Five Inscrutable Things the Games Industry Still Does in 2019
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/06/19 at 04:31 PM CT
5. Draconian DRM and Treating Customers Like Criminals
It’s the eternal tug-o-war between corporations and customers. No matter how many studies, or sales models, or anything else rooted in facts proves that anti-piracy measures accomplish nothing, and that giving users of digital/electronic products a slick, easy experience with no hoop-jumping required is better for everyone on both sides, corporations still acts like feudal lords or totalitarian dictators. They probably do it because IP rights in the civilized West haven’t been reformed significantly since 1662. Sadly, with the renewed focus on the Chinese “stealing” American ideas, I don’t think any upcoming reforms will actually take things in the right direction.
4. Releasing Licensed Tie-In Trash for Every Kids’ Movie/Show
We have known since at least 1982 that licensed games based on movies, TV shows, and… dog food are untrustworthy, to say the least. Yet even this year, in 2019, we’ve gotten our fair …
Backlog: The Embiggening – October, 2019
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/29/19 at 04:04 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! October is just around the corner, and that means Halloween has already been on the public’s mind for… err… two months. But still, October is the month for scaring the crap out of each other, and the overwhelming number of upcoming releases certainly has me unnerved. Especially due to the continuing trend of shovelware and ports dominating everything. At least both of those categories have something in the that could be considered “good” with the right mindset.
Repetition is one of the keys to learning, so let’s go over it again kiddies: There are three types of shovelware. The cynical tie-in game based on another IP (that is not already a game), the annual release that comes out every year whether it’s needed or not, and the super-casual non-game. October has all three in spades.
For licensed swill, we’ve got a game based on the ‘Ice Age’ movie franchise, even though there isn’t a new one of those coming …
The ONLY 3 Subscriptions Worth a Damn
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/22/19 at 03:17 PM CT
Oh, great. This week Apple Computer announced that they will be adding yet another subscription gaming service to the ever-increasing pile, alongside the likes of Microsoft Gamepass, EA Access, Uplay+, Google Stadia, PlayStation+, and Nintendo’s thing. The sad part is, no matter what each company’s force of deluded fanboys might spout in the feverish midst of their White Knighting and/or shilling, NONE of these subscriptions are actually worth the powder to blow them up. Meanwhile, the gaming community and what remains of the free gaming press have grown decidedly cynical about the whole thing.
And the cynicism is well deserved, as subscription services are increasingly offering little to nothing of value, especially when compared to outright buying digital media licenses. With corporate America expecting consumers to stack subscription upon subscription upon subscription, customers are being bled monthly for alarming amounts of cash, while getting only temporary ephemera in …
Fragmenting Digital Ecosystems Re-Open the Sea Lanes for Pirates
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/15/19 at 03:42 PM CT
When Electronic Arts and Ubisoft launched their respective digital storefronts, launchers, and gaming clients in 2011/2012, they, in essence, created a wedge. When lumberjacks use wedges, it’s to amplify mechanical force and split a single large log into two (or more) smaller portions. Most recently, Epic Games has donned the plaid flannel shirt and stocking cap of legend, shoving their own wedge in with the others and thoroughly beating on it. The result is a heavily-fractured PC gaming ecosystem that requires a separate third-party program to half-assedly pull the splinters back together into something resembling the original log.
Other media has suffered even more severely through these acts of splitting and fragmentation, and are now beginning to reap their just desserts. When Netflix was the only game in town for movie and TV show rentals and/or streaming, everyone used it, everyone loved it, and everyone felt like they were getting their money’s worth out of their ONE …
Vaguely Related: The Hurto Diet
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/08/19 at 04:01 PM CT
MeltedJoystick’s favorite fur-bearing creature, Chris (a.k.a., Hurto, a.k.a., THEdisgruntleddwarf), has been on a low-carb, low-sugar ‘keto’ diet for a few months. On this diet, he must refrain from eating most staple foods, which all contain tons of carbohydrates, including bread, potatoes, and rice. While this, obviously, interferes with our weekly gatherings, as it is now like having a kosher Jew or practicing Hindu in the group, who must avoid certain foods (and thus certain restaurants), the results have been overall positive, with Chris losing a little over 20 pounds of pure grease and looking slightly less spherical.
