A Degree In Game Design and a Lesson For Our Future…

You guys might want to sit down for this.

So you all know I have become disillusioned with my degree as a Game Designer, I mean I did fail after all. It’s become something I see, and many others see online, a reflection of the negatives of the industry. I always believe if you are creating a form of entertainment, you should make it your best efforts, otherwise a lack of enjoyment from users will mean it wasn’t entertaining. Catch my drift?

So, for simplicity sake, we are going to go through the classes and some anecdotes of my time studying Computer Games Design, explain why I am self-taught, what we were taught, what the marking states we are expected to do in the industry, and how we are expected to progress as individuals and businesses.
So, let’s start at the start.

They hate Nintendo: I’m just getting this done with now, because it’s the most bassackwards kind of thing you’ve ever heard. So when discussing what game systems sold the most, just as a bit of general knowledge, we had 5 options.

Game Boy
Wii
PlayStation
PlayStation 2
DS

So, we had a logical question: Obviously it is PS2 right? Well we asked, for obvious reasons, does that include hardware revisions like the DSi? They said yes, so stuff like the GBA counts towards Game Boy sales as it’s the same thing.

To these people, teaching the young folk of the industry, the GBA is just a Game Boy. Not new hardware, not new games, just a Game Boy. I did point out (After promptly bashing my head of a table like several others in the room did), that this would mean the Wii U did very well, and the PS4 is well over 400 million units by now, if we use that logic.

They stood by it, so whatever. They also said Wii U games can’t be near the size of Blu-Ray, and Nintendo doesn’t make big games anyway so why expect AAAs. (This was before Switch, I must stress). This was a collective head bash again, as the Wii U discs go to 25GB.

There was a blatant love of false information, it was disheartening to see, but as time went on it just becomes numbing as opposed to shocking. For people who worked in the industry one would expect them to be accurate with what they teach to the future.

Be at the forefront of new technology….that we want you to be at: Do you know how fast they were all over PS4 Pro? PSVR? Sony partnered uni for you. Interns there are making VR games, even. That’s cool. That was one of many blooming fields in gaming right now, and I fully support it.

So when I had the opportunity to demo Nintendo Switch, on my own time and money, and be given some of the opportunities I have now (Through my own actions and skill, not theirs, I have to add), they weren’t happy. Why? This is something I’ve never gotten a straight answer on. You tell us to be at the forefront for new and exciting stuff, but seemingly only if it suits them.

They think platformers are outdated. Cant have running and jumping no more. We were actively discouraged from making those for level design courses which didn’t make much sense, given that’s an excellent show of designing a level regarding flow, player abilities and more.
Now we move on to the content, I have more anecdotes about their very weird views on what we should be doing, because some of it is flat-out restrictive to making games and content, but those will pop up in the next section

Year 1

Production: Making 12 page Game Design Documentation, and small prototypes. This is all fine and good. There was an inordinate amount of time spent on writing stories (I have no idea why they spent that long on that, it was at least 5 weeks), but they did cover some handy things like progression through a game and mechanics. This was pretty good. Only downside was very little, maybe 1 week, of programming, which means making the actual game was….a challenge. Even then it was copy/pasted code.

Plus, and this is important to bring up, I have come to understand that I design games in the “Japanese” way as opposed to the “Western” way. It just suits my workflow better. Shorter documents, different primary focus, where western focus is on visuals, character and story, mine and seemingly eastern focus, is on gameplay. Those have priority in the official documentation.

I was marked down for that, with the specific words that…I was wrong. Doing something wrong, yet only doing the same thing differently because it suited me. University, and especially a creative field, was being judged on academic criteria, which is counter to the nature of the field.

Creative Design: This started strong. Making company logos, scene concept art, character concept art, promo materials, all good stuff. But that was just half of it. The 2nd half, bear in mind this was mandatory to pass, involved making an interactive magazine, with a video review of content, and amazingly enough, a prediction of the future of something we have interest in.

So I said, based on previous industries like phones and PCs, and them having peripherals to play handheld games on consoles, and console ports on handhelds, that Nintendo will create some kind of hybrid system.

They said we aren’t giving you the marks, as that’s not realistic, citing Nintendo wont be around and the technology isn’t there yet to make it compelling. You can imagine my feelings on this now.

I never did get awarded those marks.

3D Modelling: I have no issue with this. Despite not being very arty, its relevant and covered everything from individual models to whole scenes. This was good, very good in fact.

Web Development: Making websites. In a games design course. Yep. People had the option to do Flash animations as well, as an alternative, but neither are super relevant. You could say Flash based games are, but this was 2014, Flash was already outdated and soon after deprecated.
Year 2

3D Animations: No problem here. Make 3D animations. My only issue was, amazingly, being put in a group half the size needed for group work, one of whom didn’t work, and the other didn’t want me as part of the team. So I opted to redo it and still failed, as I was then stuck doing a 6-man job as an individual.

Level Design: Relevant. Don’t know why they pushed CryEngine so much, as I think everyone universally hated it, both years I did it. This was one I had to redo because despite having the right sized team, one guy actively faked doing work until he vanished 4 weeks prior, so all I had was code and no assets, and the other guy, bless him he is lovely, doesn’t do any good standard of work. The new team was far better, despite having to teach myself C++ for Unreal Engine 4, because the uni seems to have some weird aversion to teaching how to actually make the game part of a video game.

Mobile App Development: What has this to do with games? Nothing. It was mobile website development, by the way, just thinly veiled. Had to make apps to track people via Google Maps. Riveting.

Had the same lovely guy from Level Design working with me on this one, never did any work, had to teach myself PHP for server-side stuff, because they wouldn’t teach that for some reason (again) despite being half of the marks. Turns out he went and made SASS sheets that were just HTML formatted incorrectly, so we had to scramble! The teaching focused solely on front end: Visuals and appearance.

