A Galaxy Far, Far Away
Having seen the most recent chunk of video posted on IGN, I think I finally have a better handle on Bioware’s upcoming MMO The Old Republic. The central concept was one I struggled to understand back when the game was first announced back in 2008[1].
For those not already in the know, Star Wars: The Old Republic (to give it its full title) was announced to great fanfare, with Bioware declaring that they planned to bring their proven skill with plot and character to the MMO space.
I should have been more excited by this declaration. Under normal circumstances I would walk through fire in order to get my paws on a new Bioware title, and I’ve been waiting for an MMO to truly capture my attention for pretty much as long as the genre has been around[2].
It was difficult, however, not to feel that Bioware had missed the point. They were talking about adding ‘career specific’ storylines to the game. While I’d expect those storylines to be crafted with all of Bioware’s customary care and skill, that means that an eighth of the players in the game would have been through to same story as me. What’s the point of becoming Champion of Such-and-Such, Slayer of Darth What’s-His-Face, if every eighth person in the galaxy has already Championed Such-and-Such, kerb-stomped What’s-His-Face and sold on the loot drop because it didn’t help maximise their build?
I agree, whole-heartedly, that more massively multiplayer games need a stronger story component. But just straight out telling your players a story is never going to work. The trick to narrative in an MMO is putting the structures in place to encourage players to create stories with each other. EVE Online gives a good example of what I mean. The players have such a massive influence on the gameworld that wars have started, alliances have been forged, empires and business have risen and fallen, all of it player driven, and each event generating thousands of attendant stories.
If you want to take it a step further, what you really need to do is mechanically reward dramatic behaviour. For example, if the game has a significant combat element, rewarding players for repeated clashes with the same opponent encourages the development of personal foes and nemeses, rather than a faceless mass of opponents.
Whilst I still think they’ve missed a trick, the video on IGN did at least show something that looked enjoyable: not a massively multiplayer RPG in the truest sense of the word, but a co-op RPG where all of the players in the party could be involved in the conversations as well as the combat. That’s an interesting idea, and one I can see myself enjoying, but it doesn’t really take any advantage of the thousands of other players running around outside of your immediate group (surely the largest asset of any MMO), and it still leaves the fact that you can presumably talk, in game, to other people who have undertaken the same stories constantly gnawing away at your suspension of disbelief.
It’s early days, of course, and there’s still time for Bioware to turn around and blow everyone away with some amazing innovation. As things stand, however, it’s hard to shake the feeling that whilst they might be building something interesting, its core gameplay will be undermined rather than strengthened by the MMO format.
Welcome, to the world of Tomorrow!
The first half of an interesting piece on ‘The future of video games’ was posted on players only recently[1]:
It’s an interesting watch. The general consensus seems to be that online distribution will be the future of the industry. Possibly they’re right, but in the same way that hovercars have been a few years away for decades[2], a mass migration towards digital distribution has been being predicted for a while now, and it has yet to grind the retail market beneath its remorseless tread.
See, at the moment, direct download is the main digital distribution option around. This is a great idea for developers, because they see it as a route to market that might allow them to sidestep the publisher altogether, and thus keep a bigger slice of the profits. With a slightly different spin on it, publishers like the idea, because they hope that it might give them a distribution method which is a bit more resistant to piracy than physical media.
It isn’t, however, always such a great deal for the consumer. It can be wonderful when it comes to getting indy games, which typically have a relatively modest download size and which would struggle to see a retail release. When it comes to a big AAA title though, it runs into problems.
Direct download stops looking like the sensible and convenient option if it takes me six hours to download a game: I could have been to the shops and bought it in a fraction of that time. Then there’s the fact that once you’ve finished the game, you either have to leave it squatting in the depths of your hard drive, hungrily gobbling up the gigabytes, or face that whole six hour slog again when you get a sudden urge to boot up that game from six months back you fancy having another bash at.
Yes, I’m well aware of the staggering success of digital music distribution, but big games are rather a different proposition. Aside from the (much) larger download times mentioned above, music download services offer the significant advantage of allowing the consumer to pay a lower price to purchase only to exact songs they want. DD doesn’t offer that: I can’t purchase only those levels or gameplay features that interest me.
