God mode on

I'm not sure where I stand on the whole 'videogames as mainstream media' argument. I'd like them to be treated with more respect, the higher class ones any way, and I'd certainly like them not to be the whipping boy for this generation, but at the same time I think that they aren't really worthy of Newsnight Review coverage and developers on talk shows yet. I'm sure it will happen, it already has happened in a few cases, as people who play games work through the various systems, and as those in the systems start to become attracted to games, it'll happen. More out of a desire for profit/viewers I assume, but also the dilution of media to increasingly banal and trivial lows. Not meaning any disrespect to games, by that comment, only that tv, the news and papers are all so desperate for content nowadays that Halo 3's record breaking launch is deemed worthy of coverage, so how long until the hype for the sequel to big selling game starts getting coverage, then it's not so far from the game itself.

This isn't actually what I wanted to talk about, mainstream acceptance through the news and various magazine/talk shows is a topic I've probably talked about before, along with a thousand other bloggers. The 'mainstream' acceptance I want to talk about is more commercial, literally.

Last week Film4 showed Aliens, nothing especially newsworthy in that, it's a modern classic, granted I personally may have seen it too often but I can understand why it would be on at every opportunity. The reason why I took note was that on Friday the new Aliens vs Predator game came out. I speculated to a friend of mine that perhaps the reason for the scheduling of the film was to tie into the release of the game. It seems a bit far fetched, but if you're channel 4 and you're looking at what film to put on to maximize viewers (and so revenue), then why not stick the film on a couple of days before the game comes out?

I dismissed it as semi-wishful thinking, there's no way Channel 4 would pay any attention to which games are being released. Except last night Channel 4 (for our non-Brit readers, Channel 4 own a few channels, one of which is Film4) showed Predator. Again, it's a great film, there's no reason to read anything in to it, and we can have the Arnie vs Danny Glover argument another time (Glover wins), but the timing got me thinking. Surely the same broadcaster showing an Alien film and a Predator film in the same week as the game comes out is not mere coincidence? Sure enough come the first advert break I get my answer.

I forget the exact wording from the announcer, but it was something along the lines of "here's a treat for you Alien and Predator fans", before an extended trailer for the game ran. The trailer was nothing special, or maybe I'm not fan enough to get excited by it, and maybe this is a problem with the low quality of Freeview, but it looked a little rough, but it did run for the entire ad break. I know it's pathetic to get excited about an advert. and I'm not, really, but I do think this is an important step. I'm sure at some point in the build-up to the world cup, or maybe the FA cup or Champions League final, one of the sports wear manufacturers will launch a new ad campaign by buying the entire commercial break for an extended advert. It happens every year or so, ever since Cantona smacked a football through satan's chest. In fact I've done games a disservice, I think EA may have taken the same approach with FIFA the past couple of years, but certainly this is a first for a non-established franchise, especially to have a broadcaster piggyback 2 films on its release.

It looks like it paid off too, as I type the charts have come through and AvP has taken the multi-format no.1, and in doing so it's become the fastest selling game so far this year. Quite a (surprising) achievement I'm sure you'll agree, especially as the past 3 weeks I've seen endless adverts for "the sequel to the BAFTA winner for best game" Bioshock 2. That's quite a billing for Bioshock 2, and I mean that sincerely, people. including cynics, have been won over by the game, and being able to wave a BAFTA around as a reason people should pay attention adds some stature, certainly more than "the only game to receive a Bitparade 10/10, even though none of the regular writers really thought that much of it".

During Predator, and the Dawn of the Dead remake that followed it, there were a couple of other video game adverts. While not one of them I've seen Sega's Olympics game advertised endlessly, hardly a surprise given that the Olympics are on, but aimed at a similar audience (who also love zombies and ugly mother fuckers) was Nintendo's advert for New Super Mario Bros Wii. I've had this trend pointed out to me before, but you'll find that Nintendo's advertising presence rockets whenever the kids are on holiday, and last week was half term. Granted late Sunday night is maybe a bit late to be planning your family activities, that's homework time, but the point remains. There was one other advert of note though, the advert for Heavy Rain.

