In the latest Divinity Original Sin Project update for Kickstarter backers of Original Sin, Larian Studios announced an upcoming Kickstarter for a sequel to their RPG epic.
Author: Cody Hall
Still impatiently waiting for a Tak reboot.
I Watched DOTA2’s TI5 Grand Finals Live In A Movie Theater
When Fathom Events announced that they had partnered with Valve to bring this year’s International Grand Finals live into select movie theaters, my girlfriend immediately decided we were going. My girlfriend, who hates mobas almost as much as she hates movie theaters mind you, knew just what it meant to be able to take part in what could be a once in a lifetime experience. Thankfully our city of residence happened to have a theater hosting the event. There was very little excuse for us to miss the world’s largest E-Sports event being the first such tournament to be live broadcasted on the big screen. As gamers, we knew what this meant to our beloved community. Suddenly I didn’t feel any amount of disrepute for my hobby, I was proud of it. I walked boastfully and confidently into the theater to have my ticket scanned for the event. My excitement was uplifted moments before we left for the theater when Evil Geniuses defeated LGD in the Semi-Finals, meaning the team I had been rooting for would be playing for the title against the Wild Card Team who also fought their way up to the top. This was going to be an amazing show.
We arrived to a completely empty theater a few minutes before the scheduled start of the event. We were ecstatic to have a whole theater to ourselves! But we also weren't disappointed when 4 other people showed up to witness the start of the last five matches of TI5. So now we had other people to scream and shout at the screen with as we rooted for the American team to defeat China’s Wild Card team, CDEC.
And holy shit, the teams came out swinging. The first two matches where action packed kill fests, you would think you were watching an all star match it was so crazy. EG took the first game by a country mile, and CDEC retaliated heavily in game two. And game three, jesus if you guys missed it go watch this match. I don’t think I’ve watched a more tense match of Dota. Not as action packed, but each team kept feeling out their opponents, never fully engaging, all as CDEC slowly gained a huge gold advantage around the 40 minute mark, only to have EG make a huge comeback off of a counter gank, putting them only one victory away from becoming TI5 Champions. My hype couldn’t have been higher, I had been enjoying popcorn and a banana flavored ICEE (the only good thing about a minions movie existing) while watching an E-Sports event on a Movie Theater screen, what more could this nerd need? I know what I wanted, I wanted to see EG take home the Aegis. And I wanted them to do it in another exciting match, with epic team fights and a great hero line up.
Well I couldn’t have asked for a better hero line up for this match. We weren’t the only ones excited, with every kill all of us in the theater where bursting with excited yelling and “Ohh Shits!” throughout the entire match. EG showed their confident and experienced tactics as the superior Dota team right from the start, with Naga Siren being the unsung Hero of the match keeping all the lanes healthy for Radiant. But the deciding moment of the match came when CDEC tried to sneak a Roshan from under EG’s nose, and were brutally punished for it.Any chance of the match being anyone's game had been completely squandered at that point, as EG took the victory (and our breath)shortly after.
The experience in that giant room was unreal, I might as well have been a spectator in the Key Arena itself, and we couldn’t wait to hear the thoughts of both teams before the closing ceremony. We got to hear from a humble and surprised EG, but we spent no time with the 2nd place finalists who fought their way into the International all the way to the grand finals. This was only further frustrated by a very out of place closing performance by DeadMau5, who played very ominous music as the camera quickly zoomed in and out of a close up shot of the DJ. It was one of the most out of place things I have ever scene. It reminded me of being at an amazing epic Metal concert, only to have the venue play Nickleback after the show in order to get us out of the building quickly (which always worked very well). And that’s kind of what it felt like here. But I don’t think anyone is going to let an out of place DJ performance ruin the memories of that incredible series of games. Nor will I ever forget witnessing Gaming's largest tournament live on the big screen.
Why You Should Be Watching Dota2’s International This Weekend
History is being made this weekend. The largest prize-pool in E-sports history is currently being competed for by the best moba players in the world.
New World of Warcraft Expansion To Be Unveiled This Week
In a recent press release, Blizzard Entertainment promised some fairly exciting news about the developers most popular game.
