Jimquisition: Damn Fine Coffee

[tardcore]

Well chalk up video game development as yet another industry to move to the "human centipede" method of production. So instead of trying to bring us new and exciting types of pasta sauce they are all working on turning every game into a thin slurry of shit.

 

[Entitled]

This reminds me of something I heard about movie production, probably from movie bob but I can't remember. It was about why we have so many sequels and remakes of movies. Really it came down to being able to protect one's ass. If someone tried to make a wholy original movie and it failed then they only had themselves to blame and be blamed but if they had a bunch of numbers from similar projects then it allowed them to point at those numbers and say "You saw the same stats I did, there is every reason this should have been just as popular."

On the other hand, the reverse of this is also true, if you imagine online movie geeks as a kind of focus group, that just weren't asked by studios.

The only reason why we tend to imagine "New IP" as the pinnacle of enjoyable entertainment, is because just like with my earlier post's example of "innovation", it's one of those things that we all like to repeat in an echo-chamber as it sounds very sophisticated and intelligent.

Go to a specialized TV show or game or movie fandom, ask people what they want, and they will admit "More of our favorite thing". But ask them all in front of the Escapist forums, and they will all say "New IP", because none of them wants to admit to being That Guy who cares more about a franchise than about the Freshness of the Industry.

 

[UrinalDook]

Dark roasted coffee is just burnt, anyway. Never buy Starbuck's charcoal. Idiots say they like a dark roast when they want to sound like they know what they're talking about when they really have no idea.

Real coffee has a roast level that is unique to the bean. Some need to be darker, others need to have a lighter roast. A place that only dark roasts their coffee do so to cover up or burn off the imperfections in the beans.

Huh. That makes sense. See, I thought I preferred darker roast and was about to get all uppity with you and say some of us do genuinely prefer it without wanting to be seen as cool. Then I realised that I like Boston Tea Party's dark roast, and that Starbuck's darker stuff is indeed chuffing awful. So there we go. I've learned something new about coffee.

Also, were I ever asked this question in some sort of focus testing, I like to think I would reply truthfully and say it honestly depends what time of day it is. So there's that too.

Also, that "priest with his pants down" comment is epic.

That Overstrike video looked cool, too. Maybe the developer will make it after all a la Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon and watch how the cheesy spinoff game outsells the real one. They still won't learn anything, but maybe publishers will retard themselves to death.

Well, here's hoping. Won't be holding my breath though. Damn, I hadn't really seen much of Overstrike until looking it up after this video. Looked ace. Fuckin' EA.

OT: Jim, please don't take this the wrong way, but if you've figured this out, why the fuck haven't the developers? I mean, you spelling it out there makes it seem like the simplest fucking thing: the best games are the ones made by the developers who give a shit about following their vision. Just like every other sodding piece of art or craftsmanship. I just wish it were possible for developers to make games with expensive engines and decent voice talent without the big motivator being to make that investment back.

 

[Falseprophet]

Dark roasted coffee is just burnt, anyway. Never buy Starbuck's charcoal. Idiots say they like a dark roast when they want to sound like they know what they're talking about when they really have no idea.

Preach on. I can't stand Starbucks mudwater. I prefer light roasts anyway, they generally have more caffeine. Actually, I can tolerate Starbucks' new blonde roast for this reason, if I must go there. But I trained myself to drink coffee black--I don't need the extra calories from milk and sugar. It took gradual steps over a couple years to go from two cream and two sugar to black, but I don't look back.

 

[Arslan Aladeen]

To be fair in regards to "Remember Me," the publishers probably just saw it as a mediocre game and didn't want to bother.

Then why did they explicitly state that the problem is that there is a female protagonist?

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/20/publishers-rejected-remember-me-because-of-female-lead/

Cause no one admits their games is not that great and they wanted to seem like they were champions in a topical cause, probably.

 

[Hitchmeister]

I like my coffee... coffee flavored. Black, no sugar, coffee flavored.

But, on the other hand, don't give me cover and co-op in video games. I want "innovation" despite the fact that it can be statistically proven that 9 times out of 10 anything "innovative" in a video game is going to suck. Sorry, devs and publishers. If you want to please me, you're going to have to fail a lot.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Damn Fine Coffee

How do you like your coffee? Blacker than midnight on a moonless night? Or is that just what you want people to think?

Watch Video

Didn't you talk about a similar point in your "creepy cull of female protagonists" video in which you reference Malcolm Gladwell and stated what people believe they want and what they buy actually contradicts each other?

