This project looks like it's WAY more than a mere tower defense game... Those pixel animations remind me of the over-the-top attention to detail for the pixel animations of the GBA era... It would be perfect for a Nintendo console...
These people have deviated SO far away from the current norm in the Chinese gaming industry, and they are staying true to the ethics of DRM-free; looks like it's time to back another project!
If we all remember Nintendo's history of stock management, this tactic dates back to the 80's. Only produce just enough stock to ensure they all sell out, then produce more if/when there is demand and clamoring for more. It's a classic tactic to prevent cases of overabundance, there is nothing to apologize for.
...EXCEPT FOR THAT BLACK 3DS XL I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR NOT BEING RELEASED IN USA.
@Doma In this case, I'd agree, because honestly, what are the Tales developers going to do with the Wii U's capabilities anyways? Put the status screen and battle commands on the touch screen? That would be nice, but that alone is not all the GamePad can do, so allowing them to concentrate on their traditional design methods better fits into the Playstation environment.
PS3 is still selling quite well in Japan. Tales of Xillia has been reviewed as perhaps the best Tales game to come out since the Symphonia/Abyss days, so I can imagine there's some value in keeping the Tales series exclusive, if Sony can help it.
@Schprocket Exactly, not many people realize that developers go through a lot of crap working solely for publishers, when their projects are entirely publisher funded; so receiving outside funding from avenues such as Kickstarter can potentially provide a positive influence on their work.
The Unity engine, and Nintendo's promise of giving greater support to indies, lends a natural pathway towards avenues of funding such as Kickstarter. Instead of Nintendo needing to do all of the evaluating and "selling the concepts", the fanbase/backers can do that instead. This allows Nintendo to focus more on reviewing the design documents, and the straight marketing and promotion of those games.
They all delivered, no scams or screw ups. The documentary is still on-going. That person you mentioned must constantly be looking in all the wrong places, possibly on purpose, to weed out the negative sides of Kickstarter... That does not represent all of the good things people have done through Kickstarter support, though.
If by awakened they mean "became more organic", sure... maybe that's sort of the point- overcoming and surviving a tumultuous personal past part of life...
PC blows neXtBox and PS4 out of the water on all counts, be it technical or economic, not to mention the user chooses if they want to go with a DRM free vendor! Not going to bother with signing up for a P.S. Box... at least Nintendo is trying to... think outside the box!
LOL @ Pachter honestly believing there is any possible chance for the neXtBox or PS4 to sell at or below Wii U price point! He even went as far as to suggest a $200 price for Wii U!
Maybe the reason he's an "Xbox fanboi 4 lyf" is because... he thinks inside the box? He described the conditions of 5 and 10 years ago as if they still applied today... marvelously short-sighted! Not to mention addressing trends using afteryears sales figures, instead of appropriately matching units sold to time passed, proportional to past systems...! Pachter once again becomes delicious interweb fodder for the masses!
@Kirk All of those issues you mentioned can be fixed with a good PC. They're not as tough to set up these days as even just 5 years ago, and their price-to-performance ratio for games is substantially better now than back then. There's no reason not to go PC over Xbox or PS, unless you're a hardcore fan, or play with friends who all own their own P.S. Box, or harbor an unsettling addiction to post offices...
It doesn't matter if Nintendo's systems are underpowered or missing analog triggers, what matters is their identity- how they differentiate themselves from their competitors.
@LordJumpMad Nah, PC for life here. PC blows neXtBox and PS4 out of the water on all counts, be it technical or economic, not to mention the user chooses if they want to go with a DRM free vendor! Not going to bother with signing up for a P.S. Box... at least Nintendo is trying to... think outside the box!
@DESS-M-8 Unfortunately, Sega Saturn programming architecture is extremely tough to emulate, so it will probably remain as one of the few systems with almost no classic support.
They did it for Monster World IV, didn't they!? Almost unknown Sega CD titles like Lunar series, The Snatcher, Popful Mail, and Dark Wizard would also be great!
Well... among these choices, I'd go with Rainbow Island, since it is a spiritual successor to Bubble Bobble 1&2.
There's an interesting comment which they posted today...
