[Off-topic] The wonders of graphic novels

Well... I warned you this was coming. A little later than expected, but here's the first non-gaming article that's been done in a very long time.

Graphic novels are amazing when they're done right. As a matter of fact while its been quite a while since I read it, Jeff Smith's Bone series is what I declare as my favorite series in written fiction. Its just great. A fantastic small cast of likable characters, great art style, a good fantasy epic that developers from slow and tame to near apocalyptic with a goal to save world from a dark plot unfolding. It was just that perfect blend of an adventure in a new world to put your head around, while getting a small great cast of cartoon-like characters together for that adventure to unfold around, and with some nice twists, good writing, and 9 long books to enjoy it all through, there's not much to complain about. It was the best reading hook I ever had by my own choosing, and was one of the best parts of my middle school days. However that was just the start, and while I still don't have a ton of experience in freely reading fiction, I can say that Graphic novels have earned their place as one of my favorite mediums.

Why graphic novels though? Why not comics (or what's the difference?), normal books, or even gaming novels since I am into gaming? Well they're better in my opinion for what you can take from face value in their very name: They're graphic novels. They properly depict the scenes that novels can only tell you about. Sure you can say that's part of the fun, but when you're reading some high fantasy, an awesome steam punk book, or something just too creative for words alone, you've got graphic novels there for you. Furthermore, you have a medium that can pause the words to go all visual, changing the narrative from a dialogue and monologing experience, to one that depicts the imagination land of the author. It then is capable of driving the story forward by merely drawing you the wonders of their mind and the context of the story, giving you a break from reading when words are not needed if not even skillfully omitting it entirely to give you a drawing feely sort of experience. That is just amazing in itself, and stories like Message in a Bottle, or simply the expressions at the ending of Tea (both short stories found within Flight collection, volume 3) work purely because they can show you the concept a novel could only explain. "but can't comics do that?" you may ask. Well...

These are graphic novels...

...and these are comics

Comics have a nearly identical idea, you take ordered drawings and put speech bubbles to them to tell a story. However a much different execution takes place, simply by preference and history I lean more in favor of Graphic Novels. ...and yes I find there to be a difference. Typical comics are slimmer, quicker to read, feel more commercial, and from what I've seen expect you to collect potentially around 100 of them to complete a serious story. Newspaper comics kind of apply as well giving you small pannels of jokes that slowly build around a theme, but never go beyond a small scene worth before being dubbed a finished piece. These are cheaper things put out there to sell fast, but sell many, and get you hooked over a longer span of time. As Jeff Smith himself put it, Graphic Novels are comics with a beginning, middle, and end; and while he doesn't stand up much for the label divide, I truly feel he hit the nail on the head with this quote. Graphic novels have more to them even when they themselves may be a piece to a bigger (though not as big as 50-100) set, giving you fuller openings and endings than what I've seen out of comics. They can also oddly be less, and come in one solid medium sized book, or a short story within a well crafted collection, and just be done where-as a comic would want to continue in an episodic (or newspapper scheduled) type fashion. Graphic novels also look more sophisticated (and expensive) in print, and just have that air of creativity and novel ideas to them. It feels less like an issue of spider-man, and more like a novel that was actually written and was merely complimented with pictures. That might be why you don't exactly see graphic novel adaptations of classic works being.. well, not graphic novels. Novels tend to translate closer to graphic novels rather than a standard comic, because they already had a full story structure written.

That's not to say there was ever anything wrong with either of those mediums. I love certain comics (especially calvin & hobbes) and novels as well, they're amazing mediums that can accomplish great things in their own way. I'm just stating why I prefer Graphic Novels out of the three, and why it feels like an important distinction. Its that line between the two; That balance that gives you the story structure of novels while giving you the artistic possibilities and accessibility of comics. They capture that sense of art, culture, and story is beautiful and sell it to you all in one place. There's so much adventure, emotion, and grace that can be found in the write use of the medium. I'd highly recommend the Flight series as an example of this wonder to beginners. While they're expensive even in each volume, they give you collection from new and old comic makers alike a spotlight and give them a chance to tell you a good short story through their own art style and methods. Just flipping through one casually as I try to decide which volume to look through kind of sends an emotional impact to my mood. There's just something powerful about seeing that kind of art and story telling from so many people, all in one place. Its like a giant beacon of imagination in your hand.

