Friday, January 30, 2015

News & Views
1/24/15-1/30/15

Hello everyone! Another week, another News and Views! This week was filled with a bunch of different interesting stories, from all sorts of different disciplines. Whether it was how Disney is attempting to capitalize on the "eSports" craze or how fat avatars do worse than their skinny counterparts, I hope you will all find something that interests you. Again, please feel free to post a comment letting me know great stories you read this week. Have a great weekend, and may the team you are rooting for win the Superbowl! I'm just looking forward to the chorizo nachos I have planned for game time.

Spotlight
Colin Campbell, Polygon

Worth Reading
Kate Gray, The Guardian

Jorge Pena, UC Davis

Owen Good, Polygon

MementoMorie, Kotaku

Vince Ingenito, IGN

And the rest!
Nick Statt, CNET
Microsoft is stepping into the virtual reality realm with the HoloLens, following Oculus Rift and Sony's Project Morpheus. The HoloLens looks really cool, and I look forward to learning more.

Michael McWhertor, Polygon
Can we finally stop using the term eSports now? How about "competitive gaming" or anything other than that horrible term.

Brian "Brian Kibler" Kibler, BMK Gaming
You all know I love Hearthstone. The game is not without its frustrations, however. Kibler covers some of the biggest flaws and offers great solutions to move the game forward.

James Whitbrook, iO9
These ads are disgusting. Happy someone is taking matters into their own hands to cover up this hate speech.

The Oatmeal, Kickstarter, Etc.
A profoundly successful kickstarter (perhaps the most successful in history) for what looks to be a neat little card game. I have been tempted to jump on board myself.

Christie Aschwanden, FiveThirtyEight
An interesting look at knowledge gaps and how it may be affecting public policy


Tuesday, January 27, 2015

EA: Two Lefts Does Make a Right?
Article


Abstract: EA has been the butt of the internet’s ire for several years, and for a good reason. Terrible business practices they both helped to invent and popularize, like always-online DRM and microtransactions, left a black mark on the video game publishing company. 2014 was a rough year for AAA games, especially for other large publishers. EA has capitalized on these missteps, while simultaneously taking small steps to re-endear themselves to their hardcore audience. EA seems to have learned from 2014’s lessons. I hope that EA’s realization of its need to appeal to the core audience acts as a harbinger of better things to come.

Video game publisher Electronic Arts (EA) has had a rough go of things in the past couple of years. That’s putting it lightly, though. EA was voted the worst company in America two years in a row. The “award” was reflective of the terrible business practices EA championed. Practices that plagued the gaming industry and helped add a distinctly bitter note to the end of the last console generation. Chief among theses issues were (are) mandated online connectivity/DRM (digital rights management) and microtransactions. Let me dissect those two briefly.

The launch of SimCity was an unmitigated disaster.
Video games being pirated has always been an issue for game makers and publishers, and one that is increasingly problematic as PC gaming becomes more and more popular. There are various ways publishers can combat online piracy, but in the end, none are particularly effective at stopping (or even deterring) pirates. The solution that has worked best is the approach championed by CD Projekt: full disclosure, putting developers at the forefront of the games’ discussion, and avoiding any sense of exploitation in the monetization of their products. CD Projekt releases all of their games DRM-free, is open about any development hurdles, and releases tons of extra content in their games for free. EA, on the other hand, did none of this. To ensure their games weren’t pirated, EA added heavy layers of DRM to all their big releases. This manifested itself in several ways. Many EA games had to be played online at all times, regardless if the game was single-player only or multiplayer focused. This allowed EA to constantly verify the games’ licenses with their servers to make sure it was legitimately obtained. This practice caused obvious problems, however. If you could not connect to the internet, you couldn’t play the game. If the EA servers were down, you couldn’t play the game. And this is for single player experiences. SimCity (2013) is the best example of how this system fails. For weeks on end, the single player SimCity was unplayable due to EA server malfunctions. EA received fiery vitriol for months due to this fiasco. Heavy layers of DRM and forced internet connectivity violated consumer trust, and put a bad taste in consumer mouths.

