“As many people can relate, being laid off is an emotionally distressing experience. When this happened to me, I was determined to turn this toward more positive ends. I began reaching out to others to see if they were interested in starting something brand new, using lessons learned from past experiences.
Denis Dyack was my first choice for Creative, as he has a keen understanding on the creative aspects of game development. It saddens me to read that people’s impressions of him are painted by anonymous accounts of other individuals. I’ve known Denis for 10 years now, and from first hand experience I consider him to be one of the most honourable people I know, and undeserving of the amount of negative accusations he receives.”

“I knew Shawn Jackson’s attention to detail, enthusiasm and experience would really balance our management team as Chief Operating Officer. The rest of the Precursor team is equally talented, and I’m amazed by the results we’ve achieved with our demo. Precursor Games has been built from the ground up to do something new, and we are excited to show and work with you on our first project—‘Shadows of the Eternals’.”

– Precursor Games CEO Paul Caporicci

It sounds like they’re definitely passionate about this project, but I’m still concerned that the likes of Dyack and Caporicci have gotten themselves into a bit of an Epic Mickey, trying to create something behind which there is far too much creative passion and not enough technical understanding. That being said, the company has said that they’re in regular contact with Nintendo about the project, and if anyone has a technical understanding of game design, it’s the Big N!

Via Siliconera

Capcom’s Svesson: “Very polarized opinions” within Capcom regarding cancelled Mega Man FPS

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments

The recently revealed (and recently cancelled) Mega Man FPS Maverick Hunter split the fan community in two. Admittedly, the opinions towards the negative were slightly more prevalent than those towards the positive, but the polarity of the opinions was nevertheless rather extreme, and Capcom’s Christian Svensson said that the thoughts on the game from within the company were also mixed:

“Given the lack of consensus in this thread alone, that should tell you what you needed to know. Suffice to say, there were very polarized opinions internally on this project as well.”

– Capcom USA Senior Vice-President Christian Svensson

Perhaps it’s for the best that the project was cancelled. I know that I certainly wasn’t the biggest fan of the style they chose for it!

Via Siliconera

Suda51 talks about working with publishers, says that the partnership with GungHo should allow sales and creativity to go hand in hand

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News | 0 comments

“Each publisher operates a different way, has different strategic ideas, so in terms of sales, what they did, was they kept creating what they thought was good. But in terms of publishing, it was a different company’s strategic choice. So we believe that back then, when we were completely indie without a group company to be together with, we weren’t able to translate our creative directly into sales because that was the part where there was always a wall between creative and sales transition wise.”

“Now that we’re one big group together and we’ll be publishing our own titles as Grasshopper, we believe that the creative side and the sales side will have a better connection. We definitely believe that it will transfer to good sales because we will be able to choose our own strategy.”

– Suda51

I’ve gotta admit… I’m not exactly sure what Suda is saying here! It’s something relating to publishers getting in the way of creativity, and therefore sales, but it’s also sounding like he’s saying that when you work with a third-party publisher, the creativity no longer translates into sales despite still being there. Ah well. At least he says the partnership with GungHo should allow their creative vision to translate into sales for them!

Via Gamespot

Gearbox says ‘Aliens’ lawsuit claiming false advertising is “beyond meritless”

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News, Wii U | 0 comments

“Attempting to wring a class action lawsuit out of a demonstration is beyond meritless. We continue to support the game, and will defend the rights of entertainers to share their works-in-progress without fear of frivolous litigation.”

– Gearbox Statement

They’re sort of obligated to say this because they’re being sued and they don’t want to lose the case, but I wonder if they have a point. They should definitely be allowed to share a work in progress… but if the work in progress looks so much better than the final product? I don’t know! Maybe, maybe not. I’m not much for legalese.

Via Gamespot

Katie Couric asks for “the positive side” of violent video games via Twitter

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News | 0 comments

So apparently Katie Couric ran an hour-long piece about video games and how they ruin lives and make some people kill people last Monday, which upset some gamers. So Katie decided to rectify the situation by asking gamers what they think the positive aspects of violent games are… via Twitter!

Passionate gamers upset w convo whether violent video games can contribute to v behavior. Tweet the positive side of violent v games? Thanx!
— Katie Couric (@katiecouric) May 3, 2013

She says she’s going to use the replies in an upcoming show, but we don’t know what the show was about. I think we all know by this point that this argument is useless to have. People who run specials about video games being a catalyst for violence but neglect to do the same for some significantly larger contributing factors aren’t people I care much to debate with!

