Jimquisition: Perfect Pasta Sauce
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
- Start date
Holy shit, I think this is my favorite episode of the Jimquisition.
I've got nothing else to say. I'm just awestruck. You made some seriously good points, and backed them up with evidence.
Nothing else can be said, on my part, except, "Well done, Mr. Sterling. Thank God for you."
I've got nothing else to say. I'm just awestruck. You made some seriously good points, and backed them up with evidence.
Nothing else can be said, on my part, except, "Well done, Mr. Sterling. Thank God for you."
It's okay when THEY do it.Sam Rothrock said:
The flaw here is that it the damage doesn't do anything if they don't learn from it. We have Peter Moore saying "we can do better," but that begs the question of why they haven't before now. We have multiple companies posting losses and blaming everything except their own decisions. Even JR stepping down is unlikely to change their decision making.
The tricky element here is that Jim would have to dishonestly leave out elements of the story, shaping the narrative into a lie to make his point. At that point, it's no longer a good point.piscian said:
Incidentally, I'm really missing how "doing what the game industry did ten years ago" is called "innovation" in the first place. Except that Nintendo has lowered the bar so much that I guess anything can fit. We used to have medium budget titles in gaming. Hell, we used to have budget titles, a market now covered mostly by indie games. And what you used to get out of a budget title was a lot more (usually), because we have grown to accept the scope of the indie game generally being a small one.
"Feature spam" may be the most apt name for what usually passes as "innovation" these days.
Anyway, Jim cautioned against innovation for the sake of innovation. This wouldn't even be that. It's more "innovation because we realistically can't capture the shooter spot with a number one hit, so let's try something else." And I realise I'm rambling, but screw it. I think this is sort of intertwined with your point, even if not directly the same thing.
And that's what killed the series for me. I like cover-based TPS. I play several of them. And that's kind of the thing. ME1 was something fun and different. ME4 will probably literally be a reskinned GoW or CoD (I personally think they're trying to make the transition to FPS, slowly).Sgt. Sykes said:
Similarly, I enjoy Call of Duty. Mostly because I like playing games with friends. However, my Multiplayer Dudebro Shooter quota is full because I already have Black Ops 2. I don't need Battlefield (by the way, looks pretty good, however none of my friends own it) or randomgenericshooternumber6840274563.
And this is the problem. People want to make Call of Duty and get Call of Duty's numbers. In the case of Mass Effect, it's probably more "Gears of War," but whatever. I'm sure EA could have got those numbers of a shooter without a big "screw you" to the Mass Effect style. And then there's the "WoW killer." And while EA succeeded with Mass Effect cloning other titles, it sure screwed the pooch there....
I feel bad I didn't connect it when I saw it, but I realize the whole "innovation for innovation's sake" applies wholly to movies as well, specifically in MovieBob's review of Oblivion which, without giving anything away, makes plot twists for the sole purpose of surprise but has nothing to really add to the story and is ultimately pointless. But that's probably what the producers thought was "smart" and "complex" film-making when they heard of audience desire for more interesting material than just action and explosions. The concept can also be tied to consumer culture - fun, high-tech gadgets that can do interesting things but really don't help or improve your life in any substantial way. In the case of Cracked.com's examination of the GoogleGlasses ad, innovation can not only be useless, it can also be annoying and even dangerous.
I think Bethesda is a great example of how a game company can be an outrageous critical & financial success if they make the games they want to make (and are good at making).
EA is just too cumbersome at the moment to be anything but what it is - They seem to need to make Call-of-Duty-Money, because their overhead is so high. I am not a business man, and so I have no idea if they could pull it off, realistically, but it seems like it would make a lot of sense for them to reduce that overhead. That would allow them to make more of these niche games that all of us are wanting for. I loath the use of niche though, because it makes it sound like it's a marginalized portion of us gamers, rather than just being a proportion of gamers. The same thing could probably be said of a lot of game companies right now.
Interesting piece though, and I liked the Malcolm Gladwell reference, his TED talks are pretty great.
EA is just too cumbersome at the moment to be anything but what it is - They seem to need to make Call-of-Duty-Money, because their overhead is so high. I am not a business man, and so I have no idea if they could pull it off, realistically, but it seems like it would make a lot of sense for them to reduce that overhead. That would allow them to make more of these niche games that all of us are wanting for. I loath the use of niche though, because it makes it sound like it's a marginalized portion of us gamers, rather than just being a proportion of gamers. The same thing could probably be said of a lot of game companies right now.
Interesting piece though, and I liked the Malcolm Gladwell reference, his TED talks are pretty great.
I think the big problem here is that the big companies have more or less made it difficult to even BE a small company. there's this huge disparity between the indies (and I'm not knocking the indies) and major gaming.the antithesis said:
While it's not Madden or Football, I like Penny Arcade's take on annual golf titles [http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/04/05].
Jim, have you been reading "What the Dog Saw?" I love that book, and could guess exactly where this episode was going as soon as you said "Malcolm Gladwell." You were right. This was a damn good episode.
Disney? Listen to this man. Take the message to heart. Now is the chance to make good on your shakeup involving the shutting down of LucasArts and its incompetent leadership.
Listen very carefully now...
Hire Lawrence Holland and Edward Kilham. MAKE...ANOTHER...X-WING...GAME...
The fans have been clamoring for a new Star Wars space combat sim for YEARS now. You have a golden opportunity to win the loyalty of legions of fans. Don't screw this up.
Listen very carefully now...
Hire Lawrence Holland and Edward Kilham. MAKE...ANOTHER...X-WING...GAME...
