Henroid

It doesn't beat Call of Duty selling like over a million at Gamestop alone, but it's certainly huge. So in a more human part of the business, Zynga: I just read a Wall Street Journal piece that an Apple exec (or whoever) who attended a meeting at Zynga regarding how to turn the falling company around said that the Zynga CEO was near tears during the meeting. So, because I have empathy, I'm having some shock regarding possibly being wrong about the dude. As in, maybe he isn't some emotionless body just trying to harvest us for dollars. Maybe he's an honest dude who had good ideas but was lead astray or just made mistakes. I decided to reserve judgment until we see how Zynga plans to turn around; doubling-down on the stupid, or turning to be honest and fair to consumers and developers alike.

Internet communities are a weird thing. I often resent the uninformed position older people take, where the position is that internet communities are some vile thing full of lazy, sloppy nerds or full of criminals who want to skin you and turn you into a lamp shade. And now I'm also old enough where people grew up and the internet was just present since day 1 for them. I wonder what that perspective is like. Really, people younger than me are lucky in a sense because the internet becomes a tool to find people where you do fit in, because your possible social circles aren't limited to the school yard or scouts or community sports teams, that sorta thing. The realm is huge and awesome. This upcoming March is going to mark the 10th year I've been at one community. Ten. Years. In the past I used to scoff at such an idea and think that I'd be a loser for reaching such a benchmark, but now that I'm coming up on it and actually have all these relationships built with people it feels legit. The community has been through a lot too, despite it being some 10 or 15 thousand people strong. Plenty of them are lurkers, and most of them fraction off into their given sub-forum of choice, but it's tight-knit. There's real pain when a community member dies, but there's also a strange thought of how remarkable it is that such information gets to us in some way or another. Then there's moments where couples who met via the community get married, or have kids together. Hell, even for me my last two relationships started as meeting someone online and bridging the physical gap after. I dunno, my two cents. I love the internet and the people I've gotten to know through it and I can't imagine myself living in any other era.

Well a few people saying they were hacked could likely be malware obtained by circumstance. Anyway, the new Animal Crossing launched in Japan and smashed the shit out of the sales numbers last week. It sold out. 600k+ physical copies and then another 200k digital (which is never included in sources for sales, so that's according to Nintendo). For comparison Halo 4 did like 39k. And this week they had to do a double shipment of the game to meet demand. So it's like the new Monster Hunter or some shit, it's on fire. Wonder what it'll be like when it launches in NA next year.

Considering how busy I've been this week I'm glad there's a delay. I feel like I'm not missing it when the scoops are fresh. And... hot.

Yikes. Do you have a source for that?

Gamasutra has an article on the situation now. The dispute started with the quoted portion below: So the key point in all this isn't that they used UE code they weren't allowed to have access to in order to make games, it's that they used that code in their in-house engine. Which is why all their products must be destroyed.

So there's a pretty brief article up on Gamasutra by Patrick Miller, which seems to comprise merely of quotes from some panel that occurred. While I'm trying to find the contents of the panel in full, what's here in this article is enough to warrant discussion. Before you read, I think some of this was said as satire, but the article isn't quite clear on the nature of the panel so because Poe's Law is a thing someone is bound to be serious. Regarding the first quote (the Obama one), the point I'm pulling from it is that there are indeed a select few people who pay into the game by a large margin. Spending habits on these games is a little interesting. For the most part, people are just making those one or two time purchases of a few bucks right? Meanwhile there's dopes like me who lump cash hurriedly but only spend so much time playing. I tend to buy things that are actually necessary, rather than cosmetics, but I still feel a portion of guilt that I'm enabling a business model that is easily taken advantage of. The gold rush analogy is pretty spot on perfect. Any sort of major breakthrough has met this gold rush approach and each has stymied off in its own way. The latest that's coming down is the social app gaming bubble (which Will Wright was correct about, see Zynga's horrid stock performance), and the newest growth (which is an offshoot) is mobile apps. I'm never really opposed to these bubbles by their mere existence, just the malicious ones like Zynga. Now, Nik Davidson's next quote has some pretty stark realities to it. I am not a high-income earner whatsoever (I'm actually in the poverty area, I'm willing to share that much about myself for the sake of the discussion). The price points of things within freemium games is pretty appealing because I'm able to invest in something to give it some legs without committing to buying a whole new game. It's fucked up how I can see this for what it is and I still bite. The thing I wonder about is if the intent of these price points are for the purpose of goading people like me, or if the goading is a side-effect. I easily see it being both at the same time. This is another tragic part of the video game industry I feel, because when you think about the face value of "It's free to play, we'll just sell some shit now and then if you want" sounds like a pretty okay deal. But like DLC or digital distribution, there's some awful realities involved.

