The Screaming Viking

I’m not much of a gamer anymore…I never really have been I guess.  I spent hours playing the original Nintendo when I was a kid, but as I grew up there have only been a couple of games that have interested me.  Diablo always seems to suck me in, and of course I got hooked on EverQuest for a brief period (as I reflect on that time of life I think it was more an escape from reality that I sought than an actual video game to play).

For a little bit now I’ve had a passing interest in God of War III.  I like the simplicity of hack and slash games with just a little bit of a puzzle to figure out.  I don’t like a difficult puzzle…mainly hack and slash.  This latest incarnation of GoW looks pretty sweet.

I’m not going to fully review the game…as I haven’t played it I’d be just regurgitating what others have said.  I’m liking the brutality of it, along with the rawness and the “sex scene”.  I like the idea of a game targeted at the mature audience, as opposed to the wii where almost everything seems to be targeted for kids.

This game is really pushing me towards picking up a ps3…but then I’d need an HD T.V….etc.  And in the end, I wouldn’t play it all that much.  It’s an impulse buy…but it would be fun for a couple of hours.  I am also interested in Dante’s Inferno…but that’s the same hack and slash type game.

In the end, I doubt I’ll buy a PS3 for quite awhile, if ever…but some of these games look pretty sweet.

Game publishers (along with movie and music publishers) have been trying to come up with a solution to what they see as lost revenue via the 2nd hand sale of their products.  I thought they had kind of let it go and write off the losses but it appears they are still working on it.  From the article I pasted in below, EA seems to be coming up with what I think is a reasonable solution from their perspective and I think a decent trade off for the end user.  The original owner gets additional content, while the 2nd hand owner gets the original content but loses out on “premium” content.  Sony, on the other hand, is going to an extreme by locking out multi-player modes for 2nd hand users.  I assume in EA’s model the 2nd hand player could buy the game used and buy a key to get the premium content…so I wonder what is keeping the user from bootlegging the game and paying 10 bucks for the premium content?  Probably nothing, and I suppose to some extent that is a win for EA too…as the bootlegger wouldn’t be paying them anything for the game in the first place.

I like the idea of selling used games, many hard core gamers power through a game then are done with it.  Very few games are worth playing over and over again, and as the article points out, selling the game provides a way for the high end gamers to keep buying new games.  Slowing that down might slow down the sale of new games…but I’m sure EA has done a cost/benefit analysis on all this and the risk is acceptable.

link

It’s not exactly news that John Riccietello, EA’s CEO, is fighting with used game retailers.

Recently, he implemented project “Ten Dollar” which offers free DLC for players who purchase a game new – all in an attempt to combat the increasing used game market which, as I detail further down, deprives publishers of income on used game sales while adding to costs associated with maintaing servers, providing title updates, etc that improve the long term experience offered by a game.

Essentially, project “Ten Dollar” add value to a brand new game while keeping it at $60, but at the same time devaluing a $55 used version of the same product.  In project ‘Ten Dollar’ EA includes in the packaging of new, unopened game, a redeemable code that unlocks considerable game content (such as the Cerebus Network in Mass Effect 2).

Of course, when a game is returned to the retailer and traded in, that redeemable code has already been used.  Anyone who then buys this used game will have to pay $10 for the same content, thus pushing the overall investment to $65… this serves to remind the consumer that, yes, $55 really was a terribly gratuitous price point to begin with. EA’s hope is that this will deter gamers from buying the $55 used version of thier game, and instead buy the new one, thus maintaining their revenue stream.

Now, unsurprisingly, a number of used-game retailers have fired back against EA, and Sony (they’re doing it too, albeit in a more tactless fashion, by completely locking out multiplayer without a redeemable code).

Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, Don McCabe of Chipsworld suggests that EA is harming the most important part of the equation:

“The person you’re pissing off the most is the consumer.  This affects [them] directly – they pay the same amount of money and yet the resale value is much reduced. From a retailer’s point of view, they’ll just readjust [the price] bearing in mind you have to buy the voucher.”

Marc Day, CEO of SwapGame, brings up another good point:  What about folks that just don’t have the money to drop of $60 titles?

“EA’s Project Ten Dollar move is aiming to stifle pre-owned games sales, but what they don’t factor in is the damage this could have for them in relation to new sales.  At SwapGame, the majority of customers who trade in for cash or credit do so to acquire new games they could otherwise not afford. Through trading in, we aim to help the customer make gaming more affordable, providing them with a way to buy new games.”

This is a fair point, and yet it isn’t.  EA’s move isn’t to hamper moderately impoverished gamers’ ability to enjoy games.  These particular gamers wouldn’t be paying $55 for a game in the first place.  EA is simply trying to retain its revenue stream in a market that is being unscrupulously siphoned by somewhat unfair price-gougers.

