Remember when EA sued Zynga? Well, the FarmVille makers aren't just going to lie down and take it. They're back in the ring and swinging like never before.
EA's aggressive, incendiary lawsuit claimed that Zynga's The Ville ripped off EA's own The Sims Social. Zynga has filed three documents in response: A motion to strike, a response to EA's suit, and a counterclaim. (You can read all three documents in their entirety below.)
Zynga's general counsel Reggie Davis prefaced the filings with the following statement:
"Today we responded to EA's claims which we believe have no merit. We also filed a counterclaim which addresses actions by EA we believe to be anticompetitive and unlawful business practices, including legal threats and demands for no-hire agreements. We look forward to getting back to focusing all our efforts on delighting our players."
In the first filing, Zynga moves to strike elements of EA's complaint which it deems "redundant, immaterial, impertinent and/or scandalous matter that is unfairly prejudicial to Zynga."
In their second filing, the response to EA's suit, Zynga shows screenshots of its past games which the company claims demonstrate that The Ville is a natural evolution of Zynga's game design, from YoVille to Café World to The Ville.
Zynga also claims that they didn't deliberately steal talent from EA to copy their games, but that people left EA because the company had an "inability to compete successfully in the modern market for social games playable on the internet and mobile platforms."
In the third document, the counterclaim against EA, Zynga claims that EA has taken "an anti-competitive and unlawful scheme to stop Zynga from hiring its employees and to restrain the mobility of EA employees in violation of the spirit of antitrust laws." From the countersuit:
EA explicitly communicated to Zynga that, although Zynga's past hiring was lawful, EA's Chief Executive Officer John Riccitiello was "on the war path," "incensed" and "heated" and intent on stopping Zynga's future hiring of EA employees. Mr. Riccitiello lamented the fact that Zynga was able to attract his talent with better compensation packages that EA just can't match and feared losing additional executives and looking bad to his Board and shareholders.
There's a ton more shade thrown in the legal documents. Check them out below.
Here's part one, Zynga's motion to strike:
Here's part 2, Zynga's answer and demand for a jury trial:
And here's part 3, Zynga's counterclaim.
And here, for reference, is EA's original complaint, filed in early August:
A lot of invective in there, and a lot of conflicting claims, but one thing's clear: Zynga isn't messing around. Get your popcorn; Godzilla and Mothra are on the town.
We've reached out to EA for comment and will update this story when we hear back.
Update: EA has responded with the following statement, sent in an email to Kotaku from EA spokesman John Reseburg:
This is a predictable subterfuge aimed at diverting attention from Zynga's persistent plagiarism of other artists and studios. Zynga would be better served trying to hold onto the shrinking number of employees they've got, rather than suing to acquire more.
There's a brand new iPhone selling out all over the world today. If I ordered one right now, I wouldn't receive it until January2016. I guess I'll keep myself occupied with this week's gaming apps.
Only four this week, and I blame myself for that, because it's my fault. Having been filling in for the vacationing Stephen Totilo, I figured finding the time to do his job and write several Gaming App of the Day posts would be no problem. Insert the sound of tortured screaming and the lick of supernatural flames here. You know how folks that have been working for a place for going on six years start gunning for the top spot? I'll keep this low spot, thank you very much.
If anyone needs me I'll be down here playing (or trying to play) Gameloft's first Unreal Engine 3 title, sideways bubble popping, the Civil War and counting with a purpose.
If you have a suggestion for an app for the iPhone, iPad, Android or Windows Phone 7 that you'd like to see highlighted, let us know.