Not content to only mildly irritate its consumers, EA also championed another divisive practice: microtransactions. For those unaware, microtransactions are a monetization method for games in which consumers spend small amounts of money for in-game benefits: like cosmetic items, level boosts, etc. Microtransactions aren’t an inherent evil, and Valve has proven this. In games like Team Fortress 2 and DOTA2, players can spend money to obtain all sorts of cosmetic doo-dads. New hats for characters, new player skins, changing the announcer’s voice, etc. There are two important things to remember when considering Valve’s microtransactions, however. First, none of these purchases affect the gameplay. All game modes, maps, etc are free in-game, and none of the items give you an advantage over other players. Second, both games I mentioned are free-games, so microtransactions make sense as a way to monetize. EA messed both of these up, badly. Microtransactions in EA games often provided substantial gameplay advantages, or felt like they were gating content that should have been included for free in the final release behind an annoying pay wall. EA seemingly stuffed as many pay-options into their games as possible, including their $60 AAA experiences. As a consumer, it felt like you were being milked for as much money as possible. Adding to this frustration was EA’s insistence on early/day-one paid downloadable content (DLC), which, again, felt like EA was parsing out content behind a pay wall.  Therefore, taking these two huge things into consideration, I was not surprised at all when they were nominated as the worst company in America.

But this article is not about how bad EA is, or how these practices remain a problem for the industry. It’s about how EA has worked hard, and gotten lucky, in rehabilitating their image.

First and foremost, EA has capitalized on the missteps of others. 2014 was a rough year for game releases. Nearly every AAA game that was released had substantial issues at launch. Assassin’s Creed Unity was a glitchy mess, plagued with disappearing faces and characters falling through the game world. The Master Chief Collection had (still has?) unplayable multiplayer. Driveclub released nearly completely broken, with servers still unable to handle player traffic (pun not intended) for months after its release. 2014 was not only about broken games, but also lackluster AAA games period. Watch_Dogs was met with average reviews and a deflated player base when it did not live up to its hype. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare was only talked about for a week or two following its release, as it seems to be just another sequel. Perhaps most importantly, 2014 was a rough year for Ubisoft. Internet audiences panned Watch_Dogs, Assassin’s Creed Unity and The Crew. The latter two also had significant launch issues. EA 100% capitalized 2014’s roughness. To EA’s credit, their big AAA releases this year worked well right out of the gate—both Titanfall and Dragon Age: Inquisition were smooth and mostly glitch free. EA also had some successful experiments, like Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare. It might seem odd to say, but releasing functional games counted for a lot in 2014 and EA definitely came out of it in a positive light.

PvZ: Garden Warfare's colorful & silly multiplayer was a fun, pleasant surprise.
I am glad I got to try it out for free. 
EA’s chief effort has been in reconnecting to their players. Their mantra has been a lot of small gestures can go a long way. To make up for any perceived lack of releases, EA has placed effort into teasing their upcoming big guns, namely Battlefield: Hardline and Star Wars: Battlefront. 2014 was also the year of free stuff from EA.  Following the critical and market success of the new Dragon Age, EA was quick to announce a free content pack. Free DLC works wonders on your image (ask CD Projekt about The Witcher), and EA was smart to take note. Rewarding your players pays in dividends. Further, EA is clearly aware of making good to their core audience. At the Playstation Experience, which took place in early December 2014, EA’s Peter Moore came on stage to thank Playstation players for their continued support. In a move I certainly wasn’t expecting, Moore then announced to the crowd that three EA games would be given away for free: one for each Sony platform. And these were not just some small games, either. Need for Speed: Most Wanted on the Vita, Mirror’s Edge on the PS3, and Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare on the PS4. EA knew the more dedicated of its fan-base would be following the news of this event, and in giving them something as a way of thanks, Moore and EA hit a PR homerun. These small gestures also begin to gain momentum when taken in concert with other small steps EA is taking: less pay wall-like DLC in their games, combatting piracy by using Origin sales to encourage snap purchases, etc. Little by little EA is trying to undo the past, and make up for huge mistakes like SimCity or Battlefield 4.


