Blue Christmas

The business of video games has become larger and larger almost every year since the original Nintendo first brought Italian plumbers into living rooms nationwide. Along with the money generated, the fanbase has also steadily increased, as the variety of games available expands exponentially to lure in new players. The kinds of things you can expect from video games has also multiplied with advent of more powerful machines and the always-evolving power of the Internet. For most of its history, the industry has just continued to climb to greater and greater heights.

Amid this continually upward trend, there have only been two large scale failures. The infamous video game bust of the mid-80s and the total failure of the Dreamcast, the latter which demoted Sega from powerhouse player to endlessly churning out mediocre “Sonic” games. Yet, if you look past all the pretty ornaments out on display this Christmas season [add some games here], there’s some news underneath the tree that isn’t like to spread holiday cheer.

Sony’s announced 16,000 job cuts, EA chopped off six percent of its workforce, Midway canceled several games, THQ slipped into the red and Electronic Gaming Monthly is likely to cease as a print publication. Despite the veritable torrent of quality titles released, it seems that dastardly economic recession has stymied potential buyers from investing in a $60-a-pop product. While it’s tempting to blame this all on the recession, some of things events have been a long time coming. Sony, especially the corporation as a whole, has been struggling to find a stable line of profit for a while now and EA’s financial troubles where also apparent back in the summer months.

My theory? Perhaps, like many other economic sectors, the video game industry is susceptible to bubbles and bursts. Think of all the massive hype surrounding the unveiling of next generation consoles. The respective companies promised that the synergy they (the consoles) were capable of, incorporating games, movies, music and the Internet, opened up the path to immense profits. On top of that, “World of Warcraft” become a poster child of sorts, with its 10 million times $15 a month business model. Who wouldn’t want a piece of that? In addition, Xbox Arcade and the Playstation Store ushered in an era of smaller, cheaper titles.

Guided by the cheap credit of the global economy as a whole, old hands expanded their libraries and new companies tried their luck. But making games can be an expensive endeavor and public opinion can be brutal, resulting in a quick trip to the Wal-Mart bargain bin. As demonstrated by EA, the industry’s biggest publisher, even having a few blockbuster titles isn’t always enough to put you inside the margin of profitability. The irony of EA’s sudden turn of fortune has already been noted by others.

And so, with both the holiday season and the global financial meltdown fully engaged, that end-of-the-year saving grace has yet to manifest itself for many game companies. A lot of industries that rode the wave of economic growth produced by financial market manipulations have just now come crashing into shore. It seems that some video game companies will not be spared from this tsunami either. The bubble burst and there’s coal underneath, just in time for the holidays.

Yet, this surely will not be the last Christmas the industry sees. While losses may slim down some corporate structures, the video game industry is too firmly entrenched, both socially and economically, to suffer any drastic consequences. So, drink some eggnog, buy some games (if you can), enjoy the season and be glad you play games, not make them.

Fact Check: I’m not an economist and what I argue above is merely food for thought, or at the very least an intellectual snack. Please do not ask to see facts, stats, graphs or trend lines to back up any of this, as I have none of these things. If you do hold some theoritical disagreement with my thesis, by all means, comment away.

Total War

Last Sunday, I accepted the challenge put forth to me by a few of my younger Korean students and met them face-to-face on the field of virtual battle. The PC room located on the first floor of my building served as the venue for our epic showdown, our combat medium none other than the perennial “Starcraft.” The result? Let’s just say it was the first, and hopefully last, time I’ve ever been so thoroughly humiliated by third graders.

The war consisted of two separate battles, and in both cases I chose to deploy as Terrans whilst I faced down Zerg and Protoss opponents. I hoped to capitalize on the Terran’s excellent defensive capabilities to maximize my lifetime on the battlefield, as I considered victory far from reach. Instead, I merely hoped to see if, and how, the Koreans lived up to their reputation as a nation of “Starcraft” champs. My observations proved quite enlightening.

While pro gamer leagues exist in the U.S., the fact that anyone would want to watch the matches live on television seems a little far fetched. But here in Korea, there is a channel devoted 24-7 to that one purpose. After engaging in play with my pint-sized opponents, I began to see how such a thing is possible. The most important thing to understand is that they play the RTS in a manner far different from anything I had seen back in the States. In most of my RTS experience, people simply find a build order that specializes in producing a mass amount of one unit faster than their opponents, thereby earning a victory. Such a method merely involves a little trial and error in discovering which particularly unit is favorably unbalanced.