Of course, any restrictive diet is difficult to stick with after a certain amount of time, and, recently, Chris has hit that threshold, with “cheat days” sneaking in more and more often. Nick continually badgers Chris about this, pointing out that a single cheat day will keep him out of ketosis for upwards of a week. I’m more pragmatic about the …
Review Round-Up: Summer 2019
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/01/19 at 09:51 PM CT
Welcome back to another installment of the MeltedJoystick Review Round-Up. Here’s what our staff has reviewed since last time:
Nelson’s Reviews:
The Summer quarter saw me playing mostly crap. While I did manage to knock the last game off my list of New Year Backlog Ablutions and had a decent time dusting off (and repairing) the old Dreamcast to replay “Armada” with the guys on Local Coop Night, the rest of the Summer wasn’t nearly as pleasant, with two major Indie FAILS and, most recently, a dismal Switch slog that saw another franchise added to my permanent Ignore List.
“Song of the Deep” – 4.5/5
“RiME” – 2.5/5
“Armada” – 4/5
“Jotun” – 2/5
“Far Cry 5” – 4/5
“Xenoblade Chronicles 2” – 2.5/5
Chris’ Reviews:
THE Disgruntled Dwarf is still chipping away at his backlog of games, all in full view of the general public, but was quite disorganized when it came to actually getting reviews done. As such, despite the fact that I …
Backlog: The Embiggening – September, 2019
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/25/19 at 03:57 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! Just in time for the darling little School Shooters to be back in their happy hunting grounds, the videogame industry opens its floodgates and releases a glut of games, which perhaps would have done better in sales if they were released during a time in which the target audience is home all day and perpetually bored. But, alas, as a corporatized industry, gaming is, as ever, slow to change, leaving us with a predictable cycle year after year.
The floodgates have opened, ladies and gentlemen, so man the shovels… actually, it’s not THAT bad for September, as the shovel-ready crap didn’t quite manage to make it to double-digits. There’s “Star Wars Pinball” attempting to cash in on the mobile/console crossover audience, a new VR game based on “The Angry Birds Movie 2” for those with lots of money and no sense (or taste), a Switch (natch) port of “LEGO Jurassic World,” and a ‘Definitive’ compilation of the late …
The 10 “Modern” 2D Games with the Most Striking Visuals
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/18/19 at 04:07 PM CT
For a good long while, there, it looked like 2D games were going to disappear from the world. For roughly a decade between 1996 and 2006, 3D games were all there was, ranging in quality from “crude” to “fairly impressive, actually.” However, with the advent of the 7th Generation, just when the push for ever-more-realistic brown-and-gray 3D environments seemed irresistible, the Indie games movement burst onto the scene with the not-particularly-revelatory declaration that older styles of gameplay and game presentation were still viable and still had an audience.
Since that time, 2D games have come roaring back onto the scene. Unfortunately, in far too many cases, the 2D visuals are mere nostalgia bait, featuring chunky, lo-fi pixel art intended to stoke feelings of warm, fuzzy childhood memories in the withered black hearts of Generation X. While pixel art can be beautiful and eye-catching in its own right, there is no reason for modern developers to limit their 2D assets …
GOG Galaxy 2.0: A Step in a Direction
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/11/19 at 04:28 PM CT
Back at the beginning of Summer 2019, erstwhile MeltedJoystick photo/video-grapher, Matt, despaired to me about digital gaming’s lack of a unifying interface. With the fracturing of one-time monoliths like Steam and Netflix within the digital media market, it is becoming increasingly annoying and expensive for customers to retain access to all of the content they want and to maintain a convenient library of content they’ve already purchased.
During this discussion, Matt mentioned a service called MoviesAnywhere, which allows heavy purchasers of digital movies to corral all of their licenses together in one place, and lamented that there wasn’t a similar service for digital videogames.
I had never heard of MoviesAnywhere, largely because I never buy digital movies. If I’m going to watch a movie, I’ll either rent it on physical media, see it in the theatre, stream it, buy it on physical media and “format shift” it (read: rip it from the disc to a digital file) …
Hello… Gamers?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/04/19 at 03:16 PM CT
Ten months ago, I discussed a report on the local news which revealed that MeltedJoystick’s regional Friendly Local Game Store, Gamers, had gone bankrupt and had its assets liquidated in order to pay its debts, with no forewarning for customers or employees. Anyone with unspent store credit or wages waiting to be paid ended up sucking the short end of the tailpipe.
Perhaps both the local news and I were a bit premature in eulogizing Eastern Nebraska’s and Western Iowa’s primary alternative to GameStop, as this week, one location in Omaha and one location in Lincoln have re-opened, under new management. According to the Gamers website’s About section, the new owner, David Mitchell, was able to obtain all of the late business’s trademarks and reopen a couple of locations.
While this is good news for locals who enjoy the buying and selling of physical games media and hardware, I fear that the new owner may not truly understand why the business he just bought failed in …
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