"We haven't gotten permission yet to give out backer copies of the game for anything aside from Steam and Wii U. {It doesn't seem likely that we will get that permission}, but we're definitely working on it!"
So, they're trying to expand the Kickstarter backer choices...
@ACK You're right- the issue of consumer confidence is something which the public relations and service departments throughout the computer game industry have had decades to refine, whereas there is no such network available to Kickstarter start-ups. So, that is at least one issue where publishers have a significant safety net, while Kickstarter ends up being more of a leap of faith based on whatever information is available to the viewer.
The equity crowdfunding option, which could potentially offer an unprecedented amount of mandatory transparency, is still being reviewed for the legal particulars throughout Europe and the USA. In another 5 years, investor networks might be able to provide a closer look into the inner workings of ongoing developer processes... If there is public approval of such a process in the future, then governmental organizations might be more willing to provide their own competitive options.
It would be nice if the managers of these projects chose to give the public a concise chart to show the costs of everything... I've only seen that done for community projects like farmer's markets, not for any game projects.
@ACK Transparency is a moot point, there is NO system of transparency existing right now in game development.
Publishers are just as likely to try "snake-oil" tactics, by people who try to abuse the available capital through poorly planned organization; remember how the Rhode Island government funded the Kingdoms of Amalur company's capital investors, based on ridiculous claims of profitability, just because one of the managers was a famous baseball player? We all remember how that turned out for them...
There's no problem with wanting to know what's going on behind the scenes, but only equity crowdfunding investment offers investors any working level of that- and that's not even legal in most places in the world right now, due to all the legal minefields! The whole transparency issue for game development in general is also a legal minefield.
The whole point of Kickstarter is that faith in the private investment model is breaking apart at the seams, from many developers' standpoints. They couldn't stand how traditional publishers work, so they turned to a public funding model. This is not true of all who turn to Kickstarter, just some of them.
I agree with Progniss on this one, or at least as far as the issue of the point of Kickstarter is concerned. Kickstarter is not an investment platform. Backers are not investors, they are donors, community members, and advocates. Kickstarter is not a pre-order site. Kickstarter projects are not to be held to the same standards of accountability as traditional game development. Don't forget that traditional published games also run into unreasonable delays and major troubles, so Kickstarter projects are no more prone to these issues.
Personally, I have backed 16 game projects on Kickstarter. Five of them were not successfully funded; of those, four were educational titles. The only finished one is Faster Than Light. All of the successful projects have been communicating steadily, so they're all coming along nicely. None of them have, thus far, engaged in the same tactics as the companies mentioned in the article. I keep missing all of these projects which people are so skeptical of.
In particular, the teams behind titles such as Wasteland 2 and Project Eternity...these Kickstarter project teams have specifically stated within their respective propositions that one of the main reasons they joined Kickstarter was to avoid the private investment model, if possible... especially that of publishers. It's safe to say many other project teams joined Kickstarter for the same reason: to develop a thriving public investment model.
Some of these titles would have NEVER existed without a venue such as Kickstarter. The people who are jumping ship back into the laps of publishers are not necessarily wrong, however, it's leadership states:
"Kickstarter's CEO said last year the company had no plans to pursue equity crowdfunding. He believes Kickstarter has been disruptive mainly because of the removal of that investment component — basically that monetary investment taints the system."
@Doma There's an even better game variety on PC than either Xbox or PS3, so... that's a moot point... At least PS3 has some good exclusives, but the Xbox truly is worthless for exclusives... The Wii is the best of the three for exclusives, though, so Nintendo/PC is the way to go.
I would have understood Mr. Capps' sentiments at the time, if he had been talking about all consoles in general, because consoles do hold back many PC versions of titles from attaining their technical and economic potentials. PC is also infinitely more useful than console...
Yet instead, he criticized specific consoles, simply because he was under the payroll of Microsoft. He should have known better than to play favorites in this industry... It's a rule of thumb in the computer game industry that there aren't a lot of game companies who keep the same teams on for very long; Mr. Capps must have been well aware of this. Not to mention Japanese companies tend to be the only exceptions to that rule, so he really should not have spoken in jest about this sort of thing, as a professional.
