Google has justed started a new service called Knol. Knols are basically articles that can be edited by the author or everyone depending on what setting the author chose.

I’ve read that knol is supposed to be a competitor to Wikipedia but I don’t see how google intends to compete with the amount of content already on wikipedia.

One good things though is that Knol will allow me to write the articles I’ve been promising for you online through drafts and invite reviewers to check them before I post them on this blog. Which will push me to finalize the articles a lot sooner.

But the post about difficulty level is still coming, probably this Wednesday. I’m also glad to announce that a lengthier article about the decline of creativity in MMOG design is coming. And soon, because I can’t stop thinking about it.

Has anyone tried this?:
http://www.streammygame.com/

It’s a service that lets you stream input/output from a windows machine to another PC or a linux PC. Sounds to me like lag should be an issue but they’re claiming they can play Crysis (there is a video but it’s to low res to tell for sure).

There are almost always discussions about the latest hardship in any business. For the past year most of these discussions have focused on the gameplay vs. graphics battle that’s happening in the marketplace.

Do we really need to keep turning up the graphics? Or can we find a sweet spot and just stay complacent?

Who knows.

But I want to talk about another problem:
In Hollywood action movies were for year dictated by showing novelty. It was basically what they did, if the audience had seen it before it wasn’t good enough. This arms race of action finally lead to freaky movies like Total Recall where the main aim for the movie was to show weird stuff and kill a lot of people. Why or how didn’t really enter into it. Fortunately Hollywood has matured since then and action movies are less about novelty today.

Why am I ranting about this? Action games are doing the same thing today.

We really need to learn from our (according to Microsoft) smaller brother, Hollywood, and stop doing the same mistakes. But to do that we need publishers to spend some cash on smaller games that might not sell well. They need to spend money on innovative products. Sony did a great job with Little Big Planet but when will we see Microsoft, EA and Acti-Blizz doing the same?

(I’m not going to mention Nintendo, their doing demos and still hindering third party developers. That’s not innovation, that’s arrogant Japanese.)

For a quick education about what I mean check out this clip of Postal, how often do you hunt strangers with a badger in a sling?

I’ve just started playing Gears of War again, for the PC this time. Gears revolutionized shooters when it was released with better graphics then anything before and a cover system that has become more or less standard in shooters since.

It is still a fantastic game. I haven’t felt excited while playing a game for such a long time that when I found myself cotton mouthed from excessive breathing after my first encounter with a Berzerker I immediately thought there was something wrong with me.

Gears uses targeting and cover systems to create a tactical battlefield. This works great and the game design is sound, but a year or so after release one starts to realize that the system can be vastly improves by making cover less digital (on/off).

It also uses camera angles and shaders for cinematic effect without actually stopping the gameplay, revolutionizing then and a “gotta be standard” today.

Now I just wish I owned a 360 to compare Gears with Mass Effect, another fantastic game that makes use of these same factors to create engaging gameplay.

Anyway, enough of the random rants. I’ll post about how we can improve shooter difficulty next.

E3 is on it’s way and the big three have shown their cards. But who “won”? We can’t be sure until E3 is over but I have a few points to share:

Microsoft
Had a great presentation showing exclusive titles lite Gears of War 2, Banjo & Kazooiey (no I can’t spell it) and Fable 2. They also revamped their Xbox live experience with a modern, and this time quite pretty, interface starring customizable characters for players. Much like Mii’s but better looking. They also showed that Avatars (official name) will be of use to players unlike Wii’s Mii’s.
Microsoft also launched some rip-offs of Sony games such as Lips (singstar) and some camera interaction game thingie (eyetoy).
Overall, Microsoft created a lot of excitement for the platform.

Nintendo
Had an irritating speaker on stage making flat jokes about random stuff. Get her away from the stage. But they also unveiled Wii Motion + which is an add on to the Wiimote (more like a Wiimote 2) that allowes for better movement recognition… So now the Wii will work like… it was originally planned?
Looked pretty good.
They also unveiled some more games, first party of course, each with their own add on. Nintendo, if I hadn’t already sold my Wii I would never be able to afford all these add ons. Stop trying to steal my last cents you evil bastards.

Sony
Sony had by far the best presentation. No doubt. But they didn’t show enough content to wow me. Actually it didn’t feel like they showed much new stuff at all. PSN video store is live as of yesterday, very apple of them. Thank god.
MAG is a massive online action game. Great.
What else? Oh yeah, the games are coming. There seem to be a lot of them, but since we didn’t actually see that many it’s hard to tell.
Home will eventually come, but since what I really wanted from the beginning is Microsoft’s Avatars system, Home will probably fall flat.

I want Sony to win this war. Nintendo has proved their point and thats great, we need to focus on a larger market. But the Wii is still a piece of shit and doesn’t have any games I’d like to play. Microsoft is giving consumers plastic boxes that scream with whirring fans and crash ever so often. But they are giving developers what they want. And they are delivering on their promises.
The playstation 3 really is a superior machine for the consumer. It’s quiet, doesn’t require add ons and is a smooth entertainment package.
But Sony is fucking it’s console by not delivering proper support for developers, meaning most games come to the 360. They’re slow in delivering systems for the PS3, even though the systems usually are great in the end. And the PS3 is still expensive like gods own nude pictures.

Come on Sony, stop being arrogant and help yourselves. I don’t want another Windows monopoly destroying the games industry.

I just finished the book The Long Tail about how markets are shifting from focusing solely on hits to including the niches that might not sell huge volumes.

The interesting thing about this theory is that it means that a lot of people are spending money on products that they wouldn’t have bought a few years ago just because they were not available. The same thing is happening in games, the Wii is “expanding the marketplace” by including people who aren’t hard core gamers. But expanding is really the wrong word, Nintendo is including people who enjoy games but haven’t enjoyed the past few years of hard core focus in games.

So what will this lead our industry to? Will we follow the long tail and Wii in including all types of gaming niches? Of course not.

Developers seem much to inclined to play their own products. Todays casual games developers are actually not focusing on casual gaming. But rather hard core gaming with casual games.
Think of Tetris, it’s a puzzle game that you play alone and can’t win or loose, and as such a casual experience. But most casual games I’ve seen on Facebook or mobile platforms recently have used this form of casual mechanic.. But rewarded hard core grinding…

So in effect, we’re shooting ourselves in our collective developers foot with our own fanboyism.

I want to see games focused on people who play sometimes, for a few minutes, maybe. Don’t tell me there is not a market for this type of game, there is. It just might not be worth a $200.000.000 development cycle.

I think there is a huge drought of easy fun games on the market. Games that are easy to play, simple to understand with short playtimes and a “cozy fun” approach rather then the “arcade adrenaline furious fun” that seems to be the norm in game development today.

Thankfully, along comes Flock and gives me hope, though I’m rather suspicious about the game mechanics…

Follow the big three press conference countdown and feed gathering at:
www.jesperbylund.com/e3.html

If you haven’t seen the new killzone trailer. You should:
http://kotaku.com/5024527/new-big-explodey-killzone-2-clip

If this trailer is ingame I’m stunned. Some of the effects they use
are simply mindblowing. Mind you, not all of it is great. Just such
a high level of polish is unusual to say the least.