The history of video game-to-film adaptations is littered with the rotting corpses of productions featuring half-arsed storylines, C-grade casting and a distinctly regrettable absence of directorial vision. The famously appalling German director Uwe Boll has made a living from trotting out cheap and nasty films, which usually make their money back thanks to gamers who are fooled into thinking they are about to re-experience their greatest moments spent with a PlayStation or Xbox on the big screen.
The reality is usually rather different. Movies and video games operate under a completely different set of rules, and quite often the extended non-playable sequences in games which most resemble traditional film narrative are the bits gamers click through in boredom after the first dozen times of viewing. Only the Resident Evil movies have achieved successful franchise status, and only then without any particular degree of critical traction, and largely because zombie films will always have their place in the heart of a certain type of filmgoer.
Macbeth review: Fassbender and Cotillard full of sound and fury in significant Shakespeare adaptation
The Highlands are recast as a glowing outback in this extremely stylish and sometimes inspired new version by the director of Snowtown
Read more
There is a chance, however, that the trend is changing. The upcoming World of Warcraft movie, Warcraft – with the much-buzzed-about director of Moon and Source Code, Duncan Jones, in the hot-seat – has been in development for so long that it is either going to be the greatest fantasy epic since The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, or the worst example of the form since Eragon. We’ll find out in June 2016.
And now comes Michael Fassbender in Assassin’s Creed, based on the hugely popular video game in which players go on missions to take down targets in various exotic locations throughout history, – the first image for which has just hit the web. Fassbender, who plays a character named Callum Lynch not seen in the games, is shown in hooded, lightly armoured garb, his weapons of choice ready to slip from beneath his sleeves to be plunged into the nearest unfortunate public figure or political rival.
Assassin’s Creed was something of a successor to video game manufacturer Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia series, which filmgoers may remember from the ill-fated 2010 big screen adaptation, which was rubbish despite starring decent actors Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Kingsley and Gemma Arterton, and featuring direction from no less a figure than Mike Newell. So in a way, we have been here before.
But perhaps, with Fassbender on board as a co-producer, we’re entitled to hold out a little hope for Assassin’s Creed. The Irishman isn’t known for taking on duds, and has brought his Macbeth team of director Justin Kurzel and co-star Marion Cotillard along for the ride. Kurzel, the Australian film-maker who also gave us 2011’s harrowing Snowtown, is working from a screenplay by Exodus: Gods and Kings’ Bill Collage and Adam Cooper, with Macbeth’s Michael Lesslie. The supporting cast looks good too, with Boardwalk Empire’s Michael K Williams the key player.
Lynch, like his video game predecessors, is believed to be a modern day man who is able to experience the adventures of his ancestors, in this case those living in 15th-century Spain during the famous religious Inquisition. As well as playing his ancestor, Aguilar, the storyline will see Fassbender, with all new martial arts skills picked up from his time spent rampaging through the past, taking on the nefarious Knights Templar in the 21st century.
Monday, August 31, 2015
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Amazon Underground aims to make Android apps and games 'actually free'
In-app purchases may have become the dominant way for developers to make money from charging for their apps, but Amazon’s new app takes a sledgehammer to the model.
Well, in a sense. Amazon Underground is an app for Android smartphones that offers a catalogue of apps and games with their in-app purchases all reduced to zero. Users can still “buy” virtual currency and items, but Amazon will pay for them – touting an “actually free” slogan.
“We’ve made this possible by working out a new business model with app and game developers: we’re paying them a certain amount on a per-minute played basis in exchange for them waiving their normal in-app fees,” explained the company in a letter to customers, introducing Underground.
In developer documentation for the new app, Amazon said that developers will be paid $0.002 per minute of usage – a figure that translates to £0.0013 in the UK and €0.0018 in Germany and France.
The company has published a “revenue forecasting calculator” for developers to work out how much their existing Android app might make under the system, based on how much it was used and how much it earned in the past month.
Among the games offered within the app are Fruit Ninja, Star Wars Rebels: Recon Missions, Angry Birds Slingshot Stella, Jetpack Joyride and Goat Simulator, while the apps include OfficeSuite Professional 8.
Users will have to download the app directly from Amazon, as the rules of Android’s official Google Play store prohibit alternative app stores from being distributed within it.
Trouble at the mill threatens Jeff Bezos and Amazon's reputation
Larry Elliott Economics editor
Read more
Amazon has clearly been thinking about potential loopholes in its new system. For example, it has told developers that “anti-virus or clock apps that run continuously in the background” will not be suitable for the initiative, and neither will “apps that support passive streaming content” like music or video.
The company also says that it will show advertising when apps first launch, and sometimes when they are launched or resumed by a user.
Amazon Underground may be limited to four countries for now, but it is a significant tilt at freemium, which has become the dominant way for developers to make money from charging for their apps.
Well, in a sense. Amazon Underground is an app for Android smartphones that offers a catalogue of apps and games with their in-app purchases all reduced to zero. Users can still “buy” virtual currency and items, but Amazon will pay for them – touting an “actually free” slogan.