It might not sound like a big deal to us but to EA – it represents millions in lost revenue. Not to mention, the used game model, while convenient, it’s extremely unbalanced providing massive funds to used game retailers at both the customer and publisher’s expense.

If you have either traded in or bought a used game from Gamestop over the last few years, no doubt you came away from the experience feeling somewhat violated.

Indeed, trading in games you no longer play as collateral against a game you do want seems like a prudent financial win-win for all involved. That is until you realize the game you bought for $60 from the very same store not 3 weeks ago will now net you a paltry $23.

Add to this the shock you discover upon seeing the very same game back on the shelf later that day at the bamboozling price of $55.

We’ve all been there, haven’t we?  Not one of us feels this practice is remotely fair. Furthermore, it seems to exploit the more desperate and cash-strapped of us solely in the interest of thickening the wallets of red-nosed, gin-swilling, fat cat, retail executives that light their Cuban cigars with $100 bills.

The reality is of course not as dramatic.  The used game model is neither demonic nor saintly, but somewhere in-between.

The practice of buying low and reselling high is the basic fundamental component of any money making organism.  This practice in itself is not unfair, it’s just business.  On the other hand, Gamestop’s corporate guidelines of buying unnecessarily low and reselling exceedingly high is a coup of the highest order – at least in this man’s opinion.

It isn’t just us gamers getting the business-end, either.  As I mentioned, the game developers and publishers themselves don’t see a single penny from resales. Is that fair?  You might think so, but it really isn’t.  One game owned should equal one game purchased, and that purchase must exist within the financial ecosystem that funded it, otherwise game companies go broke, and you’re back to playing with action figures.

If, for example, EA sells 2 millions units of a multiplayer game, that’s 2 million players.  Luckily, they’ve factored in a percentage of the profits from game sales to pay for and maintain online servers for players to run around in.  But since half of the players returned ther games to Gamestop, who then resold the game several times over with no kickback to EA, EA has a much larger user base to support for multiplayer, but a disproportionately low amount of money with which to do so.

Ultimately, it’s going to be awhile before the consoles move entirely to the digital download model – so we’ve got plenty of time to watch this battle rage on.

Where do you stand?  Are you a proponent of Gamestop’s used game trade-in system?  Or are you backing EA on this one?

This game has been out for a little bit now, and I’ve thought on and off about getting it.  I always came down on the side of not getting it…when do I have the time to play?  it’s just a game…I can find something else to do…well I finally got the game…

I fired it up quickly initially and was surprised it didn’t prompt me to connect the nun-chuck.  I played an exhibition fight and it was less than exceptional.  The control was just like the old NES controlling…while the graphics were cool (I’ve accepted that wii graphics are not designed to be life like, so I can move on to appreciating the cartoon nature), the game over all was less than stellar.  I was just playing it for a few min to see what it was like…then I logged off.  I came back a couple days later and checked into the options a little bit before I started playing.  I found a spot where it lets you adjust the control scheme…it had a setting in there for the nun-chuck..ah ha!  I attached it and sure enough it switched right over to that control scheme without me changing anything.  A quick look through the control scheme to see how to move around…and I was off and running.

This game is by far the most fun I’ve had with any of the games I’ve tried yet.  Even with the cartoonish nature of the characters, it feels like you are beating their ass.  You can’t help but throw a punch…a real punch as hard as you can while trying to move little mac through these monsters.  The controllers are held one in each hand and the control is pretty much what you expect.  You use the joy stick to bob and move Mac, you throw punches by…throwing punches.  You go to the body by just throwing the punch.  There are multiple ways to throw a punch to the face, but the easiest for me was to push up on the joy stick and throw punches.  An uppercut is thrown by hitting C (or Z?) and throwing a punch.

I haven’t gotten very far through this game, but what little I did play was a god damn blast.  It was also a really good work out.  I’m sure you could play by throwing lighter punches or not getting quite as in to the game…but that wouldn’t be as fun.  If you’ve ever looked at the old punch out or are interested in boxing at all…this game is a must have.

Modifying gaming consoles was something you didn’t hear too much about until the introduction of the original xbox.  There was a mod for the P2 so you could play burnt games…I don’t know much more about it than that.  There might have been a mod for the ps1, but I’m not sure.  The Xbox really brought console modding to the masses.  The Xbox was pretty much just a lower powered computer, so modification to it was fairly simple.  If you couldn’t do it yourself, you could send it off to someone and have them do it for you.  I would say the majority of people are not able to work a solder gun with the precision needed to do the early modifications (post TSOP mods), as a result the l33t haxxors came up with a solder-less mod.  Not quite as robust as a soldered mod, but pretty easy for most people to do.  Since the Xbox, modding your console or hand held gaming platform has become almost a mainstay in society.  It isn’t long between a new console coming out and directions on how to mod it.
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