[GameRatty] tag: visitors

Bargain hunters searching for PlayStation

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:42:59 +0000

The Nintendo DS and Wii might have dominated sales charts all year, but budget-conscious consumers buying on eBay this Christmas have PSP at the top of their shopping list.

"PSP" is currently the most popular video game search term used by visitors to eBay Australia, and the sixth most common search term on the site overall (behind the likes of "iPod", "laptop" and "shoes").

The next most popular search terms are "PS2", "Xbox 360", "PS2 games" and "PS3".

Surprisingly, "Nintendo DS" is only the sixth most common search term, and "Wii" is ninth, trailing behind "Xbox" and "Xbox 360 console".

eBay Australia enjoyed over 5 million unique visitors in September 2008 according to Nielsen. Worldwide, over 7 million items are listed for sale on eBay every day.

Giant NYC PSP taken down, to be upgraded with new screen

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 09:05:59 +0000

For many visitors of New York's Houston St., the giant PSP has been a landmark for years. The billboard-sized PSP ran videos of the newest and best PSP games (when it worked). However, it looks like it's finally being taken down.

Guess what? It is getting a 3000 series upgrade! According to SCEA's Al de Leon, the PSP billboard will be getting a new and improved screen -- just like the PSP-3000. (Let's hope this doesn't have the scanline issue.)

Blogs are irrelevant and subjective

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 06:46:00 +0000

One interesting subject from the open Sunday thread was why some people react so strongly when they read somebody praising a different game, or even start shouting "conspiracy!" when they read some less than raving report on their favorite game. And I think one anonymous commenter got a step closer to the answer by asking about the influence of blogs. It seems logical that if somebody believes that blogs wield a huge influence in the decision of people what to play, or even on the developers of those games, they would feel threatened if a blogger writes negatively about their favorite game, or positively about a different game. But I do think that would overestimate the influence of blogs. In reality blogs have no, or very, very little, influence on developers and players. They are just a reflection of the subjective opinions of one or few people.

The reason why I can state the lack of influence with some certainty is simple math. I'm proud to have a "popular" blog, but popular still means only 5,000 visitors a day, of which 55% come here from some search engine, 25% following some link, and only 20% by either typing the URL of my blog, or having me bookmarked. So I maybe have 1,000 regular readers. Most of them are of the "I read what Tobold has to say, but I sometimes disagree" type, which is how it should be. But even if I could influence all 1,000 of them to lets say switch from one game to another, the impact on the subscription numbers of a major MMORPG would be minimal. 99% of WoW players have never even heard of me.

Not only is there a lack of influence, but also there is no conspiracy or hidden agenda. I'm just a regular MMORPG player, with certain preferences. Just like everyone else, I get excited about new games, like some games more than others, and inside one game have features I like and others I dislike. I generally prefer PvE over PvP, and if I PvP I prefer the "carebear" sort. I like storytelling and variety of gameplay, and dislike grinds. I prefer content to be accessible to casual players, and don't like exclusive content for a small elite. Besides games, I have an interest in economics, so you'll often find me discussing game economics, both the real world economics of business models, and the virtual economics of tradeskills and auction houses. None of this is secret in any way, and since it is inevitable that I repeat myself in 5 years of blogging, you can find ample evidence of these preference all over this blog.

Currently I am very much excited and happy about the Wrath of the Lich King expansion of World of Warcraft, because it very much corresponds to my personal preferences: As always in WoW, it is mostly PvE, with some carebear PvP. It has better storytelling and more varied gameplay than the previous expansion. And it promises to be more accessible and less elite in the endgame. A near-perfect match. But I'm not vain or stupid enough to believe that the Blizzard developers read what I wrote on this blog and created the expansion to fit my personal preferences. What I do believe (and again I only have indirect evidence) is that The Burning Crusade was not quite as big a success as Blizzard had hoped. It sold a lot of copies early, but then relatively quickly lost players. I do believe that the reason for that decline was that the players reached level 70 and because raiding was relatively difficult never even got started in the raiding circuit. I think Blizzard got that message through various exit interviews from people canceling their accounts, and is trying to do better this time. My personal agenda just happens to coincide with what a large number of casual players prefers, it isn't as if they were in any way influenced by me. And Blizzard is influenced by profits and subscription numbers, not by what anyone says about their game on any blog or forum.

