Basically, he explains in great detail what Nintendo's business strategy of Blue Ocean really is, what disruption really is, and, among other things confirms what we all knew: analysts are full of rubbish.
I think much of his terminology should become standard on internet message boards. None of this "hardcore" or "casual" nonsense. Upstream and downstream market are far more accurate descriptions. (Read his stuff and you'll understand.)
Just a warning: "Hardcore" gamers will NOT like what he has to say.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Kairon on June 01, 2008, 04:20:09 AM
God I love reading this guy's work.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: SixthAngel on June 02, 2008, 07:58:17 AM
I just read this and was going to post it until I did a search.
Can this thread be moved to a video games related subforum since I feel it would get a better response, and is, well, related to Nintendo and their current system?
Its great to see how the entire industry ignored the exact words they said and he keeps saying truth after truth. It makes me want to buy all the books from the economist he continues to quote.
My favorites
-the current hardcore and current developers and publishers (who are hardcore) see the word "casual" games and think "retard" games and thus hate them and fail at making them by putting in as little effort as possible. His dog to toy dog picture is great. (I am not going to talk about casual games not existing and just being a brand these groups and analysts also made up for something they don't understand, read it) I look forward to the elimination of these two terms like Urkel.
-the April fools gamestop article that talks about the Wii succeeding and is 100% correct.
-it seems that Microsoft and Sony are completely screwed and only a miracle can save them from the disruption and possible exit. Seeing this coming makes it very interesting.
-An introduction to Christensen who's books I want to pick up. I never studied business but this kind of thinking is the stuff I like.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BeautifulShy on June 02, 2008, 12:12:30 PM
I agree with Sixth Angel this needs to be moved.I was reading this and he is very insightful and he explains it so well.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on June 03, 2008, 03:35:46 PM
I think what many get wrong about casual gamers is that they think a casual game must be easy. I don't think that's the case, I really don't. A casual game could be hard as Contra and it would still work. What they do need is to ease the player into the game and avoid requiring prior knowledge about gaming.
A game can be hard and casual because casuals can be very persistent. Who doesn't have stories about some person who usually doesn't play videogames at all completely wiping the floor with them in Tetris or Dr Mario? Humans are adaptable and if they want to can get very good at something.
Easing the player into the game doesn't necessarily mean tutorials though those help. They aren't really mandatory if you can communicate the 1-2 buttons you use to the player in another way (e.g. on arcade machines the buttons have labels on them but of course that doesn't work with home consoles). First off you want to start easy, the player should see first successes during his first round of play, that's motivating and tells the player that he has enough basic proficiency to get into the game. You don't want the player to fail on the first level already and conclude that he can't get into the game (even if he could). You also need to let the player get used to his abilities. Take Super Mario Bros. At first you can move to the left or right and jump, that's a dpad and a button. Sure, you can run but noone does that this early. If you are used to the game to a degree where you can get a fireflower a second button comes into play that lets you shoot. With enough game proficiency you learn the benefits of the run button. Each of these stages takes its time, it's not a "try this once, on to the next lesson" thing like a tutorial, you actually do things until you're good at them.
Prior knowledge about gaming is something a hardcore gamer doesn't even recognize but a casual gamer will find problematic. There are many conventions and idiosyncrasies throughout gaming that seem completely alien to anyone who hasn't seen them often. The basic block pushing in Zelda games, for example. A veteran knows that some of the blocks are pushable and there's often clues which ones are, a casual just sees walls and gets confused (because it really is not obvious that usually unmovable blocks are suddently movable). A hardcore gamer knows that if there are three sockets and he has an item that fits on one of them there are most likely two other items he has to find and place on the other two. A hardcore gamer knows that when people talk about some object or location you need to get that object or go to that location, he knows how elemental magic counters elemental enemies of different types, he knows that bosses have patterns, he knows that flashing and charging is the preparration for a super attack, he can immediately spot important elements for a puzzle*, etc.
*=That's what I like about Toki Tori, it's not immediately obvious where you can or should use which item, in other games items tend to be limited to certain locations (e.g. grappling hooks being applied to grabbable objects) and usually the challenge is just the order or sometimes the right object to use with each, in TT you can never be sure that a bridgeable gap really needs a bridge placed on it.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on June 03, 2008, 04:51:00 PM
Hm, you know what this whole talk about the wave of disruption reminds me of?
Quote
Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .
And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Ian Sane on June 03, 2008, 06:23:30 PM
It seems that predicting the end of gaming as we know it is a common idea. The different viewpoints entirely seem to be whether or not this a good thing. Predict it like a negative thing and you get flack from fans and say it's a good thing and you get praise.
I personally just wish Nintendo was more subtle about games vs. non-games. Is there any reason why Wii Sports is so gimped regarding options? I don't have to be some videogame expert to be able to understand options. Why can't I have a full nine inning baseball game? Why is there only one golf course? Why are tennis and baseball stripped of so much functionality that core elements of the sport like moving in tennis or fielding in baseball are not even available as an option? That's what offends me. This idea that depth or options or complexity or challenge will confuse and scare away non-gamers. Bullsh!t. Guitar Hero grabs the non-gamers but it doesn't feel like it caters to them. It's a game that would have been released in the "old market" and still sold well. It isn't neutered like Wii Sports is. If Nintendo made it it would have had three songs and no selectable difficulties.
People bring up stuff like Super Mario Bros. and Tetris and retroactively declare them to be non-games because people that aren't nerds actually play them. But those games didn't compromise their design to attract a mass audience. They were easy to figure out the basics of but they're weren't designed with this concern that too much complexity here or there would confuse everyone. In other words they didn't treat the player like a moron. Now on the flip side, games requiring you to be familiar with videogame conventions is a problem. It's a flawed design anyway. We've all been pissed off at some obscure puzzle that required too much "videogame logic" to solve. But Nintendo response to that is hand-holding and stripping out complexity and challenge. Wii Sports is fun but it's the videogame equivalent of a participation trophy. It caters to the dumb "everyone is special" bullsh!t popular today. That's why third party non-games are such crap. Nintendo has the exceptional talent to make such a design work. But they created the "us vs. them" nature of all this blue ocean stuff.
Iwata's Nintendo would never have designed Super Mario Bros. in a million years. It was vastly more complicated than the "high score" themed games at the time. It was so much bigger too. And it was hard. The last castle is a time limited maze that offers no indication that the player is doing the correct thing or that it even is a maze in the first place. How does something like THAT get compared to a non-game? Meanwhile Wii Sports tells me how to bowl every time I play the game even though I've done it a hundred times already and know what the hell I'm doing but for some reason can't turn off the instructions.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Urkel on June 03, 2008, 06:42:21 PM
Ian, did you even read what this guy has to say? Or did you just assume "Stupid Nintendo fanboys love him so he must be stupid"? You didn't comment on anything specific he had to say which leads me to believe you just skimmed.
He has answers for just about every point you came up with. No, I'm not going to hunt down all his quotes for you.
Stop copy and pasting the same old stuff you say in every thread and comment on the specific stuff he has to say, plz.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Urkel on June 03, 2008, 08:43:45 PM
It seems that predicting the end of gaming as we know it is a common idea. The different viewpoints entirely seem to be whether or not this a good thing. Predict it like a negative thing and you get flack from fans and say it's a good thing and you get praise.
That's really not at all what Malstrom is saying. It's not whether it's "good" or "bad", only that it IS happening.
He also points out that there are still old school PC gamers that are bitter that Nintendo "killed" gaming for them when Nintendo last disrupted the game industry with the NES, and that Nintendo was "dumbing down" games for the masses. History is repeating itself.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on June 04, 2008, 01:51:46 AM
I don't get why he makes all these snarky comments about hardcore gamers losing ground, if Nintendo is really moving upstream then doesn't that just mean that there will be more "hardcore" games in the future? Third parties aren't necessarily going to be crushed by the wave, only Sony and MS are and it doesn't really matter IMO whose console we play the games on. Sounds to me like the only change will be that the "hardcore" games go on the Wii instead of PS3 or 360.
Also he could be less wordy, those articles are HUGE LIEK XBOX.
Ian, Wii Sports was a controls demo. More complexity means more development work, it was supposed to be a simple game to show people that the Wiimote does work and that any failings they might experience are probably the fault of shovelware. Making it a fulöl implementation of the sports would not only eat loads of additional dev resources, it'd also increase the chance of failure (a game is only as good as its weakest mechanic) and, if good, hurt the possibilities of selling more advanced single-sport implementations later on. That and the reasons described in the article.
In closing, RTFA.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: SixthAngel on June 04, 2008, 02:24:49 AM
I don't get why he makes all these snarky comments about hardcore gamers losing ground, if Nintendo is really moving upstream then doesn't that just mean that there will be more "hardcore" games in the future? Third parties aren't necessarily going to be crushed by the wave, only Sony and MS are and it doesn't really matter IMO whose console we play the games on. Sounds to me like the only change will be that the "hardcore" games go on the Wii instead of PS3 or 360.
There will be hardcore but they will be very different from the hardcore of today. The values that hardcore gamers care about now are being replaced by new values. The hardcore of tomorrow will have these new values and not the ones of today. Todays hardcore call tomorrows hardcore "casual." He says the same thing happened when the NES came out and the old guard looked down on the players and called them "casual." Hardcore gamers will die only in the mind of the current hardcore, because they see what they are doing as the mainstream and the ultimate in games even if it isn't true. They will never except the new breed as being truly hardcore because they value something different then they do.
For example in the last change he describes. Old hardcore: Computer adventure games, text heavy, graphically more advanced, overly complicated.
The NES appears New hardcore: Mario and stuff, little text, easy to understand, much simpler
The old hardcore hate the new Mario platformers, Zelda and other games because it is going a very different direction then they want. They see at as going backwards because they want epic stories, better graphics, like overcomplicated controls, and they don't care about the new values.
Some of the old guard will move to Wii and become hardcore gamers with the new values while others will not accept them and be relegated to a tiny niche always looking back at the "pinnacle" of gaming and think it died despite it being very much alive, only different from what they want.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on June 04, 2008, 02:25:26 AM
The hardcore are very reactive and explode when prodded (the hardcore have no problem belittling the non-hardcore, but the hardcore don't take jokes or the market threats to their "status" well). There is entertainment in that.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Kairon on June 04, 2008, 03:20:24 AM
Considering that the hardcore gamers of yesteryear were computer gamers who looked down their noses at the NES, and today's hardcore users are console/PC gamers who look down their nose at the Wii and DS, will today's "casuals" find someone else to disparage in 20 years?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: DAaaMan64 on June 04, 2008, 03:32:54 AM
We already do. Those players of the electronic handheld games everyone leaves are their toilets.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on June 04, 2008, 04:46:45 AM
I was wondering when Ol' Malstrom's site would make it here.
I don't mean to brag or anything, but I've had some repeated discourse with this fella for a while. Nice fella. Real Ladies' Man.
I agree with him about everything except for one thing. He doesn't think Nintendo should open the purse strings and start buying people out. I do, but not in the way you'd think. I would rather Nintendo buy out a company like UBISoft or Konami or Namco or any other company that's been pussyfooting around and being purposefully thick when it comes to the Wii and liquidate all their assets. Sure, it probably will never happen, but it would certainly feel good in a schadenfreude kinda way.
Edit: Oh yeah he also likes GoNintendo, and cites them as a disruptive type of journalism. Which I guess is true, if you count stealing content from other sites without the author's permission disruptive.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on June 04, 2008, 07:47:07 AM
Was there really a change between the old hardcore and the new one? Sure, games got more user friendly but I don't think that's a defining mark. Less cheapness, etc. There's always people who managed to get accustomed to the shortcomings of an old implementation and cry when newer implementations fix that but are the changes really so fundamental that it's not possible to adapt? To me it doesn't look like Nintendo is trying to reinvent the hardcore genres, the "disruption" looks more like a series of games with slowly increasing complexity that acts basically as training for new gamers to turn into hardcore gamers.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Mashiro on June 04, 2008, 08:19:11 AM
The future is always uncertain, markets can always change and all it takes is another new idea to swing the pendulum in someone else's favor.
It's too early to declare certain things are/will be dead yet.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Mario on June 04, 2008, 09:00:22 AM
Quote
Is there any reason why Wii Sports is so gimped regarding options? I don't have to be some videogame expert to be able to understand options. Why can't I have a full nine inning baseball game? Why is there only one golf course? Why are tennis and baseball stripped of so much functionality that core elements of the sport like moving in tennis or fielding in baseball are not even available as an option? That's what offends me
What offends me is your abillity to think of two things at once, the other being that "Wii Sports" isn't one game but 5 in 1.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Infernal Monkey on June 04, 2008, 11:30:57 AM
Stop copy and pasting the same old stuff you say in every thread and comment on the specific stuff he has to say, plz.
Ian's been pasting his same old tired bullshit for years now, he's a spam-bot, robots don't sleep.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: mantidor on June 04, 2008, 01:33:20 PM
I think I'm the only one who sees wii/ds and hardcore gaming going hand in hand even now. For starters all of us here can't claim to be "casual", we post in internet gaming forums and know names like Aonuma or Mikami. "Hardcore" is just the level of investment you put into something, The sims can be the most "casual" Pc game ever but just go to one of the crazy forums when there are people completely dedicated to make extremely detailed dresses, quality designed furniture and complex hairstyles, if that isn't hardcore I don't know what is. It's perfectly logical that "hardcore" wiisports fans exist.
The real problem with gaming is its niche status, not how "hardcore" or "casual" some gamers are. Nintendo does the real solution which is expanding the audience, and does so by making something accessible, again accessible doesn't mean whether something is hardcore or not, pacman is accessible, but can be as hardcore as what the player wants it to be.
This is the only way the gaming industry has any future, the reason obscure indie films or creepy odd japanese manga exist is because their respective markets are so damn huge that they can support niche things with little appeal. Only a small percentage of people would like this material, but the audience is big enough to reach enough people to pay back the costs of producing these things. If gaming doesn't increases its market it will just implode, small studios would had no chance whatsoever and we would be facing another crash. (I'm almost sure that without the wii we would be in the middle of one right about now, at least in Japan).
Its so frustrating the "hardcore" don't understand this is needed for their games to survive, specially with the kind of budgets "hardcore" games need.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: DAaaMan64 on June 04, 2008, 01:38:37 PM
I'm going to be the most hard core Babyz player ever.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Ian Sane on June 04, 2008, 03:10:59 PM
Quote
Considering that the hardcore gamers of yesteryear were computer gamers who looked down their noses at the NES, and today's hardcore users are console/PC gamers who look down their nose at the Wii and DS, will today's "casuals" find someone else to disparage in 20 years?
Of course. This happens with everything. Still sucks. Still didn't want it to happen while I was in my 20's (being an old fuddy duddy before even turning 30 seems unfair). Still didn't want Nintendo of all companies leading the charge.
But it does happen with everything. If it lasts it changes. For some people it was the crash. For some it was the switch to 3D. For some it's now. For some it's later. But because everything changes eventually videogaming will change in such a way that what drew you into videogaming has been lost.
This happens with music. This happens with pro wrestling. This happens with sports. This has happened with The Simpsons because the show has been on so long. It happens with long lasting franchises like Star Trek. I'm sure it even happens with long running soap operas.
If it hasn't happened to you at some point you're either very young, very easily pleased or very lucky. Eventually you will hate something you used to love. It will turn to sh!t and the frustrating thing is all the younger fans around you will love it and won't notice the change because they lack the perspective. Try arguing that The Simpsons sucks now with someone younger than the show itself. How do you argue that the show went downhill around Season 7 when the person started watching in Season 10?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on June 04, 2008, 03:54:07 PM
Quote
If gaming doesn't increases its market it will just implode, small studios would had no chance whatsoever and we would be facing another crash. (I'm almost sure that without the wii we would be in the middle of one right about now, at least in Japan).
For proof of this, mantidor and others, it is necessary to do a little thought exercise. First, take the combined sales of all the consoles this generation up to this point. It's been about 124 weeks since the launch of the Xbox 360 which is, I suppose, the start of this current gen. There have been 59 million consoles sold, a majority by the Wii, which was launched launched in the 2nd year.
At this point I'd like to direct your attention to the similar stats from last gen. The combined totals for this point last gen are 55-56 million, a majority by the PS2, and not including the Dreamcast. I mean wow look, games have expanded by 3-4 million! But wait! Since the Wii serves "another market" and is full of "new people" like "girls and grandmas" and "casual gamers" so all of the Wii numbers have to be excised. So let's take 27 million away from 59 million and holy cow. The combined total for the industry becomes 32 million, a 43% decrease from the previous generation.
This data presents an interesting set of logical mazes. If, on the one hand, the Wii is solely populated by new people, then Nintendo has quite possibly staved off another videogame crash. With Sony and Microsoft losing $5.5 billion combined and a 43% decrease, this indsutry would have died a high-definition death. However, if one argues that the Wii has little effect and the wii owners would have bought the 360 and PS3 instead, then that is certainly a hell of a lot of gamers choosing the Wii over the other two.
There is also the argument that these are all Nintendo fans who bought the Wii, and let me tell ya... the idea of Nintendo fanboys being the majority audience after being characterized a tiny niche last generation is certainly pleasing to hear, but probably not the truth, considering the Wii has already sold more than the GC.
The Wii-denying talking points are fading away one by one and third parties, blogs, websites, and fanboys are running out of things to say. The only thing left is "doesn't have HD" and that's something everybody already knows.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: mantidor on June 04, 2008, 04:11:14 PM
Thanks! I had some superficial knowledge of the numbers so I threw the hypothesis without much back up but I knew I wasn't that far off. Now it would be interesting to compare software sales I won't , I'm lazy
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: EasyCure on June 04, 2008, 04:51:26 PM
Thats a hell of alot to think about.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Kairon on June 04, 2008, 05:12:04 PM
If it hasn't happened to you at some point you're either very young, very easily pleased or very lucky. Eventually you will hate something you used to love. It will turn to sh!t and the frustrating thing is all the younger fans around you will love it and won't notice the change because they lack the perspective. Try arguing that The Simpsons sucks now with someone younger than the show itself. How do you argue that the show went downhill around Season 7 when the person started watching in Season 10?
Oh geez. Anime and RPGs....and the increasing use of graphing calculators in math classes. It all makes sense now.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Luigi Dude on June 04, 2008, 06:16:07 PM
If it hasn't happened to you at some point you're either very young, very easily pleased or very lucky. Eventually you will hate something you used to love. It will turn to sh!t and the frustrating thing is all the younger fans around you will love it and won't notice the change because they lack the perspective. Try arguing that The Simpsons sucks now with someone younger than the show itself. How do you argue that the show went downhill around Season 7 when the person started watching in Season 10?
That's a horrible comparison because Nintendo is still releasing high quality, traditional games that are just as good as their older games, unlike The Simpsons which has been complete sh!t for the last 10 years.
Hell, in the last year alone, they managed to Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart and Smash Bros Brawl all within 6 MONTHS of each other. Each of these games where top quality traditional games, that are some of the best for their respective genre, and can easily be compared to their previous installments. Not to mention Smash Bros Brawl and Mario Galaxy alone cost Nintendo more money, then all the Brain Training, Wii Sports, WiiPlay, Nintendogs, and Wii Fits games combined.
If Nintendo was so bent on destroying traditional gaming, then why are they spending more money on creating traditional games?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Kairon on June 04, 2008, 06:21:23 PM
Maybe hardcore gamers are jealous for Miyamoto's attention?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Shift Key on June 04, 2008, 08:09:47 PM
Try arguing that The Simpsons sucks now with someone younger than the show itself. How do you argue that the show went downhill around Season 7 when the person started watching in Season 10?
Simple. You pull out a Season 7 DVD and tell them to watch it.
What's that? They may not agree with you even after watching Season 7? OH NO! IT'S ONE OF THOSE VILE OPINIONS! KILL IT WITH FIRE!
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: ShyGuy on June 04, 2008, 11:18:51 PM
Those punks won't watch season 7, just like they won't watch old black and white movies or play 8 bit video games. Kids these days!
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Shift Key on June 05, 2008, 01:37:14 AM
Did you say something? I missed it because I was busy yelling at kids to get off my lawn.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on June 05, 2008, 03:02:39 AM
Oh geez. Anime and RPGs....and the increasing use of graphing calculators in math classes. It all makes sense now.
Not to mention people who buy third party games just for the sake of buying third party games.