Rocket League: A Past Due Review
So here's the thing. I have had a lot of trouble writing this review. Every time I sit down to write about Rocket League, I gain a very large urge to just pick the game back up and start playing, which is what I've been doing since the game came out. I've actually had to uninstall the game for the time being, just to get this damn review done in a somewhat timely manner and get back to playing this marvel of a game. With that said, if you haven't read a Past Due Review from me before, do not expected a scored review. This is an examination of the game on a component by component basis. Such as, animation quality, modeling, lighting, particle effects, audio, game mechanics, level design, and more.
The biggest reason I decided to study game design was my fascination with the concept of Play. Play is a thing we need to engage in to survive as children, and yet many of us lose sight of the notion of play as we grow older. Play makes us healthy, strong, and causes us to critically think. Many great and innovative games, whether on the field, a computer, or even a board game, show a great understanding of what it means to engage someone in the act of play. Soccer is one such game that has captivated people in play for many years (sorry, but yeah I call it that because Americans taught me a far dumber sport was called football.) And what Psyonix has done with both Rocket League and Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars was give players a brand new way to play the game, simply by altering the way we interact with the ball. In this physics based game the most impressive component is the methods you use to control your Battle-Car. At the end of the day, you only need to make your car hit the ball into the goal, but the character controller for the car gives you so many ways to hit the ball, interact with your opponents, and traverse the environment. The amount of ways you can make your car avatar move will surprise you countless times, but it stays true to the age old concept of easy to learn, hard to master. All while keeping the core concept of play at the center of it all, never letting the player forget about the heart and soul of a game that has reminded me that we all live to play. And play you will. Rocket League doesn’t just create a great experience, it re-creates what it felt like to be 6 years old, playing on the field with your friends in what ever manner it may have been.
The magic of all this is what Rocket League is able to do to the expectations you have of both the game and yourself. Starting out you may not feel like you can contribute much to the experience, as your skill set improves with time and experience. However, you will start to feel yourself progressing the more you play and learn the eccentricities of the games control method. It reminds me of why I fell in love with DOTA 2. I always felt a sense of progression in what I could accomplish as a player. This is no different than my time spent in Rocket League, and I still know I can dramatically improve with even more practice. Give yourself enough time and effort, and Rocket League will allow you to do some pretty amazing things.
http://gfycat.com/CircularSlowBedbug
I can not wait to see this game played at an E-Sports level. I can see myself watching professional players play this game maybe as much as I’ll play it. And the methods of play feel dramatically different whether you choose to play the standard 3v3, 1v1, 2v2, or the absolutely hectic 4v4. No matter how you prefer to play you will always be having fun. So rarely have I played a competitive multiplayer game where I never payed attention to the score board. Win or lose, Rocket League always lets me have a blast engaging in my all-time favorite activity, Play.
What I usually get to talk about a lot in these reviews are the animations of the games characters. Well Rocket League doesn’t have any characters in the traditional sense, instead it has cars that do move in a surprisingly animated fashion. Between the jumping, dodging, rolling, boosting, bouncing, and barrel rolling, there are actually a lot of appropriately exaggerated movements in Rocket League.
http://gfycat.com/FavoriteMatureCoyote
The animations are subtle but they are there. Sure they’re not the most complicated things to make in the world, seeing as how most of them are just transforms of position and/or rotation, but the speed and motion is fluid. With no strange spikes or wacky jitters anywhere in the movements, ensuring that your vehicle will always be in the exact position you tell it to be in, which is extremely important in a physics based game like this.
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The game’s simplicity certainly shows itself in the games various 3D models. They all look absolutely gorgeous from a couch, but up close and personal to your computer monitor, a few things start to look a little cheap. Its not that the models aren’t constructed well, all the geometry seems to fall in the right place and the textures are suitable, but they are just that: suitable. Everything is clean and flawlessly modeled in a very simplistic fashion, yet it's not ever one thing that makes Rocket League's models and art style. It's the composition of all of them in a scene together. Combining all these simple textures and shapes with the best atmospheric effects the Unreal engine can offer, creates a saturated, but not quite cartoony art style that allows every important object to pop out at you. So even though the individual models are nothing to be impressed by, this does keep your attention where it matters without being distracted by anything too detailed.
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Again the lighting is also kept quite simple, making sure you are never distracted by what could have easily been quite an eye grabber. The lighting definitely captures the feeling of an arena.
You can see shadows from the rafters below you as your shadow follows your movements along the ground and up the walls, all while the reflective effects on the cars and walls glisten with the warm lighting of the sunset off in the distance. It's almost a shame that you won’t ever be looking for these things, because you’ll be so immersed in the action around you that the lighting team's hard work just becomes another impressive aspect of the games second nature.
