A reminder on the gaming market...

So in the latest game sale, as of writing, there was Toukiden Kiwami on the PS4 sale list. That's just one example I'm going with, but not the only one, in fact the publisher generally has the same kinda rule for most of their games. That rule seems to be, don't put your games on sale in any realistic or reasonable manner. The game is $30 for PS+ member, which is moderately over-priced, but $40 without it... because ya'know, those who dare not subscribe are obviously the people to just burn an extra $10 wherever they go. Now on the other hand Gamestop and amazon (at least right now) have it priced $20 and below. We're talking about a monster hunter clone re-release that has been around for over a year, and more than 2 for the base game. Its also a niche developer, and while I suppose there's that one guy out there insisting that means the game gets sold like its some magic thing, the reality is not a whole lot of people have much of a reason to buy this. There is the chance someone comes across its awesome demo on PSN and wants it late down the line, but if they'll likely figure its gotta be cheap by now. $40 isn't cheap or a smart price, and $30 is... okay, but considering alternatives it sure isn't enticing at all. Also remember, this isn't a drop, this is a temporary sale that'll probably be reverted next Tuesday. Gamestop has it around their price at a fixed rate, with it likely going lower before it goes any higher.

Koei Tecmo is horrible about this, as are Activision, and a couple others out there. Some, like Nintendo, even keep such a good hold that even used markets aren't going to help you with their absurd demand to keep prices high. However while they don't bring a lot of justice in on Nintendo prices, they sure help in a lot of other areas. I've seen at least a dozen times now where a game will be even cheaper in stores than you'd find it even on a big steam summer sale. Its not common place, but it happens, and I'm glad we have that kind of a choice. Its even worse on console digital markets, where things are closed, and where the money-clinging price hiked guys thrive best. Then I remember how, for some absurd reason, we even had a debate on the used game and retailer market. Why!?

So they could charge $40 for it in peace?

The only good that came out of that discussion, was that it reminded (or informed) people that used games don't go to the developer. That's obvious for yard sales, but less so at a gamestop where the games are practically beside each other and look just as good but for less. Otherwise though, it was a very stupid discussion. However there were all sorts of lies and misinformation coming up as well, like how the prices will magically go down because "steam did it!" (even though they don't, again there's been cases of cheaper. furthermore it ignores the fact that the only store on consoles are from the hardware makers), and the normal propaganda about how gamestop is the devil because they... profit off of selling us games? (I guess that's a bad thing, just go with it and pretend to be miserable with the last game you bought from them). In the end though the reality is we've got publishers who will do their best to look out for themselves. Not everyone is like that, and some get the idea that if you cater to the consumer they get more money, but sadly a good number would exploit this stuff to profit first. So its nice to have the middle-men who themselves look to profit, and to do so will cut prices back so you buy from them first, and therefore you get a cycle of a more competitive and healthy consumer market. That sounds much better than market ran in full control of the publishers and their consent and wishes, alongside basic digital retailer guidelines. However for a while last gen, we were in a fight with ourselves to say that this healthy market was somehow a hidden evil, and that publishers had finally learned to fight it with the same method they charge us for the horse armor and microtransactions we (didn't) love so much. You were told that you had to pity the developers and publishers for being cursed to live in the real world where material goods aren't entirely in your control. So many people fell for this ignorant narrative, hardly anybody even questioned the method at which it was supposedly regulating itself: $10 online passes. They weren't supporting the art and years of work behind a game production, they were giving up a toll fee that could buy someone a fast-food meal and it was likely it was entirely going to the publisher's banks until they blow it on the next overdone market campaign. Even the publishers gave up and felt this system was stupid, and confessed it wasn't really hurting them.

I know this isn't relevant to today, and I'm glad its that way. Still I see dumb nonsensical sales like this still happening on the closed market from select publishers, and think of how much worse it could be without a competitive market out there. Unfortunately that debate still happened, was as fresh as 3 years ago, and the people who drove and stuck with that narrative still exist and work in the gaming industry. I'm not saying they're awful people or anything, but that this could happen again. If that narrative ever comes up again, look back to this reminder and think of just how dumb it is to sit there and claim we need to do away with used gaming, penalize it, or even physical copies. We wont have some fairy-tale miracle pop up where Koei Tecmo suddenly gives it out for $15 on sales just because they don't fear the used game markets; If anything they'll double down because they can and have all the power to do so. Its clear that Koei Tecmo doesn't have the brains to price their games accordingly, and don't want my money. They already got enough to fund a sequel anyway. So why not support the guys actually being smart? If the used market were such a bad force of evil, you'd think they would actually try to use these temporary sales to undercut it and send business away from gamestop, but instead it reminds me I should go and pick up that cheaper copy at the store before its gone. Hopefully one day the money-grabbers that take advantage of the closed markets sort their mess out, but until then... I'm almost glad they don't so we'll always have that choice in the market.

Clearly not some of the sales on PSN

Delays are fine, but dev hell is another thing...

