No Man’s Sky wins Sony’s press conference

For me and many others, No Man’s Sky was the biggest surprise at Sony’s press conference on Monday. Combining a beautiful artsyle with promises of exploration on a massive scale, the trailer seemed almost like a roller coaster ride.

We start out walking through a colorful alien jungle populated by huge dinosaur creatures before hopping into a spaceship. Within seconds, we are in an asteroid field in space where we encounter both allies and an enemy fleet. In pursuit of two fleeing ships, we soon descended to another planet with rocky terrain.

First revealed at VGX 2013, this science fiction title comes to us from UK game studio Hello Games. Players will be able to visit and explore procedurally-generated planets, meaning no two experiences will be the same. If the developers’ ambitious claims prove true, the universe of No Man’s Sky will be virtually infinite.

Though I am a bit skeptical about a game with so much potential being developed by a team that is only known for creating the Danger Joe games, I am still really excited about seeing how No Man’s Sky turns out. Though there is no release date in sight, we know it will come to PS4 before it releases on Xbox.

Sony’s event opened up with a new trailer for Destiny, a futuristic multiplayer-focused shooter from Halo developer Bungie. The trailer was narrated by Game of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage, who will also be voicing a main character in the game.

It was revealed that Destiny will release on Play Station 4 before it comes out on Xbox One and that the beta will begin on July 7. The game will come bundled with the new white PS4 that will hit store shelves on Sept. 9.

In a trailer for PS4 exclusive 1888: The Order, the player character was pitted against a seemingly invulnerable werewolf. The gothic setting and horror atmosphere of the game struck me as being quite similar to another PS4 exclusive at the show: Bloodborne.

Bloodborne, the new game from Dark Souls developer From Software, takes place in the ancient city of Yharnam, a fabled destination where a cure for sickness can be found. The player character goes to the city in search of the cure and finds the place is infested by undead creatures and other unknown horrors. The demo at the show suggests that the game is close in style to Dark Souls despite the difference in setting.

We got our first look at Far Cry 4 with a cinematic trailer and demo. Far Cry 4 will allow you to play co-op with up to four friends through the Play Station Network even if the other people do not have a copy of the game. Highlights from the demo include long-distance wingsuit gliding and destroying an enemy base with the help of co-op partners and a rampaging elephant.

Standalone DLC continuing the story of Infamous: Second Son was also announced.

The future of video games is not in blockbusters

Anita Elberse’s book Blockbuster: Hit-Making, Risk-Taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment takes a look at the business strategies found in the entertainment sector. When it comes to movies, music and video games, the tendency is for companies to gamble on a few high-profile “blockbuster” projects to make a profit.

While expensive to fund, blockbuster projects typically have very high production value. They are also often designed to appeal to the broadest audience possible in the hopes of attracting the largest number of consumers.

Media industries have found success by focusing their resources on creating blockbusters. Elberse’s thesis holds that this business model is a safer business strategy than diversifying with a number of smaller projects. Though blockbusters present a greater risk of loss to a company, she argues that they also pose the greatest chance for profit. With a decade’s worth of statistics and insider interviews, Elberse makes a very good case for the success of the blockbuster model in entertainment.

Back in March, GameInformer ran an article where they interviewed Elberse. The biggest question the article raised was whether or not  the blockbuster model applies to the newer video game business in the same way it does for the other entertainment industries.

The blockbuster model has always worked for the video game industry in the past, but the sheer scale of AAA titles is reaching an unsustainable level. The most obvious example is Dead Space 3.

While the production costs on Dead Space 1 and 2 were fairly average, the third installment in the horror franchise received the blockbuster treatment. When the game was finished, EA announced that Dead Space 3 would have to sell five million copies to be considered a viable IP for future sequels.

Considering the sales for Dead Space 1 and 2 didn’t come close to cracking 5 million copies combined, this sales goal was incredibly unrealistic. In the end, Dead Space 3 sold less than a million copies, representing a huge loss for EA.

