The importance of mid-tier gaming

One of the biggest reasons for stagnation in the mainstream gaming market is the tendency of big publishers to focus on the large, blockbuster titles. With the current model of huge, multi-million dollar releases every year, there are clearly signs of fatigue in the gaming market. As such big titles compete for the tightening consumer wallet, the question should be asked whether such a model is sustainable and what could be done to fix the situation. 

This is where mid-tier games could fit comfortably in the niche; Jim Sterling has recently championed the use of such titles, citing the practice as a boost to creativity in the industry, especially during the peak times of the PS2 era. Jim is indeed correct that mid-tier games could produce a more sustainable niche for big publishers. 

With the costs of development skyrocketing, many game publishers have engaged in shady practices to boost their profits. Imagine how much better games would be if hundreds of millions of dollars and the fate of the developers themselves didn’t hinge on their profitability; there would certainly be more creative risks taken, as well as fewer implementations of anti-consumer ‘features’ such as loot boxes.

There is a need for more ‘useful’ games; ones that may not make all the money all the time but don’t need to be so big to be profitable. Given the tightness of customer wallets, this model would arguably be more sustainable; there’s a lot more room for someone to buy a couple of £20-to-£30 games on top of a big budget £60 blockbuster, rather than expecting them to pay for three or four such ‘must-have’ titles (representing nearly a £240 outlay – almost as much investment as buying a whole new console!). In this way, mid-tier games could be the bread and butter of a mainstream gaming industry that currently stands on unstable footing.

While some may argue that game dev costs are spiralling out of control as technology is pushed further and further with each yearly release, the question should be asked as to whether such costly development is always the way to go. Surely for a risk-averse big company, smaller and less costly games could represent a salvation for creativity. Instead of risking hundreds of millions on a single title, and the jobs that come with those big bucks, surely it would be more sustainable to have a varied portfolio where games can make profit at all levels of the market. This practice also represents an insurance policy against disaster; if your big, AAA blockbuster falls by the wayside one year and suffers from terrible sales, then you can fall back on a portfolio of smaller, profitable titles to shore up the earnings before the next instalment.

As mainstream gaming continues into the next generation, big companies will undoubtedly need to review their strategies and cost-efficiency. If a game doesn’t need to have the best graphics, why bother spending so much and then push that cost onto the consumers? Many such players will be content with paying a little less while getting a slightly less graphically-intense game, and in fact will probably be more likely to buy the game ‘on-top-of’ a AAA £60 purchase. Mid-tier games represent an interesting avenue for a more sustainable, more creative gaming future, so hopefully these will be utilized correctly and more often in the coming years.

The frustrating potential of mobile gaming

In-app purchases, cheap cash-in microtransaction farming games, Candy Crush Saga, touch screen controls. The list of frustrations that I have with mobile phone gaming is a long, aggravating one. But do I think that mobile gaming will never be a legitimate platform? Controversially, I would say no. Mobile gaming has the potential to be a fully-featured and satisfying game platform in the future.

This may shock some of the more ‘hardcore’ gamers out there, many of whom will have looked upon the mobile gaming landscape with scorn and mockery. The word ‘casual’ is thrown around a lot when discussing mobile gaming. There is a kind of stigma in the topic where gamers feel that some genres are more legitimate pursuits than others. In terms of simple, ‘time waster’ games that are only made to entertain during short commutes, perhaps this criticism is somewhat valid. However, when talking about mobile gaming’s potential, there is certainly a possibility of more worthwhile gaming pursuits. 

In terms of raw power, the mobile phone market is more capable than it’s given credit for. Razer, a brand famous for PC gaming products, have even found value in the mobile gaming market. The Razer Phone carries 8GB of RAM on top of a state-of-the-art Snapdragon processor that matches rival flagship brands. The result is a mobile powerhouse that can output 120Hz gameplay, a standard not to be sniffed at by any means. 