“We’ve made this possible by working out a new business model with app and game developers: we’re paying them a certain amount on a per-minute played basis in exchange for them waiving their normal in-app fees,” explained the company in a letter to customers, introducing Underground.
In developer documentation for the new app, Amazon said that developers will be paid $0.002 per minute of usage – a figure that translates to £0.0013 in the UK and €0.0018 in Germany and France.
The company has published a “revenue forecasting calculator” for developers to work out how much their existing Android app might make under the system, based on how much it was used and how much it earned in the past month.
Among the games offered within the app are Fruit Ninja, Star Wars Rebels: Recon Missions, Angry Birds Slingshot Stella, Jetpack Joyride and Goat Simulator, while the apps include OfficeSuite Professional 8.
Users will have to download the app directly from Amazon, as the rules of Android’s official Google Play store prohibit alternative app stores from being distributed within it.
Trouble at the mill threatens Jeff Bezos and Amazon's reputation
Larry Elliott Economics editor
Read more
Amazon has clearly been thinking about potential loopholes in its new system. For example, it has told developers that “anti-virus or clock apps that run continuously in the background” will not be suitable for the initiative, and neither will “apps that support passive streaming content” like music or video.
The company also says that it will show advertising when apps first launch, and sometimes when they are launched or resumed by a user.
Amazon Underground may be limited to four countries for now, but it is a significant tilt at freemium, which has become the dominant way for developers to make money from charging for their apps.
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Tracking mobile games millionaires: downloads peak early, revenues later
Angry Birds maker Rovio’s decision to lay off 38% of its staff is the latest reminder that the mobile games industry can be a brutally unforgiving industry, even if the £865m spent by players on Candy Crush Saga in 2014 shows that the rewards for success can be huge.
Now new research from mobile analytics firm App Annie has shed more light on the path to success for successful mobile games, including the claim that while their downloads tend to peak soon after launch, their revenues peak much later.
The company analysed nearly 20,000 mobile games on Apple’s iOS App Store and Android’s Google Play store, tracking their downloads and revenues over the five years to June 2015.
Its report claims that around 30-35% of those games reached more than 1m downloads, while 15% of those reached 10m downloads. Meanwhile, 10-15% of the games generated more than $1m of revenues, while 20% of those went on to gross $10m.
Those calculations should not be applied to the wider app stores: App Annie chose its sample from “top-performing apps”, so its findings do not prove that 2% of all iOS and Android games make more than $10m.
The research does provide more information on how those successful games build their businesses, though. Of the iOS games that reached 1m downloads, 33% did so in their first month, with a median time of 98 days to reach that milestone.
It took longer to reach $1m in revenues: a median of 156 days for the iOS games. On Google Play, the median time to reach 1m downloads was 69 days, while for $1m of revenues it was 159 days.
“It appears that successful iOS games peaked early by downloads but grew daily revenue over time as accumulated downloads contributed to the size of a game’s active user base,” claims App Annie. “Since 2012, the pattern was largely similar on Google Play.”
The report also identified the huge lifespan of some of the most lucrative mobile games. Japanese game Puzzle & Dragons, for example, spent more than 1,200 days as one of the five top-grossing iOS games worldwide, and more than 1,000 days in a similar position on Google Play.
“In comparison, blockbuster movies like Titanic and Avatar remained Top 5 grossing movies for <150 days and <100 days, respectively,” claims the report.
While comparisons between apps and movie takings seem to be all the rage in 2015, they are often a case of apples and oranges. While films are finished products designed to make money from several stages of formats and release windows – cinema, DVD, video-on-demand and so on – successful mobile games are designed to be played every day, with new features and content added regularly.
Now new research from mobile analytics firm App Annie has shed more light on the path to success for successful mobile games, including the claim that while their downloads tend to peak soon after launch, their revenues peak much later.
The company analysed nearly 20,000 mobile games on Apple’s iOS App Store and Android’s Google Play store, tracking their downloads and revenues over the five years to June 2015.
Its report claims that around 30-35% of those games reached more than 1m downloads, while 15% of those reached 10m downloads. Meanwhile, 10-15% of the games generated more than $1m of revenues, while 20% of those went on to gross $10m.
Those calculations should not be applied to the wider app stores: App Annie chose its sample from “top-performing apps”, so its findings do not prove that 2% of all iOS and Android games make more than $10m.
The research does provide more information on how those successful games build their businesses, though. Of the iOS games that reached 1m downloads, 33% did so in their first month, with a median time of 98 days to reach that milestone.
It took longer to reach $1m in revenues: a median of 156 days for the iOS games. On Google Play, the median time to reach 1m downloads was 69 days, while for $1m of revenues it was 159 days.
“It appears that successful iOS games peaked early by downloads but grew daily revenue over time as accumulated downloads contributed to the size of a game’s active user base,” claims App Annie. “Since 2012, the pattern was largely similar on Google Play.”
The report also identified the huge lifespan of some of the most lucrative mobile games. Japanese game Puzzle & Dragons, for example, spent more than 1,200 days as one of the five top-grossing iOS games worldwide, and more than 1,000 days in a similar position on Google Play.
“In comparison, blockbuster movies like Titanic and Avatar remained Top 5 grossing movies for <150 days and <100 days, respectively,” claims the report.