Games Programming: It was a train wreck. A good attempt but most didn’t get it (Heck I didn’t get it) as the information wasn’t being conveyed in a way that made it learnable, it was just pure here’s some code away you go slap it together. The attempt at teaching programming was a copy and paste effort. Not productive in the slightest, and in hindsight was vastly over-complicated for what needed to be done. You don’t start teaching programming to some students who have never touched an IDE by having them make AI.

User Interaction: Critiquing UI across devices and suitability for things like VR and such. I didn’t do this one, wouldn’t let me because I didn’t do Flash animation (Why?) but, at least it was relevant to the field.

Multimedia Web Development: This was an extension of making apps except it was making videos and images for web-based viewing. Game Design remember?

Audio: Smashing stuff. Didn’t do this, because I didn’t do Flash, but hey they you go. Another relevant one.

Professional Awareness: You know I have no idea what this is? Talking to people who did it, they didn’t either. It was something to do with team work. Can’t really fault that from the outside, but the confused responses I saw from people made me think it was one of those “token classes”.

Year 3 

Here we go. So a note, they wouldn’t let me do the group project or individual research project. I’m going to get to something else they didn’t let me do this year as well, at the end.

Advanced Concepts in Gaming: Debate issues around gaming such as women’s rights, sex, violence, anthropomorphism, realism, middleware and so on. We had to make either a realistic building render, a character creator (Which I did, guess what there was a complete lack of material on? Yes there really was NO teaching on what the hell they even expected!) or a transmedia narrative, spanning multiple devices.

Basically glorified marketing. I actually failed this one, because for whatever reason, my side of the debate, when it came to the debate, didn’t back me up in the slightest. Didn’t help every debate prior had been a one sentence thing, while this was a paragraph on why anthropomorphism is bad for games as it is dehumanizing. Overall, this wasn’t a bad idea, it just wasn’t…a good marking thing? It’s hard to explain. Like why the class existed was okay, but what you had to do to pass was all kinds of arbitrary.

Digital 3D Effects: Make a 90 second CGI movie. Take real footage and CG something in. And make a documentary about making it. Teams of 4, I got a team of 2, with the nice guy who does nothing from Level Design again.

Side note, the people in the class did say “Thanks for taking one for the team”. Cheeky sods.

But again, this is Game Design. Making CGI/Live Action movies? I….alright? I don’t see the relevance unless you wanted to do pre-rendered cutscenes.

But the good part: So being colour-blind I can’t composite shots very well. I can’t get the tones right, so I directed the location shoots, designed a monster for a monster movie trailer, animated it, gave it all to the lovely guy to do, while I worked on a documentary using shots of the cut up work with narration to explain what we did. It was easy marks for him, and he couldn’t possibly screw this one up.

Boy did he ever. For some reason he used barely any effects, had terrible audio balancing, used his own static image for a monster it was just….I had some alcohol that night. It totally invalidated the documentary as well, which didn’t help marks.

But to compound things, he did ask for feedback, and by the time I was done watching the…monstrosity…he had constructed, he messaged me to tell me it was submitted.

I became a very good friend of Mr. Jack Daniels that night.

Indie Game Development: Here we go. The things you need to know when making a small studio. Great right? It also went over ways to make money and such. Didn’t cover talking to other companies or acquiring anything for development but hey, priorities.

When writing out a business plan however, we were required to plan out DLC and micro-transactions (Not just for marking purposes), but it is a requirement they want us to do when we plan a game. They want us to put MTAs and DLC in from the start.
And I didn’t do that. I openly object to that.

Also, this required submission of .exe files and code via electronic submission. All handy right? Electronic submissions don’t allow zips, rar files, code files or exe files. Whoops. Another mismanagement. You can’t submit it electronically due to restrictions on what can be uploaded, but the only submission was electronic.

Advanced Concepts in Web Production: Judging by what Advanced Concepts in Gaming was about….probably the same but Web-based. Again though, it’s Game Design.

Creative Visualisation and Animation: Do you know those Casually Explained videos that have neat animations explaining things and how they work? It’s that. Make that. Pick something and explain how it works via animation. Game Design.

And that’s the course structure. As you can see, a lot of it is irrelevant to the actual subject, but it’s what you didn’t see that worries me more. While a fair chunk of it is relevant, even within those, there are alarming holes, not most beyond teaching some dodgy practices and business moves.

Firstly: Where the hell was optimisation? I cannot stress this enough. We weren’t taught how to optimise anything, even for PC. Looking back it was mentioned in passing, like what it is and why you do it, but nothing on it. When submitting something, hardware just has to brute force it.

Secondly: Programming! They tried, bless, but it was so poorly done, in addition to a lot of mismanagement, it’s worrying that they hand wave the key component of making a game interactive. The bit that makes the game a game.
There was a week where Intel were coming around and allegedly offering job opportunities (Now why Intel came to game designers to offer them jobs, some of whom wont pass for two years, is a mystery) but it happened. Interns ran interviews, and all was well. Got emails and checked the sites for the list of times and such, find my allotted time.

This was a mandatory thing that had to be done by all second and third year students.
Long list of names, covering all second and third year students, both in the e-mail and on the website.

Except me.

I had been withheld from an opportunity that was listed as mandatory I must stress, and they never once said why. They never once said “We don’t want you there”, they just never let me do it and never mentioned it to me. I asked my housemate, once they revealed they were one of the people doing the interviews. They said they didn’t know why either. The staff pretend it never happened.

Now, they had, since day one, said we should be striving on our own as well. Working on games in the background, and eventually, trying to get relations with developers and publishers who visit for talks, see the exhibitions at the end of every year, and so on.