Don't be jealous, I've just evolved to the next level of fanboi.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BeautifulShy on July 06, 2008, 04:13:01 PM
Here is a new article. Http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2008/07/06/secret-to-the-casual/
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_insanolord on July 06, 2008, 04:55:11 PM
That link was nowhere near worth catching a glimpse of the above conversation and getting mad about what they were saying about The Simpsons all over again.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on July 06, 2008, 05:22:41 PM
BTW, Malstrom's "hardcore" gamers are the kind that wants processing power and graphics. People who have been chanting the mantra of "screw graphics, we want to experience something really new" count as casual (er, New Generation, as opposed to Next Generation) under his definition. Kinda funny since the old gamers are probably a harder core than the next gen people.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on July 06, 2008, 06:22:05 PM
While the guy does bring up some interesting points my main problem with the guy are his things are a bloated convoluted mess. Whatever happened to the phrase: "Keep it simple stupid". Instead of running around with circles full of redundancies and repeating yourself except in a fancier way and using other words.
Nintendo knew that if they stayed on the tried and true method of just increasing the hardware power and doing absolutely nothing else they would just end up getting diminishing returns just look at the NES - SNES - N64 - Gamecubes sold, if Nintendo just made a gamecube 2 you sure as hell would see Nintendo in last place again. When Nintendo did something different with the Wii and DS and they brought in a whole new dimension of an audience base and yet they are retaining their old consumer base and guess what? the majority of stuff on Wii caters to the old audience Nintendo had and their new audience.
Microsoft are sticking to their same strategy like last time and they are getting diminishing returns, it's still a dud in Japan, Europe is still ruled by Nintendo and Sony. The only difference is that Microsoft is trying to secure games with money and if the only way your getting specific software pieces as an exclusive or timed exclusive as your main strategy there is something wrong with your strategy. It seems that Microsoft is in desperation mode, now with the rumors of the motion controller it seems that Microsoft is blindly running into things just look at how the Xbox vision turned out.
Sony's main mistake is arrogance and overpricing the heck out of their console. Their audience around the world shrunk significantly but slowly is crawling back up through slashing a lot of features to accommodate the current price which is still too much.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on July 06, 2008, 07:56:28 PM
BTW, Malstrom's "hardcore" gamers are the kind that wants processing power and graphics. People who have been chanting the mantra of "screw graphics, we want to experience something really new" count as casual (er, New Generation, as opposed to Next Generation) under his definition. Kinda funny since the old gamers are probably a harder core than the next gen people.
That would be the Core, actually. The Casuals aren't expressing the demands, like you describe; they'll flock to what's new and attractive, and express their demands through their purchases.
"Instead of running around with circles full of redundancies and repeating yourself except in a fancier way and using other words."
Malstrodamus writes for casuals. He knows reiteration has benefits. What's key about his repetition is he'll bring back his old points whenever he discovers NEW/ADDITIONAL content/evidence/references that support them, as he is continuously documenting how this cycle is playing out -- apparently there isn't a shortage of such evidence as of late. And maybe you've been reading too much of his stuff within a short period of time and you're burned out, while reading his stuff over the past 1.5+ years would've been more gentle to digest.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on July 06, 2008, 08:42:21 PM
Flames, do you have any issues with what he's saying or how he's saying it?
He's actually dead on for most of what he's saying, as the market is showing. Price isn't really much of an issue for the PS3. It's that nobody seems to want it. Same with the 360. the most major software hits and it barely registers as a blip on the radar, while the Wii sells briskly or out regardless of what's released.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on July 06, 2008, 10:11:30 PM
Ironically I didn't think he wrote for the casuals, sure its good to be informative but convolution your article with redundancies will just risk making your audience bored or lost. While it is good to be insightful the way he wrote it makes me think that he is arrogant person and is rubbing it in everybody's face sort of like an elitist. I won't argue with if he's right or wrong because he is right however his method that he presented is atrocious.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: GoldenPhoenix on July 06, 2008, 10:24:23 PM
I haven't read the article because I did not see my name anywhere listed in the topic.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on July 06, 2008, 11:05:13 PM
Haha funny one GP.
I disagree with Malstrom's portrayal of a "hardcore gamer" he portrays it as a person who only cares about the tech used on a game like engines or whatever, I think that's just a tech geek that just gushing over how pretty something is. In my eyes a hardcore gamer is someone who appreciates games regardless of what platform it's on or the graphics, scale or scope contained in the game.
"Hardcore gamers" want to play games because they love them and are open minded about them. The thing I hate about analysts and a lot of writers and people in general portray whats a gamer or whats a hardcore gamer or a casual gamer.
I think that people like Bill, GoldenPhoenix, Infernal and a bunch of other people on NWR are "hardcore gamers" because they are open to what games they play and don't care about a specific image that a game has but rather purchase and play the game because they are genuinely interested in playing it.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on July 07, 2008, 03:11:03 AM
I think with "hardcore" he means the current traditional game market, not really hardcore people (I reserve that term for tournament-level players but YMMV). He elaborates that this distinction really is nonsense (and that it cannot be defined) but keeps using the term for some reason. There are a lot of people who reject the Wii because it is less powerful than the 360/PS3, he means them.
What should not be forgotten about his articles is that he matches Nintendo's approach to an economic theory, Blue Ocean is not a term Nintendo made up, it's a recognized pattern. Making the Wii less powerful than the competition is actually a required step of that strategy. The VC/WiiWare is a preemptive counter to other people trying to pull the same thing on Nintendo. Malstrom theorizes that that's the reason Reggie was hired, the books describing the strategy weren't translated to Japanese until recently and Reggie probably had experience with the pattern.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Urkel on July 07, 2008, 03:18:06 AM
I disagree with Malstrom's portrayal of a "hardcore gamer" he portrays it as a person who only cares about the tech used on a game like engines or whatever, I think that's just a tech geek that just gushing over how pretty something is. In my eyes a hardcore gamer is someone who appreciates games regardless of what platform it's on or the graphics, scale or scope contained in the game.
"Hardcore gamers" want to play games because they love them and are open minded about them. The thing I hate about analysts and a lot of writers and people in general portray whats a gamer or whats a hardcore gamer or a casual gamer.
I think that people like Bill, GoldenPhoenix, Infernal and a bunch of other people on NWR are "hardcore gamers" because they are open to what games they play and don't care about a specific image that a game has but rather purchase and play the game because they are genuinely interested in playing it.
When Malstrom says "hardcore", he's referring to the hardcore elites that believe technology and "art" are the most important parts of games. You know, the people that say Nintendo is killing gaming and whatnot.
He does make the distinction between the "hardcore", and the "core". The core being like your own description what "hardcore gamers" are.
This is but one of many reasons he makes fun of hardcore gamers. (http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/hardcore-sign-petition-reveal-demands-order-all-graphics-redone-blizzard-tells-hardcore-to-appreciate-colors/)
You can't make stuff like that up.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on July 07, 2008, 06:15:51 AM
Well, there is a certain sense to it, Diablo had graphics and music that tried to evoke a sense of fear and desperation but since the actual gameplay was pretty much "Player = Chuck Norris" that feeling didn't last long anyway. I guess more color could help against Act 1 syndrome (after trying a few classes and doing restarts on LAN parties so everyone was on the same level I got sick of seeing that goddamn first act) though.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on July 07, 2008, 09:35:51 AM
The Diablo petition thing is really retarded, we barely knew that the game for a good month and yet people whine like crazy. The main trend I hate with gamers is that they are too hard to please (or act like it). When I first read the Diablo 3 petition it made as much sense as NWR wrote a petition to Nintendo to stop making awesome games.
But I don't know I can never take Malstrom seriously, while he's inclined about HIS OPINION and so is everyone else about what a good game is and what it isn't, however everyone has different definitions what a good game is and what a bad game is. Sure he does make some good points but there is something that it sounds like he's forcefully pushing his opinion on us and is trying to define a good game.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Nick DiMola on July 07, 2008, 11:03:13 AM
I noticed this thread a while back, but didn't bother to read into the guy's articles because they were a bit too long winded, but seeing how it has popped up again in various spots on the forums I decided to read some of his stuff.
All I have to say is that this guy is so pompous and full of himself it makes me sick. I'm glad he has a vision of what gaming is supposed to be rather than what it is. No one is going to argue that making things simpler can make a fantastic game, but that doesn't mean you can't have complicated games which are also fun, some of which even require a tutorial.
It is so narrow minded to call something crap because it doesn't follow some particular formula. Guess what ass clown, if everything followed the same exact pattern, games would be pretty damn bland. I don't want every single game to be a Nintendo game, that's why I own two other systems, to experience other games that follow different formulas.
Whoever created this whole concept of hardcore/casual gamer needs to be shot. Both words mean **** and it shows whenever anyone tries to explain something within the terms. Gaming appeals to a HUGE variety of people, most of which don't fit either definition. In the end, games are what they are and I'm glad that every system and game has a place in today's market, even the ones I can't stand. Who am I to say that the x shouldn't exist just because I don't think it is the best game experience?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on July 07, 2008, 12:18:16 PM
I noticed this thread a while back, but didn't bother to read into the guy's articles because they were a bit too long winded, but seeing how it has popped up again in various spots on the forums I decided to read some of his stuff.
All I have to say is that this guy is so pompous and full of himself it makes me sick. I'm glad he has a vision of what gaming is supposed to be rather than what it is. No one is going to argue that making things simpler can make a fantastic game, but that doesn't mean you can't have complicated games which are also fun, some of which even require a tutorial.
It is so narrow minded to call something crap because it doesn't follow some particular formula. Guess what ass clown, if everything followed the same exact pattern, games would be pretty damn bland. I don't want every single game to be a Nintendo game, that's why I own two other systems, to experience other games that follow different formulas.
Whoever created this whole concept of hardcore/casual gamer needs to be shot. Both words mean **** and it shows whenever anyone tries to explain something within the terms. Gaming appeals to a HUGE variety of people, most of which don't fit either definition. In the end, games are what they are and I'm glad that every system and game has a place in today's market, even the ones I can't stand. Who am I to say that the x shouldn't exist just because I don't think it is the best game experience?
Thank you for proving my point. Everyone has a different opinion on games and what people like or dislike in a game whether its a specific thing or a universal thing that someone doesn't like in general. Hell now practically all atari, intellivision, coleco vision era games are considered "casual" games but back then they were considered "hardcore" if there was such thing as a concept. I think that it's just a vicious cycle of trying to label stuff whether its for self satisfaction or just for arbitrary reasons is beyond me.
Also if games are going to be the exact same thing every year with no improvement it's just going to be a Madden, Tony Hawk, "insert sports game here" and it will lead to another gaming crash because people won't be interested in it anymore. Just like how I said if Nintendo made a Gamecube 2 and had a similar strategy that it employed during the Gamecube era,it sure as hell wouldn't be as popular as Nintendo's predecessors. Microsoft and Sony fell into the pitfall of focusing primarily on the audience that it traditionally focused on, that's not a bad thing at all in one standpoint but on a business standpoint its bad because you always face the fear of diminishing returns and it does happen.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Nick DiMola on July 07, 2008, 12:29:58 PM
I guess I just don't like the fact that he dresses up his opinions and fanboyism as intelligence. It is the "Slashdot Syndrome", where sounding smart =/= being smart. Anybody can write a damn dissertation on why they know the best, but it sure as hell doesn't mean they do (see Mein Kampf).
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on July 07, 2008, 12:46:41 PM
I guess I just don't like the fact that he dresses up his opinions and fanboyism as intelligence. It is the "Slashdot Syndrome", where sounding smart =/= being smart. Anybody can write a damn dissertation on why they know the best, but it sure as hell doesn't mean they do (see Mein Kampf).
Agreed, he just sounds like a elitist prick that makes fun of "hardcore gamers" for being pricks. He also makes fun of tutorials since when do games diminish in quality just because it has a tutorial. So now in his eyes Metroid, Zelda, Mario and countless games are broken games just because it has an in game tutorial. The only way I really get annoyed with tutorials is if it takes 1/4 to 1/2 of the game to teach the player how to play the game (See GTA:4) but even if it has that much tutorials doesnt mean that the game is broken it just means that the developer just over complicated themselves.
Nick I also recommend you to read this forum post and the rest of the forum topic its an interesting debate (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=11858572&postcount=148)
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on July 07, 2008, 01:13:16 PM
I guess I just don't like the fact that he dresses up his opinions and fanboyism as intelligence. It is the "Slashdot Syndrome", where sounding smart =/= being smart. Anybody can write a damn dissertation on why they know the best, but it sure as hell doesn't mean they do (see Mein Kampf).
Regular fanboys don't back their claims up with economic textbooks and matching their theories to the talks and actions of the companies involved. He does analyze the strategy Nintendo takes and the quotes from their executives do match the standard definition. Blue Ocean is apparently an established approach and the success of the Wii is not random, it is a planned strategy with a well researched outcome.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: SixthAngel on July 07, 2008, 01:31:32 PM
Mr. Jack and Flames of Chaos, he isn't talking about which games you think are best or which games he thinks are best, he is talking about a business strategy and why it is working. He completely knows the the upstream games should exist and will continue to exist, he simply is mocking the business strategy of letting the upstream gamers control the direction of the companies. He also wrote quite a bit about how the "hardcore" and "casual" are simply mental constructs and have no definitive meaning and how the most popular meaning now has nothing to do with how casual or hardcore a player actually is. He often uses quotes because of this but sometimes he doesn't(I especially liked how he says the industry uses casual to mean retarded).
I wasn't sure about his new article about the developers being full of themselves and wanting to make "art" until I went to a link in his reply section. It was to neogaf and many western developers (or people who claimed to be) asked "why should I make a Wii game?" or "Why should I change my game to fit the Wii?" and strangely enough because I never heard it about the ps2 "Why should I go there just because more people are there?"
They really have no concept of the end user. They are making a game for themselves and by extention people like them. They are making games they think are "good" or "art" not games that the general public will want. That is perfectly fine for a few companies to pursue these games but it is a horrible, terrible business strategy that will only lead to a shrinking market when the big guys join in. Nintendo doesn't think what do I want they think what does the user and even the current nonuser want. That is how a good business is run, not by creating what you consider "art" now, but by making what most people actually want to buy. History has shown that what is considered art or classics is never readily apparent.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on July 07, 2008, 01:37:06 PM
Mr. Jack and Flames of Chaos, he isn't talking about which games you think are best or which games he thinks are best, he is talking about a business strategy and why it is working. He completely knows the the upstream games should exist and will continue to exist, he simply is mocking the business strategy of letting the upstream gamers control the direction of the companies. He also wrote quite a bit about how the "hardcore" and "casual" are simply mental constructs and have no definitive meaning and how the most popular meaning now has nothing to do with how casual or hardcore a player actually is. He often uses quotes because of this but sometimes he doesn't(I especially liked how he says the industry uses casual to mean retarded).
Define a upstream game.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: SixthAngel on July 07, 2008, 01:46:05 PM
I don't really want to look for his exact definition right now because proxy servers are slow, but if you read his articles it is there. Paraphrasing it is the the group of gamers that buy the more complicated, and most demanding games. They are typically tech savvy and are basically what malstrom and other people call the "hardcore" gamer.
edit: that is upstream gamer but it is obvious what an upstream game is from it. Complicated, typically needs a large time commitment, often focuses on graphics.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on July 07, 2008, 01:51:23 PM
I was looking for your personal opinion of a upstream game not someone elses.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Nick DiMola on July 07, 2008, 01:54:02 PM
He also wrote quite a bit about how the "hardcore" and "casual" are simply mental constructs and have no definitive meaning and how the most popular meaning now has nothing to do with how casual or hardcore a player actually is. He often uses quotes because of this but sometimes he doesn't(I especially liked how he says the industry uses casual to mean retarded).
All he does with those terms is redefine them and then he takes consistent use of them through the context of his writing.
He completely knows the the upstream games should exist and will continue to exist, he simply is mocking the business strategy of letting the upstream gamers control the direction of the companies.
Mocking business strategy? Does anyone here legitimately know what these companies make on the games they produce? If their business strategy was so bad, how are they all still in business? Could many companies make more if they tailored games to a different crowd? Sure, but that totally disregards the cost of restructuring their company to make those kinds of games, not to mention hiring people like Miyamoto to direct the company properly. What about companies who like their strategy and would prefer to make less money working on something more meaningful to them? Are they wrong for taking this approach?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: SixthAngel on July 07, 2008, 02:15:37 PM
Its not my term and his use is probably the first time I heard it. I would have to agree with his emphasis on upstream being defined by the games being very complicated.
He completely knows the the upstream games should exist and will continue to exist, he simply is mocking the business strategy of letting the upstream gamers control the direction of the companies.
Mocking business strategy? Does anyone here legitimately know what these companies make on the games they produce? If their business strategy was so bad, how are they all still in business? Could many companies make more if they tailored games to a different crowd? Sure, but that totally disregards the cost of restructuring their company to make those kinds of games, not to mention hiring people like Miyamoto to direct the company properly. What about companies who like their strategy and would prefer to make less money working on something more meaningful to them? Are they wrong for taking this approach?
They all make less then Nintendo and Blizzard. Any stockholder right now would tell you that yes they are wrong. They want them to be making Nintendo money. Using the other businesses as a guide he also predicts that companies like Sony and Microsoft are going to all but be pushed out this generation unless they can either drastically change or take big losses. Will he be correct? It looks that way now. Small developers can always do what they want, all two of them, but his point is that big companies are going to be losing marketshare as Nintendo and other companies capitalize on the overshot market then move up to the higher market. You also miss the end game with this scenario. The reason that companies like Nintendo actually said they were worried about another crash was because the companies were overshooting the market and continually following the hardcore gamers who purchase a lot compared to their actual number. This shrinks the market in the long run and allows companies a glut of good business right before the crash.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on July 07, 2008, 02:18:19 PM
Quote
I guess I just don't like the fact that he dresses up his opinions and fanboyism as intelligence. It is the "Slashdot Syndrome", where sounding smart =/= being smart. Anybody can write a damn dissertation on why they know the best, but it sure as hell doesn't mean they do (see Mein Kampf).
Zero to Godwin in 2 posts. Please refrain from sudden Nazi references in the future. Seriously. It's the cornerstone of simple debate.
The reason Malstrom is taken seriously is because he's basically been correct for the whole generation. His opinions are reflected in market performance, as that website is a BUSINESS-oriented website chronicling the business side of the industry, whereas most of the complaints are coming from huffy elitist hardcore gamers who stopped cajoling and berating "casual non-gamer non-human Wii owners" long enough to complain that they are being grouped together, categorized, and painted with a broad brush.
I think here he may have gotten his point across wrongly, in that he changes his language from "your game being broken" to "your game is likely broken." I'm sure he doesn't mean a game is broken simply for having a intro stage that SERVES as a tutorial, and he even says as much when he says "If your game *has* to have a tutorial because it is too complicated, then your game is the problem." But when your game DOES absolutely requires it (like Splinter Cell) then it's gone too far off the end. The limit is debatable, but it can clearly be seen in the sales patterns for the particular series in question.
I'm also not sure he ants every game to be a Nintendo-formula game, or whatever, because that isn't reflected in the words he wrote. He mentions SMB1 and Zelda 1, but only because those games have sold so much and are so revered. It's not "Nintendo fanboyism" to simply point out that the best selling games of all time happen to be made by them. That kind of attitude was rampant on vgchartz when simply stating the facts as they are (Wii selling out) was called "fanboyism." I never knew so many Nintendo fans could sprout overnight.
He writes intelligently because he is intelligent. He uses old literary references and witty turns of phrase, and long texts that require massive reading comprehension and logical skills. If that's a bit much, then perhaps he could "dumb it down" for "casual readers" and then everybody could feel like Wii owners do whenever a third party makes a casual Wii game.
I always take accusations of "pomposity" with a grain of skepticism, mainly because growing up in my school's gifted program I was subject a lot of it. I was ridiculed simply for having the correct answer, or having an opinion that was unpopular, even when it turn out true. They didn't like that it was me who said it. So yeah Malstrom has some pretty harsh words for the "hardcore." (not to be confused with regular core, who simply play core games and enjoy them) Hardcore make petitions about Diablo III graphics. Hardcore whine and moan about Wii Fit and Brain Age being the "end of gaming." Hardcore bargain with the market to please please pretty please don't swing Nintendo's way. Hardcore picked the PSP in 2004. And every step of the way, they have had nothing but vile words, assuredly typed with such greasy vigor from their parent's basement, for the new gamers coming in: Children, Women, Elderly, Lapsed. So why should they get anything less in return? And this is no conclusion jumped to about their meaning. One only has to log in there to see the very same pomposity, the very same elitism, and the very same disdain. One only has to quote them directly. And they react like Bill O' Reilly does when people quote his craziness accurately. That act like they've been attacked... ATTACKED!!! for just displaying their words.