The effect above may be my favorite particle effect of all time. It is certainly my favorite explosion effect hands down, and the expertly crafted tech art doesn’t end there. First off, everything is subtly covered in a Minority Report esque glaze, and it is most notable when the ball is just about to enter a goal and the line it must cross fades into visibility. There are also very subtle particle effects, such as the dust left from your tires when jumping and the clash effect when you trade paint with an opponent racing to block his shot on the goal. When you take into account the number of boost trails you can apply to your Battle-Car, the hard work of the Tech Art team starts to become quite apparent.
The above effect may be my favorite particle effect of all time. It is certainly my favorite explosion effect hands down, and the expertly crafted tech art doesn’t end there. First off, everything is subtly covered in a Minority Report esque glaze, and it is most notable when the ball is just about to enter a goal and the line it must cross fades into visibility. There are also very subtle particle effects, such as the dust left from your tires when jumping and the clash effect when you trade paint with an opponent racing to block his shot on the goal. When you take into account the number of boost trails you can apply to your Battle-Car, the hard work of the Tech Art team starts to become quite apparent.
This is how you do player feedback well. Every bump, slide, boost, jump, crash, and goal is exactly what your imagination expects these colorful and nearly cartoony objects would sound like, and like bees to the hive, the engines buzz around the map, frantically attempting to be the next one who causes the following amazing blast sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVpQ9Mo7EUU
This consistency with the game’s art style holds true in the games soundtrack as well. The music in the main menu will most likely stick with you for a few hours after playing.
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This is where the game’s Achilles' heel resides. At the time of this review there are only a handful of maps that are all basically the same level with different textures and day or night effects. Don’t get me wrong, this is a very masterfully crafted level, but it could begin to get repetitive if more maps weren't on the way. Thankfully though Psyonix has some more maps on the way, the first being my favorite from the previous entry in this series. It is in that game where you can find some examples of the great creativity this level design team can bring to the table, and while I’m glad they seem to be on their way to Rocket League, I wish that at least one of these unique maps was in the standard game.
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Menus and sub-menus are presented in clear way that makes sense while navigating. The options screen may even surprise you with the amount of ways you can customize your view and controls, with fully re-bindable keyboard and controller functions. While the PC port of the game runs quite well, there are a few strange quips that can be a bit annoying while navigating the menus with a Mouse. Most button icons will show the PS4 commands and quite a few buttons need to be double clicked while navigating the menu. But the game does control well in matches with either a controller or keyboard and mouse. The only strange thing for me was that the default keybinding is right click to jump and space to view the ball, but with a quick key-rebind I swapped these two and was good to go. The only time the controls are completely broken on PC are in the replay mode. It is nigh-on impossible to navigate as it will always use the max DPI of your mouse, and if you're like me and have an 8200 DPI mouse, accelerating that just makes for a crazy wacky camera.
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For those of you who love decking out your car, you’ll have a blast here. You will need to play the game a bit to unlock more options and accessories for your Battle-Car, but there are enough starting choices to make your car your own. Another great example of two incredible parts of the game, show themselves working together very well here. This being the audio and particle effects for the boost trails. There are so many different boost trails and each one of their respected sound effects compliments the effect in the best extent possible.
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For all the good I’ve talked about Rocket League, I do have one complaint. If I were to review this game as a sequel charging me $20 for the same shit I got in Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle-Cars, you can bet my tone would be different. So why haven’t I been looking at it that way? After all my girlfriend and I have enjoyed quite a bit of SARPBC and Rocket League is basically a reskin with less maps and a few extra features. Well to be honest, it's because this game is still just as fun. Maybe even more so now that it is much more well known, and those extra features like Seasons and Vehicle Customization do kind of enhance the experience. And I won't lie, I want as many people to experience this game as humanly possible. I have no personal gain in such a goal other than the sheer fact that if one more person gets to feel the same thing I felt when I first made an airborne goal, I’ll have brought a level of joy to someone unlike any other gaming experience. Psyonix deserves praise for their incredibly talented team members, insight into game theory, and heart that they have so celestially celebrated here. I wouldn’t feel rash in debating within my head if this is my game of the year, it's just so hard because I also really like The Witcher 3. But I have no doubts this will end up being my favorite competitive multiplayer game this year, and I have no intention of ridding myself of my addiction to a game that, as I mentioned earlier, allows me to simply play.