Oh yeah, you all can guess what fired up this topic. Its not one I'm actually too passionate about, but it just got me thinking... when do we draw the line from delay to "what the fudge-ripple sundae guys!? Come on!" At some point a game being delayed, or disappearing from the news stops being a delay and more of a game entering developer hell. This includes games like Half-life 3 (or HL2, episode 3), The Last Guardian, DNF prior to its release, and Capcom is earning its way to having Deep Down become yet another case. There's more than I mentioned, and even some if-ish examples, like whatever is going on with Beyond Good & Evil 2. In recent times, we've been told that TLG was getting yet another delay. Its short at least, still set to be this year, but dang is it a bit disheartening to know it was once again tossed as a later project. Truth is it wont be out until its actually freakin' out, and until the day comes when you can put it in your system and play it, it will be made fun of and mocked for whatever delay is thrown at it no matter how short because it has taken this damn long. Some have even latched onto a similar old promise for a 2011 holiday release.

However on the other hand, I wont dare criticize delays. Again I'm not even passionate or angry about this case. I do however hope this means they wont dare raise a day 1 patch considering a near decade of work, plus a delay for bugs even after all this time, but that sadly is just wishful thinking. Still I'm glad they're polishing whatever it is they still managed to find as a bug. We have a ton of games out there, and you should be well occupied without losing your mind over a small two month-ish delay. Plenty more coming up as well, I've got my eyes set specifically for Tomb Raider and Dishonored 2, but there's also the trio of major online shooters like Battlefield 1, TitanFall 2, and COD if you weren't already still busy with stuff like Doom, Overwatch, the revamped Evolve, or the underdog Battleborn. There's a lot of good stuff to play out there right now, go have some fun. However the thing is this isn't just another delay, and I think it partially speaks for itself with how little people discussed this upcoming gem. They never exactly believed it was releasing on time, so there was no hype. Likewise, there was no communication, which is a huge part of where we really have a problem with these games that get thrown into development hell. Its even in the wikipedia article, appropriately heading the section for "reaction to development delays".

"Because of the development delays in The Last Guardian and lack of updates from Sony, The Last Guardian was considered to have been in development hell over its eight-year development period"

Top-tier communication, right guys?

The lack of updates from sony. Yup, that summarizes it perfectly. To look at another recent example, people aren't worried about Deep Down suddenly because its simply delayed; They're worried about it because it was flaunted, got people excited, had some news, then fell off the face of the earth for over a year. Likewise Half-life 2 episode 3 was supposed to be out quickly. Episode 2 left on a cliff-hangar, leaving people ready for the next episode. Years later we don't even remember it as an episode, we just meshed it together as expecting a whole damn new game, because it had to take a while for some reason... right? Right? Well there's absolutely no clue that the game even exists beyond just the mere cliff-hangar ending. Its not progressing, bug fixes, in beta, or teased at E3, it just plain does not exist to the best of the public's knowledge. Its basically gaming's cryptozoology department, complete with conspiracy theory memes, wild hopes, and fake pictures. However if you had asked earlier, you'd have been given this nice sounding statement on the 3rd episode:

"In an interview with Eurogamer, Gabe Newell revealed that the Half-Life 2 "episodes" are essentially Half-Life 3. He reasons that rather than force fans to wait another six years for a full sequel, Valve Corporation would release the game in episodic installments."

Yeah, bet you didn't know that guys. The entire purpose of there even being episodes 1-3 (or rather 2 because 3 didn't happen) is to keep things at a steady, nice, and streamlined rate. Could have fooled me! Quick, somebody tell Activision about this genius plan so they can put COD out faster! Okay I'm done with sarcasm. At least with Duke Nukem Forever, which funnily enough released, we eventually knew what made that get stuck in dev hell. The guy in charge was an arrogant copycat that wanted to add every single cool thing, and new technology, into his game to be the be all end all product. That helps explain why it had to keep getting engine changes, delays, reworks, and was such a confused product in its game design. Now we're here supposedly a few months away from release for the ambitious game TLG, and... we just have to guess. We don't even have much real legit trailer footage to work with, we're just told its coming soon, and Sony pretends nothing weird happened with it. No wonder people are upset. I almost want it to come out so we can hear more transparency or speculations for ourselves on what its like.

Its like, a conspiracy, maaaan!

This routine of no communication isn't just sloppy, and frustrating, but also sketch. If TLGwas delayed because of director related issues, or the team went out on a hiatus for 2 years, that's totally fine and I'm glad they were honest about it. Bands do that quite a few times, and the newest R&C had an admitted on/off work cycle for the 2 years it was done, so... why can't they tell us what happened? Again, we even knew of DNF's issues before it launched, and were still somehow hyped about it before we found out it was garbage. But just saying nothing... it looks bad. I'd also say it looks bad for marketing, because you're giving us a tease for a game that was never close to ready. Bethesda nailed it with their launch approach to Fallout 4. Come out fast and hard with just the right push for marketing months ahead of preparations. However even Watch Dogs, and No Man's Sky managed to release even under distant circumstances of reveal-to-launch. Niether game was great, but they showed up, and actually did their job. Those are huge games to, whereas TLG is more on the level of R&C, or like a smaller campaign only The Last of Us. We're talking about a puzzle adventure game that's maybe around 7 or so hours. I respect that team ico lovingly crafts and polishes their work, so lets be generous and say they take an extra year long than most. Its still way too damn long, and there's still no explanation for this game.

