News & Views
7/25/15-7/31/15
Welcome
back everyone to another week of News & Views! As always, I’ve compiled a
heaping helping of great video game writing and stories from around the web.
This week I’m spotlighting an amazing article from Richard Lawson, where he
shares his thoughts about his recent trip to VidCon and the business of social
media celebrity. Though not directly about video games, YouTube is hugely
important for the games space and Lawson gives a genuine and minimally
judgmental take on the whole culture of YouTube content creators. I’ve also
found some great pieces about why every Final
Fantasy game is the best and worst of the series, speculations about
Nintendo’s future, and how Android:
Netrunner is working to make card games cool again.
And, of
course, please be sure to check out the brand new episode of The Impact Factor
podcast that was posted today! You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or if you prefer other methods,
check out our SoundCloud.
We’re on YouTube
too!
Spotlight
Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair
Worth Reading
Chris Baker, Gamasutra
Drew Toal, A.V. Club
Heidi Kemps, Gamesradar
Kim Nguyen, Offworld
Matthew Codd, Shindig
With Comments
Christian Nutt, Gamasutra
Nutt’s brilliant article highlights the many
struggles in designing a new Street Fighter game in the
current games space. All competitive games have issues in maintaining a good
balance, so that nothing is too powerful or too weak. SFV’s EVO panel seemed to indicate a paradigm
shift for the company, and games in general, when they said focus will be more
on making everything powerful and less
about nerfing. All of this combined with Capcom’s decision to brand SFV as a service and incorporate F2P-like
currency systems could make for a very interesting future.
Maddy Myers, Paste
I feel you, Myers. For Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone before it, logging
in every day has just become something I do. I cannot really stop myself
either. Miss too many days and you’ll lose out on hundreds of gold, putting you
further and further away from that new legendary card or hero purchase. Blizzard’s
F2P loop is addicting.
Chloi Rad, Kill Screen
This is something I’ve been noticing for a
while, and is eloquently written about in Rad’s KillScreen article. The players
the crowd gets behind have routinely made strong showings—potentially highlighting
the importance of nerves in competitive gaming. As we move forward with
eSports, more and more considerations for the crowd are going to have to be
made. They often play a powerful and interesting role in the competition.
Daniel Friedman, Polygon
I wish I didn’t have to share this with you
all, but I felt compelled. Friedman hits the nail (mostly) on the head about
the current state of Hearthstone.
Around GvG’s release, I would have
recommended anyone check out the game. Now, not so much. Getting a set of
playable cards as a beginner has become prohibitively expensive. With The Grand
Tournament’s infusion of another 132, I fear for new players. Blizzard needs to
make not alienating newer and F2P players priority #1 moving forward. Friedman
offers a few suggestions for what the company can do to address this issue.
Patrick Klepek, Kotaku
Rocket League is amazing. Just watch some of the gifs in
this thread after playing for a bit. You’ll know just how impressive this all
is. It’s crazy. Glad I haven’t matched against any of these players. Yet.
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