The struggle for EA in 2015 will be to keep this positive feeling going. Players are on a hair trigger right now. After such a disappointing year for AAA releases, any fault in a game release is going to be exponentially amplified. EA is on the right path, but that needs to continue as we get further into the year. The most important thing EA can do in 2015 is not release a broken or buggy game. If it is looking rough, please delay the release. CD Projekt acknowledged their game, The Witcher 3, still had an unacceptable number of bugs and therefore would not make its anticipated February release. The game is now scheduled to release in May. EA needs to do the same thing: if it’s broken, as painful as it may be for your projected quarterly earnings, do not release the game. I’m fearful for Battlefield: Hardline, as it seems like the game has issues that need to be dealt with before its March 17th release. Last, EA needs to remain as transparent as possible. Tell the community what your developers are up to. Tell them about the new experiences you have planned. Tell them where you messed up, and what you plan to do to fix it in the future. I want all game makers and publishers to succeed: it creates a richer gaming environment in which we get quality releases from a large spectrum of people. Here’s to hoping EA, and everyone else really, learn from the mistakes of 2014 and listen to their audience moving forward. It could make for one hell of a games landscape.

Friday, January 23, 2015

News & Views
1/17/15-1/23/15

Happy Friday! I am glad to bring everyone my first actual News and Views post. Every week I curate a small selection of the articles, videos, and miscellaneous things I find around the web. I hope to always present some of the most interesting, provocative, or otherwise impactful pieces. If any of you have something not here, please feel free to leave it in the comments!

Spotlight
Roy Graham, Kill Screen Daily

Worth Reading
Patrick Lee, A.V. Club

Kevin Clark, WSJ

Jessica Conditt, Joystiq

Colin Campbell, Polygon

Chaz Evans, A.V. Club

Samit Sarkar, Polygon

And the rest!
Suzy Strutner, Huffington Post
BioShock and Rapture say hello!

Ian Walker, Shoryuken
A great selection of games for the world's biggest fighting game competition. I watch every year!

John Skylar
A depressing look at the financial cost of being a career scientist.  
TIF’s 2014 Game of the Year Awards: The Final Day!
Article

ONE
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft: Blizzard (OSX)




You have now read me go on and on about my #5-#2 games (hopefully!). They are all tremendous and I’m glad to have played them. Many left a huge impact on 2014’s year in gaming. A few will have lasting impacts as we move deeper into this generation of gaming. But no game has had a greater impact on me, or will continue to have such a substantial impact on the world of gaming in the years to come as Hearthstone. Yes, that’s right. Blizzard’s free-to-play take on a card game is my game of the year. Not just barely-so, either. Hearthstone makes me excited every time I play it, excited for it’s own future, and excited for what’s to come as the games industry constantly grows and evolves. The race was close for slots five through two, but when it came down to the decision making process, Hearthstone was the clear winner for game of the year. Let me just get into a little of why Hearthstone is my personal GOTY.

Hearthstone’s core strength reflects Blizzard’s core strength as a video game company: simplicity. Blizzard is known for making “genre” games that refine and simplify a pre-established formula. A chief example of this is World of Warcraft (WoW). EverQuest and games like it established the basics for what we understand an MMORPG to be. WoW innovated on this, not by completely redefining the MMO experience, but by making it simple and accessible. The depth comes from how all these simple systems synergize. As a testament to this approach, WoW is over a decade old and still one of the most played MMO’s worldwide. Hearthstone takes this ideology and applies it to both a making a great digital card game and a great free to play game, but more on that in a bit.