Yes. This video is a sequel of sorts to that one and the pasta episode.

Shame on you Jim! Sacrificing your heart and your creativity in the name of pumping out calculated sequels to episodes you've already done, just because you know they were popular. For shaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmeee!

[sub]Love you really. [/sub]

 

[MisterColeman]

Gamers are getting older and are increasing in wealth and net worth. Why are they focus testing poor college students still? Do they not know what their demographic is? You start off by designing a game most of us will buy because it sounds innovative, not the same old crap we've played 20 times, and then you let focus testers that aren't even us turn it into that repetitive nonsense!?

Even after Jim's video I do not understand why. Why do they do this? That needs to be a video. I do not understand. Doing the same junk over and over again and expecting to sell like call of duty? Have we not told you the definition of insanity?

Lets abuse the coffee analogy. I drink dark, and I also drink coffee I've basically turned into ice cream. Starbucks abuses this by periodically coming up with new ridiculous ways to sell me dessert disguised as coffee.

Call of Duty is our preferred dark coffee. We are not going to buy any other brand of it. We keep bringing it up because it is popular to do so.

You need to come up with the drink of the month. You need to repackage coffee with some personality. You need to make what we actually want. It's so stupidly simple that I fear it is going to remain a rare occurrence.

 

[Wyvern65]

Nice video, as per usual. One very related issue you may want to think about or address in a future video is something I've seen little critique or discussion of.

Telemetry.

Game devs seem to be relying more and more on it, and it's pernicious for several reasons. Say what you will about market research and focus groups, the problems with them are known.

Bioware trotting out its stats on people who played ME3 is emblematic of the issue.

It encourages "always online" policies because it saves EA from having to pay a ton for market research (because why bother when you can just datamine your consumer and record every decision someone makes in a game?)

It lessens the possibility of new IP being developed because all telemetry tells you is what someone /did/ like, not what they /will/ like. (Your pasta sauce analogy.)

The largest danger is that it's a ton of data (which investors and risk averse CEOs love) with no context. It doesn't tell you why players did what they did - just that they did something.

Anyway, thank God for you, you sexy madman.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I don't even like coffee.
Anyway it's a sad day when the madman is talking more sense than anyone in the industry.

 

[SecretAlienMan]

Some people don't like coffee; I drink hot chocolate instead. Starbucks knows this, and that's why they sell it. If Starbucks only sold lattes and completely suspended the selling of their food and other beverages, then I'm pretty sure their profits will fall significantly. This same example can be applied to video games: If first person shooters are the only type of games a publisher will make, then they are not going to be able to realize their full profit potential.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

I think, in a certain sense, the online community circlejerk also has it's own social desirability demands.

What do *you* want from games? "Innovation" seems to be a popular demand, that makes us all sound refined and knowledgeable, but it's one of those cases where the word ounds good on paper, but in practice, most of us would rather play a comfortably familiar genre with nicely fine-tuned mechanics, and slightly curious setting, than something with no familiarity at all.

Yeah. You make a good point. Also reminds me of the "Innovation for innovation's sake" episode. Changing or adding things without thought on if it is really needed, or how it will affect the whole game's experience.

I'm glade we're seeing more "fun" looking games now. Things like that borderlands 2 Tiny Tina Assault on Dragon Keep DLC, and the Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon DLC. Those things were made just cause the devs wanted to have fun making something. From what I hear it's working so far. Hope we get more stuff like that in the future.

Priest with his pants down?

Ouch. Wasn't expecting that analogy.

HA! What are you talking about? This is Jim. He can compare anything to pedophiles.

 

[Voltano]

In defense to focus groups (Which Jim did well at the end), I think they can be useful as a way to listen to the community. Being creative all the time is hard, but what fills creativity is inspiration and/or ideas. Getting ideas from a focus group could lead to a potentially great game, or take a familiar genre of games and add a unique spin on it to make it unique.

But it sounds like publishers are only allowing a niche audience of gamers that are the "Call of Duty" fans into the group, rather than a diverse group of females, "Dark Souls" fans, and middle-aged gamers for testing. Plus it sounds like the output from these focus groups is used as a base-line for a game, not as a way to get feedback from the community. Of course these games are going to be bland and repetitive to "Call of Duty", because you are just making a mediocre "Call of Duty" game to meet the "Call of Duty" fan boys expectations.