And Mr. Jack, if you are looking for the source of the "hardcore/casual" ****, you need only look in a mirror. WE HAVE DONE IT. The Games Press. We drew the lines separating them in 2004 when Iwata and Reggie talked of disruption and "non-gamers" (being people who haven't begun to play games yet for whatever reason.) They never said word one of "casual gamers." IT was us who stated Nintendogs was only for girls, despite it being only 52% so. It was us who proclaimed the touchscreen a gimmick to attract casuals. The blood is on our hands for this one. The very same hands that point fingers at Blizzard and tell them they are making Diablo III more "casual" despite Blizzard never saying or hinting as such and the "evidence" being MORE COLORS.
IT's almost shameful to be a games reporter now.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Nick DiMola on July 07, 2008, 02:24:18 PM
Sure they make less, and of course stock holders want to make more, or else why would you hold their stock, but what does that mean? I don't believe for a minute that the market will totally dry up. Nintendo saw their marketshare diminishing and acted, they considered this fact before considering the market as a whole.
Nintendo knew they lost the hardcore market, so they cut their loses and found a new demographic, the same demographic that paid their bills when they got into gaming. When and if the market totally dries up we'll see what happens. I predict more acceptance of the casual crowd where the companies cater to both similar to what EA is doing. The answer isn't as black and white as this guy wants it to be.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: SixthAngel on July 07, 2008, 02:37:01 PM
Sure they make less, and of course stock holders want to make more, or else why would you hold their stock, but what does that mean? I don't believe for a minute that the market will totally dry up. Nintendo saw their marketshare diminishing and acted, they considered this fact before considering the market as a whole.
Nintendo knew they lost the hardcore market, so they cut their loses and found a new demographic, the same demographic that paid their bills when they got into gaming. When and if the market totally dries up we'll see what happens. I predict more acceptance of the casual crowd where the companies cater to both similar to what EA is doing. The answer isn't as black and white as this guy wants it to be.
It doesn't need to "totally dry up." I already made a joke about the fact that there are fewer and fewer developers and you didn't even blink. The price of the games is skyrocketing as well and soon it seems there will only be EA and Activision as 3rd parties. Such unhealthy behavior is another warning sign of things going badly. EA has just basically adopted Nintendo's strategy, even hearing Peter Moore use some of their exact words. Malstrom never said that upstream gaming or "hardcore gaming" would disappear, it will just change and have the new values of the Wii incorporated. Nintendo will be making these games (see Mario Kart Wii). Some of the old guard will not cross over and some will making it seem like very little changed to some.
The DS proves much of your point wrong about Nintendo. They risked an incredible amount with the DS, they still had the best name in handhelds and they risked it all before even losing any market share and seeing what would happen with a direct battle. They could have lost more but Nintendo took the leap before it was necessary.
You can always say that "maybe things wouldn't have gotten so bad" because you can't have 100% proof unless Nintendo didn't change things. The amount of success that Nintendo is having with an overshot market, the previous slowdown in Japan, and the incredible rise in the cost of making games shows that Nintendo could have been and very likely was right.
Deguello, I get the feeling the Mr. Jack and Flames are angry because they are the people Malstrom's attacks are directed at. Malstrom often rails against gaming journalists as being the typical "hardcore" and that is why their reviews and articles are often scared of the Wii or put it down. They are simply in the awkward position of being big Nintendo fans at the same time. It burns even more when the person you want to argue with is right almost all the time.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on July 07, 2008, 03:56:33 PM
"I don't believe for a minute that the market will totally dry up." Of course not. Nintendo rescued it. We're all past this and it's old news anyway. -- the mega-millions hardcore blockbuster market is still in danger.
Mr. Jack and Flames of Chaos, he isn't talking about which games you think are best or which games he thinks are best, he is talking about a business strategy and why it is working. He completely knows the the upstream games should exist and will continue to exist, he simply is mocking the business strategy of letting the upstream gamers control the direction of the companies. He also wrote quite a bit about how the "hardcore" and "casual" are simply mental constructs and have no definitive meaning and how the most popular meaning now has nothing to do with how casual or hardcore a player actually is. He often uses quotes because of this but sometimes he doesn't(I especially liked how he says the industry uses casual to mean retarded).
Define a upstream game.
The term is "UPMARKET". Games don't upstream, users do. After all the criticism and reading of the articles, is it too much to ask for the elite readers to get the vocabulary right? And there shouldn't be any confusion as to what it means since it's a defined business concept that Malstrom repeats over and over again and over and over again (oh lord there's too much to read! -- but if one read it, one would already understand it since it's just repetitive casual writing after all, amirite)
Malstrom admits to being an old-school hardcore, so he shouldn't have any trouble spotting the modern hardcore. He also knows the comedic value in simply pointing out the current hardcore, and, hilariously, it's apparent there are those who take offense to that. It's wrong when hardcore make fun of other hardcore? Is this supposed to be some Magician's Guild where we can't roast one another and reveal their secrets? Did I miss something?
Malstrodamus' blog/news posts are geared for entertainment (at the expense of the hardcore and their birdmen) and show tidbits of new research morsels he's found. They're more blunt, less structured, and he doesn't mind letting loose on some of his feelings and reactions. The business strategy articles he's been writing since pre-Wii launch are the real deal, detailing what happened in the industry, and where it might go, reference after quote after sales chart after quote after historical analogy after quote.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Urkel on July 07, 2008, 05:15:00 PM
I'm almost positive this (http://www.destructoid.com/hating-on-the-casual-or-why-it-s-alright-to-be-a-bitter-old-man-94013.phtml#comments) is aimed at Malstrom. These meltdowns are getting more and more severe, but at least he's being honest here.
For those of you confused about "Upmarket" and "Downmarket", go here. (http://malstrom.50webs.com/glossary.htm) Don't worry, it's not a long read.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on July 07, 2008, 05:25:47 PM
"These meltdowns are getting more and more severe"
Isn't it just fabulous?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Nick DiMola on July 07, 2008, 05:27:26 PM
The biggest problem I have with this guy's writing is how he seemingly ignores the fact that games are multifaceted. He simplifies it all to the point where games are business and if you are lucky enough one day they will be considered art. I agree that art happens unintentionally in many cases, but that doesn't mean that you can't make games with the intention of creating art.
He also makes it seem as if gaming was facing certain death if Nintendo didn't come along and fix it all and I'm not sure that is necessarily true either. It seems every argument made in his defense takes this point into consideration and I'd love to see definitive proof of it before moving on.
The market may have been shrinking slightly (I'm not even sure if this is true) but I don't think there were any signs pointing to collapse.
EDIT: Also wanted to add that no one seems successful in copying Nintendo's success with intro-level games with the exception of the Guitar Hero games. Most of the games being released are "birdmen" games, so where the hell does that leave us? Left to wade through the onslaught of garbage until companies figure out a way to appeal to the newcomers properly? I'd prefer companies stick to what they know and let some newcomer companies approach the newcomer gamers.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on July 07, 2008, 06:23:06 PM
Quote
The market may have been shrinking slightly (I'm not even sure if this is true) but I don't think there were any signs pointing to collapse.
It is true. If you are to excise the Wii and DS's figures, the market would be in deep ****. Especially since all those new gamers would not have bought a 360, Ps3, or PSP as an alternative. They would have chosen nothing, and the 360 and the Ps3 would be left explaining how both of their consoles combined haven't outpaced the PS2. Nintendo saved the industry from serious shrinkage.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Nick DiMola on July 07, 2008, 06:31:34 PM
The market may have been shrinking slightly (I'm not even sure if this is true) but I don't think there were any signs pointing to collapse.
It is true. If you are to excise the Wii and DS's figures, the market would be in deep ****. Especially since all those new gamers would not have bought a 360, Ps3, or PSP as an alternative. They would have chosen nothing, and the 360 and the Ps3 would be left explaining how both of their consoles combined haven't outpaced the PS2. Nintendo saved the industry from serious shrinkage.
I disagree, how can you remove those sales and just assume that every dollar spent there wouldn't have been spent on some other gaming item?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Kairon on July 07, 2008, 10:33:00 PM
I'm almost positive this (http://www.destructoid.com/hating-on-the-casual-or-why-it-s-alright-to-be-a-bitter-old-man-94013.phtml#comments) is aimed at Malstrom. These meltdowns are getting more and more severe, but at least he's being honest here.
This guy's feelings are exactly what I felt during the N64 and GameCube days. I fully admit that I'm a fanboi, and during my fanboi career I openly disparaged the PS and PS2's userbase and their taste in games. I see this whole thing as perfect revenge for the things Nintendo fanbois suffered through during the last two generations.
EDIT: Also wanted to add that no one seems successful in copying Nintendo's success with intro-level games with the exception of the Guitar Hero games. Most of the games being released are "birdmen" games, so where the hell does that leave us? Left to wade through the onslaught of garbage until companies figure out a way to appeal to the newcomers properly? I'd prefer companies stick to what they know and let some newcomer companies approach the newcomer gamers.
I don't know. There are some key games that actually come close in my experience in not succumbing to "Bird Men" thinking. Carnival Games is one, a surprisingly simple, straightforward, but AUTHENTIC experience which I only bought because of GP's recommendation, though now I see what all the hype is about. Another example might be We Ski, which is sounding more and more like a Wii Sports of Ski-ing, and at just $30! My little cousin got it, but I wasn't able to play it over 4th of July.
Boom Blox actually had loads of energy put behind it and is actually an impressive piece of technology as a result. I think if it can consistently sell over a stretch of time, it'll give EA a chance to advertise the concept to the broader Wii audience instead of only the young children that the commercials zone in on exclusively. Honestly, at the Media Summit, there was a crowd of adults around that game and enjoying it.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: SixthAngel on July 08, 2008, 01:14:10 AM
I'm almost positive this (http://www.destructoid.com/hating-on-the-casual-or-why-it-s-alright-to-be-a-bitter-old-man-94013.phtml#comments) is aimed at Malstrom. These meltdowns are getting more and more severe, but at least he's being honest here.
For those of you confused about "Upmarket" and "Downmarket", go here. (http://malstrom.50webs.com/glossary.htm) Don't worry, it's not a long read.
If I lived off rage I would be immortal right now.
He can't even comprehend that people could possibly have a different taste in games then him. If it isn't some big high concept game it is crap. He is in the mindset that "casual" means retarded and people like him are the reason that companies aren't replicating Nintendo's success. They don't understand that people still want quality experiences but want different types of games. Some guy in the replies even calls Wii Sports crap. It is one thing not to like these games (I don't like Nintendogs) but another thing to not understand how it could be appealing to other people.
I already read the article, I said I didn't want to go back to it when I wrote since I need to use proxy servers.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on July 08, 2008, 01:19:55 AM
Quote
I disagree, how can you remove those sales and just assume that every dollar spent there wouldn't have been spent on some other gaming item?
Because they're all new expanded audience gaming grandmas, right?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on July 08, 2008, 04:48:50 AM
Talking about "making art" seems silly to me, were the great artworks in the past really created just to be art or because there was a different purpose behind them and their artist was just so good he created art in the process? Shakespeare, for example, made plays for the drunk masses yet they are considered some of the highest art. Bach worked for the church and produced a HUGE amount of work that is now held as some of the greatest music there is. Most artists were comissioned for jobs. There are many games that aren't good at being games but are considered art because of their story, graphics or whatever. I consider these bad art, if you don't employ the strengths of your medium you chose the wrong one. In fact "art" is one of Malstrom's examples, it's treated like a mark of the elite, art is expected to be unappealing for most people and only a few "get it". Art can have mass appeal, a truly skilled artist does not need to work for some kind of elitist niche to make art.
Upmarket = high-end, downmarket = low-end. For games the upmarket includes things like 5/600$ PS3s, 400$ 360s, games with budgets of several millions and a sales goal of at least one million to break even, etc. Overshooting would be e.g. a market consisting of bucketloads of multi-million games attempting to sell to a userbase that won't allow many to break even. That's what gaming is going towards at the current rate of "OMG HD!". The industry growth would slow down and go negative as it becomes harder to make a profit. Obviously making games that are not copies of successful games would be even less popular with publishers due to the expenses. The Wii went the opposite route, allowing profit with fewer sales and even making sure to get a userbase that doesn't need "AAA" games to be happy (turns out it's the majority of the market) so low-expense-high-profit games become possible again. There was too much money spent on things the industry considered important but noone else did.
Also the Wii changed the rules by pushing forward in a direction the people actually wanted (better interaction) instead of one that only a minority considers really important (HD is probably the epitome of this, most people don't even have a matching TV for it and many who do can't even tell that stretching a 480i image to 16:9 doesn't constitute HD).
So the Wii is: cheaper, better (from the view of most people) and more profitable to make games on.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Urkel on July 08, 2008, 04:55:59 AM
This guy's feelings are exactly what I felt during the N64 and GameCube days. I fully admit that I'm a fanboi, and during my fanboi career I openly disparaged the PS and PS2's userbase and their taste in games. I see this whole thing as perfect revenge for the things Nintendo fanbois suffered through during the last two generations.
It's nice to be on the winning side for once.
That's how I felt during the N64 era, too. Except I was, like, fourteen. Most of these angry "hardcores" are well into their 20's.
What's their excuse for acting like a bunch of children?
And the greatest irony of all is that many of them are the very people Nintendo fanboys made fun of for having "no taste" in games. I can't wait until the 40 year old soccer moms being introduced to gaming via Wii are 60 year old hardcore gaming grandmothers who will deride the new new casual gamers. It's the great circle of life.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Shift Key on July 08, 2008, 07:07:14 AM
Anybody can write a damn dissertation on why they know the best, but it sure as hell doesn't mean they do (see Mein Kampf).
You get points for working Slashdot and Hitler into the same post, but you don't do anything constructive.
As KDR said, he sources a lot more than anyone I've come across in the "gaming-journalism-slash-rant" field. And he's actually looking at this from an industry-wide perspective, rather than rooting for the home team. Throwing stones only looks cool when everyone else joins in.
If their business strategy was so bad, how are they all still in business?
This comes down to the "smart third party survives, dumb third party gets caught in the headlights or consumed by the third party food chain". Sony and Microsoft have lost billions in recent years. Analysts are saying the industry is stagnating. Doing "more of the same" is asking for disaster. You could draw parallels with other industries (Microsoft's attempted takeover of Yahoo is a recent example), so why is there this overall feeling that the gaming industry is in a bubble safe from consequence or responsibility?
I use the term bubble because it is fragile and finite. Think about it.
Nintendo saw their marketshare diminishing and acted, they considered this fact before considering the market as a whole.
Bullshit. I'm calling this out right now. The Gamecube generation showed Nintendo is willing to stick to its guns, irrespective of criticism. They remained profitable during their lowest ebb, while bringing up the rear in the marketshare stakes. And most analysts said Nintendo's stake in this gen would be "more of the same", even after the Wii's unveiling.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But it discredits and over-simplifies the hard work of people who are innovating in the industry, irrespective of their chosen field.
The biggest problem I have with this guy's writing is how he seemingly ignores the fact that games are multifaceted. He simplifies it all to the point where games are business and if you are lucky enough one day they will be considered art.
Hate to break it to you, but the games industry remains a business at its core, no matter which products are churned out or the sentimental value attached to them. You can look at the luminaries like Kojima, Miyamoto, Dyack, or whomever else you choose to put on a pedestal and try to think it is more than this. But ultimately, if the venture is not a profitable one, then the investors are pouring money down a hole. You can cite marketshare or mindshare here as *things* of value, but these both pale in significance compared to cold hard cash.
I'm reminded of a discussion I had at uni with a lecturer about software engineering. He compared his appreciation of fine wine to an appreciation of cola by talking about a friend who remarked, after drinking from a can of cola, described it as "great". Who's place is it for the lecturer to discredit the person by saying that he's an idiot and has no taste? Trying to claim games as artwork at any stage of time is just as pretentious, because, like art galleries, some people just don't get it.
I disagree, how can you remove those sales and just assume that every dollar spent there wouldn't have been spent on some other gaming item?
Do you see the casual gamers flocking to the other systems? I'm with Deg on this, I feel that the Wii's and DS's successes have helped stave off the inevitable, and distract from the real issues.
this seems to be an anti-mr-jack attack, but its really just me highlighting how stupid some viewpoints are. i have no beef with these viewpoints, but i feel they deserve to be challenged
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Nick DiMola on July 08, 2008, 07:51:55 AM
Anybody can write a damn dissertation on why they know the best, but it sure as hell doesn't mean they do (see Mein Kampf).
Bullshit. I'm calling this out right now. The Gamecube generation showed Nintendo is willing to stick to its guns, irrespective of criticism. They remained profitable during their lowest ebb, while bringing up the rear in the marketshare stakes. And most analysts said Nintendo's stake in this gen would be "more of the same", even after the Wii's unveiling.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But it discredits and over-simplifies the hard work of people who are innovating in the industry, irrespective of their chosen field.
Here is my point, I don't believe for a minute that Nintendo looked at the industry as a whole first. Nintendo looked at their own situation and said, "Hmm, it seems that we keep losing more and more ground to our competitors with each passing generation, what can we do to change this?" Exploring those options perhaps created some revelation that the only way they could be profitable again was to regain lapsed gamers, and lower the bar for new gamers. Nintendo has always done this with their games, but never seen the success until the creation of the Wii.
Like I said above, all of Malstrom's work and all of the opinions surrounding operate on the assumption that the industry was crashing, I don't really believe that to be true. You CAN NOT excise Wii and DS sales from the industry and assume all of that money would have been lost to the gaming industry.
The DS would've still been immensely popular if it did nothing more than upgrade the Gameboy, if you don't believe that you have blinders on. The Wii of course would have diminishing returns had it not reached out to a new marketshare but still would've sold regardless. Would there be less money than there is now? Surely. But crashing? Somehow I think this point is overstated.
You mentioned Sony and Microsoft losing billions, yes this is true, but it is also the start of a new generation. That has been par for the course for years. They will eventually turn a profit, there is no question about that. If these companies plan for this generation to be a long one, creating the games won't have as a high a cost because the technology will catch up with them. Sure if they make a move to a stronger console too soon I can see that spelling out serious problems.
Again, we are operating under an assumption that costs are astronomically high for everyone creating blockbuster games, and that these costs are consistently high. I believe this is somewhat of a fallacy as well. With the creation of today's middleware, people are able to license out all of the engines necessary to make a game. Just because people have made statements that games are costing more in the past, is that cost today still what it once was?
We can agree to disagree, I just think that Malstrom's arguments operate on some points that are a bit overstated. Was the industry shrinking, sure, but to the point of crashing, well there is no way to prove that at this point. Are costs for making blockbuster games high, sure, but are they still high and do they remain consistently so after a studio produces its first game? Well I guess that's something we need to find out.
The article on Destructoid is pretty funny, I laughed. He is obviously being a bit melodramatic but I think his point to a degree is valid. Wii Sports is not a crap game, but Deca Sports is. We need to challenge crappy games, not casual games. If we allow crappy "birdmen" games to take over the industry, we are the lapsed gamers of tomorrow.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on July 08, 2008, 03:36:40 PM
Aren't Jack and Flames our resident PS3 fans?
Of course Nintendo looked at its own situation, why would it care about the rest? They noticed the NES was a breakthrough success and so was the GB, they heard about an economic theory that explained both their past successes and gave them a chance to repeat them in the future so they got Reggie who had experience with pulling it off.
The industry wasn't really crashing but his claim is that Nintendo will destroy the old industry.
The DS wouldn't have been as popular as it is without games like Nintendogs and Brain Training (these really are the core part of the strategy, hardware does not sell by itself, it sells through software), it might even have lost to the PSP. The analysts predicted the way a fair fight would have gone: Sony leveraging their brand and power to pull ahead and eat Nintendo's mostly hardcore userbase. Nintendo avoided that fate by introducing a demographic the PSP had no chance to take.
Quote
Again, we are operating under an assumption that costs are astronomically high for everyone creating blockbuster games, and that these costs are consistently high. I believe this is somewhat of a fallacy as well. With the creation of today's middleware, people are able to license out all of the engines necessary to make a game. Just because people have made statements that games are costing more in the past, is that cost today still what it once was?
The engine is but one part of a blockbuster game. It's turning into a smaller and smaller part of the overall game. What really eats the money is the stuff to load into the engine, the levels, characters, music, movies, ... Increased complexity increases the time needed per asset and thus the cost, a popular cost cutting measure these days seems to be shortening the game with many big games barely lasting four hours (but of course having extremely detailled everythings in the process). There is no way you can deny that Wii Fit was cheaper to make than, say, GTA4. Technology reduces costs a bit but only a bit.
