While some people argue that what games need is more monotony, at least in terms of black and white games, plenty of people are dissatisfied with the current trend of drabness in developers' color palettes. Of course, there are plenty of brightly colored games that are and will continue to be released, but plenty of people miss color. Bright color. I myself am rather fond of candy-colored palettes, preferring them to drab medieval "realism." One blogger thinks he has the answer to who stole the color from games:

... I think that publishers have convinced developers that the game buying public is composed almost entirely of teenage boys.

If the binder doodles, film and music consuption habits of my friends in junior high is any indication, adolescence is as much about proving that you’re not into “kids stuff” anymore, as it is about anything else. Remember when Nintendo made Wind Waker more cartoony? Remember how sales spiked when Prince of Persia went from this to this? Remember what the monsters of Doom 3 look like?

This is the legacy of teenage boys that continues to shape our industry. We sell to our audience, our audience thinks that they want “mature” titles and someone told them that mature meant dark, dank and bloody. Dystopian novels English curriculum, I am looking in your direction.

I can appreciate muted palettes as much as anyone, but it's nice to step into games that are so far removed from reality that the grass is always emerald and the sky is always some slightly unnatural color of blue. Are teenage boys to blame? I don't know about that, but there's nothing wrong with prettily painted games. And you can be muted without being drab.

Who Stole All the Colours? [Quiet Babylon via GameSetWatch]

Time Crisis 4 Scans [Game Planets]

I loved Quake, but let's face facts: my excrement is more chromatic, a bright rainbow that flies out of my bottom in a TubGirl-style arc (if you don't get the reference, for god's sakes, don't Google) compared to the palette of that classic. Quake's color scheme is brown, rust, mustard and maroon. And ten year's later? FPS game designers are still doing everything in grays and browns. Consider this image from Aeropause as proof: it's like every game out there is being designed by the color-blind. Meanwhile, companies like Nintendo cram so much color into their games that they trigger epileptic seizures. What's up with that? Florian Eckhardt

The Colour Of Next-Gen Gaming? [Aeropause]

Pro-gaming, which has been around for about nine years, is finally coming into its own. I spent time last month talking to some of the major players in eSports for a story on the current state of pro-gaming and the sudden surge of leagues.

The story ran today in the Rocky and includes interviews with the CPL's Angel Munoz, Ubisoft, Lil Poison's dad, the Frag Dolls, the general manager of DirecTV and the veep of pro-gaming site GotFrag.

I also wrote a sidebar about the art of video game color commentating.

The story's running today because DirecTV's mega pro-gaming invitational airs on their network today. The event was produced by 11-time Emmy Award winner Mike Burks and featured 17 high-def cameras.

DirecTV's latest sports special was produced by 11-time Emmy Award winner Mike Burks, included 17 high-definition cameras and featured $200,000 in prize money and hours of gunplay, car crashes and martial arts death matches. Filmed in a 16,000-square-foot arena built in an old hangar at the former Treasure Island Naval Base in San Francisco, the Championship Gaming Invitational is DirecTV's explosive entry into the burgeoning world of pro gaming and further proof that the once-obscure livelihood of video gaming is coming into its own. "It's been the perfect storm coming for the past 24 months," said Steven Roberts, vice president and general manager of DirecTV. "The state of the (game) industry, the state of gaming and the technology are all there."

Pro-Gaming Blows Up, Pro-Gaming Gets Color and A Few Leagues of Their Own