While comparisons between apps and movie takings seem to be all the rage in 2015, they are often a case of apples and oranges. While films are finished products designed to make money from several stages of formats and release windows – cinema, DVD, video-on-demand and so on – successful mobile games are designed to be played every day, with new features and content added regularly.
Friday, August 28, 2015
The Megadrive megamix – how classic videogame soundtracks went from background noise to cratedigger gold
Digital composers of the 1990s pushed the console tech far beyond its natural limits to produce warped symphonies that are buried deep in the minds of millions. Now specialist labels are reissuing them on vinyl
In an age when even the most obscure subculture is within easy reach, a passion for music can become tinged with one-upmanship. “Have you heard these Levantine recordings from 1906?” “S’OK. I’m more into this Tuareg reimagining of Purple Rain.”
The feverish cratedigging is compounded with the trend for luxurious vinyl releases, to the point where your mantelpiece can end up stuffed with cloth-bound 10-LP boxes of even the most marginal synth-botherer, and your kids are asking why you can’t afford their uni fees.
Now, a new frontier is opening up for the fetishists: videogame soundtracks. These are being brought out of hiding, lovingly remastered, pressed on to vinyl, and packaged with all the foil-blocked majesty of the finest LP reissues. Once, the videogame soundtrack occupied a stratum of cultural respectability alongside Hornby train sets, war re-enactments and scale models of manga schoolgirl characters – a slightly weird object for completists and inveterate nerds. Now, they’re making a bid to be treated as high art.
“People assume this music was tacked on and there’s no effort – but what the composers achieved with the hardware is phenomenal,” says Jamie Crook, founder of the all-vinyl videogame soundtrack label, Data Discs. “They’re awesome records in their own right [but] only a small percentage of them; the vast majority are quite generic. But some are just … wow. And they were reaching millions and millions of people in their living rooms, for hours and hours on end – these Japanese composers probably reached more people with their music than anyone at any other time in history.”
His first release is 1991’s Streets of Rage, the sideways-scrolling Sega Genesis beat-’em-up. “It would have been the first dance record anyone heard when they were a kid – they didn’t realise it at the time, but when it’s on rotation in your living room for months on end, it buries itself in your subconscious,” says Crook. “And years later you realise: ‘Wow, I was listening to a weird house record every day, repeatedly, when I was seven or eight.’”
These Japanese composers probably reached more people with their music than anyone at any other time in historyJamie Crook, Data Discs founder
The music is indeed awesome: gorgeously thin tones imitating Chicago house pianos, Europop synths and hip-hop breakbeats. Its composer, Yuzo Koshiro, says his biggest influences were stadium-ambient troupe Engima and jam-pumpers Technotronic, and that he was deliberately facing west.
“Sega’s releases were hit after hit in the US and UK, so my objective was to appeal to those two countries,” he says. “I knew that the Japanese audience at the time wouldn’t relate, which they didn’t, but I pursued what I did regardless – I suspect that my hopes and struggles were reflected in the sound.”
For Streets of Rage 3, he went further, creating a programme that self-composed the music as the game was played. “My primary influence then was hard techno, which was extremely popular. I wanted to create as unique a sound as possible – something extraordinary – and I felt that it was critical to create an automated composing programme.” Its fans include today’s electronic production elite, such as Flying Lotus, Just Blaze and Fatima al-Qadiri.
Equally good, but even more primitive, is the fiendishly difficult 1991 NES game Battletoads, whose soundtrack is getting a vinyl pressing this month from LA company iam8bit. It’s a menacing collection of tracks built from next to nothing.
“The NES was like a glorified doorbell,” says Battletoads’ composer David Wise. “There were three musical channels, plus a noise channel. You really were going back down to the basic waveforms to get sounds – it was very technical and very difficult.”
Wise would compose by trial and error, inputting code and playing it back to see what it would sound like. “I listened to a lot of Van Halen at the time, Vince Clark, Howard Jones, Depeche Mode, Europe … all of those were mixed in.”
“You could hear the ambition behind it,” says Jon M Gibson, co-head of iam8bit. “It seems like with Battletoads, they cared a little more.” Marco Guardia, a sound engineer at videogame soundtrack label Brave Wave, similarly reveres the Battletoads era. “It was abstracted from anything that you could think of as real instruments – it’s the purest and most interesting videogame sound to me,” he says.
But why would you stick it on in your living room or headphones, without playing the game? “There’s definitely a nostalgic quality, and nostalgia is a powerful, magical force that can overtake you, but then, there are also people who simply love and appreciate the music on its own,” Gibson says.
“It’s much like a great vacation – you get memories from games. Dungeons, bosses – there are these musical themes that stick in your head. You crave that sensation again, and while you could replay the game, the music can bring it back to life – even if you’re sitting in your office.”
Crook, however, is more resistant to wallowing in the past – “the danger is that it’s typecast as some nostalgia-based hipster thing” – while Wise doesn’t understand it at all. “It was part of the game – why would you want to take it out of the game and listen to it on its own?” he wonders. “I can understand why someone would want to do it. Me, I just hear all the things I would change – it’s not a relaxing thing to listen back to it. It’s always unfinished, really.” And Guardia admits that even diehard fans draw the line at some point: “You probably wouldn’t listen to a Game Over melody of a character dying, over and over again.”