Don't worry about birdman games taking over the industry, they are birdmen because they fail to grasp the important parts and thus fail overall.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Kairon on July 08, 2008, 04:23:07 PM
I have to state that I believe that Nintendo DID look at the industry as a whole. They looked at Japan, and treated Japan as an early predictor for the rest of the world. Yes, Nintendo's marketshare was shrinking, but even more importantly Nintendo realized that the Japanese Game Industry, the market outside their front doors, was undergoing drastic changes.
Of course Nintendo was motivated by the desire to escape their shrinking doldrums. BUT, I remember that Iwata once stated that if they merely outsold the GameCube, they would not succeed. Nintendo's success is in reinvigorating and revitalizing an industry that was facing drastic changes in the Japanese market, and Nintendo believe would be facing those same changes in the rest of the world as well.
It may be a little too much kool-aid to drink at once, but what they're doing with the Wii really reminds me of what they did with the NES... only now they got to the market before it crashed, not after.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on July 08, 2008, 08:18:28 PM
Quote
It may be a little too much kool-aid to drink at once, but what they're doing with the Wii really reminds me of what they did with the NES... only now they got to the market before it crashed, not after.
Bingo.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BeautifulShy on August 04, 2008, 12:14:53 AM
Malstrom has a new blog entry here (http://Http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com) It is about the iphone.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Mashiro on August 04, 2008, 02:12:04 AM
"Second, the Wii is still sold out in the United States. The i-Phone is still quite available. "
I lol'ed
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Nick DiMola on August 04, 2008, 06:19:36 AM
Really, the iPhone isn't going to compete with the DS? Thank you captain obvious. I wonder if he put up any thoughts on the n-Gage when that came out.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on August 04, 2008, 07:54:57 AM
Well, if it was so obvious it doesn't why did some people keep repeating it?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Nick DiMola on August 04, 2008, 09:10:33 AM
Actually lets be fair, some people don't even know how many DS's have been sold worldwide.
In fact, my friend and I had a similar "techie" discussion about the iPhone vs the DS. It ended once I wiki'ed the sales numbers of the DS.
Outside of the nintendo fan camp those numbers aren't that well know.
But yeah saying the iPhone is competition to the DS is like saying PS3 is competition to the *insert console name here*. ;)
Actually by my understanding the PS3 is doing better everywhere but the US. I say the iPhone is a bigger competitor to the PSP.
PS3 is actually doing fine in every region Ceric it kept beating the 360 in NA and in some parts of Europe on a month to month basis. PS3 sales are slow in Japan, it's barely outselling the PS2.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on August 04, 2008, 03:20:41 PM
I'm not sure I'd call that fine though.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on August 04, 2008, 03:51:15 PM
Well KDR it's selling at a steady pace and I'm sure Sony is happy with that especially how they fumbled badly at launch and the first half of 2007.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on August 04, 2008, 03:57:14 PM
Yeah they're happy to sell at all.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: DAaaMan64 on August 04, 2008, 06:56:48 PM
Latest blog talks about VC releases. (http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/did-third-parties-try-to-force-virtual-console-releases/)
Destructioid provides a rebuttal. (http://www.destructoid.com/nintendo-screws-third-parties-and-you-on-virtual-console-98194.phtml)
Not really a rebuttal, it is more like a fanboy reaction to the games not releasing. He didn't even mention the malstrom post.
Malstrom actually talks about the reasons behind each scenario. He also doesn't totally discount either one but just shows the evidence for both. Destructoid just says one explanation is "stupid" then whines about Nintendo as was their desire.
His comment about not gaining freedom but instead having the console become the store is a good one. Third-parties might be wary to jump on the digital distribution bandwagon in the future because it gives the console maker complete power over them.
New colors are inevitable for the Wii so that wouldn't really be a big surprise or much of a prediction. It has been the length of time that it usually takes to make colored consoles and they always get released in Japan first. When Nintendo wants to give their systems a boost releasing a new color has always been the answer for them.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on August 06, 2008, 02:21:40 PM
He's just saying it's time for a boost now.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on August 12, 2008, 06:18:38 AM
The "PC gaming is dying" article is kinda weak, he presents two pieces of evidence (shelf space shrinking, small number of big name companies making exclusives) and then goes off on yet another strawman hardcore talk about "undisruptable markets". Yes, yes we know markets can be disrupted. The problem is with the evidence. The shelf space for PC games isn't shrinking. Only few big-name companies making exclusives applies to the Wii too (Nintendo being the only one and no big exclusives upcoming, especially for the "new market") and that market is perfectly healthy. Sure, the Wii has many smaller exclusives but the PC has tons of those too, noone cares about them.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on August 12, 2008, 12:54:56 PM
It wasn't his usual hate-inducing performance, but it was blog post, not an article, afterall.
He specifies the "retail box" PC game market is shrinking. The days of boxed PC games commanding retail space and walk-in-customer attention have been rolling downhill here. Shelf space for PC games IS shrinking here (consider what country is shaping his perspective, and not counting online retail).
The major outlets here for buying PC games would be small specialty stores like GameStop, big electronics/media dealers like Best Buy, and the more localized everywhere-casual-markets like Target and Wal-Mart. In my town, Target/Wal-Mart PC game selection rivals their PSP selection. Best Buy isn't a great indicator since they carry lots of 'everything' no matter what. But the hardcorest niche that is GameStop is really interesting since PC games don't even have space *on the wall* anymore. A sign of decline? At a glance, 50% of wall space used for new games, and the other 50% is used for pre-owned games, including last-generation systems (which apparently bring in more business than contemporary PC offerings).
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on August 13, 2008, 05:05:09 AM
Well, yeah, in America it's shrinking. In America you alledgedly can't even rent PC games.
Sure, Gamestop has small PC sections here too but I think that's more because of their motives: They want to deal mostly in used games and PC games don't make for good used games with their CD keys. Obviously slapping a large used games section on every console's space will make it larger than the PC's space.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: UltimatePartyBear on August 13, 2008, 12:19:13 PM
I don't know how you could rent PC games anymore than you could deal in used ones thanks to the advent of CD keys, but I don't remember ever seeing PC games for rent even before then.
Gamestop shelf space isn't a useful metric for anything. The place to check the health of PC gaming is Wal-Mart, where they have as much shelf space dedicated to PC games as they do any other current platform. It's just not behind the glass. My local Target actually dedicates more space to PC games than any console, but they're on the other side of the DVD section from the console games. It is clearly worth it to these stores to use this shelf space for PC games. It's just the dedicated game stores that don't find it worthwhile, but I think that's demonstrative of a problem with dedicated game stores instead.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on August 13, 2008, 05:13:51 PM
I suppose they just ignore the fact that you can't play online with a rented version since you don't buy it and don't try to play it for very long.
Not terribly sure Walmart is helpful, the games departments I've seen in stores like that were downright pitiful.
Then again there were country sales charts posted in the wii sales thread and they had a PC game as the top two spots (limited edition and regular) here...
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BeautifulShy on August 15, 2008, 01:50:38 AM
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on August 15, 2008, 05:06:35 AM
I find it interesting that he identifies Conduit as a useful title when it's designed for good graphics mostly. That Mad World is a niche title is pretty damn obvious.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on August 15, 2008, 12:40:25 PM
But Conduit, at heart, is still the obligatory alien FPS game that has a home on every platform.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on August 16, 2008, 05:31:41 AM
Within the old values but what about the new values?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: SixthAngel on August 17, 2008, 11:58:45 AM
Within the old values but what about the new values?
It uses the new values, Wii controls, completely for its aiming and shooting. It clearly isn't designed mostly for good graphics because it is on the Wii. If it was designed for good graphics it would be on the 360, PS3 or pc. I do agree that in interviews they talk about graphics a lot, sometimes I think too much, but then I realize who they are talking to. The websites with the interviews care about that and those are the questions they ask and what they and their readers want to hear. An actual marketing campaign will be very differnt. Having good graphics on the Wii doesn't put it in a new category. They always mention the all seeing eye as being this new cool attention grabber but have they shown it yet?
I do find it strange how he talks about Conduit fitting in with the new way but not Madworld because of violence. While I think Madworld will probably not be a hit it isn't really much less violent then a game about shooting everything and everyone although it will probably have more blood. I suppose shooting tons of people has always been a bit more acceptable then killing people in other ways.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on August 17, 2008, 02:07:19 PM
I don't think the new values consist only of Wii controls.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on August 17, 2008, 02:40:27 PM
Back to the original point, Conduit useful for simply performing a job that isn't serviced in the Wii release schedule (current and recent memory), to provide a new FPS game (neglected genre per Wii) for an existing/core market. New values are concerned with pulling in customers from outside the old core. And if Conduit proves to be an effective FPS, it has the potential to bridge the old core with the new values elsewhere in the Wii library.
Designing the game for "good graphics mostly" (that is hardly the case; but talking up graphics is an obvious tactic when you are, at first, marketing the game to the gaming media) doesn't perform a job, but its FPS nature does.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on August 20, 2008, 06:21:14 AM
From the new post:
Quote
When I saw a picture of Dyack and him going on and on about Norse mythology, I said to myself, “How did he wander into this industry? He is supposed to be the typical failing writer!”
That part made me laugh. It applies in more ways than the post even mentions, Dyack seems to love writing stories but the game is an afterthought, as if the game was showing a great movie and suddently interrupted, saying "Oh, hey, you there in front of the TV! We almost forgot about you, here's your assignment to be handed in until 3pm: Kill 12 zombies, 3 robots and 1 boss. Come back once you're finished."
I think the whole talk about pruning the parts you like for the customer made me develop a theory why Miyamoto is so brilliant: He is not a gamer. In order to think like a normal person he doesn't have to make assumptions, studies or anything, he just looks at himself (didn't he say he also shows his ideas to his wife for approval?). That's probably the biggest difficulty other game designers have, they don't know what the average person wants, they can only guess. They write up a design without knowing if the customer wants it, then the requirements clash and in the end they either realize they made the wrong game or they think that's a good thing they did.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Nick DiMola on August 20, 2008, 06:32:08 AM
Not only is Miyamoto not particularly a gamer, but he is willing to throw out EVERYTHING if he sees that people aren't having fun when playing his games. Most people take that personally (like Dyack) and start insulting the detractors rather than making an effort to look at and fix what most people think is wrong.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BeautifulShy on August 23, 2008, 01:22:52 AM
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on August 24, 2008, 02:55:35 AM
Quote
Most gamers appears willing to trust ten random people at a game forum over the ten most ‘acclaimed’ and ‘professional’ game reviewers. This should be seen as a warning sign to the established business.
win.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on August 24, 2008, 03:31:33 AM
Most gamers appears willing to trust ten random people at a game forum over the ten most ‘acclaimed’ and ‘professional’ game reviewers. This should be seen as a warning sign to the established business.
win.
Well KDR the difference between the opinion of a random forum person and a acclaimed and professional game reviewer is that the pro game reviewer can be paid off or have some parts cut off from their review because of how much advertising money the website received from said company. When 1up reviewed Assassin's Creed there was a few things that Ubisoft didn't like about the review so 1up doesn't get anything from Ubisoft anymore.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on August 24, 2008, 03:59:50 AM
That's what the article is about, that noone really trusts the professional reviewers anymore. What's the point of paying people to write long reviews when any random idiot on a forum can say he liked or hated a game and more people heed that than a review?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on August 27, 2008, 04:38:30 AM
Hm, the latest post has an interview with Tose where he says there's a contradiction in the two statements. If you read them the spokesperson says it's a bad situation for PUBLISHERS. Tose isn't one of those and it's very well possible that they get more contracts despite publishers falling behind since they'd likely hire Tose to make those "crummy games for non-gamers" as a desperation move. Even if Nintendo beats everyone there's still money for Tose to be made as they aren't competing for the same thing as the publishers (they want contracts, not sales). Tose is also a good hire for a company looking to cash in on the gaming success despite not having a game division of their own...
I can't find Malstrom's email address though...
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on August 27, 2008, 08:43:21 AM
I have it, KDR.
It's seanmalstrom@yahoo.com.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on August 27, 2008, 12:49:36 PM
Er, do you think he wanted you to type it out like that? I know my email address got leaked to spammers by a forum post.
EDIT: Oh, I notice he said it's good for more companies than just Nintendo. It might still be problematic for Tose despite the current increase as it could be a sign of the death struggle of the publishers as they desperately attempt to cash in on Nintendo's market. I.e. the numbers are going up now but might go down later.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on August 27, 2008, 12:55:59 PM
Well if that happens I apologize.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BeautifulShy on August 27, 2008, 11:32:31 PM
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: bustin98 on August 27, 2008, 11:41:10 PM
What I don't agree with in that last post is he says everytime Nintendo does what the hardcore wants, they lose.
The problem is, Nintendo only goes so far to please the hardcore. No voice acting. No headsets. Minimal update to graphics. Minimal online support. The bare necessities without production value.
So, in reality, Nintendo has never answered the call of the hardcore. They just hear some whining and throw a bone.
I'm not complaining about the games I play from Nintendo. I'm just saying I disagree with the assessment.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on August 28, 2008, 07:51:38 AM
I don't think anyone really requires voice acting, headsets, graphics or online to buy a game like Mario or Zelda. The people who buy these games buy them regardless of such secondary features and as such I doubt these affected the sales numbers much. You can expect the final sales numbers to be pretty much representative of what that "demographic" will pay for.
Of course they won't throw a $10 million bone at you, advanced graphics and such cost money. A LOT of money. Adding them wouldn't increase the sales enough to cover the increased costs.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on August 28, 2008, 12:00:44 PM
Mario (Galaxy) and Zelda (TP) aren't the industry shakers/hardware sales pushers they used to be (compared to a true "murdering appliance" like Wii Sports), I think is what Malstrodamus is trying to say but did not spell out.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: UltimatePartyBear on August 28, 2008, 12:31:42 PM
If he's the smartest person on the Internet, how come he uses the word "literally" wrong?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on August 28, 2008, 12:38:05 PM
You can only expect so much from the internet.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on August 28, 2008, 01:44:22 PM
Aren't true killer apps always something that hasn't existed like this before? When I think of killer apps in the past I always think of games that were new and innovative in some way. Has a straight sequel (as opposed to a completely different sequel like Mario 64, Zelda OOT, FF7 and GTA3*) ever acted as a killer app?
*=The top-down games played different from GTA3.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Kairon on August 28, 2008, 02:09:35 PM
The closest thing I can think of as "straight sequels" working as killer apps is...umm... Tetris on GameBoy? Or Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES? Also, sports games?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on August 28, 2008, 02:59:57 PM
I don't think Tetris counts, cuz its application to a portable medium was pretty novel and significant.
I don't think Mario3 counts, cuz it was already catering to an already-exploding userbase.
Sports games, I don't have any dirt on. Do they really turn heads and attract a significant number of new customers?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: UltimatePartyBear on August 28, 2008, 03:06:54 PM
I don't think Tetris counts, cuz its application to a portable medium was pretty novel and significant.
If we follow the argument that a killer app is usually a new and different bit of software, then Tetris on the Game Boy really does stand out as unusual. The killer-ness of the app was closely tied to the hardware it was on and the new things the hardware brought to the game. In the Game Boy's case, that was portability. It's really rather similar to the way Wii Sports serves as a killer app because of what the Wii Remote brings to the fairly simple games.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on August 28, 2008, 03:14:28 PM
EE-in-FF
Engaging Experience in a Functional Form
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on August 28, 2008, 03:59:22 PM
If we follow the argument that a killer app is usually a new and different bit of software, then Tetris on the Game Boy really does stand out as unusual. The killer-ness of the app was closely tied to the hardware it was on and the new things the hardware brought to the game. In the Game Boy's case, that was portability. It's really rather similar to the way Wii Sports serves as a killer app because of what the Wii Remote brings to the fairly simple games.
Obviously games aren't detached from the hardware they're on.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: UltimatePartyBear on August 28, 2008, 04:03:27 PM
Indeed, true killer apps are tied to the hardware in some way. It's easy to forget this in hindsight because this is usually a matter of computing power. Take Visicalc, for example. It was the first killer app for personal computers, and it could probably be run on some calculator watches today, but it fit into a unique niche when it was released. Visicalc could have been done at the time on a different platform -- mainframes -- but it wasn't a good fit on that platform. Computing time on mainframes was too expensive to waste on something so trivial. At the same time, personal computers weren't powerful enough to perform the same tasks as mainframes. Combine the right application with the right platform, though, and you solve both problems and make a mint.
These days, especially in video games, it's too often the case that a killer app is only really tied to its platform by legal matters. There was nothing about Halo that tied it to Microsoft's platforms other than the fact that Microsoft owned all the rights, for example. I think Nintendo has been aware of this for a while. Super Mario 64, for example, was essentially designed in tandem with the N64 controller. This made the app-platform relationship stronger than it would have been if it were merely a matter of pushing enough polygons. It really wasn't until the GameCube that Nintendo tried to do it the other way, and the GameCube suffered something of an identity crisis because of it.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BeautifulShy on September 22, 2008, 11:20:37 AM
He's right. But we're suckers for nostalgia anyway.
so true. I have my wii turned on, and already on the Shop Channel so i waste no time downloading it.
Besides anyone who doesnt realize that Robot Masters after 3 were similar to the others is a fool. I knew it as a kid and i still kept going back for more.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BeautifulShy on September 28, 2008, 08:32:46 PM
Malstrom talks about the new DS revision and the Phat and Lite and how it relates to Blue Ocean Strategy.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on September 29, 2008, 02:55:56 AM
Gah, Malstrom's anti-hardcore rants are hurting my brain lately. Look, the word does not mean the same as core, you said that yourself! Don't call the hardcores stupid for declaring a game hardcore because it doesn't match the core definition. Well duh, you said yourself that the terminology is wrong! If you read hardcore as "niche" it suddently starts to make a lot more sense.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BeautifulShy on October 29, 2008, 03:01:46 AM
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on October 29, 2008, 04:10:29 AM
I bet some people here won't like his election articles either (he said linking to them on PoliGAF = ban apparently).
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BeautifulShy on October 29, 2008, 04:17:33 AM
Yeah I was hesitant to post it here.I figured since there are lots of posts to his blog.Those that want to read it can.Besides I don't want to be banned from here.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: RABicle on October 29, 2008, 05:11:40 AM
Malstrom talks about third parties (http://Http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2008/12/18/why-third-parties-wont-embrace-wii/)
Quote from: Why Malstrom is an idiot
"Why Third Parties Won’t Embrace Wii
I’m slowly easing my way back into the game news going around (I’ve been too distracted by the global slump, and not much is going on in gaming at this time anyway). I’ve finally got back to reading GoNintendo where Raw Meat Cowboy posts 346589347639 things a day (and does a good job with it too. With all the media lay-offs, I joke that GoNintendo probably has a better business model than the New York Times which gets interesting responses from people)
I never knew stealing content is a good business model, that one opening paragraph disqualifies him of having any intelligent posts EVER not like he had any before
Quote
Lastly, PS3 and Xbox 360 are not really game consoles. They are really game-centric computers. Their entire point of existence is to be an entertainment computer for the living room. All their games port easily to the PC platform. This is why we hear that PS3 and Xbox 360 are really nothing more than anti-piracy dongles for PC gaming. Since a Next Generation game can go across three platforms of Xbox 360, PS3, and PC, publishers consider that less of a risk than just putting it on one console: Wii.
By his definition a Wii is a game centric computer too! It has an internet browser, a mouse (Wii remote IR camera), USB ports, USB keyboard support!
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_pap64 on December 18, 2008, 05:20:34 PM
Malstrom talks about third parties (http://Http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2008/12/18/why-third-parties-wont-embrace-wii/)
Quote from: Why Malstrom is an idiot
"Why Third Parties Won’t Embrace Wii
I’m slowly easing my way back into the game news going around (I’ve been too distracted by the global slump, and not much is going on in gaming at this time anyway). I’ve finally got back to reading GoNintendo where Raw Meat Cowboy posts 346589347639 things a day (and does a good job with it too. With all the media lay-offs, I joke that GoNintendo probably has a better business model than the New York Times which gets interesting responses from people)
I never knew stealing content is a good business model, that one opening paragraph disqualifies him of having any intelligent posts EVER not like he had any before
Quote
Lastly, PS3 and Xbox 360 are not really game consoles. They are really game-centric computers. Their entire point of existence is to be an entertainment computer for the living room. All their games port easily to the PC platform. This is why we hear that PS3 and Xbox 360 are really nothing more than anti-piracy dongles for PC gaming. Since a Next Generation game can go across three platforms of Xbox 360, PS3, and PC, publishers consider that less of a risk than just putting it on one console: Wii.
By his definition a Wii is a game centric computer too! It has an internet browser, a mouse (Wii remote IR camera), USB ports, USB keyboard support!