As excited as I am for Heavy Rain I will admit to being a tad disappointed by it, it's content more than it's style though. For those that didn't see it, a robbery at a convenience store kicks off, the robber's got a gun and the teller isn't too keen on handing his money over. Present is one of the main characters from the game (the middle-aged detective Scott Shelby), and as the advert draws to a close he must make a decision as to how to deal with the situation. There's a few normal adverts sandwiched in between, then the second part starts up. I'm assuming they've put together a few different outcomes to this otherwise splitting the adds is pointless, but on the version I saw Shelby chooses to negotiate with the robber. Shelby convinces the guy to put his gun away and run, avoiding confrontation, unfortunately there's not a huge amount of tension in the scene, at least in advert form, hence my disappointment. Something more dramatic would have been more memorable, and maybe that's coming, one scenario could see you do nothing with the shop keeper ending up dead, another you fight and and up shot yourself.

So why the proliferation of gaming adverts at the minute, is it that games are in fact becoming more mainstream? To a point I'd say yes, I also saw an advert for a cruise yesterday that had Wii Sports golf prominently featured, and the new Alfa Romeo advert is a pastiche of Space Invaders. However the other factor is that advertising revenue is down. Whatever the reason for that is, and there's a few, the upshot of it is that it's now far cheaper to buy advertising time than it was 5 years ago. Despite the job losses the games industry is still worth a lot, it may even be still growing (I guess that depends on how well Nintendo do, given they're the ones who've set the bar so high), and as such it can afford to spend money on adverts when other industries are cutting back. Want proof, just look at the various adverts for people wanting your gold at the minute. These used to soley reside on the shitty digital shopping channels, they certainly weren't going to appear during Coronation Street or the news, now they're omnipresent.

So while there's every reason to believe that the spate of adverts is indicative of a growing acceptance of games (and a more disparate release schedule), I will just finish by saying that the longest advert I saw all night was for hair regrowth treatment, starring Shane Warne and a bunch of other antipodean sportsmen you've never heard of.

When gamers want to stress the artistic value of games they often compare them to film. Of course there's an inherent folly (that makes me sound like a twat) to this that we're all well aware of. Games aren't movies, plain and simple. The narrative is constructed in a different way, they're far longer, and they have to be fun.

Well we can argue that last point some other time, but for now lets use the example of David Lynch. I like David Lynch, I find his films fascinating, but I'll happily admit that some of them are incredibly hard to watch. If you translate that to a game, there aren't too many great games that are hard to play through. On a shallower level you could probably point to something like Megaman 9, but that'll offend fans, maybe Gran Turismo or Forza, but again there are people who would argue their depth makes them fun. They aren't hard to play in the same way Eraserhead is hard to watch, they're just hard.

There's another way that games and films differ, a less obvious way, and that's what their devotees value about them. Granted most people 'like' films, but I'm not talking about the people who'll watch Saw when it's on telly, I'm talking about the people who'll track down some obscure Romanian horror from the 1950's.

I'm not sure what to call these types of people, they're musos with an ocular fixation, and as such 'film buffs' seems a little weak. I don't want to call them anything derogatory either, as I'm right on their border. As such the 'Cinemati' (with the capital naturally) is going to have to do.

These Cinemati value films with heart, something that tugs a little, even something they can empathise with. A Farrely brothers comedy isn't really their thing, and their favourite Jim Carrey film is either 'Eternal Sunshine...' of 'The Cable Guy'. They'll watch animations where nothing happens for the sheer wonder of it, and the brief and subtle glance between the two protagonists that speaks all you need to know about their love (5 Centimetres per Second - great film).

If you take the equivalent person who plays games, the elitist type who will perhaps sigh at the sales charts and tut at peoples purchases, what do they champion? You probably know where I'm going with this, but lets go through it anyway shall we?

These 'hardcore' gamers (their name, not mine) beat their drums for the likes of Killzone and Gears of War. They nail their colours to the HD consoles and anything that comes out on anything else is shit. Unless they want it then it's wasted on whatever format isn't doing it justice. Silent Hill Shattered Memories is an example of this, the new Ju-On game too, not to mention Madworld.

They close themselves off to experiences seemingly out of spite, and fear they might like something they 'shouldn't'.

To labour my point, here's a quote I found:
"But the ppl tht made the wii are smart. They made sports games anD "healthy-fit" games for one reason: to attract non-gamers. the attention of nintendo on non-gamers as is gamers is a pretty uneven (horrible) ratio so the Makers did somethin tht no one else would: design the console with a moving sensor. This, along side with designing the "healthy-fit games", assured all non-gamers, including gamers (gamers atrracted to SSBB, anyway) to have build intrest into buying it."
Granted this person is clearly an idiot, but if he was half as hardcore as he thinks he is then he'd be playing more that Smash Bros. on his Wii.