For Brave Wave, vinyl reissues are a way of glorifying the often-forgotten composers.
In an age when even the most obscure subculture is within easy reach, a passion for music can become tinged with one-upmanship. “Have you heard these Levantine recordings from 1906?” “S’OK. I’m more into this Tuareg reimagining of Purple Rain.”
The feverish cratedigging is compounded with the trend for luxurious vinyl releases, to the point where your mantelpiece can end up stuffed with cloth-bound 10-LP boxes of even the most marginal synth-botherer, and your kids are asking why you can’t afford their uni fees.
Now, a new frontier is opening up for the fetishists: videogame soundtracks. These are being brought out of hiding, lovingly remastered, pressed on to vinyl, and packaged with all the foil-blocked majesty of the finest LP reissues. Once, the videogame soundtrack occupied a stratum of cultural respectability alongside Hornby train sets, war re-enactments and scale models of manga schoolgirl characters – a slightly weird object for completists and inveterate nerds. Now, they’re making a bid to be treated as high art.
“People assume this music was tacked on and there’s no effort – but what the composers achieved with the hardware is phenomenal,” says Jamie Crook, founder of the all-vinyl videogame soundtrack label, Data Discs. “They’re awesome records in their own right [but] only a small percentage of them; the vast majority are quite generic. But some are just … wow. And they were reaching millions and millions of people in their living rooms, for hours and hours on end – these Japanese composers probably reached more people with their music than anyone at any other time in history.”
His first release is 1991’s Streets of Rage, the sideways-scrolling Sega Genesis beat-’em-up. “It would have been the first dance record anyone heard when they were a kid – they didn’t realise it at the time, but when it’s on rotation in your living room for months on end, it buries itself in your subconscious,” says Crook. “And years later you realise: ‘Wow, I was listening to a weird house record every day, repeatedly, when I was seven or eight.’”
These Japanese composers probably reached more people with their music than anyone at any other time in historyJamie Crook, Data Discs founder
The music is indeed awesome: gorgeously thin tones imitating Chicago house pianos, Europop synths and hip-hop breakbeats. Its composer, Yuzo Koshiro, says his biggest influences were stadium-ambient troupe Engima and jam-pumpers Technotronic, and that he was deliberately facing west.
“Sega’s releases were hit after hit in the US and UK, so my objective was to appeal to those two countries,” he says. “I knew that the Japanese audience at the time wouldn’t relate, which they didn’t, but I pursued what I did regardless – I suspect that my hopes and struggles were reflected in the sound.”
For Streets of Rage 3, he went further, creating a programme that self-composed the music as the game was played. “My primary influence then was hard techno, which was extremely popular. I wanted to create as unique a sound as possible – something extraordinary – and I felt that it was critical to create an automated composing programme.” Its fans include today’s electronic production elite, such as Flying Lotus, Just Blaze and Fatima al-Qadiri.
Equally good, but even more primitive, is the fiendishly difficult 1991 NES game Battletoads, whose soundtrack is getting a vinyl pressing this month from LA company iam8bit. It’s a menacing collection of tracks built from next to nothing.
“The NES was like a glorified doorbell,” says Battletoads’ composer David Wise. “There were three musical channels, plus a noise channel. You really were going back down to the basic waveforms to get sounds – it was very technical and very difficult.”
Wise would compose by trial and error, inputting code and playing it back to see what it would sound like. “I listened to a lot of Van Halen at the time, Vince Clark, Howard Jones, Depeche Mode, Europe … all of those were mixed in.”
“You could hear the ambition behind it,” says Jon M Gibson, co-head of iam8bit. “It seems like with Battletoads, they cared a little more.” Marco Guardia, a sound engineer at videogame soundtrack label Brave Wave, similarly reveres the Battletoads era. “It was abstracted from anything that you could think of as real instruments – it’s the purest and most interesting videogame sound to me,” he says.
But why would you stick it on in your living room or headphones, without playing the game? “There’s definitely a nostalgic quality, and nostalgia is a powerful, magical force that can overtake you, but then, there are also people who simply love and appreciate the music on its own,” Gibson says.
“It’s much like a great vacation – you get memories from games. Dungeons, bosses – there are these musical themes that stick in your head. You crave that sensation again, and while you could replay the game, the music can bring it back to life – even if you’re sitting in your office.”
Crook, however, is more resistant to wallowing in the past – “the danger is that it’s typecast as some nostalgia-based hipster thing” – while Wise doesn’t understand it at all. “It was part of the game – why would you want to take it out of the game and listen to it on its own?” he wonders. “I can understand why someone would want to do it. Me, I just hear all the things I would change – it’s not a relaxing thing to listen back to it. It’s always unfinished, really.” And Guardia admits that even diehard fans draw the line at some point: “You probably wouldn’t listen to a Game Over melody of a character dying, over and over again.”