Its one thing to disagree with the guy, the other questioning his intelligence simply because he said something you disagree with. I too was surprised when he mentioned Go Nintendo having a good business model. If I could I would ask him why since the common belief is that Go Nintendo steals content from other sites. Keep in mind that this guy is a professional analyst so maybe he is seeing something we are completely missing.
Second, he is RIGHT about third parties. Many of them, even on the 360 and PS3 are only seeing demographics rather than games. That's why we get so many family mini games on the Wii and so many shooters on the 360 and PS3, because instead of being creative they stick to what they think it sells.
He has said that there's nothing wrong with "macho" games on the Wii and developer should make more of them because it provides the nice balance that the Wii needs and end the generalization.
He has drawn comparisons to the NES and SNES that make a lot of sense. Finally, I think he might be right when he says the reason Nintendo is holding its games back is because he is polishing them to use motion plus right out of the gate, especially since it promises to be the next big step in Wii gaming.
Its understandable if you disagree with the guy, but at the very least he's more sane than 100% of the analysts that populate the interwebs.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on December 20, 2008, 09:44:10 AM
Business model doesn't necessarily mean quality. Stealing content is a fairly effective business model (as in, it makes money and gets page views) as ebaumsworld has shown. Hell, news aggregators can be very useful if you don't want to check 10+ different sites to see the stories in the original.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on December 20, 2008, 01:07:40 PM
Well in Sean's latest blog post, he's mostly wrong about Mario Power Tennis (and Wii Tennis, accordingly). It sounds like he didn't spend much time with MPT, nor the N64 predecessor. He was on Nintendo console hiatus for a couple generations, afterall.
Such is what happens when he focuses outside of BUSINESS STRATEGERY.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on December 30, 2008, 01:09:47 PM
Hm, I think I randomly came across the reason why hardcore games are continually lowering their difficulty and even reaching the point where you can't even die anymore (there's a headline about the latest PoP and how great it is that you can't die): They are no fun to replay. Since everything is cinematic everything's predetermined too. Noone wants to watch a cinematic twice in a row. If you lose progress you are subjected to a time of no fun. Hence they lower the difficulty and reduce the progress you lose more and more, because learning to overcome a challenge is no fun when every repeated minute of the game is a chore. With "casual" games you die and start over but you start having fun again almost instantly. I recall when we played Icy Tower in the school computer room, whenever someone fell down and died he'd instantly hit space twice (restart the game) and start playing again. "Casual" games can afford to be hard because they are fun the second (and third and nth) time too.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_pap64 on December 30, 2008, 03:36:08 PM
As much as I love Malstrom I just don't like how he keeps attacking "Super Mario Galaxy".
On his latest blog he compared it to Mario 64 DS. Oh geez let's compare a game that was created from the ground up with the Wii in mind and has fantastic gameplay, story, cutscenes and music to a port that was made at the last minute.
Great analysis there, Sean...
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on January 06, 2009, 05:37:12 AM
The Arcade Test (http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/the-arcade-test/)
Nice to see he has an article up so fast after the Eduardo the Samurai Toaster (http://www.wiiware-world.com/news/2009/01/semnat_studios_announces_eduardo_the_samurai_toaster) interview appeared.
The "arcade test" is why my father approved of buying a Wii (and even chipped in 50€).
I did notice that demo kiosks did become less interesting with modern games, even the ones that are just start and play have tons of unlocks (hence I'm in favour of a demo mode that has like 70% of the game already unlocked but doesn't let you unlock more for instant play whenever you don't want to build up a save file) and usually they throw in the big hyped games which tend to be cinematic and make it harder to jump in and play that way.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Kairon on January 06, 2009, 01:19:26 PM
That Arcarde test article is a really good point, and it's amazing to think about how Nintendo has blazed a path to the future based on things they actually did for the NES. More and more I see the Wii as Nintendo reconnecting with their roots, not as trashing their history.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on January 06, 2009, 04:13:29 PM
lol nintendo's roots are in the n64 get realz
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_pap64 on January 06, 2009, 06:48:40 PM
That Arcarde test article is a really good point, and it's amazing to think about how Nintendo has blazed a path to the future based on things they actually did for the NES. More and more I see the Wii as Nintendo reconnecting with their roots, not as trashing their history.
If anyone didn't see that Nintendo was reconnecting to their roots with the Wii from a mile away you're blind. Just look at the virtual console that brings nostalgia not only from Nintendo but from their competition, like with the NES you also have the turbo-grafx and Master System which were Nintendo's competition and SNES with the Genesis and technically Turbo-Duo CD(in a way) as the competitors. Plus if your in the PAL territories you also have commodore 64 and in Japan you have the MSX.
But Nintendo always followed the philosophy with entertaining the mass market with every type of gamer being in their grasp so I don't understand the backlash and bitching about nintendo looking at the "expanded market" they always looked for that and so does Sony, why do you think Singstar is so popular in Europe that there's practically a dozen different singstars per year in Europe and a bunch of Singstar games get good sales?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_pap64 on January 07, 2009, 03:07:15 AM
The reason people are bitching about Nintendo ignoring their roots is because they are mainly gamers who grew up during the N64 and GC eras, years in which Nintendo focused its games and innovation on the core market. They also see the SNES as the superior product.
Really, a game like Wii Music would've NEVER been made during the N64 years, because it would've been too risky for the core audience.
From what I read, Miyamoto had many new game ideas that were rejected due to Nintendo focusing only on the core market. Now things are different. And this comes as a shock to gamers because they only know Nintendo as the company that catered to just its fans.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: EasyCure on January 08, 2009, 10:25:12 AM
The reason people are bitching about Nintendo ignoring their roots is because they are mainly gamers who grew up during the N64 and GC eras, years in which Nintendo focused its games and innovation on the core market. They also see the SNES as the superior product.
Really, a game like Wii Music would've NEVER been made during the N64 years, because it would've been too risky for the core audience.
From what I read, Miyamoto had many new game ideas that were rejected due to Nintendo focusing only on the core market. Now things are different. And this comes as a shock to gamers because they only know Nintendo as the company that catered to just its fans.
Meowths Party = Wii Music
Preach it
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_pap64 on January 09, 2009, 09:53:49 AM
Man, his latest article will annoy Go Nintendo haters. He defends the site from a Steve Kent article and goes to explain why the site works.
I do agree, however, that the reason there weren't that many core titles in 2008 was because of motion plus. I DO see Nintendo reworking its core titles in order to make use of motion plus, and retooling them for those that don't have the accesory.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on January 09, 2009, 12:48:04 PM
Man, his latest article will annoy Go Nintendo haters. He defends the site from a Steve Kent article and goes to explain why the site works.
I do agree, however, that the reason there weren't that many core titles in 2008 was because of motion plus. I DO see Nintendo reworking its core titles in order to make use of motion plus, and retooling them for those that don't have the accesory.
Wrong, Nintendo released a lot of "core" titles in 2008 they just came out relatively early and caused a perceived dry spell in the holiday season.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_pap64 on January 09, 2009, 12:56:55 PM
Man, his latest article will annoy Go Nintendo haters. He defends the site from a Steve Kent article and goes to explain why the site works.
I do agree, however, that the reason there weren't that many core titles in 2008 was because of motion plus. I DO see Nintendo reworking its core titles in order to make use of motion plus, and retooling them for those that don't have the accesory.
Wrong, Nintendo released a lot of "core" titles in 2008 they just came out relatively early and caused a perceived dry spell in the holiday season.
Yeah I know that. I've always believed that the notion of the Wii not having any games in 2008 was a stupid one. But what I mean is that their mega hyped titles are being retooled so motion plus makes a bigger impression on people.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on January 16, 2009, 10:08:32 AM
He linked to this interview with Maddox (http://www.mygamer.com/index.php?page=interviews&mode=viewinterviews&id=49).
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_pap64 on January 16, 2009, 12:18:31 PM
He linked to this interview with Maddox (http://www.mygamer.com/index.php?page=interviews&mode=viewinterviews&id=49).
I am honestly surprised to see Maddox being a big fan of the Wii...
If freaking Maddox doesn't have a beef with the Wii NO ONE SHOULD...AND I MEAN NO ONE!
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on January 16, 2009, 03:54:37 PM
That interview is just amazing and speaks the truth, this is my favorite part of the interview
"MyGamer: Which general batch of gamers has been pissing you off lately? Any fanboys that need to shut the hell up?
I'm really fucking tired of people who play Xbox 360 and PS3 calling themselves "hardcore gamers." Look at the list of top 10 games on 360 up above. See anything in common? Those are the games that most people play on 360, and with the exception of Braid, they also happen to be the most popular, most heavily marketed, and most consumer-oriented games in the industry. It'd be like someone eating a meal at McDonalds and saying "I'm a foodie!" No, you're not. If you're into movies, you don't go out and see Jurassic Park and call it a day. You try to see movies that try new and interesting things. The types of movies that only someone who has watched thousands of movies could appreciate for doing something unique.
Similarly, if you're a hardcore gamer, you should be looking for new gaming experiences. You shouldn't be satisfied playing the same old mass market games. Not that these games are bad, but they're not for "hardcore" gamers any more than McDonalds is for hardcore foodies. If you're a hardcore gamer, go out and play Katamari Damacy, track down an old copy of Radiant Silvergun on Saturn, or play an indie game like World of Goo. These are the experiences that move gaming forward. Not blockbuster sequels like Halo 3"
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on February 10, 2009, 02:50:06 PM
I don't know where else to post this so: THQ reduces spending on core game development because of losses (http://www.vg247.com/2009/02/05/thq-to-develop-fewer-core-titles-in-wake-of-losses/). Another victim of the core implosion.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: EasyCure on February 10, 2009, 03:45:37 PM
Talking about the core implosion, Midway finally hits the ground after a long freefall and Eidos might get bought by Square-Enix...
Also Namco Bandai wants to buy D3.
Midway is beyond screwed as well here is how much they owe and to who: * Wells Fargo Bank - $150,000,000 * Acquisition Holdings Subsidiary - $40,000,000 unsecured loan * National Amusements, Inc. - $20,147,864 * NBA Properties, Inc. - $17,294,849 (License/royalty settlement) * Tangible Media, Inc. - $8,675,954 * Warner Bros. Interactive - $6,654,203 * Artificial Mind & Movement - $2,000,000 * Epic Games - $1,975,000 (License/Royalties) * Walmart - $1,576,035 * Far Sight Technologies - $1,279,151 * Best Buy - $1,114,036 * Target - $934,156 * Technicolor Video Services - $637,769 * Toys R Us - $615,276 * Ditan/Synergex Canada - $578,316 * CBS Outernet - $314,600 * David Zucker - $300,000 (severance pay) * Multi Packaging Solutions - $287,036 * A.A.F.E.S Headquarters - $276,314 * Kmart - $218,497 * Tigon Studios - $200,000(license/royalties) * Hollywood Entertainment - $190,982 * TNA Entertainment - $160,000 (license/royalties) * Professional Films, Inc. - $150,000 * Synergex - Latin America - $149,027 * Pioneer.JB Marketing - $133,353 * Eclipse Advertising - $132,687 * GameStop - $127,250 * Sear, Roebuck - $125,495
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on February 14, 2009, 12:25:59 PM
Dunno, that seems meaningless without comparison (what does the average business owe?). The only problem is that they owe about twice as much as they have.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on February 15, 2009, 06:16:23 AM
The only real problem I've had with Malstrom over the past year was in his long GAF post where he basically slams 538.com, which is a political poll aggregator. Independent of the politics concerned, Malstrom says that the founder of the site, a one Nate Silver, "does not generate any data. Nate Silver takes other people’s data and puts it in his little boxes, adds on his ‘special sauce’, and calls it his own."
Forgive me if I have a bad memory, but does not Malstrom consider GoNintendo.com to have a "superior business model" to other games press sites and do they not do exactly the same thing?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on February 15, 2009, 09:06:35 AM
I think he's complaining that people mistake Nate for an analyst when all he does is take numbers, analysis means figuring out the how and why, not the what (also he's objecting to people saying Nate is a superior analyst just because he happened to be right). Do we say GoNintendo does reporting or GameRankigns does reviews?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_pap64 on March 27, 2009, 01:55:02 AM
Well, after weeks of silence Malstrom has returned, and as expected has brought A LOT of commentary, especially on GDC 2009.
Here are some of his recent articles: http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/why-iwata-didnt-mention-motion-plus/
He talks about why Iwata didn't mention Motion Plus during the keynote, and I agree. I think Nintendo was quick to unveil it because they thought Sony and MS were going to unveil their own Wiimote knock offs, and it does look as if they are taking their time perfecting it.
Here he offers his GDC impressions. I am saddened to hear that he doesn't find Punch-Out nor Excite Bots that intriguing, and chimes in on the fact that the new Zelda DS game might suffer in the end (I am betting many will disagree with this one).
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: SixthAngel on March 27, 2009, 04:42:41 AM
Why does he start babbling about user generated content? Did I miss something? Is the new Zelda made with Little Big Planet?
He goes from a train destroying the "mythos" and innovative gameplay not being what people want to suddenly blaming Iwata for user generated content. His train (he he) or thought makes absolutely no sense.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on March 27, 2009, 05:43:25 AM
It ties into his earlier comments about UGC though pinning the blame on Iwata is stupid as the only "UGC" game Nintendo made was Wii Music (which is questionable since WM is not about designing a toy to have fun with and then having fun with it but having fun with the song as you play it). It was LBP and Blastworks that tried to turn UGC into their main attraction. As for the "write your own article" thing, well, that's what the marketers call Web 2.0 and he's participating in it by having a blog. It's Wordpress who said to him "here's an empty page, you can write your OWN articles on it".
Anyway, the mythos thing kinda makes sense except I don't look at my games like that. I've stopped caring about most videogame characters long ago.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_pap64 on March 31, 2009, 01:39:00 PM
Why does he start babbling about user generated content? Did I miss something? Is the new Zelda made with Little Big Planet?
He goes from a train destroying the "mythos" and innovative gameplay not being what people want to suddenly blaming Iwata for user generated content. His train (he he) or thought makes absolutely no sense.
He's been talking about UGC for a while now. He simply believes that UGC might not have the future some people claim it has simply because the idea of creating content only appeals to a small part of the fanbase and thus its not that profitable.
He uses games like "Little Big Planet" and "Spore" as examples of this idea.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on March 31, 2009, 03:37:51 PM
More importantly, he argues that the stuff that sells a game is the included content, not the usermade content.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on March 31, 2009, 03:45:57 PM
UGC is like all those people on the internet making wallpapers in the mid-90s as soon as they learned a little photoshop.
Yeah, got tired of them a while back.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on March 31, 2009, 06:04:44 PM
I don't understand his Zelda criticisms either. He says a lot about the "mythos" of Zelda, without saying exactly what that is. Particularly boggling is his use of Link's Awakening as an exemplar of that, when that game has as much to do with the Zelda "mythos" as Tetris does (Link's in both.) No Zelda, No Triforce, No Ganon, No Master Sword... Heck the title screen has a giant egg on it. A classic game, to be sure, but drenched in "mythos?" Hardly. I hope he's not being contrary for contrariety's sake. He even delves into his hated "lawyer speak" by saying "Zelda used to be the crown jewel of any system's game library." Which was easy for the original to do and ESPECIALLY easy for Link's Awakening to do, seeing as the NES had a worse shovelware problem than the Wii supposedly has, and the Original Game Boy mirrors the Wii exactly, with Nintendo games being number 1 and most third parties making garbage which ruins it for the third parties who try. But on the DS? With the cornucopia of ridiculously awesome games from Nintendo and third parties, both in creative and familiar fields, it says nothing of Phantom Hourglass or Spirit Tracks that they may not be as universally prized in the library.
I like malstrom a whole lot, but when he talks about the nuts and bolts of games, there is this small tingling I get that he may not know what he's talking about and tries to present that limited knowledge of it as a universal truth.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on March 31, 2009, 06:58:03 PM
Well, he's a biased, lapsed gamer afterall, admitting to being very partial to the Atari-NES transitional era.
He can't speak about the nuts & bolts of games nor relate well enough to gamers because he hasn't been playing the games between the Stone Age and now.
He does a great job of delivering business analysis tho: people, quotes, industry phenomena -- the things that are far removed from the experience of being a regular gamer-customer.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_pap64 on March 31, 2009, 07:22:54 PM
I agree that Malstrom is great when it comes to analyzing business talk, society and how the industry moves. But when he starts talking about games he really does fall apart.
He bashed "Excite Bots" for having "no legacy" (or because the titles in the other games were clearer). Yet he agrees that a game sells on word on mouth. If Excite Bots does well it wasn't because of the title, it was because the title was good.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on April 07, 2009, 04:48:16 PM
Since this is the core implosion thread, FF13 needs 10x the sales of a regular game (http://kotaku.com/5201245/square-enix-ffxiii-needs-ten-times-the-success-of-smaller-titles). Spirits Within again?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on April 07, 2009, 04:54:14 PM
Oh man, that's great news.
Someone please start the countdown to S-E bankruptcy.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Mikintosh on April 07, 2009, 08:38:54 PM
Ooh, maybe Nintendo can buy them! I want them to buy SOMEBODY, just so Miyamoto can upturn some more tea tables in these stupid companies.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_pap64 on April 07, 2009, 08:51:48 PM
I'm actually quite saddened that the game is going to cost S-E badly. I don't care what anyone says or what any fanboy cynicism dictates I like S-E, and I want to see more support from them before they go under (if they do).
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Luigi Dude on April 07, 2009, 09:06:39 PM
Don't worry, if SquareEnix puts a bald space marine as a playable character in the 360 version, the game will sell an extra 5 million copies it's first week.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on April 08, 2009, 05:36:46 PM
I have no interest in what Malstrom writes. Him and I do not see eye to eye on just about anything; I don't care how many trends he "predicted."
I'm more interested in what makes a game GOOD, not what makes it sell to the most consumers.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on April 08, 2009, 06:16:29 PM
That's not interesting cuz you already realize it by playing it, and the mediocre blawg press is full of it, or they at least constantly try to write about how they assume the rest of us think.
The Retail WarStarRiskCraft that companies have to play behind the scenes is interesting cuz we're not the major players. It's a different world than we're used to trolling about.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Rize on April 08, 2009, 07:08:22 PM
Interesting articles. However, I don't see Nintendo neatly and cleanly sweeping away the hardcore market. They may make some inroads, but Sony and Microsoft will remain entrenched in the minds of savvy consumers as long as they maintain their technological edge.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on April 08, 2009, 08:30:09 PM
You mean like Sega was in the mid-nineties?
"Technology" is more than just graphics. Who says the savvy consumers aren't actually buying Wiis because it's something new on the user interface department, which is technologically superior (and about to be more so) than both of what the others offer? Imagine the "hardcore" gamers of tomorrow, brought up solely on the Wiimote.
And of course Nintendo won't get every single gamer out there, but they'll have a firm majority and a nice chunk of the hardcore market (and they maybe even already have a majority of that too, because who says to join that market all you need is a 360 or PS3, and who says every owner of said consoles is "hardcore"?). And their obscene profits will allow them more leverage and investment capital to attack those markets that the 360 and PS3 already lay claim to. It'll be interesting, nonetheless.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on April 09, 2009, 12:17:03 AM
Pretty much every major video game website that wasn't intended to focus solely on Nintendo spends the majority of their time covering 360 or PS3 games. Call it bias if you wish, but I spend time daily on MTV Multiplayer, Joystiq.com, and listening to about a dozen weekly gaming podcasts and they maybe spend 20% of their time covering Nintendo products compared to other systems.
The hardcore market pays more attention to the 360 and the PS3 because Sony and Microsoft actually respond to these markets, whereas Nintendo historically has been unresponsive. Look at Major Nelson - a major figure in the Xbox Live community. Contrast what he's doing versus what Reggie says in his interviews.
Interviewer: It's said that Nintendo is trying X strategy.
Reggie: We don't comment on rumors or speculation.
Interviewer: How do you respond to claims that Nintendo isn't responding to the hardcore market.
Reggie: We are.
Interviewer: What are the chances we'll see X game from Japan making it's way to the US?
Reggie: I like that game.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on April 13, 2009, 12:09:20 PM
Interesting articles. However, I don't see Nintendo neatly and cleanly sweeping away the hardcore market. They may make some inroads, but Sony and Microsoft will remain entrenched in the minds of savvy consumers as long as they maintain their technological edge.
PLEASE call those core gamers, before the Wii and the whole casual scare came up you had to publicly renounce graphics and count at least one game from the DOS or pre-NES era to your favourites in order to get any hardcore cred, now you get it for playing Madden or Halo, the stuff that was decried as casual, shallow crap for idiots who don't know about good games before the Wii came around.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Rize on April 13, 2009, 03:58:50 PM
Nintendo might have an interface edge, but if the others maintain a big visual edge, then they will maintain a very large niche in the market at worst. Companies can survive like that in the long term (Apple).
