 |
|
 |
 |
Whenever I find myself in a new city alone I like to play a little game with the universe. This game is one that I am quite certain will get me killed some day, and yet it's so much fun that I can't help myself. The game is pretty much the real life version of the one I play online every day.
What is this mysterious game? Is it Pac Man? Nope, somebody else plays real life Pac Man in the streets of New York... Is it Grand Theft Auto? Nope... That's more of a lifestyle than a game, although it could also potentially kill me. No, the game that I play is simply browsing. Just like every now and then I try to get myself completely lost on the internet, when I'm in a new city I try to get lost within it. I will pick a direction and begin walking. Any time something down a side street catches my eye, I change direction. Basically the game is based on exploration, with very few action elements built in.
Last time I played was in Calgary, and that's where I met Paul. Paul seemed like a nice guy who was a bit down on his luck. He asked me for some change to buy himself a hamburger and I decided that I might as well buy him dinner. So Paul and I walked over to the McDonalds and I bought him a two cheeseburger meal. Unfortunately, I couldn't join him, as I'm trying to cut down on foods that make me bleed from the eyeballs. (Okay, McDonalds food doesn't actually make my eyes bleed, but thinking that it does helps me to avoid those juicy delicious burgers.)
Anyway, Paul lives on the street, but he claimed to have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the X-Men. We talked for a bit and I wished I had more time, really. He moved around a lot, he said, but he rarely felt lost because he was guided by his father's spirit. That's the great thing sometimes about reality, it really can be stranger than fiction.
Recently I decided to try doing the same sort of thing on the internet and was pleasantly surprised by some of the great indie gamer sites I was able to find. First and foremost was GameTunnel. How this site has managed to elude me so far is actually a bit of a mystery. Although the site itself just seems to be starting to take off, it does have some good content and some sweet links in there, I highly recommend you go check it out. From the tunnel I linked off to the Indie Gamer Forums. So far from what I can see it seems like the forums have almost zero posts that contain the word SUXOR, so needless to say I'm damned impressed.
It's strange. I remember years ago that you could actually zip around from site to site seeing interesting things just using the "links" section of each site you visited. Now it seems like although everything is interconnected, it is connected in a much more nebulous way. You really have to have a goal in mind to get anywhere, and I find that a little bit sad. Still, I guess it's a small price to pay, we lost useful links, but we did get banner and pop-up ads! So it isn't all bad. Oh wait, it is.
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
Quite some time back I read an article about how the sale of used games can actually hurt the developers of the games. Unfortunately I haven't been able to track down the original article. I know, I know, where's my proof? What kind of a journalist am I? Well, I'm not a journalist, I'm a blogger, which means that I don't need facts, just an opinion and a couple of minutes to fill a web form with BS.
Anyway, the basic principle, as I recall, was this: With the sale of each brand new game, the developer gets a cut. But when that game comes back to the store on a trade-in the store is the only one who profits. With the high turnover rate of games and more and more trade-in offers appearing every day that means that it is often possible to get a game that has been released within the last week or two used for a good price.
More recently I read a blog written by Scott Miller, the owner of 3D Realms. The article discussed how game rentals may also be hurting the bottom line for game developers. I have posted a fairly extensive comment there about the subject, the gist of which is that perhaps game companies could provide the rental stores with trimmed down versions of the games for reduced rates. That would allow the players to get a decent amount of play value for their rental dollar while promoting sales by leaving players wanting more.
As an avid game player, and purchaser, I normally don't do the trade-in thing. Recently, however, I traded in three games to pick up Fire Emblem for my GBA. I also stopped by at the Video Game Trader in Calgary and picked up five PlayStation and Dreamcast games for $30. For six dollars a game I just couldn't resist. Of course, lord only knows if I will ever find time to actually play them, but they are all great games and should have been in my collection before now anyway.
So, I think the bottom line here, the point that I'm trying to get at, is that the video game industry baffles me almost daily. There is't a month that goes by that I don't see an article that claims that the industry is exploding with life and goodness, and then a little down the page will be an article about how yet another game company had crumbled. Obviously there are some major growing pains that need to be resolved, and finding a working business model that takes into account both rentals and used game sales will be very important. If anyone in the industry wants some crazy suggestions, drop me a line, but I can't guarantee that the suggestions will be possible. In fact, I can't even guarantee that the suggestions won't involve robotic fish, I have been known to be somewhat unstable around Halloween.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Well, I'm still on a bit of a flash kick. I had a pretty cool idea a while back that I have just today realized wil never come to fruition. Basically what I had in mind was... Wait a minute, let me just take a second and step back, I might as well start at the beginning.
The beginning of this story, as with so many of my stories, is that I LOVE ROBOTS. Not in a sticky, uncomfortable way that you couldn't discuss with your grandparents in the room... Though I suppose if they made a robot that looked exactly like my fiancee and she were exiled to a third world country, well, lord only knows what could happen with that robot. No, I love robots much in the same way that I love exotic foods, I can consume them, but I wouldn't want to spend the time making them. That's why my idea will never work. It's sort of the same with robots, I like to play with them, but I don't have the patience to build one.
Other people have done some pretty cool things with robots, however. For example, if I did want to build a robot out of my old Palm Pilot, well, that's totally possible. But wait, there's more! What if I wanted to make a robot that I could control with my cell phone? Sure! No Problem.
Of course, what I actually want to do is sort of a mix of all those things. What I want to do is create a small group of robots that could be controlled by a web server, mount a web cam on each of them and then have them be able to turn each other off using an IR pulse, much like the COMBAT DigiQ Tanks sold by MiroIR. Players could then log into a flash site and control the robots. Imagine a game of Command and Conquer played with live bots over the web.
Of course, the ultimate would be if I could set it up so that the bots were cheap enough that I could afford to let people rip apart real bots. Then it would be like a web based reality show crossed with Robot Wars.
Now you see why I abandoned this idea. Not only is it completely impossible for me to do alone (I'm not saying that nobody could do it... Just not me!), but even if I was able to get it all together there's no way I could afford to run it. What I have settled for instead is I have begun working on a RoboForge / Carnage Heart style flash game where you program the AI for a robot and then set it loose against your opponents. Not quite as cool, but it has the advantage of being possible...
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
 |
