Izuno

Common' DICE, don't let me down!

Best part was the use of the word "minge."

Oh...meanwhile any of you showing product at the, er, show?   I have a ton of meetings but built in roam-floor time so let me know and I'll come visit.  

Otherwise happy to do any meetups when possible.

Yeah the MSFT conference didn't excite me terribly.  Though I don't expect many people to be wowed by everything shown. Clearly they got the message to talk about games games and nothing but games.  And btw, "thank you for your feedback." LOL

Meanwhile, I'm less excited about Sunset Overdrive now.  Maybe I'm totally wrong on this but I dunno.  What else:

- Halo love for the fans.

- Advanced Warfare had no Kevin Spacey.

- Capcom has a sense of humor

- Platinum games bringing you big monster battles a la all their recent games...except scale armor.  

- The Division...same casual female in-game sidekick.  "Hey I'm getting shot. It would be cool if you guys took them out." (not an actual quote...just paraphrasing the tone).  Meanwhile I'm not really into the vfx in Ubisoft games with how it gives you all the meta information. It fits better in this but I've always felt it a little weird in Assassin's Creed.

- Speaking of AC, AC Unity setting is interesting to me cause wtf we haven't had much gaming in French revolution period. 4 player coop? Sure, sounds great except I never play that but good for the series

- I'm up for another Tomb Raider game after the recent reboot.  Sign me up!

- Evolve looks interesting but I think it will be relatively niche even if it does a great job at what it offers. There are only so many gamers up for that

- Wait no BF shown?   I did like how sunset overdrive poked a lot of fun at crate cover shooters and soldier gameplay 

- Dragon Age Inquisition, a potentially excellent sequel in an excellent series I have yet to touch

Eh...tired of typing...on to next conference...zzzz....

Thanks, Mikey. I used the term "Joy Puke" in a meeting last week and got that "wtf who are you" look from completely respectable suits.

Meanwhile, I'm a sucker for another Borderalands game.  Fun trailer:

Damn, USA is going to dominate its pool. There's not a single team that will pose any challenge to it.  First off, Germany-

USA is going to definitely....

....participate in the 2014 world cup.

gz!

 

where is Thrik anyway? hasn't been active for a long time now (serveral days).

Got pissed at some pre-birthday drink-a-thon?

Anyway, HB Thrikanator!

I'm only in book 2 of the...uh...books...so I didn't know which way the

trial by combat

was going to go.  This may have been the most devastating episode yet for me as a viewer because

i thought that, uh...the character...who was brutally destroyed last night had so much interesting potential.  From watching it did look like his, uh...opponent...also died except he died second.  So bravo for his initial victory but let this be a lesson to never, ever monologue when you think you've defeated your enemy.  Finish the job and GTFO! 

I'm still playing on Xbone.  I have to admit matchmaking got pretty rough for a while when (to me) it felt like every match was totally lopsided in terms of vets vs. noobs balance but in the last couple weeks I've noticed it seems to be better.  Keep up the good work, Respawn... MP balance is always harder than it looks.

Breaking Godzilla

INSERT GAME DVD INTO MY BODY NOW.

Yeah I'll be there.  Book your appointments now!

Man...this is marketing of the year so far.

edit:

Reasons to believe below.  Hope he's right.

I dunno...I liked this trailer :-)

Yep yep and yep.

Huge setup with Theon's sister and then what a letdown.  I suppose it was to build the ending with Ramsay and Theon (obviously Ramsay is hatching something) but they have to do a better job or else this series will just start meandering.  

Also...

I haven't read book 4 yet so I don't know where it is going, but now Dany is sitting on a throne and ruling...her whole story is getting very stale...

I dunno, I still love the show but they better not go all Lost on us and just drag on.  I want epic closures!

I finally saw it for the first time. On an airplane. Next to a 4 year old watching Frozen. She asked me to plug her headphones back into her display system...constantly.  It was epic.

First part wasn't what I'd hoped it to be (HBO writers taking big liberties again) and was feeling a bit meh about it all and I was fearing for the worst - then Dinklage came and saved the god damn day.

Yes.

This is why I post things like this here....always good analysis from multiple angles.  The way my colleagues and I view it, we see that the notion that there is a bubble is correct, just not 100% correct. Certainly there are unsustainable practices in F2P, but as you guys have mentioned there are some games doing F2P right, or at least better.  We don't see mobile F2P as a giant bubble that will destroy itself, rather we see a lot of shakeout as gamers get sick of the grind that many F2P mobile games become.  In other words, Farmville etc. on Facebook was the hot, cute new thing but people got burnt out of it.  It will happen again in mobile and it will likely get harder and harder to make big money (by as many companies) in mobile F2P unless the companies simply offer more actual gaming value...which gets harder and harder.

tl;dr:

Market forces and competition will hopefully weed out the weak, but that doesn't necessarily mean the thing you hate is the weak.  Mobile F2P isn't going to collapse just yet but parts of it may spectacularly flame out.  Get the popcorn!

Some seriously good thinking here:

http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/9/5699058/free-to-play-mobile-candy-crush-the-room

My favorite part:

" Henry Ford invented the first production line and the first affordable car, and once said "If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses". The quote is mythical, but delivers more truth about creative work than a million pages of factual user data. "

THIS.

Investment spend.

Activision probably looked back at Call of Duty history and realized if they could have somehow invested more earlier on it might have grown bigger earlier.  But that strategy has risks of creating quicker franchise burnout.  Call of Duty took a few years to peak and has had an amazing run which is still going, just its biggest years are behind it.  They just want Destiny to go on a similar run and it's going to take a huge upfront investment.  

Also, if you have to bet on someone, Activision is rationalizing that betting on Bungie is hopefully "safe" even though it too still has risks.

tl;dr: I understand Activision's thinking but the plan is not without risk. 

Dead horse beating!

Michael Caine?  Sign me up.

Call of Duty: Cynical Premise Based Warfare

Still...I liked that trailer.  I think I can only get into this if the campaign is good, even if standard 5 to 6 hours.  The last CoD campaign I really loved was Black Ops...the ones since not as much.  Yeah, I feel that franchise fatigue as Mazy was saying but as always I will try to judge this CoD game on its own merits which leaves me, as always, cautiously hopeful.