Recently in Gaming Category
With games such as World of Warcraft that have millions of users with paid accounts it really struck me to learn that Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is the first game in history to reach $1 billion in sales. Now the entire Guitar Hero franchise, which was launched with the first Guitar Hero in 2005, had previously broken the $1 billion sales barrier, but GHIII, which was released in Fall 2007, is the first single game ever to reach that number.
The article where I read this story mentions that sales of real guitars have increased during the same time frame. I actually mentioned to my brother months ago that I would like to learn how to play the guitar (I don't think this desire was directly a result of my playing Guitar Hero, but I know that playing GH didn't hurt), and, what do you know, for Christmas he got me a super sweet Ibanez electric guitar. The thing is just gorgeous! Sadly, I think it is going to be a while before I am able to play anything on it that doesn't sound like huge chunks of metal scraping together.
Not only are sales of instruments increasing, but artists who songs appear on the game have seen increases in download sales and inspired renewed interest from consumers. To quote the article from Edge, "first-week sales of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith tripled the the first-week sales of the band's previous album." That is truly amazing.
I have always been a video game junkie. My friends have always said that video games are "my drug." Well, as we see the power of these games and how they are becoming a driving force in other forms of entertainment and artistry, I like to look back and think that I was onto something for all of those years. Was I really just a junkie, or was I a visionary? Ok, I guess it's fair to say that the people making the games were the visionaries, but I was definitely on board for the ride.
There was a bit of controversy in the video game community last fall that centered around the firing of Jeff Gerstmann, Editorial Director and 10 year veteran of the gaming site GameSpot.com. GameSpot provides news, reviews, previews, and downloads of electronic gaming across all platforms - computer-based, handhelds, home console systems, etc. Users can also write their own reviews of games, create blogs, and participate on the site's forums.
In addition to providing news, images, and videos of their games in development, video game publishers also spend large sums of money to advertise on GameSpot based on the high amount of traffic the site generates. And if there is one place on the entire site that is visited without fail, it is the GameSpot game reviews. So what happens when a company who has just spent thousands of dollars advertising their new game on a gaming site has that same site give the game a bad review? That's exactly what Jeff Gerstmann found out.
The game in question is called Kane and Lynch: Dead Men. The player takes the role of Kane, "a death row inmate on his way to criminal execution, apparently convicted of being a very savage criminal as part of a notorious gang called The7." At the beginning of the game, the other members of The7, including Lynch, bust you out of jail and thus starts your ultra-violent exploits in this blood-soaked, action packed, "crime-themed shooter."
Now before I go any further, something that you must understand is that amidst all of the development interviews, storyline details, and reports on early builds of games, sites like GameSpot pretty much become hype machines for said games. Early reports on games in development do mention possible issues that a game might have, be it spotty control or iffy graphics or a bad camera system, but, for the most part, these early reports always seem to feature phrases like "we're excited by what we see" and "we can't wait to get another crack at this game." So, obviously, game publishers are going to want to advertise their new games on sites that are generating a lot of positive buzz about them. But after those ad spaces are paid for come the reviews. And that's when reality may set in. That's when the user may find out that the game he or she was looking forward to and had set aside money to buy may not really be worth spending that money on after all. And that's when the game publishers who shelled out the dough advertising their game may see a bad review that will equate to game sales not being as high as they were hoping for and get upset.
Gerstmann gave Kane and Lynch a 6.0 out of a possible 10. This equates to a designated game status of "Fair." Any game that is reviewed with a score of 8.0 (maybe even 7.5) or above is considered a quality game worthy of the gamers' hard earned money. But a 6.0? That's a rental at best. For those who would like to read Gerstmann's review, here you go.
Kane and Lynch was released on November 13, 2007. Gerstmann's review of the game was posted on GameSpot's site at some point between then and November 28. I'm not sure of the exact date his review went online. On November 29, numerous gaming sources began reporting that Gerstmann had been fired from GameSpot allegedly over his negative review of Kane and Lynch. Now it's important to mention that Gerstmann had been at Gamespot for nearly 11 years, and had reviewed games during his entire tenure there. I think it's safe to say that he had given poor reviews to games before, so what happened here? Why was he fired?
The sources said that Eidos Interactive, the publisher of Kane and Lynch, saw the low score and threatened to pull all of their advertising from the site. At the time that the review for the game was posted, the entire GameSpot site was filled with Kane and Lynch backgrounds and multiple banner ads. GameSpot has completely denied these claims, and has issued their own account of Gerstmann's dismissal in what has become known as "Gerstmann Gate." I won't detail GameSpot's response, but here it is for anyone who is interested.