For Brave Wave, vinyl reissues are a way of glorifying the often-forgotten composers.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Games reviews round-up: God of War 3 Remastered; Rare Replay; King’s Quest
God of War III Remastered
PS4, Sony, cert: 18
Has vengeance ever looked so good? God of War III is all about scale and spectacle, opening with the towering titans laying siege to Mount Olympus and going on from there. Kratos, the gore-slicked Spartan warrior, rips his way through a menagerie of mythological monsters in a quest to take revenge on Zeus, king of the gods. Kratos is an unpleasant figure, brutal and totally amoral, and his quest seems to do more harm than good. You might wonder who to root for.
The 2010 original was a real jaw-dropper, maybe the best-looking title of the generation, but this upscaling is patchy. Most work seems to have gone on Kratos himself, adding a shining and smooth quality to his skin. Other areas look to have been missed, leaving several characters looking strange and plastic. Controls feel a little slower, slightly mis-translated, though the combat’s core is still solid and visceral. But without any new content, this might be a better title for those who haven’t played the original. PH
Rare Replay
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Xbox One, Microsoft, cert: 16
A UK development institution that is responsible for some of the greatest games ever produced, Rare is quite rightly receiving a much-deserved career retrospective in this outstanding package. Thirty of its games are given a new lease of life here on Xbox One as a celebration of the studio’s 30th birthday.
Replay boasts some remarkable and varied titles, such as inventive shooterPerfect Dark, ludicrously funny Conker’s Bad Fur Day, the tricky Battletoads, andBanjo Kazooie, the closest any game has come to aping Super Mario. But beyond the classics, there are some forgotten gems, too, such as Jet Force Gemini, Viva Piñata and Blast Corps. As an extra treat for fans, there’s also a challenge mode featuring scenes from classic Rare games, alongside documentaries and even some footage and artwork from cancelled games.
There are notable absentees. Two of Rare’s best games, Donkey Kong Country andGoldenEye 007, are missing for licensing reasons; but despite this, for £20, it’s hard to imagine any package as generous, charming and enticing as this beautifully constructed box set. CD
PS4, Sony, cert: 18
Has vengeance ever looked so good? God of War III is all about scale and spectacle, opening with the towering titans laying siege to Mount Olympus and going on from there. Kratos, the gore-slicked Spartan warrior, rips his way through a menagerie of mythological monsters in a quest to take revenge on Zeus, king of the gods. Kratos is an unpleasant figure, brutal and totally amoral, and his quest seems to do more harm than good. You might wonder who to root for.
The 2010 original was a real jaw-dropper, maybe the best-looking title of the generation, but this upscaling is patchy. Most work seems to have gone on Kratos himself, adding a shining and smooth quality to his skin. Other areas look to have been missed, leaving several characters looking strange and plastic. Controls feel a little slower, slightly mis-translated, though the combat’s core is still solid and visceral. But without any new content, this might be a better title for those who haven’t played the original. PH
Rare Replay
Advertisement
Xbox One, Microsoft, cert: 16
A UK development institution that is responsible for some of the greatest games ever produced, Rare is quite rightly receiving a much-deserved career retrospective in this outstanding package. Thirty of its games are given a new lease of life here on Xbox One as a celebration of the studio’s 30th birthday.
Replay boasts some remarkable and varied titles, such as inventive shooterPerfect Dark, ludicrously funny Conker’s Bad Fur Day, the tricky Battletoads, andBanjo Kazooie, the closest any game has come to aping Super Mario. But beyond the classics, there are some forgotten gems, too, such as Jet Force Gemini, Viva Piñata and Blast Corps. As an extra treat for fans, there’s also a challenge mode featuring scenes from classic Rare games, alongside documentaries and even some footage and artwork from cancelled games.
There are notable absentees. Two of Rare’s best games, Donkey Kong Country andGoldenEye 007, are missing for licensing reasons; but despite this, for £20, it’s hard to imagine any package as generous, charming and enticing as this beautifully constructed box set. CD
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Let's throw the dice: what video games can learn from board games
Two years ago, when I left video games criticism to work full-time in table top games, a lot of people, my mum chief among them, were startled.
These days, it’s easy to explain. Board game cafes are springing up all over the world, and investors are pouring millions into the industry.
But I didn’t have this evidence two years ago. I was working on my instinct that these games were just as interesting as video games, and it seemed board games and card games represented an absurdly thick seam of ideas. The money might still be in video games, but there’s huge success waiting for the digital designers who implement those ideas first.
Digital card game Hearthstone already makes more money than World of Warcraft, and it has managed that success while really just being a beautifully presented stop-gap before video games get a truly strong card game.
So what are the biggest ideas in contemporary board gaming that video games have yet to pick up on?
Whether you’re figuring out who on your ship is a Cylon in the Battlestar Galactica game, or just earnestly telling your friends that you won’t invade them (you promise!) in A Game of Thrones, modern board games often offer an interesting social dynamic on top of their puzzle. Maybe to win you need to coerce two other players into fighting. Or you can swap who is on whose team halfway through. Or you can win by correctly guessing who will win, and on what turn, and then engineering it.
These days, it’s easy to explain. Board game cafes are springing up all over the world, and investors are pouring millions into the industry.