Anyway, call them what you like, but I don't think the group of people who like the very best graphics and still enjoy a regular controller (if not prefer it) are going anywhere any time soon. In fact, the best controller of the next-gen might just be the one that manages to combine good motion controls with good classic controls. Note that the d-pad is still included on every modern controller.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on April 14, 2009, 05:29:44 AM
They can maintain a technical graphics edge but filling that edge with content is going to be much harder. A powerful system is only one part, the more important part is developers that actually spend the time and effort to use the graphics the system can show. More graphics cost more money. An AAA PS360 game costs 25 million USD, an AAA Wii game costs a mere 10 million (averages, I heard GTA4 cost as much as 100 million). The gen after that would see a cost of 62.25 million USD per AAA title. That is not sustainable in a niche market.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Stogi on April 14, 2009, 10:17:10 AM
I see it both ways.
Technology raises overhead costs for developers. There's no way to sustain yourself by simply dealing with a niche market. & Technology raises popularity of all videogames. Videogames may rival movies one day in popularity.
Let it fall where it may.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on April 14, 2009, 10:36:00 AM
But not all technology increases the popularity equally. Better graphics do almost nothing in that area now despite the exponentially increasing costs to make them. The Wiimote massively increased the popularity with only minor investments.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Stogi on April 14, 2009, 10:45:51 AM
Sure, but there is no doubt that the Wiimote increased the overhead cossts.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Rize on April 23, 2009, 02:48:13 PM
Yes, there is a question as to whether or not more and more powerful consoles can exist without driving production costs too high.
I don't think it's as big a problem as you think for the gen after this one. Current games could get a lot better looking without driving the production budgets way up. Going all the way back to Doom 3 the models were created by making super detailed models and then using a program to generate a low poly model with normal maps to simulate the high quality model. On more and more powerful systems, this procedure can be done the exact some way (except you flip a few switches on the compiler program to output a higher quality model with higher res normal maps and more polygons).
Environmental textures are already frequently produced at ultra high quality for PC games and then scaled down versions are used for the console ports.
You can also improve visual quality significantly by using more intensive lighting models and shaders. These things can be built as a one-time cost into the engines of choice for the next gen (cry-tech, unreal engine 4 and whatever id is working on).
It won't be as hard as you think to churn out high res games for the next gen. Eventually the process for designing beautiful CG in movies will converge with the process for video games and the shared resources of the entire industry will keep costs down.
Things aren't as bad as they seem.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on April 23, 2009, 03:30:24 PM
The hipoly-to-lowpoly bake is an additional step in the process, it does not replace any traditional step. Additional shaders require additional textures, e.g. I recall the UE3 making attempts at SSS which requires another texture. More polygons in the lowpoly model (those aren't generated automatically usually) require more work, more detail texture stuff (skin pores?) needs more texture work, etc.
CG in movies may be the ceiling but movie budgets are way too high to be feasible for games, at least without a hollywood-style consolidation with only 5 or so conglomerates remaining in the blockbuster business.
The bigger issue is that the current budgets are already too high. Hollywood can pump that much money into a movie because there are that many people who watch movies. Expensive movie-like games currently have a significantly smaller audience (especially when you consider what part of the audience would still buy happily if the graphics were weaker) and are much less likely to make money on the same scale as hollywood.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on May 14, 2009, 02:14:31 PM
Sean types again, opening up his heart to us.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on May 14, 2009, 02:26:21 PM
Sean also mentions butt sweat.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on May 14, 2009, 04:19:11 PM
By using Sean's frustrations as a metric, I can say PGC is the smartest forum on the net. Just by default. Which doesn't bode well for the rest of the internet.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BeautifulShy on May 14, 2009, 07:57:27 PM
Sean talks about the whole of the game product being good to its customers vs. front-loaded hype only designed to trap customers.
But man, LOOK AT THAT NINTENDO POWER COVER ART.
It just reminded me that I want REAL new generation games to look like that classic art IN MOTION, not the H.ighly D.isappointing honey glazed horse turds that are smeared on TVs today.
Look at that Mega Man II and Mario 3 art. LOOK AT IT.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: vudu on May 19, 2009, 02:11:35 PM
I clicked on the link because I wanted to see the Nintendo Power cover art.
GOOD GOD, ARE ALL HIS ARTICLES THAT LONG?
How do you people have the time to read through those things?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on May 19, 2009, 02:21:00 PM
They read just like anything else. The difference is he's not breaking them up to get more adhits.
I typically read them at work.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: vudu on May 19, 2009, 02:24:45 PM
I typically work at work.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: King of Twitch on May 19, 2009, 02:31:21 PM
Articles are too long even for the hardcore to read--> paradox
/universe destroyed
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on May 19, 2009, 02:53:05 PM
Wolfram Alpha doesn't know how to respond to that.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: EasyCure on May 19, 2009, 03:51:09 PM
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Smash_Brother on May 19, 2009, 04:10:28 PM
I agree wholeheartedly with what he said there.
Sadly, the hype train has proven that it works time and time again. With massive hype, reviewers are afraid to give it a bad score and that only compounds the problem.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BeautifulShy on May 29, 2009, 07:04:09 PM
"The way how he talked about it reminded me of old fashioned arcade games where, since we were inexperienced players in the 1980s, we had to learn how to play and were very satisfied when we became skillful in it."
^ That is the sentiment I've been expressing here, at NWR 1.9 Ultimate Premium Service Pack 11.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on June 14, 2009, 07:39:59 AM
You know in this guy's latest posts he starts sounding more like the hardcore gamer he usually rails against. Before he would tout sales numbers as the main metric of whether the people like the games or not, regardless of review scores, but now he'll switch gears and yap about 3D Mario or how NSMB on the DS wasn't "better" than SMB3, despite his own use of sales numbers as a metric (fun fact, NSMB has outsold SMB3.) And say how NSMBWii is being "phoned in" because it doesn't have "epic music" or something, which sounds like a complaint a hardcore gamer would have.
And his "mythos" idea behind games is the most labyrinthine and intangible concept I have ever seen. It's like a catch-all excuse for when a game either underperforms or is not otherwise "accepted." But even his use of it is totally inconsistent. Like when he talks about Zelda and it's mythos, but dumps on Spirit Tracks for violating the Zelda "mythos" with trains and such, which is funny because one of his favorites is Link's Awakening has a giant blue dreaming whale. And he uses the weasel worded
Quote
Many Zelda fans are not happy with the train in the game. “What is next? Laser beams!?” This anger is coming from the sense that the mythos is not being consistent.
But earlier he defends Zelda II, despite being universally regarded as a black sheep in the entire series, which "Many Zelda fans were not happy with."
It just sounds like personal preference is creeping in, which is fine. I mean it's his blog. But you can't really be a demagogue with all these big theories about stuff when it's just your own personal opinion that's fueling them, along with the inconsistencies.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: SixthAngel on June 14, 2009, 02:41:12 PM
I'm reading some of the new things he is saying and he gets way of track fast.
He inserts that he feels the 40 hour work week is a thing of the past and now people should work more because we are in the "Silicon Age." This is a HUGE statment and he says it like everyone thinks it is fact.
He makes conclusions based off what he wants, not always what is there. A company doesn't "require" people to work 60 hours a week but the boss simply says that we don't want to hire people who want to work a typical work week because they won't be a "good fit." This doesn't mean that everyone loves working constantly, it could mean that in a competitive industry where they can easily be replaced if they don't work as hard as their neighbor they will get fired if they don't work the "typical hours." I'm sure a few people actually love the work and don't have families or don't care about them but to come to the conclusion that everyone does is ridiculous. He also uses probably (I assume) one of the few companies that actually shares profits with employees as his generalization for the industry. I don't really know the workers situation at EPIC but the boss telling the gaming press "The people here are happy" doesn't convince me one way or the other but when I hear about video game workers always getting screwed it doesn't exactly help me think they are saints. Then he decides to attack unions and blames the entire auto industry crash on them.
He also talks about franchises and how they don't use the word in other industries like movies. They do all the time! He uses this word to bludgeon videogames without realizing his entire premise is wrong, this is not a uniquely videogame problem. He makes some good points but remember to question him.
He rags on Nintendo for user generated content again. I can't even think of a Nintendo game that actually has user generated content besides the mapmaking of Brawl.
I think his analysis of Natal is spot on though.
Is it me or does he mention the superiority of SMB3 constantly?
update: After reading more I realise he just has a huge hard-on for 2d Mario with a particular need to say 3 is the best ever. He is obviously happy when he talks about how Mario Galaxy was lacking (?) and doesn't deserve a sequel. Looking around Galaxy has apparently sold about 8 million now and will obviously continue to sell more and probably be in the 10s at the end. I don't see the failure that doesn't deserve a sequel even though direct sequels are odd for Mario in 3d.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on June 15, 2009, 08:38:12 AM
I'm glad to see that others are starting to see the fallacies in his logic. Reading his articles is borderline infuriating, so I stopped years ago. It's hard to argue with someone who will just counter with "but I'm right... where's the argument?"
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: EasyCure on June 15, 2009, 09:30:32 AM
Don't the Beamos enemies shoot laser beams from their one giant eye? And haven't they been doing that since A Link to the Past?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: UltimatePartyBear on June 15, 2009, 01:24:33 PM
Don't the Beamos enemies shoot laser beams from their one giant eye? And haven't they been doing that since A Link to the Past?
Yeah. I suppose one could argue that they're magical energy beams, but one could argue it's a magical train, too. It reminds me Niven's corollary to Clarke's third law: "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on June 15, 2009, 01:28:25 PM
Lotion Puss is magick.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: that Baby guy on June 15, 2009, 05:41:06 PM
Eh, I read the one article about Diablo III, and figured out what he was quickly. Comparisons earlier in the thread to Hitler actually aren't far off, though this is of much smaller scale than that.
The issue is that he's taking one group of people who are happy and satisfied with what they have and are, and targeting their focus, creating an anger that has no need to exist in order to benefit from the hits. I think it's fair to say we all know that games that are simple to play, yet innovative and intuitive are where the market is headed. Casual and Hardcore/core are just words. Everyone has his or her own definition of those terms, and no one will see eye-to-eye.
Anyways, the point is, yes, there are some gamers out there that are ridiculous. There's no doubt about that. However, just because some of the gamers who demand certain things, and hate the "casual" games and gamers, or anything close... Well, why do casual or bridge gamers, or those who see the intrinsic value of innovation, why do they have to be so angry and bitter? They've got the games they want, why should they target the other group with anger? The only person it benefits for them to do that is him, the website's owner. I don't need to see a psuedo-analysis of a loosely-related marketed strategy. I don't need to be told Nintendo did something disruptive. I know all that, it's clear and obvious. Visiting his site regularly is an ego stroke, where others are belittled and antagonized in an attempt to draw traffic, to earn fame, and to gain a following.
Doesn't that make him just about as bad as the people he consistently lambastes?
Now, on a more "I don't understand 'hardcore' games very much anymore" level, I've got to mention Uncharted 2. I saw the demo that was shown during Sony's press conference, and I don't get it. So much effort, so much time, some many resources had to be put into creating a beautiful, detailed world. Things are nearing levels of photo-realism. No, they aren't quite there yet, but they're approaching it. The game, by sight alone, looks great. Then, you watch the gameplay, and it makes no sense. The lead character must have been shot, even if in many cases it was a nick, fifty times. At one point, he's staring down a helicopter with a built-in machine gun, which must fire nearly 500 rounds (okay, maybe less, but it's up there...), several of which hit him, and he barely shows any reaction to them. Beyond that, the character repetitiously hides behind, under, or next to things that obscure his vision, but he easily sticks his gun out, and targets enemies, without any difficulty.
I just don't understand why you'd feel the need to spend so much time grounding the game in reality, with visuals, physics, detailed textures, and whatnot... But then the gameplay is complete and total fantasy, with several physical and physiological impossibilities. I truly don't understand.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on June 15, 2009, 06:15:06 PM
Yeah, that's the trend I spotted almost 10 years ago, where realistic visuals and reasonable behavior would not converge (the "silly gap" would grow instead) as game machines advanced. "gamers" tend to identify those "less realistic aspects" as "maintaining fun," a lot like how FPS games handle character health/damage with life meters and body armor, and my favorite, characters strafing in all directions in godlike speeds without tripping over themselves. It also extends to the negative attitudes towards aiming with the wii remote, cuz you literally aim it (a reasonable behavior for user input, with light-gun games showing it's nothing new) with your fidgity plump greasy gamer hand in actual space without the crutch of a desk surface or an analog stick that automatically snaps to the center. "physical merit is NOT fun," says these Y2K gamers.
With the exception of Wii, we're observing the Highly Disappointing market that has descended from the PS2/Xbox/PC "games for you males" school of thought.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_pap64 on June 16, 2009, 02:09:24 AM
You know in this guy's latest posts he starts sounding more like the hardcore gamer he usually rails against. Before he would tout sales numbers as the main metric of whether the people like the games or not, regardless of review scores, but now he'll switch gears and yap about 3D Mario or how NSMB on the DS wasn't "better" than SMB3, despite his own use of sales numbers as a metric (fun fact, NSMB has outsold SMB3.) And say how NSMBWii is being "phoned in" because it doesn't have "epic music" or something, which sounds like a complaint a hardcore gamer would have.
And his "mythos" idea behind games is the most labyrinthine and intangible concept I have ever seen. It's like a catch-all excuse for when a game either underperforms or is not otherwise "accepted." But even his use of it is totally inconsistent. Like when he talks about Zelda and it's mythos, but dumps on Spirit Tracks for violating the Zelda "mythos" with trains and such, which is funny because one of his favorites is Link's Awakening has a giant blue dreaming whale. And he uses the weasel worded
Quote
Many Zelda fans are not happy with the train in the game. “What is next? Laser beams!?” This anger is coming from the sense that the mythos is not being consistent.
But earlier he defends Zelda II, despite being universally regarded as a black sheep in the entire series, which "Many Zelda fans were not happy with."
It just sounds like personal preference is creeping in, which is fine. I mean it's his blog. But you can't really be a demagogue with all these big theories about stuff when it's just your own personal opinion that's fueling them, along with the inconsistencies.
Sadly, I have to agree with you. I love the guy and he makes some awesome points from time to time. But ever since E3 ended he's been attacking 3D Mario and its beginning to get old. I don't understand how he can be very happy with NSMB Wii existing, then criticizing it to no end afterwards. So what is it, then? Nintendo is pleasing gamers with two Mario games, one for 2D fans and one for 3D fans. How is this a bad thing?
Its confusing how he defends Nintendo on one article, then criticizes it the next over some semantic.
He is right about Natal, though. Not because I am biased but because I believe that MS might be too ambitious with this project and could affect them in the end.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on June 16, 2009, 10:56:23 AM
He's also operating under this weird delusion that NSMB DS had no competition. There were several high quality platformers on the GBA and on the DS before NSMB DS, and... just on the DS, there was Megaman ZX, Sonic Rush, and Castlevania: DoS, all before or around NSMB.
And NSMB's music is fine, jeez. It's poppy and very reminiscent of the original NES games. And he acts like everybody hates it, which they don't.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BwrJim! on June 16, 2009, 11:58:16 AM
but does it blend?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on June 16, 2009, 12:07:02 PM
Now, on a more "I don't understand 'hardcore' games very much anymore" level, I've got to mention Uncharted 2. I saw the demo that was shown during Sony's press conference, and I don't get it. So much effort, so much time, some many resources had to be put into creating a beautiful, detailed world. Things are nearing levels of photo-realism. No, they aren't quite there yet, but they're approaching it. The game, by sight alone, looks great. Then, you watch the gameplay, and it makes no sense. The lead character must have been shot, even if in many cases it was a nick, fifty times. At one point, he's staring down a helicopter with a built-in machine gun, which must fire nearly 500 rounds (okay, maybe less, but it's up there...), several of which hit him, and he barely shows any reaction to them. Beyond that, the character repetitiously hides behind, under, or next to things that obscure his vision, but he easily sticks his gun out, and targets enemies, without any difficulty.
This, to me, is no different than watching an action movie where the heroes are shot at dozens, hundreds of times, and make it through unscathed. So while I understand your point, and agree to some extent that the realism gap is closing from one perspective and being widened from another, the example above doesn't really bother me that much. Not anymore than the idea that Darth Vader can't employ a single decent marksman as a Storm Trooper.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: SixthAngel on June 16, 2009, 12:34:49 PM
I read the Innovator's Dilemma last year and ever since then I have come to think more and more that Malstrom is wrong. Nintendo is not a disruptor, it just has competitors that entered without a clue what was really happening in the industry.
There are big points that he never addresses. One is that it is pretty much impossible for the disruptor to be one of the established and leading companies in the field. You can't be much more established than Nintendo and it was one of the leading companies. Its values are supposed prevent it from actually using its ideas effectively. Another is that the disruptive technology will start in small unwanted markets while the Wii simply came in at number 1.
The disruption theory was made to show how well run companies fail. I intend to show how the Xbox and Playstation were never truly well run companies in the video game industry.
The Xbox doesn't really need much to show. It showed up the first time last generation and failed miserably compared to the biggest competition and lost a **** load of money. The next generation the Wii entered. A one time entry before and essentially a failure doesn’t need to be disrupted to lose or point out that they are in the same position.
Now you might be saying “Sony had two very successful consoles, how can they be mismanaged?” I will show you.
Malstrom talks about how the old measure of progression in the industry was graphics. It is certainly true graphics needed to increase each generation to an extent to draw interest it was never the main selling point for a console in the same generation (software was).
I claim that there has always been a second and equally as important progression in the industry. That progression is control. Malstrom says motion is a new value, it is not. It is simply one of the aspects of the value of control. Every single Nintendo system has had different control schemes. Motion is not some new value that needs to be added, it is simply another progression of the control of games that Nintendo has changed. Nintendo had even experimented with it in the past with the Power Glove. It is not new, at least for Nintendo and its values.
Nintendo started with a brand new controller with Game and Watch and then entered the games industry with it taking over. (I am not going to do the research so this is probably wrong but the very basics make it sound like the control scheme is disruptive. It begins in an unwanted market and then moves up and takes over the console market.) They then change the controller with the next consoles (the current competition never has) and even add additional ones like the power glove and superscope (and the original blaster).
Sony first entered the market with what was essentially a Nintendo console and controller because of the broken deal. Its controls were basically snes with extra shoulder buttons. Nintendo shows up with the analog stick and gets everybody excited about the new things they can do. Sony copies it easily and adds a second one that luckily has use in fps games. They still don’t have the ability to rise in this dimension of games, they just copy what they see as the next thing if possible.
The next generation comes and Sony releases the same controller. Nintendo changes there controller and in my opinion make it superior to ps2 controller except for the terrible c stick. Why was it not changed more or differently? It could be simply be to the lack of motion or other technology available or perhaps the next idea had not arrived since the two analog sticks had not been visited by Nintendo. We are talking one moment of less change (not no change) and if we made a graph of controller technology changing it wouldn’t matter much if the video games industry was not so new. Even at this point Nintendo is trying to find ways to make the controller easier to use and they emphasize it.
The Wii comes out with a new control scheme and Sony attempts to copy it but it is too different to include in what they know (the ps2 contoller) and they have no experience designing new input methods for the Playstation. They obviously think that the current controller will be their forever because they constantly say “the industry standard.” Sony was never capable of competing in the field of controls. They got lucky with the ease of incorporating the analog stick and simply got rocked on the next big change.
Now you might ask me “What about the hardcore rebellion?” I laugh at this. The Nintendo hardcore never rebelled. Look a NWR. The biggest posters are still here. I even see Ian talk about stuff even though I’m not really sure if he owns a DS or Wii (I know he doesn’t have the others).
I also say that motion controls did not make the hardcore super angry. Two things did besides the usual console wars dickery.
1. Nintendo didn’t upgrade their graphics much. This pissed off the technophile section of the hardcore. They love high end graphics and computer technology. They saw this as an insult. This is probably the biggest risk Nintendo took with both the Wii and DS, not upgrading the graphics technology to keep the price down.
2, Nintendo marketed the Wii as something for casuals. They could have easily decided to market it to the hardcore with sayings like “You’ve never been this immersed into a game. Motion controls make you feel like your part of the game.” Basically powerglove ads redux “Everything else is child’s play!” Nintendo announced that they didn’t think the extremely vocal minority was the most important thing ever and that new people were actually more important. It pissed the “hardcore” off.