Via Gamespot

NPD survey finds an increase in gaming overall, over half of gamers prefer buying physical media to digital

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

NPD’s yearly “Online Gaming Report” has come out today, detailing for us the many habits of those gamers who play games online, what they’re playing, how much they’re playing, and how they like to play. Here’s the breakdown:

– 72% of gamers in the U.S. play online, up 5% over last year
– Hours-played-per-week is up 9% overall, 6% for online gaming
– People are playing games more often, for longer across “virtually every type of device”
– PC is the top platform for online gaming
– Online gaming through PC is shrinking, while online gaming through mobile devices is growing
– 62% of gamers prefer buying physical games to digital
– Survey questioned 8,867 people ages 2 and older

Via Gamespot

Famicom designer talks about the effect of limited specs on player imaginations

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

It is something often ignored by game designers today: “Bad” graphics can actually be a good thing for a game world, allowing players to stretch their imaginations and feel more involved with the world than they would with every last detailed rendered out for them. In an interview with Shunpure news, Famicom “creator” Masayuki Uemura touched on that sentiment himself:

“With our limited specs, it was a lot of hard work to make a machine with clumsy graphics compared to today’s systems. However, this gave room for the player’s imagination to roam. With the Famicom, each player has their own view of the game’s world, creating a deeper universe.”

– Famicom designer Masayuki Uemura

It’s a sentiment I could not agree with more, and something I’m very sad to see leaving the gaming industry as we move forward. Indie games are, thankfully, bringing the concept back perhaps without even knowing it, but to no longer see a game that feels as atmospheric and imaginative as The Legend of Zelda from a big-name developer will be a sad event indeed.

Via EscapistMagazine

The Guardian (UK newspaper) criticizes violent videos games such as Animal Crossing, Wii Sports, and Mario Party

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

Alas, the headline you read is not a joke. The popular UK newspaper ‘The Guardian’ published an article recently highlighting the games that were the top sellers of 2012 in the UK, and among the likes of Halo 4 and Black Ops 2 (which were brought up to illustrate a point about the content in best-selling games), they also allegedly mentioned some more family-friendly titles from the Big N. Here’s what the article tagged:

Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Mario Kart Wii were tagged as violent for “Comic Mischief”, Just Dance 3, Zumba Fitness, and Gran Turismo 5 were picked on for their “Lyrics”, Mario Party 9 and Kinect Sports were tagged as having “Cartoon Violence”, and Wii Sports was simply tagged with “Violence”. Note that I can’t access the actually article due to it being down for some reason, so all of this information comes from a third party.

I don’t think it’s news to anyone that certain newspapers or online outlets or TV stations don’t know the most about video games, and a lot of them have pretty bad preconceptions about the effects they have on people. No use lambasting them for the millionth time.

Via MCVUK

Iwata talks about the struggle of budgeting HD games, selling full priced titles

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments

This is something that has becoming a huge worry for me regarding Nintendo lately. In recent months it has become increasingly apparent that the Big N vastly underestimated how much more work has to go into HD games compared to what they did on Wii, and as a result we’ve seen their game budgets going up, their games getting delayed, and consequently their Wii U console not selling. It’s somewhat troublesome, but what does Nintendo’s CEO and President have to say about the situation?

“These days it is becoming increasingly challenging to determine the minimum development resources required for customer satisfaction. The point I am trying to get across is that currently it is more challenging to sell packaged software for around $50-$60. It is true that it is becoming increasingly challenging to meet the expectations of consumers who are willing to pay $50-$60 for a game, and it is difficult to break even unless a huge number of units is sold all over the world, so it cannot be denied that software development is becoming more challenging.”

“Among such packaged software, however, the sales of popular games are much larger than in the past. Therefore, if we create more hit games, the software development business can still be very profitable. All games break even if they sell millions of copies worldwide, so we will continue to do our best to develop games which have high sales potential.”

– Nintendo President Satoru Iwata

Sometimes I wish Nintendo would just go back to make games with N64-level tech scaled up to HD instead of worrying about all of this modern mumbo jumbo. The concept that all games have to sell millions and millions of copies to break even is quite troubling, but hopefully Nintendo will continue to develop low-budget games like Sin and Punishment and Punch Out!! alongside the big titles.

Via Gamespot

Square Enix Europe lays off workers due to financial woes

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News | 0 comments

A rough patch in Square Enix’s life as a game developer and publisher doesn’t appear to be ending anytime soon. Today, the Final Fantasy studio has announced their plans to lay off more workers from their European branch, citing a desire to “ensure we have the right structure, content and skills for the changing entertainment landscape”.

No word on exactly how many people will be getting laid off or when it’ll happen, but the statement reads that they’ll keep us updated “when the time is right”.

Via MCVUK