Jimquisition: Damn Fine Coffee

[Breywood]

I do like my coffee dark roasted, but it's because I can get away with using less grounds to make a good flavored coffee. I also don't drink it with milk or sugar, but I usually have something to go with it like a muffin. I find black coffee helps when I've got the flu because it seems that I can starve the virus of sugar and kick it within 4 days, if not sooner.

 

[Reyold]

All I want to know is how Overstrike became... that thing. 'Tis a sad day indeed.

I think that developers and publishers should sit down together and ask eachother: What would be fun?

What will make this game more enjoyable to play?

That's a good question to ask. Unfortunately, the publishers are more interested in making money rather than making a quality game. And that's because:

Game publishers are looking for a magic silver-bullet that will magically make massive profits as a result of no, or, at best, extremely minimal, effort on their part. Unfortunately for them, not just bullet exists.

Exactly. Quality requires effort, plain and simple. If you don't pour your heart and soul into a game, chances are good it's gonna suffer for it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I actually do prefer a dark roast...But then coat the beans in chocolate and freeze them for later.
Mmm...delicious.

Of course the biggest publishers are going to lean heavily on bias focus groups; they're all chasing that magic demographic that buys the same bloody game every bloody year without fail. Why? Because Activision's competitors are starting to fail; they're panicking and in their panic the most logical thing to do is to find out whatever is working for the guy in first, and copy it relentlessly.

By far, Activision-Blizzard is at the top of the AAA totem pole, with the most healthy revenue. Revenue that is generated almost entirely from just TWO mega cash cows. TWO.
Outside of Skylanders, I literally cannot think of another Activision title apart from CoD4.x.

What does this tell the other publishers?
"Well, if Activision-Blizzard can make megabucks on two Golden Geese, we can too!"

Failing to realize that in a creative information-based medium, DISTINCTION has more value. EA can copy CoD4.x down to the polished animations, but they cannot ever distinguish themselves by doing so, and thus, it can never hit the same marks as CoD4.x.

Same thing happened in the MMO genre. How many games blatantly copied World of Warcraft? From the stupid quest givers with glowing punctuation marks over their heads, to the toon-cel graphics to the arrangement of the interface?
You know how many of those clones knocked WoW off its perch and poached all of that sweet effortless subscription money?
NONE. NOT A SINGLE FUCKING ONE.

The AAA Publishers are lost and confused; they have known so many years of effortless success that they just don't know what to do anymore, so the suits fall back to copying whatever is most popular to the exclusion of everything else.
And because of this, I don't really care if I miss out on the majority of titles they release because chances are good that I've seen it all before.

All I want to know is how Overstrike became... that thing. 'Tis a sad day indeed.

EA happened.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

My hot drinks are always milky, with one sugar, I couldn't drink them any other way.

This episode really opened my eyes too. Publishers still actually use focus groups? They're insane. That's like holding an election but only letting 30 random people vote. What is the fucking point?

 

[uhohimdead]

anyone know the specific song used in the background as jim talks? i tried looking for it via the artist but to no avail

 

[CyberMachinist]

Failing to realize that in a creative information-based medium, DISTINCTION has more value. EA can copy CoD4.x down to the polished animations, but they cannot ever distinguish themselves by doing so, and thus, it can never hit the same marks as CoD4.x.

Same thing happened in the MMO genre. How many games blatantly copied World of Warcraft? From the stupid quest givers with glowing punctuation marks over their heads, to the toon-cel graphics to the arrangement of the interface?
You know how many of those clones knocked WoW off its perch and poached all of that sweet effortless subscription money?
NONE. NOT A SINGLE FUCKING ONE.

If there is one thing I've learned about trying to work for this industry, from what I've been observing, it's that being both a rational (as well as clever and astute) businessman and a gamer (or have good gamer knowledge) is a fundamental requirement to survive in this industry, with a chance of actually succeeding. Doesn't hurt to throw in some psychological knowledge to help your chances considerably.

Maybe that's the reason publishers are so dependent on things like focus tests, cause that's all they really know how to do, handle business, and even then they're bad at it, especially in gaming with the way they "control" the variables in their own tests.

 

[Nowhere Man]

I find it odd how gamers are stuck in the position of dealing with publishers that rely too much on focus groups while those that make the consoles don't listen to a lick of what we say at all.

 

[Zer0Saber]

I like my coffee like I like my women.

Ground up and in the freezer.