So, being a guy who likes to make progress, I did the numbers, looked at what games I wanted to make, so on and so forth, and by the half way point of that first year of learning, I was already talking to the first company I even spoke to.

But here is my thing. They say go to the new tech. Make the games you think people will enjoy. Work with people, who get you where you want to be. But it has become increasingly apparent, that it doesn’t apply to certain companies. I don’t know the exact reason why, I don’t know for what purpose, but I have been locked out of opportunities on many occasions beyond the egregious one I listed, ever since I took their initiative, showed initiative, and made myself known.

They refused to let me go and demo the Nintendo Switch in London, on my own time and money. Obviously I went anyway!

At the end of the day I got ahead, did as they asked, and I was pushed away by it. And that’s on a personal level, the worst aspect, that doing what I want and what they said I should do, has led to being left on the side.

This led to a serious downward spiral for my health both mentally and physically. I hope it is the only time I need medication for depression and anxiety, because lord knows it was a rough time.

But here is my final thought on the matter.

In a lot of ways, I have enjoyed myself. I have learned things, that granted, I did pick up over time just by playing games and being analytical about them, but the doesn’t excuse the gaps in knowledge, some of which is crucial, and the blatant irrelevancy and mismanagement of the course in general. For £9000 tuition fee per year, and all the loans I’ll have to repay?

It needs to be better.

That is 100% the truth. This is the education an actual institution is giving students who, god forbid if this standard maintains, will be making games in the near future. Aggressive monetization, dodgy practices, lapses in knowledge. Yes they can’t reasonably teach everything, but they could at least teach well and relevant.

Universities are ultimately a business, and this was a course that I personally feel was misleading. It positioned itself as one thing, with freedom, and revealed itself to be a stifling, counter-intuitive, sometimes random mismatched bunch of classes marked academically to judge creativity: And the problem with that is, if you don’t fall in line with that is expected, creativity can be shunned.

Battlefront 2 Didn’t “Meet Expectations”, and Nintendo Made Bank!

I’m surprised about both of these stories for different reasons.

 

Update – 2/2/2018

So we all failed to note one thing about the entire lootbox backlash to Star Wars Battlefront 2: EA wins either way.

Here’s the thing: If gamers didn’t give backlash to EA in such force that sales were impacted, then the game would have sold as expected, and EA would be justified in continuing their current practices.

As a result of the backlash, EA has noted lower sales of Battlefront 2, and we figured it would send a message. It hasn’t. In fact it’s response to investors was that in-app purchases will return as previously noted, but now with the added note that those purchases can be used to make up for the lost sales, justifying their inclusion.

Personally I can’t fault that logic. That is actually sound business practices there, so well done to them on that. The downside is we end up in the potential situation we began fighting back against in the first place-

If EA knows micro-transactions will cut into sales, but make up the lost revenue, why wouldn’t they keep them in, when the alternative is losing that revenue AND sales?

In response their stock has hit all time highs.

As I said, sound business sense to cover for potential losses but…I guess we can hope the big stink that was raised about lootboxes leads to some legislation huh?

Original Story

Let’s start with Nintendo, namely 3DS. It’s sales are down year on year, yes, but it’s also nearly 7 years old. Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon sold 7.17 million units. So good stuff for the budget entry into the ecosystem.

The real story is the premium system: Nintendo Switch. Within just shy of 10 months, as of December 31st 2017, Switch has outsold the first 12 months of the PS4, at 14.86 million units. That is firstly maddening to see, but also shows the 3 month holiday period accounted for half of the lifetime sales so far.

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So in doing so, it has also surpassed the Wii U, so comparisons can finally stop on that front. The system has shown itself to be a viable platform for many developers, and I can only hope this continues. Next stop is the 21 million of the Gamecube!

On to software however, we see a few interesting pick ups. Firstly that Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has sold 1.06 million in just a month, placing it firmly in the heights of its franchise, an excellent result for a release many people thought flopped due to low sales charts rankings.

Next is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, a re-release of a Wii U game that many seemingly didn’t want, having already owned it, logically, but one I and many others assumed would do well due to now hitting a much larger market, many of whom simply won’t have played Wii U games. Evidently the latter is true as the release has hit 7.33 million units and is well on its way to surpassing the original Mario Kart 8. As an evergreen title, it will surpass that, and shows that yes, if a port goes to a new, bigger audience, it probably isn’t a bad idea, you know?

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Finally of note is Super Mario Odyssey, selling 9.07 million units in just two months, and becoming the top-selling software on the system, and the 2nd best-selling Mario title ever in the main series, only behind New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Could it beat out that game? Possibly, we need to see if it remains as evergreen, as 3D Mario typically falls below 2D Mario.

Full financials are available here: Source

But what really gets me is how Mario Odyssey performed compared to another game of note…

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It’s time to talk about everyone’s favourite game ever: Star Wars Battlefront 2. EA seems disappointed by its performance, namely how if we include digital sales to physical shipped copies to retailers…it’s around 7 million units. It’s going to fall well below what they told investors it would hit by March, as well as falling below the prior Star Wars title.

So for reference, Battlefront 2 fell below a game like Super Mario Odyssey, that was only released on a single platform. That’s insane.

But the proof is in the pudding. Legislation is being looked at for lootboxes, because of course they are, and EA is blaming consumer backlash. Not only that, Bioware developers are feeling stressed over the inevitable forced monetization EA will make them include in Anthem, a game that seemingly could spell the end for the studio, understandably given EA’s record.

Micro-transactions are to be reintroduced to the game in the coming months “When the time is right”, but EA is already feeling the burn. Gamers weren’t happy, investors won’t be happy.

vader-nooooo

 

Sadly I do feel EA will learn nothing from this, but if nothing else it acts as a sign.