Plus the cover artwork for the series is phenomenal

So what's gotten me all excited again about Graphic novels lately? Well I found a continuation of an old series I started and loved back in middle school. I remember grabbing a copy of The Amulet book 1 when it was brand new. It stands as probably one of the most imaginative worlds I've seen, and possibly one of my first looks at fantasy themed steampunk. The amulet itself was neat, the world was magical while painted in such a fascinatingly dark and mysterious color scheme, and the core plot was engaging enough to keep reading. However I never saw anything from the series again, and was left just re-reading that one book whenever I wanted my fix of that magical world well crafted within the first book. That is until recently. I found a comic book store in my area I never knew about, and its admittedly a difficult one to get to considering the parking. It had the whole series, and getting the 2nd book felt amazing. Finished it in under 24 hours of getting it, and when I got the 3rd I tore through that fast as well. In between those two I did a lot of research into graphic novels, artists, and old books. Just got all hyped up over graphic novels again with this discovery, even if I am technically outside of the age group of the series by now (but considering its still developing, there's no way you can actually stick through that series and remain in that group if it was targeting middle schoolers, so I honestly could care less if someone judges me on that note). ...and if I hit that point where I'm waiting for the next book to release, there's a ton of other amazing books at that store because they have all sorts of graphic novels. So what can go wrong?

Well remember when I wasted your time explaining how graphic novels and comics are different? Another less proud thing difference is that comics really are cheaper, and you can use that in multiple contexts but ultimately one of them is literal.They're truly worth that higher price in most cases and are made and presented as a higher-end product, but very costly for being in such a position. That nice polish, fresh smell, glossy look, or hardback covering, yeah that all comes with a $20+ tag even though some books are only 200 pages long (which in comic style means you'll finish it in like a day). This is one of the reasons I emphasized that I don't have a ton of experience with this stuff, its expensive to keep up with. Back when R&C had a mini-comic series I could run down to the store and grab a copy to take home for the price of a rental trip. However finding a graphic novel for even $14 is kind of lucky in the right circumstances, with some things like a flight novel, collections, or even single copy things having the potential to hit $30-$40 easily. Oh and I'll restate that actually going to the comic book store is painfully difficult and potentially costly in itself. Still pricing aside, graphic novels truly are amazing, and if it wasn't for the costs of gaming I'd certainly have good money saved up to read through some amazing stuff. Its an incredible medium, and is certainly a great side hobby.

Testing our patience

business decisions are goofing up again, yay!

Look I shouldn't have to tell you guys this, but focus testing is dumb. However it blows my mind at times just to see how dumb it can get. I mean maybe somewhere on paper I can see where the idea is nice. You have something really weird and mind blowing, like imagine inventing Portal, or you come up with a wacky asymmetrical multiplayer mode, and reasonably think that you may need to bring some people in to see what they think. You need outside people, and the type that could possibly fund your project and make it a success, so naturally you want them to like this strange new concept. Naturally you'd want to make sure you tune the game to be competent in explanation and mechanics, and see how players react to it. The reality is though, most of the games with that weird style or idea come from a different crowd than the one actually doing these big tests and tracking numbers, demographics, and public interest. Yet they still feel the need to do them, even to the point where the need to focus test a game based on its genre... while it was within range of one of the biggest ongoing genres out there. I mean can you imagine somebody coming in and asking you how you'd react to a post apocalyptic open world RPG, because they don't know if consumers are interested? Well that's actually what happened with Horizon if this article is to be believed. ...Sony, I'm disappointed.

Now the main pull and clickbait to articles like that is the title of "Female leads are risky!" but the fact is its much worse than that. I mean don't get me wrong, its pretty stupid that we can't have teams simply put a female lead in and leave it at that. I've already gone on about that topic in the past though*, and how there's nothing too risky about a female lead in itself, but to be honest this is the least offense committed within this call for testing. I can get the idea that more males play these kinds of games, and that maybe they'll have a slightly better reaction to a male character. Plus well developed characters of any kind could be tested for a positive response, in case maybe people hate the character (like what happened back when they tried to redesign Cole in Infamous 2). I still wouldn't encourage it over just designing one that feels right to the heart of the project and team, but I could at least play devil's advocate and see the good in their idea of testing the protagonist for feedback. Now on the other hand when you put your entire setting on the line, and an exciting one at that, or go even a step further and question the entire genre of play when you already choose a popular one, you're just being stupid. No excuses, you seriously need to go find your head, and screw it back on and hope you didn't do permanent damage to your common sense.

A hero with a bow? Nah too risky, nothing popular has ever done that before.

Well for starters we can say that its wrong to test that stuff because you shouldn't be throwing away great conceptual ideas, like say... robot dinosaurs. Developers should feel confident in their vision, and if it got greenlit that should be all there is to it. You don't throw that down the drain just because 10 of 12 guys you brought in off the street weren't fans of the same exact thing. Some guys like sci-fi, some like fantasy, some hate both, some love both, some love to mix everything up, and then you have many categories and preferences from there and different executions that can please or piss off any of those people. A focus test group isn't going to give you squat, and you're better off just doing whatever you want for the simple fact of integrity. However even with integrity aside, you're better off doing it because there is no key ingredient to a plot setting. People love what they do, and if you put it out there you'll get an audience that gravitates naturally to it. That can be something normal, something lightly fantasy based, or something totally insane, either way there's a crowd for it. Especially if your plot is heavily pushing the idea of robot dinosaurs! However what's even more rediculous without need of explanation is the part where they lumped in the very genre as a risk worth testing on. With horror, or CRPG that might be alright, but we're talking about an open world RPG. You know, the thing that sells a ton whenever Bethesda pops one out since 2006, that thing that countless indies do a sandbox/minecraft spin-off on to try and grab a quick buck, and that thing being called Game of The Year already in the form of Witcher 3. Every year there's a massive RPG game with a big world selling a ton, and a wave of hype surrounding the next few upcoming, and Horizon just became yet another one. So why on earth did that need to be tested!? What's next, are we going to see how test groups respond to color? Perhaps you need to focus test the jumping button, considering how risky it might be to continue with that standard of gaming.