Take the bubble-bursting puzzle gameplay of the popular Bust-a-Move series, turn it on its side and toss in some magical spells and memory matching puzzles and sharp cartoon visuals and you've got Supermagical, an award-winning iOS game from Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team, a developer with an obvious appreciation for understatement. More »
Civil War: 1863, a new game from Scottish studio Hunted Cow, achieves that rarest of strategy gaming feats: balancing accessibility with depth and challenge. More »
No no wait, it's a good kind of brain-tearing! Welome to Nuclien, a new iPhone/iPad game from James Barnard. It will test you. It will push you. It may break you. And if you're like me, you'll get really, really into it. More »
Infinity Blade. Horn. The Dark Meadow. Developers are releasing amazing Unreal Engine 3-powered mobile games with such regularity these days that I was growing a little tired of talking about them. Then came Gameloft's first Unreal Engine 3 game, Wild Blood. More »
Here's a not-so-big secret: most Hollywood adaptations of video games are not very good. Why? The reasons are numerous, but the most obvious one is that they're totally different mediums, and so much is lost in translation. The end result is usually something that leaves neither fans of the games nor those who simply enjoy a good movie satisfied.
So the fact that there are now five Resident Evil movies is frankly incredible. How has the series lasted this long? What's the secret to its success? Sure, Milla Jovovich kicking zombie ass is a primary reason. But there's something else too, which pisses off fans of the source material to no end: the movies are, ultimately, nothing like the games.
Other than the fact that people have been turned into the undead by a virus engineered by the Umbrella Corporation, plus a few familiar zombified threats tossed in, the first RE flick had absolutely nothing in common with its namesake. No Jill Valentine, no Chris Redfield, just some woman named Alice.
One could rationalize that instead of trying to depict every little thing from the games in a literal fashion, the movie shrewdly tapped into the essence of the games instead. And perhaps others should follow suit. But that's not the case either. Instead of sneaking around dark mansion hallways, worrying about every little noise from around the corner and managing a scarce supply of bullets, it was jumping off the walls of brightly lit research facilities, to give a demon dog a roundhouse kick.
As the sequels came along, more and more elements from the games were inserted into the films, but still only to a very minor degree. Stars from the games made appearances, including Jill and Chris, but they played second banana to Jovovich's character, and were often nothing like the game characters they were based on.
The stories and set pieces again bore little resemblance with the games. Over time, fans of the games began to warm up to the movies, and appreciate them for what they were: over-the-top action spectaculars whose video game-esque qualities (the ridiculous stunts, over the top enemies, and limitless supply of ammo) were somewhat justified. Plus, the chance to how some favorite element from the games might be employed on-screen was a bonus.
The movies succeeded because they looked at the source material as inspiration when needed, which was not very often. It's rare to see something that would seem to cater to a specific audience (the Resident Evil name implies that the series is for Resident Evil fans), yet absolutely does not. It chose an audience to appease, and that audience isn't necessarily RE players.
But somehow, this approach works—and the results more than speak for themselves. Each successive Resident Evil movie has made more money than the one before it. With that in mind, perhaps the next Street Fighter movie should star an original character as well? Since both previous attempts have tanked already, I say it's worth a shot.
All of this is why the most recent Resident Evil movie, Resident Evil: Retribution, is so odd. Not only does it do a complete 180 by being the most video game-like of the bunch, but also it dips heavily into the source material—which at this point, is rather risky.
Spoilers ahead.
***
Things kick off right where the last RE movie ended (just as the previous installment, Resident Evil: Afterlife, did). It's one of those beginnings that completely brushes aside everything that Alice (and the viewer) endured last time, which would be frankly infuriating if the entire franchise wasn't a mindless cartoon in the first place. Besides, isn't that also very video game-like anyway?
After Alice is knocked out during the latest barrage by Umbrella, she finds herself in some picturesque, suburban setting. She's now a housewife, with a wonderful husband and a beautiful daughter. Not surprisingly, zombies appear out of nowhere to ruin everything. While trying to get the hell out of dodge, Alice and her daughter have a chance encounter with Rain, the Michelle Rodriguez character from the very first movie, who is all of a sudden alive again.
Just as it seems as if her number is up as well, Alice wakes up in an Umbrella-designed holding chamber, semi-nude. Imagine that bib you get at the dentist, but as a "dress." Which, really, is the other major reason why people go see Resident Evil flicks: you're guaranteed a scene in which Jovovich has been captured and conveniently stripped of all her clothing.