Again, I'm not mad, or booing the delay. I just think there's a fine line between delaying your game a few times, and having it disappear for a long time without any communication (and just working at a believable rate). At these situations can be handled way better from multiple angles. Communicate, reveal games at a smart time, and make the release count. Say what you want about No Man's Sky, but at least it got out, and some people are enjoying it, and that's more than could be said about Sasquatch-life 3. But we wouldn't be looking at stuff like that so mysteriously, or weirdly, or skeptical, if we actually had a reason to believe in it. At the very least,  hope this recent delay is the last, and we get the game some people are really hoping for. Its not my thing and I'll probably wait on a sale, or maybe ask for it as a gift, but I'm still hoping it turns out great for the people that want it.

Deus Ex, and my weird puzzle/adventure playstyle

Sometime or another I owe this blog a "now playing" piece, but this isn't one of those times since Deus Ex has been taken back after a fun rent. However I do want to discuss my time playing it, or more importantly, the weird realization that left me scratching my head wondering if this was or wasn't my kind of game. Usually that's a real easy thing to figure out, especially in stealth action gaming. Does it have freedom, tools, and goofy guard AI that doesn't insta-fail you? If the answer is yes, we're good. But here? The RPG stuff made that really weird, especially with my usual playstyle. Basically if you told me this was MGS with more cyberpunk themes (as I was told), that sounds good to me. If you told me I'd be striking up weird conversations, and puzzling my way around the right vents, and fooling with chance-based hack puzzles most of the game, I'd tell you that sounds like some dumb new indie adventure craze I'm not into. But here we are at the newest Deus Ex, which sort of pulled that stunt on me. ...and it was kind of fun, but not exactly in the same way that being introduced to a MGSV, or FarCry 4 was.

Once again, the thing I think that did it for me was a combination of my typical playstyles meshing with the weird world of Deus Ex and its RPG traditions. Its a really nice and smart combination, but I'm also grateful its here rather than polluting the games I truly go crazy over. The level design isn't as immediately open, or fluid, as something like Dishonored or MGSV leaving you more bottled in. Your tools are matched by mostly what you've upgraded, so you wont have much to work with in the early game (AKA: my entire experience). So that leaves you in a limited range for stealth. Each risky area is more like trying to take an outpost in FarCry if you only had two directions. You know there's a bigger world out there, but in the moment its very simplified. If you wind up taking a non-lethal approach to games like this, it quickly becomes more like a very fluid and immersive, more natural, adventure game. The stealth options are limited enough that unless you have the invisible aug, you're going to be working it like a puzzle. You find the best route, the best times, and hack the right doors, and it all comes together to form a victory when put together right. Meanwhile combat is kept usually to a cut-scene, where you walk up and let the knock-out animation play out. Occasionally you can go for a phone-a-friend feeling of pulling out a tranquilizer rifle (another weird thing in my playstyle here) and darting people with your rare ammo. Now put in the hours of excellent dialogue wheel scenes where you discuss stuff with others, and you've got a good idea of how deep this story goes.

I spent hours just wandering the city areas, chatting with people, pleasing side-quests, or trying to figure out the "right" way to go from A to B. My playstyle mixed with what the game gave me in a very strange way to prioritize puzzling notions, and story, above that of action. ...and I know what you're thinking, action isn't supposed to happen if you're non-lethal, but in every great stealth game I've loved it sure as hell does happen because I'm not perfect. Here you're very easily dead if you weren't embracing it. Its just not a great idea, especially in side missions where I was in a heavily guarded news corporation. If I went in there guns blazing, they'd have 7 guys and two+ mini-tank type robots on me... and that's just a damn office building! I'm not ready for that when the stock health is so small, and I was upgrading stuff like hacking, sight, and conversation stuff for my non-lethal ways. I mean on one hand it almost feels like that's trashtalking the balance, but in reality it just makes for a really different kind of experience. Considering nobody is here to rob me of my more preferred methods, I'm perfectly fine with that. Its just weird to realize you came for a MGS + Cyberpunk experience, and got something more akin to the most fluid and immersive adventure game ever. Again its not like I'm stuck to point and click or a binary function, I'm actually doing stuff, watching the multiple consequences unfold, and choosing my own path. Its just that what I accomplish is within the same realms, mostly story and adventurous interactions.

My playstyle was way more relaxed and story-driven than I thought it would be

However, just because my playstyle looked more like the above than this, doesn't mean you can't do that, which might also be part of what makes this game awesome. The fact that I felt so odd and out of place, means that someone playing the other way probably felt even way more different. Having seen side-plots like a fake checkpoint, make me wonder what it would be like to go in at a totally more hostile style. All the upgrades you get to start with, and the way it plays out, it could totally transform the game format. Probably a testimate to how awesome it is to have yet another good stealth action game out there in the world. Considering some of the weird talk about its story going around, I may wait for a Director's cut or GOTY edition, but I'll definitely be back around for Deus Ex in the future.