Beyond that, the fact that a game is a larger investment in time and money than a couple of tracks off iTunes means I’m more inclined to look to the advantages of physical ownership, like the fact that I can lend the game out, take it to a friends house to play, or (and this is important) keep using it when some change to operating standards would have rendered my digital collection unusable[3].
More exciting is the potential advance of in-browser gaming and ‘cloud computing’. Indeed, over the past few years we’ve already seen sites like Kongregate rocketing to popularity.
The advantages of taking away the download and not running the game locally are manifold. No need to wait for the download, obviously. But also no need to worry about system requirements, and with the added bonus of being able to access the content wherever you have an internet connection. There’s still the potential for changing standards or collapsing businesses to render your collection obsolete, but at least there are some more concrete advantages to balance that out.
Ultimately, I think although downloadable game services will become a bigger part of the way we access content, it’s not going to catch on in the way some believe, if only because by the time the storage capacity and internet connection required to make it truly attractive become ubiquitous, it will already have been overtaken by the cloud computing[4] revolution.
[1] Actually, the second half has been posted as well, but I haven’t been able to watch that yet because it opens with an exec at Acclaim saying that the games industry should be more like U2. It’s already too much like U2: rich, hypocritical, risk-averse and dead inside. My shouting at the monitor precluded further viewing
[2] That’s real science, right?
[3] Case in point: I recently re-installed and started playing my copy of Giants: Citizen Kabouto (released 2000) recently. Would my digital download service still be offering the game after nine years, or honouring my original purchase? Hell, would the company I downloaded it from still be in business after nearly a decade?
[4] Incidentally, we sorely need a cooler name for the concept. Answers on a postcard.
Picture Perfect
It’s taken some time, but I finally got round to checking out Microsoft’s new Natal camera as the E3 dust began to settle1. I’d been distracted by more immediately exciting software info, like new Mass Effect 2 footage and the complete redesign of Splinter Cell – Conviction, but I did think that the concept of completely controller-free input sounded pretty cool, and I eventually looked up the stage show demo.
Congratulations then to Microsoft for very nearly succeeding in strangling that spark of interest at birth. The tech might be awesome, but in a week in which I’ve been shown The Exorcist for the first time, the most profoundly unsettling thing I’ve seen is still the soulless, dead-eyed family featured in that video2.
More concerning than the fact that the video was apparently shot on location in Stepford, however, is that it is filled with, well, lets just cut to it and call them lies shall we?
Take exhibit A, the girl trying on a dress using Natal, which she can then go out and buy in the shops3. Really? Which high street chain are you in partnership with then, Microsoft? Besides which, we already have online catalogues. It’s hard to see any genuine benefit provided by Natal, with the added downside that I have to stop gaming for one of my housemates to check out their potential new togs.
Or exhibit B, that business with the skateboard. Aside from the fact that using my own gear is almost exactly the opposite of what I want from a video game4, the process of turning a real world object into a 3D, physics enabled in-game entity is complex, and not something that can be done with just a picture. You can of course apply that picture to a pre-created object, but that isn’t going to get you the perfectly recreated skateboard we saw in the demo.
Loathsome demo aside though, I did see things there to get excited about. Peter Molyneux’s Milo presentation held a truly exciting moment when the presenter looked into the lake and saw her own reflection looking back. The potential there for allowing you to not only interact with games in new ways, but to actually insert yourself directly into the experience, is truly exciting.
It is a nifty piece of kit, then, and could mark a genuine step forward in terms of game controller design. Of course, the real proof of this particular gaming pudding is going to be the software. Can Microsoft get enough developers working on Natal-specific games to make their (probably expensive) camera worthwhile? I don’t know, but I’m certainly hopeful. Just don’t try to use it to sell me clothes.
1The observant will notice that it has also taken me some time to the write a new blog post. Fortunately, one of the advantages of having no readers is that no one cares if I vanish for a year.