Here where one of the main antagonists in the movie, Jill Valentine, confronts her. Remember how Jill was brainwashed in Resident Evil 5, the video game? Same thing here, right down to the purple jumpsuit, sudden blonde locks, and goofy metallic spider in her chest (which looks even sillier in real life). Evil Jill was introduced in the last movie, and takes center stage here.
A disruption in the system allows Alice to flee her cell (and get a new leather outfit), after which she ends up in the streets of Tokyo, of all places, where a sudden zombie outbreak occurs. We get to see the first of many supremely flashy fight scenes here, which culminates with the arrival of Ada Wong. Ada is this particular movie's obligatory/token character from a game, but she's not the only one.
Ada is working for Albert Wesker, the main bad guy from the games. Albert wants to help Alice escape the Umbrella facility that she and Ada are currently prisoners in. He also wants them to join forces with him, because he's now out to take Umbrella down as well, so he's a good guy. Huh? And to lend assistance, he's sending a strike force that includes Leon S. Kennedy and Barry Burton?! What the hell!
Such a sudden influx of characters from the games would be one thing, but such a bizarre amalgamation is another. It's almost as if the director was given an ultimatum by the studio head that he HAD to insert fan favorites into the mix. It feels like some crazed, hardcore RE fan fiction. I hesitate to call it bad fan fiction since, let's be honest: the storylines from the actual games are pretty weak to begin with.
We also learn that the facility is a testing ground for Umbrella's chemical weaponry. Each area simulates a different environment, which Alice and Ada must traverse. So basically, they were in the Tokyo level beforehand, and must now traverse the New York stage, and even a Moscow one, to reach safety. It's like any action game in which stuff takes place all over the map, but with some semblance of logic applied (if you can call it that).
To push the game-like allusions even further, every time they reach a new spot, weapons and ammo are casually acquired. Because that's just what happens when you enter a new stage. Also, in one of them, Alice and Ada not only encounter a major foe from a previous movie, but two of them simultaneously, making it effectively a boss rush.
By far the most interesting level is the suburbia one. Remember that dream from before? Well, it wasn't just a dream after all; Alice eventually comes across her daughter from before. Turns out, what we saw before was just a routine simulation that Umbrella performs to test whatever out. The Alice from before was simply a clone (for those unfamiliar with the other movies; her character is cloned a LOT).
This also explains Rain's presence from before, and why there's another one, out to kill Alice on Jill's behalf. That's one way to bring previous stars back from the dead if no other explanation can be given. Whether by design or not, this video game movie does an excellent job of incorporating tropes from the source material, or at the very least have them be present, in a semi-organic fashion. In this case: why do all characters in a video game look exactly alike? While, again, also not trying very hard to be like the thing it's based upon. It's very weird if one actually sits down to think about it.
Anyhow, because the girl believes Alice to be mom, she all of sudden comes along for the ride, effectively making her the Newt (from the James Cameron classic, Aliens) of the motion picture. Unfortunately, that relationship isn't fully explored, but given what kind of movie we're talked about in the first place (other than daughter freaking out when she enters a room filled with mom clones), it's nice to have at least something to think about in the first place.
Despite Retribution embracing its roots far more than ever before, it's still a Resident Evil movie, which means action sequence, after action sequence, after action sequence. While these are impressive when taken by themselves, collectively, they become a bit tiresome. At least we have the guys who play Leon and Barry to point and laugh at. (Who appear to be like two dudes who would portray the characters in an unofficial knock-off porn based on RE,especially Barry's beard. They have the acting chops of adult film stars as well.)
Not to give everything way, but in the end, Alice eventually makes a rendezvous with the strike force and they all stand toe to toe with Jill and her personal army, in a scene that could be considered an unintentional nod to Capcom's VS games, in which characters from virtually every single movie leading up are all sharing the stage together. Oh, and those who thought that this movie might be the last RE flick… the fact that each makes more money than the last, as previously noted, is something not lost in the filmmakers. The sufficiently wacky ending definitely lends itself to another sequel.