Lets hope greenlight and kickstarter can help alleviate the problem of publishers wasting tons of money on some mediocre vanilla broad appeal game, then spending tons more money telling us how awesome their mediocre vanilla broad appeal game is, then are shocked when their mediocre vanilla broad appeal game is received by us as a mediocre vanilla broad appeal game, and the reviews are ,"Meh."

 

[Atmos Duality]

If there is one thing I've learned about trying to work for this industry, from what I've been observing, it's that being both a rational (as well as clever and astute) businessman and a gamer (or have good gamer knowledge) is a fundamental requirement to survive in this industry, with a chance of actually succeeding. Doesn't hurt to throw in some psychological knowledge to help your chances considerably.

Maybe that's the reason publishers are so dependent on things like focus tests, cause that's all they really know how to do, handle business, and even then they're bad at it, especially in gaming with the way they "control" the variables in their own tests.

Maybe they are stuck in their ways; I mean, this latest console generation was the most profitable of all in gaming history; that's pretty solid reinforcement for behaviors that worked before.

Of course, things change, and they don't know what to do except blindly chase what still seems to work.

To use a (bad) analogy:
Instead of planting a variety of crops, they are instead tilling and retilling the same fields in the hopes that their bland grain will somehow stand out among all the other bland grains because one particular kind of bland grain always manages to sell well. And when their bland grain yields fail to meet their sales expectations, they try again, and again. And again.

All the while, failing to realize that they can work a particular field with a particular crop only so many times before its yields fail entirely.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

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.

Yes. Y'know what I want in a game? The same things I've liked all along. I like to talk to npcs and read flavor text and be given free reign at some point (though don't over do it and get me lost or give me 7,000 things to do - all opposite ends of the map all the time - before breakfast) characters I can relate to, laugh at, become entirely too attached to, or genuinely hate. Fantasy setting preferred over Sci-Fi. but a well done entry in the second category is better than a poorly done offering from the first. A new thing I like is: let me play a girl because I am one and that's way cool for me when I get to be one digitally too - but not if it's going to botch up the whole thing you already have going or something, if you've got a good enough vision I'll take a walk with you in my dude strut. Don't ever make me do anything with the controller other than push the buttons (and we know where the right places are for what by now, so use those - don't get fancy and reverse them for giggles on me without letting me control that setting to put it right!). I like DLC - I like content that extends my gameplay and makes the game worth another play to enjoy, more specifically. Yes, I will shell out $5 for your extra baubles and outfits and trinkets, but you better have something more than the fluff incoming to keep me putting your disc into my console so that actually happens and I don't miss all that by totally not caring anymore. Stop trying to take away my ability to make a hard save - autosave is nice and well and good, as a complement to - not a replacement for - the hard save in my book.

Most importantly - if you're going to make a game I don't like: good for you! I don't have to like every single game ever published, including yours. Sell to the people who want to buy what you wanted to make. If that's me, super! If that's some other Escapist, also super! Sometimes it will be both of us, but it doesn't and shouldn't have to be every time. Stop homogenizing the things I like into things I don't like - the average that results is me liking the things less overall and that's a bummer for me. And a bummer for the people who really love the games I hate, who are stuck with stuff I like now in their games - which they no doubt hate.

Also: Coffee is for flavoring the milk that is for delivering sugar when I drink of cup of that stuff.

 

[MB202]

It's so weird, I hear people complaining that they want oneline multiplayer for all KINDS of games, but I have to wonder, how many of them are going to use it? I never use online multiplayer, so I don't pretend that a game should have it.

So once again, Jim speaks the truth! Thank God for Jim!

 

[uncanny474]

Is it just me, or is anyone else having trouble with the video refusing to load after about 56 seconds? I have FiOS, and every other site (including other escapist videos) is working fine. It's just this video. I tried CTRL-F5ing, too, to no avail.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I don't think Overstrike would have been a much better game. It might have had better aesthetics and it was probably supposed to be lighthearted and humorous, but I don't think the core gameplay mechanics would be any different than they are in Fuse, and reviewers aren't really praising those.

But it's easier to see all the flaws when the game is so dull that every single boring thing doesn't even have a place to hide. At least in Overstrike the boring shooting could have been hidden behind some pretty stuff.

 

[I.Muir]

I remember having this particular conversation with randoms on /v/ a month ago

 

[CyberMachinist]

snip

snip

The only question now is when? When will the field that is the gaming industry stop being fertile and you won't be able to grow the same game types anymore? cause at the moment it seems like there is still some nitrates in this field.