I am being a little disingenuous I'll admit. Not all 'Hardcore' gamers think like that, and not all the high valued games are boom fests. In fact games like Ico and shadow of the Colossus (made by the same developers admittedly), maybe Killer 7, Pixel Junk Eden, Flower, Rez, Braid etc, all those games are counter to my point.

Can I ask though, what's the best war film you've seen? Schindler's List? Platoon? Full Metal Jacket? Barefoot Gen?
Now what's the best war game you've played?

Love story? Tale of loss? Tale of hope? Exploration of rage? Revenge?

The values that make films great aren't the same as those for games. Yes I'd love to have more character exploration in games, deeper stories, and even deal with more serious subjects. In the grand scheme of things that would be a good thing for gaming AS A WHOLE, but that isn't what makes games great, especially when you start to look at individual titles.

We seem to have forgotten that in our protestations of the merits of videogames. We forget that we should be singing the praises of games that are fun, that that alone makes them worthy. The 'art' can, will, and has come, but lets not forget what our medium does better than all the others.

The credit crunch, people losing their jobs, others struggling to find them, money too tight to mention. Things are hard and it's not much fun, the bills are all coming in and those new things you wanted to kick off the year seem further and further away. There must be a silver lining though surely, anything, no matter how much you're kidding yourself?

There sure is! The obvious silver lining is that there's sales everywhere, bargains to be had. The problem with that approach is it assumes you've got the money to spend, and to be honest a lot of the stuff that's on sale now was also on sale before christmas, like we've had a perpetual state of £20 new games. It certainly is a silver lining though, anything you missed in the over-flooded end to 2008 can be picked up now. Whatever you pick up will still feel recent enough to scratch the itch for a 'new' game that we all get, all the time, relentlessly, gnawing away until we eventually cave.

No, the silver lining that's my current saving grace is due to being completely broke. No games at all since the turn of the year, actually I bought Ninja Gaiden Sigma for a whopping £2 but have yet to play it. I got games for christmas like I'm sure most reading this did, and handled wrongly they would get ignored. One of these games I got for christmas is actually the spark for both this lining and this post. I got World of Goo on the Wii from a secret santa (which I've still not played), but I couldn't download it because I needed to update my Wii. Unfortunately updating the Wii meant ending my sporadic love affair with the Freeloader disk. There are a couple of import games I'd still like to pick up, but my real issue was that I still hadn't played No More Heroes.

I know I could eventually have picked up the pal version, maybe even matched the sale of my U.S. copy with the cost of an EU copy, and I know this is a bit of a juvenile excuse, but I wanted the blood. We can get into the minutia of this some other time, but I wanted to play the game in its 'true' state. In short, I had a deadline and so sat and played the game. Within 5 days of starting it was done, the further into the game I got the more I loved it. I'd had it for months, probably more than half a year, but never got myself together to play it. But now I had no choice.

Metal Gear Solid 4 was my next game. Borrowed from a friend it's been in my possession for a while, again I didn't start it when I got it, but when I did I made slow progress through it. I really enjoyed what I played, but the time dedication was putting me off. Again though I had a deadline, I'd promised to get it done as my next game post NMH's, and so I had to sit down and finish it. And finish it I did, it might have even usurped Yakuza 2 as my game of 08. There's problems with it sure, but as an experience there's nothing else like it, it's something that needs to be played!

I've games that will no doubt get forgotten about, and that's what this current climate is good for. I picked Braid and Rez up prior to the new year, both hidden away on my 360 hard-drive, but I've completed Braid and am inching my way through Rez due to over familiarity. leading up to the new year I bought Motorstorm Pacific Rift and Resistance, neither of which I've played since the turn of the year but illustrate my point. As does, probably more than any other game, Valkyria Chronicles, a game I've got for christmas and wanted for months, but still haven't spent any real time with.

Things being tight is forcing me to fight the itch, to go back and actually work my way through the games I've bought recently. I'm my own worst enemy when it comes to buying games, my eyes are bigger than my mouth, or thumbs, or whatever. It would be all to easy to wander off from Mororstorm, despite enjoying it far more than I was expecting, there's new games on the way, shiny things, and I'm not committed to play it for any reason. Resistance too, I was enjoying that, it's not a classic sure but it's fun enough. The thing is the difficulty just spiked (again) right when I had to stop playing, it kind of kills the motivation to go back when that happens. Valkyria Chronicles is probably the quintessential forgotten game this generation, wonderfully presented and offering a fresh take on an old genre, but it's so easy to leave on a shelf.