***
In the end, if you're a fan of the film series, then you are going to absolutely love this latest installment. It's easily the best one thus far, with the best fight action sequences, interesting background details, and enough nods to the past to serve as a thank you to fans for sticking around for so long, which is important for most franchises with so many movies underneath their belt. The only complaint for such folk is how, surprisingly, it's a bit light in the zombie-killing department.
As for fans of the games, most should be sufficiently amused by all references to past games, more so than in the past. Die-hard fans might still be pissed with the not so finer details (like Wesker as a good guy), but at the very least, no one can say that the movies have nothing to do with the games anymore.
And that fact that, as noted, Resident Evil: Retribution is the most video game-y entry of a film series to be based on a video games, but at the same time is hardly like the video game it's supposed to be, and somehow actually works, is noteworthy. I think?
Matthew Hawkins is a NYC based game journalist who once upon a time used to be an editor for GameSetWatch plus numerous other outlets, self-publishes his own game culture zine, is part of the Attract Mode collective, and contributes to The Fangamer Podcast. You can keep tabs on his personal home-base, FORT90.com.
You're crouched in the dark. You can hear two guards talking; they're just around the corner. If they spot you, you're as good as dead. Best to remain in the shadows, unseen.
You creep up to the corner, slowly. You'll need to get a glimpse of your enemies to best plan a way around them. Pressed up against the wall, you reach the corner. What do you do?
That's right. You lean.
For anyone who came up playing PC games, video-game leaning is a natural thing. Before the "E" key became the default for environmental interaction, it and the "Q" key let you lean left and right. In games like Deus Ex and Thief, mastering the lean was the key to mastering sneaking.
I've spent the last few days playing Thief: Gold, and that game is a lean-fest. (And the many Thief fans out there will be happy to hear that despite the dated graphics and tech, I'm loving it. Here's to addressing our gaming blind spots, one by one.)
Thief is pure, hardcore stealth, and if you're gonna make it through these levels unspotted and unscathed, you're going to have to lean. It's an oddly empowering move—something about peering around a corner feels really satisfying, and I find myself leaning more or less constantly.
Somewhere in the 90's or early 2000's, video game leaning went out of style. What happened? As far as I can reckon, two things did: Consoles rose to prominence and as they did, a lot of stealth games went third-person.
Both Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell involved a lot of sneaking, but you were doing so while looking over your character's shoulder. That opened up your field of vision a lot compared to a first-person game. It was possible to stick Sam Fisher up against the wall, sidle up to a corner, and shoulder the camera over to get a look around it without actually needing a specific button to do so.
More recent games like Rainbow Six: Vegas and Deus Ex: Human Revolution took on a hybrid first/third person camera to make stealth more manageable. I really like this feature—it feels slick and organic, and it makes stealth sections much more intuitive and empowering.
An Xbox controller doesn't really have the extra buttons necessary for a lean, and so console games tended to eschew the move altogether. (At one point I was hoping that a squeeze-based controller might allow for something like leaning. No seriously, I was hoping for that.)
But there's a new game coming out that looks to bring the lean back to consoles—Arkane's Dishonored. As I mentioned earlier this week when Jason and I talked about stealth games, I'm kind of doing a media blackout on that game; at the very least, I don't watch any of the new gameplay footage. But of course, I've seen a few videos of it in action. And in each one, the protagonist is leaning like a madman—leaning left, leaning right, leaning all over the place.
But wait, Dishonored is coming out on consoles as well as PC… that means it needs to work on a controller. How does the leaning work? I played the game at PAX a couple of weeks ago, and kind of couldn't believe how smart Arkane's approach was:
You hold the Y button, and then lean using the thumbstick. Simple. Brilliant.
As I played Dishonored, I found myself leaning every which way, back in the groove of the PC games I grew up with. It works so well I can't believe no one's thought of it before. (Though maybe someone has?) And of course, it makes sense that Dishonored would feature a lot of leaning—several of the people from Arkane worked on Thief and Deus Ex.
It's not just a stealth thing, either. I'd love to be able to lean in Battlefield 4, or Far Cry 3. It's such a natural move in reality, and yet such a perplexingly difficult one to pull off in so many games.