PlayStation mods, and being "for The Players"

I can't really say I saw this coming, but now that its here... I feel like I should have. Bethesda has called out the problem with getting mods to work on PS4, and its surprisingly not about their wacky optimization; Instead its that Sony wont let them. That's weird considering I thought they had it up to a very small degree in the past, but this seems consistent with some other things I'm uncovering. The logic is as stated:

Sony has informed us they will not approve user mods the way they should work: where users can do anything they want for either Fallout 4 or Skyrim Special Edition.

So it sounds like its a policy issue. They don't want to allow a game function in which players can tamper with the game openly. That's strange coming from the same guys that published Modnation Racers, LittleBigPlanet, the upcoming Dreams, and have integrated share functionality. Heck PS3 was the first place I've ever seen legit console modding taking place, through Unreal Tournament 3 and this weird USB functionality. You could take files off the computer, officially install them into the game's database, and have fully functional modifiers, characters, and maps made from the PC-side modding community. You'd think we'd be going in this direction of embracing user customs, and shared interactions, and consoles would start to open up, but uh... no, doesn't seem to be the case. For similar reasons as with EA Access (funnily something I'm still a bit happy with), they decided to remind us they deal on a close platform, and wont have any uncontrolled things.

Unfortunately some people don't get the situation, and instantly jumped to fanboy defensive position. I've found claims like "well the mods aren't the big a deal. Really guys, it takes your trophies away, is limited, and is just there to mess around with". Because... ya'know, screw various small feature improvements when we can have trophies, right guys? Then there's just conspiracy-lite stutterings. People actually acting like for the first time that they have a marketing deal with MS, so therefor they must be lying in this case to make sony look bad rather than... just following the contract? Look, they're screwing over some of their own userbase and customers with that, and you don't want to do that when merely following the guidelines for a contract are all you need to do. I'm not going to pretend Bethesda are perfect in this situation, I mean they shouldn't have announced mods for Skyrim's upcoming re-release if they couldn't confirm it, but some of these are a massive stretch. Heck even as much as they are bad with optimizing these things right, they outright admit to breaking Skyrim on the PS3, so why the heck are they going around just now making up a cover story for sony? The very worst they could be doing, is poorly communicating what were in the terms. Maybe something was in there that Sony is rightfully, and entirely, against. We need a couple more specifics before we can assign full blame. However, that doesn't mean Sony is off the hook either... I've seen a lot of people bringing back the Rocket League situation in this PR mess.

This is actually news to me, and I'm a bit shocked about it. In all the time I've heard about games like Rocket League going cross-platform for the first time with consoles, I thought some awesome milestone was achieved. I didn't expect it to go far, much like how limited the range of PC cross-platform works are, but I still thought it was awesome and we were all cheering about it. Turns out everyone was cheering about it except Sony, who has had a few personal people speak favorably, but as a company wont green-light it. Everything is ready, and it could be set to go tomorrow if they wanted to, but its got to go through Sony's approval and they're just sitting on it for months. One article brought up the speculation that its this way because they wont get any advantages by allowing it, but I'm going to flip it on its head and say what are they losing? When did they suddenly change from "This is for the players" to "its got to help us first"? Even if you were to go out for a stretch that goes on for miles, and say that keeping strict networks incentivises friends to buy the same system for sales, that's a stupid thought by this point. We've gone years into this, Sony has leaped ahead in victory with over 40'000'000 sales, and they can't allow cross-platform for an indie soccer/football game, because they're worried it'll somehow be bad business? No I'm not buying that sorry excuse, that's stupid. Its far easier to assume they're just being spiteful, arrogant, and stupid; especially with their PS+ moves, the lackluster info on their stupid half-console upgrade ideas, and now what is likely their problem with modding. Its the early PS3 days all over again, where they thought they were so unbeatable they could just do whatever they want no matter how complicated or bad it was for consumers, or developers. I'm surprised the PS4 Pro didn't pull some Cell 2.0 bullshit to suit their early PS3 rehash.

This is why nobody should ever want anyone to "win" the console wars. As soon as the PS4 was a rocket success, you could begin to see a questionable wind in the air. Aside from basic updates we were kinda already promised, its hard to see what good will Sony did in the same way that they would have in the later PS3 days, or PS4 pre-launch where they were so cheery and about good games for good gaming's sake. For the time being we've lost that Sony that literally gave out free money as part of a hype promotion, and put things like Sly 4 alongside bigger hits like Uncharted 3 up on PS+. Instead we got one that wants to sit by and tell you that you can't play with the xbox kids just because they said so, or rather they barely even give us the respect to even bother saying anything (I'll be almost excited to see any real response to this mod issue from them, but its unlikely). Meanwhile Xbox has been taking some earned jabs at PlayStation lately, including over mods, just like Xbox themselves needed it back when they had to be told how shared games should work. However Xbox would be the same way if they got into this kinda position, as I'm sure we can remember their ridiculous indie guidelines. Don't let your favorite company win the competition. They don't reward you much for it.

Not the guy you want to win, but this is what the winner looks like every time

Should you "support" games?