Mr. Bleszinski can say anything he wants now, in hindsight, but everyone's situation is different. The real "virus" in terms of negative context across the industry now is the notion of "useless DLC", which is becoming increasingly common for the Xbox and Playstation consoles, while Nintendo keeps it to a minimum.
@Magikarp Grimer and Muk symbolized abominations of nature, pollution from factories, including oil spills, toxic waste, and deadly chemical solutions; all of which are dumped by chemical corporations and companies wantonly into fragile ecosystems, with reckless abandon, whenever they can do so- just to save money.
Garbador, on the other hand, is merely what it looks like- a bunch of trash. It could be said that it represents the enormous dumps in the Pacific Ocean, but it's not presented in an appropriate location, like Grimer and Muk were in the abandoned Cinnabar research facility.
Pokemon 1st gen had a hidden, yet strong environmentalist message!
@ramstrong Chris Crawford disbanded from making computer games as we know them back in 1992; he's been working on a mysterious medium called "interactive storytelling" ever since...
@Bucbanzai Argo is currently being blasted for it's "Iranophobic" features. Even the government of New Zealand denounced the film as misleading, a misrepresentation of true events. Frankly, the computer game industry doesn't need that right now...
Spector probably should not have mentioned Argo as being a beacon of "social conscience and a seriousness of intent"... some film topics are best left to documentaries, lest they be defiled by action movie tropes... It doesn't matter if it would make a good action movie, if it's disrespectfully ignoring the culture and history of the story's setting.
@Koto Farming, at least, is an action. Everybody can agree farming for your own family, no overlords, with your own two hands and feet can be a good thing.
@SteveW Yeah, Breath of Fire 2 is really passive aggressive about it... It emphasizes embracing Nature and "Infinity"... Meaning something along the lines of Buddhism.
As for the Violence and Sexuality issue... the reason why violence is A-OK, yet sexuality is taboo, for most computer games, is because much of the industry is influenced by the puritan principles of American culture. We often idolize war heroes who cut deep into their foes, yet give no quarter to honest journalists who cut deep into important issues.
There are plenty of games released in Japan, dating back to things like Shin Megami Tensei for the SNES, which address this issue of "sinful imagery", while still being fantastical enough to not be inflammatory. Mara of SMT2 is a perfect example of this. It was a personification of evil impulses, and was something to be reviled.
For Spector's points, I would say his first and fifth points are the most prominent and true.
The earliest game I've ever played regarding his first point is Breath of Fire 2. That game challenged religion (especially those based around Abraham), faith without investigation (following religious scripture, just because they're said to be "The Word of God"), and aversion to positive change (despite a wealth of available evidence). It's a wonder that game ever got released here in the USA... it was a Firestorm of criticism towards the history of the Abrahamic religions.
There's plenty of games which challenge the status quo, one just needs to know where to look...
Nintendo will announce that every time you open up your 3DS, a picture of yourself is sent to Nintendo HQ, then sent to Facebook, to upload crazy photos of you without you knowing it. >8D
LOL @ PSP selling phenomenally better than Xbox 360 in Japan xD Those people have good taste!
And of course, all the good PSP & Vita stuff stays in Japan... it really is like a different world...
Both Western and Eastern design in many computer games have been in a constant state of simultaneous enlightenment and decline for a long time now; it's only because the industry is maturing that we now view computer game works with a greater level of objectivity and relativity than 10 or 20 years ago.
Both sides have more than their fair share of stagnation of innovation. Western creativity in big budget computer games is no less stagnant than that of Easterners. That's the whole point of the independent studio movement. A game like "Little Inferno" would never be possible to make in a big budget corporate studio.
I would also say that most people are biased towards Western or Eastern style titles; few people are truly unbiased. The fascination with Western style titles is because more people living within industrialized nations happen to be biased towards them, rather than their Eastern counterparts. Who knows how much the situation would change if there were more involvement from unindustrialized nations?
These keynotes and conversations of Inafune coincide with his disillusionment of corporate and private accountability to treat their workers well; in addition to their general failure in recent years to encourage creativity. He is just fed up with the big business situations; the Mega Man Legends 3 fiasco, and even past excursions such as Mega Man X6, were perfect examples of big business getting in the way of Inafune's vision.