Another evidence for the lack of influence of bloggers on players and developers is that people who take the time to discuss games on the internet are already a minority among players in general. By definition they are less casual, because it takes an above average interest in a game to not only play it, but also to want to talk about it when not playing it. I believe, without having proof for it, that the people who discuss games on the internet on average have somewhat different, less casual, interests than players who don't. Thus aspects of gameplay which require more dedication, for example hardcore PvP or raiding, are more popular on blogs and game forums than they are in the games themselves. I think developers don't listen too closely to what people say on forums and blogs, because they know that doing so would risk to miss the interests of the silent majority.

While it is obviously hard to judge oneself correctly, I would say that overall I'm a rather rational type. I try to avoid posting obvious falsehoods, and I usually do see both the good and bad sides of any given game or feature. But that doesn't make the content of this blog completely fair and balanced. Blogs, by their very nature, aren't even supposed to be objective. The word "blog" comes from "weblog", and that is what this is: A log of my thoughts, a kind of public diary. Objectivity isn't even a stated goal of that, I write my subjective feelings on games, features, or sometimes even non-game issues. And, being personal and subjective, my attitude towards one game can, and frequently does, change over time. If you read my archives, you will find that I never liked The Burning Crusade very much, and during that time wrote a lot of negative stuff about World of Warcraft, including an "I quit" post, taking an extensive leave from the game. You will also find some very positive coverage of WAR from the late beta and early release days, until the preponderance of scenarios ruined that game for me. And then there are lots of games that get no or very little coverage from this blog at all, because they are simply not on my radar.

If somebody expects me to cover and praise every existing game equally, he simply is at the wrong spot. Being personal this blog reports on the games I play, with a subjective slant towards the games I like. I am certainly trying to be balanced and fair, but there simply aren't any game review sites that praise all games equally, because frankly that wouldn't be of much use to anyone. The very act of reviewing a game introduces subjectivity. Besides reviews and personal opinions this blog has some "MMO news coverage", but that very often consists of links to the totally subjective reviews and personal opinions of other bloggers, with my subjective comments thrown in. Game companies are private enterprises, and there is a lot of interesting data they have and don't publish. Thus subjects like subscription numbers or future strategy of a game are surrounded by a lot of speculation, some circumstantial evidence, and very few absolute truths. But the fun is in the speculation and discussion, nobody should expect the same level of proof from a blog post than what would be required in a criminal justice court.

So, in summary, I do think that some people overestimate the influence of blogs. And some people have trouble making the distinction between a blog and the Washington Post. It is obviously hard to convince these people that I'm neither out to influence the MMORPG world, nor am I likely to do that. So the best advice I can offer is that if you believe so strongly that a single person with a blog hosted for free can influence both developers and players, then you should go and make your own blog. If it's so easy to move millions of subscribers to one's preferred game, and change the way in which future games are designed, why don't you go out and do it?

The digital wilderness

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 07:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Culture, Opinion, Second Life, Virtual worlds

It's considered to be a vast expanse of digital territory whose growth far outpaces the number of people actually using it. Huge tracts of it are completely abandoned wastelands, failed venues and disused stores. Parts of it are struggling venues trying to attract visitors. A few places are consistently busy, but they also bring the risk of abusive and disruptive people, who get their jollies from messing things up for others. Advertising -- often quite intrusive -- is everywhere. At any moment you could be confronted by imagery of penises or of distasteful sexual practices. Committed users...

Continue reading The digital wilderness

The digital wilderness originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 29 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PlayStation Home gets own home on the web

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 09:45:00 +0000

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3

Those who continue to experience PlayStation Home from the outside-looking-in have another outlet to fuel their desire to traipse about in Sony's social bowling experiment. The oft-delayed service has been given its own home on the official PlayStation website, though like Home itself at present the site is sparse in both content and purpose.

Currently visitors can wow themselves by reading a description of Home, as well as watch a video tour, look at a handful of screenshots ... and that's about it. Even so, pressing your face up against the screen is nearly as much fun as wandering aimlessly though the virtual world's vapid halls. Nearly.

PlayStation Home gets own home on the web originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Casual gaming influencing growth in Disneyland/world

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 14:50:24 +0000

“Our audience is ever-changing and the more videogames become popular, the more visitors to our theme parks expect to interact in their world and also in their entertainment. When we were working on DisneyQuest 12 years ago, our audience was mostly frightened by the idea of interactivity. We now have an audience that’s excited about it. When you look at casual gaming, the type of pick-up-and-play intuitive experiences we have in the park, we look for people who have that kind of experience when hiring new talent. While our audience includes classic gaming audiences, we also have grandparents and parents and three-year-olds. We can’t presume any kind of knowledge. Also, these people are entertained in different ways. We’re designing it to be fun and intuitive for the kids and adults, as well as adding depth of challenge for the teenagers.” - WDI’s senior show producer and director Sue Byran

It looks like we are going to start seeing Wiimote-like devices pop up around Disney. They already tried their DS test run, which was a big step towards gaming and park integration. This new initiative should take things even further.