Even the games themselves are quickly starting to catch up; the surreal experience of playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on a mobile phone is testament to that fact. The humble smartphone is more than capable of handling complex 3D gameplay and graphics. The presence of Minecraft, Don’t Starve, and a growing indie market show that there is more than just Candy Crush available. With mobile’s signature portability, versatility and multi-tasking capabilities, it’s arguable that the platform could even become a preferred medium for the right kind of gamers if the technology is there. The Nintendo Switch is evidence of the fact that there is a desire to play fully featured, low-compromise games in a portable form, and undoubtedly it won’t be long at all until mobile processors come within grasping distance of Nintendo’s highly-successful machine. 

So what are the problems with mobile gaming? Firstly, it has to be said that those gamers who scoff at Candy Crush have a point. The install base of lifestyle users, as well as the barriers of simplistic touch-screen controls, make it difficult to see any real, quality entries in the smartphone space. Why would anybody create a relatively high-price, complex and rewarding phone game? It will make practically nothing in the face of massive, saturated competition that churns out exploitative low-price, free-to-play games that can capture the lifestyle market easily. Gamers on mobile are less tolerant of any game that has a price tag of more than a couple of pounds, so there is a massive culture change required from gamers on mobile expecting everything for free.

On top of that, touch screen controls just suck. To relate back to San Andreas, attempting to play the game on anything but a controller is an infuriating, painful experience. There is no kind of tactile feedback to help your hands know what to do and all you can do is vaguely rub the screen hoping it can catch some semblance of what you want to do. Not only that, but this control scheme means there are great finger-sized areas of screen being entirely blocked out from view. To play any kind of game that’s more complex than swiping at fruit, a controller is most definitely the way forward.

What mobile gaming needs is a unifying standard of controller. Much like how the Xbox 360 wired controller for Windows became the de-facto controller mapping for games on PC that needed joypads over keyboards, there needs to be a brand or product on mobile that universally becomes adopted and imitated as ‘the’ standard for controller maps. If we can decide on how to control the games, then we can start to see more complex games on the market as gamers become adaptable to the playstyles of mobile. I feel that we’re almost there, in fact, as gamepads on mobile start to look to console controllers for inspiration. My own controller for mobile is actually a modified 360 gamepad with a frame for attaching the phone, which is connected to the joypad by Bluetooth. The result is a much more satisfying experience than touch-screen controls, and it works with a wide variety of apps.

Ultimately, the key to solving the problem with the mobile market’s saturation of terrible games is simpler in theory than it is in practice. It requires a wider adoption by more core gamers, and voting by our wallets. If it is proven that there is a profitable market for more satisfying, premium games on mobile, then you can be guaranteed that there will be development. If there is one area where mobile excels it is in quickly and dramatically adopting a profitable idea. 

Until this happens though, gamers will continue to view the mobile market with scorn and righteous mockery, which makes the mobile market one of the more frustrating problems facing gamers today. Unfortunately with its widespread adoption by non-gaming users, its Candy Crush saturation, and its lack of a unified control scheme, it is difficult to see mobile gaming, for all its great potential, become the legitimate and vastly enjoyable platform that I know it can be. But solve those problems, and mobile gaming stands a real chance of being a lovable gaming platform, where the real benefits of smartphones in their growing power and versatility can shine through in a gaming context.

Loot Boxes in 2018: is it really worth it?

Amid news of EA Games bringing microtransactions back to Star Wars Battlefront 2, a move that had long been promised, the question has to be asked: are loot boxes even worth the negative press they’ll generate among consumers in 2018?

Gamers made a significant stand over the issue in the back end of 2017. The backlash over the implementation of loot boxes in Battlefront 2 was so powerful that even the corporate overlords of Disney were forced to take notice and step in to tighten the leash on EA’s executives. This was even enough to force microtransactions to be pulled from the game entirely for a while.