He probably desires something along the lines of a Kickstarter project. We're possibly going to be seeing some unprecedented stuff coming from those publicly funded avenues over the next couple years.
@DerpSandwich If anything, Yamauchi was a business genius. He made some interesting decisions, especially leading up to the NES, which no one else at Nintendo agreed with him would work well- yet they did. He had an uncanny business knack for what things would sell. However, he was also a ruthless and unforgiving leader...
He has the biggest share because he inherited Nintendo from his relatives, back when it was still a card company...
@Nintenjoe64 The previous President of Nintendo of America, Minoru Arakawa, is the one who married Yamauchi's daughter.
Also, very few Japanese celebrate Easter; most of them are not religious theists in the Western or Middle Eastern sense, though many identify with a mix of Shintoism and Buddhism...
@Frapp The traditional Japanese diet is far healthier than most diets of the modern day Westerner. Even with all the stress and anger he has demonstrated throughout his lifetime, due to his high pressure business history, Yamauchi still yet appears to be in his 70s of age, yet he is about 85 years old to date.
Comments 469
Re: Bravely Default: Flying Fairy is Confirmed for the West
Akihiko Yoshida, huh... this should be good!
Re: C-Wars Could Make It To Wii U And 3DS Should It Surpass Kickstarter Goal
This project looks like it's WAY more than a mere tower defense game... Those pixel animations remind me of the over-the-top attention to detail for the pixel animations of the GBA era... It would be perfect for a Nintendo console...
These people have deviated SO far away from the current norm in the Chinese gaming industry, and they are staying true to the ethics of DRM-free; looks like it's time to back another project!
Re: Talking Point: The Terrible Timing of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate's Stock Issues
If we all remember Nintendo's history of stock management, this tactic dates back to the 80's. Only produce just enough stock to ensure they all sell out, then produce more if/when there is demand and clamoring for more. It's a classic tactic to prevent cases of overabundance, there is nothing to apologize for.
...EXCEPT FOR THAT BLACK 3DS XL I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR NOT BEING RELEASED IN USA.
Re: Tales Producer Says The Series Could Eventually Make It To Wii U
@Doma In this case, I'd agree, because honestly, what are the Tales developers going to do with the Wii U's capabilities anyways? Put the status screen and battle commands on the touch screen? That would be nice, but that alone is not all the GamePad can do, so allowing them to concentrate on their traditional design methods better fits into the Playstation environment.
Re: Tales Producer Says The Series Could Eventually Make It To Wii U
PS3 is still selling quite well in Japan. Tales of Xillia has been reviewed as perhaps the best Tales game to come out since the Symphonia/Abyss days, so I can imagine there's some value in keeping the Tales series exclusive, if Sony can help it.
Re: Talking Point: The Blurring Lines of Kickstarter Fundraising Goals
@Schprocket Exactly, not many people realize that developers go through a lot of crap working solely for publishers, when their projects are entirely publisher funded; so receiving outside funding from avenues such as Kickstarter can potentially provide a positive influence on their work.
The Unity engine, and Nintendo's promise of giving greater support to indies, lends a natural pathway towards avenues of funding such as Kickstarter. Instead of Nintendo needing to do all of the evaluating and "selling the concepts", the fanbase/backers can do that instead. This allows Nintendo to focus more on reviewing the design documents, and the straight marketing and promotion of those games.
Re: Talking Point: The Blurring Lines of Kickstarter Fundraising Goals
@FOURSIDE_BOY I don't know what projects he's talking about, because I've participated in things like this:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/208904568/power-to-the-freight-shed-building-a-winter-farmer
and this:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/855802805/lowline-an-underground-park-on-nycs-lower-east-sid
and this:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/144457690/reverse-design-chrono-trigger
and this:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cicLAvia/ciclavia-2012
and even THIS, a nuclear energy documentary in Fukushima:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/703712189/cpm-703
They all delivered, no scams or screw ups. The documentary is still on-going. That person you mentioned must constantly be looking in all the wrong places, possibly on purpose, to weed out the negative sides of Kickstarter... That does not represent all of the good things people have done through Kickstarter support, though.