So I've actually had this on my mind at some points, but it wasn't until I unfortunately had someone beat me to making this into a subject that I thought about writing it for an article. If you want to check the thing I'm referring to out, go right ahead as its an awesome video on the subject. Its about the idea of supporting games, and how the expression of voting with your wallet... may have gone too far with its interpretation. Don't get me wrong, it makes complete sense to vote with your wallet. We all want our voice to be heard and make an impact, and as consumers we do that by buying stuff. However as much as I am a person of principle, it doesn't always cost $60 for me to justify such a thing, nor should principles be taken out of context as some moral crusader where you run around buying stuff for the "good" of it. Yet here we are in a world where we're told we've got to go and support this one indie game because they're indie, or go support this one horror game because another will never happen again if we don't. I'm not entirely sure I'll agree that kind of "support" is necessary. If all you want to do is support the little guy, then I've got a good one for you to support:

At one point in recent memory, I was able to fool my mind into this twisted method of thought. I drew inspiration from the way I was having issues with the new AAA vs indie mentality in the 2011-ish period, where it felt like middle tier games were falling off the market completely, and the only good in-depth games of my liking were lost to things like COD. If a shooter looked even remotely old-schoolish I'd tell people its probably worth supporting. If I found a game like Inversion, I'd have a strong biased to give them a chance since they were a more middle tier type weird team doing some sci-fi game. I bought Two Worlds 2 at launch since while I knew it would go down in price fast, I really wanted to support them. I loved the game, but... I don't see why I didn't just wait. Then thanks to internet info, I would feel a little crippled whenever something like Sly 4 was so amazing and then sold so poorly. Why can't you support it better, gamers!? One of the lower points had to be Risen 2. I found out they had a special edition with all the DLC, poster and map extras, and it was the only console port I've ever seen the obscure little RPG team make, plus I had an optimistic curiosity for the game. I wound up buying it less because of how I really needed it, and more due to the fact that it was a small cult loved team finally putting this awesome version of it out in a physical form on consoles.  The result? Well it was a Clumsy, poorly designed RPG, with tedious tasks, and an interface I couldn't even read unless I stood-up right in front of the TV. I only played it like twice. $60 wasted.

Meanwhile lets look at Doom and Dishonored on the other hand. I "supported" both because they just looked like freakin' awesome games. Turns out they were incredible, and I'm looking forward to "supporting" the next Dishonored 2 on the basis that it looks incredible. Here's a list of all the other games that came out the same year as Dishonored. This was practically one of the final years of THQ's life. I could have "supported" them more, but... I didn't want to, and thankfully didn't give in to that whiny side of my mind. It wouldn't have made a difference, except in that I may not have had Dishonored if I wasted money on Darksiders 2 (a game I still want to play one day, but can borrow it from my sister at this point). I could have "supported" binary domain, but eh I wasn't interested enough to put $60 down, so I didn't. Sega is still here, and that game is still there to play, and it was never guaranteed a sequel anyway. Instead I supported Dishonored, which would be fine without me, but I feel much better myself with it because that's simply what I want. I could have supported Sorcery, but hey Sony isn't even supporting the Move anymore nor were they going to, so there wasn't any magical victory to be had there if I did. Regardless of who I "supported" life moved on. Risen 3 still sucks like R2 did, Dishonored is awesome, THQ fails, Binary Domain will be one of those PS3/360 cult hits people occasionally bring up, while Darksiders even gets re-releases.

Never again!

Eventually I got out of this nonsensical phase of favoring "support". I'll admit there's still a slight bias to support a team, but it ain't so overbearing that its the big factor. Essentially a realization of a few key thoughts and reflections pulled me back to my senses. Let me enlighten you on them...

1) Buying games you love is true support

Simple capitalism: Make a good product, or see a good product, and it will be bought. That isn't always entirely true and sometimes a good item will be missed, and a bad item will come under your possession, but you get the point. I didn't have to sit there and preach about how Doom is the end-all FPS to justify my support for it, I merely had to trust it'd be amazing, buy it, and see that I was right. I'm far from the only one. Its been well received, people are holding it up as GOTY material, and bethesda has shown some interesting confidence with the product. I haven't seen the numbers, but its clearly no bomb. Now when I genuinely support a product out of that sort of enjoyment, I'm a satisfied fan. When they have a bunch of happy fans running around, telling people how great it is, those are the people first lining up and ready to sing praises when a sequel comes around. Even if I were to run out and hypothetically buy Dark Souls for the first time from a $3 yard sale bin right now, I'd still be supporting it if I were to enjoy and discuss it. I'm telling you people how amazing it is, and then I'm looking around for sequels, and I'm hooked on what the series will do next. Meanwhile with Risen 2... you can see the only time I've actually discussed it, is right on here in infamy. I "supported it" with a purchase and kindness, but I've returned it with nothing but distrust since then.

2) Success isn't copied, only EASY success is

A large part of this dream, and goal, to get people to flock and support a game with some mega-ton influx of money is that we'll one day wake up and see ourselves flooded in new variants of such a game. You hear this not only with games, but with pieces of games, or pieces we hate from games. Quick, go buy this game that decided to sell itself without a season pass! Hey this game has a good narrative, quick run out there and throw money at the cashiers face, and then they'll directly email EA on how they should make a game just like it! Hey, maybe if we support this one horror game, COD will be replaced with an annual Silent Hill! Well hate to break it to you guys, but that's not how this industry works. People don't launch into trends, or die off of them, simply for making a good returning fund. All that happens is the company profits, and... thanks its fans. That's nice, and maybe its necessary for a direct sequel, but it ain't progressing some activist cause for better gaming mechanics.

