Cold Constructs Blog

I think the gaming industries around the world will finally get a lesson they won’t forget: just because it has a lot of content and great graphics doesn’t mean it’ll sell. I’m not talking about the gameplay factor, but rather the complexity of a game.

When we say we want to get in and out of game without hassle whenever we want, we don’t mean we can press Esc then confirm and then wait a couple minutes for the damn thing to unload its shit so that we can finally use our computer again. What we mean is, Esc and BAM there’s the desktop in all its working glory. It’s easy - if it was an accident, the next time you fire up the game you’ll have the option to return exactly where you left off. If it’s not easy, too bad. Focus on the customer, the people who pay you, the people who you share the world with, and the people includes yourself. If only everyone actually used the products they created. If only.

The industry fucks got the point that some of us like simple fun little games, but those simple fun games weren’t so little. Apparently, no one’s heard the idea of a complete game costing less than 10 bucks brand new. This can happen if you license game engines to cut down development time, consistently follow a narrow focus (eg what specific effect or experience are you trying to show the player), and keep the dev team itself consistent. You’ll slow yourself down if you keep having to explain everything to the n00bs (just ask the guys who made Metal Gear Solid 2).

There is a market for massive games obviously, but they don’t have to stomp over the smaller ones. Yeah, smaller/simpler games exist, but you really have to dig deep into the net to find any good ones. By ’simple’ and ‘fun’ I don’t mean a million Tetris rip-offs or card games. There is such a thing as graphically advanced games using simple concepts for gameplay and take up less than 20mb of hard drive space (heard of .kkrieger?). Of course there’s others, like that one off-road top-down racing arcade game, called something like Super Off-Road Racing… I love that game.

But anyway, it seems this topic is receiving a fair amount of attention lately… ’bout fucking time.

Gabe of Penny Arcade fame finally expressed my thoughts when he said he was tired of seeing info about a game that won’t be released until a year later or more. It’s good to know that I’m not the only one that feels this way, and that people with his amount of influence say something about it.

I say the ideal expose time for an unreleased game is ONE MONTH. Otherwise I become sick of the thing and left with no surprises when I actually play the game. I just want to know its basic premise and all about the gameplay, nothing more (nothing on what happens in the story, not more than a couple levels, etc.). No more shit with all the hype, delays, and well, bullshit.

Every major game publisher is guilty of this. Fix it or I won’t buy the game. As it is, I’m not buying Doom3, Half-Life 2, or Tribes: Vengeance, among others.

Dear advertisers, spammers, and other despicable, pathetic excuses for humans:

If I want to buy your damn product I’d go to you. I don’t want you throwin ads in front of me, impeding my productivity and ruining my already-shitty day.

Die. Now.

-cold wolf

There should be a Google-like search engine that finds whatever product you’re looking for, and search parameters can be as specific as you want. Froogle is a start. However, there needs to be categories that allow you to refine the results so that you’ll eventually end up with that exact creation you need (or just be able to browse for something interesting). They could be ranked by popularity (most people who searched for ‘x’ bought ‘p’… kind of like Amazon’s relevant product thingy they do). Of course sites that are dedicated to a certain type of product (like PC games, electronics, cars, etc) will help people find what they want as well. This will force companies to make awesome products that work and ditch products that don’t (or that no one wants) because no one will vouch for it (no ads telling the more gullible of us that it’s wonderful, when in fact it isn’t), and so it’ll just get lost in the sea.

The main problem with this is that advertisements are the primary source of funding for such things as TV and radio. If we adopt my ideas for content distribution though, funding via ads would be unnecessary. And all would be well. Too bad my ideas require change, something we’re all very afraid of, apparently.

What gets me most is that we put up with all this shit. Everyone hates ads so much, even the advertisers themselves whenever they encounter it, yet we do nothing. We’re obsessed with money that much - we’ll do anything to get more, even if it means misery for millions. Let’s all just slap a warning for aliens on the moon, saying simply: “WE SUCK”.