Link

Your Turn: (Not exactly) Fear and loathing in Brisbane

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:28:46 +0000

Taking a break from giving his gadgets names and dreaming up new game ideas, Jacob Martin made the trek up to Brisbane last weekend for the Game On exhibition, and has penned his third Your Turn contribution based on his trip.

Although it was originally planned to be an exclusive for Melbourne's ACMI, Game On opened recently at the State Library of Queensland, where it will be on display until February 15.

The exhibition lets visitors play their way through the history of video games, with more than 100 games available for hands-on fun.

Game On also features rarely seen consoles, controllers, collectibles and artwork, and a series of Friday night events will be held in conjunction with the exhibition, including developer panels and a session on game reviewing with Yahtzee Crowshaw and the lads from Australian Gamer.

(Not exactly) Fear and loathing in Brisbane

You can change the word "London" to "Sydney" in the lyrics to No Place Like London by Stephen Sondheim and you would get an equivalent meaning. But when I went to visit my twin brother in Queensland to see the Game On exhibition, there was an adventure of gaming cross-culture between New South Wales and Queensland, the state of my birth and the reason I can't support the Blues in State of Origin.

On the plane ride there was single serving apples of a freakishly small size - Chuck Palahniuk got it right about airline travel in Fight Club - but also "in flight entertainment", which was merely in-flight advertising for the Australia movie in the form of a making-of documentary. Quite disappointing. My brother was waiting for me outside the gate sporting a Movember mustache and beard that was worth five dollars for someone else's prostate, and he wore a He-Man "I Have The Power" T-Shirt. I went with him to collect my luggage, and he took me to the Airtrain where he got out his Space Invaders wallet he got in Nimbin one time on Schoolies. That wallet was the sign he was still as much a gaming nerd as he ever was, even if he had gone to Uni and made a life away from home.

The first thing I noticed about Brisbane was that even though my usual anxiety about new places I have was there, it wasn't there for long. The people I met on my brother's floor dorm were nice enough, and one of his dorm buddies, Callum, let me challenge my brother to a Slayer match at Halo 3. I beat him twenty five to eighteen, which was unusual since I usually was terrible at multiplayer games. This place was awakening something in me that wasn't there before. All those times my brother used to beat me at Mario Kart and GoldenEye 64 were now memories that were cherished by him, but when I beat him all he could say was "Yeah, you owned me". I didn't feel like bragging much about it, but it was one of the first times I had ever beaten my brother at a first-person shooter game. This was rare, and it was the start of the course of action that took me to the common room where a beer stained, Pokemon emblazoned Nintendo 64 sat in the middle of a table, left on during the night for so long it would make Al Gore cry. What kind of love did these dorm dwellers have for this console, sitting in a room with ripped furniture and couches, a sink on the other side with mugs washing in it, and beer bottles hiding in an environment where glass was looked down upon? I guess the University had a no glass policy when it came to drinking, but nobody paid attention to it.

The night came like a blanket of booze because my brother was napping in preparation for the party ahead, held for someone who was leaving the dorms for a while since term had finished. As I remember it there was a Halo 3 tournament going on in Callum's room, and as the night progressed there was more swerving with the controllers and Grav-Hammering. As for me, I played on my DS Lite when I couldn't get a turn. The madness of it was so crazy it was sane, especially since some people had exams the next day. I went to bed early because I needed to wake up in time to get to the Game On exhibition the next day, but my brother was harder to wake up than expected.

When I suggested that some of his dorm buddies could come along with us there were two main takers, Brendan, an Australian guy who listened to mellow acoustic guitar covers of hardcore gangsta rap songs, and Christian, a Romanian dude who wore his enthusiasm for Samurai Champioo on his jacket emblazoned with samurai swords, and the wall scrolls on his dorm wall hinted that he was into Cowboy Bebop too. He brought along his brother who was visiting from Romania with us, and after a crowd of dorm buddies each person tagged along with amassed, we caught a bus to the State Library of Queensland.