The handling of the fallout from the loot box scandal on EA’s part was just as disastrous; gamers rightfully mocked and ridiculed EA’s statement that loot boxes were supposed to give ‘a sense of pride and accomplishment’, and EA have even achieved the dubious honour of having one of Reddit’s most downvoted comments of all time. Goodwill was just about exhausted when EA stated to shareholders that the decision to remove microtransactions wouldn’t affect profit estimates. This made the situation even worse as it all but outright implied that the use of loot boxes on EA’s part was just a cynical cash grab, not, as had been claimed, an unfortunate necessity to be able to fund the spiralling cost of modern games development. In one fell swoop, practically every justification for microtransactions in full-priced games was dismantled, leaving a smouldering ruin of gambling regulations and unhappy customers.

Battlefront 2, then, is not a game on a good standing in any way. In the months after release for any FPS things get difficult: care has to be taken to keep gamers coming back for more. This all begs the question: was it even worth it to bring back microtransactions to Battlefront 2 considering the inevitable PR issues it would cause?

Imagine the goodwill that EA could have recovered for their IP if instead they listened to gamers and announced that microtransactions would be removed from the game entirely? While many of the more cynical amongst us would claim to see through such an act, many would find such a move to be a positive step. In fact, arguably now would be the best time to make such an announcement, with Battlefront 2 being a few months old surely it would be in desperate need of the good PR that would be generated to revive its player base. Dropping microtransactions would be the shot in the arm to help the game continue to survive as a multiplayer FPS.

Instead, however, we have a sad, predictable and cynical move from a corporation that feels increasingly disconnected from its customers, with many gamers commenting that they will now leave the game alongside the calls of ‘told you so’ from cynics the world over. The poor PR generated from the move must be costing millions, and will undoubtedly have a knock-on effect with player engagement and could cost the company any profit generated from the game in the coming months.

So why would any game company in 2018 continue to be associated with such a maligned practice as loot boxes? Surely any short term revenue boost through such cynical means will be miniscule compared to the loss of goodwill from customers in the long run. In 2018 is it really going to be worth it for any mainstream game to implement loot boxes, knowing that with 2017’s end the microtransaction bubble has burst? Surely by now any loot box announcement will be met with such cynicism and vitriol that any small amount of revenue squeezed from such a move would be insignificant compared to the unsustainable loss of customer goodwill.

No. The ship has sailed on loot boxes and the damage is done. Gamers have proven that they will not take such moves blindly. Surely now, it is time to put the final nail into the loot box’s coffin and accept that whatever measly, cynical cash that can be grudgingly squeezed from consumer’s fingers is not worth the unsustainable loss of goodwill that will soon put AAA gaming’s future in the balance. Loot boxes are dead, it’s time to move on.

DLC vs loot boxes: make it worth buying

On the one hand, we have a practice that single-handedly demolished a gaming brand’s goodwill (loot boxes), and on the other, we have expansions and DLC which, when practiced correctly, offer a way to get extra revenue for making actual, valuable content that extends a game’s value proposition in a pro-consumer way.

We all hate when gamers are nickel-and-dimed into buying content that should have been in the base purchase of a full-retail-price game. Not only this, more nefarious practices have become more commonplace in the last year; loot boxes totally ruined Battlefront 2 and Shadow of War and led to a controversy that left waves rocking the industry for potentially years to come. Utilizing the ethically-questionable methods of gambling, loot boxes inherently represent greed and cynicism in its worst form. Unlike DLC, there is no redemption for the loot box.

On the other hand, with DLC there is a very clear distinction between the wrong and the right way to go about business. Gamers undoubtedly have a love-hate relationship with DLC, as since its widespread adoption in the 360/PS3 generation it has led to some good and a lot of bad, potentially even paving the slippery slope that landed us into the dubious territory of the loot box. There are good DLCs and bad DLCs, and the distinction needs to be made.

