Posts by FrieChamp

  • Eidos and game reviews (again)

    Quote from Penny-Arcade

    Word that Eidos PR company "Barrington Harvey" was trying to massage metacritic ratings was not surprising in and of itself, because as we suggest in the strip, that is (strictly speaking) their job. No, what elevated this ordinary act to strip material was that, when contacted for comment, a representative of the company literally said this was their aim.In the bizarre pirouette that followed, Barrington Harvey released a ridiculous, insulting statement that appears to repudiate the earlier claim, but instead confirms it in the last paragraph. The whole thing is a kind of lumbering walrus ballet that we've found absolutely enchanting.

    http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/

    Is it wrong when I find this whole thing 'hilarious'? I imagine it was CrazyMAC on the phone and then it just comes over me

    (sorry Mac!)

  • Eidos and game reviews (again)

    Right on Sentura, let's start a revolution!

    From a business perspective one has to wonder whether this kind of PR management works in the favor of the game publisher or against it. When editors decide not to put up with this stuff and go to the public, it can create quite a backlash, as seen here.

  • Eidos and game reviews (again)

    Quote

    As Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raider Underworld heads out to store shelves this week, publisher Eidos has tasked UK PR firm Barrington Harvey with managing the review scores, resulting in journalists being asked to hold off on negative reviews

    http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/56037

    'Barrington Harvey' huh? Stop telling off editors CrazyMac!!

    Jeff Gerstman on the subject:

    http://www.giantbomb.com/news/eidos-reviews-magic/560/

  • Layoffs at GBX-Aliens game affected-what the?

    Seems like Lee3dee lost his job If you read this, good luck getting back on your feet bro!

    Quote from kleinluka

    http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=5759626 people got the axe yesterday, and what seems like 15 more over the last month.... so in total about 40 people lost their jobs. that's a pretty heavy hit for a small studio like Gearbox

    I partly agree, 40 people are a lot (I assume the mood at GBX isn't the best right now ), but if you think about it, GBX was getting pretty big for a studio. How many titles were/are in development at the same time? 4? 5? More?

  • Layoffs at GBX-Aliens game affected-what the?

    The story is still developing, reporting layoffs (due to poor sales performance of Hell's Highway?!), first saying that Aliens - Colonial Marines is canned, then Randy Pitchford tunes in and says something like this:

    Quote

    "Aliens isn't canned," said Pitchford. "We've made some transformative changes and yes, that's meant some talent changes, but that's not the real story. The true relevance of the story will actually be irrelevant until we release our next game, at which time I hope there will be a lot of interest in what we've done that can produce such results."

    http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/56058

  • [GER] Mapcore Beertrinking

    Quote from e-freak

    so what about tuesday or friday 18th/19th december? I think it's a good excuse to look for some presents at the Weihnachtsmarkt and have a glühwein. No ones gonna work the 4 days before christmas?

    I got a christmas party to attend on dec 18th!

  • Originality in mods

    I first staggered when I read "business cards", admittedly also with a bit of a smirky face, but thinking about the effort you guys put into this, going to these events to present your work, collecting feedback, making connections, I don't think that's laughable, in contrary it is respectable in my eyes! Sad to hear that it didn't work out in the end

    Quote from barrakid

    I really don't see anything we made as a deliberate "marketing strategy", it was just stuff that got into the mod naturally, and opportunities that where presented to us that we, as a small humble mod team, couldn't afford to refuse.

    "PR" strategy as you were getting publicity from editorial content, not advertisements

  • Originality in mods

    Quote from Taylor

    Previously everyone used to do the small team/small mod with lots of gradual updates. But after Counter-Strike (which itself was developed progressively with a small team), everyone seems to be going for larger teams and the first release being amazing in quality. There must be some logic behind this jump, if someone released a new mod with a couple of classes, unfinished weapons, small map roster and known bugs would the mod-players pick them up and follow them? Or pick them up, label them unfinished and put them down for good? I think there's been a shift there, too.

    Would it be safe to say that there were far less MODs available by the time CS made its first releases in comparison to today? I suspect so. People were happy to try anything that changed up the game slightly, today there are way more teams developing mods who compete for player attention. They want to get it right and capture the player from the start. Back in the days there was no police vs terrorists MOD for half-life out there. Day of Defeat only had to compete with "War in Europe", that was it. Today there are shitloads of similarly themed MODs available, so if you can't stand out with an original theme or gameplay (which brings us back to the original topic), you try to stick out with well polished releases, which take a while to develop. That's how I see it anyway

  • "casualizing" of games

    Quote from Sentura

    what i think he implied was that people don't only play for fun, referring to "classic rpgs" as an example. so i ask, is a "classic rpg" not fun?

    In conjunction to what Taylor said, I think Stepp implies quite the opposite Sentura-san!

  • "casualizing" of games

    There is a difference between "accessible, simple, easy to learn" and "easy to master", to bring up that famous line with a little twist. The idea of streamlining, getting rid of complicated schemes, controls and unnecessary features, that easily add up when we are talking about a longer series of games, I'm all for that. However decreasing the difficulty of the challenge, the difficulty to complete the game, to make the title more appealing to a broader audience is misleading and dangerous, because I don't think it will win you new users, it will just alienate your current user base. You need to design new games, catered for exactly that type of audience and not make the sequels to your existing hardcore gamer franchises easier to master. My mother couldn't care less if the new Gears of War got easier, it will still be a game about Aliens and chainsaws (which *SURPRISE* is not a very appealing theme to her in the first place).