When you go to Queensland you notice that there's a lot of culture to be seen if you look hard enough, the girls in the State Library are pretty if you're into girls with glasses, and the local blokes generally don't mess with you if you don't mess with them. And then there is the gaming culture that doesn't surface too obviously outside of University dorms and the privacy of your own home unless you go to another person's house, since there are few gaming arcades in Brisbane. Sydney has a more vibrant arcade game culture. Not to say people didn't grab the chance to play arcade games at the Game On exhibition, for around fifteen bucks admission you could play as many games as your heart could desire.

You could find almost any arcade game that mattered here: Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, games that people my age only really knew from mobile phone games and the Donkey Kong mini-game in Donkey Kong 64. Yet there was life here amongst that which grew from digital animation. The graphics of these old arcade games were primitive, but they were fun. There were newer games on Xbox and PS2, and Christian was busy defending Kasumi's honour as a decent fighting game character instead of just eye candy, despite getting owned time and time again. I played an Atari game where you had to get a chicken across a road, in a sort of poor-man's Frogger. It was almost impossible to lose, even though you could only move up and down. What sort of game was this? High score madness was never my thing, the mindless moving up and down smacked too much of the late modernity I was trying to retreat from by going on this trip in the first place. It was like I had been transported into an era of Cro-Magnon gaming, with this joystick for the Atari that didn't let you move in more than two directions, but after Christian and I got bored of the chicken crossing the road game we moved onto other things, like Discs of Tron.

Discs of Tron seemed simple enough, you reflected discs into your enemy to knock them off the podium, but I discovered it was impenetrable, there was no real end to it unless you got knocked off yourself. Really I understood it was a good game, but I had not the patience to tinker with it for too long.

Most of the handhelds on display that were playable were ones I had played before at some point, apart from the Game and Watch and the PSP. I tried the Game and Watch. The only Game and Watch I had played before was Manhole, and that was impossible with the controls you had. What the heck were these things which had such dodgy controls that you couldn't even play them? The day before the exhibition expedition I had picked up Game and Watch Gallery Advance which I had started to play on my DS Lite, and I noticed the controls on the Donkey Kong Game and Watch were much more difficult to wrangle than the remastered and better lit version for Game Boy Advance played on my DS Lite. Donkey Kong was a good game, but this Game and Watch version of it was like playing Space Invaders on a toaster made of old parts. These things were iconic, even described as infamous, by the exhibition information about Nintendo. Maybe I was becoming frustrated with Game and Watch, or maybe it was frustrated with me. Tetris on the Super Game Boy offered a similarly annoying round of gaming, I consider myself a casual gamer at best, not getting too angry when I lose a game, but this Tetris game haunted me, I didn't even get past the first level. To this day I never have.

Seeing all these old consoles together in the same room made me feel ancient, each one like Ozymandias of Egypt: Look at my works, ye mighty, and despair. The Atari was a console none of my friends were around to play the first time, but each successive console after the next was a sand in the hourglass held by Father Time, and one day those sands would run out and for our lives it would be Game Over. Would I still be playing games when I'm 80? If the arthritis doesn't get me, I hope so. The Dreamcast stood lonely offering a Tennis game nobody was paying attention to. I like to give my consoles names, and this one stood nameless and alone, unloved by the passing crowd. I wanted to hug that Dreamcast to make it feel like someone cared, but it was behind glass where human touch could not meet it, save for the controller. Was it every console's fate never to feel human warmth through anything else than a controller? Game Boy and Nintendo DS handhelds could at least be held in the hand, and they feel like they're smiling at you when you play them. Maybe that's why I love the damned things, they're there for you all hours like a 7/11, and wherever you are you can rely on them. A handheld console is a thing of beauty if done right, and the Tezuka World Game Boy (with some familiar faces from the manga comics I loved so much) reminded me of the humanity machines could have, if only humans could believe a machine could have a heart. Just like Astro Boy. Every time I see a Game Boy, I like to think if it had a mouth it would grin at me.

Christian and his brother from Romania left Brendan and my brother to play Halo 3 on multiple screens, since the dorm only had a small screen for Halo gaming. For 20 minutes we searched for the other games in vain, surely there was another floor of treasures to be experienced? Where oh where was that SNES with Street Fighter II Turbo on it, that awaited as a challenge to my own flesh and blood? My brother would know what it meant to be beaten, I would ensure it. Searching all over the first floor, none of the doors went anywhere resembling another level of game consoles, only a maze of confusion and despair as we looked at every turn, before the assistant showed us the way upstairs.