In the grand scheme of gaming, leaning will never be as glamorous as, say, jumping. It's not bullet-time. But it's a move from which first-person games, stealth and non-stealth alike, could benefit. Here's hoping that other developers will copy Arkane's approach. It's time to lean once more.
The iPhone 5 could potentially be a big step up for mobile gaming. But lots of video game enthusiasts still think of the mobile landscape as a backwater to be snickered at. You might think that Firemonkeys executive producer Rob Murray—who makes the Real Racing series for Apple's iDevices—would be offended to hear that. But he understands the skepticism of those who don't think that mobile is the wave of the future.
Murray knows that people who identify as hardcore gamers need to be convinced that an iPhone can be as valid as an Xbox 360. "We were one of the first ones to bring that console-level experience to the phone," he offered. "No one's seen these kinds of experiences on a regular basis yet so I think it's quite fair to scoff. I think it's reasonable. People have seen these experiences on console and they haven't seen them on iOS yet. So, they've got all these questions about ‘How're you gonna do this or that with a touchscreen?'"
Consoles and PCs have been gaming devices for a while and have been able to prove what they can accomplish. The key point for both gamers and developers is to think about pushing the envelope, Murray says. "I think when you analyze the power in this device and you project what you could do—this instead of what people are doing—that's when you get excited and you can see that this is an awesome gaming device."
I am not a game designer. I have made games before, but they were not very good. My talents lie elsewhere. So when I write about games, I consciously try to avoid offering my own suggestions for what their designers should have implemented or cut. My job is to critique what's there, not talk about what they should have done.
But today is special. I spent most of yesterday fiddling around with the Wii U during Nintendo's big bonanza in New York City, and all I could think about was how many cool features it could bring to the world of role-playing games. The Wii U's tablet controller—which is constantly tethered to your game and could be used for all sorts of dual-screen experiences almost like a bigger, more versatile DS—opens up a whole lot of opportunities.
So let's open the brain dam. Here are some things that RPGs could do with the Wii U.
Maps and maps and maps
World maps. Dungeon maps. Battle maps. One of the coolest things about having a separate screen in your lap is that it can be used to supplement what you're seeing and doing on your TV. And one of the most irritating things about gaming displays, as any interface designer will tell you, is how obnoxious and cluttery all those little things on your screen can be. Mini-maps, health bars, status gauges, etc.
The Wii U can help fix that. The big screen can be clean and clutter-free, showing nothing but beautiful 3D (or 2D, or isometric, or whatever). All that nasty UI stuff—like an interactive map that you can touch and play around with—can fit in your lap.
Character and inventory management
Again, the second screen can make all that UI clutter easier to deal with. Maybe we don't even need menus anymore. Instead of pausing the game to open up a separate set of screens that allows you to swap your characters' equipment and use items and manage your inventory, the Wii U's tablet could hold all of that information for you 24/7. No reason you shouldn't be able to do all that stuff while walking around.
Minigames
Remember Triple Triad, that fiendishly addictive card game from Final Fantasy VIII? Or the (godly) Iron Chef knock-offs in Suikoden II? Think about how much cooler they could be if you could slide cards around a touch-screen in your lap, or furiously whip up sushi dishes on your GamePad as the judges yelled at you from the big screen.
We've seen the DS and 3DS play around with ideas like this before, but this could be a totally different scale. And if anyone knows minigames, it's Nintendo.
Maybe combat that forces you to tap along with a beat ala Theatrhythm Final Fantasy. Or fights that task you to draw patterns on the small screen while you control characters with buttons on the other. Basically, the Wii U will let more RPGs copy The World Ends With You. That's a good thing.
Plus-sized bosses
Bosses that take up both screens. Some DS games have also done this—Bowser's Inside Story, for example—but again, we haven't seen them that frequently, or on this scale. Imagine a giant tower whose head has to be attacked by characters on the big screen while its base is taken down by your fingers on the GamePad. Or a boss that can only be defeated by simultaneous attacks on both screens. Lots of potential here.