So what's my solution? Simple: Common sense! Its almost too simple. I'm sorry I can't explain some miracle cure, or give you a better testing method, but it really is as simple as using your head. There are two vital genders in this whole world, so no a female lead role isn't anything revolutionary or too much for the human mind to handle. There are enough people biologically, socially, and willingly able to handle that without you putting it on some chart or turning it into a statistic. If anything you get free attention from certain "progressive" press sites pushing a dumb agenda. There is a ton of open world RPGs out there selling without much hate going on over potential over-saturation (and if there was, you publishers likely wouldn't care), so no you're not slaughtering your game by making it one. Robot dinosaurs are awesome, so duh, keep them in and build the world you envisioned. Keep that stuff! You don't need some special camp of approval from total stranger to tell you that an open world game with robot dinosaurs pushed with decent advertising will sell. Chances are that group of people may not even know what they want, or will tell you to build it into what they know and nothing outside of that safe box. That's not a healthy industry standard, and we don't need to continue trusting these people with so much feedback that they determine whether or not its okay to do a freakin' open world RPG game. Instead we need more games like Wolfenstein where they clearly said in an interview from the beginning "no focus groups, we're just making the game we want to make" and it paid off just fine and gave us one of the most refreshing and well made FPS games of that year.

The world could certainly use more games like this

The funny thing to is this all coming from Sony of all companies. One of their most successful and critically acclaimed games in recent times, was Last of Us; a game that was pressured to change by focus groups. and was able to switch around the groups and ignore many people before settling on what they got. Doesn't that say something for them? Doesn't that send a message that maybe focus testing groups have no clue or proper say on how a game would really turn out? The only quality testing that should matter is for that of a highly experimental game, or the general testing phases of a game. Ask people does it live up to its purpose, not what they would have you change because it didn't suit their weird opinions. If you really truly do want to look for that kind of opinion, put it out on the web and grab any meaningful opinion on a truly risky feature from a massive pool of people of the general gaming community. Believe me when I say that doesn't make those results right either, but it sure sounds a lot better than how I hear focus testing being done.

*If you really interested in what I have to say about the issue, its here. However I'd recommend against it at the time of writing this because looking back my writing was fairly terrible, and I have a lot of mistakes to correct. My point is still relevant and stands important in the face of current events, so I'll look to correct things sometime to help refine the presentation of the point, but that'll have to wait. If you want a TL;DR version of it though, its basically this: Female characters aren't a risky move by themselves. Their sale numbers are only scary because they have the rotten luck of being tied to video games that were experimental, uncertain, and maybe even outright badly designed. They flop for the same reason games like Bullet Storm, Brutal legends, or Stranger's wrath flopped... and no there was no girl on the lead role or box cover of those games. They were simply weird, people didn't trust to spend big money on them, and marketing wasn't there to help 'em out. So no dice.

Well Horizon probably stole Sony's E3 (for me at least)

My new wallpaper

Okay so simple dumb little disclaimer here: the title is a bit deceiving since I didn't sit through the confrence yet. However if it made me cease all progress on my bethesda confrence review [Edit: cancelled now, I just don't really care much for E3 recaps I guess. Better things have come along now, and I'd rather just discuss games shown than conference reviews.], and run to dedicate a whole blog article to it, you know its worth discussing and means something. I seriously don't think Sony's conference likely held something better. I know of the FF7 remake, last gaurdian, COD's stupid time exclusive nonsense, dreams, and none of it seems even close to as grand as what this felt like to me, and I hear Uncharted 4's showing was a bit of a mess, so all the giants toppled over compared to this one for me. Oh and as for R&C, they already showed plenty of that outside of the conference, so that fantastic gem is in its own little bubble for this discussion. I'll watch it all later to be sure, but for now take my word on it that this game is probably my favorite of sony's show. So... without further intro, lets discuss what's on the Horizon (couldn't resist).

One of the first big things to shock me was that seamless transition from CGI concept trailer to actual gameplay. This is E3, the time where teasers, heavily scripted features, and CGI is what you get for the majority of the way. So I didn't expect Guerrilla's big new IP announcement to do much with its time, but holy crap it makes good use of it by giving us the story and dropping us right in the middle of an epic gameplay scene. Sneaking through bushes, hitting weak points on prey-like robot animals, and then angering a massive T-rex type mech creature that you have to take down after a big fight. It was all so good! The rumors also paid off as true. A red haired woman taking on robotic dinosaurs with tribal gear in an open world RPG. Well... the genre wasn't all too visible, but more on that later.