Motion controls also did turn off a very, very small minority of current gamers. Guess what? So did the last big controller shift to the analog stick controlling 3d movement! I am looking at you a Malstrom! I know other people who never upgraded to n64 because they didn’t like the new analog controlled, 3d Mario and Zelda. The analog control is equally as important as the graphics because without the control there would be no 3d Mario or Zelda or maybe just terrible ones. It wasn't the 3d graphics that chased people like Malstrom away, he loves NSMB. It was the new 3d controls aka the analog stick.
Nintendo is not a disruptor, it is just competing in more than one field like it always has. They entered the industry with the new game and watch control scheme and didn’t stop changing, refining, and doubting it while the other current companies never second guessed it until Nintendo did something.
In his book Christensen says a lot of people like to use “disruption” but its not really it and Malstrom and Nintendo are one of those cases. This doesn’t take away from the success of Nintendo or make Malstroms predictions wrong, it is just my attempt at showing what really happened in the industry.
edit: I know its long but if you read any of the books Malstrom calls articles this should be breeze.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on June 16, 2009, 12:59:21 PM
[in reference to previous blah]
The difference was Uncharted 2 was being PLAYED, and the character GOT HIT without behavioral consequence. When Leon got hit by gatling gun fire, it was a Hurtz Donut and halted his movement pretty good. We'll leave the gamey aspects to stuffing your face with herbs and full-heal deodorant sprays (active sports fresh minty scent), but c'mon, ugly plasticky Highly Disappointing characters should react when being... acted upon.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on June 16, 2009, 01:08:48 PM
Well I haven't seen the Uncharted 2 demo, so I can't comment on that, specifically, but this has never been something I've had trouble ignoring. It's a suspension of disbelief that I've never had a problem for me. I think it's easier to deal with in an FPS because it's generally assumed that your character is wearing body armor of some kind. Third person games run into a new problem, because you have a character to animate. I've noticed this more, actually, when you're shooting at a bad guy and it takes a lot of bullets to kill them. I was playing "Gun" on the 360 recently (also available on... well, everything) and that game had a few bosses that took hundreds of bullets to take down, and they never really seemed to react when I shot at them.
So I guess it does bother me, but moreso from the enemy standpoint, not from the protagonist standpoint.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on June 16, 2009, 01:40:59 PM
Sexy Angel,
1. Nintendo's behavior isn't described via Distruption alone. You have throw in some Blue Ocean to help illustrate how the Wii/DS entered unwanted, but not small, markets. 2. I know this isn't the same as sales, but public interest in Wii didn't approach No.1 until E3 2006 rolled around. A hype train led to Wii's pre-order-tastic launch (not different from other launches), and maybe, just maybe, today's unwanted market merely reacted in the following months, tho seemingly quickly. 3. Agreed, Nintendo progressed with its controls. But No, controls haven't changed much from NES to Gamecube in contrast to Grandma Bowling. It was all thumb-play and couch potatoes since the NES, which presents a better view of the old trend. Nintendo sticking to its values and Power Gloves and whatnot aren't the important deal here, it's getting the Market to change/realize new values by
1) Transforming the product (Motion and accessibility) 2) Transforming the Market (new customers who migrate to the new trend and not the old)
Motion IS a new value since The Market is growing and living without the old one. It's new because it's new to The Market.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on June 16, 2009, 01:45:54 PM
Well I haven't seen the Uncharted 2 demo, so I can't comment on that, specifically, but this has never been something I've had trouble ignoring. It's a suspension of disbelief that I've never had a problem for me. I think it's easier to deal with in an FPS because it's generally assumed that your character is wearing body armor of some kind. Third person games run into a new problem, because you have a character to animate. I've noticed this more, actually, when you're shooting at a bad guy and it takes a lot of bullets to kill them. I was playing "Gun" on the 360 recently (also available on... well, everything) and that game had a few bosses that took hundreds of bullets to take down, and they never really seemed to react when I shot at them.
So I guess it does bother me, but moreso from the enemy standpoint, not from the protagonist standpoint.
Well we all know FPS is stale, but portions of The Market continue to enjoy stale as long as nothing fresh is presented...
It did bother me in the enemy sense too. The first two 007 FPS games last cycle had regular enemies that wouldn't react to headshots and other high-powered rifles sometimes, and I usually attributed that to poor programming, so no, I could never ignore **** like that. Completely unforgiveable, stupid EA.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on June 16, 2009, 02:09:03 PM
FPS is stale? It's an entire genre. I don't think it's possible for an entire genre to be stale. A setting can be stale, a gameplay mechanic can be stale, but when you're talking about a genre that includes Doom, Half Life 2, Bioshock, and Call of Duty 4, those are very very different games. That's like saying platformers are stale. There are no new genres, so saying they're stale is just saying they've been around for awhile.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on June 16, 2009, 02:17:50 PM
Platformers are stale too, and there's even less of those.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on June 16, 2009, 02:26:08 PM
So then... video games are stale. Fantastic.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on June 16, 2009, 02:34:19 PM
Which is why Nintendo introduced Wii and DS! To combat the declining Market!
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on June 16, 2009, 02:39:10 PM
I like Nintendo's games, but I really wish they would do away with outdated concepts like "controls" and "video output."
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on June 16, 2009, 02:44:41 PM
Rumors are floating that Amazon will attempt to disrupt the Market. They'll be at next year's E3 to unveil an existing but renewed technology called "books."
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on June 16, 2009, 02:49:11 PM
"Can any of you tell me if you know anyone who has never read a book? We here at Amazon intend to change that."
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on June 16, 2009, 04:08:12 PM
FPS is stale? It's an entire genre. I don't think it's possible for an entire genre to be stale. A setting can be stale, a gameplay mechanic can be stale, but when you're talking about a genre that includes Doom, Half Life 2, Bioshock, and Call of Duty 4, those are very very different games. That's like saying platformers are stale. There are no new genres, so saying they're stale is just saying they've been around for awhile.
The FPS is significantly less innovative than other genres. Really, all FPSes tend to feel the same gameplay-wise. Some have RPG elements that change what weapons you carry but the flow of the gameplay tends to be extremely similar between different FPSes. I'm not lying when I say FPSes all feel pretty much the same to me.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on June 16, 2009, 07:44:20 PM
To you, fine. I disagree that they feel that way to most people. I think there's a world of difference between Half-Life and Call of Duty 4, in terms of progression, narrative, focus, level design. If you can't see that, then I don't know what to tell you. There's just as much variation in FPS games as there are in platformers, sports, adventure titles.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on June 17, 2009, 11:48:17 AM
I know there's a difference in those things but the net result is very small and the feeling tends to be the same no matter whether it involves extensive cover or bunnyhopping.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Kairon on June 21, 2009, 05:38:29 PM
I think a more inclusive look at FPS' and TPS' together might be better, since the gameplay limitations that kept these traditionally distinct genres apart are starting to get fuzzier.
Also, LOLZ at the Amazon talk.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Peachylala on June 21, 2009, 11:44:55 PM
I think a more inclusive look at FPS' and TPS' together might be better, since the gameplay limitations that kept these traditionally distinct genres apart are starting to get fuzzier.
Also, LOLZ at the Amazon talk.
Only Pro Daisy can make a comment about Amazon and make it lolz worthy.
*waves Pro Daisy fan flag*
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on June 22, 2009, 05:01:49 AM
I think a more inclusive look at FPS' and TPS' together might be better, since the gameplay limitations that kept these traditionally distinct genres apart are starting to get fuzzier.
Yeah, I call 'em xPS when I remember it because it really doesn't matter whether you can see your whole character or only his gun when aiming with dual analogs.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on June 22, 2009, 07:45:32 AM
I can't help but feel here that people are dismissing entire genres of games just because they don't enjoy them, and are bothered by the fact that they're so popular.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BeautifulShy on June 22, 2009, 12:26:47 PM
I think a more inclusive look at FPS' and TPS' together might be better, since the gameplay limitations that kept these traditionally distinct genres apart are starting to get fuzzier.
Yeah, I call 'em xPS when I remember it because it really doesn't matter whether you can see your whole character or only his gun when aiming with dual analogs.
You say that as if there's a difference between them when aiming with a mouse or the Wii remote, either way you just point it at the enemy and shoot.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on June 22, 2009, 04:07:20 PM
Desks hold mice.
People hold WangMotes.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Kairon on June 23, 2009, 01:05:59 AM
I can't help but feel here that people are dismissing entire genres of games just because they don't enjoy them, and are bothered by the fact that they're so popular.
I agree. What's with all the Imagine series hate?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on June 23, 2009, 03:33:50 AM
The Imagine games aren't popular though. Only like, 4 or 5 have sold anything respectable, and they were released years ago.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on June 23, 2009, 04:31:29 AM
I can't help but feel here that people are dismissing entire genres of games just because they don't enjoy them, and are bothered by the fact that they're so popular.
I agree. What's with all the Imagine series hate?
*shrug* I don't really make fun of them, although I wouldn't hold it against anyone who did. They're kids games, and not aimed at anyone I ever talk to about games.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on June 27, 2009, 07:39:15 AM
I really really don't want to have these bones to pick with Malstrom, as he is a very intelligent fella. But his recent comments about the new Zelda game reveal a pretty hard double bind for the series and reveals himself to be a bitchy hardcore gamer, at least in this respect.
He commented that, for the new Wii Zelda game, that the chick on the front looked like a Zora. While at this time it is laughable, it's an honest mistake really. You could see where he would think that. He also commented on "sword-less Link" because Link is empty handed in the piece of art. (Apparently sword-less Link doesn't violate mythos)
An email later a person informed him of the theory that this chick is a sword, maybe the Master Sword, and then Malstrom goes on a tirade about how the "narrative is going to be bad" just because a whole internet's worth of Zelda fans parsed the entire game's history of artwork in about a day. And saying if your game's narrative is this "predictable" then you have no idea how to author a story.
But wait, didn't he say earlier about not "violating the mythos?" People play Zelda not for laser beams, right? They did something unpredictable with Spirit Tracks, right? And that's bad, too?
Sounds like an unreasonable hardcore fan to me. Maybe the kind Malstrom advises not listening o?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on June 27, 2009, 08:59:00 AM
I don't bother with his talk about what he liked in a particular game series, I prefer the bigger picture stuff. Like his article about momentum which sounds a bit like my "stop making core games" rant.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: ThePerm on June 29, 2009, 10:48:01 PM
over the years iv developed Nintendo-itus, i can't look at ANYTHING without thinking of a way to improve it. Subtly or Drasticly
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Peachylala on June 30, 2009, 07:50:46 PM
Nintendo can NEVER please the Zelda fanbase, no matter how much they try.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_insanolord on June 30, 2009, 10:38:54 PM
Sean talks about what it would be like if a gamer from 1994 would think about today's gaming landscape.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Nick DiMola on July 14, 2009, 07:39:16 AM
I'm sorry but everything this guy writes is utter garbage. This should be titled "Let me set up some ridiculous premise so that I can inject my personal opinions then claim them as truths and get up in arms over nothing."
"Gaming used to be a Movement, not an industry"? Please, pull your head out of your ass and see things for what they are. Maybe in the Atari days there could possibly be more truth to that statement, but even since the days of his beloved NES and SNES it has always been a business. These days the checks are just bigger, and the competition stiffer, but nothing has changed.
I could go through and rip apart every paragraph of his article, but it's too early and he's not worth my time.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on July 14, 2009, 08:00:05 AM
The blog is for unfounded rants, the articles are for researched stuff...
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on July 15, 2009, 06:29:35 PM
People get so worked up about rants, they have to respond with a louder rant.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: King of Twitch on July 16, 2009, 12:53:27 PM
100% backwards. Gaming wasn't about movement until Wii.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Peachylala on July 16, 2009, 01:05:33 PM
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Nick DiMola on July 16, 2009, 07:16:52 PM
I've read them in the past. I can read about blue ocean strategy elsewhere minus the fanboyism.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on July 16, 2009, 08:01:27 PM
That's a separate issue from the rant implication. Quit dodging and stay on topic.
Reading articles fragmented elsewhere for blue oceans and brown toilets is fine, but they don't frame the concepts with respect to Nintendo's actions, which is part of Sean's objectives. The majority of us, the curious, wouldn't give a damn about those `elsewhere` sources and concepts without Sean connecting these ideas from easily-forgotten N-exec speeches in the first place.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on July 17, 2009, 01:40:35 AM
No they don't.
No, they really do. I stopped reading his articles because they felt like rants to me.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on July 17, 2009, 04:33:50 AM
There might be some truth to that only if you can correctly identify who/what the rant is responding to.
...
The hypersensitive Former Nintendo Fan-base is really growing these days.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Peachylala on July 20, 2009, 09:08:58 PM
Malstorm lost my respect when he started to whine about 3-D Mario games not being as good as the 2-D ones.
While he made a good point about 2-D Mario games selling more then the 3-D ones, he carried himself like a whiny fan brat who skipped the N64 because of no freaking 2-D Mario game. WTF?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on July 25, 2009, 05:13:33 PM
Now Nintendo just needs to realize that not just Mario was better in 2D, Zelda was too.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on July 25, 2009, 05:17:16 PM
Don't care too much for 2D adventuring, can't wrap my head around massive 2D top-view maps nearly as well as I can mentally traverse 3D environments.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_insanolord on July 25, 2009, 05:19:45 PM
Now Nintendo just needs to realize that not just Mario was better in 2D, Zelda was too.
I disagree with both of these statements.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Smash_Brother on July 26, 2009, 10:26:55 PM
Some of his stuff his good as he makes some excellent points. Other pieces do seem overly rantish.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_pap64 on July 26, 2009, 10:58:37 PM
I have to be honest, I stopped reading Malstrom's articles a while ago. I still think he made some excellent points as to why Nintendo was successful this generation as well as the concepts behind the blue ocean strategy. But ever since E3 he's been awfully ranty about everything, about how Galaxy 2 is a vanity project, about how Zelda has no legacy now, so on and so forth. Its gotten pretty tiring. Yes you can make the claim that I am being a hyper sensitive Nintendo fan. But Malstrom lately seems to be trying to push his preferences as fact, the 2D vs. 3D thing being one of them.
It gets to the point where he becomes the whiny fanboy he often writes about complaining about the blue ocean strategy.
So Malstrom is no more for me.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Peachylala on July 27, 2009, 12:09:32 AM
Bah, Malstrom's rant about Galaxy 2 is basically mute to me. Getting a sequal to the most awesome 3-D Mario game EVAH, on the same console, with YOSHI, that's a first day insta-purchase right there.
Quote from: pap64
about how Zelda has no legacy now, so on and so forth. Its gotten pretty tiring.
It's just like 95% of the Zelda fanbase.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_pap64 on July 27, 2009, 12:39:56 AM
Another thing that confuses me about Malstrom is his stance on Wii Music. Before release he was talking about how its going to be Miyamoto's best game yet, that its truly a musical game, so on and so forth. Now, he keeps bringing the game up as an example of how User Generated Content has no future with consumers and how Nintendo got cocky with it.
It leads me to believe one of the following; - Before release he thought it was going to be something special and commented based on what he knew. When he played the game he realized it was different from what he expected.
- He was trolling the haters with long, pro Wii Music rants.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on July 27, 2009, 06:21:34 AM
I have to be honest, I stopped reading Malstrom's articles a while ago. I still think he made some excellent points as to why Nintendo was successful this generation as well as the concepts behind the blue ocean strategy. But ever since E3 he's been awfully ranty about everything, about how Galaxy 2 is a vanity project, about how Zelda has no legacy now, so on and so forth. Its gotten pretty tiring. Yes you can make the claim that I am being a hyper sensitive Nintendo fan. But Malstrom lately seems to be trying to push his preferences as fact, the 2D vs. 3D thing being one of them.
It gets to the point where he becomes the whiny fanboy he often writes about complaining about the blue ocean strategy.
So Malstrom is no more for me.
I think what's funny is he keeps bringing PC games that sold next to nothing and yak about how great they were and stuff. He says Nintendo shouldn't emulate things that A) are unprofitable and B) don't grow the market or at least sustain it. So why would anybody want to emulate Ultima, at all, ever?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_pap64 on July 27, 2009, 05:48:08 PM
One question, he keeps using Wii Music, Little Big Planet and Spore as examples of why games with User Generated Content don't do well financially. Yet, Nintendo proclaims that Wii Music was a financial hit selling a million copies (good for a niche game with lots of anti hype against it), Sony announced that over a million levels were created in LBP and Spore seemed successful enough that EA is going to make more games based on it.
So what is he talking about? Is he talking about how these games sold less than expected according to hype? Or is he saying that these games are a failure because of a concept he doesn't believe in?
His stance on New Super Mario Bros. Wii is confusing as well. Before E3 he seemed very hyped that true Mario game was going to be announced at E3. But after NSMB Wii was announced, he keeps saying how the levels are boring, how it won't sell as well as the DS version and how the music was phoned in (I don't care what anyone says the NSMB theme is catchy!).
So again, which is it?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on July 28, 2009, 02:35:16 AM
Performing below expectations can be a serious issue for a product even if it still made money. They might have decided to make the product instead of another because they expected it to perform better.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BeautifulShy on October 26, 2009, 05:53:25 PM
So yeah new entry into his blog. He talks about how Nintendo is its worst enemy.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on December 04, 2009, 09:41:10 AM
Now there may be many more "important" articles on there but this one just made me think Hell Yeah! (http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/war-over-the-soul-of-gaming/)
We need more lighthearted games that can actually go nuts with jokes instead of just throwing some misplaced sarcasm into an otherwise dead serious game (PoP HD...).
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Morari on December 04, 2009, 06:33:40 PM
So why would anybody want to emulate Ultima, at all, ever?
Maybe it's beause Ultimate is a seminal series within the RPG genre? If nothing else, it was a pioneer in taking the feel of the early MUDs and making them truly visual.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_Lindy on December 05, 2009, 09:13:32 AM
Yeah, talk about expanding the market, if I Ultima didn't do that to RPGs then I don't know what did.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: D_Average on December 12, 2009, 01:55:39 AM
Malstrom is really going off the deep end lately, he rails against Galaxy Mario b/c it has no identity, yet he sings songs of praise to NSMBW. While fun, the game feels like somebody copied and pasted various 2D mario objects into random levels. It severely lacks a magical new experience the way Mario 3 and Mario World did. Its great fun of course, but not ground breaking.
If you can't see the genius in Mario 64 and Mario Galaxy, just remove yourself from the internet. I suppose he still watches tv in black and white, you know "old school" tv, back when it was pure and families watched shows together.
The truth is most likely that Malstrom just sucks at 3D games, therefore, they must be defective in his eyes. And whats with his obsession over slamming gaming journalists? Did somebody get rejected from IGN? There there.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on December 12, 2009, 02:35:45 AM
Well, 3D Mario just isn't as interesting as 2D Mario, with Zelda it's even more extreme. There may be genius in there but genius alone doesn't make a game fun.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on December 12, 2009, 03:10:00 AM
Not to mention attractive to players and potential players, period.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on December 12, 2009, 04:30:59 AM
Hell, with Galaxy people complained that the game is too LINEAR, that it doesn't have enough EXPLORATION!
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on December 12, 2009, 05:28:01 PM
His stance on Mario can be seen as correct, which is proved with sales, though 3-D Mario sells enough to sustain itself, so will not be abolished anytime soon.
Zelda on the other hand, is quite tricky. On average, the Aonuma directed Zelda's did better than "old school" ones. In fact, two games he claims are "sales hits and cultural phenomena" are nothing of the sort. Zelda II Sold way less than Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, Twilight Princess, etc. And Link's Awakening sold even less than that. The only game he would have a point with is Majora's Mask, a game that sold the least on the console. But even then it's statistically within range of link's awakening, and it was a game that was effectively $90 and required hardware that was not included.
In this instance, Malstrom seems like a roll-back-the-clock nostalgia junkie instead of anything that was panned out through actual market research. And if *ahem* "laser beams" are not a part of Zelda, then what, pray tell is this? (http://zs.ffshrine.org/album/link-to-the-past/sprites/Beam2.gif)
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on December 13, 2009, 04:06:48 AM
Magic beams!
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: ThePerm on December 13, 2009, 04:10:40 AM
majora's mask was only $90 if you didn't get dk64 too :P
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Urkel on December 20, 2009, 11:57:19 PM
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on December 21, 2009, 08:36:13 PM
Quote
MYTH: Super Mario Brothers 2 and Zelda 2 were not well received by Mario and Zelda fans. FACT: Mario 2 and Zelda 2 were sold out everywhere. Parents drove to other states just to get the games. Mario 2 and Zelda 2 may not have been the phenomenons the first ones were, but they were so well received that elements of both games found their ways into the sequels. For Mario 2 this was remarkable since it was actually Doki Doki Panic. To this day, people demand princess to be included in Mario 5 and that she float solely because of the impact of Mario 2.
