Kotaku, the Gamer’s Guide

My wife and I have been doing this for about a year now. We don't miss cable/satellite at all. Yes, we watch shows a bit behind schedule, but it doesn't matter because we're doing it cheaper and experiencing far less advertising. We would never go back.

While I agree with you that a lot of current gen game design is not really breaking through boundaries, I feel that my corner of the development space is making a fair amount of progress. Audio in games is better now than it ever has been. In the previous gen, you saw the occasional game that would attempt 5.1 for cutscenes or, in the case of the original Xbox, a handful of games that provided real-time 5.1 audio in game. Now real-time surround is a feature in just about EVERY console title. We're also pushing forward with features like real-time audio occlusion (muffling sounds that are outside of a room you're in, for example), dynamic mixing (adjusting volumes of dozens or hundreds of sounds in response to what the player is doing to create a more film-like audio mix) and super-complicated dynamic music mixing systems that make the music change constantly in response to the player's actions. Sure, they're refinements, and some of them are things that have been done in PC games for a while, but they're new for the consoles and very exciting, at least within our little corner of the industry. I'm not disagreeing with you, I just felt I should chime in about a discipline in which some true innovation is occurring. It's exciting to be a game sound guy these days.

We've seen two fantastic Shin Megami Tensei games this year. Surely one of them belongs on the best of list.

Using other games as a trojan horse seems like the good option to me. I won't let my children play M or T rated games at age 8. End of story. I may be into GTA, No More Heroes, Manhunt and others, but my kids don't need to be exposed to that content yet. They're simply not old enough to handle it.

There are many great games kids can play at that age. Give them Super Smash Bros Brawl, PGR4, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, etc. They don't need to be playing Halo.

This is just stupid. Stop announcing announcements. Stop with the countdowns. If you have an announcement to make, make it. Otherwise shut up. This does not build hype, it just annoys people.

I would like to see Team Ico do a Zelda game.

I would like to see Grasshopper Manufacture do a Kid Icarus game.

I would like to see Bizarre Creations do an F-Zero game (not holding my breath for that one).

And I would like to see Brownie Brown do a sequel to Earthbound. Oh wait...

@Keshie:

On your reasons for pirating:

01) Rent the final game. Borrow it from a friend. Play it at a friend's house. Read reviews.

02) This is what the minspec on the game's site/box will provide you. If it still doesn't work, then the company should help you sort it out.

03) Even if they are, there are devs working in the trenches for these companies who don't deserve to be laid off. They will be if the company can't sell enough copies of a game. And don't say "Then work for someone else!" You're under 18 (according to one of your other reasons), and I'm guessing you have no idea how difficult the jobs market is right now. Most people are happy to have a check at this point.

04) There's always a way to find something without breaking the law. eBay. Craigslist. Retro gaming forums. You're connected to billions of people around the world. You can do it.

04a) Get a checking account with a banking/debit card. That should let you purchase anything you want online. I abhor credit cards, and almost never use mine. This attitude has yet to prevent me from purchasing anything I want.

05) DRM infestation is a reaction to piracy. Pirating because it exists is madness. It leads you round in circles. If you don't like a game's DRM, the answer is simple: don't buy it. Don't play it. You're not magically entitled to play every game in the world. Either suck it up and deal with the DRM or don't play the game. My wife and I didn't pick up Spore (despite our interests) for this very reason.

To your reasons AGAINST pirating games:

01) Games rarely work perfectly right out of the box. Financial stresses on a company can actually make this problem worse. When a company is rushing to get a game out the door because they're desperate to make up for losses in the current quarter, corners can be cut. When they're healthy, making good money and not worried, they can afford to take their time and make sure the bugs are sorted out.

02) All companies should be doing this, but I don't feel that piracy is a reasonable response if they don't. They did something crappy so you break the law. How does that make sense?

03) You should be able to find indie retailers, unless you're outside of America/Japan/Europe. I do the same. "Reasonable price" bothers me though. What defines a reasonable price? Why should you dictate that? A company puts a price on a product. That is their choice. You either buy it or do not buy it, based on how you feel about the value of the product. That is your choice. Pirating a game because the price is "unreasonable" is BS. I hate to sound like one of those stupid MPAA adverts, but I'd love to own an Aston Martin DBS. The price is out of my range. Perhaps unreasonable. Doesn't give me the right to hotwire one and drive it off the lot.

04) I've never understood the issue with having the disc in the drive. Maybe because I'm so into console games. Why can you not put the disc in the drive? Does it kill you to walk across the room to get the case? This argument is pure laziness. As for DRM, I addressed that earlier.

I'm glad that you prefer to buy the game, but I don't agree with your excuses for pirating under certain circumstances. There isn't an excuse in any circumstance.