With the previous comments of people not wanting single player games, games costing too much to make thus mandating additional, aggressive monetization and the like, to see Super Mario Odyssey, on a system EA dismissed no less, outsell the game and probably due to less extravagant spending by Nintendo, make more money than Battlefront 2 has in all likelihood, is a huge slap in the face to EA.

Words cannot accurately describe how EA must be feeling right now, but it proves that gamers just want good games, especially from Star Wars, and even stuff like cosmetics can be done for free, and games don’t need to cost as much as EA pumps into them.

It’s  a sign that the AAA business model is inherently flawed and self-destructive. Where one company prospers by tightly controlling expenditure and not pursuing aggressive monetization in full price games, another gets knocked back for saying that model wont work, and then seeing the alternative is more damaging, at least in the short-term.

It’s that short-term that needs to be taken away from this, as that is the primary interest of a majority of investors: Short term profits. In the long-term EA is likely to be fine, but in the short term the fall of Battlefront 2 to something like Mario Odyssey, a business model EA has repeatedly dismissed, just shows what the market wants.

 

Make good games, and they shall come. Don’t be stupid with your games and licenses, and they shall come. Then everybody wins.

Why I Play Games and Why I Sometimes Hate It

In a deeply personal examination, I explain why I play games, why I find it hard to play games, and why others may be the same.

 

So I recently turned 22, a ripe young age I know, but I feel a lot older. Significantly older as it happens, and I find myself wondering why. It’s because I’m tired.

I am incredibly tired. Not physically, but mentally: Exhausted. I find myself playing games a lot, it’s what I do, but why I do it, and why it has exhausted me, are related.

 

So a lot of people play games for fun, a hobby, or a job. For me, and many others, it is escapism. It always has been.

I started playing games with the Mega Drive and PlayStation, specifically Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot 2/3, and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. I would have been 2/3 years old at the time. Yes I did start very early in my life, and not with the easiest games to begin with either!

Video games were a sanctuary for me. I wasn’t very sporty (I can play sports quite competently though), nor was I one for going outside. The latter is simple – Around the time I found my interest in games and technology, was the time I started school: The time the bullying started.

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So what happened? Well until the end of my GCSEs (Age 16 for you not-British folks!) I was bullied in some form near daily. Sometimes physically, most often verbally. So I became sheltered. Not anti-social, lord knows I wouldn’t be here if I was, but someone who simply doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying about parties, drinking, going out. I’m a desk sitter.

So games were my past-time. Something to do when I wasn’t out playing with other children. Losing myself in fantasy worlds, being heroes, beating bosses, getting 100%, those years on the PS2 were magical. But then I turned 10.

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Suddenly all the games I played weren’t cool: Yes, it was the time all the kids my age jumped onto Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty despite…being horribly underage, and there I am, just being introduced to Pokemon via Pokemon Ruby for the first time on my first Nintendo system and falling in love, playing the latest Jak and Ratchet games on PS2 and PSP. When I brought these things up, I was bullied for playing kids games…despite being a kid. Child logic is weird.

I was chastised for playing these lighter games that were not only age appropriate, but held my interest, and for playing on kiddy systems instead of the Xbox at the time. This would have been 2004 to 2006 I believe, and of course the Xbox 360 came out, and I had a Wii. Well, everyone did, but I never used my 360. So that became a thing I was bullied for too.

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Then I got a DS, continued playing Pokemon through my teens, got introduced to Mario and Smash Bros and all these other franchises, continued with Sonic and Ratchet on PS3 when I got one in 2010. What few friends I were able to make, and who are still around today to my surprise, had the same interests. But to the hundreds of other students at that school? It was a huge target on your back to play games like these openly.

This is when the bullying was at its worst. There is nothing more vindictive than a hormonal teenager looking to let off steam, and as the designated “Bullied kid”, every school had one, that was on me, for who I am and the games I play.

 

I see similar stories, and I heard it from others while I was at university. The same thing happened to loads of people, bullied for playing certain games. Why? This confused me but upon discovering the wider internet as I started university, I saw what it was.

So all of the above things, bullied for certain games, talked down to, it may all seem familiar.

Go to any message board, look up the PC Master Race, as it is called, or even some “Professionals” in the games media. The air of elitism, “I’m better than you”, it seeps out in comments sections but the motives and methods are the same to this day: Demean someone else’s gaming habits and feel better in doing so.

It’s bullying. It’s the same bullying. Yet I sit and wonder why I simply sigh at comments like that, the inevitable comments, from every side, be it Xbox, PC, Sony, Nintendo, Mobile, the list goes on, across many mediums in fact. It all fills me with the same disgust: Why would I get involved? What does it get me? Nothing, but it sure does remind me of my time at school, as it will to many.

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For the longest time I used games as a way to forget about my bullying, to learn about technology, something I was deeply immersed in and still am. But over time it became something used by the bullying, and that’s when the depression sprang up like a bad weed.

There are days, weeks even, where I don’t want to play games. It’s usually after seeing comments, unavoidable comments, or people, or mind-sets, that just bum me out.

There is something to be said for thick skin, but even rocks on the coast are worn down by tides with enough frequency. You can only do some much before needing a break, some reprieve.

The internet and this modern age of gaming has largely proven itself to just be a horrifying extension of my and many other’s time at school.

The console wars are bullying, though no one on either side would admit it, but they know for sure they feel it.

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But to conclude this analysis of why many play games and just what happens if you dare go online these days, I want to end by looping back to my time at university, at least briefly.

For all of a train wreck as that was, with teammates not working or bluntly dropping out 4 weeks before a deadline, terrible teaching for what was meant to be “Game Design”, there was this elitism lingering around the place.

