. Luigi, the toads, the doctor, the ghosts, and the manner in which they all interact is just oozing with so much personality.

It's a recommendation not only for Rabbit's son, but for Rabbit as well. I'd definitely put it up there as one of the best games on the system right now, and should make a great companion alongside Ocarina of Time.

Demiurge wrote:

I'm constantly amazed that you folks make it to the end of these podcasts, let alone want us to do more post-credits segments.

Originally we were going to have Sam Jackson recruit Sands to the Avengers post-credits, but he didn't like the craft services table.

I also save the game spoiler podcasts so I can go back and listen to the spoiler section once I've finished the game. Just checking Downcast... and I still have the Mass Effect 3 and Walking Dead ones saved.

I have the Deus Ex spoiler section saved...

Why not watch the video Dyack made? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm6gGFLMr_o

He admits he made mistakes. But he's not even running this new company, and the chance at the Eternal Darkness successor I'd like to see is being hurt by the exact kind of publicity this podcast helped foster: knee-jerk reactions based on his name alone, that don't even take into account his abdicating the role of making anything but creative decisions.

It's unfair, and everyone should take a moment to check to make sure how much of their opinion of the guys has been informed by the Kotaku article generally being accepted as truth. Or go on with the unthinking black-balling of the guy, your call.

Imbarkus wrote:

Why not watch the video Dyack made? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm6gGFLMr_o

He admits he made mistakes. But he's not even running this new company, and the chance at the Eternal Darkness successor I'd like to see is being hurt by the exact kind of publicity this podcast helped foster: knee-jerk reactions based on his name alone, that don't even take into account his abdicating the role of making anything but creative decisions.

It's unfair, and everyone should take a moment to check to make sure how much of their opinion of the guys has been informed by the Kotaku article generally being accepted as truth. Or go on with the unthinking black-balling of the guy, your call.

I appreciate your enthusiasm, Imbarkus, but you should really tone down the defensiveness. I haven't read the Kotaku story (or really any Kotaku story in a long time) or watched the video yet, but I'm making my decision to not back Shadows based on what I've seen of the project and how I've enjoyed past projects from some team members. I feel confident that I, like you, am mature enough to make my own decisions.

Cory I don't think I'm an unreasonable man. If you go back and listen to the things you guys said about the project in that last podcast, it wasn't a "hey let's all be adults and make our own decisions" kind of quote. It was very much against, and warning others against.

Have you ever had a situation on your show where one of you backed a Kickstarter that another wanted to actively campaign against?

I was driving to work and I was like "oh no, no,nononono NO" to hear you guys chime in with the group-think response people have had for this project at the mention of Dyack's name.

Here's a quote from Dyack at the conclusion of the video:"I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that I've come here today to say I haven't made any mistakes. I've made a lot of mistakes. I've said a lot of things I shouldn't have said. I've done some things I regret. All I can say is I've learned from them, that I have changed the way I think about things, and that I really want to move forward in a positive way and focus on what I do best, which is focusing on creative."

He's not going to get the chance, it's pretty clear to me, at this rate. You guys helped make it not happen.

I'm kind of upset about it!

But don't worry I just wanted to point that out, I'm not going to remain all defensive and ragey.

Imbarkus, while I'm all for trying to give Dyack a second chance if he's finally learning his lesson (that lesson to eat some humble pie before opening his mouth to speak again), especially since I do lament the lack of a Too Human sequel and opportunity to prove on what was a really interesting hack-and-slash design, there are a variety of other reasons I myself am not so certain about backing those guys.

I've grown very angry and upset at Gearbox for using funds from Sega on Borderlands 2 instead of Aliens: Colonial Marines. It was deceitful and under-handed of them. As a result I do believe Gearbox should face some form of karmic justice for this, particularly having a lot of trouble getting publishing deals for future IP, but it seems everyone's willing to turn a blind eye because Borderlands makes them laugh or something (or there's some sort of secret ingredient I'm missing that makes it spit rainbows and sunshine).

Evidently Silicon Knights was doing the same thing with X-Men: Destiny. Activision gave them money and they put most of it into this Eternal Darkness sequel prototype instead, which made the game they had a contract for a weaker product.

I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't say Silicon Knights should face the same karmic justice, and technically they have in the form of lawsuits they shouldn't have been trying to fight anyway.

That said, perhaps this should be their chance at redemption. Perhaps they've already suffered getting their asses kicked, and this is the time to give them a second chance.

