Kinda hard to back track on those comments. I like when developers talk publicly about their games. MS needs to put the kabosh on their executives though. Those comments aren't even a red flag ... that's just confirmation that MS could in fact use the Xbone for the purposes of big brother.
@chipsych860509 Yup, saying that a game console will have a 10 year lifecycle when cell phones, games and pc hardware are 1 year refresh cycles is dumb. The 360 needed a hardware refresh 2-3 years ago. I haven't bought a game in 2 years for mine.
I get that the hardware gets more profitable over time, but performance also deteriorates against other mediums. Where's the balance? Well, Ms makes it decisions purely based on $$. That's fine. Games aren't necessary expenditure and they face a lot more competion now a days.
I like the sentiment. It's a complex issue to deal with though because of the relationship of GS to the developers, publishers and game advertisers.
The most recent example is CNET, there awards and Dish's Hopper.
The perception sometimes is that big budget games get higher reviews because otherwise GS might lose an advertising spot. For example, it's seems awkward when the 5th, 10th, nth game in the CoD series gets a 9+/10 score and is heavily advertised for a week or two on GS. Now to be fair, GS has ripped a coupleof high profile releases like Sim City, but why didn't Diablo 3 get the same treatment for it's server troubles and lack of PvP?
I admit, I'm not a fan of every genre. I'm tired of tried and true fps. CoD is dead to me. Halo is dead to me. Titanfall could be a fresh take on a tired genre. We'll see. It's just hard when the 5th iteration of a brand that's released every year gets high scores for the review. Assassin's Creed is probably the biggest offender imo. In the past, that honor belonged to Madden.
The second part of the issue is that time = accomplishment whether that's a face roll MMO game play or farmville style game from a few years ago. Too many games boil down to repetition ... honor points / hr, experience points / hr, etc. Somewhere along the way, game design moved from challenge = fun to highest level = fun. In many cases, highest level is just farming some sort of RPG style game currency. The design isn't necessarily bad when it's combined with a challenge or great story. Final Fantasy used to be a good example. Mass Effect used to be a good example. CoD or WoW is a great example of where things went wrong though.
I admit. I'm not a good team mate in WoW pugs or LoL pugs. I like to win. I don't like to waste a lot of time doing it. I'm going to get angry if you're going to go 0-10 in a LoL match and not let me concede. I get it, find a clan or guild. I've done that, but it's nice to just pick up a game for a bit and play without having to commit a 40 hour week to be successful.
In any event, the two high level issues I see for angry game communities are:
1. Game news sites being biased towards crappy games because they need access to the developers and publishers to create content. Game news sites also rely on advertising for revenue, which creates a conflict of interest since they're reviewing the same games that pay their bills.
2. Games design has moved towards time = accomplishment. If you're holding someone up, you're going to make them angry. Games need to get back to challenge = fun. The RPG elements in games can add value, but generally just result in people grinding out accomplishment with little regard for actually winning or in multiplayer environment, working with their team to win.
"According to The Wall Street Journal, Activision Blizzard told the court that there would be no way to get a shareholder vote before the October 15 termination on the agreement, putting the deal in danger."
"The deal was orchestrated by Activision Blizzard's management team and assisted by investors."
If this were a university level case study, the above quotes would be cited as red flags. Knowing a little bit of Activision's history, is anyone surprised that the executives not acting in the best interests of the shareholders or consumers?
Game QA has gotten so poor and no one seems to care. I get that bugs have to prioritized, but there should be higher expectations. Day 1, day 10 and day 30 patches aren't good enough. They're cop outs for lazy development.
Additional game features don't really add value if they're at the expense of moderate to critical bugs.
MS tried to shove digital games and drm down our throats. That combined with the tv first mentality is what the problem was.
There's nothing wrong with digital game downloads. The problem was the drm and basically telling people they have to be online at all times.
I'm generally online, but I don't trust my internet or Live with 100% uptime. Maybe if Ms sells games a a discount for the built in downtime the internet and their service, I'd buy into the digital/online only model.
I don't ever want to be in a position where I've paid for a game that I can't play due to circumstances outside of my control.
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