Hearthstone is an “easy to learn, a lifetime to master” kind of game. The rules of a standard match are pretty basic: Draw a card, gain a mana crystal, play whatever you can from your hand, attack with your minions, get your opponent to 0 health. Hearthstone borrows a lot of elements from both Magic: The Gathering (MtG) and the physical WoW card game. And there is no shame in that: MtG’s basic style of gameplay is the reason for its continued success for over twenty years. As a fan of MtG, I was easily hooked on the general flow of play in Hearthstone. The rest is easy to get into as well: getting new cards, building custom decks, and playing real people in casual or ranked play. Hearthstone also offers a tremendous diversity in how you can play the game. You can spend hours playing the AI to rank up, or in the challenging Naxxramas expansion. You can play casual only, or ranked only. Or Hearthstone’s version of drafting in the arena. If that was not enough, Hearthstone rewards you for playing as little or as much as you want to. Earning gold, used for packs or arena, comes through daily quests. Most of these can be completed in 30-60 minutes, allowing you to be “done” for the day while still making progress towards improving your card collection.  These quests can be stacked over multiple days, allowing for quick, massive gold gains in one play session. If you have more time on your hands, long arena runs can net you huge rewards (hundreds of gold) and ranking up on ladder can earn you extra gold and card backs. Hearthstone acknowledges that you’ve got a lot on your gaming plate, and rewards you for playing how you want.

Extra cards can be converted into "arcane dust"
This allows players to craft key cards they are missing.
Hearthstone is an amazing free-to-play (F2P) game. The moniker “F2P” has such a negative connotation these days: often implying an experience that tries to nickel and dime you at every corner, or locks content behind pay walls or time walls. Hearthstone is not that kind of game. Real money can be used to buy packs, the Naxxramas adventure, or arena runs. All of those can be purchased through gold earned in game. And while gold earning could be a little faster, you earn enough to buy a pack every two days. The bulk of Hearthstone is playable at any time, gold or no. You could play ranked for 10 hours straight without spending anything. The same thing cannot be said for so many other F2P games (my two week addiction to the iOS game Jurassic Park Builder was filled with unnecessary “Wait 2 hours or pay money to continue” periods). Critics complain that the rate of acquiring new cards is too slow. A lot of that frustration stems from “losing to decks with better cards.” This can happen, but you can win a substantial number of games using cards unlocked from the get-go. People falsely attribute losses to “pay-to-win” rather than their own lack of skill or in-depth knowledge of Hearthstone strategies. Sure, you’re not going to beat the best of the best, but most games new players participate in are winnable. And not to belabor it for too long, but Hearthstone is a card game. If you had the entire collection of cards within a week of booting up the game, a lot of the appeal is lost. Building up your collection is a part of any trading card game, and trying to find ways to use the cards you have is consistently fun and challenging. Otherwise, in a model where you acquire all the cards with ease, huge demands are placed on the designers to infuse new cards as quickly as possible. Making too many cards too fast can detract from card balance and quality, which is not something I look for in a competitive card game. I hope games like Hearthstone (as well as TF2 and DOTA2) continue to lead the way on what F2P games can be. In that way, I see Hearthstone as a key player in shaping a brighter gaming future.