Quick, name off some awesome gaming hits! Preferably recent, but old will work as well. Lets take Bioshock, Dark Souls, Skyrim, Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, and Assassins Creed. There's more obvious success stories, but lets get to those in a moment. Okay so while we do have a massive influx of open world, how many of those play out with Skyrim's tweaks to the WRPG formula? How many games went all alternate history, meta-lore, or even borrowed off of AC's gameplay? Not a lot really. How many awesome hardcore RPG/fighters have come out in the big market space to cash-in on the passionate fan base of the Dark Souls breakthrough success? Lords of the Fallen, and uh... Nioh. Some indie games to. How awesome is it that Mario Galaxy revitalized the 3D platformer genre, and... oh, they actually all kind of disappeared around that time. Biosh-, okay lets just get on with the point. The big breakouts are entries like COD, Minecraft, Candy crush, and watered down variants of the GTA formula. The trends are set by changing times, market conditions, and ultimately what easily copy-able things can be latched onto for good success. Nobody wants to carefully plot out, balance, or risk the struggle to make a good souls type of game. Nobody wants to sit back and do a half-life/bioshock type huge narrative linear shooter, when a cheaper online multiplayer skinner-box with a generic setting will pull in the same money and a longer attention time. Stuff like regenerative health catches on not because its just used in a popular game, but because it means developers don't need to work on balance, map layout, and item placement related to the old health systems. Same for bad monetary practices like microtransactions, which will stay because its a new trend that gets them money, and loses them almost nothing. Its an easy, popular, and proven element, so it catches on and sticks. That's not to say we're doomed to just see dumber and dumber things. Devs do care to try new or complicated things, but those things aren't what become the big trends unless by weird luck. So consider this the next time you think supporting that weird anime cyberpunk horror will suddenly flood the market with all of those things.

3) You are simply one person

Not much of a realization, but you are simply one person among many. Your purchase as one guy is just 1 sale. $60 might be a lot to you, but games sure cost a lot more to make, which is why they don't measure these things in 60's but rather you as a person and your new game sale. That means that for your support to send a game to success, you need to go and clone yourself an army of like 999'999 of you. That's just my personal average assumption of success as well, some publishers are looking for 3-6 million, and a couple are okay and chilled out about under 1 million. The huge successes are things that hit around 8 million, or bring in a long line of profiting revenue. As one person, and only one, there's no pressure in not supporting every game ever. As a matter of fact that's another thing, you can't. You can't be bothered to run around sweating over what games need and deserve your support. There's just too many, and you don't automatically know for a fact if you'll always pick the best route. Free will is a gift and curse. Just play what looks fun, and support the things that deserve it. Don't let that sound like a bad thing though. Go have fun, be yourself, like the games that you like, and don't have anyone else tell you otherwise. Your support is still adding to something, and you can be an awesome fan to the community. Its just that there's no use in getting worked up over how you can weaponize yourself as some serious authority of what deserves support. Just chill, relax, and play games.

4) The future is never clear, but the game will always exist

Lets talk about Sly 4 again. I didn't buy it out of raw support, even if I would have had I known its sales ahead of time. I actually assumed it would be a decent hit. Fans were all over this stuff, the marketing was out, the devs proved they knew what they were doing, and it must have been pretty awesome to see a sudden revival out of nowhere for a nice little iconic hero. Turns out I was so very wrong though, and the game failed to make even half a million. Meanwhile R&C was undergoing similar (but somewhat deserved) issues and sale numbers. It seemed like their releases were doomed, and things would move even closer to a wasteland for 3D platformers. However there are two big things to consider... if you dare to sit there and moan that the game is dead, you're a part of the problem. The game is not dead, the series was never in the grave anymore than before the last release, and unless your game is online only (ironically something I don't want anyone to support) it will never cease to be playable and enjoyable. Whether you pick this game up and play it 10 years later, or right at launch, its still the same game, and its still amazing. Just because Sly failed, doesn't mean Sony is going to come up to my house and steal the game back. Stop pretending this is doomsday just because a game you liked didn't sell. The future of its series was never promised or entitled to you in the first place, and the community and game will live on all the same. Heck I just now stumbled into this sly cooper fansite, with the news discussing a movie going into development.