Re: Buddy & Me Wii U eShop Version Added As Kickstarter Stretch Goal
Reminds me of the Rayman series... using Nature as the muse, while giving an ethereal identity to the characters...
I like the theme, but I'm not fond of on-rails games. (With a few exceptions, like Star Fox.)
Re: CoroCoro Confirms New Mewtwo Form
If by awakened they mean "became more organic", sure... maybe that's sort of the point- overcoming and surviving a tumultuous personal past part of life...
Re: Interview: Michael Pachter On Wii U, 3DS And The Challenges Facing Nintendo This Generation
@tripunktoj Those articles make Pachter look like a cheat and a rogue. Using a host of verifiable links and facts, no less...
Re: Interview: Michael Pachter On Wii U, 3DS And The Challenges Facing Nintendo This Generation
@shinobi88 I see what you did there! Very good, very good. Green is good!
Re: Interview: Michael Pachter On Wii U, 3DS And The Challenges Facing Nintendo This Generation
PC blows neXtBox and PS4 out of the water on all counts, be it technical or economic, not to mention the user chooses if they want to go with a DRM free vendor! Not going to bother with signing up for a P.S. Box... at least Nintendo is trying to... think outside the box!
Re: Interview: Michael Pachter On Wii U, 3DS And The Challenges Facing Nintendo This Generation
LOL @ Pachter honestly believing there is any possible chance for the neXtBox or PS4 to sell at or below Wii U price point! He even went as far as to suggest a $200 price for Wii U!
Maybe the reason he's an "Xbox fanboi 4 lyf" is because... he thinks inside the box? He described the conditions of 5 and 10 years ago as if they still applied today... marvelously short-sighted! Not to mention addressing trends using afteryears sales figures, instead of appropriately matching units sold to time passed, proportional to past systems...! Pachter once again becomes delicious interweb fodder for the masses!
Re: Talking Point: The Next-Gen Console War is Wii U's to Lose
@Kirk All of those issues you mentioned can be fixed with a good PC. They're not as tough to set up these days as even just 5 years ago, and their price-to-performance ratio for games is substantially better now than back then. There's no reason not to go PC over Xbox or PS, unless you're a hardcore fan, or play with friends who all own their own P.S. Box, or harbor an unsettling addiction to post offices...
It doesn't matter if Nintendo's systems are underpowered or missing analog triggers, what matters is their identity- how they differentiate themselves from their competitors.
Re: Talking Point: The Next-Gen Console War is Wii U's to Lose
@Kroisos Or, much of the colloquial side of the English language just promotes bad grammar...
@cornishlee Yes, it is a USAism to promote terrible grammar throughout the speech patterns of our impressionable youth.
Re: Talking Point: The Next-Gen Console War is Wii U's to Lose
@LordJumpMad Nah, PC for life here. PC blows neXtBox and PS4 out of the water on all counts, be it technical or economic, not to mention the user chooses if they want to go with a DRM free vendor! Not going to bother with signing up for a P.S. Box... at least Nintendo is trying to... think outside the box!
Re: Feature: Ten SEGA Mega Drive / Genesis Games We Want on the Wii U Virtual Console
@DESS-M-8 Unfortunately, Sega Saturn programming architecture is extremely tough to emulate, so it will probably remain as one of the few systems with almost no classic support.
Re: Feature: Ten SEGA Mega Drive / Genesis Games We Want on the Wii U Virtual Console
Langrisser series, with translations O_O
They did it for Monster World IV, didn't they!? Almost unknown Sega CD titles like Lunar series, The Snatcher, Popful Mail, and Dark Wizard would also be great!
Well... among these choices, I'd go with Rainbow Island, since it is a spiritual successor to Bubble Bobble 1&2.
Re: Talking Point: The Blurring Lines of Kickstarter Fundraising Goals
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1564776348/the-hardest-platformer-ever/comments
There's an interesting comment which they posted today...
"We haven't gotten permission yet to give out backer copies of the game for anything aside from Steam and Wii U. {It doesn't seem likely that we will get that permission}, but we're definitely working on it!"
So, they're trying to expand the Kickstarter backer choices...