Now I don't know if Gerstmann was fired for giving a game a bad review or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was true. Eidos publishes many games, and if they really did threaten to pull their advertising, it would mean thousands and thousands of dollars of lost revenue to GameSpot. Regardless of the reason for Gerstmann's firing, the whole episode has put the legitimacy of sites like Gamespot in question. The tactic of game publishers throwing money at the outlets who review their products to influence a positive review isn't a new concept. But the firing of Jeff Gerstmann might just be one of the highest profiled examples of such a thing actually happening.
Not too long ago I replayed a game called Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty for the PS2. It originally came out in 2001, and (obviously) is the second game in a series. The 4th installment, titled Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, is coming out for the PS3 in a few weeks. I rarely return video games after I have completed them, because there is always a point where I get nostalgic and want to go back and replay them. Also, the collector in me wants to be able to have all the Metal Gear Solid games together in my catalog. So, in preparation for the upcoming 4th game and to refresh myself with the overall story, I have replayed and completed the first two games. I'm going to try to replay the third one before number 4 comes out.
I'm not going to get into the main story line of the game here, but I am going to mention certain plot points and characters without spoiling anything for those who may want to play the game and find out on their own. But for those who would like to know more about the game's story and have no plans to play it, here is the wikipedia page for Metal Gear Solid 2 (MGS2).
The Metal Gear Solid series is known for intertwining real world issues and themes into its story line including the morality of soldiers and the consequences of war, but it mostly focuses on the threat of nuclear proliferation and the maneuverings of those in power in order to achieve their own ends. Metal Gear is the name of a heavily armored, bipedal walking tank that is capable of firing a nuclear missile from anywhere in the world. As the story progresses from the first game to the next, the specifications of Metal Gear, which was secretly being developed by the U.S. government and captured by a renegade group of special forces turned terrorists, have been sold on the black market and are available to anyone with the funds and resources to build one. The main character of the game, who goes by the code name Solid Snake, is the one man the government turns to in order to prevent the terrorists from using Metal Gear to make good on their threats.
In the second game, the threat of nuclear attack is still a prevalent theme, but the concept of the control of information in the digital age as another and almost equally frightening abuse of power is brought up. I find this to be extremely interesting, because a case is made around the fact that all information, no matter how trivial, is constantly accumulating and being preserved and is therefore actually slowing down social progress and reducing the rate of evolution. Liken it to the genetic code and natural selection - in genetics, "unnecessary information and memory must be filtered out to stimulate the evolution of the species." But the fact that now practically all information in its various forms is recorded and available, much of it pointless, there is no real context for what is "valuable truth." For example, humans have always kept records of their lives throughout the course of history - writings, images, symbols, etc. But, in the past, not every mundane event was preserved. Only a "small percentage of the whole was selected and processed, then passed on." This is very similar to the passing on of genes.
Darwinism. Survival of the fittest. The natural order of things. In nature, those with the strongest genes survive to pass them on to their children. In society, those who are the strongest beat out the competition and succeed. Human nature and behavior is predicated on these basic instincts. But as we plunge ever faster into the digital age, have these instincts eroded away? What can we learn and and how can we grow when we are inundated with the concepts that success is contingent upon nothing anymore. Britney Spears is no longer famous because she sells tons of albums and fills up arenas around the world. She's famous now because everyone wants to know how she'll screw up next, not because she continues to be successful. Her albums have steadily declining sales with the most recent being the worst selling by far. Her fans have thinned, and her appearances on music awards shows are mocked by the media. She has two children that had to be taken from her by the legal system due to her erratic behavior and unsafe parenting. In another day and age someone like her would have faded away into obscurity, but now anyone with a camera phone can take a video of her running through stop signs in her car and post it to YouTube in a matter of minutes for the whole world to see. And this is why she's still relevant.
So if it really is the case that all of this unnecessary and trivial information is accumulating and eroding away the instincts that help us to grow, adapt, and evolve, does there need to be some way to control what information is received by the masses? That is the question that the game asks which, in the context of its story, is motivated by the antagonists and their lust for power that you as the hero are battling against. I'm not posing that question myself (my lust for power is not as great as that). What has made me stop and think is the reality that information - every little bit of it - is no longer ignored. Even though we have the ability to decide for ourselves what is important to each of us, how many of us really do that? As technology becomes faster and more powerful, are we progressing less and less? I would say, if anything, that the advent of such amazing technology is testament to how far we've come, what we've accomplished, and what's on the horizon. But the trick is how we use what's available to us. Sometimes we know so much, yet really have learned so little.
Recent Comments