The wrong way to go about offering videogame DLC is clear and obvious; stripping content already expected of the game to sell back as an ‘expansion’, holding DLC hostage as a pre-order bonus, or the method most popular in mainstream gaming today which is to sell a ‘season pass’ that is often costed at more than the initial outlay of the game itself. The list goes on of every example of DLC gone anti-consumer. A dishonourable mention goes to the selling of pointless extraneous content such as costumes that would otherwise have been present in the game as a reward for player activities. The much-maligned ‘horse armour’, as seen in Oblivion, is a famous example of how costume DLC can go badly, badly wrong.

However, the important distinction between the practice of DLC and loot boxes or microtransactions is that as a method of keeping player engagement and maintaining a profitable player base is that there is a way to do DLC in the right way. For example, most gamers would agree that The Witcher 3’s DLC is a shining example of how to behave in an otherwise cynical industry.

The best examples of DLC are those that expand the game’s playtime and replay value. Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption excelled in their own DLC offerings, with the content being so meaty that they were later sold as full games (Undead Nightmare, Ballad of Gay Tony and The Lost and Damned). The content described was great simply because it offered a valuable expansion that was tangible to players.

A more modern example of DLC done right can be seen in Resident Evil 7. Capcom already earned my goodwill in this case because they delivered a stellar mainstream horror experience, and possibly the best AAA game to come out in years. Not only this, but the deal was sweetened with the initial offering of the free ‘Not a Hero’ DLC. While it suffered from its own issues, there is no denying that there is a good sign in giving an expansion for free that most unscrupulous publishers would eagerly strip out and monetize.

While yes, the concept of the dreaded ‘season pass’ reared its ugly head with Resident Evil 7, the sheer excellence of the content proved to be worth downloading. The banned footage, which gave us an actual expansion and elaboration on the game, used the mechanics to a great effect that changed the whole tone of the product. Simply through delivering something worth buying, Capcom made DLC that I am willing to buy.

It feels so painfully stupid to say this, but 90% of doing DLC right is not rocket science; it’s just to deliver a good package that is worth the price. Resident Evil 7’s DLC was fun to play and offered something different and new to the main experience. If this, and the other good examples of game DLC are anything to go by, it’s that there is plenty of gamer goodwill out there, if you treat gamers right. It may come as a shock to EA games, but the way to sell a product is not to manipulate the customer, or to engage in anti-consumer practices, it’s simply to make something worth buying. 

Gaming in 2017: A Review

Given that the year is ending, many websites will be dishing out their awards ceremonies and naming their favourite games in any genre. There will be much debate about the ‘Game of the Year’ with shoe-in favourites such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Horizon: Zero Dawn and Call of Duty WW2 duking it out over critics’ favour.

I don’t want to do such an awards ceremony, but now is a great time to reflect on some of the lessons we’ve learned through the year. This was the year we saw controversies over loot-boxes, review scoring and the release of a new console. It is a very interesting time to be a gamer. 

2017’s gaming year truly got started with Resident Evil 7. Its survival gameplay was sublime and subtle, a much more understated affair than previous titles in the series and it all worked to the game’s benefit. As fans had been demanding, for the first time in many years we had authentic and atmospheric horror that brought Resident Evil back into the fold as one of the premier titles in its genre. It both pulled the series back and pushed it forward in the exact ways that it needed, critically turning around a franchise much in need of rejuvenation.

 It wasn’t long after this that we saw the release of the Nintendo Switch. As a concept, the console showed a lot of promise; the actual realisation of gaming-on-the-go as many gamers envisioned from the moment they picked up a Game Boy. This proved to be a major draw for customers as well, turning Nintendo into a name synonymous with success once again and putting an end to the dark days of the Wii U.

Of course, when the Switch came out, it was almost overshadowed by one of its own games: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was a masterwork of open world design, that brought the Zelda Promise to fruition. For the first time, gamers held in their hands a true adventure title worthy of the original’s ambition, and despite a few rainy cliffsides, many gamers fell in love with the title.