Re: Talking Point: The Blurring Lines of Kickstarter Fundraising Goals
@ACK You're right- the issue of consumer confidence is something which the public relations and service departments throughout the computer game industry have had decades to refine, whereas there is no such network available to Kickstarter start-ups. So, that is at least one issue where publishers have a significant safety net, while Kickstarter ends up being more of a leap of faith based on whatever information is available to the viewer.
The equity crowdfunding option, which could potentially offer an unprecedented amount of mandatory transparency, is still being reviewed for the legal particulars throughout Europe and the USA. In another 5 years, investor networks might be able to provide a closer look into the inner workings of ongoing developer processes... If there is public approval of such a process in the future, then governmental organizations might be more willing to provide their own competitive options.
It would be nice if the managers of these projects chose to give the public a concise chart to show the costs of everything... I've only seen that done for community projects like farmer's markets, not for any game projects.
Re: Talking Point: The Blurring Lines of Kickstarter Fundraising Goals
@ThomasBW84 Thank you for going the extra mile for us!
Re: Talking Point: The Blurring Lines of Kickstarter Fundraising Goals
@ACK You're right to be wary of abuse and fraud- I've already seen at least one game project on Kickstarter which had a more than shady manager...
Re: Talking Point: The Blurring Lines of Kickstarter Fundraising Goals
@ACK Transparency is a moot point, there is NO system of transparency existing right now in game development.
Publishers are just as likely to try "snake-oil" tactics, by people who try to abuse the available capital through poorly planned organization; remember how the Rhode Island government funded the Kingdoms of Amalur company's capital investors, based on ridiculous claims of profitability, just because one of the managers was a famous baseball player? We all remember how that turned out for them...
There's no problem with wanting to know what's going on behind the scenes, but only equity crowdfunding investment offers investors any working level of that- and that's not even legal in most places in the world right now, due to all the legal minefields! The whole transparency issue for game development in general is also a legal minefield.
The whole point of Kickstarter is that faith in the private investment model is breaking apart at the seams, from many developers' standpoints. They couldn't stand how traditional publishers work, so they turned to a public funding model. This is not true of all who turn to Kickstarter, just some of them.
Re: Talking Point: The Blurring Lines of Kickstarter Fundraising Goals
I agree with Progniss on this one, or at least as far as the issue of the point of Kickstarter is concerned. Kickstarter is not an investment platform. Backers are not investors, they are donors, community members, and advocates. Kickstarter is not a pre-order site. Kickstarter projects are not to be held to the same standards of accountability as traditional game development. Don't forget that traditional published games also run into unreasonable delays and major troubles, so Kickstarter projects are no more prone to these issues.
http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter+basics
Personally, I have backed 16 game projects on Kickstarter. Five of them were not successfully funded; of those, four were educational titles. The only finished one is Faster Than Light. All of the successful projects have been communicating steadily, so they're all coming along nicely. None of them have, thus far, engaged in the same tactics as the companies mentioned in the article. I keep missing all of these projects which people are so skeptical of.
In particular, the teams behind titles such as Wasteland 2 and Project Eternity...these Kickstarter project teams have specifically stated within their respective propositions that one of the main reasons they joined Kickstarter was to avoid the private investment model, if possible... especially that of publishers. It's safe to say many other project teams joined Kickstarter for the same reason: to develop a thriving public investment model.
Some of these titles would have NEVER existed without a venue such as Kickstarter. The people who are jumping ship back into the laps of publishers are not necessarily wrong, however, it's leadership states:
"Kickstarter's CEO said last year the company had no plans to pursue equity crowdfunding. He believes Kickstarter has been disruptive mainly because of the removal of that investment component — basically that monetary investment taints the system."
Re: Cliff Bleszinski Likens The Wii To A "Virus"
@Doma There's an even better game variety on PC than either Xbox or PS3, so... that's a moot point... At least PS3 has some good exclusives, but the Xbox truly is worthless for exclusives... The Wii is the best of the three for exclusives, though, so Nintendo/PC is the way to go.
Re: Cliff Bleszinski Likens The Wii To A "Virus"
I would have understood Mr. Capps' sentiments at the time, if he had been talking about all consoles in general, because consoles do hold back many PC versions of titles from attaining their technical and economic potentials. PC is also infinitely more useful than console...