Koreans, however, take a much faster and looser approach that emphasizes quick hits determined to exploit an enemies weakness, followed by a more concentrated attack. Generally, they seize one or two expansions and then focus their forces near the center of the map. This loosely assembled group serves to probe enemy bases or respond to attacks, while raiding units and drop ships lurk behind the front. They constantly raid you, but rarely commit their entire force. Whatever you build, they build to counter you. Once you show sufficient weakness, then comes the main thrust.

Unlike Western players, who tend to focus on building one overwhelming force for one overwhelming attack, Korean players have their armies spread more thinly. While this at first seemed an advantage to me, I soon realized that it allowed them to attack repeatedly and from multiple angles, thus distracting me from building that all powerful army. This also lured my units out of position so they could swoop for a devastating counterattack.

Another gulf also separated myself from my victorious foes, the sheer speed by which they do everything . The mouse clicking is constant and it clicks all over the place. They check units, then buildings, then workers, moving the screen all over the map with surprising zeal. Control groups are discarded and defense is minimal, but effective. Building, expanding, attacking, upgrading, raiding, more tasks than I could possible hope to execute in an orderly fashion.

In the end, the overall speed, tactical discipline and instant adaptability inherent in the Korean style of play was unlike anything I had ever seen. It presented an entirely new way to play and think about the game. It’s no wonder the game is elevated to the level of a national sport, they play it with the a level of skill, execution and dedication that is the hallmark of any sport, from American football to curling. And all this, just from third graders. I shudder to think how I would have fared against the likes of two-time World Cyber Games champion Lim Yo-Hwan.

More minerals required: For everything you ever wanted to know about the Korean gaming scene, check out TeamLiquid, a foreigner (a.k.a. non-Korean) run Web site which posts videos of big pro league matches complete with English commentary.

The “Best” Holiday Season Ever?

This fall has brought an impressive rooster of games along with the usual cries of “best holiday video game season everz!” How patriotic of the industry, to soldier on while the rest of the economy is in the toilet properly. While I can’t corroborate these wild claims, I can admit that I don’t think there’s ever been so many games out at one period that I have oh-so-desperately wanted to play. Sadly, while my passion for electronic entertainment knows no bounds, my free time has a painfully finite limit. Compounding my misfortune is that unlike all you lucky people stateside I can’t simply take a trip down to the local Wal-Mart when I feel a jonesin’. Instead, I have to get all games shipped through Hong Kong, a process that usually takes around 2-3 weeks.

Item# 1: Congratulations, Your King of the Dorks

After months of waiting, the latest “World of Warcraft” expansion has become old news . Some French guy got level 80 in roughly the space of a day and a super clan downed all the raid bosses in a couple. Yawn. I’ve played my fair share of WoW and the only feeling a remember from any marathon sessions was an overwhelming sense of shame. I can’t imagine how these guys feel, must be awful.

Item #2: Certain Doom

Damn, somebody else is reporting on stuff going down in Korea. They’ve totally beat me at my own game. The gist is that Korean company NCsoft, responsible for both “Lineage” games, has garnered an overwhelming response in the beta test for their next MMO among the home crowd. While the article tells you that Lineage has always been popular among Koreans, I can personally attest that images of the game plaster the signs for most PC rooms in Korea. Oh wait, you don’t know about PC rooms? Perhaps you should read this.

I can tell you without exaggeration that I talk to my students about video games every day. I shall have to inquire about this “Aion” game and see how it holds up to the impeccable standards of my 1st grade “Starcraft” pros. Honestly, I hope NCsoft isn’t targeting the 8-12 demographic ’cause those kids are absolutely hooked into “Maple Story.” There’s even novel-sized comic books based on the game that most kids (boys and girls) carry around. I should know, I’ve confiscated enough of them from overzealous fans during my classes.

On a side note, what started as a joke quickly spread like wildfire through the halls of my English language academy and I suddenly found myself scheduled for a “Starcraft” showdown with several of my third grade students on Sunday afternoon. Such a match-up can only result in my utter defeat. My sole hope is to convert the best players to my cause where some team play can overcompensate for my lack of skills. Seriously, there is a TV channel devoted 24-7 to this game; I’m going down.

Item #3 : Getting Steamed

In an effort to engage in some joint transatlantic RTS action on the cheap, myself and a few friends purchased copies of “Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, Gold Edition” from Valve’s proprietary service, Steam. After playing the tutorial, I was quite excited to try it out against my human foes. However, when I attempted to log in to the online matchmaking service, I received an error that I was quite accustomed to though still surprised to get, “CD Authentication failed.” You see, this was something that happened to me often when I was attempting to crack a game, but never when I had ACTUALLY PURCHASED IT, YOU A**HOLES! Lo and behold, my friends encountered the exact same error.