I'm pretty sure it was entrepreneurs like bill gates and Henry ford that changed their trade businesses old mindset and made enormous profits off it, granted I'm not sure if these are good examples but you know what I'm trying to say.

This kind of thing is what happens when you let old men run the world(a little reference for you) they can't replicate the same success that their outside-thinking predecessor made so they end up doing what they think will work based on the past because they don't have the same insight as the guy who knew how it worked and how to go beyond it.

captcha; Dalek asylum? Aren't we all in an asylum in this world filled with Daleks.

 

[Zeraki]

I never heard of Overstrike before... and now I'm sad that I have. That game actually looked interesting. The game it turned into, looks like just another generic pile of 'meh'.

 

[Callate]

Most likely they didn't consult females because they were targeting a male audience. Seriously if 90% of the people who play this genre are male then getting feedback from female gamers is likely to make your product worse as it won't be as focused on your core audience.

I don't know what sort of changes you'd need to make to Call of Duty to make it as popular with girls as Angry Birds but these changes will probably be hated by the people who like Call of Duty because it will radically alter this game.

It's not a zero-sum game. You don't necessarily lose a male audience by gaining a female one. Actually, the tendency to pick a choice based on what you believe your peer group would approve makes it at least as likely that a product's designers taking a broader perspective will open up the possibility of introducing elements that one type of audience would enjoy, even if they aren't currently aware that they would enjoy those things because they're limiting their consumption to what their peer group enjoys. Thirty years ago, people were still making jokes along the lines of "We had sushi back where we came from; course, we called it 'bait', hyuk hyuk." Now you can find sushi restaurants hundreds of miles from the water because people discovered, hey, this "sushi" thing could actually be pretty tasty.

It isn't some either-or dichotomy with Angry Birds and long talks about feelings on one side and Call of Duty and grunting about trucks on the other. It's possible to make games that appeal to a wider audience without diluting or disparaging things that appeal to a "core" audience. But first, things like focus testing have to be judged with a caution and thought and not simply perceived to be hard data that plots an unquestionable course to the motherload.

"The Last of Us" is already seen as having taken a significant risk in including a female character who is vital not just to the story-line but to the game play. But having taken that risk, to fail to consider the possibility that the game could appeal to both a male and female audience would just be short-sighted, even from a strictly business-oriented point of view.

 

[Metalrocks]

true. even games that are average at least, you still can tell more or less if the developers put some effort in to it. this impression remember me gives me and im sure i will enjoy the game one way or another.
yes, RE6 is not a RE game anymore but as a shooter its actually still entertaining.

 

[Redd the Sock]

First off, I appreciate that just about every commentator on the games industry sees lack of AAA innovation as the most serious issue at hand, but this is just getting fucking repetitive. I get it. They get it. What we don't have is a solution that doesn't put their companies in immediate financial risk.

I'm honestly amazed that focus groups are still relevant int he internet age. A well place forum question can get you all the info you need and more ideas than you could implement. Proper usage comes down to the right questions: more "what you we like to see" and less "what games to you like" taking into account that some people lie, and others may have had every intention of using said feature or buying said game, but when it's a big month, sometimes you just buy Skyrim like everyone else. On our end, we need to be reasonable. Gamers want everything to be a mega epic quest with all the trimmings, but that gets expensive so it isn't a surprise they want to market to a game to the demographic they know won't ask for much. Similarly, if all we bring to the table is lists of things we don't like instead of a few new ideas, we can the "impossible to please" label and get ignored.

But then, as others have said, innovation is more a buzz word than something we truly want. There's a lot of indy games to sate the thirst for something new, but somehow that $5 is too big a risk on a new game, even though we spend more than that for burgers made of pink slime and grease.So many metrics go back to companies through achievements, trophies and digital buying systems, that they probably have a better idea of what we'll buy than we do as we claim to want something new, but play the umpteenth sequel, or the COD clone.

And just for the record, I hate coffee. I don't even really like coffee flavored things.

 

[likalaruku]

Needs at least half of cup of 1/2 & 1/2 & half a packet of Sweet'n'Low, & that's only if I'm not in the mood for one of a billion different flavored creamers. I bore with flavors quickly so I rotate them. If the coffee-to-flavor ration is imbalanced by being too sweet or too diluted, I'll dump it out & start with a fresh cup.

You could say I like my games the same way.

Am I the only one who adds cream until the coffee is the exact same color as my skin?