Is the PlayStation 3 Over-Reliant On Exclusive Games?

Sony is betting that a price drop in their PlayStation 2 console will cause many of those buyers to eventually adopt the PlayStation 3, better securing its foothold in the North American market. Unfortunately such a move will not free Sony from its dependence on exclusive gaming content to stay relevant. Read more

Girls’ Generation’s Jessica Promotes Dungeon & Fighter

A charming video was recently aired in Korea which features Jessica of the K-pop band Girls’ Generation fighting off a monster attacking Seoul. The commercial promotes the multi-player video game Dungeon & Fighter, a game which is pretty much unknown outside of Korea. Although if they continued to show cute videos such this in the United States and elsewhere, the popularity of Dungeon & Fighter is sure to increase.

Girls’ Generation promotes Dungeon and Fighter:

Via AllKPop.

Age of Conan trial

So Funcom is offering a free 7 day trial of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. I’m slightly tempted by this, but  I am more than a little disappointed that it’s only seven days. With only seven days available, you will probably have enough time to roll a couple of characters and maybe try out a few missions. For MMOs, that isn’t really enough time to get a feel for the game. Most of MMOs play pretty much the same in the beginning part of the game. Your character runs around with beginning equipment, mostly fetching things for non player characters and killing small numbers of low level monsters and critters. Hardly exciting stuff.

I’m a little surprised Funcom is so stingy. This is the game that’s supposedly bleeding subscribers, getting the majority of their lunch money taken away by World of Warcraft and the remainder by Warhammer. I haven’t paid a ton of attention this game, but even I’ve heard of the server merges and the resignation of their CFO. Supposedly Funcom has also made a lot of changes to their game, balancing classes, fixing bugs and improving PvP. That makes the short trial even more ridiculous because as a new player you probably won’t see any of those improvements until you reach the mid levels, which is hardly possible within a scant seven days.

Anyway, if you want a diversion from your main game, you can download the trial here.

12-year-olds on Counter-Strike

A recent video reminded me why I stopped playing Counter-Strike with random people and stuck with matches with friends and people I knew in real life. Take a look at the following video; the kid in it is one of the most obnoxious examples you’ll ever find of the horrors you may encounter in a random public match. Just a warning the video is very NSFW due to racist and foul language:

E-sports on the ropes

Forgive me if I crow a little bit.  The New York Times recently published an article that questioned the sustainability of e-sports in North America. The article notes that Rupert Mordoch’s News Corporation and DirecTV unexpectedly shut down the Championship Gaming Series and that several major e-sports tournaments have been canceled citing the bad economy and lack of sponsorship. Read more

Collective shrug at $99 PS2

As announced in a number of media outlets today and a story first broken by a number of enterprising store clerks who noticed the change in price in their store inventories (as detailed here), the Sony PlayStation 2 is now $99, a drop of $30. This much anticipated announcement wasn’t what hardcore gaming fans were expecting, especially since it was hyped up at sites like Kotaku, 1up and Smarthouse among a few others. Read more

Stardock to buy back games

Digital game distributor Stardock is introducing a new buy back process. The process called GOO (Game Object Obfuscation) allows gamers who purchase digital copies of games from Stardock to sell them back at a used price. It also allows gamers who are more budget conscious to buy those sold back copies at the used price. Publishers get all the money minus Stardock’s transaction fees. That’s certainly a lot more than what they’re currently getting at places like GameStop, which is currently nothing for any used games sold by the used game retailer.

If this catches on, expect other digital distribution services to quickly follow suit. Used games have been a real sore spot with publishers since selling back games have been popular with players who tire of games once they’ve played them and also a way for budget conscious gamers to get their hands on titles without paying full price. Publishers have been left out in the cold while companies like GameStop have reaped handsome profits by just acting as a middle man. Stardock’s GOO elegantly addresses the concerns for buyers, sellers and publishing houses. While this process is only viable for electronically distributed games, many games are increasingly moving to electronic distribution as the primary means of selling their games.

GameStop will continue to profit while console games still require discs or similar media; however, innovations like GOO is definitely another reason for developers to favor digital distribution over any other medium.

Via Joystiq.

Are games too juvenile?

It’s not often that the game industry receives a general dressing down and have it stick. At the last day of the Game Developer’s Conference, Heather Chaplin, a journalist who has been covering gaming for eight years for such media outlets like NPR, addressed the gaming industry at large. Calling games in general deeply stunted in guy culture, Chaplin stated that the gaming industry is too old to simply rehash zombies, aliens and girls in metal bikinis wielding axes.

According to Pixelvixen707:

Like Wendy slapping around the lost boys, Chaplin patiently but firmly laid down the line. “It is you guys as game designers who are mired deeply in ‘guy culture,’” Chaplin said. The problem isn’t the medium: “You are a bunch of stunted adolescents.” Games avoid any of the things that separate men from boys: responsibility, introspection, intimacy, and intellectual discovery. And “when you’re talking about culture-makers, this is a problem.”

Criticisms of the gaming industry have been made before, but rarely at the developers themselves at the conference dedicated to them. Certainly a market argument can be made that video games, like movies and music, caters to the tastes of its audience. In recent years, games featuring the aforementioned zombies, aliens and metal bikinis have often done well.

I take no sides on this issue. I enjoy a lot of the “schlock” that Chaplin criticizes, but acknowledge her point.  I’m interested to hear your opinion on this.

From Pixelvixen707 via Game Politics.

Playing Wii games on PC

I’m usually not that impressed with console emulators on PCs. At least, I haven’t been impressed with ones I’ve seen in the past. While they can do a serviceable job of allowing you to play that rare game for a console that you put away in mothballs years ago, their performance won’t typically wow you nor will you get perfect compatibility, resulting in a number of glitches or an outright failure to run. Read more

God of War 3 gameplay leaked

My goodness does that look impressive. Even though the video below is obviously someone running a camcorder off of a big screen, the game play looks amazing. Sadly, I don’t have a PS3, so I may never be able to try this game until it moves over to either the Xbox or PC. The part where Krakos jumps on a huge monster and starts wailing away on its head while simultaneously “steering” it is what you don’t want to miss in the footage below:

Still no word of the question that’s in the minds of many anticipating this title: will GoW3 feature a sex mini game like its predecessor?

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