Kotaku
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apple
Would You Buy An Apple Gaming Console?
The prospect of another company jumping into the console market is laughable to most people, and for good reasons. It isn't a market you can just leap right into. You need connections, capital, and consumers hungry for any product you put on the market. Over at Cnet's The Digital Home, Don Reisinger suggests that only one such company exists - Apple.
Apple has the infrastructure in place through iTunes to create a real value proposition for those that want to extend the capability of their console beyond gaming and has the cash — about $20 billion — to not only invest in the best components on the market, but in an online gaming experience that could rival Xbox Live. That cash could also be put to good use by acquiring major developers (did someone say Take-Two?) that could go from third-party powerhouse to Apple's first-party publisher."
Having just bought an iPod Touch last week despite having a perfectly functional Zune with 10 times the storage space, I can see Don's point. Apple has gone beyond making products. Now they simply create things people want. Would you want an Apple gaming console?
Apple is the only other company that can release a game console [The Digital Home]
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discussion
The Power Of Video Game Suggestion - Mmmm, Eggs
Since playing through Metal Gear Solid IV, I've gone through a dozen eggs a week. I never used to eat this many eggs, but there I am, nearly every morning, cracking open fresh ones into a hot frying pan, pausing to watch the egg white turn from translucent to opaque, humming a little song to myself. Hell, I never really ate eggs sunny side up before the damn game came out. I was a scramblin' man. Quick, easy, no fuss. What has this stupid game done to me?
Is this an isolated case, or have you folks ever found yourself eating, drinking, or doing things a certain way after seeing it in a game? I'm not talking purchasing large baskets of Axe deodorant due to an in-game ad here - we've all done that. I'm talking more subtle things here. Going on a fresh fruit kick after a Pac-Man marathon, or getting really into curry after watching the marathon curry cutscene in Xenosaga II? How much power do video games have over our daily habits? If only we had a comments section in which to discuss such things.
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discussion
A Weighty Debate: Discussing Fat Princess
Perhaps it would have been naive to assume that Sony's Fat Princess could have surfaced without stirring controversy, but as the media's picked up on a few dissenters in the blogosphere, we now have a little issue on our hands.
We've covered a bit of the reaction against the game, a strategy title that's a little bit capture-the-flag — except in this case, the "flag" is a very fat girl, made difficult to move because her captors are tasked with feeding her cake. Reactions have ranged from the constructively mild — Feminist Gamers wonders why fat chicks are considered "cute" and suggests a heavy treasure chest instead — to the bilious.
Shakesville writer Melissa McEwan writes, sarcastically, "I'm positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative assholes," and completed her protest with a photo dubbing herself "The Fat Princess of Shakesville Manor" — and flipping the bird, presumably to Sony.
The angle that the majority of the media seems to want to go with is "Feminists cry foul over Fat Princess," though whether someone is fat or thin is truly a feminist issue is debatable, one supposes. So shall we debate? More »
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discussion
Quantic Dream's Cage Talks Emotionless MMOs
Quantic Dream's David Cage, the creator of Indigo Prophecy who's currently at work on Heavy Rain, often has good things to say about emotion in games, and in a recent interview with Gamasutra, he's leveling a critical eye on the open-world structures of MMOs and wondering what "emotional value" players are really getting out of them. More » -
feature
Body Types: Why Ivy's Boobs Are Such A Big, Big Deal
Ah, the onward march of technology. Though the fiddly arguments over what “next gen” really means are unceasing, the general trend is that games get bigger, slicker, richer and more lifelike with every passing year.
Soulcalibur’s Ivy may be the poster child for this annual augmentation – literally. It seems with each passing year, her endowment multiplies, ushering in each passing technological evolution with more ludicrous, top-heavy jiggle than the era before.
But it’d be unfair to pick on Miss Valentine. After all, unrealistic body types in games are nothing new, a conversation-starter as old as Lara Croft. The fact that “sex sells” and the proliferation of exploitive body types is a cultural pandemic, not simply a video game issue, is the easy way to explain it, but the “easy” way is seldom very enlightening, nor does it help us learn about why we play.
What does it all mean, in an interactive medium where realism, immersion and engagement are the primary goals? Are we seeking idealistic images as avatars for ourselves, to complete the fantasy of power that gaming can provide?
Is this a case where the gaming audience has been misjudged through the ages by marketing teams who assume each and every one of us is a vapidly salivating 15-17 year-old male – until their assumptions have unconsciously shaped our taste? More »
1:00 PM on Fri Jul 11 2008
By Leigh Alexander
52,294 views, 278 commentsLatest by AlysiaBrizo: Valkyrie Ice here. You seem to have utterly missed the point. Games are not about real life, ore even about more »
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opinion
Industry Apologetics: It's Not Just A Game
In my last column, I defended Grand Theft Auto IV from allegations of sexism, based on my opinion that it treats everyone distastefully. It provides a sandbox experience, I said, that allows players the opportunity to explore the underbelly of humanity and themselves, reflecting their own worst impulses back at them.