But I didn’t have this evidence two years ago. I was working on my instinct that these games were just as interesting as video games, and it seemed board games and card games represented an absurdly thick seam of ideas. The money might still be in video games, but there’s huge success waiting for the digital designers who implement those ideas first.
Digital card game Hearthstone already makes more money than World of Warcraft, and it has managed that success while really just being a beautifully presented stop-gap before video games get a truly strong card game.
So what are the biggest ideas in contemporary board gaming that video games have yet to pick up on?
Whether you’re figuring out who on your ship is a Cylon in the Battlestar Galactica game, or just earnestly telling your friends that you won’t invade them (you promise!) in A Game of Thrones, modern board games often offer an interesting social dynamic on top of their puzzle. Maybe to win you need to coerce two other players into fighting. Or you can swap who is on whose team halfway through. Or you can win by correctly guessing who will win, and on what turn, and then engineering it.
Monday, August 24, 2015
Pokémon world championships: two arrested after firearms found in car
Boston police have arrested two men heading to the Pokémon world championships after firearms and several hundred rounds of ammunition were allegedly found in their car.
The men were originally suspected of making violent social media threats to people attending the gaming event in Boston. Security at the convention reported the threats on Thursday and the suspects were stopped as they were about to enter the gaming event hours later, Boston police said.
Police said a warranted search of the car on Friday found a 12-gauge shotgun, an AR-15 rifle, several hundred rounds of ammunition, and a hunting knife. Police said 18-year-old Kevin Norton, of Ames, and 27-year-old James Stumbo, of Boone, were arrested at their hotel in Saugus, north of Boston.
The men were originally suspected of making violent social media threats to people attending the gaming event in Boston. Security at the convention reported the threats on Thursday and the suspects were stopped as they were about to enter the gaming event hours later, Boston police said.
Police said a warranted search of the car on Friday found a 12-gauge shotgun, an AR-15 rifle, several hundred rounds of ammunition, and a hunting knife. Police said 18-year-old Kevin Norton, of Ames, and 27-year-old James Stumbo, of Boone, were arrested at their hotel in Saugus, north of Boston.
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Pixels review – game over for Adam Sandler (again)
Run as fast as you can from this sci-fi comedy about arcade-game addicts who must defend Earth against space invaders
After the awful Cobbler, Adam Sandler has defaulted to give-’em-what-they-want nostalgia: arcade-game addicts roused from schlubby middle age to take on space invaders who are zapping Earth into shiny, Capcom-like blocks. The latter creates an oddly pleasing effect, but it is the only one in a film that shills pop culture references and sexual politics – from Sandler’s relentless negging of Michelle Monaghan to the state-sanctioned pimping out of Serena Williams.
After the awful Cobbler, Adam Sandler has defaulted to give-’em-what-they-want nostalgia: arcade-game addicts roused from schlubby middle age to take on space invaders who are zapping Earth into shiny, Capcom-like blocks. The latter creates an oddly pleasing effect, but it is the only one in a film that shills pop culture references and sexual politics – from Sandler’s relentless negging of Michelle Monaghan to the state-sanctioned pimping out of Serena Williams.
Saturday, August 22, 2015
A moment that changed me – Gamergate
As a woman working in the male-dominated gaming industry, I realised that sexism is still rife. And it’s not just the trolls who are to blame
The terrible one-year anniversary of Gamergate is nearly here, and the women that make your games are war-weary, exhausted by a cultural battle that we never asked for. We are professionals trying to do our job, screamed at by children who don’t want girls in their clubhouse.
Elizabeth Sampat is one of these professionals. She’s a game designer at PopCap, one of the most successful studios in the world. In the aftermath of Gamergate, she’s struggling with an ethical dilemma. She’s uncomfortable asking girls to enter the game industry, knowing the abuse they will inevitably face. “I will no longer participate in encouraging young women and girls to become game industry professionals,” wrote Sampat in a popular Facebook post. “I will continue to fight tooth and nail for every woman who is currently here. But until the industry and gaming culture improves, it’s unethical.”
I understand where Sampat is coming from. Someone just emailed me their fantasy about mutilating my genitals, and murdering me by slicing my body in half. It’s something they clearly spent a lot of time writing. Reading it, I should probably feel something – fear, anger or even exhaustion. But these threats have happened so often, I just feel nothing. How could you support anyone’s daughter entering this environment?
What does this kind of abuse mean for women like myself that work in the industry? Well, it’s like the zombie apocalypse all day every day, but one hosted on social media and comment platforms. Imagining themselves as noble warriors and not angry misogynists, they bang on the doors and windows, moaning about the Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) that have taken over their video games. Inevitably, when this is published, the comments below this article will follow the same pattern.
This online warfare is the only weapon those involved in Gamergate have, because they can’t compete with their sexist ideas and incoherent philosophy. Their battle to scrub their Wikipedia entry exemplifies this, as they seek to whitewash the Gamergate page of its sexist roots while attempting to delete, edit, and vandalise my page and those of other high-profile women. You know you’ve lost when your only resort is a comment section.