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Game: Rocket League
Developer: Psyonix Source: Steam Special thanks to Fyshokid for the GamePlay Footage! Audio and Video: Recorded in Game |
The Witcher 3: Past Due Review
Its Been A Long Time..
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... since I've played anything with this much heart. Without saying much more it should be clear to most everyone at this point that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is more than worth your money, and more importantly your time. The game has been a remarkable achievement for developer CD Projekt RED, selling 4 Million Copies in just two weeks. The game is remarkably different from previous titles in the series, both in scale and form. It's main story less linear, it's combat carefully refined, all while staying concise and accessible for newcomers to the series. With it's success has come great review after great review. And instead of repeating what others have said before me, I've decided to take my time and enjoy all that CDPR's first open world has to offer, than carefully examine certain elements on their own merit. This non scored review will explore animation quality, character and environmental modeling, lighting, particle effects, audio, game mechanics, level/world design, story mechanics, leveling systems, and more. All will be given at least a paragraph to discuss what they do well, and where some areas could improve.
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Animations
I’m going to start off with this section not just because I myself love to animate, but because out of all the reviews I’ve read I have yet to see anyone talk about just how well detailed they are. They all feel, well, animated! What I mean is that so many games these days put realism over just about everything else. And motion capture animation has taken away what Richard Williams said was so important about animation while he was making Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He believed that animation is supposed to show us something we have never seen before, and can’t see everyday, to push the boundaries of what we perceive as normal, and create something that exaggerates and celebrates the world around around us. For me, Motion Capture is the opposite of this, and watching 3D models of people move just like us makes them seem forced and strange, while actually animating the models, moving the hands, arms, legs, and facial features to slightly exaggerate movement can really bring something to life. CD Projekt RED’s animators clearly know this, and even if some mo-cap was used, I would be surprised if it wasn’t used mostly as reference. The way Geralt swings his swords, the lunging movements made by Drowners, or the graceful Sirens flying above, all animate brilliantly within the world, keeping its energy full of life. Tiny little details are even put into motion, such as Geralt pushing the tip of his sheath to make his swords easier to put away.
But what really helps sell these animations are the key poses within them. While the fluidity of the keys that tie these poses together might be a bit too quick for taste, the poses themselves look amazing and are paused upon in just the right amount of time.
Character Modeling
Characters Tend To All Look Quite Different
The 3D character models who inhabit the world in which you will journey through leave little to be desired. While some human faces seem to have been textured better than others, I’ve found it fairly impressive that everyone seems to look fairly different. Sure I’ll run into the occasional duplicate guard, but look closely enough at them and suddenly you start to notice subtle differences in skin tone, nose shapes, all with flawless topology and normal mapping.
Just Little Hints of Stylization
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Characters also exhibit slight exaggerations in their posture and proportions, keeping the games art style consistent with the animations. While kept in a grounded realistic tone, character models' features are exaggerated just shy enough to not quite be called cartoony. Just check out Geralt's model on the left, looks a bit feline doesn’t it? Not quite enough for you to call it out, but just enough to make you see him as something other than human, as if the cat eyes weren't a good enough hint. Couple all of the above with incredible texture work for character modeling and in my opinion you have the best looking 3D characters in an open world game.
Texture Work on Clothing is Consistently Impressive
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Environmental Modeling
For those of you who read this and think, “Why two sections for modeling? Are these two things really that different?” I will respond with this image:
Anywho, the building/environment models that are within the game are for the most part incredibly well constructed. One thing that you will notice in all areas of the Witcher 3 is its attention to detail. And the environments you’ll explore are no different. Cobwebs and other common household annoyances can be found in the furthest corners of even the most popular taverns within Novigrad. The swamps of Velen crawl around your ankles as bugs wiz past your head and the grass that pokes through the muck glisten with dirt stains. Forests you run through feel unkempt by the touch of man, not fabricated by someone at a computer desk. The composition alone of the vast and awe inspiring cities seem dense and populated. But unlike a lot of cities in open world games they don't stick out like sore thumbs, vegetation that creeps up the city walls makes it feel like the walls have started to mold, instead of just looking like another wall with a bump map.