In January 2017 I was invited by Nintendo to London to try the Nintendo Switch out, something that *anyone* would jump at. Early on I remember the university said they wanted us at the forefront of new tech, which is an amazing concept. We even had PSVR dev kits and had interns making VR software, it was great.

But they didn’t want me going to try the Switch. In fact there was this feeling that Nintendo…wasn’t a thing. It was very much a PS4/PSVR thing. Xbox got mentioned due to similar architecture, but was similarly dismissed. We learned nothing in the way of coding or optimisation either, but we sure did learn how to aggressively monetize games.

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I was being given opportunities and striving forward on my own, something any institution would be happy for, but they didn’t want me doing that. I was even excluded from what were “Mandatory” events, and I wish I knew why. All I can assume is that just like with the bullies in my schools, or the people online engaging in never-ending flame wars…I fell outside of what they wanted.

 

And that’s just the thing. You can’t please everyone. But you can do your best to be nice. For nearly two decades now, being it from tutors, peers, random people online, I have had the same experience day in and day out. The games I play aren’t good enough for them, and they feel like they should shout it at me.

Personally, I will always be this way. I will have times where it does get me down. There are reasons I walk that fine line of “You do you”. If someone wants to play games of their choosing how they choose, then fine. That’s them. They have the right to, and I can’t stop them, nor is it my place to tell them how that makes me feel.

But that has been a rare stance I notice. It’s okay to be a fan of something, lord knows everyone is, but fanboyism, tribalism, this bullying, it is something I want to see stop. Sadly I don’t think it ever can.

 

I grew up telling myself I wasn’t going to be the people at school. I wouldn’t treat people like that. All I can do is laugh, and sigh, and move on at each instance like I always have.

But I know for some that isn’t so simple. Some people take it way too far, and it’s those instance that make me write things like this. We all love games. Why do there need to be lines between us?

Behind The Game Podcast – Episode 1! 27/01/2018

Welcome to the first Behind The Game Podcast, discussing the last week in gaming.

Today we have the PSN outtages, death of Miitomo, Paragon and Twitch’s push to surpass YouTube, as well as GDC Surveys, Switch Sales, and more!

 

If you like what you see, give this a share on social media, feel free to suggest topics for next week, and we will see you then on Behind The Game! Happy Gaming!

Xbox Game Pass Has Been Upgraded…Substantially.

Xbox Game Pass, the $10 per month downloading of games service, in a Netflix style, just got an upgrade.

 

Update (25/01/18) – Turns out retailers aren’t happy.

As noted by WCCFTech, an Austrian retailer has delisted all Xbox One inventory, stating that if Microsoft wants to profit purely from software, they can do it alone.

So it seems a number of things are happening now.
Microsoft as we know traditionally launches and for a while sells consoles at a loss, making the difference in licensing and software. Lord knows Xbox One X breaks even at most. Naturally because of this, the margins for retailers selling consoles, especially new ones, cant be that high, and we already hear from most places that selling new sealed games isn’t very profitable, if at all, for retailers.
So with the Game Pass announcement that games from Microsoft will be there day and date for that same $10 fee, it seems like MS is moving to a model that allows them to keep making their limited library, and getting a constant stream of revenue from more users, rather than making a handful of games yearly and selling them to a smaller base for $60 a pop. Of course, that latter option will still exist.
Plus MS can easily eat up any potentially lost revenue from other areas of the business. Remember they have done that before.
But what’s apparently more shocking is that according to those who have worked in the retail scene, MS games are historically 30% better with margins than first party stuff from Nintendo and Sony. MS games, for retailers, are the best ones to sell new. They are now losing a potential source of revenue that will shift to MS directly and make MS more money than the $60 per sale.


Basically, $10 per month from 10 million people is better for investors than $60 per game every few months from 2 million people. But one retailer isn’t happy about this it seems. They’ve caught on that this does nothing for them and are dropping Xbox inventory.

 

Original Story

All future first party releases will not only be available via Xbox Live, and in stores, but Game Pass…on launch day.

So now not only do you get Xbox 360 and Xbox One games for $10, you now get included in that price, full price retail games on the day they launch.

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This is an incredible move from Microsoft that has some people scratching their heads. Why would Microsoft release their own games for $60, and give you what is undeniably a better deal for $10 monthly, alongside a host of other games ready to go when you want?

Simple. Retailers, manufacturing, all of that stuff is factored into a $60 price tag. Plus, say a game got 2 million sales for $60. Lot of money, probably recoup development costs at that point. Now imagine 10 million people paying $10 a month.

For a company that hasn’t got the largest portfolio of first party software, this is a great move. They will be making in-house software fairly infrequently, as we have seen in the past few years, so why not sweeten the deal for a constant flow of $10 subscriptions each month?

The pros outweigh the cons it seems for Microsoft. Further, the Xbox brand historically has been covered by huge profits from other hardware and even Windows alone. Microsoft is fine with Xbox being a loss leader and with a subscription service…the bills effectively pay themselves.

I do believe this a way to get more money while not having to buy into more studios and make more games in a shorter time.

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Of course there are cons to this however. If you stop paying your $10 a month, you can’t access the games, as is the case with PS Plus. You will be able to bulk buy 6 months at a time soon, so there is that for those who need it.

Secondly, the games are in rotation. They are only available for as long as they are up, just like shows on Netflix or BBC iPlayer. If it remains on the server, you can play it. For the new titles this is unlikely to be an issue, but older 360 titles may fall to this.

Finally, and this is the eventuality, what happens when the service ends? Would Microsoft let you play the games offline? Would you just get to keep them as you do with your physical Xbox 360 games?

