News & Views
6/6/15-6/12/15
I cannot
believe it—we’re just a couple days away from E32015! I feel like it has both
been a long time coming, and way sooner than I expected! The past couple years
I have live tweeted the big press conferences. I’m happy to announce here that,
as part of my video game coverage for The Impact Factor, I’ll be live tweeting
E3 again! That’s each and every press conference folks: Bethesda, Microsoft,
EA, Ubisoft, Sony, Nintendo, SquareEnix, and the PC Gamer show! Be sure to follow
me on Twitter @alexsamocha to
see it all unfold!
Like every
Friday, I’ve also posted a brand new episode of The Impact Factor podcast! Each
week Charles Fliss and I sit
down to talk the news, games, and perspectives with the biggest impact. We put
together a super special new episode this week: our E32015 prediction megacast!
The two of us ran through each of the press conferences and gave our thoughts
on what to expect, and some bold and crazy predictions for each! Check out our SoundCloud for the new
episode, and subscribe to us on iTunes!
All right,
onto this week. As always, I have a ton of great editorial and opinion pieces.
Check out below for great articles about video games’ archival problems, the
real stories behind the picture perfect E3 on-stage game demos, and why us
video game writers write. Check back here every week for more!
Spotlight
Austin Walker, Giant Bomb
Worth Reading
Taylor Hidalgo, The Thesaurus
Rex
David Wolinsky, Unwinnable
Dave Lee, BBC News
Alex Layne, Not Your Mama’s Gamer
Elizabeth Sampat, Kill Screen
Jenni Miller, Playboy
And the rest!
Gita Jackson, Offworld
Video games have a serious archiving problem. Even today, it’s hard to know how many
games have been lost to time or their existence on only one, obscure hardware.
There are some efforts being made to preserve the history and evolution of this
amazing art and entertainment form, but it’s really not enough. Jackson has a
great piece discussing this issue.
Jacob Van Lunen, Wizards of
the Coast
MTG is a game that’s been with me since I was 4
or 5. My neighbor taught me the game, providing my first introduction to gaming
that required thought, planning, and strategy. MTG serves as the foundation
upon which all my gaming has sprouted. It’s great to read Van Lunen’s story and
just how impactful this simple card game can have on the lives of so many.
Patryk Kowalik, Elysian
Shadows
Kowalik provides his perspective on the big
hubbub that arose last week, stemming from a piece talking racial diversity in
games. Check out my News & Views last week here,
where it was the spotlight article. While Kowalik certainly builds his case
with some interesting examples and counterpoints to Moosa’s original piece, his
final argument is unconvincing. Regardless of any historical, cultural, and
ethnic origin of a piece of fantasy, it’s preposterous to argue against
inclusion of people of color. Dragons and trolls and magic are ok, but it’s some
great tragedy to include one non-white person?
Kevin Geisler, Gamasutra
This was a huge story from last week. I’m still
interested to see what comes of Steam’s new refund policy. It’s curious that,
despite what Valve said, early reports seem to indicate that a majority of the
refunds are coming from games outside of the 2-week window. What is this going
to mean for publishers and devs? Or games you can complete quickly? It’s hard
to say at this point, but worth keeping an eye on.
Ed Biden, Gamasutra
Ok ok, I won’t talk too much more about Hearthstone.
But this is a game that keeps on giving. When I wrote about it as my game
of the year for 2014, I talked about
how Hearthstone really gets F2P
right. Or as right as it can to ensure they can still get some money out of
people. Recent announcements of a new mode and hero skins indicate that this
game will only keep growing and growing. Hopefully the success it has had can
serve as a lesson, and foundation, for other F2P titles. No more of this
time-wall pay-wall nonsense.
Patrick Klepek, Kotaku
To conclude this week’s News & Views, I’ve
found an excellent piece by one of my favorite games journalists, Patrick
Klepek. In this article, Klepek talks with game devs about their experiences
putting together the critically important stage demos for new games at E3, and
what that might entail. From fake demos to thousands of practice sessions to
ensure a perfect play through, Klepek weaves a fascinating story about one of
the most important parts of the most important industry event. It’s just great.
Read it.
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