The world's textures however, don’t help hold this illusion 100% of the time. Occasionally you will run into a texture with a far lower resolution than it’s surrounding models. Just check out the hexagonal log textures on the left side of the image below, see how low resolution they are compared to something like the toxicity effect on Geralt's face? These changes in texture resolution, while not quite abundant, can be a tad distracting at times.
Thankfully none of the issues are as bad as the ones below:
Trigon, Polygon, N-Gon. The n-gon on the right is a polygon with more than 4 edges or verts, engines will normally crash rendering these terrible monsters.
Inverted Normals; faces on a model with inverted normals display textures on the wrong side of the polygon.
Faces can flicker if more than one polygon is occupying the same space. Happens sometimes while extruding faces and not checking to see if anything went wrong.
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But in the Witcher 3 textures that look great from a far don’t always continue to look amazing up close.
(As we can see above in the log image)And while I would criticize the re-use of many textures, such tactics help keep the games loading times down to the impressive 10~15 seconds that they currently are. But it almost feels cheap to nit pick at smaller texture sizes when I haven’t seen a single N-Gon, inverted normal, or even flicking faces. And to see most graphical errors come down to the technical side of things must mean that the modeling teams did an amazing job at creating a beautiful world. |
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Lighting
An aspect of 3D design that many seem to forget about, lighting can make or break a games aesthetic. Two Worlds for example had a few issues aesthetically, but its largest crutch visually was its poor lighting. In the Witcher 3, lighting is not only far from an issue, it’s some of the best I’ve seen in gaming. it’s the kind of lighting that would make Gordon Willis proud and I truly hope that the lighting team on this game is shown more appreciation for the work they have done here. From the light shaft effects that shine through the forests as you gallop through them, to the warm and welcoming atmosphere of the taverns, the lighting and casted shadows greatly reflect the area you find yourself in. I will say the lighting can be a bit too bright around noon on a clear day though, and it can get so bright during this time that it can even wash out the fantastic colors all around you. But this again is a minor complaint about one of the games strongest visual tools.
The sun-rays in particular are done very well, so much so that I have even found myself squinting as I ride Roach towards the sunset. Yes, squinting, I don't know of any games that have made me do that just because of good lighting. CDPR once again reminds us that they know how to make the most out of good lighting, and what it's respected shadows can provide in contrast to really make characters and objects pop right out of the screen.
Go ahead, lie and tell me you're not squinting.
Particle Effects
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The most common particle effects you’ll see will come from the signs you cast as Geralt. These effects do a great job at reflecting the mentioned descriptions of each ability. The particle effects within the environment are also very well animated, continuing to sell the concept of a living world, that would be doing its own thing with or without you there. Blood effects during combat aren’t overly violent, unless you get a dismemberment, but they are a great indicator of a successful attack. The sparks that fly when you clash swords with an opponent is so visually different for different kinds of enemies. They can stop your attack with swords, rock armor, hardened scales, and then some. Wraiths in particular are a fantastic achievement for the particle effect team, as the lower half of their bodies could have made them extremely disinteresting if a particle effect that looked worse was in its place.
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Audio Effects/Soundtrack
Part of what makes the gameplay feels so impactful is it’s incredible use of player feedback. A swing of your sword hitting an enemy has many layers to it. The Animations reacting to the attack, the blood effect indicating a hit, and most importantly, the audio cue in the form of a lovely slash sound. The sound effects that are made by your signs also come to mind as something very well crafted, maybe one or two sound similar to another but not enough to make a huge deal about it. Sounds of the rain and other environmental sounds are another great piece of the Witcher 3's confident puzzle. One of the best things to do in the Witcher is to just take a walk out into the forests, you’ll hear rustling trees and even creatures off in the distance. Maybe you’ll hear some birds chirping occasionally or the ocean off in the distance. The sign great audio design is being able to close your eyes and still know exactly what kind of environment you’re in. Witcher 3 passes that test, with flying colors.
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The soundtrack that plays to your movements on your journey fits every moment very well. And honestly each song is so good on its own that the soundtrack probably needs to be reviewed separately. There is a particular song early on in the game where everything slows down and you get to just listen to a bard's wonderful tune. It is easily one of my favorite moments in the story, and I’ll be humming that song along with many others for quite a while after playing.
