I’ve Got Some Extra Steam Keys
That I don’t know what to do with. Anyone have any ideas?
Getting Out Of The House
I think I’ve got some sort of neurosis that leads me to believe that I need to absorb whatever information I can pertaining to the games industry. So when I heard about Casual Connect, my little gears started turning, and I decided let’s check it out.
Why Are We So Opinionated?
This isn’t strictly related to the gaming community… but in light of this weekend’s event involving Marcus Beer and Phil Fish it feels like it’s worth discussing.
Merchandise
I was recently in a toy store in Alameda that has a great variety of used and new toys, and I couldn’t help but momentarily lapse into that childlike state of glee as I saw all the stuff that I wish I’d had as a kid. Don’t get me wrong, I had plenty of Ninja Turtles, Transformers, G.I. Joe and He-Man figures growing up. I was never at a loss, but I’m still in love with toys.
Must Games Be Difficult?
One of the things I found interesting at GDC, was a series of mini-postmortems that included a review of Anna Anthropy and Liz Ryerson’s New Grounds game Dys4ia. Dys4ia is a bit of an interesting game which I briefly mentioned in this article, but truth be told there are people out there that question whether this form of narrative can even be considered a game.
Weigh Your Decisions
In what appears to be very timely with what we’ve recently been discussing comes a Kickstarter campaign from nine-year old Mackenzie Wilson forty-three-year old Susan Wilson. It’s a campaign that at first glance appears to be an enlivening battle cry for feminism that tugs at those little heart strings. It’s little surprise that when Susan began bombarding busy celebrities that they answered her call and began spreading the word. The campaign went viral in no time.
We Need Gaming News
One of the more unfortunate realities of trying to cater to the tech savvy crowd is that you’re catering to a tech savvy crowd. I think that people who know their way around technology want to be catered to very specially, and are quick to react if they think they are being cheated. It creates a bit of a delicate balance between the consumer and the developer. The ire of gamers is something to be weary of.
Exclusivity
I only briefly mentioned before anything regarding Steam’s potential change of policy which would open Steam up to be much more of a democracy than it currently is. Not everyone agrees with me… but my personal stance on the issue is that I like that there is a bit of a curation process that helps to promote good games. But then, the ideals are always different from the reality. What exactly makes a game worthy of being put in front of an audience?
Packaging
I was purveying the week’s news in the gaming industry: there’s lots of rumors out there about who might be announcing what at GDC or E3, or which features might be placed in which new console. Speculation about how the Steam store might be run in the future, and studies on whether violent people are too occupied by new games over the holidays to commit crime. There’s anecdotes about Nintendo fans rewarded for calling support or getting the shaft if they attempt to return their faulty consoles to the store… but the one thing that caught my interest is this small little post on Destructoid.
Masocore
I just learned of the term “masocore” today, after reading an article comparing difficult games to S&M on Kotaku. It’s a good read, and resonates as I’ve been going insane the past week playing Super Hexagon; a ridiculously difficult game that I’ve been diligently trying to master whenever I get some spare time (Read: on the toilet).