GameSpot’s Andrew McMillen has an article up on the working conditions of game developers and why gamers should care. but unfortunately is misses its topic on a few levels and fails on its most important point – making gamers care. The first issue with the article are the games used to showcase extensive crunch times (“crunch” … Continue reading
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1UP’s “Inside Starbreeze: The Secret History of the Riddick Team”
1UP has a great article on Starbreeze, game studio behind titles like The Darkness and Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. Some may read it as evidence of publishers interfering with game studios (which it is) but in broader terms I saw it pointing to the difficulty of developing games. Despite points on the … Continue reading
Team Bondi: Disappearing Into The Surf
News is out that Team Bondi has been put into administration, which is a way of saying, “all their assets are being sold to pay back their debts”. Some have raised questions about this event being linked to the claims of people being overworked in crunch mode at Team Bondi, but the real answer is … Continue reading
The Secret World: Great Facepalm Moments in Marketing Betas, Part 2
The first beta facepalm moment of The Secret World (TSW) beta sign up showed that Funcom wasn’t thinking about how they’d be perceived when they “broke” their own beta registration. This next moment shows that they aren’t really thinking about TSW in its beta promotions much at all. The second stage of registering for TSW’s … Continue reading
The Secret World: Great Facepalm Moments in Marketing Betas
Funcom’s The Secret World recently had a counter on their website that was meant to be the countdown for the start of beta. Only at the end of the counter the clock ‘broke’ and messages went out that the beta was delayed. Actually clicking on the broken clock brings up a letter and the start … Continue reading
Extra Credits: A Credit For Your Thoughts
Extra Credits bugs me. I don’t watch it that often, but when I do I’m left unsatisfied by the end of it. It’s like bad pizza – I like the idea, would love it when done well, pick it up when it’s there but end up regretting the decision to sit down with it. Probably … Continue reading
Duke Nukem Forever: Smacking As a Discipline Technique
Much like Lum is the master of free rape MMO, the search term that brings most people to my blog is apparently “pimp slap” since I used that reference when talking about Duke Nukem Forever’s Capture The Babe multiplayer mode. Sorry folks, nothing but disappointment if you are looking for that – all we have … Continue reading
Star Wars: The Old Republic – The Risk in Being Too Big
There is a risk in being too big. Although the modern cliche is “too big to fail”, it is a term that originally referenced companies who were saved by Government money because their collapse would have resulted in unbearably devastation on the economy around them. In a short period of time, it seems this saying … Continue reading
Gentlemen Exclude Women From Gaming For Their Own Protection
One news story doing the rounds is a Battlefield 3 launch event in Texas that has banned women from attending. Initially it was on the grounds of not wanting to expose women to “immature, misogynistic male-gamers” before unashamedly backpedalling revising their position to the event being a “gentleman’s retreat“. Others have addressed the matter more … Continue reading
Great Moments in Game Advertising, Part 3 – Celebrity Endorsement
The great thing about MMO / online game advertising is that allows for so much creativity. Or if that fails, copying a known character and have them endorse the title by virture of proximity… then hope the original IP owners don’t see it. Okay, the White Queen may not be Marvel’s most well-known character, but … Continue reading
World Class Villains 