Although the discussion on how a person's opinion is influenced by the group is interesting, and unfortunately does lead to poor results. Are these focus groups meant to give their answers as a group or individually?

 

[Imp_Emissary]

I don't even like coffee.
Anyway it's a sad day when the madman is talking more sense than anyone in the industry.

I don't like it either. Never drink it.

Also, there is a joy in being mad that only madmen know about.
Give it a try everyone! Ya might like it.

Thank God for Jim.

 

[Strain42]

Okay, I'd never even heard of Overstrike before, and I usually don't even like shooters of the 1st or 3rd person variety but...Holy Crap, I would have played that. It was an interesting style you don't see very often, it had the goo balls weapon from The Incredibles.

I would have played the hell out of that.

But now it's...Fuse? ...That?

...I'll pass. Thanks Jim.

 

[Mr. Q]

First off, in regards to EA's latest clusterfuck that turned Over Strike into Fuse, I'd like to offer the following statement...


Second, I've only had french vanilla from the college coffee machine only when I needed to keep warm during the winter months and that was on rare occasions. If I need a caffeine fix, I'll stick with soda. no energy drinks or that 5 Hour crack substitute for me, thank you very much.

Third, FUCK the majority that focus groups aim for. If there was any group of people that need to be shunned for life, its the over-indulged, selfish, sexist, fratboy douche-bags whose only useful purpose I could think of is being used as human meat shields in the next war this country gets dragged into. No guns, no body armor, just give them a clean pair of underwear and paint giant bullseyes on their chest and face.

Just as Jim (perhaps the few sane madmen in this insane world we live in) stated at the end, focus groups are a tool that can be used properly or abused by the worst individuals in society. For those that use this tool wisely, thank you for practicing common sense and best of luck to you.

To the worthless fuckwits that abuse focus groups, please take the following example to heart...

 

[kmg90]

I've played every game Insomniac has developed since the PS1-era, if one thing I noticed while playing FUSE over the past week it's the total absence of feeling/looking like this was made by Insomniac...

The dialog and story is generic as a generic third person shooter can get, complete with terrible attempts to be humorous. Another thing I noticed is the lackluster arsenal of (unique) weapons (one of Insomniac's wheelhouses)

FUSE to me is now the poster child of making a creative studio develop generic, homogeneous games that is restrained by narrow-minded focus groups...

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Social desirability bias? It doesn't happen to me. I prefer to say what I really mean. More people should try it. I think it's more respectful to tell the truth than to simply say what you think people want to hear.

 

[Terramax]

It's strange, I much prefer games with female protagonists, either because they characters are more interesting, or because I love to look at a good piece of ass...... yeah, I'm a guy, get over it.

It always surprises me that I'm supposedly the minority that prefer female protagonists.

Anyways, I agree with Jim Sterling. I remember some people here giving me slack because I said it wasn't worth paying full retail for an online version the 10+ year-old Darkstalkers game (including The Escapist reviewer), and yet, so many people won't even likely play that game online all the time. Because there are so many other fighting games, everyone has their favs, and they return to them soon after.

 

[Legion]

I like mine black with no sugar. Beyond that I don't have a clue.

One thing I think is worth mentioning when it comes to games with "tacked on" multiplayer is that 9/10 the multiplayer is supported terribly. It's not just that people claim to want it when they don't, it's that when they hear people want it, they don't seem to grasp that simply having multiplayer isn't going to miraculously make the game good. The multiplayer itself needs to be worth actually playing.

A lot of smaller games that include it (for example re-makes or games that in the olden days would have been played split-screen or in the case of fighting games, just on the same TV) tend to have terrible connection problems, or many other technical faults because they haven't put in the effort to make it work properly.

Even games such as Assassins Creed failed to get it right. Finding a working game without either getting kicked out for no reason, or being split up from your party without any warning was a rarity in almost all of the games that featured it.

Or larger games often tend to get incredibly uninspired versions that are literally a copy and paste of what countless other games have already done. The difference is that those games have already mastered it, so why would they want an inferior clone?

People can complain about Halo and COD as much as they like, but nobody can honestly deny that they don't put a hell of a lot of effort into making their multiplayer work. Both on the technical side and the game side as well.

Speaking of focus testing, it was this kind of attitude that irritated me with Gears of War 3. The previous games were primarily focused on single life game-modes so tactics, positioning and skill played an important role. They then decided to make a standard death match their primary game-mode, which basically turned into any other reflex shooter.