2Look at them sitting there, vacant grins plastered over their faces, their expression of forced gaiety unable to mask the fact that they are dead inside. Shudder…
3Leaving aside the fact that her friend apparently does nothing all day but stand forlornly in front of the Natal camera, waiting for someone to call her.
4I buy games to be exposed to experiences I couldn’t have (or wouldn’t want) in the real world. Having to get hold of real world stuff to get the most out of a game seems to rather defeat the point.
Letters from the front
I think, given the content of earlier entries, I’m going to have to make a qualifying statement before beginning this post.
I don’t hate Peter Molyneux.
I don’t even dislike him. I’ve got at least some enjoyment from all of his games1, and a great deal of enjoyment from some of them. His games tend to be technologically innovation, and artistically pleasing. Too often they don’t tie their good ideas and good looks into good gameplay mechanics, but hey, you can’t have everything.
His comments, however, frequently annoy me, because they often seem to reveal either an ignorance of, or disregard for, the ways game design has changed in the past couple of decades, and of the advances that other developers have been making.
Which leads me to my point. Apparently, Peter Molyneux sent out a note with review copies of Fable 2, asking reviewers to “Please, please, please” get a non-gamer to play the game, observe what they did and how their world turns out.
The problem here is that, for a whole host of reasons, and regardless of whether it was designed with the non-gamer in mind or not, Fable 2 is not a game that’s going to appeal to the casual market.
1) It’s on the Xbox 360
Much as Microsoft (and Sony) might wish otherwise, non-gamers don’t own gaming consoles. Who’s going to blow £200+ on top of the line gaming hardware just to use Xbox Live Arcade? Some of them might own a Wii. But if you really want casual gamers, you go for the PC, and make sure it can be played on any machine capable of running Windows XP.
2) It’s a full price release
The other thing non-gamer’s don’t do is blow £50 on a game2. That’s new pair of trainers, or a weeks groceries for a couple, or two nights down the pub. £20-£25 (one night in the pub, a reasonable two course meal) is the upper limit if you want the casuals to come streaming in. £10 is ideal, because that drops you into the realm of the impulse buy3.
3) Movement and camera control in 3D is essential to the game
One of the reasons for the success of the Wii is that Wii Sports removes the need for 3D, dual analouge camera control. For those of us who have spent over a decade getting accustomed to dual analouge control it comes naturally, but most people picking up a game for the first time struggle with it, particularly with syncing character movement with camera direction. If you don’t play games, and you pick up something with this steep learning curve, you’re probably not going to enjoy it, conclude that gaming isn’t for you, and go on your way.
4) It’s a Fantasy RPG
Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings films may have made fantasy at least moderatly cool these days, but RPGs, or anything else with the whiff of dragons, rule books, and dice with a number of sides other than six is still seen as some sort of weird social aberration to be avoided at all costs. A good portion of those who don’t feel this way are also already video gamers, and thus not the people who can truly appreciate Fable 2. Apparently.
5) Violence is central to the game
Although there may be lots of enjoyable4 padding like buying houses and dancing for the townspeople, advancing the story in Fable 2 ultimately involves repeatedly bashing your fellow sentient creatures with sharp metal sticks. As a general rule, if you want the broad audience, you have to avoid using violence as the driving activity of the game.
Given the above, much as Mr Molyneux might like to get the non-gamers perspective, they just aren’t the people that are going to be buying Fable 2, so it seems rather skewed to base reviews on that point of view. Indeed, I’m not really convinced that someone not familiar with gaming would actually enjoy Fable 2 that much even if they didn’t have to pay for it.
Peter Molyneux really should realise this. If he doesn’t, then he also doesn’t understand that much about the casual market, or even the gaming market in general. If he does already appreciate it, then the letter starts to look like an attempt to guard himself against accusations of shallowness in Fable 25.
On an unrelated note, I’ve been made aware that the links to the footnotes only work for the most reccent blog post: otherwise they bring you back to that footnote number in the top post. I’ll try and find some ingenius solution, but until then either view the posts one at or time, or scroll down to see footnotes in older entries.