The gameplay just looked incredible, and there was enough there worth revisiting the trailer to get more information. She collected items, shot a missile launcher off the big bot only to use it against him, light destruction going on, multiple ammo types, that awesome tether gun, and... well just look at it! I loved how talkative and energetic the character was as well. The weird thing is that none of it showed any signs of being an RPG. It was just really well done Lost planet 2 + Tomb Raider style 3rd person action, and it was incredible. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the RPG elements aren't going to bog anything down, as I don't want that amazing experience crushed with stupid statistics and number crunching. The open world aspect on the other hand, I can see, and it makes me very curious. Thankfully its confirmed that you wont be some blank RPG character, the girl is there to stay as the true protagonist of the series and hopefully so will her talkative attitude.

So... in summary everything looks amazing. Great music, great gameplay, great character and concept for a great story, and just great everything. I love everything about what was shown here. The only thing disappointing me, aside from how long I need to wait, is the lack of details. Its so good that I just want to look more into it. I've got that killzone itch where I need to put the game under a microscope and inspect it. What are its mechanics like? How does the open world work? Are there normal guns? What kind of other enemies are there? How do the smaller enemies protect themselves or attack you? How does trapping work? Is stealth just contextual bushes, or something much better? Oh so many questions, and we haven't even seen the likely possibility that multiplayer is in which'll open another can of worms. No matter what though, the thing that is clear is that Guerrilla Games has me very impressed with their E3 showing. If this game meets the hype I have for it, or surpasses it, then I'll probably have to finally declare Guerrilla as one of my favorite developers now that they've taken a 2nd game franchise and prove it to be incredible in its quality like Killzone. So congratulations Guerrilla Games, you're the best of Sony's conference in E3.

I'll be watching this game with great anticipation

Edit: Also I'm going to make some story predictions now. Either the robots are an alien thing that harmed humanity, or in fact that emphasis of nature and new life is important; Humanity went overkill on industry and killed off a big part of nature. They ended up missing it, and tried to replace nature with artificial wild creatures, and it ended up weaponized and wrecking civilization.

The Order of Doomsayers

consumed by black bars!

So lately there's been some pretty nasty rumors going around lately about The Order 1886's development team, Ready At Dawn. here's a video to catch you up on the latest conspiracy. I originally left a big comment on it and was ok with that, but I felt I really needed to address things in a bigger way, so I've re-wrote and enhanced my comment into a blog post on the matter. However its probably important you see it first. Watch it? Good, now actually read the dang article/interview that triggered this silly rumor because if you've been keeping up with things and can put 2+2 together, you should be able to figure out how ridiculous the internet is being in its typical we-love-hysteria style of news. Now to be fair the real rumor does claim to know sources, and its very much still possible that something bad went down between the teams. Its just that random rumor aside (which by the way, is coming from a site that seems to love sensationalism), it really doesn't make much sense to have followed up the interview like this, and it kind of bothers me to see people jump to these conclusions even before the rumor itself was made with "sources". So has Sony parted ways with RAD and is The Order franchise in trouble?

I don't buy it, and the people egging it on seem to completely forget some simple things like... this was never a sony owned studio, and that they are expanding. However there's some other weird things to consider. For starters vgcharts (the thing being called out on for low sales) doesn't do digital, which is a worthy factor for The Order 1886. It also sold fast in general. Next bare in mind Sony isn't one of those publishers that demands 4-5 million or death, they only have a couple franchises that meet that high mark and they congratulate 2 million sales for shadow fall (and killzone seems to be staying around 2 million average, and still published with whatever insane budget they're given for those games). This is also the publisher pushing out games like R&C, Sly, and puppeteer that have a reputation of being sent out to sell well under 1 million. Heck they're even giving R&C and sly their own freakin' movies at the lowest point in their career (which is one of the best things to me about 2016)! They also fought pretty hard to save starhawk with multiple deals, discounts, give-aways, and good PR before determining it as a failure and dropping its team. Of course I'm willing to bet The Order was expected to sell more than say puppeteer, but point is Sony is unpredictable with this stuff rather than being another all or nothing publisher that demands the highest of wealth.

Sony doesn't leave games out in the cold so easily

However the 2nd biggest thing to note is that this stuff isn't usually a secret. Whenever a company broke off of sony, or outright died, it was clear. It wasn't an expansion, it wasn't sugar coated, they were kicked off into smaller projects or gone. Starhawk's team got reduced to a tiny mobile team (which is very sad, loved that game). Superbot hasn't been heard from in a while, had layoffs, and DLC of their sony game was given to someone else, this all came out rather quickly and clearly. The guys that made twisted metal are no more and that was that. This stuff isn't some conspiracy being whispered about in the dark corners of a meeting room. Ready at Dawn? They're opening a new studio, talking about tackling multi-platform with some new properties, and are looking for publishers who would allow ownership of their own property, and I haven't even heard of so much as minor layoffs.

