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16 Jul 04
Maybe it's coming off 2 illnesses (thankfully minor) in as many weeks, but I'm in a strange mood today. So today's highlight isn't going to be a game at all. Partially thanks to Jennifer's efforts (see yesterday), I've been looking in different areas for how the gaming industry might improve. Today we're looking at one of the least obvious sources of inspiration, VH1.
Yes, VH1, the cable and satellite channel. They're known for their lite mix of music guaranteed to offend the least number of people. One day when I was sick, I watched VH1 for a while. They don't always strive for greatness, but they have a formula down for addictive television. In fact, they might corner the market on junk food TV. You sample it. It's kind of tasty but not great. Then, next thing you know, you've consumed way more than is healthy for you.
I'm sure a lot of game designers would like to know their secrets for making their product addictive. So let's take a look at what they do. First they know their strengths. They know music and celebrities and pop culture. Almost all their shows are some combination of them. They keep their focus. In fact, it's amazing the different ways they come up with to combine those elements together. You'll see celebrity lifestyles, celebrity music, pop culture references in music, pop culture references by celebrities, movies, movie music, celebrities at movie premiers, etc. The other advantage of keeping there focus, is that people always know what they'll find when they flip to VH1. That makes it a low risk move. Hmm, where have we heard that before?
So what else does VH1 do well? Once they've gotten you in the door, how do they keep you there? It's simple really. They give you easy to digest information and give you luscious hints about what's coming next. You can see where this started if you go back to an early VH1 hit, Popup Videos. This took something people knew very well, popular music videos and added bite sized pieces of extra information. These were rarely important things to know (that hat was really made out of a waste paper basket!), but they gave you information you couldn't know outside of being there. In other words, knowing these tidbits made you feel like an insider. Then before each commercial break, they'd ask a trivia question or two that nobody would know the answer to without watching. This really helped retain viewers. It was just enough to prod their curiosity. VH1 learned the lessons from Popup videos and took them to heart.
For instance, did you know that Hulk Hogan's daughter is trying to start a music career? You would if you watched VH1, they've got their own show. Guess what you'll learn a little about Hulk Hogan, a little about how the music industry works, and watch a dream of stardom that most people can connect to. Of course, Popup videos has been replaced by newer models. One of them is True Spin. It's a show that looks at the stories behind particular popular songs.
One last thing about VH1 is their advertising. I'm not talking about the ads they sell. I'm talking about the ads for their shows. They have two great strengths. They are honest and innocuous. They are usually short and simple in a harmless way. The ads won't shock or offend you. In fact, they're surprisingly honest. They just say what the program will be about and trust that those interested will tune in. I'm sure most people would be hard pressed to describe a VH1 commercial, but I'm also sure that many people know that VH1 is now running I love the 90's.
So how does all this apply to gaming? Maybe it doesn't, but perhaps a company could focus on their strengths, settle into a niche that people are comfortable with, give customers what they want, keep them motivated with simple hints of what's to come, then deliver what they promised. If they did that and promoted their products with simple and direct advertising, they might just have some good prospects. Who knows?
Jason
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15 Jul 04
Today, we have a special treat for you. It's a guest article on innovation in gaming. It takes a decidedly different twist than you might expect. Check it out Here.
For today's game we look to the open source world. It's Free Civ (official site) from the Free Civ team. Yes, it's an online version of basically Civilization 2 available for free across many platforms. Can you lead your chosen civilization to dominance?
Jason
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14 Jul 04
Happy Bastille Day to everyone in France. Good luck storming the Prison. Man, I've had a brief string of bad luck recently. First the stomach virus, now I've got a summer cold. I was a little too wonky to write yesterday. I'm feeling better now and, with some rest, hope to be back to normal tomorrow.
Today, I just wanted to throw up a brief message about hype. You know the most masterful job of managing hype I've ever seen for a game was done with Half Life 2. They slaved away on the project in secret. They really leaked next to nothing. Before E3 last year they finally let out a few hints and the famous picture of a crowbar with its shadow forming the number two. Then they put on a masterful presentation at E3. They showed the engine, AI, gameplay, and characters. Everything looked great. They released all that massive information immediately after the convention to the eager public.
Even better they promised the game would come out September 30th that year. That was only a four and a half month wait for what was suddenly the hottest title around. They put together a package deal with ATI so their new top of the line video cards would get you a free copy of the game. It worked too. ATI cards which had just had a technical edge suddenly sold like hot cakes. It was a beautiful thing.
It's too bad they weren't telling the truth. There were early press leaks and rumored reports from the Valve compound that the game wouldn't be ready on time. Some of these came as early as late June and early July. These were generally dismissed because Valve denied them and stuck to their date. Of course, some people pointed out that ATI wouldn't want an early announcement of a delay as it would hurt card sales.
Still, everyone wanted to believe Valve. We now know there was more work to be done and the date slipped. Everyone understands part of the delay was due to the code theft, but really, with people not even confident that it will be out by 30 September this year, there was obviously much more work than they thought when announcing the original release date. Part of me hopes someone will come along and do a Half Life 2 hype, but actually ship on time with a quality product. As far as Half Life 2, I, along with everyone else, am just hoping for a quality title. A great game buys a lot of forgiveness.
Jason
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12 Jul 04
Happy Monday to everyone. An interesting topic is simmering in the PC gaming community. It's about intrusive copy protection. No one really argues that publisher don't have the right to protect the intellectual property they are trying to make a profit on. Some have argued that no money is saved through copy protection while copy protection developers claim that billions are lost to piracy each year. Personally I think publishers have to use some form to show they are making a good faith effort to protect their IP. However, I think they should always opt for the least disruptive and least invasive method. After all, their first duty should be to their paying customers.
It just might be Starforce that brings this to a head. Starforce 3 is currently one of the most effective copy protection schemes. Unfortunately that means that cracks are available in a week or two instead of hours or days. There are some reported problems with Starforce. Some versions record system information and send it back to the publisher. Hopefully this is done in a way fully visible to the customer and the customer approves of all the information sent out as well as being clearly informed as to how said information will be used.
Starforce also installs system level drivers on the user's system. While not entirely uncommon, some publishers are not clearly indicating this is going to occur when the game is installed or run for the first time. Since some users have reported reduced performance of their optical drives with Starforce installed, customers should be clearly informed when these drivers are installed. That way if they experience any negative effects, they can compare performance with and without Starforce to determine if there is a conflict.
Finally, Starforce is not uninstalled when the game using it is uninstalled. Perhaps more importantly, if users try to manually remove the drivers they can damage or destroy their installation of Windows. If you want to remove Starforce, only use the official Starforce removal utility.
Some Gone Gold forum members have started a website suggesting users boycott Starforce. Right now it's just hosting the Starforce removal utility, but they hope to build it into a site that will contain useful information for people who want to pressure publishers to use less intrusive forms of copy protection. While the name may sound directly antagonistic to Starforce, with some common sense changes and appropriate notices, Starforce itself could become an approved, customer friendly form of copy protection. While Starforce may be the rallying cry of the moment, the movement is growing against intrusive copy protection. After all the PC belongs to the user and access to it should not be abused by publishers. Gamers are starting to draw a line in the sand saying this is too far. Hopefully publishers will remember where the dollars come from.
Jason
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