So it's not all bad news, and certainly being forced to sit and play some of the best games of last year is hardly a hardship. The real test isn't due until next month with the arrival of House of the Dead, Street Fighter 4, then Resident Evil 5 and Killzone 2. So I guess it's a race between how much I can get done and how much I can save. Then there's the issue of what to do if society falls apart? If I've burnt through my back catalogue in January and we're in some Mad Max dystopia by April I'm going to look quite the fool!

A post on Kotaku referencing Videogaming247 got me thinking. The post features quotes from Epic's Mike Capps, he talks about both the rental market and the second hand market being a problem for publishers and developers. Essentially his complaint is that the games industry (everything except the retail arm of it anyway) doesn't make any money when games are rented or when they are sold second hand.

This is not a new complaint for the industry and likewise me dismissal of it isn't new either. Perhaps I'm wrong but I can't think of another industry where the original artists (for argument's sake) are paid again on resale. The only thing I can think of that comes close is actors getting paid for repeats of TV programs, and possibly musicians getting royalties for air play. The royalties argument is probably closer to the rental market, however I would point out to Mr Capps that when I worked in a video shop we had to pay anywhere between £60-£100 for our rental films (each copy). We weren't just picking films up on the cheap from Play then renting them out for £3.50 a time. They cost a lot of money, the rentals would eventually pay that (most of the time), but if they didn't, or for extra profit, we would then sell them pre-owned.

The example that is often used as comparison to the 2nd hand games market is that of the second hand car market. My dad, being a northerner, is loathed to pay for a new car. He used to see it as a chumps move as, his words, 'It drops in value as soon as the wheels touch the road'. And he's right, my brother bought himself a 2nd hand Alfa Romeo, he could never afford a brand new one, yet second hand he paid as much as he sold his previous car for (or there abouts) and it's in great condition. However the car industry doesn't get money back when you sell your car, whether you do it through a magazine, a website, privately or through a dealership.

The dealership actually brings me to my next point slightly earlier than I intended, that while games and cars are very different, there are lessons to be learned for publishers. I mentioned before about my dad not being keen on buying new cars, that's increasingly not the case. In recent times car dealerships have begun offering packages and deals with your new car, be that free insurance, a buy back guarantee, free trade-ins, extra features, even tax, petrol and MOT's all being paid for. Buying a new car becomes a much more tempting proposition when you know you're not going to lose as much when you want to replace it, when there's zero risk attached and you know you have a nice new reliable car for the next 2-3 years. In gaming terms, give people a reason to buy new rather than wait a couple of weeks to line someone else's pockets. The recent Burnout game is a good example of this, even the likes of Gears 2 and Fable 2 with their online codes.

Probably the smartest move the car industry has made in the last decade is to buy into, or franchise, the 2nd had dealerships. You can buy a 2nd hand Volvo from a Volvo dealer knowing that it's been checked out by people that specialise in Volvo's, have the parts, and should anything go wrong knowing that you're dealing with Volvo from the off. My first thought with this comparison was Valve and Steam, obviously that doesn't actually deal in 2nd hand games, but it does sell old games with the money going to the devs and publishers.

The better model is to take it more literally, why don't EA buy into Gamestop, Ubisoft into Game? They take a cut of any of their games that get traded in and resold, offering reduced cost on new games for the store (in exchange for favoured shelf space), cheaper resale and better exchange rate to the customer (possibly even more so against other games from the publisher in question)? Basically give the customer a reason to sell your games back to you so you can make a second profit on them. Granted this favours the publishers big enough to invest in game stores, but then that encourages mid level and small publishers to find reasons for customers to buy new. There's always the option of publishers starting their own rental or trade in services on their websites.

To finish off, the quote from Capps that will cause the most fuss on the net
“I’ve talked to some developers who are saying ‘If you want to fight the final boss you go online and pay USD 20, but if you bought the retail version you got it for free’. We don’t make any money when someone rents it, and we don’t make any money when someone buys it used - way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it.”
This as he suggests it (or repeats the suggestion) is unacceptable. If you pay for a disk you are entitled to everything on it, the publishers have no right to charge a second time for content in such a cock-tease manner. What he's describing is essentially a download model for gaming, which I don't have a problem with (Steam for example), except that the customer has to buy the disk first. If we were talking about a return to the shareware model, where games are sold cheaply, or even free, with a payment having to be made to access the later parts of the game I'd be more forgiving. It still poses issues with the lack of uniformity with the net still, limited speeds and bandwidth caps would hinder a good chunk of users. Eventually you'd get people asking why they couldn't just pay a set price and have the whole thing on the disk and accessible to begin with and then... well then we're back to where we started.