And yet, Gamergate isn’t the real problem facing women in games. In software engineering, we have the term “technical debt”. When you don’t do a job correctly, unaddressed problems become harder and harder to solve. The videogame industry has massive “sexism debt”, interest accrued for problems unaddressed for the last 30 years.
The battle is shifting from Gamergate to the wider issues facing women in tech, the sexism debt that must be addressed
Gamergate isn’t the problem – it’s a symptom of an industry that is deeply sexist and unable to understand it.
One of the strangest events of the last year was having a Law and Order episodemade about Gamergate. The main character is a fictional composite of Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn and me. “Women in gaming. What did I expect?” she says darkly, just before she quits the industry.
I think of that scene every day. Just what did I expect, standing up to Gamergate and trying to raise awareness of gamedev’s inclusivity problem? A warm welcome? I got into the game industry to make games, not to be a feminist critic. My biggest fear is that in five years, I might still be talking about my gender and not the games I make. Recently, I spent an entire day reporting 17 separate death threats. The week before, my private number was shared online – a form of internet abuse known as doxing – and someone called my phone while masturbating. I just hung up and went back to work. I try to find the dark humour where I can.
The terrible one-year anniversary of Gamergate is nearly here, and the women that make your games are war-weary, exhausted by a cultural battle that we never asked for. We are professionals trying to do our job, screamed at by children who don’t want girls in their clubhouse.
Elizabeth Sampat is one of these professionals. She’s a game designer at PopCap, one of the most successful studios in the world. In the aftermath of Gamergate, she’s struggling with an ethical dilemma. She’s uncomfortable asking girls to enter the game industry, knowing the abuse they will inevitably face. “I will no longer participate in encouraging young women and girls to become game industry professionals,” wrote Sampat in a popular Facebook post. “I will continue to fight tooth and nail for every woman who is currently here. But until the industry and gaming culture improves, it’s unethical.”
I understand where Sampat is coming from. Someone just emailed me their fantasy about mutilating my genitals, and murdering me by slicing my body in half. It’s something they clearly spent a lot of time writing. Reading it, I should probably feel something – fear, anger or even exhaustion. But these threats have happened so often, I just feel nothing. How could you support anyone’s daughter entering this environment?
What does this kind of abuse mean for women like myself that work in the industry? Well, it’s like the zombie apocalypse all day every day, but one hosted on social media and comment platforms. Imagining themselves as noble warriors and not angry misogynists, they bang on the doors and windows, moaning about the Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) that have taken over their video games. Inevitably, when this is published, the comments below this article will follow the same pattern.
This online warfare is the only weapon those involved in Gamergate have, because they can’t compete with their sexist ideas and incoherent philosophy. Their battle to scrub their Wikipedia entry exemplifies this, as they seek to whitewash the Gamergate page of its sexist roots while attempting to delete, edit, and vandalise my page and those of other high-profile women. You know you’ve lost when your only resort is a comment section.
And yet, Gamergate isn’t the real problem facing women in games. In software engineering, we have the term “technical debt”. When you don’t do a job correctly, unaddressed problems become harder and harder to solve. The videogame industry has massive “sexism debt”, interest accrued for problems unaddressed for the last 30 years.
The battle is shifting from Gamergate to the wider issues facing women in tech, the sexism debt that must be addressed
Gamergate isn’t the problem – it’s a symptom of an industry that is deeply sexist and unable to understand it.
One of the strangest events of the last year was having a Law and Order episodemade about Gamergate. The main character is a fictional composite of Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn and me. “Women in gaming. What did I expect?” she says darkly, just before she quits the industry.
I think of that scene every day. Just what did I expect, standing up to Gamergate and trying to raise awareness of gamedev’s inclusivity problem? A warm welcome? I got into the game industry to make games, not to be a feminist critic. My biggest fear is that in five years, I might still be talking about my gender and not the games I make. Recently, I spent an entire day reporting 17 separate death threats. The week before, my private number was shared online – a form of internet abuse known as doxing – and someone called my phone while masturbating. I just hung up and went back to work. I try to find the dark humour where I can.
Friday, August 21, 2015
Hitman: Agent 47 review – an idiotic mess with gory flair
The story is baffling, the characters disappointing and the twists anticlimactic, but this video game adaptation has violent energy
There’s probably a more effective way of killing people, but extending both arms perpendicular to your chest as you spin and shoot handguns is certainly a photogenic method. With any luck, your long coat will billow, adding the right touch of panache. The emotionless assassin played by Rupert Friend at the heart of Aleksander Bach’s Hitman: Agent 47 uses this move a number of times, like a dancer proudly pirouetting or a jazz drummer returning to a specific fill he’s perfected.
This vaguely science-fiction action picture based on a video game (and not a sequel to 2007’s Hitman) is an idiotic mess with a bafflingly dense prologue, an endless final battle, lifeless performances and anticlimactic twists, but it does have a degree of visual flair. When the characters finally shut up and get to shooting, one must give credit to the creativity of the kills. Heads pop like ripe grapes, bodies flail as they are sucked into jet engines and arteries spray all over white staircases. While there’s zero to recommend about this film regarding its story or dialogue, it’s worth appreciating that it all seems very well rehearsed.