1Or at least, the games of produced by Bullfrog and Lionhead. Let’s not fall into the trap of assuming that because he happens to be the public face of the company, Peter Molyneux single-handedly puts these games together.
2For the console they don’t own, but we’re moving on from that point.
3As we all know, any purchase of under £10 (no matter how many individual £10 purchases are made), has no impact on your budget.
4Behold my restraint at not putting that word in parenthesis.
5Wrongly, because a good casual game should be simple to learn, but have depth to the gameplay. Again, most of the Wii Sports games provide good examples of this, as does the recently released World of Goo (which if you have a human soul in your body you should be downloading right now, but that’s another post).
Lost in Space
I was almost resigned to the fact that there was no exciting news on the horizon, and prepared to give up waiting and write a pretentious, pseudo-intellectual article on the art of video game storytelling1, when this video surfaced:
Almost, almost, I wish that I hadn’t seen this video. For one thing, it means that I would have been spared the vicarious embarrassment of listening to the developer use the word ‘cinamaticion’2, especially given that he then has to pretend that giving us a dramatic angle for finishing moves is something that is in any way buzz-word worthy. Because we’ve never seen that before.
Then the coup-de-grace “This is what we like to call ‘Orchestrating Your Ballet of Death”. Do you? Do you really? Do you actually sit in your office and say “Hey Jim, hows work coming on Orchestrating your Ballet of Death?” or “Dude, you totally Orchestrated that Ballet of Death! You Orchestrated the shit out of it!”? I doubt it, and if you do, Mr Developer, I pity you.
But more than the teeth-grinding PR talk, it’s that fact that it’s introduced that traitorous sliver of hope into my life.
War hammer 40,000 holds a special place in my heart. I spent a good chunk of my youth pushing little lead soldiers around a table3, and the idea that someone could make a genuinely great 40K action game makes me go a little wobbly at the knees. Let’s face it, though, the odds are that this is going to suck. It’s going to be horrifyingly easy, too slow paced, and badly acted4. I know this. At best, it’s going to be Viking: Battle for Asgard5 with power armour and chainswords. I know this. But that was an Alpha build being shown in the video. Who knows how much it could change over the next, what, two years? Three? Two or three years that I’m going to have to spend hoping against hope that 40K Space Marine comes good, that it becomes the games I wish it could be, all leading up to inevitable, crushing disappointment when it is finally pushed out of THQ’s door and onto the game shop shelves.
Damn you THQ. Damn you and your cursed inability to frisk your presentation attendees for cameras.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the city….
I came upon Zounds: Youth Rock Ministry video games review section whilst I was stumbling blindly through the internet the other day. Scroll down to the ‘Secular and Un-Christian Games’ section, it’s comedy gold.
I’m genuinely unsure as to whether or not the whole site is an elaborate spoof. That said, I’m erring towards ‘comic genius’ rather than ‘rabid drivel’, based on lines like “The player controls the Master Chef who in a surprise twist turns out to be more than just a military cook… he’s also a super soldier”(speaking about Halo, if you hadn’t guessed). Other classics include: “Snake is actually a symbolic agent of Satan, sent into the world to finish what he started in the Garden” (Metal Gear Solid 4). and “After one of the boys asked me if I wanted to play ’shirts and skins’, I quickly turned off the Playstation because I didn’t want to see what that was (Pastor Skeet later told me it’s homosexual slang)” (Bully).
In earnest or not, go take a look, have a chuckle: it is easily one of the ten funniest things on the internet.
1Fear not, pretension fans! That article will be coming to you next week.
2Is that how you spell it? Can you spell it? Perhaps the English language, in protest against that horrific abuse, has contorted itself in such a way as to make it impossible to actually put the word down on paper. Maybe spelling it correctly summons Satan.
3Yes, I am a geek. I write a gaming blog in my spare time. You thought I was captain of the football team?
4Oh, and FYI THQ; when the guy doing the demo has to fire his gun so that the muzzle flash gives you enough light to see the environmental detail IT’S TOO BLOODY DARK!
5Actually, I didn’t hate Viking. It was fun, in a shallow, short lived way. But I already own Viking, and it it certainly ‘aint the kind of game you want to own twice, even if the second copy is wearing a shiny new 40K skin.