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First Look at The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
A word of warning before you start reading this one, I am only abut 5~6 hours into the game at this point. So opinions may change later down the line, but I certainly didn't want to rush out a review of what could potentially be a thousand hour game just for the sake of getting it out there. What this first look will provide is my unfiltered thoughts and feelings about the game so far, and my experience with it. I hope you enjoy my story, and with that out of the way feel free to read on:
I finally walked through my front door after spending ten hours of my day at work under fluorescent lighting and the smell of dust settling on my desk. I walked through the door carrying the latest mail package that arrived on time for once, thank god, that day was the launch of a game I’d been eager to play. I opened the package and inspected my new video card, I knew this would be enough to crush the software known as The Witcher 3 into submission. I took the dog out one last time, fed her and the cat, and made sure I would have no distractions. I swapped my old GTX 570 out of my rig for my new piece of hardware and installed the latest drivers. After rebooting I loaded up GOG Galaxy and saw my previously installed game finally ready to be played, pre-loaded, with a very inviting play button. I turn on my PS4 controller and wait for it to connect to my bluetooth, after reading about the poor mouse acceleration issues in the game I wanted no part in messing around with it, even if there was a fix I could care less. I entered the settings menu once the game loaded up to do one thing and one thing only. To turn everything up to 11. Grass quality, Ultra. Water quality, Ultra. Textures, and everything else, all to Ultra. All the fancy post processing bells and whistles including Nvidia Hairworks, all turned on and maxed out. Just when I’m ready to hit new game and see if the graphics downgrade was real or not, I hear a strange sound through my headphones. It’s the damn cat, crying about her dirty litter box and takes a dump right on the recently cleaned carpet. I unequipped my controller and California Silverados to deal with real life one last time.
After finally returning to my seat, I take up arms, select my desired difficulty, and I’m gone. Not right away, but the opening cinematic, coupled with the music, reminded me what was happening since I last adventured as Geralt, hunting down Letho. After playing the game some way through, up to the first tavern, and was free to explore the opening region, which didn’t seem huge at first, I realized just how invested I was in everything around me. I was stopping to listen to every NPC talk, I mourned as they mourned, I saw the effects of war in these people’s hearts and souls and wanted to help (even if that’s not a Witchers priority, I made it so) I had no idea why these things pulled me in as much as they did, but I was there. The edges of my monitor no longer existed, the concerns of poor visuals, performance issues, the dog chewing on something she’s not supposed to, and stresses in the workplace had all vanished. There was simply Geralt, and whatever damned beast he was dodging attacks from at the moment. I was reading through every document, studying the bestiary for each new foe, and found myself taking on a player role I hardly ever fall into, the completionist. A completionist player archetype is someone who achieves every little thing within a game, no matter how long it takes, something I have rarely done in video games.
It escaped me for a long time as to why this particular adventure had me hooked by its teeth, then I realized something. This game itself doesn't just have a heart and soul, everything within it does. A soul resides not just in the games mechanics and visual effects, but it’s character, and the characters within it. Even the main protagonist who by all means could easily be another cookie cutter, bland, no personality, grizzled white dude. And while Geralt may be grizzled, he has more personality than any main character I've seen in a game in a long time, and I needed that. The world I move him through animates with the weather, creatures, and stillness of abandoned buildings. Which all seem to breathe life and, again, character into the world around me. Let alone the countless other non player characters that for once feel like actual characters who all live their own lives, have their own dreams, and their own issues. Most of whom do not want your help. The old trope of only one or two npcs in an area having a quest for you seems to make its own great deal of sense in this way, as witchers are looked upon as abominations by most, and many would not stoop to such levels to ask for your help. It’s this level of at least fabricated confidence that the Witcher 3 stands tall. Everything feels connected, and you're able to simply fall into its capable hands while it lets you explore what it has to offer.
I guess the Witcher re-taught me the difference between my wants and my needs. I wanted a game that offered a lot of playing time, I wanted a game that looked better than any game out there, I wanted a game that lived up to the hype, and I really wanted a game that actually worked for once **Cough**Ubisoft**Cough** And yet, I needed a game that felt cared for, I needed a game I could get lost in, I needed a game that had a soul, I needed a game that I felt a deep connection too, I needed a game that could take me away from the real world for a bit, and I desperately needed a game to call home. While I may not quite know why I needed these things yet, I don’t feel like I need to know everything.
