Games | The VidZone Network Blog - Part 2

June 6, 2009

Xbox Live 1 vs. 100 beta impressions

1 vs. 100 (XBLA)

This could be a problem.  I’m a trivia fiend, and I could easily see myself becoming addicted to this game.  Similarly to Grid, you can earn points simply by participating.  Even if you’re a complete dolt, you’ll still be making positive progress.

There are one of three groups you could wind up in: The One, who is the active contestant; The Mob, who wins prizes if The One gets stumped; and The Crowd, who consists of everyone else participating.  The Mob starts off as a group of 100 players.  As individual members fail to properly answer a question, The One climbs their way up the prize ladder.  The One has a few “lifelines” which include polling the highest scorer, accepting the majority answer of The Mob, or accepting the majority answer of The Crowd.

What frustrates me is what I think I can attribute to lag or being physically too far from a server.  When answers are presented, less points are awarded as time clicks down until the player finally buzzes in.  Even when I know it’s the final choice and mash the button well before it’s revealed, I can’t ever score higher than 190 (out of a possible 200).  Those milliseconds absolutely do matter.

Players are given the ability to cheer, jeer, or dance by tapping the Y button and scrolling through various actions.  Behind you is also interactive lighting, which I call the “hype meter.”  It rises as you perform an action, but for a while I couldn’t figure out how to enter the last bar.  Or how one of the other players was dancing.  It turns out you’ve really got to mash on the button quickly, however once the dancing is initiated, you can slow down again.

Favorite thing: Xbox Live Primetime brings with it the ability to schedule pop-up reminders for events.  It’s fully integrated with the Xbox Dashboard, just like download and friend notifications.

Least favorite thing: The outcome of this question:  (Note: the answers are labeled to match the Xbox controller’s buttons in order from left to right.)  “What is the 24th letter of the alphabet? X. A A. X B. B”  Of course I hit the X button intending for the answer “X.”  About 1/3 of the mob also made the same mistake.  Stupid trickery!

Carl @ 10:41 pm
Filed under: Games — Tags: , , , , , , , , —

June 2, 2009

E3: Zephyr ready for sail

img_2746_800x600

After an annoying Direct X issue, I’ve got Zephyr up and running at the IndieCade booth (#652, South Hall).  You can find us in the rear left of the hall.  Just look for Natsume’s cute stuffed baby giraffe at the Afrika kiosk.

Ing picked me up from the convention center after work, and took me over to Culver City, where I met up w/ Chuck and Corey. After picking up Jeff from the airport, we headed over to C&O’s Trattoria on Venice Beach for the best Italian food I’ve ever had.  I had them toss on some fried calamari onto some angel hair past w/ a simple olive oil, tomato, basil sauce.  Matched with indulgent, flavorful garlic knots, it was all perfect.  Unfortunately Victor gets into town Tues. morning, so he missed out.  However, plans have been made to keep up the FIEA mini-reunion each night, particularly on Chuck’s birthday.

img_2764_800x600

Carl @ 2:17 am
Filed under: Games,Personal — Tags: , , , , , , —

May 26, 2009

Bundles vs. price-drop: value is in the eye of the beholder

Joystiq posted a leak that Sony’s sending out a new 80GB PS3 bundle exclusively to Best Buy, priced at the same $399.99 and scheduled for availability on June 9, the week following E3. Two years ago, the news of a $100 price drop made waves, but–assuming two relatively recent, non-Greatest Hits games–this bundle effectively the same savings: $100 or so.

The problem why this isn’t gaining any excitement (at least from the snarky, jaded gaming forum-goers) is that, while adding value to the current box, the actual out of pocket cost isn’t decreasing.

Is a penny saved, in this case, a penny earned?

The obvious argument against a bundle strategy is that it won’t be universally appealing because not everyone likes the same kinds of games.

It makes sense for Sony.  Though they’ve been able to streamline manufacturing and drive down costs, they’re still losing money on every box of hardware that leaves the factory.  However, software (especially if it’s Sony-published) is more or less “free.  They’ll “not make” money instead of “lose more” by using the software bundle strategy.

However, all Joe Consumer wants is that leading digit of the price to tick down to a 2. The first digit of an item’s price is a very powerful psychological force and why $299.99 is irrationally more attractive than $300.00, despite a penny’s difference.  Say it out loud. Two-hundred, ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents. Three-hundred dollars.  All you can hear is “two-hundred” versus “three-hundred.”

However, the existence of this new bundle doesn’t preclude the announcement of a price-drop of a non-bundle package.  But if that existed, wouldn’t it have been uploaded to Best Buy’s computers at the same time?  Was it held back to prevent the same leaks that happened at Circuit City? If that’s the case, again, why wasn’t this listing held back as well?

(image credit: AP)

Carl @ 10:03 pm
Filed under: Games,Techniques — Tags: , , , , , —

May 22, 2009

PrE-3

After getting the news from IndieCade late last week, I’ve spent most of my time since sorting out travel plans to get to E3.  Travel and lodging have been finalized with just a few other bits to consider.