The thing is, that whole thing is written from the perspective of making more money as opposed to making the video game the devs set out to make.

I think, more precisely, Epic games counter-sued because Silicon Knights stole Unreal Engine code without licensing its use. The result is all products developed using UE are to be terminated from existence as much as possible immediately. What I want to know is the specifics on why SK was suing Epic though. I mean, when you say not enough "support" what does that even mean?

Sure thing. Had to ask my friend who tipped us off to the news for it, luckily he's awake still. It's the straight up legal documents in PDF form, found here.

Hey guys remember how we were talking about Silicon Knights not too long ago?

That is so cool. Isn't there a game (discussed on Idle Thumbs I think) for like the DS that handles its save files as audio files and you can exchange them in this way?

The prequel trilogy, summarized:

Seeing that photo makes me realize, I've never used tape cassettes for computer data. I mean I've been aware of it, but I've never written or read data to them first hand. I'd like to, just so that I can say I have.

This is what I want.

Did anyone else see that Razer, PC peripheral manufacturer, has always-on DRM tied in to their latest mouse? And that the software that ensures you're online (and allows for the hotkeys to function) also contains malware for advertising purposes?

Goddamn Sean for referring to Master Chief as "Halo" unrelentingly. Okay, time to check out this flaming skull.

I haven't listened yet but I got DOTA 2 as a gift from a friend today on Steam. So soon I will experience what it's like to be a Lord Manager. Or Managing Lord.

So the game sold 3.5 million copies in its first week. That is pretty goddamn substantial. I hope it turns up being a positive experience for people because I like the idea they had for the setting and if people think positively of it, it's more likely to be used again. Of course it'll eventually be bastardized by I'll take the good I can from it.

Pfft, Idle Thumbs has grown up and is more serious about video games. Anyway, back to Bobby Kotick parachuting from airplanes.

Of the many games plaguing my backlog, I finished The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap this past week. I only note this because it was one of the few games in the series I haven't played / beaten. This leaves Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword as the only two. Well, and the CDi monstrosity but we can ignore that. Not sure if I should be proud to have played and beaten a game series with so many entries. Well, actually, I'm sorta lying; I never finished Majora's Mask and probably never will because it is a bad game. But I've seen its entirety played before my eyes. I really need to hunker down on the Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom. But I hate setting goals because I'll get attached to the concept of beating a game just because I said I would. If I beat a game, that's a compliment to the developers that I was intrigued enough to.

Disney has acquired Lucasfilm and related properties and entities for 4 billion dollars. This includes LucasArts. 1) Lucas no longer has full creative control of Star Wars and can no longer run it into the ground. More important to video games: 2) LucasArts may possibly get restructured or at least management changed and get a fire lit under its ass to start producing quality video games again. Nothing specific has been mentioned but if they decide to revive adventure game development I think everyone will be pleased as shit.

Shining Force 2 was such a neat game. Its aesthetic is great, love the art direction. You should play the remake of Shining Force 1 they did for the GBA. I endorse it 100%, they really fixed things up right. Phantasy Star IV is my favorite RPG and I'm biased in every way, but I hope you enjoy it.

Look who decided to stoke the flames of an issue behind a closed Twitter account. Well gee, suddenly the concept of someone lying about the threat of lawsuit narrows down.

Were the unlocks permanent in those cases?