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These are the important questions and sadly they can’t be answered because this day has yet to come. We don’t know and I’m not sure Microsoft does either.

When considering Game Pass at face value, it is an excellent deal, but if you don’t play games much, you’re likely better off paying the $60 for a game outright.

Yes the eventuality of that is even physical copies of games now are subject to patches and updates, so when the servers one day go own, some games will be “unfinished” as it were, or at least unrefined.  But at least you won’t lose access to the games entirely.

 

 

So this is the situation. Microsoft has made an aggressive move into a Netflix like format, and the payoffs are obvious: It’s more money, monthly, rather than per game.

But for us consumers, maybe it’s not so great in the very long-term, or even medium term depending on how the service is received or games are rotated.

 

Maybe we need to wait and see, but I didn’t think this day would come so soon.

 

 

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy this article, and I will be updating everyone on developments as they happen via social media. Until next time, Happy Gaming!

Behind The Game Update: 17-1-2018

So today happened.

 

YouTube has been a bit problematic lately and with the unfortunate e-mail today that I will indeed be losing access to a lot of features, and my network, as of February 20th 2018, I had to quickly and very certainly move ahead with some plans I had been considering, but have now been pushed to acting upon.

 

So what is happening? Well YouTube basically stripped us, and hundreds of thousands of other small channels, of most of our features, and monetisation, to fix some problem (The email is kinda bad).

Now this isn’t a money issue. This is a “I’ve been at this for 9 years and the goalposts just moved”. Imagine getting an eviction notice and at that same moment being told your eviction is because your rent is increasing. Bit like that.

After this point YouTube has presented a brick wall that has to be climbed, and while many will stick with it, as they aren’t far from the requirements, others don’t get such a luxury.

But instead of give up, I have pushed myself to this point to consolidate all of my media avenues into one thing. So let us begin:

 

 

Behind The Game!

 

Behind The Game will see the least changes.

As always we will post written reviews, articles, discussion pieces, impressions on upcoming games, all the usual content. This will not change.

What will be added however, is podcasts, discussing certain topics in gaming, the previous week in gaming and more.

These podcasts will be held on Twitch, viewable live and linked to both here, and posted here for posterity, as well as available after the fact as on-demand videos on YouTube.

There will also be video impressions on indie games, DLC, other gaming things and more as stand-alone videos available on YouTube, that will be linked here.

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YouTube!

 

This is where the most will change.

Currently we upload episodic Let’s Plays of video games. Now however, that content will not be recorded in advance (Usually, this is situation permitting).

From now on, all the “Let’s Play Content” will be streamed live on Twitch, then uploaded as VoDs onto YouTube, same as the podcasts for Behind The Game.

YouTube will also get the Impressions videos and any other things specifically for Behind The Game that cannot be livestreamed.

This is going to be the most drastic change, but allows us to record footage in better time, and upload it as long form episodes of an hour or two per week.

 

 

Twitch!

 

Finally we come to Twitch.

On Twitch we will host several shows that will replace our LP content on YouTube, such as a retro gaming session, indie session, so on so forth. More so this is where we will host our Podcasts for Behind The Game.

All things streamed on Twitch, whether it be the new “LP” content that will populate YouTube,  or Behind The Game podcasts, will be made available on YouTube after the fact.

 

So In Summary…

 

Behind The Game – Business as usual, except expect added podcasts and discussions (Hosted on Twitch, then uploaded to YouTube), and Impressions videos (Uploaded to YouTube)

YouTube – Our Let’s Play content will be replaced by live streamed content, made available after streaming on Twitch, and we will add the Impression videos.

Twitch – Twitch will be where we host our livestreamed content, both for gaming and Behind The Game.

 

 

So with that said, I hope you enjoy the changes, look forward to some streaming schedules, and go follow both of the channels at the links below. Oh, and stay tuned on Twitter @BritishPlaying for on the fly updates and news on all things BLP and BTG!

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YouTube

Happy Gaming!

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle Has A DLC Issue…

DLC isn’t a bad thing. Announcing how much DLC is in your game six months before launch…is.

 

So work this out. DLC can extend the life of a game and in the Fighting game sphere, it’s usually welcome.

So here comes BlazBlue, a series doing a cross over game with Persona and RWBY (For some reason I can’t understand) and it releases in six months, with a roster of 20 fighters.

Now if this was a newer fighting game without the huge stable of known fighting game characters under the wing of the developer, Arc System Works, that would be fine, but 20 feels a little light considering the pedigree of the studio.

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Now with the release date revealed to be June, Arc System Works has made an error in revealing the DLC plans at this stage, 6 months prior to launch.

Now in the industry that isn’t a good sign. I’ve talked about this before, but the idea of announcing DLC so far in advance indicates that it was planned to nickel and dime the player early in development, and given the heavy re-use of assets, it does feel like a cash grab.

By all accounts it seems the game was designed around the DLC. What is perhaps even more egregious is that it has been revealed that 20 characters will be in the DLC.

Half of the roster for the game is DLC people. We find this out months in advance, and it was clearly planned from the start.

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This is perhaps one of the most irritating examples of aggressive monetisation in a game. Half of the final roster is planned DLC far in advance and made known to the player.

The asset re-use is one thing. The limited roster for such a wide-reaching crossover is another. I have to wonder what appeal this game truly has outside of appealing to these fans.

Then again, it’s not micro transactions, it’s not lootboxes, but it feels somehow worse. DLC abuse is seriously an issue, and the only thing that would put this issue down in history is some Marvel Vs Capcom 3 levels of scum, with the fighters being on the disc/cartridge/download, and you pay to unlock them.

Sometimes I wonder if the industry will do DLC right. It can truly extend the life of a game, and done right can provide great value and expansions to a game. This is just cutting part out and selling it back to the player.

