Why I’m Unsubscribing from the MKBHD Waveform Podcast
As someone who’s recently taken up walking again, I’ve gotten into the habit of downloading and trying out podcasts. These short form pieces of content are a great way of keeping up to date, potentially learn a bit more about subjects you love, and learning more about the content creators that we all watch and listen to on a daily basis. Given that I’ve been watching MKBHD for years now, I decided to give his “Waveform” podcast a go. The breakdown of a typical episode It started off well – the hosts, Andrew Manganelli, and Marques Brownlee, do a pretty good job of vibing off one another – they have knowledge to add to most tech subjects, especially when it comes to Marques talking about the business strategies of big companies, frequently giving ideas and insights into reasons a company has done something that I would never have imagined. But…
The Editing Room Floor: How a review transforms from a draft to being published
Warning: This is going to be a long one! Any piece of literature, be it books, magazines, blogs and even reviews go through several iterations before the editor and author are happy with the content. Whilst this is a fact of life for writers, it usually happens out of sight, leading many to believe the end result is what the author originally intended. Unfortunately, this has happened to me many times throughout my (limited!) experience within the games industry thus far, so today I’m going to go through my latest review (Doom – for those of you who don’t frequent here often) and compare it to my original piece that I submitted. I’m doing this article as I’m concerned about the state of play in games writing and games journalism. Too many times articles are edited to fit a narrative, and whilst that didn’t happen here (my editor keeps to gaming and…
Why I Feel Double Fine Studios Are Taking The Piss
Disclaimer: The following is an opinion piece. People may not agree with what is being said, but I by all means encourage readers to engage in discussion about the following views and opinions. I originally wanted to write an article about the frustration I felt towards Double Fine when they announced that Broken Age would be split up into two pieces and the first part would be sold on Steam Early Access. I felt that Double Fine were taking advantage of their fanbase, and were gambling with fan’s money as if no risk is involved. Double Fine themselves had admitted that they had taken their idea to publishers before, only for publishers to turn them down, saying there wasn’t a market for adventure games. For all we know, Double Fine has that entire market already invested in its project, but are acting as if their sales for Broken Age…
EuroGamer Expo: My First Ever Gaming Expo
So here’s my confession: I’ve never been to a gaming exhibition. I know it’s strange considering I’ve been passionate about games for most of my life, but alas, it is true. I’ve never got around to planning one out, so after seeing @the_rami tweet that prospective game developers need to go to as many expo’s as possible, I jumped in at the deep end, browsing countless websites that grouped all gaming conventions together. The big one’s like GDC and E3 are both exclusionary, and extremely expensive, meaning there was no way in hell I’d get around to going to one of these within the next few years. I started looking for more consumer friendly shows, one’s that needed no certification to attend; that’s where Eurogamer came in. It was big enough that I’d get a feel for gaming conventions, but extremely cheap: £15 for a day pass was a drop…
Ouya’s FTG’s campaign loses one project due to suspension.
The following post is a follow up to my previous post on Ouya’s Free The Games campaign which can be found here: Why I call Bullshit on Ouyas Free The Games campaign successes Today, a marvellous victory has been won for all indies everywhere that want to one day use Kickstarter as a valid investment source. Elementary, My Dear Holmes (made by Sam Chandola), has recently been suspended due to unusual activity on its account (this was the Kickstarter project that had many fake profiles, included a poor lady that has been missing for months and many fake celebrities). Sam Chandola, the creator Elementary, My Dear Holmes has stated in the Kickstarter comments: “We love point-and-click adventure games and this will, by no means, stop us from pursuing Elementary, My Dear Holmes. We are devoted towards the project and will be seeking private equity to finish this up. And I’m…
Why I call bullshit on Ouya’s “Free The Games” Kickstarter successes
This morning, I awoke to some seemingly good news coming from my Flipboard news app. Polygon reported that Ouya’s “Free The Games” fund had been successful twice on Kickstarter. I was amazed, astounded even, as never in my wildest dreams would I imagine any game prospect would actually be able to raise $50,000 in funds for an Ouya exclusive game. The news article I read can be found here: http://www.polygon.com/2013/8/27/4664654/first-ouya-free-the-games-campaigns-surpass-funding-goals To summarise, it states that 2 kickstarter campaigns (Gridiron Thunder and Elementary, My Dear Holmes) have successfully got their needed money, and so Ouya will give them 100% extra funding over the course of their development. This is all well and good until you actually take a look at each Kickstarter page: The above, for example, only has 126 backers that have seemingly managed to be the most charitable backers in the entire world. Upon inspection it’s very suspicious: 110 of the 126…
The Ouya and its many problems
I start this article by saying that I’ve had the Ouya a few days now, and am thoroughly enjoying the emulation software on it. I’ve managed to get my collection of classic Sega and NES games running perfectly, and it really takes me back to my childhood having a dedicated experience for games. When I emulate games on a PC or laptop, I can easily get distracted due to the multitasking nature they inhabit, constantly switching to facebook to message people or jumping out of a game to look up a news article breaks the immersion video games offer. The Ouya fixes this for me by being on a TV like a dedicated games console, making sure I concentrate on just the game, nothing else. So whatever else I say about the Ouya, I do like it, and feel like has a great (if not scary) future. In this article…