You guys can make all the excuses you want, discuss the specifics of which element is most responsible for the near-death of PC gaming, etc. It doesn't change the fact that when you pirate something, you're taking money out of the pockets of the people that made the game. When people can't make a living making games, they stop making games and look for another way to make a living. End of story. I make a living in the games industry, and I love doing it, but the day I find I am unable to provide for my wife and children doing this, I will switch to something else. Being passionate about what you do means nothing when you can't pay the bills and feed your kids.

12% of the game developers in North America are currently out of work. Is this all the fault of piracy? No. Does piracy contribute to this? Absolutely, and anything that contributes to this is bad in my eyes, especially as I was one of them for a while. I was lucky enough to find a new job, as my field is pretty specialized and in demand. A lot of the level designers, programmers and artists I worked with weren't so lucky, and are still trying to find work.

There is no excuse for piracy. None at all. If you feel the game is too expensive for what it provides, don't buy it. If you want to "try before you buy," rent it, borrow it from a friend or download a demo. If you throw the excuse of "I wouldn't have purchased it anyway," then don't download it... if you truly wouldn't have purchased it then you have no reason to download it.

Let's see... what other excuses are there? It's out of print? Find a used copy or NOS ("new" old stock). I collect classic games, believe me they can be found. You say you want to have a backup? Take better care of your discs. I have two young children who play games, yet the discs in our collection are perfect almost without exception. And finally, if you can't afford it, then WAIT UNTIL YOU CAN. Save up for it. Re-evaluate your expenses, see if you can make room for it. Our family has a games budget every month, we know what we can spend and what we can't, we watch for sales (cheapassgamer.com is great for this), we prioritize the games we must play and those we can wait for, we rent games we don't necessarily have to own.

There is no excuse. If you're making one, it's because you're too cowardly to just admit you're a worthless thief. I have seen projects I've worked on be negatively affected by piracy.. I know people who have experienced similar challenges as the guys above, and it makes me sick because they're doing their best to make something amazing and fun, something that isn't another cookie cutter EA game, and they're then pissed on by the very customers they're trying to entertain.

I guess the final excuse is that game developers make millions anyway. That one's not exactly true either. Sure Bobby Kotick, John Riccitello, Peter Moore and the rest make tons of money. But the devs in the trenches, the ones who actually make the games? Not so much. We're trying to make ends meet. We're dealing with rising gas, food and utility prices, just like everyone else. And when the companies we work for experience financial troubles, whether from piracy, the economic downturn, etc, we're the ones who suffer for it. Shit rolls downhill, and we get the axe, not the rich executives at the top.

You have no excuse.

We don't need another Metal Gear Solid game. 4 wrapped it up nicely.

What we need is Metal Gear Raiden. Kojima-san, if you're reading, I expect royalties :)

I buy used when I simply cannot find a new copy of a game. I always prefer new, and do my best to find new.

My wife and I are aggressive game collectors, we have over 800 games and rising very quickly now that our careers are off the ground. As someone previously said, I would agree if this was said about the Wii. Nintendo are ignoring their core market there. But the DS is absolutely rocking it. We have 111 DS games (and 11 more on our wishlist for the rest of the year, and that's just of what's been announced) compared to 38 PSP games (and 5 on our wishlist). Of all of our platforms, we have the most games for the DS, with the PS2 not far behind.

This press release is a joke. Seriously.

A million years of evolution, we get Soulja Boy

Euphoria is an animation system, not an AI system. Sure, there's interaction, but Euphoria isn't responsible for all the enemy behaviors in the game, just how they visually represent them.

[en.wikipedia.org])

@NEXUS6:

Great news. Thanks for posting that. I'm in the clear as well!

@NUMBERONE

Careful with the comment about "sound designers don't compress their sounds as much." You'd be surprised how much we do squash things (often between 5-10:1, depending on the content), and how limited our memory budget is to begin with (we get the smallest piece of the pie by far).

As far as content on discs is concerned, we do take up a bit, but we're still not the largest offenders unless you're cramming all of the dialog in the game onto a single disc in multiple languages. Then it does start to take up some serious space.

But at the end of the day, it's very simple to say "Sony has more space so they're the winner!" when you don't understand what's going on behind the scenes. Each console has its challenges and benefits. Yeah, Blu Ray is great for space, but the seek time isn't what it could be and the memory situation on the PS3 is difficult to deal with (among other things). Despite the disc size limitations, my best experiences have been with the 360.

And, disclosure, I do not work for Ubisoft, nor am I working on Assassin's Creed. So I have no clue what their challenges are here (short of what was said in this posting). I just wanted to clear some of this up before people started screaming "those damn audio people take up all the space." Trust me, we don't.

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