Yet instead, he criticized specific consoles, simply because he was under the payroll of Microsoft. He should have known better than to play favorites in this industry... It's a rule of thumb in the computer game industry that there aren't a lot of game companies who keep the same teams on for very long; Mr. Capps must have been well aware of this. Not to mention Japanese companies tend to be the only exceptions to that rule, so he really should not have spoken in jest about this sort of thing, as a professional.
Mr. Bleszinski can say anything he wants now, in hindsight, but everyone's situation is different. The real "virus" in terms of negative context across the industry now is the notion of "useless DLC", which is becoming increasingly common for the Xbox and Playstation consoles, while Nintendo keeps it to a minimum.
Re: New Mewtwo Form Revealed For Pokémon X & Y
@Magikarp Grimer and Muk symbolized abominations of nature, pollution from factories, including oil spills, toxic waste, and deadly chemical solutions; all of which are dumped by chemical corporations and companies wantonly into fragile ecosystems, with reckless abandon, whenever they can do so- just to save money.
Garbador, on the other hand, is merely what it looks like- a bunch of trash. It could be said that it represents the enormous dumps in the Pacific Ocean, but it's not presented in an appropriate location, like Grimer and Muk were in the abandoned Cinnabar research facility.
Pokemon 1st gen had a hidden, yet strong environmentalist message!
Re: New Mewtwo Form Revealed For Pokémon X & Y
The fabled Mewthree! O_O
It kind of reminds me of a Megaman Zero design...
Re: Talking Point: Warren Spector Asks, Where Are Gaming's Grown-Ups?
@ramstrong Chris Crawford disbanded from making computer games as we know them back in 1992; he's been working on a mysterious medium called "interactive storytelling" ever since...
Re: Talking Point: Warren Spector Asks, Where Are Gaming's Grown-Ups?
@Bucbanzai Argo is currently being blasted for it's "Iranophobic" features. Even the government of New Zealand denounced the film as misleading, a misrepresentation of true events. Frankly, the computer game industry doesn't need that right now...
Spector probably should not have mentioned Argo as being a beacon of "social conscience and a seriousness of intent"... some film topics are best left to documentaries, lest they be defiled by action movie tropes... It doesn't matter if it would make a good action movie, if it's disrespectfully ignoring the culture and history of the story's setting.
Re: Talking Point: Warren Spector Asks, Where Are Gaming's Grown-Ups?
@Koto Farming, at least, is an action. Everybody can agree farming for your own family, no overlords, with your own two hands and feet can be a good thing.
Re: Mega Man Composer Manami Matsumae Writing Two Songs For Shovel Knight
Now we know what the real Mega Man Anniversary title is!
Re: Talking Point: Warren Spector Asks, Where Are Gaming's Grown-Ups?
@SteveW Yeah, Breath of Fire 2 is really passive aggressive about it... It emphasizes embracing Nature and "Infinity"... Meaning something along the lines of Buddhism.
Re: Talking Point: Warren Spector Asks, Where Are Gaming's Grown-Ups?
As for the Violence and Sexuality issue... the reason why violence is A-OK, yet sexuality is taboo, for most computer games, is because much of the industry is influenced by the puritan principles of American culture. We often idolize war heroes who cut deep into their foes, yet give no quarter to honest journalists who cut deep into important issues.
There are plenty of games released in Japan, dating back to things like Shin Megami Tensei for the SNES, which address this issue of "sinful imagery", while still being fantastical enough to not be inflammatory. Mara of SMT2 is a perfect example of this. It was a personification of evil impulses, and was something to be reviled.
Re: Talking Point: Warren Spector Asks, Where Are Gaming's Grown-Ups?
For Spector's points, I would say his first and fifth points are the most prominent and true.
The earliest game I've ever played regarding his first point is Breath of Fire 2. That game challenged religion (especially those based around Abraham), faith without investigation (following religious scripture, just because they're said to be "The Word of God"), and aversion to positive change (despite a wealth of available evidence). It's a wonder that game ever got released here in the USA... it was a Firestorm of criticism towards the history of the Abrahamic religions.
There's plenty of games which challenge the status quo, one just needs to know where to look...