Considering this was from a former porting company that just did that and pre-existing IP spin-offs before The Order, I'd say this team is simply trying to find a real place in the industry as a true game developer. I know this'll come as a shock to some people that love their presumptions, but that plan may not have ever including pairing their entire line-up with sony. They worked together, Sony owns the order, but aside from that they're totally different entities doing whatever the hell they want. RAD kind of reminds me of Insomniac really, they're just exploring options and property rights while making games. For the same reason that Insomniac was dubbed "traitors", it seems people are equally as shallow in thought about RAD and would rather dismiss any non-sony/Order related moves as a bad thing. This also justifies their desire to trash The Order 1886 some more. They get to go about assuming everyone thought it was so bad that it has to fail, thus this studio is doomed... right? Well it seems kind of ridiculous to me. The only odd thing is they haven't shifted to work on a sequel yet, which is kind of suspicious compared to how other developers seem to operate.

Now again I'm going to restate I may still be off. I feel like the rumor itself ignores some common sense, and people want to sensationalize a problem where one is barely present, but in the end they could still be right about the one basic idea that The Order 1886 is changing up its ideal future. The Order 1886 wasn't a great game, I said it myself that the game could be good but was a bad value with poor execution, and so maybe Sony really is putting some thought into giving the series to another team. It is true that its also one of the lowest scoring PS4 titles, and considering how badly sony pushed it, maybe they felt burned by that fact and blamed it on the company and have yet to come out on a public speech for it. However even with that in mind I still need to take a stand against the rumor and those egging it on. We're at a point now where people automatically love assuming the worst, where literally saying "we're expanding, opening a new studio, producing multi-platformer games, and have no less than two new IPs coming" is all ignored in favor of saying the studio has crashed with emphasis on how much their last game failed... without having anything to source for that bold claim. There's no reliable sources at all at work here, and if anything some of the stuff coming off of it just defies common sense logic, like insisting the team is in trouble despite being at their most ambitious point yet. ...and yet I have yet to see one other person, even one simple comment, that isn't joining this bandwagon (but maybe I'm not looking hard enough, so eh). Most just use it as another time to call The Order a movie game, or to rant about how they didn't like it. Others just follow the conspiracy, because it sounds like the dramatic evil side of a publisher and without thinking anything more, that sounds good to them. Well sorry, but I'm going to sit out for this one unless something confirms it to be true. No doom & gloom from me yet.

the only doom I see will be at E3

Now playing: HammerWatch

Sometimes its good to be wrong. I remember quite a while back I had my eye on this game. I was thinking "is this for me" and was concerned about its co-op emphasis and RPG-like look. It turned out not to be quite what I imagined. Yes its co-op bait, telling you the experience is best with buddies and building a game with that in mind (not to be confused with forced all4one style puzzle gimmick co-op though). However RPG is pushing it. Its more like modern day indie gauntlet, which for the record is a series I've never played. Its a top down beat 'em up that plays out more like a top down hexen than it does a real RPG. I played the beta since I heard that was basically the free demo and... didn't quite like it. Nice at first, but it quickly fell into a boring slog through enemies. Run around in some maze, beat that guy with a sword, and find your way to the next piece. That was the game. Yeah not so great at the time and I passed. Now with the recent GOG sale I felt a weird pull to look into this game again. I felt I just needed a good run in a gauntlet style game now more than ever, and when I checked the page it just so happened to be on sale for $1.50 for the day. Screw the beta impressions, this is mine. ...and man I'm so glad to have been wrong about my 1st impressions.

I loaded up the main campaign, ran as a wizard on easy (don't judge me, its a co-op game), and I've been having a good time. Maybe the wizard was the key, because I think last time I played either as a thief or paladin, either way not nearly as fun as casting fire balls and full flamethrower type mana ability. Kiting enemies, digging up secrets, looking to get around traps, finding merchants and 1-ups, its all good fun in a strange old-school way I don't usually see. I also started up an archer on custom difficulty, and tossed them into a hexen mod I found which is absolutely amazing (though stingy on lives, I'm running on my last and I've only found 1 pick-up). Its all really great. Oh I also love that there are vendor coins in this game. Its just a neat little concept where you collect coins that supposedly build up a special discount you get at any vendor. Nothing major as its never that easy, but it still feels so good to a money hoarding shop planner like myself to come across what is basically a power-up dedicated to merchants.

I don't really know how long this'll entertain me. I still kind of note my bad beta time, and I think the complaint of simplicity + repetition is a valid one. Still its alright to keep this game on the side as one for a certain mood that comes and goes. It had its place, its values, and its really fun. The night I first got it I was sitting there in the dark by a candle, headphones plugged in, and a good cup of coffee, and it was just one of those moments you're enjoying things so much you just take a mental step back and say "life is great!". If a week from now I haven't finished the game and just put it down, bored or frustrated with it, well it would have still been worth the trip from day 1. Sometimes you just need a simple dungeon crawling beat 'em up, and Hammerwatch scratches that itch and lets me just run around as a wizard shooting fireballs just because... well video games, no other reason required. On the flip side though, I might become a level maker and get big into the online MP scene. Yeah I have my doubts, especially since I'm still playing Witcher 3 daily, but I've taken a brief enough look into to say I'd try them. So here's to hoping I found a new game in years that made me actually decide to create in its editor.

