After which there is rumored to be a tenth class in production that will be rolled out.
All I can say is Valve makes the wait for Episode 3 non-existent. Who cares when there is such compelling multi-player between Left 4 Dead, and Team Fortress 2.
Just thought I'd put something out there.
Also, Bow and Arrow = Wicked.
Ciao.
It has its basic lawn defense gameplay, whereby you plant plants to shoot back the invading zombies. You need to manage sunflowers for resources and deciding how many sunflowers to plant is crucial to your home defense. Even more robust is the number of flowers available to use, there is well over 50. Each person will find their own favorite strategies. Personally I prefer to use the kernel launcher, with starfruits and spikey traps. But the options available are incredibly diverse and profound. The options are often limited more by your mind than anything else.
Needless to say, the game costs 10 bucks, is awesome, so just get it. Worst case scenario, you dont like it and you are only out $10.
I'll end this post by saying that the new Batman game looks pretty fun, and have my fingers crossed. Also Wolverine looks fun, but not $70 of fun. $30 and I'm sold.
Ciao.
So, I was thinking about things at work today, as I often have much free time. And I noticed that our sales were quite low in general. We were not meeting any goals or anything, and while I brings me no immediate cause for concern, it is somewhat striking for the video game industry as whole. Here's why.
We've heard the analysts brandy about sayings like the games industry is recession proof. But I think that is something of a misnomer, because the video games industry has simply been recession proof. Which is all great and fine. But things change. Demographics change, your core audience is altered and your expectations get bigger and bigger.
Put simply, the industry that survived prior recessions does not resemble the current industry that faces this recession. As such, it is foolish to expect the gaming industry to automatically receive a free pass because 'well last time it did not crash so why would it this time around?'
I am saying this because look at the current climate, lots of developers are struggling. But more interesting is that publishers are taking it much harder, regardless of how they react, they are taking losses. Sure they can take the hit. I'm not worried about the future of gaming. It will always go own, so long as there are people out there with PCs who want to express themselves. But the issue is that gaming has become too successful, a business ruled by corporate interests first and game quality second.
But is that such a bad thing? Most things in the world are governed by corporate interests. Sure it tends to mean that if you don't understand how to tell quality from crap you'll find yourself knee-deep in crap without noticing it. But the crap only illuminates the good stuff all the better.
Thats all I've got. Gloom and Doom. But meh, I wanted to talk about so I have.
Will the recession knock out the gaming world. No.
Will it subdue the current giants? Doubtful, but who knows.
I know this. If gaming publishers ever go to beg for a hand out from the government, It will be a sad sad day.
Ciao.
He's an alien from Tau Ceta province, anyways he has this problem. He really likes playing games, especially on his PC, but you see he has Steam, which he feels is awesome (rightfully so I think). But the problem with Steam is they continue to get compelling titles brought onto the service, that are merely a click away from being purchased. As a result this alien friend of mine, Bob from Tau Ceta province, sees good games that he'd like to purchase and he sees them with a nice little 10% off discount for the first week. This immediately compels him to purchase whatever great title it happens to be. For example last week King's Bounty emerged. Clickity-Click Click, and he bought it. Yesterday, Men of War arrived on Steam, Click Click Cluck, got it. Now getting game's quickly, easily, and at a reasonable price is all well and good. The problem emerges with so you are buying a game a week.
How in the name of the great googamooga is one expected to actually play them all an acceptable amount?
Bob told me this morning that there are dozens of games he has purchased through Steam and failed to even start them up. Many he has played a coupla times before being forced to move on to the next title.
Worst of all, Bob is in charge of export and imports for the Tau Ceta gaming commission (they handle gambling and such not video gaming as one may expect), as well as prisoner transfers from nearby the Staffholdt Prison cluster.
Needless to say Bob cannot find the time in his section (roughly a month) to alot for all the requisite gaming time to play his games to completion. I told Bob to piss off. There are alot of people who only wish they could have too many games to play.
Yeesh some people.
Side Note: Crafting in LotR:O... little pricey.
Ciao.
EA and THQ have recently posted significant losses of late, and last year they put out some very compelling software for gamers, that did fairly well critically and in units pushed. So the question that arises to me is what is wrong with their business models? Lets be clear though, large publishers like EA, Ubisoft, and THQ have incredibly huge "money banks" if you will, and a bad year is not the end for them. However what it does mean is certain developers will get the axe, often times despite quality.
Do they simply have too many games that are costing too much, are not compelling titles and do not sell? Or is it that a AAA title takes too much money to develop and as such the profits cannot possibly add up to match it. Are they blowing money producing far too many copies far outstripping any possible demand? Is piracy bleeding these companies dry as they often claim?
Is there any possible solutions? I've got a few but most are not exactly sunny and great.
They could charge more for games. Increase the cost and you get more money. But then push it too high and people begin to feel like they are being ripped off.
They could charge less. Decrease your profit margins with the hope that a cheaper game will sell more. Valve has posted some very interesting findings of sales on Steam resulting in huge increases in units sold. However much of the Steam community strikes me as being fairly affluent and content with most games. Further the Steam purchase system seems to be built for impulse purchasing.
They could get advertising involved even more so in games. I mean television works because of advertising. In television I have read that it takes roughly 20 failed shows to get one hit. That is horrid and seems fairly in line with what goes on with game development. We get a lot of shite games, plenty of decent enough games, and a coupla games that are worth our time. The problem with the comparison to TV is that you do not have to pay money for each show you watch, you pay a flat rate and get them all regardless, the whole thing you invest is your time. This appears to make advertising in games rather difficult to work. Because if you buy a DVD boxset, you do not want commercials to play. And further you expect to be able to skip them.
Overall the whole game's industry is a strange beast. Rest assured, though the industry is not going to up and disappear, as long as there are profitable giants like Valve and Blizzard there will be enough incentive for those Venture Capitals to try to duplicate them and reap the benefits. Tragically it seems like alot of interesting IPs/game ideas might die for it to happen.
In other news Plants vs Zombies is pretty compelling for a Popcap casual game. Full of plenty of strategy and zombie killing goodness. I heartily recommend it to all, especially given it $9.99 price point. Maybe there is something to be learned from a publisher like Popcap. Good simple games, that many people can enjoy and bring in the profits. Sure they are not producing Half-Life or Fallout or Company of Heroes, but they are not in danger of anything.
Also, your Demigod update, game is slowly growing on me. Getting into game's is better but still not as robust as it should be. I'm winning games, but I feel it is more because of opponents lack of skill rather than my superiority. There is some definite problems between Assassin heroes and Generals, that the generals by and large are superior as long as they dont die. Seriously the game has big issues with addressing the reward for pushing. Towers give no experience or gold. Killing grunts gives no gold, only experience. Summons give no gold or Experience. Heroes give moderate experience and shitloads of gold. Control of the map is important, but if you die trying to gain control of the map you're hooped.
But it is fun, and the heroes have good diversity, although standard builds are emerging as people figure out what skills are worth getting/maxing and which get left behind. Updates continue to be fairly regular so there is no reason to be negative though. I'm not giving up on it.
LotR:Online is still a fun game. But i think I've talked about it enough.
Cya round.