A little digging revealed the fact that while developer Relic can make a decent RTS, they apparently fail at something even people who make crappy games get right. Often, the game’s installation will write the CD key into Windows registry wrong, even if you enter it correctly during the install. Worse, this has been happening since the first Dawn of War game and has continued into every single expansion. Worst, even manually changing the key in the Windows registry doesn’t fix the problem. It could be a problem with your router. Or maybe they misprinted the !#$!% CD key inside the manual. Then again, it’s possible they gave you one that was 20 digits instead of 16. At the very least, you can call customer service for three weeks until they fix it on their end. Idiots.

So, now it’s just me, hordes of customer service personnel and a host of possible solutions. I just can’t wait until I spend hours and hours working toward a fix that I shouldn’t have to make in the first place. Oh, hey did you know the highly anticipated sequel “Dawn of War II” is coming out? Yeah, don’t buy it, I heard it’s going to suck.

Item #4: The Rock Never Dies

“Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band” continue to be popular. Honestly, I stopped paying attention after number three, but I guess their is still rock music out there to be reduced to a sequence of colored dots. At this point, I shudder to think the depths those song lists must be plumbing.

Further Side Note:

Man, Steven Seagal is perhaps one of the worse action movie heros of all time. It’s not even the hopelessly B-listness of the films but more his completely and totally bland delivery. He beats Keanu Reeves in that department hands down. His I-just-kicked-your-ass, movie-ending line to this cinematic gem? “Nobody beats me in my kitchen!” I missed the first part of the movie, so I can only guess Segal’s hobby is … cooking? Damn man, hardcore … hardcore.

Ahem, I apologize for the drastically negative tone of this post. Maybe if certain parties could program their games correctly I could have enjoyed Mr. Segal’s action-packed POS or WoW’s social life crippling success.

Something I’m excited about

Actually, I lied, there are really two things (games) that I’m waiting for with a high amount of day-dreaming anticipation. First, is a title from Ubisoft. For me, they represent a company with a long personal history of failing to deliver on titles they relentlessly build up, most recently “Assassins Creed” and before that “Heroes of Might and Magic V.” While I’m on the subject, I should mention that the first three incarnations of the latter are among the greatest PC strategy games of all time, check them out if you never have. Again, Ubisoft has been feeding me videos and screen shots that seem to be the pieces of a truly enjoyable overall experience. I’ve been doing my best to keep my standards low, but they seem to be trying hard to make that a nigh impossible task.

The game in question is the new “Prince of Persia.” A venerable franchise if there ever was one, it’s got roots sunk deep in the ancient era of the late 1980s. Back then, the game was renowned for its remarkable fluidity and imagination, contributed in part by the developer’s passion to get the Prince’s movements just right. This next-gen incarnation doesn’t look like it’s gunning to beat “God of War 2″ or “Grand Theft Auto IV” in the pixels department and that’s not such a bad thing. There’s already enough pretenders to that particular throne and those who choose graphics as a shortcut to gameplay usually fail at both. What the new Prince seems to lack in raw power he makes up in grace and style. The drawn-and-painted feel of the art direction lends the game something that all the normal-mapping and HDR Lighting of “Crysis” can’t: individualism.

The video game market is big and serious enough now that it has entered the same push-and-pull that it’s respective comrades in the music and move industries feel. The tension between creating a product that sells and furthering the form sometimes intersect and sometimes seem so remote as to make one cynical. Is the new “Prince of Persia” garb just a flashy distraction or will it add feeling and spirit to the experience? As I brought up earlier, the gameplay must come first and, for my part, I’m hoping the Persian royal’s new duds are a product of an overall design philosophy.

In the end, I must admit, I’m a sucker for cell-shaded, painstakingly animated 2D graphics (see “Odin Sphere” if you think 2D is outmoded), or anything else with a drawn or artsy feel. This brings me to exciting thing #2, the JPRG soon to reach American shores “Valkyrie Chronicle.” In addition to its animated nature, it also falls into the strategy genre, another of my favorite things. Some games you know you will enjoy despite their quality because they just have too many things you like for it to be possible to wholly disown them. “Valkyrie” seems such a game and leaves me with a tranquil, patient anxiety in juxtaposition to the my nervous fretting about whether or not Ubisoft will spoil a promising premise.