Focusing on the present though, I just killed my first boss (after 2 deaths), and I'm working on the 2nd chapter. Having an... intresting time. Keep getting mana buffs that I don't need as loot drops. Oh well, got to get back to shooting enemies that lure themselves into the corner, because wizards do that kind of thing of course.

Bam! Got him!

Refund Ruckus

Naturally before we begin this subject I want to make it clear that my stance is once again sort of around a "common sense" intuitive thought process. I'm not claiming to be a business expert, nor do I know the hardships of game development, and selling your games. That being said, I felt I had a surprising amount to be said with the steam refund policies getting their 1st major criticism.

Steam had a nice little refund policy lately. Its been needed and demanded for a long time, and they really gave in with a nice and realistic list of rules, and even some generous stuff in there. However one of the rules was that the game must not be played for more than... oh, 2 hours. So naturally this lead to the question of whether or not short games could be exploited. Now this happened, so... yes? Well maybe not, at least in theory I don't think much wrong doing is going on here. Instead I think we're seeing a weird form of voting with your wallet.

So for starters, have you ever known anyone that wanted to refund Journey? Have you heard someone wanting to take a moving, funny, or just fun game and send it right back to exploit a cheap time system? I haven't seen this type of person. Common sense says that if a product was good, you bought it, and you keep it so that you can enjoy it. It is yours after all, and even once you beat it, if it was really good you'll just come right back. So what games would be refunded? Well ones that simply didn't mean anything to you. It was a toy, you played with, were distracted by, and then you bury it in your toy box and forget it exists. If you can get your money back for that because of how shallow it was, then why wouldn't you?

I checked out the game in question, and I hate to come off as insulting (because despite what I'm about to say, the game has solid effort put into it, and I have no reason to come off as mean) but the game looks like its one of those flash things I would have played long ago at school (or actually mechanically less complex). Its a fixed movement one button game where you time your jumps, and collect stuff while getting upgrades along the way. Now the developer is charging a modest $2 for it and that sounds alright, and the random generation hopefully keeps some players interested, but does that kind of game actually have a decent type of staying power? Is that something people actually want to keep around? Is that something they really want to be paying for? On steam, I honestly don't think so, and I can see it as a perfect example of people kind of voting with their wallets and saying this wont last long with them, so they send it right back. That isn't the type of game I can see having big success within the PC market. What they're getting isn't people who simply rob the developer, rather they're giving you their word that they aren't interested in ever touching your game again. That's a harsh reality, but I mean come on and think about what market you're putting this out on? That's not to say steam is full of gems or only the finest of games, but they do in fact have the mainstream face of PC gaming, and naturally the demand for a game like this isn't as strong as the more complex indie titles out there, or even some of the ambitious early access and F2P stuff, and then there's AAA games of course.

Although if you want a counter-argument, the best I found is Puppy games saying off a tweet:

"Again just for the record: the next idiot to say "why don't you make games people don't want to refund then" can shove their opinion up thei". 

...Twitter wouldn't even let them have enough room to finish a petty insult, never the less would it let them try to even bother coming up with a decent argument. Unlike one of the effected developers though, I don't want to come off as mean. I'm not degrading their games because of any simplicity. There is a market and an audience for them, and likewise theirs a modest kindness to them placing such humble games out there, but they can't turn around and expect them to be more than that. They can't sit there and suggest that they'd be rich off of sales if it weren't for that dastardly refund policy. The statistic brought up shows 18 sales for a $2 game that was ported over from the mobile, they aren't losing a major thing worth claiming the system is broke. They aren't treating this as a modest small game, they're treating this as a big part of the system, and I'm not sure that's the right way to go about it. If they make small games like this, they're going to make a sale count and audience that match this, and if it took refunds to make them realize this... then I can't say I feel bad about it. Considering their twitter has jokes like "maybe we should do 2 hours of splash screens like AAA games do" I'm not sure they get how refunds, or even gaming for that matter, work in such an open market (yes it was a joke, but it wasn't even that good of one because that's just how far removed it is from reality. Saying tutorials would have made some sense though). Oh and then they were also comparing present refunds to that of old ones... back when steam barely did actual refunds, unless the user found a genie to wish it so. Again I'm not sure they're approaching this issue with a reasonable mindset.

So is that to say that this is really still right though? Well... no, not completely, but I don't think its wrong in the same way these devs seem to be passing the blame onto refund policies (sorta, they don't hate refunds, but they're still casting blame on the present system). For starters I do think it might be morally wrong to refund a game you beat, but that's just on my own principles. I also wouldn't buy a game like these to begin with, and maybe if I did I would be singing to a different tune. I also think there's a batch of people out there that may just exploit the system because they know they can, but eventually that may catch up with them if steam notices. That's also not to say they would have paid for your product anyways. Its the "lost sales" piracy argument, these guys were looking for a free game to throw back after playing, and nothing more. You never had a legit sale coming from them.