Strategy guides, helpful messages
Here's a good opportunity for developers to implement social features—a buzzword that drives gamers crazy—in a way that isn't intrusive. Maybe you're walking around an area and you can see live reactions and feelings from other players on your bottom screen. Maybe you get cryptic messages ala Dark Souls or see other RPG players like in Journey.
And what about extra help? You could play the game on one screen and read about helpful tools and tips on the other. Maybe you pay a bit extra for a built-in Prima strategy guide that recognizes exactly where you are in a game, and updates with supplementary information as you progress.
Routes, battle orders in strategy-RPGs
One of Madden 13's coolest features on Wii U is the way it lets you plot out receivers' routes by just drawing where you want them to go. Can't you imagine strategy-RPGs using a similar mechanic? Maybe you can give all of your characters simultaneous assignments in the hypothetical Valkyria Chronicles 4 for Wii U, or move them along the grid battlefield in the hypothetical Final Fantasy Tactics 2. Excited yet?
Extra camera angles for cut-scenes
Not to go all Kojima on you, but wouldn't it be neat to see cut-scenes from multiple angles at the same time, each on a different screen? Could get expensive. Not a priority.
Books
Few things are more annoying than trying to read large chunks of virtual text on a big-screen television. Let's make that easier. What if you pick up a book in Skyrim or a Tales game and open it in your lap? More convenient, easier to read, bam. (Thanks to Kirk for this idea.)
Simultaneous combat and exploration
Let's get crazy. We've all dealt with random encounters. Nobody really likes them. But what if random encounters didn't interrupt your progress? What if your characters could actually fight battles while you continued exploring?
Stay with me here. Let's say you're exploring a dungeon on the television, right? Third-person 3D view, etc. What if your characters hung out on the bottom screen as you explored, automatically fighting enemies while you walked around? Maybe you could help them out by tapping the screen to cast a spell or heal them every once in a while. Maybe every once in a while you run into a more powerful enemy or boss that takes over the big screen too.
So you'd have to micromanage, but you wouldn't have to grind. You'd have to deal with the challenge of random encounters without the tedium. Seems like a cool balance, no?
Some of these ideas might work. Some of them might not work. But the Wii U has a lot of potential, and it could do a lot of good things for all kinds of RPGs. Now it just needs to get some RPGs.
Random Encounters is a weekly column dedicated to all things JRPG. It runs every Friday at 3pm ET.
Jack Tramiel passed away earlier this year. If the name doesn't ring a bell, then you might know him as the man who helped revolutionize the computer industry, ushering in the Commodore 64 into millions of homes. In the wake of his passing, Tramiel's own house is now on the market for a whopping 11.9 million.
All that cash gets you a neoclassical home that sits on 1.27 acres in Moreno Valley, California, with a giant pool, fully equipped guest house, wine cellar and oodles of expensive-looking marble all over the place. The estate was built in 1992, and likely came after Tramiel's dealings with both Commodore and Atari had truckloads of cash coming in on a daily basis. It's more square footage than Dan Houser's big-bank purchase of Truman Capote's Brooklyn home but isn't quite as literally significant. You can take a gander at the Tramiel estate here.
Despite my aversion to shooters—god, there's too many of them—Overstrike, with its playful, comical tone and its cartoon aesthetic caught my eye. The approach felt like something fresh. But we don't have Overstrike anymore, no, instead we have Fuse. Compare the twotrailers for the games and you see see a world of a difference in approach. Where did all the color go? The humor? Why so ‘realistic'? It's almost like the skeptical authority figure in the first trailer got his way and replaced the team of scoundrels because they weren't right for the job. Now Fuse looks like Another Shooter. Hooray?
If you ask me, the problem for Insomniac might have been that Overstrike wasn't serious enough. Someone decided that something stylized and satirical might not perform as well as the Serious Shooter. Have you noticed just how damned serious so many shooting games are nowadays? There's a huge audience that craves games like that. The tone is thick and somber in most popular triple-A shooters, often visualized by the drab greys and browns. Terrorists, invaders, aliens and villains are to be taken seriously. Just like they are in real life.