Biohazard
Bioshock has two confirmed sequels on the way. Normally, this would be the sort of news that I would be thrilled to hear. A squeal to one of the finest games of 2007? Time to ring the bells and break out the good brandy. However, for a number of reasons, I’m somewhat apprehensive about this particular sequel:
1) It’s not Irrational[1] at the helm.
Development duties for the Bioshock sequels have been passed from Irrational to 2K Marin. On the face of it, this isn’t a cause for too much alarm: franchises bounce around among development teams all the time. Bioshock is something of a unique case, though. Frankly, it wasn’t a great shooter. It was a great game, which happened to have some reasonable FPS elements. The things that made Bioshock great would have made it just as great if it had been an adventure game, or a survival horror, or even a platformer.[2]
Bioshock, unlike the vast majority of mainstream games, had actual themes rather than just a plot: it made points and expressed views that could be applied just as well to the real world. Most games draw their influences from existing science fiction and fantasy, which always creates an experience that, no matter how engaging, is ultimately shallow. Really good science fiction and fantasy draws its influences from a wide range of sources, and that is exactly what Irrational did with Bioshock. It’s plot and it’s world were the result of a range of different philosophical, political and aesthetic schools of thought[3]. Even if you didn’t get all the references, its hard to deny the power and vibrancy of the result.
Can a new dev team really capture this spirit? Short of putting them on a crash course of Sartre and Ayn Rand, it’s hard to see how. But without that spirit, Bioshock 2 will be a hollow experience: it might look right, but it won’t feel right.
2) Rapture is now a known quantity.
The city of Rapture itself was very much a character in Bioshock. There were new horrors and wonders around every corner, the constant juxtaposition of the familiar and the fantastic. A big part of the appeal of the game was exploring this underwater world, taking in its strange and terrible sights, and discovering its secrets.
You can’t recapture that in a sequel. It’s not that we can’t be shown parts of Rapture that we’ve never seen before, indeed, I’m sure that’s exactly what we will see. But we know what to expect from them now. That feeling of discovery, and of creeping horror as another laudable aspect of human endeavour is shown taken beyond the point of obsession, will be gone, and it’s hard to see what can be put in its place.
3) The story seems likely to be cheapened by a sequel.
It’s one of the unfortunate habits of games publishers to view any big budget release that doesn’t set up a franchise that can be milked for at least three more titles as a waste of time. It’s like the studio turning to Orson Welles after he’d just finished Citizen Kane and saying “That’s great, Orson, how long ’till Citizen Kane II? Actually, subtitles are big these days. Let’s call it Citizen Kane: Rosebud This! Awesome. Have it on my desk in six months.”
So much of Bioshock seems designed to stand alone. The whole first half of the game, for example, plays on the fact that you, as a player, unthinkingly follow the objectives set for you by the game, just as the character is unable to resist the commands given to him by Atlas. That trick, so central to the experience, can’t be pulled again. Neither of the ‘villains’ can be bought back without cheapening the story. Ryan, in particular, dies proving a point about his conception of free will: he dies victorious, you, his killer, live on as his slave. If he pops up again in a puff of dues ex machina, that scene, perhaps the most powerful I’ve ever witnessed in a game, is rendered utterly hollow.
Even beyond that, both endings to Bioshock pretty much finish Rapture as a setting for future games. There’s always the option for a prequel, of course, but again, a large part of the appeal of the first game is never quite knowing the whole story of what went on before your arrival.
It would be nice if we could get into the habit of celebrating developers, rather than particular franchises: that way we could applaud them for a great game, then look forward to seeing those talents applied to a new and unique project (although the upside of all this, of course, is that Irrational will be doing just that).
In other sequel news, the new Prince of Persia game is causing quite a stir at the moment. An open world sequel to the Prince of Persia franchise? Didn’t Ubisoft already release that last year? Yes, I’m sure they did. It was called Assassin’s Creed[4].
[1] Actually, they’re called 2K Boston now, but Irrational is a vastly better name, so I’ll keep using that.