Oh yeah, and the movie! That's the 2nd point: Ratchet and Clank didn't die off to poor sales. At their lowest point, Sony got up and went fully insane and said "Perfect time for a movie and new game, right team!" and so a movie happened. Around the same time, a teaser for a Sly Cooper movie happened. Because... ya'know, for some reason that's how failure works. No in all seriousness, this is how the future works. Sometimes a publisher pulls an EA and tells its Mirror's Edge fans they can't be bothered with a bad series, or an Ubisoft and hold its poor Beyond Good & Evil game in infinite suspense, or a SE and suggest that Tomb Raider just wasn't good enough at fucking 4-6 million sales. However Tomb Raider 2 happened, Ratchet's consistent decline below the millions nets a movie, and even after that movie fails (I think) the Sly one is greenlit, and Okami was remade 3 times (and got a tiny hand-held sequel) even if all of the ports combined don't even reach a modern success milestone. oh and all this time we had practically a decade without a 3rd Battlefront game, which could have been an excuse to print money at any point in LucasArts troubled game division career. Doom was still doing incredible after 3, and just disappeared until recently missing an entire console cycle for no easy-to-name reason. The future is called that for a reason: its not the present. The games you have in the present, are here to stay. Go and enjoy them without sweating over how much "support" they got. The future will do whatever the heck it wants to, and you can't predict it (and if you can, you wouldn't be using those powers on video games). Meanwhile good games don't always get good sequels or even sequels at all, and bad games don't stay automatically stay down forever just because they hit a bump... or even multiple. Heck we live in a world where Naught Bear has a sequel, and you know what, I'm kinda of proud of that absurd reality! Oh and the R&C game that accompanied the movie is doing very well as I hear it, so a series can bounce back in case you're not sure about its possibility.

Conclusion...

Should you support good games? Yeah, sure, but do it because you want to go out and play those games. If you want to legally manipulate the market and wait on some GOTY edition, wait for it to go on a deep sale, or even buy it used in some yard sale bin, go ahead and do that to. I'd really recomend buying the games you feel good about in a way that supports the dev, but you know what, they aren't a charity, and the general market is still supported anyway. Just go out and find what you want to play, spread the word on great games you love, and continue to smile and enjoy games. That's how you support games, not by risking your $60 on some trash RPG that you feel NEEDS the money for its effort on a console port and cult fanbase. Believe me, I've been there, you don't want that supported when you could be putting that money on something like Doom. The market is set up in a way that supporting yourself, is the thing that can also support others and speak the real truth. Go buy the games you want, at the price you see best, and everything else will sort itself out. ...and if things don't go the best way in your opinion, well its not always going to. Doesn't mean everything is dead and gone, you still got what you paid for, and there's still plenty of new great things out there.

Support the games you love, not for the sake of it

[Off-topic] Jungle Book, and modern movie magic

Absolutely hypnotic

So I recently watch the new Jungle Book. That's a weird name for me that I have a mixed reaction of loving or "meh"ing about. I'm going to state an unpopular opinion and say the famous animated Disney classic was more forgettable to me than the entirely weird spin-off talespin series, I haven't bothered with the classic book and only just now learned it was actually a shorts collection (but I do want to read it, and plan to soon), so the purists wont be any happier with my views. Yet I should in theory love this kind of story. The thing I remember and loved the most when I was little from this series is 1998's Mowgli's Story (uh, yeah this embarrassing movie). Now don't get me wrong, Mowgli's story is objectively worse and only worth watching now to have a laugh at what I used to enjoy, because its childish and beyond goofy in its direction. Still... something stuck out that made me want to come back to it more so than the animated film. That's especially weird considering how much I adore animation over live-action, but here we are again. Ever since I heard about Disney redoing their animated classics in live-action, Jungle book was on my mind and was one of the only things I felt optimistically about (in addition there's Hunchback, and maybe beauty & the beast. That's about it off the top of my head). Why on earth do I prefer a mostly animal themed movie being set in live-action when they could be done better in full animation? It just doesn't make a lot of sense. However it is what it is, but it also means bringing out the much dreaded three-letter C-word in live-action film: CGI! Okay so that's technically a 3-letter acronym, but whatever. Point remains that people love to hate it, and yet here I am watching this incredibly praised modern live-action + CGI adaptation of an old animated classic, based on a classic and historic piece of literature.

However I've never understood the problem with CGI. I think that's in large part due to how easily I can suspend disbelief, and get immersed and enjoy entertainment because its fun and not meant to be taken seriously. I can endure the "uncanny valley" movies that get fussed at, and I don't exactly get why something that looks slightly animated in a real scene has to be a bad thing. Unless its so bad you can see the seams, like a few scenes in Gods of Egypt,  its good enough to still be entertaining. Even if you can see the seams, it might still be an alright movie. It might also be because I grew up around early 3D gaming, and its my favorite kind of entertainment. The entire freakin' thing is essentially CGI, and yet I'm enjoying that, so why can't I enjoy a movie that may use even a fraction of it? But the thing is I'm far from the only gamer, so I still don't get what's with all the fuss. Even if you claim "b-but, its not real, and I know that, so I can tell the difference and its bad!" I have to ask where were you with the muppets era, where the cast was obviously fake soft puppet people with awkwardly flapping jaws set up against real-ish stuff. Why is old yoda so much better than new yoda if what you care about is flesh-and-blood realism in your live-action? Why is Roger Rabbit such a big classic? I just don't get the double standards. Whatever though, I guess we got past those hurdles, because I'm so happy to say that Disney is shutting these people up as far as I've been able to tell.