Consider, for comparison's sake, recent tiles that didn't take themselves seriously at all—namely the Rise of the Triad reboot and Bulletstorm. There are no pretenses about what you're doing in either game. The first time I watched the new Rise of the Triad trailer and I heard the metal music, the coin collecting, and the absurdity of how bodyparts just flew, I was struck by how cavalier it all seemed, how confident the game felt in what it was. Nothing more than just shooting some dudes, it didn't need to justify itself in what it has you do. Bulletstorm is much in the same vein. Actually, Bulletstorm asks you to revel in the ludicrous when it asks you to kill creatively with its skillshots and when it throws phrases like "sushi dick" and laser T-Rexes at you.
Both are also throwbacks to the classic FPS. I want you to take a look at this screenshot so you can see what I'm talking about.
So that's Hitler in a mecha suit right there, in what can be considered the roots of the FPS genre. Realism is nowhere to be found. What happened? As game academic Dylan Holmes notes, the Wolfenstein 3D era was characterized by its lack of seriousness. These games embraced "the gratuitous violence and endemic sociopathy that has always characterized the genre." Somewhere in the mid nineties, with the advent of the tactical, "realistic" shooter, this changed. Shooters became serious. We can thank Tom Clancy for that.
This isn't about a genre ‘losing its roots,' and a plea to change the current landscape of the genre. Both types of shooters have their place. Rather, I am concerned because the need to have serious shooters is so pervasive that perfectly good titles get "improved" by getting stripped of what makes them unique. You can have your Call of Duties, hey, I play those too. But why do other franchises need to suffer the same fate, why the strong push for homogeneity?
I'm also genuinely curious as to why we crave SERIOUS REALISTIC SHOOTER as much as we do. Ultimately, that's why game development companies are making games like these. We're buying them, and we're buying them in droves. Changing Overstrike to become more serious was a move done to secure more sales, in the same way a movie might alter itself before release based on public feedback on private screenings.
So I started asking some people in the industry if they thought modern shooters took themselves too seriously. The first person was Dave Oshry, who works in the marketing team for Rise of the Triad. He told me in an interview, "Absolutely. There's nothing wrong with that, but every now and again we need to be slapped upside the head with an Excalibat and have some mindless fun."
Another reason why shooters take themselves so seriously revolves around the idea that we have become a culture that glorifies authenticity and realism all around. This is why reality TV has also become popular, why we we're delighted when we hear "based on a true story" and why we're enraged when people who are catapulted into fame turn out to be lying about what they've gone through. We want our shooting to be vaguely contextualized in the "real," just like everything else.
The problem is that for all the attention to detail put into the guns, the locations, even the conflicts (in military shooters at least), what we play through is a far cry from what war actually is. As Robert Yang, game developer and academic, put it to me via email after I asked him if he thought that shooters took themselves too seriously,
"If you're actually serious about war, then military shooters get 99% of it wrong. The US fights wars with unmanned drones, viruses, trade embargoes, and giant bases they airlift to the middle of Afghanistan. More significantly, they argue war is something inherently winnable, to some degree, through personal agency. The video game depiction of war is so misleading that we have to consume it as fantasy."
[Update: Robert sent me a long, but on-point answer to my question, which couldn't be used in its entirety for the purposes of this article. He feels that I misrepresented him by omission, so he posted his full answer online - you can read that here.]
Here we come to another concern when it comes to serious shooters: embracing them makes it easier to straddle an ethical gray area when it comes to what is depicted on-screen and its connection to real life. Obviously games owe their existence to the military and its funding, and we could argue that the onslaught of media glorifying war works as propaganda that sells us the routinization and sterilization of war.
This was the industry we created, and game developers and publishers are responding to what we seem to be asking for. You want your serious realism? Have at it.
I'm also genuinely curious as to why we crave SERIOUS REALISTIC SHOOTER so much. Ultimately, that's why game development companies are making games like these. We're buying them, and we're buying them in droves.
Of course it turned out that we don't quite want to shoot real guns just because we like to play with virtual ones. But one cant help but wonder what it is that we do want from these ‘serious' shooters, because it's not purely mechanical competence. The "fun" has to be wrapped around a particular aesthetic or tone. Why is that?