Of course the primary reason I’m attending the expo this year is to be on hand to speak about Zephyr: Tides of War, but it’d be a disservice to the video game fanatic inside me to not take part in the rest of the mania and play some new games.  I imagine that both of these things will involve a lot of standing around with a lot of dead time.  That’s why I’ve considered picking up a netbook computer to help fill the time with some blog writing and blog reading. After that my GDC trip, I also curse the inconvenient size, weight, and short battery life of a 17″ laptop.

I’m not quite sure of my plan of attack and how I intend to divide my time between duty and leisure.  Anyone have insight on the prime times when people feel like checking out indie games versus the big blockbusters?  Morning? After lunch?…  This is one thing I really want to get right because it’s a fantastic networking/job interview opportunity, and I want to meet people who can help me get back in.  That’s certainly a selfish on reasons for networking, but a guy’s gotta eat.  (And buy Punch-Out!!.)  I realize this is a retail-centric conference, rather than something for developers’ enrichment.  However, I’m pretty sure that if anyone’s going to have interest in exploring the outer fringes, it’ll be other developers.  I have about 50 business cards leftover from GDC, and I hope that’s enough.  If not, boy, that’s a fantastic problem to have.

I’m flying in on the 1st and back home late on the 4th. If anybody would like to meet up and chat or whatever, I’d like that, too. Please let me know; it currently seems I may be the only one from the team who’ll make it out to LA.

Carl @ 1:18 am
Filed under: Games,Personal — Tags: , , , , , —

May 15, 2009

Zephyr soars into IndieCade@E3

Yesterday I received the news that Zephyr: Tides of War was selected to be part of IndieCade’s showcase at E3.  In the past IndieCade showcased such independant classics as Braid, Everyday Shooter, N, (to name a few you may be familiar with) and numerous others.  Judging for finalists in the main competition is still in progress, but to even be selected to be highlighted to a world-audience at E3…it’s enormous!  I’m sure I can speak for all my fellow teammates when I say it’s a tremendous honor to receive this recognition.  Plus, it’s another nice feather in the cap for FIEA.

The fine folks at IndieCade are offering us passes to the expo if we can make it out LA to personally curate our project. I’m trying hard to sort out arrangements for myself and sent out the invitation to the rest of the team. I’m hoping at least a couple of us will be able to fly out there.

I also figure it’d be another good networking opportunity to try to land a job. This time, I need to remember to actively ask for business cards.

I keep asking myself if this was an accident; it seems too good to be true.  But we poured a lot of passion into the project, and though there was plenty more we wish we could have tweaked before our ship date, I guess it still resulted in an exciting product.  There’s no time to keep trying to wake myself from this dream.  The show’s only three weeks away, and I’ve got some travel arrangements to make!

 

If you’d like to learn more about Zephyr: Tides of War, please visit the website at http://www.fiea.ucf.edu/~cohort4games/zephyr.

Carl @ 1:58 am
Filed under: Games — Tags: , , , —

May 14, 2009

Some FIEA plugging

Because FIEA (http://www.fiea.ucf.edu) is a relatively young program, just now on it’s fifth set of students, I want to make sure that its name gets out there and promoted well.  After all, if my alma mater looks good, then I look good.

FIEA (pronounced “phy-uh”) stands for the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy and is part of the University of Central Florida. Graduates of the 16-month program will receive a master’s degree in interactive entertainment. There are three tracks available: art, programming, or production. Because classes are never scheduled simultaneously, you’re welcome to sit in on the other tracks, regardless of which track you’re in.  You may notice that one of the tracks is in production, rather than design. Everyone’s a designer, of course! So in addition to design fundamentals, producers are taught project management skills.

Unanimously, we graduates agree that thanks to the industry grade tools, group work environment, and projects at FIEA, we were able to hit the ground running with minimal ramp-up in the real world.

The faculty is ace and industry-worn, with plenty of relevant war stories to tell.  Several of them remain in active development positions outside of the university.  However, thanks to the low ratio of students to professors (current cohort is maxed out at ~50 students; mine was ~35) and one-group-of-students-at-a-time focus, they’re readily available and eager to provide guidance and feedback.

New Brochure

Our communications director Todd Deery just sent notice that the newest brochures have just left the presses, and he graciously provided me with the PDF proof so that I could share it here with you.  [PDF, right-click to download]

iPhone Crossfire Port

Our programmers were once tasked with developing and porting a simple game from the PC to the Xbox. A couple of them decided to adapt the Milton Bradley game Crossfire into a network multiplayer title. Now, its been ported and renamed x-Fire for the iPhone. Check out the website Game-Grinder.com for more details and video. I don’t think it’s network-capable anymore, but obviously with multitouch, both players can play on the same iPhone.  What is notably missing is the cheesy lounge cover of the Crossfire TV commercial song that they used as background music.

