General

Ha ha ha… Yahtzee is back in form as far as i’m concerned. Loved the review. Loved the things he underlined… linearity, a game that actually wants you to see your teammates as annoying/bad unlike all the others where you’re supposed to love them even though they seem to be the same…
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A couple of days ago a friend reminded me of this game… quite a special game. I liked it because of it’s original artwork, great sense of humor (the Timmy scene cracked me up) and some quite innovative gameplay. I still remember the feel and intuition of the jetpack and some great gameplay situations. Where it did go wrong in my opinion though were the lack of saves combined with lack of a really easy difficulty, which lead me to never finishing it, despite considering it quite the masterpiece.

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Gamasutra has an interesting article
Are Game Publishers Becoming More Like Movie Publishers?

It does raise some very interesting points on such issue as relationship between ratings and profitability… it is a business after all, even though it may be a beloved passion for many of us. From the article:

It seems that publishers within the video game industry are taking the same route as movie publishers, not necessarily concerning themselves with quality so much as publishing profitable titles. Essentially, Activision is to the video game industry what Paramount is to the movie industry: Infinity Ward as Activision’s LucasFilm, Call of Duty 4 as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
[...]
The uncanny resemblance does not end there – as the movie publishers sometimes act as just a distributor for a film, having little control on the film’s production. Again, refer to Paramount, which acts just as a distributor for companies like DreamWorks and Marvel.

But unlike what many may think I am not actually crying for these things or complaining: I do understand it’s a business, and i think that’s a great thing. People have loud mouths but they really vote with their pockets (and the two messages often differ). I do see a silver lining though: the bigger the business becomes the more valid niche products become… because, let’s admit it, games which are about high art are a niche, not the norm and what everybody wants to see… but that’s okay :D Those of us here are used to being "different".
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Just read a pretty interesting article: it starts from the recent MS Xbox 360 price drop and their statement that this brings it to the mass-market and discusses what the mass-market really means.

The mass-market isn’t "one thing for everybody", it’s "something for everybody". It’s not a Holy Grail, a monolithic audience just lying out there waiting for the Right Product – it’s a collection of niches, some larger than others, some very small indeed. Fill enough niches, and you can call your platform – and your medium – mass-market. Simply keep pumping your efforts into one or two niches, and you’ll always be on the sidelines.

I dissagree with the article in that I believe that price points are still a big deal in bringing everybody into games but the article does make some very interesting points. What do you think?

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