Dead Space 3 also introduced a number of new mechanics and a shift in tone to create greater mass appeal. This goes along with the blockbuster model, but it just doesn’t make much sense when you consider the roots of the franchise.

The previous games in the series were niche titles that appealed to a small but dedicated group of survival/psychological horror fans. They managed to turn a profit because they keep costs low and still produced quality titles that had a defined market. Instead of learning from the past, they made the disastrous shift to big budget blockbuster that tries and fails to appeal to everyone.

The successes have kept the industry going, but more and more AAA titles have been failing financially. The less-than-stellar sales of Call of Duty: Ghosts and Battlefield 4 show that gamers are losing interest in these blockbuster franchises. Game journalists have written about the instability of the blockbuster mentality and even some industry insiders have said that AAA games are rapidly becoming obsolete.

When looking at the success of blockbusters in movies and music as a guide, you also need to look at a key difference between those industries and the video game market. Between the $60 price tag on AAA titles and the consoles needed to play them, there is a much higher costs for consumers with gaming. Trying to appeal to everyone has less chance of paying off when you consider that most gamers only make a few purchases a year.

It’s clear that investing big and striving for the widest demographic works for more mainstream entertainment, but gaming is a more specialized medium, which is something companies should embrace.

With the rising cost of creating next-gen games, it seems to me like the safest path for the games industry would be  to back away from the blockbusters. Devleopers and publishers should be spreading their money out with a number of small-scale, quality titles rather than placing all their faith in one or two blockbusters that need to sell millions to make a profit. It could protect against the possibility of big loss from the blockbusters and it would give the smaller projects better funding to create innovative titles that appeal to specific audiences.

E3 – Microsoft Press Conference

During their E3 press conference earlier today, Microsoft revealed launch titles for the Xbox One and announced that the console will be available in November for $499.

“We have more titles in development now than in any other time in Xbox history,” said Microsoft Game Studio’s Vice President Phil Spencer.

The event started off with a very brief appearance from Hideo Kojima and a gameplay trailer for his latest game, Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain, which will be released on next-gen consoles as well as the PS3 and Xbox 360. 

A number of sequels in popular franchises were revealed at the event. Battlefield 4, The Witcher 3, Forza Motorsport 5, and Crimson Dragon were also announced. Of course, no one was surprised by the trailer for an untitled Halo game. Many were surprised by the demo of a sequel to Killer Instinct, a popular 2-D fighting game released in 1994.

There were also some new IPs at the show. The latest game for Insomniac, Sunset Overdrive, is a shooter with colorful cartoon visuals. Since it’s an Insomniac game, it will also feature an arsenal of zany weapons, like a gun that shoots records and a souped-up shotgun that triggers atomic explosions. There was also demos for QTE-heavy hack-and-slash Ryse: Son of Rome and mech game Titanfall as well as a new trailer for Remedy’s Quantum Break, which was previously announced at the Xbox One Reveal.

One of the most exciting games revealed at the conference was Dead Rising 3. It follows Nick Ramos as he survives in Los Perdidos, a sprawling open-world city overrun by hordes of zombies. The gameplay in the demo was similar to previous titles in the series, but it’s tone seemed to be distinctly more serious and grounded in reality than other Dead Rising games. It is coming out this holiday season.

Project Spark  also shows a lot of promise. It is a fantasy world-building game that  lets you create your adventure game. Using Kinect voice commands or Microsoft’s SmartGlass, the player can customize the game world’s environment, create characters and objects, and assign different behaviors to them. The game will also allow players to share their creations with others through Xbox Live.

Speaking about Project Spark, Microsoft’s Dave McCarthy said, “There’s an infinite number of ways to build, play, and share.”

EA Says Dead Space Has Not Been Cancelled

Representatives of EA have denied rumors started on Tuesday that the Dead Space franchise has been cancelled.