I'm sorry but I just have to chime in on this and say Malstrom might want to study the sales he cites a bit more. Zelda II bled like a third of the customers who bought Zelda 1, causing it to be the 3rd worst selling Zelda in the series, beaten out only by Link's Awakening and Majora's Mask. Aonuma's games have trounced this game into the dirt and until one he directs sells less than Zelda II, Malstrom's got nothing but nostalgia on his side.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_Lindy on December 22, 2009, 08:52:34 PM
Malstrom had better watch it. Dyack could easily sue him for libel and slander based on that post.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: D_Average on December 22, 2009, 10:04:14 PM
Malstrom had better watch it. Dyack could easily sue him for libel and slander based on that post.
He could also hunt him down, and punch him. Right. In. The. Face.
I know I will if I ever see him, he's hating on Mario World 1 AND 2 now.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on December 23, 2009, 06:22:10 AM
Hating on Mario World 2? You mean Yoshi's Island? I completely agree that YI was disappointing, I don't know whether it was the different physics, the graphical style or going back from SMW's multi-exited levels to linear arrangements with the only exploration being for a collectathon. I was a great fan of Yoshi back in the day so I thought I'd love it but no.
Malstrom had better watch it. Dyack could easily sue him for libel and slander based on that post.
Only one or the other, one is spoken, the other is written. Additionally, he cites an anonymous source there and "Sean Malstrom" is a pseudonym anyway.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on December 23, 2009, 09:17:48 AM
Malstrom had better watch it. Dyack could easily sue him for libel and slander based on that post.
Apparently, You can't even get banned from a forum for slander or libel these days.
Slander or libel have to have proven irreparable damages, and Dyack can't prove that Malstrom has affected him in any way.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: UltimatePartyBear on December 23, 2009, 01:19:40 PM
I don't think "He plays Dawn of War 2 and polishes his sword instead of working" is worth suing over, even if it were both damaging and false (the other big requirement of suing for libel).
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_Lindy on December 23, 2009, 07:42:17 PM
I would normally say the same thing, but Malstrom's post seems to have no purpose other than to damage Dyack's reputation. I'm not sure what he gains by posting it, honestly. Besides, he can't prove that what that guy says is true, so he wouldn't have a leg to stand on in court (from what I know of libel laws).
His post just seems particularly vindictive, and quite a bit beyond your typical "So-and-so is an asshole" rant in a forum.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: SixthAngel on December 25, 2009, 12:51:53 AM
His supposedly last post is hilarious.
He quits blogging because Nintendo changed to enviro friendly packaging and customers apparently care so much about it that it is really screwing them. The cases look fine to me. I usually leave my games in open air for a few days before I put them back in a dvd binder and I never had a problem though. I can't imagine anyone who is not "hardcore" is going to give a crap about a slight change in packaging.
He puts his own feelings into so many of his analysis that I can't help but laugh. He attacks Nintendo for user generated content all the time despite them only making one game with it, Wii Music. This means Nintendo apparently hates creating "content." He even tried to claim it was one of Animal Crossing's problems (I believe it was a big success in the past). He also recently attacks Nintendo a lot for being creative. He doesn't seem to realize that being creative and changing the formulas for games like Zelda isn't abandoning customers. It is in fact NECESSARY because people can and will get tired of the same formula again and again.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: D_Average on December 25, 2009, 01:24:24 AM
I knew this blog was satire. There's no way anyone is that insane. At least I hope it's satire. If these are truly his thoughts I sincerely hope the dude seeks help.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Guitar Smasher on December 25, 2009, 01:47:56 AM
Yeah, I don't know where this one came from... I'm 50/50 on whether this is truly legitimate. I mean even when his arguments were suspect (see Zelda), he wasn't this ridiculous:
"This is an anti-consumer act. Now Nintendo is part of the problem instead of the solution."
"The purpose of the Wii was not to truly disrupt the industry but to make the console the top dog."
That's a giant stretch to make from just a change in packaging. Since he's always argued for the side of 'good business', it's baffling to see him outraged over a move that is 'good business'. I mean what company wants to be rated as the most polluting one out of its industry? Acting like consumers will react is simply crap. If packaging was an issue we wouldn't still see blister packs everywhere.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on December 25, 2009, 04:59:32 AM
Wasn't that image just a mockup based on an XBox 360 case?
Anyway, while the recycle logo is retarded (WHY? if you're going to reduce the amount of hard plastic why not cut out major parts instead of putting some giant logo in there?) you won't see it anyway because it's hidden behind the manual and all the extra health and safety bullshit any Wii game has. The openings below the disc are strange too (why not outside of the disc holder?) but there's still a fairly durable cover holder plastic over that so the disc cannot be damaged without ramming something sharp through the cover (which would likely pierce the disc as well). As for recycling I can only say "sigh, Amerikaner", in other countries you can very well see customers decide to buy more eco-friendly products because they are genuinely concerned about that.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on December 25, 2009, 11:59:57 AM
The new disc case started with Final Fantasy CC: TCB.
(http://i48.tinypic.com/2zrf9tl.jpg)
(http://i50.tinypic.com/rk0kg7.jpg)* I noticed it when I first got the game, but didn't realize everyone would be so mad about it.
But after seeing alot of the complaints, you should know that the new cases are pretty damn flimsy and are easily twisted and depressed, so if you ship a lot games from places like Amazon.com, "Handle with Care" and "Fragile" might be some of the special instructions you would want to put on the packaging.
*NWR has permission to watermark these images and use it for a story if necessary.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Arbok on December 25, 2009, 05:24:18 PM
*NWR has permission to watermark these images and use it for a story if necessary.
This brings up a good question... why aren't you staff yet?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on December 25, 2009, 05:36:01 PM
They wouldn't have me if even if I wanted the job ;)
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: King of Twitch on December 27, 2009, 11:18:46 PM
Thank God, now mankind won't run the risk of running out of raw plastic materials and landfill space. Thank you Nintendo, that was a close one.
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But hey, Nintendo was never serious about the ‘revolution’ in the first place. The purpose of the Wii was not to truly disrupt the industry but to make the console the top dog. I’m convinced more than ever that Nintendo developers just want to make what they want to make. This is why we get abominations like trains in Zelda (because Anonuma reads a train book to his son at night), User Generated Content (because Nintendo has shown zero interest in generating content, original or otherwise), and motion control only being relegated to a few sports games and then ignored in every other part of Nintendo’s output. Nintendo developers are more interested in making games for themselves from Spirit Tracks, Mario Galaxy 2, to Metroid: Other M. Super Mario Brothers 5, an excellent game, should have come out ten years ago or so. Miyamoto and others at Nintendo knew people wanted a new 2d Mario. Instead of giving us one, Miyamoto kept trying to ram 3d Mario down our throats. Mario Galaxy was his last attempt and went so far as to make parts of Mario Galaxy even ‘2d’ to get Galaxy to sell like a 2d Mario game. Hilariously, Miyamoto was not heavily involved with NSMB DS and that game has outsold every Mario game in Japan except the first one.
This is the smartest person on the internet?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: D_Average on December 27, 2009, 11:31:46 PM
Oh man, looks like he revoked his xmas present to the world. He isn't quitting after all.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: SixthAngel on January 27, 2010, 04:34:41 AM
"Keighley specifically knows that Nintendo went the User Generated Content direction (all the game journalists know it), but none of them are reporting it. Why? Why do they continue to distort and say things that are not true?"
He mentions this in every single thing he says and it drives me crazy. ONE GAME DOES NOT MAKE A COMPANY GO IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION. They made Wii Music, there were no other games based on user generated content available. Can you think of another example? I can only think of Warioware DIY (ds game, still not out) and random extras in currently successful games. He harps on this **** all day long. Nintendo didn't change everything around when this game only sold a few million. They were already making nsmb and Resort. This is like stating after Miyamoto made Pikmim "Nintendo is going in the RTS direction." He says a lot stupid things in his blog now but it drives me crazy that he keeps bringing this up as if it is actually true.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: SixthAngel on January 27, 2010, 04:38:01 AM
stupid proxy server
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: D_Average on January 27, 2010, 10:16:14 AM
Yeah. The user generated rants make no sense. It was one game. You may as well say Nintendo needs to drop virtual reality or that it'll be 18 years for another 2D Mario since the last one took that long. He does it for attention and it works pretty well.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on January 27, 2010, 12:02:03 PM
Apparently the execs declared that their strategy some time ago. The drought followed after Wii Music failed, I wouldn't be surprised if they noticed their game projects were heading into an unsellable direction so they had to delay them all (internally, they didn't announce them before) for retooling and thus created the massive Wii game drought.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: SixthAngel on January 27, 2010, 02:05:03 PM
Apparently the execs declared that their strategy some time ago. The drought followed after Wii Music failed, I wouldn't be surprised if they noticed their game projects were heading into an unsellable direction so they had to delay them all (internally, they didn't announce them before) for retooling and thus created the massive Wii game drought.
I don't think that is really a possible. Nintendo announces stuff late but not that late, its only been a little over a year since Wii Music. That would mean that they had a ton of games ready to go in about 4 months, had not announced them yet and cancelled them all. They released all the stuff they had planned like PUNCH OUT, Resort and NSMB. They did have a conference to announce a couple of user generated things, it was all on the DS.
They were almost entirely DS games that have no or little chance of coming to the US. More importantly announcements and cheap forays into new territories like this is expected by people who invest in the companies. Nothing ever gave the hint it was actually the direction of the company though. Nintendo makes a lot of different kinds of games and making a couple in the UGC genre doesn't "change their direction" anymore than making Mario Kart means they are changing the direction of the Mario series.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Deguello on February 05, 2010, 02:41:04 PM
Reading over his past postings so far, I'm come across a question that would make his head explode (and yours too) if you ever told him.
He seems to think uberly long and controlling narratives are a pox on games (and I tend to agree when they get really excessive and stupid) and says the best narratives (which he separates from stories, which is an interesting distinction) are ones the players at home create for themselves as they play the game. So, the question is, why is he so down on user generated content, we he seems perfectly fine with having the user create his own narrative playing the game?
The narrative is part of the content, whether there isn't any, (Pong, Mario Kart) only minimal amounts (NSMBWii, Final Fantasy 1, old Zelda, Pokemon), significant amounts (most 16-bit games, DS games, Zelda, most modern games), High amounts (Most modern RPGs, Current Gen shooters and action games, etc.), and way too much (Metal Gear.) The execution of it in any amount is still on the part of the game designers, and shouldn't be scraped onto the player (aside from multiplayer anecdotes for other players). I noticed this when he started talking about Koopa Kids being "governors" or "where all the yoshis went" and I'm thinking that Malstrom is apparently a supporter of User Generated Content as far as storylines go.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on February 06, 2010, 03:00:50 AM
The line is fine but user generated content is constraint-less design while freedom of action in a game is still acting within certain constraints (e.g.you buy stuff to make money, not just randomly). Additionally consider the mindgame involved: In a game where you are free to do things your mind is still thinking about how to best achieve the overall goals of the game (e.g. getting strong to beat the big bad), in a UGC editor your mind is focused on how the player will later experience the things you throw together.
For example Banjo Kazooie 360 let you design your own vehicles. Is that UGC? No, you are designing vehicles for a purpose and you have limits to account for, you may want to include fewer weapons to keep the weight down and whatnot. You have to make sure that the vehicle does its job and the game puts constraints on there that prevent you from just throwing together anything. When you design a player ship for Blastworks the only thing that even matters for the gameplay is the shot pattern and that's only constrained by the maximum number of bullets onscreen, you can make the pattern any kind of overpowered nonsense and completely break the game so the only reason not to go all out is your own restraint. The rest of the ship doesn't matter at all, it can be a single square and it will still fly all the same.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BeautifulShy on March 24, 2010, 03:43:30 PM
Guys I just wanted to point out the the last link that I posted wasn't about user generated content. The main point of the blog post was about how the media creates overly irrational fanboys and how the media back pedals on things when things aren't going their way.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on March 25, 2010, 03:24:48 AM
Yeah, the argument that playing Wii is "embarrassing" is somewhere between retarded and hilarious. Grow up, kid!
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: ThePerm on March 25, 2010, 03:34:57 AM
you know how many unbuilt rocket ship are in landfills?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: broodwars on March 25, 2010, 03:43:04 AM
I've been wondering this for a while now, but is there a reason we're supposed to care what this Sean Maelstrom guy thinks?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on March 25, 2010, 11:43:05 AM
He's got some good reasoning in some of his arguments and when he first showed up nobody understood why the Wii became as big as it is.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BeautifulShy on March 25, 2010, 11:52:39 AM
Well first of all broodwars nobody was really explaining the business side of what Nintendo was doing. He has been doing this for 4 years and I don't think anybody else does it better. He sees through what the industry is doing.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Mop it up on March 25, 2010, 06:52:22 PM
Hooray, more flawed logic of "Since this is copying something popular, it is going to be EVEN MORE POPULAR!" If that were true, the SixAxis would be in more homes than the Wii Remote.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: King of Twitch on March 25, 2010, 10:01:34 PM
Let me see if I can follow Sean Maelstrom's clear, reasoned, logical argument
1) SM mocks analyst Jesse Divinch who says there is nothing wrong with replicating Wii's motion controls since Move evolves that idea
2) PlayStation has always been an imitation
3) This generation is obeying different rules than the previous generations
4) Now, generations are going to be defined by companies stretching out to new markets rather than fighting over one 4a) (so haha you hardcore gamers. Your days are over).
5) Analyst: I wouldn’t be embarrassed playing Move when my friends come over; it evolves motion based gaming into environments not capable on the Wii.
6) SM: Though it was true for past consoles, analyst is wrong for assuming the current consoles are competing on similar "values" and "identical philosophies"
7) The Wii is something else. 7a) Is the motion controller responsible for Wii Fit’s success? No 7b) Analysts are confusing motion controls with the values of the Wii
8a) Atari 7800 controller imitates the NES controller… yet it gets the values wrong 8a) NES was a revolution. 8b) The 7800 was Next Generation of your dad’s console. 8c) People thought the NES lost its advantage because of Atari's imitation controller and backwards compatibility
9) The Console Wars are defined by the game consoles having symmetrical values.
10) The first Console Wars came during the Atari Era with consoles like the Intellivision or Coleco-vision.
--ACID HIT REQUIRED BEYOND THIS POINT--
11) "But the NES was never competing against any game console. It was competing against disinterest." 11a) NES controllers were awesome
12) Console Wars are boring both for the consumer and for observers.
13) Symmetrical values always hold the incumbents winning in the end. 13a) Symmetrical values hold that technology and sustaining upgrades will win.
14) People did not buy the Wii purely for motion control, but to play games in new ways they never did before. 14a) It's why PS3 failed out of the gates, and why Move will fail.
15) Move is PlayStation 3’s second response to Wii’s motion controls. 15a) Move is PlayStation 3’s second response to Wii’s motion controls. 15a-I) Move is PlayStation 3’s second response to Wii’s motion controls. 15a-II) I'm Sean Maelstrom, did I tell you that Move is PlayStation 3’s second response to Wii’s motion controls?
16) Mocks unnamed hardcore gamers on unnamed forums as kool-aid drinkers and suggests they keep parroting the analyst.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on March 25, 2010, 10:12:06 PM
After a summary like that, YOU might be the smartest now.
Are you prepared?
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Guitar Smasher on March 25, 2010, 10:36:31 PM
Zap, you have to have read much of what he's written in the past to really understand what he's saying. Everything you listed was kind of paraphrased in this specific article because he's covered it more deeply before. He's certainly a polarizing character, but he presents arguments that you don't hear anywhere else (and they're credible as well).
Now if you really want to question his arguments, then expand on your post and actually say something with respect to those bullet-points. As it stands, each point is true to an extent but it's not enough to understand their implications.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: King of Twitch on March 25, 2010, 10:41:41 PM
I need a vacation
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on March 25, 2010, 10:48:57 PM
Zap, you have to have read much of what he's written in the past to really understand what he's saying. Everything you listed was kind of paraphrased in this specific article because he's covered it more deeply before.
You mean he is resting on his laurels, and his previous work was far more deep and fleshed out...
THE SAME STUFF HE ACCUSES NINTENDO OF? (LAFF)
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: BeautifulShy on March 25, 2010, 11:14:59 PM
Zap he has kinda stopped writing articles because the responses by Sony and Microsoft are laughable.
He doesn't feel like the "response" from Sony and Microsoft don't warrent an article. A few days ago when the 3DS was revealed he is likely going to do one on that and he figures that the 3DS will be the start of the 8th generation.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Guitar Smasher on March 25, 2010, 11:40:43 PM
Zap, you have to have read much of what he's written in the past to really understand what he's saying. Everything you listed was kind of paraphrased in this specific article because he's covered it more deeply before.
You mean he is resting on his laurels, and his previous work was far more deep and fleshed out...
THE SAME STUFF HE ACCUSES NINTENDO OF? (LAFF)
It's a blog. Do you expect him to write 10 page essays over things he's already gone into detail about? It originally started out with him examining the business strategy Nintendo was using for Wii. Now that Nintendo's nearly forced Sony/MS into submission, it's not really interesting to write about (because he already explained why this would happen). These days he simply comments on relevant news. There hasn't been any compelling moves made by Sony/MS lately so he only touches on them.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: King of Twitch on March 25, 2010, 11:59:32 PM
I expect those numbered points to be coherent. And not full of drivel like "People did not buy the Wii purely for motion control, but to play games in new ways they never did before" as if one weren't the same as the other.
If he had said Move won't succeed because we're a year away from the next generation and the cusp of 3D gaming, and the "HD Twins" are too far behind for it to make a difference, and it's too expensive, that would make sense, because it reflects the reality as experienced by planet Earth.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Guitar Smasher on March 26, 2010, 12:17:41 AM
They are coherent, if you've been keeping up with his posts. No need to write a thesis everytime Sony/MS screw up. Just reference the reasons you explored before.
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And not full of drivel like "People did not buy the Wii purely for motion control, but to play games in new ways they never did before" as if one weren't the same as the other.
They are not the same! WiiFit is not motion control (not in the traditional sense), NSMBWii is not motion control, yet both games alone sold a ton of Wii systems.
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If he had said Move won't succeed because we're a year away from the next generation and the cusp of 3D gaming, and the "HD Twins" are too far behind for it to make a difference, and it's too expensive, that would make sense, because it reflects the reality as experienced by planet Earth.
He has covered these things! This one blog post you read is a response to one analyst's retarded assertions. He's already gone in depth on Move/Natal, so he only restates the key points earlier explained. If you don't believe me, check out this example: http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/is-sony-on-the-move/ (http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/is-sony-on-the-move/)
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on March 26, 2010, 12:21:35 AM
Zap,
Fancy plastic that you wave around isn't the significant part (cuz that's easily copied and reiterated, like we'll see this year), but the idea that you play by... Playing. When all the "regular people" join in on the fun, their eyes are still fixated on the TV/games, not the controller.
You don't approach Wii to play the Wii Remote, you approach Wii to have those gaming experiences -- is what Sean had been implying since day one. And when companion interfaces are factored, like "The Wii Fit" (no one mentions "board", lols), the Remote doesn't appear to count as the entire "pie" anymore, only a piece of it.
I know, it's hard for gamers to see it this way, at first. Console warring all the time, they see the weapon stockpiles before seeing people.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: KDR_11k on March 26, 2010, 02:59:04 PM
You mean he is resting on his laurels, and his previous work was far more deep and fleshed out...
That's like picking up the third LotR book first and then complaining that the context isn't explained.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Urkel on March 27, 2010, 06:08:42 PM
New forum rules: People who don't regularly read his blog aren't allowed to post in this thread.
The dude writes a TON of stuff and assumes the reader is familiar with his terminology. You're not going to get the context of what he's saying from a random post of his.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: NWR_insanolord on March 29, 2010, 02:34:06 AM
New forum rules: People who don't regularly read his blog aren't allowed to post in this thread.
The dude writes a TON of stuff and assumes the reader is familiar with his terminology. You're not going to get the context of what he's saying from a random post of his.
I'd go along with this rule if it also meant that people who do regularly read his blog aren't allowed to post about it in any thread except this one.
Title: Re: The smartest person on the Internet
Post by: Urkel on March 29, 2010, 05:32:10 PM
I've been wondering this for a while now, but is there a reason we're supposed to care what this Sean Maelstrom guy thinks?
Because apparantly even EA cares about what he thinks.
Joe Booth of EA Montreal referenced Malstrom's "Birdmen and the Casual Fallacy" article (as well as other discussion about Disruption and Blue Ocean) at a presentation at the 2009 Montreal International Game Summit.