[2] In fact, if 2k Marin, in a sudden change of direction, announce that their Bioshock sequels are going to be platform games, all is forgiven. A platform game set in a decaying, under water steampunk city where genetic engineering and free market economics have run amok? Now there’s a game I want to play. I’d like to see any fat Italian plumbers jump their way through that.
[3] It did turn to Sci Fi influences occasionally, but we’re talking more A Clockwork Orange and Metropolis than Star Trek and Aliens.
[4] Or Prince of San Andreas’ Splinter Cell, for those not feeling in a charitable mood. Ah, don’t worry Assassin’s Creed. I only mock because I care.
Peter’s Fables
Like many gamers, and apparently the entirety of the gaming press, I’m eagerly awaiting the release of Fable 2. Unlike most of them, the reason I’m eagerly awaiting it is so that we can stop hearing about the bloody thing.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the first Fable, and it did some interesting things, namely allowing you to watching your hero develop visually in response to your actions. But it also did a lot of stuff wrong, like having a combat system so shallow you didn’t need to take of your shoes to paddle in it1, and a complete and utter lack of anything resembling a decent story.
It’s the latter that really bugs me. Every time, every damn time, Peter Molyneux gets up to talk about Fable 2, he keeps going on about emotional involvement, and every time he does it seems that everyone raises their voices in chorus to declare that when PM talks about emotion in gaming, you sit up and listen.
But frankly, I’m struggling to understand why. The good ship Emotions in Games has long since sailed. Valve were aboard, so were Irrational and Bioware. Hell, even developers like Bungie and Starbreeze were hanging gamely from the railings. Lionhead, meanwhile, were sitting on the beach, building sandcastles of out of fantasy clichés and bad voice acting.
The first step to creating emotional involvement in a game is making you believe in its world. If you don’t buy into it, then you won’t care what happens to any of the characters that inhabit it. But Fable never even tried to make me believe that Albion was a real place. From the fact that every character spoke in ‘Oh arr zurr’ exaggerated British regional accents (this from an English developer, mind you, who really should know better), to the fact that my character’s every emotion was conveyed through ‘comic’ mime. And that my most significant interactions with the populous involved either striking a pose, roaring, or farting at them. How witty2.
It’s not just Fable, though. There has never been a game from Lionhead, or from Bullfrog before it, that made even a passing attempt to generate any emotion other than mirth in the player. Perhaps I’m being to harsh. Perhaps the unbridled optimism for emotion in Fable 2 is based on Peter Molyneux’s stated plans. Which would be great, except that, from what he’s said, the emotional anchor for the game is…your dog.
I’m sure it’s going to be a great dog. If there’s one thing Lionhead do very well, it’s funky creature AI. But honestly, it’s just a dog. Yes, you can get emotionally attached to a pet, but it’s not enough to be a driving emotional force in the life of any character outside of a Disney film. The Half Life series has Alex Vance, possibly the most rounded and convincing digital character ever created, as its emotional heart. Fable 2 is going to have a dog.
Sigh.
Bottom line, I’ll certainly be buying Fable 2. I’ll probably be enjoying Fable 2. But I’ll bet my bottom dollar that I’ll be enjoying it for the same reason I enjoyed the first fable, which is basically for the chance to play The Sims meets Conan. For the next great stride in computerised storytelling, my gaze is fixed firmly elsewhere.
1Although not the point of this article, I want to take a moment on the combat system. It was, as noted, shallow, and so easy you would need to actually lack thumbs to lose a fight. The argument from Lionhead, which has expressly been applied to Fable 2 as well, is that although anyone can win the fights, a skillful player can work for extra rewards. Fight well, and you get more experience. Think about that for a moment. The good players, who already find combat too easy, get bonus experience, making them more powerful, and any future combat even easier. Hooray for game balance.
2I’ll admit, farting is inherently funny. It was highly amusing in, say, the Oddworld games. But in the Oddworld series, when you got past the bodily functions and slapstick comedy, you would find a game that was making a serious point about industrialisation and the treatment of native peoples. When you get past them in Fable, you realise that there is nothing but an endless vista of more farting and more slapstick on the other side, like the ninth circle of hell as designed by the Chuckle Brothers.