Re: Rumour: Bravely Default: Flying Fairy Is Taking Flight To The West
@Godstrike Someone's feeling... lovey-dovey!
Re: New 3DS System Update Now Available
@Metal_Sonic I use it....
Re: Weirdness: Fire Emblem Devs Answer That Burning Question: What Happened To Everyone's Feet?
@SomeBitTripFan AAAAAAGH the pun burnssssss! I am defeated!
Re: Nintendo Set To Host Mysterious 3DS Event In A Couple Of Weeks
Nintendo will announce that every time you open up your 3DS, a picture of yourself is sent to Nintendo HQ, then sent to Facebook, to upload crazy photos of you without you knowing it. >8D
Re: Etrian Odyssey IV European Release Pushed to Summer
Like Wario says: You're gonna LOVE IIIIT!
Re: Wii U Sales Double in Japanese Charts Following New Releases
LOL @ PSP selling phenomenally better than Xbox 360 in Japan xD Those people have good taste!
And of course, all the good PSP & Vita stuff stays in Japan... it really is like a different world...
Re: Former Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi Slumps To 13th In Japan's Rich List
@biglittlejake Vanity is the King of all spiritual diseases.
Re: Pandora's Tower Release Date Announced for North America
@CanisWolfred LOL I saw what you did there! SMT: Soul Hackers FTW!
Re: Pandora's Tower Release Date Announced for North America
Looking forward to it! XSEED, Atlus, and Gust are really carrying Square Enix's dead weight these days...
Re: Inafune: Japanese Developers Are "Too Proud" And "Don't Know What To Do"
Both Western and Eastern design in many computer games have been in a constant state of simultaneous enlightenment and decline for a long time now; it's only because the industry is maturing that we now view computer game works with a greater level of objectivity and relativity than 10 or 20 years ago.
Both sides have more than their fair share of stagnation of innovation. Western creativity in big budget computer games is no less stagnant than that of Easterners. That's the whole point of the independent studio movement. A game like "Little Inferno" would never be possible to make in a big budget corporate studio.
I would also say that most people are biased towards Western or Eastern style titles; few people are truly unbiased. The fascination with Western style titles is because more people living within industrialized nations happen to be biased towards them, rather than their Eastern counterparts. Who knows how much the situation would change if there were more involvement from unindustrialized nations?
Re: Inafune: Japanese Developers Are "Too Proud" And "Don't Know What To Do"
These keynotes and conversations of Inafune coincide with his disillusionment of corporate and private accountability to treat their workers well; in addition to their general failure in recent years to encourage creativity. He is just fed up with the big business situations; the Mega Man Legends 3 fiasco, and even past excursions such as Mega Man X6, were perfect examples of big business getting in the way of Inafune's vision.
He probably desires something along the lines of a Kickstarter project. We're possibly going to be seeing some unprecedented stuff coming from those publicly funded avenues over the next couple years.
Re: Former Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi Slumps To 13th In Japan's Rich List
@ajcismo @Blaze Funny thing about that... Yamauchi is a part of the "Top 1% of Wealth" which so many people blame for all the world's ails...
Re: Former Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi Slumps To 13th In Japan's Rich List
@DerpSandwich If anything, Yamauchi was a business genius. He made some interesting decisions, especially leading up to the NES, which no one else at Nintendo agreed with him would work well- yet they did. He had an uncanny business knack for what things would sell. However, he was also a ruthless and unforgiving leader...
He has the biggest share because he inherited Nintendo from his relatives, back when it was still a card company...
Re: Former Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi Slumps To 13th In Japan's Rich List
@Nintenjoe64 The previous President of Nintendo of America, Minoru Arakawa, is the one who married Yamauchi's daughter.
Also, very few Japanese celebrate Easter; most of them are not religious theists in the Western or Middle Eastern sense, though many identify with a mix of Shintoism and Buddhism...
Re: Former Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi Slumps To 13th In Japan's Rich List
@Frapp The traditional Japanese diet is far healthier than most diets of the modern day Westerner. Even with all the stress and anger he has demonstrated throughout his lifetime, due to his high pressure business history, Yamauchi still yet appears to be in his 70s of age, yet he is about 85 years old to date.