Katia Van Dees (Hannah Ware) is in Berlin, but she and everyone else speak English for some reason. She is troubled by visions and is trying desperately to find a mysterious man who haunts her memory. On her trail is Agent 47, a brutal force of death with a barcode on his shaved head. He’s part of a sinister programme of enhanced killers started by Van Dees’s father, and if he can get to her, maybe he can get to the mastermind, currently in hiding. Protecting Van Dees is John Smith, another agent, played by Zachary Quinto and his very intense eyebrows.
But does Van Dees need protecting? Of course not. For you see, she is actually the “chosen one”, the super agent who was, without her knowledge, bred to be the best of them all. (Her name isn’t really Katia van Dees, but Quatre Vingt Dix: Agent 90! That’s 43 better than the guy who’s trying to kill her!) She is able to use clairvoyant powers to see though walls and wriggle out of elaborate knots like Harry Houdini by way of Nadia Comăneci. And while you might be fooled into thinking this could lead to a badass female character in the vein of Scarlett Johansson in Lucy or Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road, this is, unfortunately, not the case. Van Dees basically goes from clinging from one man to the other as they race to find her father.
The specifics of the chase are extremely unclear. The film opens with exposition-heavy narration that’s the cinematic equivalent of a drug commercial reading potential side-effects. I’d have an easier time explaining the ins and outs of the current crisis in Yemen than getting to the bottom of who the Syndicate are and what they want. Suffice it to say there’s an ultra-baddie named Le Clerq (Thomas Kretschmann) who spends all day in an all-white room surrounded by glass and cool light-up screens. It’s like he’s living inside a smartphone. Maybe he’s actually Siri, who knows? All I can say is that the technology in this movie looks really cool, but it’s frustrating. No one’s phones, tablets or computer screens look like anything from the real world and everyone always gets a signal. People are racing around talking to one another on mobiles with tiny earpieces nowhere near their mouths and everything sounds clear with nary a dropped signal. It’s infuriating. And, more to the point, with a movie this fundamentally uninteresting, there’s plenty of room to sit in the audience and muse on such issues.
There’s probably a more effective way of killing people, but extending both arms perpendicular to your chest as you spin and shoot handguns is certainly a photogenic method. With any luck, your long coat will billow, adding the right touch of panache. The emotionless assassin played by Rupert Friend at the heart of Aleksander Bach’s Hitman: Agent 47 uses this move a number of times, like a dancer proudly pirouetting or a jazz drummer returning to a specific fill he’s perfected.
This vaguely science-fiction action picture based on a video game (and not a sequel to 2007’s Hitman) is an idiotic mess with a bafflingly dense prologue, an endless final battle, lifeless performances and anticlimactic twists, but it does have a degree of visual flair. When the characters finally shut up and get to shooting, one must give credit to the creativity of the kills. Heads pop like ripe grapes, bodies flail as they are sucked into jet engines and arteries spray all over white staircases. While there’s zero to recommend about this film regarding its story or dialogue, it’s worth appreciating that it all seems very well rehearsed.
Katia Van Dees (Hannah Ware) is in Berlin, but she and everyone else speak English for some reason. She is troubled by visions and is trying desperately to find a mysterious man who haunts her memory. On her trail is Agent 47, a brutal force of death with a barcode on his shaved head. He’s part of a sinister programme of enhanced killers started by Van Dees’s father, and if he can get to her, maybe he can get to the mastermind, currently in hiding. Protecting Van Dees is John Smith, another agent, played by Zachary Quinto and his very intense eyebrows.
But does Van Dees need protecting? Of course not. For you see, she is actually the “chosen one”, the super agent who was, without her knowledge, bred to be the best of them all. (Her name isn’t really Katia van Dees, but Quatre Vingt Dix: Agent 90! That’s 43 better than the guy who’s trying to kill her!) She is able to use clairvoyant powers to see though walls and wriggle out of elaborate knots like Harry Houdini by way of Nadia Comăneci. And while you might be fooled into thinking this could lead to a badass female character in the vein of Scarlett Johansson in Lucy or Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road, this is, unfortunately, not the case. Van Dees basically goes from clinging from one man to the other as they race to find her father.
The specifics of the chase are extremely unclear. The film opens with exposition-heavy narration that’s the cinematic equivalent of a drug commercial reading potential side-effects. I’d have an easier time explaining the ins and outs of the current crisis in Yemen than getting to the bottom of who the Syndicate are and what they want. Suffice it to say there’s an ultra-baddie named Le Clerq (Thomas Kretschmann) who spends all day in an all-white room surrounded by glass and cool light-up screens. It’s like he’s living inside a smartphone. Maybe he’s actually Siri, who knows? All I can say is that the technology in this movie looks really cool, but it’s frustrating. No one’s phones, tablets or computer screens look like anything from the real world and everyone always gets a signal. People are racing around talking to one another on mobiles with tiny earpieces nowhere near their mouths and everything sounds clear with nary a dropped signal. It’s infuriating. And, more to the point, with a movie this fundamentally uninteresting, there’s plenty of room to sit in the audience and muse on such issues.
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