They bury their gold, not spend it

However what I think ultimately matters is that steam finally has a refund policy. Yes it can be exploited, but it ultimately does way more good than harm, and there's not exactly an easy solution here unless valve takes a bigger step up and monitors the games that are released (which isn't a bad idea in itself really). Valve could idealy take up that process and figure out which games are truly so short that you should not have the same refund policy as say... getting a Ubisoft game that doesn't work. Heck maybe it would even end with time extensions, or just a solid 7 day policy like normal refunds for those kind of games, but still I'll accept baby steps here. It also means that asset stealers, broken games, cash grab early access stuff, and things of that nature will see far less success if they ever had any to begin with. If in the process some smaller flash-like mobile port games get caught in the cross-fire, well at the expense of sounding a little cold I'm going to have to say that's a worthy loss.

So in the worst possible case I think what could happen is game companies that make these small disposable games would possibly pack up and keep their games to the mobile market, but honestly I don't think that's a major deal breaker. These ports don't seem to be very costly, and honestly the mobile market isn't the most forgiving place either. To remove the games would be just to shut off a revenue spot, even if a very small one. ...and what about bigger small games? Well let me ask it in the most extreme once again: Do you think steam's userbase would massively refund journey if they could? Yes that's an extreme example since it goes to possibly the most high quality example, but I think the mentality rests around that answer. The userbase that actually buys guys like Proteus, fifty flights of lovin', or donates to glitchhiker, is already a small niche people. Most developers making those games seem to happily sign onto that idea if they truly decide to go through with this sort of game design. They do earn a following, just a small one. For every angry mob hating over Gone Home, there was a website or blog out there calling it one of the best games they played all year. There are people out there that love and adore these games, and I don't think they'll suddenly cannibalize their own joyous small game bin just because there is suddenly a refund policy for them. If anything a refund policy just might open up the audience entry gate, making people take risks on these games they aren't so sure about, or maybe even taking risks on specs.

Small games will bring in smaller sales, that's just a fact, but it also does have a place and has their share of sales regardless of any refund policy. The key is just making sure the games are meaningful, be it in a pretentious artsy way, or simply because it was so fun that it'll keep people coming back beyond two throw-away hours. If you can't do that, you're the problem, not the "idiots" telling you to make a better game, or a consumer friendly refund policy, or even the guys that are cheating the system to play a game they were never buying to begin with. Its about the quality of the product and if it was worth investing the asking price.

Small games are still here to say, as long as they're worth your time

Blog talk: Resetting the course

Time to go off track!

So quite some time ago I talked about the possibility to do a blog rebrand, which is probably poorly written but here it is now despite its irrelevance. Truth is though I never found a comfortable time to do that change, and I instead would rather do the opposite... sort of. I thought a little about doing another blog for rare life ramblings, interests, or thoughts that would fit neither in my gaming nor my other more spiritual blog (which I really should work on more often). However I really don't want to go through with another blog, especially since I barely maintain presence in a 2nd one. Rather why not keep the same name and just go back to my original goal... sort of. Instead of talking about exclusively video games, I'll occasionally have more off-topic rambling going with it. Again this was my original intention, as this blog started with a closing forum and the desire to still do longer post-like material, and I decided with a bigger personal space I could even do some different things. Yet it just dissolved into my gaming editorial type site, with my reviews shared between this and the present forum. So... can I take it back to the main course without destroying all that I have built?

I'm still proud to call this my gaming blog, and I still enjoy discussing games here as the center piece. Gaming is my dominant hobby, and the closest object type thing and community I would attach my identity with. I don't give myself many labels or community associations, but one of them I will accept is "gamer", and I stick to that. Likewise that's my main use of the internet, to be more within the gaming community, and this blog is a major way I return my interests and time within the community. So if by any chance anybody cares about this blog in the slightest (stats tell me no, but I don't really care), then you have no fear to worry about it changing drastically as a gaming place.

However what I will do is bracket off the off-beat subjects. So from now on there will be non-gaming related content, and it'll be bracketed off with either [off-topic], [tea talk], [non-gaming], or something that looks kind of like that, Maybe it'll even be a multi-branching path with tea talk being its own segment of off-topic, or maybe I'll just put the simple subject change in brackets instead (like [politics] or [books]). Honestly though you know that brackets mean there will be a small departure from a game focus. Who knows though, it may still be relevant to gaming subjects, just indirectly. I'm still a gamer, and I still learn and know things through some of my experiences there, so maybe I'll still discuss subjects that may effect gaming. I'm pretty sure eventually I'll cover my views on social politics and gaming has certainly been effected by that lately, and so I can bring in news or articles with those as examples while still talking about its effect on general life.