All I know after the short time I have spent playing is that, I got sucked in by a world, it captivated me enough to stay in said world, and I did not want to leave. Thankfully though, a part of me will never leave. It’s the same part of me that is still standing at the top of the Throat of the World, the same part of me that still remembers making John Marston walk out of that barn, the same part of me that still guards the forests of Darkroot Garden, and it’s the same part of me that will always be watching over Megaton at night, fending off those who dare approach my city. And if I stopped playing Witcher 3 right now, I’d be proud of the short stories that I get to tell. Stories that I was only able to make thanks to the tools Witcher 3 provided me with. And I know that I’ll be damned if I let another Wraith get the best of me.
So needless to say, it's alright.
Would play again.
Silver/10
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Game -The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Developer - CD Projekt RED Source - Free Code with the Purchase of a GTX 900 Series Card |
Game Publishers Need To Start Investing In The Long Tail
Times are Changing...
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In 2014, the ten top best selling Video Games generated about $1.7 Billion in revenue across all platforms. Sounds like an awful amount of money, right? Well, what if I told you that the nearly two billion dollars described was only 1/50th of the estimated total sales for the entire games industry?
$100 Billion dollars, that is the number that Video Games sales as a whole are expected to have reached last year. Meaning over $90 billion was earned by games that most people have never heard of, let alone played. I'm not only here to talk about how this is possible, but also how publishers could use it to their advantage. |
"Hit" Culture is Dying, and That's okay.
It all comes down to something called “The Long Tail”. This is when the total sum of less popular products match or outsell the more commonly praised products in their respected industry. Let’s look at an example of exactly what I mean.
This example is for the music industry, but the basic idea applies to any industry. The further to the right of these Long Tail graphs, the less popular a product is and therefore the less sales it receives. Although there are many unpopular songs, the total sales (represented by the red and yellow areas under the graph) are equal. Many of you most likely believe that by “Long Tail” I speak about the idea that the sales for a game start high but quickly shrink. And while that one aspect of the Long Tail Theory is covered beautifully in this article, it is not what I, nor many readers focused on while reading Chris Anderson’s original book on the subject. What Doucet’s article explains is how sales for one product start high, but create a Long Tail as time goes on. Anderson however, describes the Long Tail as showing how products that have a lower demand are actually more valuable to the distributor as long as they are made accessible to the consumer.
Yeah that’s quite a mouthful, and we’ll take a look at exactly what each part of Anderson's definition means later.
So to keep us all on the same page, keep the idea in mind that products with high demand can and sell just as much as all the products with low demand, as shown in the second graph below.
There is a reason this Long Tail area will continue to grow, and possibly overcome the short head, and we'll explore that later. It's not only possible that the Long Tail could take over this graph over time, but consumers have actually already started to make it happen. But before we can start to decide how publishers can begin to make this transition along with it's consumers, we need to understand why this is happening.
Long Tails Are Becoming the Greater Area.
Let’s take a look at one more industry really quick. (I will get to the games, I promise!) The Television industry has a bit more history than video games, so the examples are more dramatic. In 1954, about 74% of TV viewing homes tuned in to watch the Hit show of the time “I love Lucy”. In 2014 the Most watched TV series, “the Big Bang Theory”, only drew in 13% of TV viewing households. But, thanks to the Long Tail, this industry isn’t failing, and the most popular show capturing less of the total viewers is a really good thing! It means consumers have a lot of choices when it comes to watching TV.
So how does this apply to our Industry? Lets take another look at the "top 10 sellers of 2014" example from earlier. With The Video Game industry being as young as it is, our Long Tail Graphs have started to grow one sided much faster. In addition, last year (2014) we had a laundry list of "Hit" games that disappointed the general public, making even more room for the Long Tail to grow.
For this Graph I’ve declared the short head short as the top ten best selling games of 2014. When you see how much more our hypothetical long tail here outweighs these “hit” games, it’s hard to see why publishers would even want to try and invest in a game that cracks the top ten. But why is this the case now? Surely there must be a reason we have decided to consume more games that don’t target a broader audience. Well there is.
An Easier Way to Purchase Product
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Digital Distribution has changed the way we consume all of our media. With it, publishers and retailers can offer more choice to consumers. The method of easily obtaining our entertainment is what finishes the formula Anderson set forth in his book, “Make the product easy to find and easy to buy.”