He's fake, but his wrath and presence is all there

I remember watching some of the extra material in regards to how Zootopia was made, and how Disney was pushing huge boundaries in CGI based technology. I didn't think all that effort went into animating fur, but apparently in as little as 2009's Bolt they could barely bother to model a normal dog with a collar. Now they were making complicated human-like animals with full clothing, and under all sorts of extreme conditions like rain and high-speed chases. Up to a hundred-thousand hair pieces were being rendered as fur on one of the many characters on the screen at any time. That sounded awesome and yet way more complicated than I'd think, but that's all I thought of it there. Jungle Book on the other hand shattered assumptions and my mind, because I was assuming this was traditional work being done here for animals in a live-action movie. Once upon a time, this kind of movie was done with trained animals. That's how Mowgli's story was done, with effects (or mostly editing) attempting to gloss it up a bit, and then we all wound up hating it despite their efforts with real things. Naturally I thought this was that in the modern age, with a bigger budget, more care, and better tech to enhance expressions and dialogue (really big enhancements to get full mouth-moving dialogue, and some of the fur effects). The whole time I watched the movie, I had that sort of assumption and never thought otherwise once, save for obvious un-animal type guys like the massive monkey king.

WRONG! In the "Jungle Book Re-imagined" bonus feature, it revealed every single one of those guys (and scenes) were CGI with the only references being mo-capped actors, and some of the silliest little hand-puppets ever. I'm talking like bright yellow little toony monster men puppets that would later be critters like the porcupine or pangolin, and a disembodied rubber panther face. To recap, the last Disney movie attempt at this with real actors and animals failed so hard it never got beyond a VHS release (and currently hides in the corners of netflix like some unwanted ugly ducking), and the one we all love and are talking about right now was made up of everything being fake outside of the kid. Oh and Unlike Mowgli's story, we can all be more sure that this is a true child actor, so even the one real on-screen actor falls under something people tend to hate on. It all just magically works. With a guy like me that was already tolerable of CGI, seeing the bonus feature with how fake things really were is like being tricked into thinking Santa Clause is real all over again.

Take a good look. This somehow did better than real animals

Its not just the animals and that one fire effect either, its so much as the jungle ground being simulated through a strange combination of computer and puppetry reference props. In order to capture Mowgli just walking in the jungle for a scene, they would put him on this giant blue rotating floor-piece. It gave a sense of motions, and gave the actor a real walk and pace to set, and then to add to it because they were thinking of everything, there were little slops and bumps because the jungle ain't flat. They essentially paint it over like a video game cut-scene that doesn't have to worry about your hardware specs, then its all done and good as desired, complete with a friendly bear talking like Bill Murray (a casting choice I was originally skeptical about). That's pretty awesome, and it almost seems like CGI is overlapping with practical effects in that kind of situation. They're not working with nothing, they're working with almost nothing, and making up a couple of interesting effects that'll play with the lighting, set a pace with the room, and then they wave the magical CGI wand over it and it becomes an entire jungle. That is incredible.

For all that trickery and CGI magic I'm talking about, the movie does nothing to hide it in-film either. Mowgli is constantly thrown up against these make-believe things that aren't really there. He hugs them, he's pushed by them, he drums on baloo's chest, he grabs a buffalo's horn and rides on top of it, and camera will hang onto those effects for as long as they damn-well need to be to make the scene great. There's one emotional scene towards the beginning involving that threatens to make people cry, and only didn't have me cry not because of the CGI, but because it was probably just too early in the movie (and I was fighting the urge). Its able to make powerful scenes like that happen without fear, because they have the magic show ready to pull and keep this illusion over your eyes for almost 2 hours of film.

Too soon movie! Don't make me cry!

On that note, I'll shut up about the CGI for a second to say the movie itself is fantastic. I'm not a movie critic or anything, so don't take my word too strongly, but everything was just perfect as far as I'm concerned. I think this was the first live-action disney film I can name that carried and had the same powerful sense of pace, tone, fun, and adventure of their animated works I grew up loving so much. Stuff like Enchanted was more of a generic movie to me with a disney satire tone over it, and then stuff like Pirates of the Caribbean feels like they're in their own separate format and tone. This felt like a true Disney film with all the power, heart, and adventure I'd expect that makes you think of Disney at their grade A best. In the bonus feature I mentioned earlier, they brought up a cliche'd expression I've heard all too many times before: They were to give you a window into another world. I always enjoyed that phrase as a true expression for good art, but never before have I looked at it so literal. My astonishment as to just how great the film was, and yet seeing just how insanely fake it was, feels like some grand magical delusion on a scale I'm just not used to facing. These guys aren't just movie makers, they're magicians who have created such a window and kept an old stories from over a century ago alive and retold in the modern era, and it feels great to see it all under a light where it feels real.

I think that might also have helped me answer that question about myself: Why live-action for jungle book? Why not the incredible art of animation that I love way more? Well simply put, there are certain stories that need to be those windows into a different reality, and this is just one of them. This is the tale of an odd boy living in a natural world in a strange way, its strangely a very human sort of story despite all the animals. Then seeing clips of the old 2D animation, it just doesn't capture that idea and get that feeling across. Its a weird shade of colors, quirky newspaper comic type character designs, and its just not what I'd want from that kind of story. There's a huge difference in tone from what I've been talking about, and this. I'm sure its a fantastic movie in its own right, and a fun classic that still holds up, but its not what I'd want from a Jungle Book story and so I've had little interest with that Disney classic. This 2016 movie on the other hand...