As much as Hearthstone succeeds as a F2P game, it is even more successful as a digital card game. Hearthstone is the biggest, and best, example of making a trading card game work digitally. I cannot even properly express how much of a trainwreck MtG’s online version is, but just know that it is universally disliked. I’ll use it as a foil in most of my following examples. Let me get into just a few ways that Hearthstone is a great card game that really takes advantage of being a video game. First, in Hearthstone, you can only play cards on your own turn. In MtG, being able to respond to cards played or actions taken by your opponent is a key part of the game. When online, though, it amounts to incredibly slow games that are bogged down by clicking dozens of yes/no pop-up prompts. In Hearthstone the games run smoothly, because once you end your turn, you are completely hands off. This speeds up games and removes a lot of, often tedious, complexity. Second, Hearthstone lets you customize your decks right off the bat and gives you a good selection of cards to do so. In other MtG digital releases, like MtG2014, you’re stuck playing pre-constructed decks for a long time. And, after that, you have very limited options for card customization. Hearthstone gives you a lot to work with and, with the ease of adding/removing cards, lets you tweak your deck constantly to see what works and what does not. Third, asynchronous drafting! In MtG online, when you enter a draft, you need to stay for its entirety or you lose out on your rewards. This whole process can take upwards of four hours. Hearthstone respects your time, and lets you play your arena games at any time. You can make your draft deck and play your games with it a week later. Or play two games one day, and finish the rest another. The arena is especially reflective of Hearthstone’s accessibility and ease of play. Fourth, Hearthstone smartly balanced game length. The majority of matches last 15-20 minutes, allowing you to play a couple games even with the most limited of time. Finally, match making. Getting into a match in Hearthstone is quick and easy. You are normally matched up with a player within 10 seconds, and games are mostly lag and glitch free. So many other games, including AAA releases, struggle with matchmaking. Sure, Hearthstone has the advantage of being 1v1 over games like Destiny where it is 6v6, but Blizzard has clearly put a lot of effort into getting into, and out of, games a quick and painless experience. The list of how Hearthstone simplifies and perfects the card game experience could go on for pages, but I hope I got my point across when I write here now that Hearthstone is one of the best card games I have ever played (digital or not).

I have played a LOT of Hearthstone. No intention on stopping anytime soon!
P.S. Ignore my low rank, it has been a Casual mode kind of month for me. 
One of the more interesting aspects of Hearthstone, and why I think it will continue to have such a large impact in the years to come, is the community that has formed around it. Every day there is a new website dedicated to some aspect of Hearthstone, whether it be the best decks for current ranked play or tips/tools for doing well in the arena. Each week is filled with Hearthstone tournaments, from invitationals to open series. Hearthstone is also one of the most viewed games on Twitch. Popular streamers like Trump or Amaz garner 30k+ viewers daily. The world championship back in November put up astounding Twitch viewership numbers. Back in the fall Blizzard announced that there were over 20 million registered Hearthstone users. 20 MILLION. The ease of getting into Hearthstone coupled with its active community surely contributed to this astronomical total player base. If even half that, or a quarter of that, play semi-regularly, that is still a crazy large number of people playing. Hearthstone has also managed to find its way into the “e-sport” scene (a term I detest, but that’s for another article), with teams of pro-players popping up everywhere. This past month, the first Hearthstone team house was put together: where a handful of pro players from one team all live together and play, in hopes to refine their skills and decklists for tournament play. Hearthstone is big now, and it’s only getting bigger.

You play all kinds of people in Hearthstone. Here is me playing against
the popular Twitch streamer, Trump.
And there is so much more that I want to get into, but don’t want to make this article overly long. For example:
  • How Hearthstone is an amazing mobile game
  • How Hearthstone maintains my fervor for the game, where I am building and playing a new deck every day
  • How Hearthstone has made people care about a card game (not an easy task)
  • How Hearthstone smartly controls in-game communication to create a pleasant competitive experience
  • How Hearthstone is experimenting with, and excelling at, new content releases like Naxxramas and Goblins vs. Gnomes
  • How Hearthstone succeeds wholly independent of its source material (I have, and never will, play WoW) 
Like so many Blizzard products, Hearthstone is a game that will be around a long time. Team 5 is constantly working to build a legacy, and evolve the Hearthstone experience. Many game critics acknowledge the success of Hearthstone, but seem trepidatious about making it their game of the year, often relegating it to their mobile GOTY. A free-to-play card game, in this sea of AAA releases? But for me, and so many others, Hearthstone left the largest impact. I’ve been playing the game for nearly a year and I am more into it now than I have ever been. Hearthstone is a game I will think about, and play, for potentially years to come. Hearthstone gets being a card game right, and being free-to-play right on so many levels. No game in 2014 will have the same lasting impact as Blizzard’s digital trading card game experiment. Hearthstone came as a complete surprise, but I am so happy that I jumped on board. Please, if you have any interest in video games at all, please check it out. What’s to lose: it’s free!


I hope to see you at the inn sometime soon. Pull up a chair by the hearth!