Tea Talk FTW!

...and the first subject to get started on just might be graphic novels, because wow that has taken over today's plans in quite a big way and I barely even read one (just finished one... though I bought yesterday, yeah I went through it fast but it was just that good). Between that, doing work to replace a floor, having my mind blown that I only recently drank yerba mate tea the semi-right way, I've just had a lot of interesting subjects to discuss that just aren't about gaming. After a lot of thought, its time to go off track occasionally. Still I do have some great gaming stuff coming up, there's no shortage of potential game topics.

Amiibos painted in a bad light

I can't say much good or bad about Splatoon. The game seems like good fun, and having played a kiosk demo of it I got just that... and nothing more or less. Its just fun. I wish the multiplayer had bot support, then it'd be an easier purchase, but for now I'll keep my distance and just wish nintendo luck on their first IP in the 3rd person shooter genre. However I hope their amiibo idea isn't going anywhere, because I think Splatoon sort of crossed the line or comes close enough to it with how the amiibo enhances the experience.

Now for starters, I'm not one of those people that goes out there and proclaims Nintendo's Amiibo system was as bad as on disc DLC, even if it is quite literally that through a plastic figure. I'm fine with unlocking a samus outfit for my racer in Mario Kart 8, and I'm fine with becoming a trainer for a character in smash bros with a figure. I think those are actually really great ideas for a collectible series, and it gives you something interesting to shoot for as a gamer and collector with both real life and in game feelings of a reward to big fans without costing those lacking them anything of serious value. I'm not going to feel left out because my mii doesn't look like Yoshi in MK8, and I was doing a heck of a lot in smash bros before ever feeling like I needed that amiibo training function. Actually with smash bros specifically, that feels like a case where the idea was inspired by the accessory rather than a held back feature.

So what does Splatoon do wrong to change this? Well... it basically does give you a new costume, boosts your online money progression through its levels (not too sure if I'm opposed to that, I suppose I need to read into it more), and those levels tend to come in the form of 15 challenge mode levels per figure. Yes, 15 levels per figure exclusively hidden away unless you have the amiibo, AND again they contribute to the funds you can use online. In a bad game design, that would mean pay to win. We're also talking about locked up content of up to 45 small levels (for $45 if you get the typical retail price of the amiibo) that were in the release on day 1. Now in Nintendo's defense, the levels aren't supposed to be massive hand-crafted works of geniuses or anything, its recycled stages from the game with a new twist, which is why its being called challenge mode. However despite that brief sigh of relief that they aren't holding back too much work, they still are actually holding back a massive mode that is stock material, or at least more easily accessible real DLC for other games. Its essentially like if MK8 held back time trial mode unless you bought the racer amiibo who could then race on whatever track you wanted in time trial. Even if you could forgive this and shrug it off, it still tugs at the question of where will that line be drawn, because we sure haven't had anything this big come out yet. Its the first major game changer to meet the launch day of the game, and it strikes me as this thing that really shouldn't happen again.

A slipper slop indeed

What baffles me is that some, like the Completionist in his single player review, have even praised this move of Nintendo suggesting their Amiibos have never felt this valuable, but that's kind of the problem isn't it? If you wanted to make them of high gameplay value, just make a pokemon game entirely based around them and watch as people actually need these things to progress. That's value for amiibo hunters and those willing to put down huge amounts of money, but that's horrible for the game itself where everything depends on those plastic figures. See where that logic falls apart? Amiibos are at their best when they aren't highly valued as gameplay elements, because that means the game stands better on its own; that you buy a complete game and not just a starter pack of digital card collecting. When those "cards" are increasingly more ridiculous to obtain because of the absurd supply vs demand situation (emphasis on vs rather than an "and"), you've got a horrible idea on your hands when you're trying to look at amiibos as game changers instead of as a collectible (though the supply thing is even horrible on a collector).

Oh and that supply situation could be its own discussion, if not for the fact that others more well researched and bothered on the subject have already put out way better articles than I could have. Still its something to take in mind with this situation. Nintendo can't get a grip on its supply situation, so why the heck should they be encouraged to suddenly build their games around these figures they have no sane evidence of control over? Even so much as simple cosmetics now can start to feel a bit harsh given how things have evolved over time with the collectible craze, where suddenly your favorite character's awesome unlockable costume is stuck far away from you at $60+ because some guy on the internet who doesn't even own a Wii U bought 15 of these to hold at a high price he can actually get away with since the stock was so low. Its not supply & demand, but rather supply fighting demand, and both sides seem like they lose in that struggle and its only made worse when the game is effected more by these figures. Nintendo needs to get their Amiibo situation together first before they ever even come close to thinking of pulling another splatoon again where an entire mode is strictly sold to only 10% of the audience that might actually want it. At the very least, they need to start offering cheaper standard DLC functions for these features, which'll surely make splatoon look like the dumb day 1 DLC function that it is, but at least fans can actually find a way to enjoy that mode even if they need to pay more than they should for launch day functions.