So why does digital media give the consumer so much more choice than traditional retailers? Well a local GameStop only has so much shelf space
 and they need to reserve it for games that they know will sell, games in the top 10 or top twenty on the graph. Anything less popular and more niche runs a much higher risk of never being purchased, which is bad for business. Why risk wasting such valuable shelf space on something no one in the local area might enjoy? |
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With a distribution system like Steam, your shelf space is infinite and the more niche products you can offer to your customers, the more games you can sell from the long tail, increasing its impact even more. Suddenly you're not only liberated from your shelf space limitation, but also your local neighborhood limitation, where the number of niche tastes is significantly less than the number of niche tastes around the world.
The main issue with something like this, as we've all seen with Steam lately, is that if left unchecked, your store and market will become flooded with products that brings down the prestige of your service. When you see the latest hot title next to baby's first video game, it defaces it's value in a sense. |
So what effect is this going to have on our beloved games industry? Well unless you’ve lived under a rock, you’ve probably already noticed the Long Tail’s changes upon our industry. And even if you don’t quite see that yet, surely you’ve noticed the impact digital distribution has had on the Games Industry. I mentioned Steam earlier, and that’s because they understand how offering more is letting them exploit the long tail for success, but how can more big publishers and retailers start to capitalize on this?
A Change In Product Location, And Now A Change in Products
Game sizes need to shrink, as well as budgets. Not every game needs to be GTA V. And trying to make the top selling game year after year has shown time and time again that it’s not quite what consumers want. But the big games that are focused on for 5+ years tend to be. They've had more love, care and time poured into them than the yearly Call of Duty game. It would be silly to try and ask publishers not to attempt to make a game that is huge, sells, millions, and brings in millions more. Instead of forcing the entire team to do so every single year, I have a different idea.
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Plan and make one large game with a 5+ year development cycle, and while a good chunk of your team works on that, have your other teams in other cities, countries, all focus on making smaller games than appeal to a niche audience. Games like Gat Outa Hell, Blood Dragon, Child of Light, Grow Home, Infamous: First Light are all great steps in the right direction and have shown that the long tail can reach out to niche audiences and land a hit! Blood Dragon in particular is a game we would have never seen without the long tail, and it certainly wouldn't have seen the success it did without it either.
Now we all know big publishers don't want to risk money on these niche products, it's because they don't know if a market exists for it, and that's also okay. Not everyone is going to want these games, but they are much cheaper to make because of the smaller scope and ability to re-use some assets from pre-existing games. There’s a lot of merit to be had from the old saying, no risk no reward. And while risking developing and marketing for the Long-Tail could result in said game never finding an audience, when the risk pays off it’s healthy for business and for the industry as a whole. Hell, a small game might find such a strong audience that it demands larger future sequels, and could spawn it’s own franchise, or even genres.
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Invisible Inc. (shown above) is a strange blend of Stealth and Turn Based Strategy. This is another example of game that would most likely have not seen the light of day if the developers (Klei) avoided making niche products. Klei also found success in their previous Long Tail orientated titles, Mark of the Ninja and Don't Starve.
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Moving Forward: Embrace the Changes Coming
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I'd be willing to bet a lot that I'm not alone in the recent frustrations with many of the methods publishers have been attempting to avoid change and draw out big hits as long as possible. From season passes, on disc DLC, in game micro-transactions, collectors editions, definitive editions, pre-order bonuses, and other negative buzz words.
All this stuff does, is attempt to patch up a giant sinking ship, when instead you should be getting on the smaller and safer life raft. 
Instead of focusing developers on small monetary practices to incorporate into their games, which I doubt they are passionate about in the first place, let developers explore some of the weird ideas for games that they have. Throw a programmer or two with a team of artists and make a wacky game prototype and see if the rest of the team has fun with it. It's in this way publishers can utilize the thousands of talented people at their finger tips, while coming up with small ideas for small products, with small costs, for a small audience. And like the graphs themselves, the money won't be huge for each game, but make enough of them for more niche markets, and I think we can see a new era in gaming.
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With the norm being a variety of small games made quickly, and being able to look forward to a big I.P. sequel every four or five years, gaming will be able to grow healthily again. Where consumers, developers, and even publishers alike can get together doing what we all love to do, which is to play and make video games. Not exploit or pad them out, but look forward and embrace the change that's coming. As a wiser individual than me once said, "Great Art is not changed by its Industry, Great Art changes its Industry."