When you actually got upstairs you would be greeted by a number of museum pieces of concept art for games, such as Spore and Dragon's Lair. Since I hadn't played either game I moved to the more recognizable display of Grand Theft Auto III memorabilia. I remember the moral panic over GTA III and it was about the same load of fuss you got when Eminem released his The Eminem Show album. Really the fuss was generated by media that preys on the conservative Murdoch paper readers who ruled during the Howard Years, but in my opinion GTA III reflects a virtual outlet for the savagery of man, but that's another argument I'm yet to have.

The upstairs room was filled with a mixture of recent games and classics, as well as some games most people living in Australia had never heard of, such as a famous dating sim from Japan even I'd never heard of, and a mecha simulator which was nigh impossible to play. Final Fantasy VII was a game I'd heard a lot about, but the graphics were terrible compared to what I expected, the gameplay itself was OK, I admit that, yet there was the disappointment that came with discovering one of the most popular games of all time had terrible graphics, especially when you were expecting Final Fantasy to have fully developed cutscenes like in Advent Children or even Final Fantasy IV on DS.

More disappointment came when I was beaten by my brother at Street Fighter II Turbo, at that stage I just wasn't practiced enough to own him, he wiped the floor with me and made certain comments I won't repeat about Chun Li to throw my SNAG-ish sensibilities off while playing. Really it was a massacre, I was trashed by my own brother, in public.

In all, it was a mass of games to be played when you got so tired from playing so long. I'd been playing all day and I couldn't take any more. And when the rain came outside as we left for the bus back to campus, we almost got drenched in some of the worst weather Brisbane had seen in six years. I spent as much time with the dorm buddies my brother knew as I could. Christian would be going back to Romania, and I'd never see him again, so I made the most of it. As for when we got back, the common room was already filled with people playing Mario Kart 64 again, just as I suspected. The cycle of life continued, as the term drew to a close, and soon enough I might never have seen these new faces on another day, at another time. Like Osaka from Azumanga Daioh says, "one life, one meeting".

- Jacob Martin

Screen Play readers can submit articles or ideas for consideration in Your Turn using the email address screenplayblog@gmail.com. The best blog post each month as judged by Jason Hill will win a PlayStation 3 console from Sony Computer Entertainment worth $699. The next Your Turn prize winner will be announced on November 28. Only Australian residents are eligible and the judge's decision is final.

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Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:49:47 +0000

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Clay-animated XBLA/PC title Cletus Clay has a bad name that makes sense

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:07:43 +0000

First off, I'd like to say to Cletus Clay is an awful name for a game taken out of context. But considering it's an upcoming Xbox LIVE Arcade and PC title about a gun-toting hillbilly and the game is animated entirely using clay models ... well, it makes sense.

Second, the name of the developer, Tuna Technologies just sounds disgusting. Tuna take on its own isn't bad, but something about typing out "Tuna Technologies" brings to mind sloppy-looking circuitry slathered in greasy, canned tuna fish. I'm sorry, but that's just me.

About Cletus Clay, though -- it looks pretty cool (at least the concept screen they've sent along). The gist: good ol' country boy Cletus has to save the earth from alien visitors in a side-scrolling, old-school run n' gun. The game's visuals are all based on stop-motion animation, and every object in the world was designed and modeled using similar techniques like those used to make Wallace and Grommit.

The game features cooperative play (player two takes control over Cletus' brother, Emmett) as well as a bunch of mini-games for those of you into that sort of thing. Now everyone be honest -- who immediately thought of Clayfighters when they saw this screenshot?

A preview of the 2009 Game Design Expo

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:09:32 +0000

On the 7th of February to the 8th 2009, the Vancouver Film School is hosting the third annual Game Design Expo at the Vancouver International Film Centre. Having a sold out event last year, things are being set up for another huge crowd.

All eyes and ears in the expo will be on Clint Hocking, as he runs a series of talks and panels with high-profile game designers. The event begins with Industry Speaker Day, where devs and gamers alike will benefit from the top names in gaming today, including Epic, Insomniac, Radical, and Relic. Panelists from EA, Obsidian, and Propaganda will also take the center stage later that day. Those interested can get tickets for CDN 75 for the full day.

On the 8th, VFS will open its Game Design Campus, where visitors get to test games created by students and alumni, take classes, and meet the students and faculty. They're also hosting a special Women in Games panel, which will be in-line for the Women in Games CDN 30,000 scholarship. Other scholarships will be announced in the open house as well.

And what's a Game Design Expo without devs bringing the goods? Expect to see exclusive presentations from LucasArts, Big Fish, and Vicarious Visions.

If you wanna go, then you'd better register early.