Controversy surrounded this game’s review scoring thanks to Jim Sterling of the Jimquisition. While I disagreed with his review on a few points, his take on Breath of the Wild, giving it a ‘mere’ 7/10 score resulted in a major backlash from die-hard Zelda fans. This backlash showed an uglier side to the gaming community. It was around this time that ‘meta-bombing’ became a word in gaming vocabulary, referring to the practice of overwhelming a game’s page on Metacritic with negative user reviews. These were just two of many strange, toxic gamer trends that occurred in 2017.

By the time summer had arrived, however, gaming was back in full swing. The release of Crash N’Sane Trilogy brought a sudden mainstream attention on early 3D mascot platformers. Crash was a game with a lot of nostalgic goodwill and this surely helped the PlayStation brand, practically sealing the deal for future HD re-releases. The game’s difficulty was also a popular talking point: who doesn’t remember the cringe-worthy ‘it’s just like Dark Souls!’ type reviews gamers were exposed to at that time? It was discussed how central difficulty was to a game’s overall experience, and the summer of 2017 certainly had gamers everywhere screaming ‘f*ck the High Road!’

As we drew into autumn and winter and big blockbuster releases came out, gaming started to show a little fatigue in the mainstream space. While fan-favourite indie titles such as Oxygen Not Included certainly entertained, lots of gamers were placing their attention on other, more nefarious industry trends. 

This was the time of the Loot Box. With the release of Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, we saw the beginnings of a coming tsunami of Loot Box controversy. Gamers bemoaned the end-game, with good reason; it was purely set up to be a slog to encourage gamers to buy microtransactions, in the form of Loot Boxes.

What came after this was a colossal breakdown in mainstream gaming. While Call of Duty: WW2 released to critical acclaim, attention turned to Star Wars Battlefront 2. The game itself was meant to be an apology for EA’s first crack at the series, which many gamers deemed to be a cynical cash-grab. However, thanks to terrible consumer practices, Battlefront 2 became the symbol of everything wrong in the industry.

There was a massive backlash to the Loot Box practice in Battlefront 2, such that EA’s stock drastically fell. Even the Disney corporation themselves had to step in to help pick up the pieces.

The Loot Box system, as seen in Shadow of War and Overwatch before now, was a gambling-based microtransaction economy where players paid not for items, but for a chance to receive an item they may want (most of the time they would get junk). This was totally exploitative, if not gambling. Indeed, a few courts even stepped in with their own rulings that yes, Loot Boxes were gambling and should be regulated as such. 

Many would see this as a bad time for gamers. On the other hand, this controversy represents the power of gamers as a consumer group. It is amazing that after years of exploitation by big players entering a now-mainstream industry, gamers still have power to change things for the better. EA were forced to swiftly backtrack and their stock was badly damaged for this mis-step. This proved that gamers don’t have to silently stand by and watch the gaming industry go downhill; they can instead step in and kick-ass. If anything, Lootgate represents that the gaming community can still change the course of where videogames are going.

2017 was a strange year with a lot of major news items. My review of the year isn’t exhaustive by any means; I can’t go through all the year’s events and cover it all in the detail it deserves. I left out the release of the Xbox One X and Cuphead, for example. 

But I think that as far as the lessons we have learned from this last year, I can say that 2017 has been most informative; franchises can be re-thought with success, gaming’s community still has major toxicity issues to work out, older series can be brought back to life with a triumphant bang, and gamers aren’t going to just sit down and take bad consumer practices.

2018 will be an interesting year. I’m looking forward to seeing announcements on some big franchises. It may be too soon, but I hope to see the beginnings of a new Halo, and hopefully an actual sequel to some game franchises that are stagnating (a new Elder Scrolls? Or even a new Grand Theft Auto announcement?). 

In more concrete terms, however, what I am most looking forward to next year is the full release of Subnautica. In its current state, the game is well worth playing and is an extremely interesting take on the survival genre, with some beautiful underwater scenery to boot. If it gets a proper performance boost and a full release, I will be very happy.

Thank you for reading my blog over this past year, and I hope you will have a wonderful rest of 2017 and an even better 2018!

-Stev3 L