Street Fighter, ASCII Edition

Perhaps you saw this on Kotaku? This is a network rock-paper-scissors test game for the engine that the Cohort 5 programmers are working on.

Carl @ 2:02 am
Filed under: Games,Personal — Tags: , , , , , —

May 13, 2009

Driving first-day sales

One of the primary driving forces for attracting customers to purchase pre-orders is the promise of some promotional tchochke, often t-shirts, keychains, or in-game item.  That’s a great value add, but it often only attracts those already interested in the characters or franchise–fans who desire collectibles.  What attracts random passer-bys, though, is the promise of savings.  Think of the impulse purchase items by cash registers…just up-scaled.

GameStop is the last retailer out there that needs help selling video games.  Unfortunately, their reselling of used games is detrimental to the industry-supporting sale of new games, but they’re the prime candidate for who can support what I’m about to propose: meaningful discounts off the price of a new game.  But I’ll get to why GameStop later.

In most cases, when a brand new release is discounted, it’s a joint effort between the publisher and the retailer.  Both of them wind up eating some of the loss from the discount in order to simply drive the customer into the store or the product into the customer’s home.  A “loss leader” or subsidization.

Traditionally business says that you can charge early adopters whatever price you want, and they’ll willingly pay it.  Continue this pricing until sales slump, then cut the price.

I ask, why not offer substantial savings to attract additional early adopters? (more…)

Carl @ 2:34 am
Filed under: Games,Techniques — Tags: , , , —

May 7, 2009

Better to sell some for nothing than not sell any at full price

In next week’s shopping circular, the UbiSoft published Wheelman is on sale for $30.  After only just over a month!  Last week, the equally fresh-on-the-shelf HAWX was also listed for $30.  That’s half-off!

If you’re a gamer on a tight budget, UbiSoft seems to reliably cut their prices within three months of release.  It seems to happen with all their major releases regardless of if it’s in the hyper-competitive Christmas season or in the summer dry spells.  See: Assassin’s Creed,Prince of Persia, Shaun White, No More Heroes, Far Cry 2,  Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, the Imagine/Petz/Coach series.

These weren’t token “save $5″ sales.  Prices were slashed usually between 25%-33%.  That’s new release $60 console games marked down to $40 or $45.  $30 DS games either 2 for $40 when purchased together or $20 each,  straight-up.

There’s sometimes a sense in retail that it’s better to sell shelf-stagnant item at a discount than to not sell it at all.  Is this UbiSoft’s thinking?  In many cases, these price drops are temporary for a week or two, sometimes at specific retailers.  But more often than not, within a month or two of that first drop, it’ll stick permanently.  

Perhaps because of their large output of SKUs, they have agreements with retail partners that product needs to move off the shelves to make way for new titles?  Who ultimately eats the cost?  The retailer?  Or does UbiSoft give them a kick-back for taking such a dramatic loss?  I used to work at Best Buy, and our employee discount was to pay what the store paid to receive the merchandise plus an extra 5%.  Trust me, there wasn’t much worthwhile savings on media items, be it video games, DVDs, or music.  Most often, Target’s flat 10%-off everything employee discount would have netted a better deal.

And why so soon after release?  It’s probably best while advertising is still fresh in people’s mind.

Whatever their reason for this seemingly hair-trigger liquidation reflex, gamers in the know who track these sorts of things now have little faith in the initial asking value for UbiSoft’s new releases, having been shown time and time again that a price drop is reliably right around the corner.

Carl @ 1:34 am
Filed under: Games,Techniques — Tags: , , , —

May 3, 2009

Good parts of “bad” games: Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude

As you may have seen in a previous post, I’m playing through Codemasters/Team17′s take on Leisure Suit Larry, Box Office Bust.  I’m about 5 hours in and encountered more irritatingly executed mechanics than what I’d seen when I first wrote my impressions.  However, much like Magna Cum Laude, though the “gameplay” itself is kinda lame, the overall experience, writing, and humor pretty much make up for those shortcomings to where I’m totally willing to turn a blind eye to them.  I still prefer MCL‘s art style and innovative dialogue system, but in BOB (if you know the right response), you can listen to all the wrong answers before moving to the next level of the dialogue tree.  Unfortunately, if you do get the right answer earlier than you’d hope, loading an earlier save will almost certainly set you back quite a long ways from your current point, both in playtime and in distance.  I hope that whoever writes the (hopefully) inevitable FAQ with all spoken dialogue writes in the ad-libbed VO versions rather than just transcribe the subtitles.

Anyway…

I thought I’d kick off the first in this “good parts of bad games” series with one of my favorite examples, the aforementioned dialogue system from Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude. (more…)

Carl @ 5:17 am
Filed under: Games,Techniques — Tags: , , , , , —

Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust impressions

It’s as if having heard that point & click adventure games were dead, the designers decided to move forward a decade…and make a 3D platforming collect-a-thon.  I don’t know what Team17 was thinking. (more…)

Carl @ 12:02 am
Filed under: Games — Tags: , , , , , , , —


« Newer Posts — Older Posts »