The fans have been clamoring for a new Star Wars space combat sim for YEARS now. You have a golden opportunity to win the loyalty of legions of fans. Don't screw this up.
It seems publishers are sometimes completely unaware of audiences even when they're right under their noses. City of Heroes was a super hero based twist on the classic team RPG (ie made use of the typical trinity but didn't massively forced it on you) with well engineered social elements such as the side kick system, level scaled content with adjustable difficulty, not to mention user generated content with the mission architect and the costume creator itself.
However, as it wasn't pulling in massive amounts of cash and NCsoft couldn't be bothered to advertise it or let Paragon Studios develop a sequel, they shut it down. Thousands of players without an MMO as no other MMO compared to City of Heroes (World of Warcraft especially). Not only that, but when the closure was announced there were just as many people saying they never knew the game existed as those mourning it's lose, so we have another massive audience uncatered for as MMO publishers were obsessed with the gear grinding, long winded PvP focused games that were a bastardisation of World of Warcraft and whatever was popular in Korea at the time because they make all the money. Meanwhile, City of Heroes was strolling along happily making a bit of profit, unconcerned by Champions Online and DC Universe Online until NCsoft suddenly decided they couldn't be bothered anymore.
However, as it wasn't pulling in massive amounts of cash and NCsoft couldn't be bothered to advertise it or let Paragon Studios develop a sequel, they shut it down. Thousands of players without an MMO as no other MMO compared to City of Heroes (World of Warcraft especially). Not only that, but when the closure was announced there were just as many people saying they never knew the game existed as those mourning it's lose, so we have another massive audience uncatered for as MMO publishers were obsessed with the gear grinding, long winded PvP focused games that were a bastardisation of World of Warcraft and whatever was popular in Korea at the time because they make all the money. Meanwhile, City of Heroes was strolling along happily making a bit of profit, unconcerned by Champions Online and DC Universe Online until NCsoft suddenly decided they couldn't be bothered anymore.
I think, in gaming terms, "innovation" is also one of these perceived prefereces. It just sounds so damn good to claim that you want "some originality", and how it makes you sound like a jaded connoisseur, who is already familiar with everything under the sun.Jimothy Sterling said:
Ask gamers simply "what they want", and they will cry for new IPs, for whacky genre combinations (like MMORTS), and for genres never seen before.
Yet even in the examples you gave for surprisingly successful games, what gamers turned out to really want were resurrections of old genres and beloved franchises, fine-tuned versions of comfortably familiar gameplay, and interesting plots that still fit into the basic trends of narratives.
If there is one thing that really needs to listen to Jim's words and fits the pasta sauce analogy, it's the MMO genre. Considering WoW is the Ragu, and a whole lot of other MMOs are Pregos, no wonder people just aren't finding the series interesting enough to explore. GW2 really tried, and for the last few months I've heard nothing about it; TERA tried, and it ended up going F2P, and we all know what happened to TOR. TESO isn't looking too good either.
I know a lot of people have heard this from me, but I feel that the next big MMO will break a few "taboos" hovering around the genre and prove the thoughts about them wrong. One taboo I'm waiting for to be broken? Private server support. That word "Massive" in the acronym MMO can stand for something else in the games, it doesn't have to be about how many players there are on a server.
I know a lot of people have heard this from me, but I feel that the next big MMO will break a few "taboos" hovering around the genre and prove the thoughts about them wrong. One taboo I'm waiting for to be broken? Private server support. That word "Massive" in the acronym MMO can stand for something else in the games, it doesn't have to be about how many players there are on a server.
Definitely one of your best episodes. Put into clear and simple words what I couldn't quite figure out in my head.
For as much EA squanders on marketing, they have some of the worst marketers out there. They say they can't take risks in the big budget market anymore, but putting out such copy and paste drivel has been a hell of a lot more risky than actually exploring new territory. You can't make a good game based purely on established metrics.
For as much EA squanders on marketing, they have some of the worst marketers out there. They say they can't take risks in the big budget market anymore, but putting out such copy and paste drivel has been a hell of a lot more risky than actually exploring new territory. You can't make a good game based purely on established metrics.
Dear Jim,
I woke up about 15 minutes ago and, because it's Monday, one of the first things I did after getting my Cheerios was come watch your show. And then you said "Pasta Sauce." And I now feel my day is complete. Thank god, for you.
That being said (and I bloody well mean it, please, say Pasta Sauce at least once per episode, you'd make me so happy), this is exactly what I've been saying for a while, and it's the reason I think that in the near future, the majority of AAA publishers are gana go the way of THQ. A small handful might make it selling titles like CoD almost exclusively to console players. But that majority of games that won't suck will come from the indie scene. And, TBH, that makes me very very very very very very very very happy.
I woke up about 15 minutes ago and, because it's Monday, one of the first things I did after getting my Cheerios was come watch your show. And then you said "Pasta Sauce." And I now feel my day is complete. Thank god, for you.
That being said (and I bloody well mean it, please, say Pasta Sauce at least once per episode, you'd make me so happy), this is exactly what I've been saying for a while, and it's the reason I think that in the near future, the majority of AAA publishers are gana go the way of THQ. A small handful might make it selling titles like CoD almost exclusively to console players. But that majority of games that won't suck will come from the indie scene. And, TBH, that makes me very very very very very very very very happy.
I am that 1/3 of chunky users! I don't want big budget military shooters thrown at me right and left. Give me something new!
Goodness, this video was great. Thank God for Jim.
Goodness, this video was great. Thank God for Jim.