 

Imagine if Super Smash Bros launched with half of it’s 58 character roster behind DLC. You’d be fuming.

 

 

Thanks for reading this admittedly short article. There isnt much you can add to this kind of thing I’m afraid. It’s indefensible. As always give a share and like on social media, and I will see you next time! Happy Gaming!

LawBreakers: You Can’t Sell a Game on a Name

LawBreakers is an interesting game. Not really from the game part though.

 

So who has heard of Cliffy B? A man whose affectionate nickname stands out because of his involvement in titles such as Gears of War, Bulletstorm and Jazz Jackrabbit…okay maybe just the first one. He also worked on a lot of the Unreal series. So yeah, guy has a resume.

His latest project was LawBreakers. A competitor, not-competitor to Overwatch. Using anti-gravity mechanics, you could move in ways that differentiated the gameplay from its other hero based shooter brethren.

Unfortunately LawBreakers has been a bit of a flop. In some respects that’s an understatement and I’m sure the game itself has a lot of heart put into it, as the development team is clearly passionate, as is the publisher, but sales wise, it didn’t do well, and it’s player base is unfathomably low.

 

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Personally the first reason I can think of this happening is obviously Overwatch. If you want to release a hero based shooter, you need to stand toe to toe with the marketing juggernaut that is Activision-Blizzard. You need to be able to outpace and match Overwatch, no matter how different your gameplay is, it’s occupying the same space and aiming for the same players.

Just like Battleborn, another game that was attempted to be sold on name alone. Sure, Gearbox software has a name to them, one of…mixed quality…but it’s still a big name. But that enough wasn’t going to stop Overwatch, which release just before it, from casting a shadow and kicking the game aside. Not even going Free To Start saved it.

LawBreakers fared even less well. It came long after Overwatch had established itself as THE Hero shooter title. Millions of players, millions in revenue, it’s a juggernaut. What hope did LawBreakers have of snatching some of that away, especially without the marketing behemoth that is Blizzard behind it?

 

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The next thing that stood out to me, or rather, didn’t, was how under the radar this game was. Before release I was aware of a beta. I was aware the game existed, but I didn’t know much about it. All I heard, and all a lot of articles really said was that it was kind of like Overwatch, and a game from Cliffy B. What the game was certainly could have been conveyed better, especially what made it different from Overwatch, and it certainly didn’t quite grab the zeitgeist like a viral hit would.

The weird thing is, who can say why this happened? I’d certainly like to believe it is because, yet again, you can’t be a comparatively smaller publisher shouting your lungs out about a game, when there is a man with a megaphone right next to you. You won’t win that battle, not without some unprecedented windfall.

It could have just as easily been a case of not presenting the rights parts of the game.

 

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The next point is what I think really damaged the ship. As I stated a lot of the buzz around the game was “It’s from Cliffy B!” and while that CAN sell a game, it more often than not doesn’t.

Example: Mighty No. 9. From Keiji Inafune. Game wasn’t that good really. Heck even long-standing industry veterans can’t sell a game on name alone. The name of the company behind it, or the franchise in question can certainly reach the masses. Granted the game still needs to be good. But the masses don’t know the individuals. Ask anyone who Shigeru Miyamoto is. They don’t care about that. They don’t know the people.

More so, you can certainly say “Oh, this is the man behind the concept”, but…what about the rest of the people actually making the game? Yes, Keiji Inafune could say Mighty No. 9 was his idea but the rest of the team was responsible for execution. A single name behind a game does not a good product make.

 

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The reason I wrote this article is that publisher Nexon had a huge $32.6 million expenses hole in its financial reports, and naturally investors want answers. Apparently that was to be filled by LawBreakers, and the response the company gave was…interesting?

“…the timing of its launch turned out to be unfortunate, specifically the blockbuster PC online game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds came out right about the same time, making the market environment very tough for first-person shooters in general and for LawBreakers”

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Now I can understand this being the case on PC. But on consoles? Well Xbox One only just got PUBG and the PS4 hasn’t yet and won’t for a while. So this argument even if true only holds partial water. But on top of that no mention was made to the in-genre competition from Overwatch and Paladins.

But as I mentioned, even prior to launch this game didn’t really spark interest or catch attention. Nexon was banking on sailing a ship into a port already full to bursting with other similar ships. PUBG was just passing by.

 

This just goes to show that your name can’t sell a game on its own, and nor is throwing yourself into a crowded space without catching the eye of consumers a good idea.

And blaming a game that was passing by? A lot of other games managed to sell well this year despite PUBG being a thing. But damage control is damage control. You can’t tell investors “Our bad” otherwise confidence plummets. When you have a huge black hole in finances the last thing you want is people jumping ship.

 

 

As always I hope you enjoyed this article and that you give it a share and comment on social media! Until next time, Happy Gaming!

New Years Resolutions for Gaming Companies!

2018 is here, and I’m tired of the problems that companies present. A lot of them can just be sorted easily, so here are some resolutions for them all.

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STEAM

I’m opening with Steam for the simple reason that as a platform it has the most work to do to change.

Firstly they need to kill off Steam Direct and start using actual staff for curation and in turn solve the highlighted problem of visibility for games, and the use of asset flips. Any platform should not be receiving 6000 games in 10 months, let alone in a few years.

Secondly, in addition to curation of games, actual customer service will be a must. They have some customer like refunds, though it has been proven that is a bit lax, and even with that they still lag behind in terms of actual customer service communication, with some queries being fast, and some taking days or weeks. This is an area any platform needs to get right and with the rise of third-party related issues, this has to be addressed.