Publishers and developers getting a second payment is an unreasonable expectation, I understand why they want it but it's just never going to happen. They are on the first steps of the right track with DLC, granted not every game is suitable for Burnout style expansions, but then perhaps not every game can be kept off the 2nd hand market. Online components will help with certain areas of the markets, there are people that wont trade in certain games because of the potential use they'll get from it online. Why not create short 4 hour spin offs (a la R&C Quest for Booty) that allow you to swap items and data between the download and retail games. Think about something like Animal Crossing, where by every new Nintendo game you bought gave you new items for your town. And maybe if you're really lucky you'll create the next Little Big Planet and have the consume provide you with the reasons not to sell the game while you fleece them with extortionate costumes?

We all have to do things we rather not to sometimes, putting ourselves out for our loved ones. Going to watch a film you'll hate with your partner, staying out late and not drinking to provide your friends with a safe ride home, grinding enough sleeping pills into your elderly relatives tea to make their final moments peaceful ones.

For me, as this is a gaming blog and not a euthanasia one, it's more a case of buying a game I ordinarily wouldn't. It's my sisters birthday next week, and as she's an adult there's nothing she desperately wants or needs. She did kind of hint that she wanted money, but even though I tend to ask for the same thing I feel weird giving my older sister cash as a present, I feel obliged to put more thought into her present. That extra thought was actually just a text asking her if there was a game that she wanted. I knew that she was broke and a bit bored with what she had for her Wii, even though she has my copy of the almost fantastic Zack & Wiki.

It turns out my sister has turned into a bit of a cliche given that she wants Big Beach Sports, probably the most advertised game on T.V. at the minute.She never used to be this way (my sister), back when I was a kid she listened to great music and watch some pretty cool films. The day it all changed was when she dug out her old New Kids on the Block cds, abandoning the likes of Pearl Jam and Nirvana. I could rant here about having to listen to I Should Be So Lucky through my bedroom wall, but I wont. My sister, despite not really owning a console at any point in her life (until the PS2, which she sold a year ago) actually liked some pretty good games. She'd play the likes of Streets of Rage and Road Rash on my Megadrive, Mario on my brothers Snes. She loved Ecco on the Dreamcast, except for that heart attack inducing giant Great White at the end of the first area.

Even when she did get a PS2, though she filled it with licenced games, her heart was in the right place. She remembered Goldeneye being good on the N64, so was trying to recreate that. One of the Simpsons games was a rip off (err, allegedly) of the mighty Crazy Taxi, another game she adored. She also had a GTA game, again because she loved the original, I've no idea how far she got with it, but at least she was thinking about the right games.

With the Wii though things have changed. To my knowledge she hasn't started Zack & Wiki because it'll be too hard (for the record, it's not all that hard, especially early on), she refused to borrow Resident Evil 4 off me because it too would be too hard. A shame because she'd love it, or she would have done a few years back anyway. Instead her Wii is being used the way critics accuse most Wii's of being used, as a Wii Sports machine.

In the past I've defended the casual market, just because they might not be what we look for in a game doesn't mean there's no value to them. the prime example if something like Mario & Sonic at the Olympics, it's a multiplayer game plain and simple, and when played as such it's a great game (well, a 'great' game) but it's hardly Ikaruga for hardcore appeal (don't get me started on the facets of 'Hardcore', but there's some very cynical people who wouldn't give a game like Ikaruga a chance yet claim to be teh hardcorz). If all you want is something diverting then these games can fill that hole. We're all guilty of buying less than stellar games because of some quirky, license or aesthetic appeal.

Thing is it's getting harder to defend these game. They seem to be getting more and more cynical and I'm waiting for the sign that some of the casual gamers are making a step up. Both my sister and my mum have gone backwards, to the point where a simple puzzle game terrifies them because it's not got Dr. Kawashima's erotically angular face on the box. Maybe that should have been the focus of this post rather than just an after thought at the end. Maybe I've been spending too much time on the internet and I've let its teenage cynicism infest me. I don't know any more.

What I do know is, I'd have rather spent more money than I did on a better game for her.