I was pleased that the article provoked thoughtful, in-depth discussion about the treatment of race, gender and other social issues in games, but in debunking a single individual's attack on Grand Theft Auto, my intention was not to provide a blanket pass to games that permit (and arguably, in this case, promote) antisocial behavior. So I was more pleased at the commenters who criticized the virulence of my GTA IV defense than I was at those who agreed with me (though, hey, who doesn’t like to be agreed with?).
One of the ways I rationalized what I’d written is by noting that games are scapegoated and crucified at every turn by people who’ve never even played them, and that this unfair public flogging threatens the medium’s potential for mainstream legitimacy.
Why those who make games don’t defend their own craft vigorously is a question for another time, but my position has been that the least we can do is to return these volleys when they’re aimed our way. If we want to see games truly thrive and grow away from stigma, it’s our responsibility, really.
And that’s why the most irresponsible thing we can ever do as gamers is to speak the phrase, “It’s only a game.” More »
1:20 PM on Mon Jun 23 2008
By Leigh Alexander
7,151 views, 76 commentsLatest by Loomeister: This reminds me of something else that I think should be discussed. I also think that Leigh would be the more »
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will wright
GTA IV Killing Makes Will Wright Feel Kinda Bad
Will Wright feels "a bit of remorse" when he makes the choice to kill civilians in GTA IV, he said, speaking at the Vancouver Art Gallery for its "Krazy! The Delirious World of Anime + Comics + Video Games + Art" exhibition.
Gamasutra covered the event, during which Wright added, "but if it's to progress the story, then 'God told me to do it.'"
He covered a broad range of subjects during the talk, including whether games are perceived as an art form ("When comic book people are looking down on you as cultural refuse, you know you're at the bottom of the barrel,") and his vision of games as a "co-collaboration between player and designer."
Still, he thinks we have further to go: More »
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Nitpicking BioShock
On BioShock: Don't Eat Underwater Garbage Potato Chips
From Tim Rogers' ActionButton.net comes an enormously lengthy "late to the party" BioShock review, just on the heels of the recently-announced PlayStation 3 version of the game. Rogers' reviews are hallmarked by their controversy-courting vitriol, hyperbole and - did I mention - length? Nonetheless, he raises several points interesting to consider about the widely hailed (and presently backlashed?) game:
This game is not a masterpiece — it is the bare minimum. Its attention to detail with regard to its atmosphere and its narrative is not, in and of itself, a glorious feast: it is the very least we should expect from now on.
BioShock was largely acclaimed for doing a few very specific things right: the relative maturity of its philosophical themes, its stunning setpieces, its cultural wallpaper. It was received by the audience with the kind of welcome reserved for something for which we've waited ages - and yet Rogers believes that should have always been "the bar," and should continue to be.
Of course, with trademark irreverent glee and dark humor, Rogers dissects the manifold things BioShock did wrong: More »
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colors
Whatever Happened to Color?
TrustyGamer has a point. Photorealism is a good thing, but can it really be an escape from reality — especially for ostensibly lighthearted fare — when the color palette it draws on represents the depressing color scheme of our own worlds? Increasingly, that seems to be the case in every title, including EA's Skate, which "look(s) like shots from a heroin game where you have to skate to get your next fix."
"Nowadays, all screenshots basically look like they are from the same post-apocalyptic World War III nuclear fallout nightmare," smakus writes. He finds games to be stress-causing and not stress-relieving because of the dreary, gritty environments we're subjected to, compared to grim titles like Doom and Duke Nukem that dealt death largely in primary colors.
Next-gen "realistic" games (i.e. non-cartoon protagonists or action) with lively, bright colors? I can think of Bully, although the winter months stretch of that game started getting me in a funk. TF2 has cartoons in a real environment. And there's Guitar Hero and Rock Band, but that's probably outside the scope of the writer's argument. I'm sure all of you can think of more.
Like I said, I am color-blind as a bat, and so asking my opinion of a color is almost beyond useless. But it is a good question regarding design: What is ultimately the reason people will buy a game — realism or fun? — and how should that govern the rest of the game's look, feel, sound, story, etc?
I Miss Color [TrustyGamer]
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ask the community
Can't We All Just Get Along?
Michael Abbott of The Brainy Gamer and Angela of Lesbian Gamers recently collaborated on a short essay aiming to address what they define as "the hostile climate that frequently arises within the gaming community." They tried isolating specific concerns about some gamer behavior and raising questions about how to handle them, and just published what they've come up with.
Here's an excerpt:
Ironically, the medium we love that provides us with so much joy has also developed a fanbase with a reputation for anti-social, intolerant behavior in both Australia and the United States where we live. We know it's a gross and unfair mischaracterization, but the broad set of cultural assumptions about games and gamers is largely negative, and we too often affirm those assumptions by our own behavior.
More »
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