A news story posted on VideoGamer.com Tuesday morning reported that production of Dead Space 4 was halted because of disappointing sales from the newly released Dead Space 3. The article said the information came from an anonymous source involved in the production of the series.

“Almost nothing in that article is true,” tweeted EA creative director Ian Milham in response to the article.

EA officially stated “While we have not announced sales for Dead Space 3, we are proud of the game and the franchise remains an important IP to EA.”

The speculation about the Dead Space franchise is closely linked to the closing of game studio Visceral Montreal on Feb. 21. Along with California-based Visceral Games, Visceral Montreal had been working on pre-production for Dead Space 4.

It is believed that Visceral Montreal was shut down by parent company EA because sales of Dead Space 3 have not met EA’s expectations. EA has not officially released sales data on Dead Space 3, but vgchartz.com said the game has sold approximately 880,000 copies since it was released at the beginning of February.

In June 2012, president of EA Games Label Frank Gibeau said Dead Space 3 would have to sell about five million copies for EA to continue the franchise. This goal has been criticized as being unrealistic, as both of the previous installments in the series combined only sold 2.55 million copies, according to vgchartz.com.

Debate On Violent Video Games Rages On

The age-old debate on violent video games and their effects on players is once again in the media spotlight.

After the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado, Mayor Steve Hogan planned to either tax or outright  ban violent video games in the city, according to Game Politics. Hogan abandoned the idea when the City Attorney advised him that the proposed law would likely be ruled unconstitutional. A ban on video games would violate the precedent of Brown v. EMA, which ruled that video games are protected by the First Amendment.

A public burning of violent video games was scheduled to take place in the small Connecticut town of Southington after the tragic Newtown shootings. The event was later cancelled. In their mission statement, the group organizing the event said video games  don’t necessarily cause aggression, but they believe that games desensitize us to violence.

Medical studies that examine how violent video games affect behavior typically indicate no correlation between simulated and real-life violence, though some studies have shown an increase in short-term aggression in gamers.

Dr. Stanton Samenow believes that it is the underlying mental health of these perpetrators that causes them to act violently, not the video games they play.

“It’s ludicrous to think a game just flips a switch and causes people to go overboard,” Samenow said. “Millions watch violent movies or play violent video games, and they don’t go shoot or hurt people.”

Despite these studies, a recent Harris Poll has shown that 58 percent of Americans adults believe that graphic video games are a contributing factor to violent tendencies in teenagers. According to an article from The Escapist, the poll also found that 38 percent of Americans have little or no knowledge of the ESRB rating system, which is designed to keep violent video games away from underage children.

Yearly Installments Announced For Ouya Console

Courtesy of gameinformer.com

Updated versions of the upcoming Ouya game console will be released each year, according to International Business Times.

“There will be an OUYA 2 and an OUYA 3,” Ouya CEO and founder Julia Uhrman said. “We’ll take advantage of faster, better processors, take advantage of prices falling.”

Ouya is an Android-powered console for open source games. It is scheduled for release in retail stores in June with a $100 price point.

Uhrman has promised that the annual updates for the console will feature backwards-compatibility for all Ouya games and they will cost $100 dollars at launch. Uhrman said that their business strategy for yearly updates was inspired by the mobile industry.

Ouya gained public attention with its successful campaign on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter. The project raised $8.5 million dollars, more than nine times its goal. It reached the $1 million dollar mark in just eight hours, faster than any previous Kickstarter. It also broke the Kickstarter record for highest single-day earnings set by Tim Schafer’s Double Fine Adventure campaign by raising $2,589,687 dollars on its first day.

About 30 launch titles have been confirmed for Ouya, including games like Final Fantasy III, The Cave, and Double Fine Adventure. Some critics are saying that Ouya lacks the killer app needed for it to compete with the major consoles.

In an interview with Kotaku, Ouya designer Yves Béhar described Ouya as being “around the size of a Rubik’s cube.” Each console comes with a controller, but additional controllers will cost $50 dollars each because of the expensive touchpads they feature.