Money Talks…
Imagine my delight the other day when I learned that Bioware/Pandemic had been bought up by EA for a cool $775 million. “Finally!” I thought to myself “Two struggling development houses have been taken under the EA wing, so that they can release the inherent talent within the teams much as EA already achieved with Bullfrog, Westwood and Maxis. Perhaps now we can look forward to some decent output from Bioware!”
As you have probably already guessed by the rampant sarcasm above, these were almost the exact opposite of my feelings. Hell, I cried a bit.
I’ve calmed down since then. A little.
You see, unlike some, I don’t think that EA are actively evil. I’m sure they don’t set out to crush talented dev teams, or stifle creativity in the industry with an endless stream of mediocre sequels. But nevertheless, they are a large company, and their shareholders and directors have realised that great games aren’t necessarily great investments, especially when average sports games and FPS franchises can generate guaranteed returns year after year after year.
At the end of the day, if Bioware and Pandemic’s well crafted, innovative games that take several years to develop can’t match those returns, then either the studios will be asset stripped and closed, or forced to alter their output to something that more closely mimics the company line. That’s business. Sure, in recent interviews we’ve heard a whole lot about how the two companies will maintain their independence from EA, but the reality is that Bioware/Pandemic are now wholly owned by EA, and they can do whatever they damn well like with them. EA want them to be independent, then they stay independent. The minute EA decides that needs to change…blam.
It’s Bioware that I am particularly concerned for: I love their style of story-driven games, and I respect their ‘it’s done when it’s done’ approach to deadlines. Even if EA tries to let them do their own thing, their company cultures just seem to be diametrically opposed. Bioware is known for great treatment of staff, EA has twice been sued by its disgruntled employees. Bioware take the time to polish their releases, EA are famously inflexible on their deadlines. Perhaps most importantly, there seemed to be a genuine sense of excitement at Bioware when they finished Knights of the Old Republic and could begin developing their own intellectual properties. Not any more: their IP’s will belong to EA, who can use them however the hell they like.
It’s hard to imagine that these differences in culture won’t have an impact on moral at Bioware. That, in turn, is going to have an impact on the quality of their output, however much leeway EA tries to give them.
Bioware/Pandemic, I salute your triumphs of the past, and I really do hope that, despite the buyout, you can keep producing great games into the future. But then I also hope that Lost will sort out its horrendous tangle of plot threads and become watchable again, and that Jessica Alba will respond to my marriage proposal.
Hope aside, I’m not holding my breath for any of those three.
The Hair-Pulling Continues
The legal scrap between Epic and Silicone Knights continues, with Epic counter-suing the developers of Too Human on numerous charges including, rather seriously, copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets. But which of them is in the right?
If Silicone Knight’s claims prove to be true, then they really have had suffered some pretty serious harm at Epic’s hands. That is to say, if Epic supplied a faulty engine, late, and sold it on the basis of false information, which they then deliberately hamstrung in order to make Gears of War look good in comparison, then they are guilty of the worst kind of corporate malpractice, and deserve to be punished accordingly.
On the other hand, is it just me that feels that if Epic really had done all that, then there would be far more people than just Silicone Knights kicking up a fuss by now? Instead, we have a solid chunk of our next generation titles being powered by Unreal 3: Bioshock, Mass Effect and Stranglehold to name but a few, and all of their developers, as far as we know, entirely satisfied with the licence.
Perhaps Silicone Knights simply choose the wrong engine for Too Human, or maybe they felt the need to try and explain away last years poor reception at E3. Perhaps they do have a genuine grievance. At the end of the day, though, this lawsuit seems likely to hurt them far more than it will hurt Epic, even should they be successful. They have more than likely cut themselves off from ever again using an engine that has consistently been at the cutting edge of gaming technology, whilst Epic are unlikely to see any shortage of customers beating a path to their beautifully rendered door.
And if they lose, and are successfully counter-sued, then we may well see the premature closure of a creative and talented, if somewhat under appreciated, development house.