But it's going to be hard for a lot of people to give them that second chance, especially if, unlike me, they weren't fans of Silicon Knights' past projects (and let's face it, from Eternal Darkness to Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes to Too Human to X-Men: Destiny, they've likely been in a downward slope for years for most people).

Eleima wrote:

I have the Deus Ex spoiler section saved... :D

I have The following spoiler sections saved: Bastion, Batman AC, Fez, Bioshock Infinite and Dishonored (I can listen to that last one now. I think that might be the very next thing I do.)

Edit:

Spoiler:

The heart is the Empress!?!

Edit:

Spoiler:

Corvo is Emily's father!!??

ccesarano I think the charge of misdirecting funds from X:Men Destiny was the one he best refuted in the video, maybe the only one, and yes, certainly the one that most matters.

And Randy Pitchford put some other poor studio up for sacrifice so he could make all this scummy Borderlands money. The people at Timegate are having to start all over just like the people from Silicon Knights, while Gearbox just cruises along with not only Aliens but Duke Nuke'm behind their belt.

That settles it I need to play Too Human and X:Men Destiny to get my own opinion.

To me, Denis Dyack getting onboard, in a creative-only capacity for a new Eternal Darkness isn't that different from other nostalgic "do what I did best" Kickstarters. Like the inXile Torment project, from a team with Hunted: The Demon's Forge in their recent releases. Brian Fargo or Lord British weren't exactly riding recent hits when they got backed either. I mean, look at the interview Lord British survived. Geez.

This condemnation en masse of "Dyack" as synonymous with this game was band-wagony. Now, call me an hornery Westerner, but no sir, I didn't like it.

Check out this video, from the Precursor art guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoO8Pu45I4E

There's more people than Denis working on this game.

EDIT: By the way the game is now also on Project Greenlight, in case you'd like to support it in a non-financial way: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=145693858&searchtext=shadow+of+the+eternals

This condemnation en masse of "Dyack" as synonymous with this game was band-wagony. Now, call me an hornery Westerner, but no sir, I didn't like it.

Because it is? He's the creative director of the company.

And his name has been a joke since the release of Too Human. And it was further soiled by the release of X-Men. And the lawsuit against Epic.

We're not talking about a beloved figure in the industry. He isn't Brian Fargo or Lord British, who have a ton of games on their résumés, both good and bad. Dyack has a few mediocre games, several rather terrible ones, and two very good games under Nintendo, who is known to get much, much better results from 2nd parties than anyone else.

Public relations from Lord British. His Kickstarter survived this. Honestly, when was his last good game?

What I'm seeing more is that PC nostalgia, even from a company with a terrible track record like Obsidian, is getting funded, while console nostalgia, like this or the Ecco the Dolphin successor, doesn't.

It's a class war thing. I'm sure it traces back to Obama in some way.

Imbarkus wrote:

Public relations from Lord British. His Kickstarter survived this. Honestly, when was his last good game?

What I'm seeing more is that PC nostalgia, even from a company with a terrible track record like Obsidian, is getting funded, while console nostalgia, like this or the Ecco the Dolphin successor, doesn't.

It's a class war thing. I'm sure it traces back to Obama in some way. ;)

I would like to further note I am a red, white, and blue blooded console gamer and will have none of this liberal PC gamer communist talk on my property, sir.

Hold on I need backup. I'm going to go find 8 anonymous sources to give me corroborating stories on how the death of red-blooded consoles is because of PC gaming. Or the death of red-blooded PC gaming is because of consoles. Whatever, it doesn't matter I'll publish it on Kotaku.

Imbarkus wrote:

Dyack...knee-jerk reactions based on his name alone...

It's not his name, it's his track record. Too Human + X-Men = no Kickstarter.

And I don't know anything about a Kotaku article, because I look at the site maybe once every couple of years.

Mews wrote:

Hmm, after listening to this episode, YouTube recommended me this lecture by Ian Bogost:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTK2...

"In games players take on roles, and they make decisions in those roles that are constrained by the model that the game presents."
- an excerpt from the video.

Bogost is a really bright guy and everyone should pay attention to him, except his recent bit on Google Glass for The Atlantic. (Note: He's a major player in my field fo study.)

All I know is someone needs to get me an Eyepatch. Stat.

rabbit wrote:

All I know is someone needs to get me an Eyepatch. Stat.

iPatch?

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/5cMh6bf.jpg)

I'm leaving "fo." I see it, and I sorta like it.