For Steam in general, it mostly comes down to manpower and recapturing that desire to evolve the PC gaming space, however as the dominant platform in that sector, it’s unlikely at this stage unless something overtakes them.

 

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THIRD PARTIES

So this is a big one. Perhaps the most shocking thing in 2017 outside of how good the games were in general, was how far third parties fell almost simultaneously.

Micro-transactions and lootboxes do indeed have a place in the games industry, however, it most certainly is not in full priced games, and absolutely not for progression or gameplay advantages. A pay to win structure doesn’t work in full price games. If the game was free then sure, there is your monetisation, but with already heavy season passes, full price games and additional DLC, it has become a bit ludicrous.

Secondly, PR! Perhaps Bungie has been the biggest culprit of this but that’s not the exception in recent months. Destiny 2 became an apology loop with each update and fixes for basic things, or things that should have been improved from the original game, were purely reactionary to backlash. Further to that point, EA has truly put their foot in it, with the contempt aimed at gamers being duly noted.

Finally, third parties in this coming year need to stick by what they say, and stop treating gamers like fools. Bandai-Namco and their “Show your support and maybe” approach to getting people to advertise their games for the promise of a Switch port is one thing, when done numerous times, but then the obvious tomfoolery from other companies beggars belief. 2017 was very much the year when the community bit back. Let’s hope they reflect on it.

 

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PLAYSTATION

PlayStation is in a tricky spot. On one hand they have almost monopolised the industry, with sales left and right. One thing they need to do is keep the games coming and keep dropping fan favourites but also not lean on remasters too hard. Additionally, they need to avoid a repeat of 2016 and front loading all their first party titles.

Next, VR. 2 million sales is nice but the asking price combined with the price of a PS4 demands killer apps. Those killer apps need to come sooner rather than later, otherwise the market will stagnate. VR has a bright future, once revised and refined, but it needs to sell on concept first, and the concept needs big hitters. The catch is Sony isn’t known for supporting two platforms equally.

Next is doing what fans want. We want cross-platform play. Every other system has it. We want backwards compatibility of higher quality and frequency than we have had for the past few years. These are areas that Sony is being left behind in, and as much as they want it to be all service based in future, I don’t think other industries and infrastructures are ready yet.

Finally, don’t announce games so early anymore. The “Holy Trinity” of E3 2015 has only had one release so far and the other two are vaporware. God of War STILL doesn’t have a release date, and Spider-Man is likely to show up for the third E3 in a row. Further to this, don’t go to so many conferences, at least not within 6 months of each other. Spread them out, otherwise we end up with PSX 2017 being a repeat of Paris Games Week which was a repeat of E3, which was a repeat of the last E3.

Oh, and put a better damn battery in that controller. It’s laughable.

 

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XBOX

This is tricky. On one hand, hardware wise, Xbox is fine for now. The One X is the enthusiast machine and the One S can live as a UHD Blu-Ray and streaming box. One thing it lacks is games.

It gets a bevy of third-party releases, but first party is terribly lacking. Most releases were pushed to 2018, but even then you can count them on one hand. I fully hope HALO 6 is a 2018 announcement at the very least. This is an area they need to heavily work on.

Second is Japanese games. Sure the brand isn’t big….at all…in Japan, but it will help reach a greater audience that the PS4 and Switch hit. As it stands Xbox is very much a Western device, and that’s its weakness.

Backwards compatibility needs to continue as is, as does pushing cross-play across platforms alongside developers and Nintendo. The PC support via Windows Store is nice and it is clear the future of Xbox is a service over a dedicated box on its own, but the focus cannot shift too far from selling consoles.

Stop shutting studios and show off that fabled (HA) AR/VR gadget you’ve got going on.

 

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NINTENDO

So what can Nintendo do after an incredible 2017? A few things.

Firstly, mobile. Keep going as is, with not at all invasive monetisation (Seriously, Fire Emblem Heroes is VERY generous!) and two or three games a year. The view that the revenue is funnelled into game development and the games exist as an entry point to the main games is genius and seems to be working well.

Secondly, Directs. Keep the current format for Nintendo Directs and their frequency. These are amazing ways to communicate with consumers and get news out fast and in great volume. Sprinkle some Nindie Showcases and game specific presentations in the year, and the communication front is set.

On to Nindies: Don’t stop. Maybe rework the eShop for visibility purposes but keep those indies coming. The sales don’t lie and nor does the consumer response: Switch is an indie dream machine and in the wake of PlayStation apathy and Steam being a mess, this can be readily positioned as the new home for indie developers.

Regarding services, outline the Online Service at some point during the year, it’s feature set, and other aspects like the free games and discounts and such. I won’t expect Xbox Live levels of incredible, but enough to justify £20 a year. If you are feeling generous, maybe a Virtual Console service? Though that has in past damaged eShop sales for indies, so maybe stick with the Classic Mini systems instead, with an N64 one this year?

Get more third parties on board and if need to, keep paying them for games. The shining hopes are there with DOOM, Skyrim and soon Wolfenstein, as well as L.A Noire proving a hit. Now is the time to pick up steam. Ports of older games get a new lease of life and modern games can run with some effort. So bolster that library.

First party releases need to maintain speed, and the big game a month approach also should maintain. One or two months without works fine, those typically end up being third-party dominated months like November, so work around that.

Finally, slowly phase out 3DS. As I have mentioned before it is a budget option now, and with smaller titles, localizations and third-party efforts coming in 2018, it’s time to let it simmer and slowly phase out.

Maybe a Switch price cut too, towards the end of the year? That’d be cool!

 

 

And those are some gaming resolutions and a to-do list for companies this year. May we hope they all come true. Some will, as some are safe bets, others are merely hopes and wishes. If you liked this article, give it a share on the social medias, and I will see you next time! Happy Gaming!