The reason I think we prefer ‘serious' shooters is because of how we want the public to perceive the medium. Maturity! Games are serious, okay? Maybe even art. Serious games get taken seriously, right? And we're getting older. The medium is growing, and with it, came the need to show both complexity and maturation. This is where the need for narrative stems from, we want games with nuance and games we can connect to. Earlier games eschewed this aspect, but newer games, regardless of how shoddily implemented, feel that they need to provide you a reason to play.
Games cannot stand on their own as easily anymore, despite being able to do it just fine before. Why can't a shooter just be a honest-to-goodness shooter without pretenses anymore? Why can't I just shoot a bunch of people/creatures in the face for a reason other than "this is fun to play"? Why don't we buy shooters that don't take themselves seriously nearly as much as those that do? It feels like insecurity to me, the endless drive to prove that we've grown up by wearing clothes that are too big for us.
A shooter that balances maturity, nuance and complexity probably won't be found in games like Rise of the Triad. Then again, have we found it in games like Call of Duty, or even the recent Spec Ops: The Line? That's the latest title critics have praised for its writing. Kris Ligman puts it best when she says that if Spec Ops
"Recapitulates the war gaming genre in a more critical light, it does so in the same ways that corporate marketing cynically adopts anti-corporate imagery. And for every The Line, there are a dozen Modern Warfares and Homefronts, all gleefully reproducing the tropes of warmongering military-funded Hollywood blockbusters. It's to these we give our accolades, not whatever is the equivalent of a Hurt Locker or an Apocalypse Now."
Brendon Chung, creator of the critical darling Gravity Bone and Thirty Flights of Loving, doesn't think it's a bad thing that shooters take themselves so seriously, he told me via email.
"It's perfectly fine and valid for a game to take itself seriously. I would expect a modern military shooter to take itself very seriously, and something like Chex Quest to take itself less seriously.
I'd love to see more shooters - not all shooters, just some - take a deep dive into seeing just how serious they can get. I'm probably in the minority, but I like it when games take a strong opinion and attempt to say something. If a chunk of the next generation's shooters revolve around hot-button topics, I'd happily support that."
I have no doubt that we can have our serious complex, well-written shooter like Chung wants, but all we have is the tone—not the nuance to vindicate it. What's the use of being so serious if that's the case?
Metro 2033 is getting adapted into a movie, it looks like.
The game features a bleak, post-apocalyptic Moscow. The game itself, though, isn't technically getting the adaptation. The book it was based on—also called Metro 2033—is.
The Hollywood Reporter reports that the movie will be produced by MArk Johnson, who worked on Galaxy Quest and the Chronicles of Narnia films. The film will be written by F. Scott Frazier, who doesn't have that many writing credits to his name just yet.
The sequel to Metro 2033 the game, Metro: Last Light, is due in 2013. No word if the film and games will attempt to tie in to each other, but I'm going to just go ahead and assume and hope not.
So now they're ditching the publisher model. They're going straight to the fans. They want $1.1 million to make an original, brand new, fantasy role-playing game in the vein of old classics like Baldur's Gate II and Planescape Torment. It's a dream project. And they've got the talent to pull it off.
This afternoon, Obsidian is launching a Kickstarter for what they're calling Project: Eternity. It's an original fantasy role-playing game created by many of the company's top minds: Chris Avellone, creator of Planescape: Torment; Tim Cain, one of the brains behind the original Fallout; Josh Sawyer, a lead designer on Icewind Dale; and a number of other programmers, artists, and designers who have worked on all of those games.
Their goal: to make an RPG that blends the combat and exploration of Baldur's Gate, the dungeon spelunking of Icewind Dale, and the powerful narrative of Planescape: Torment.
In other words, this could be an RPG fan's dream game.
Avellone: "[I'm] tired of designing content and interactions that caters to consoles and console controllers."
"Project: Eternity is our opportunity to FINALLY develop our own fantasy RPG world and franchise," Obsidian's Avellone told me in an e-mail this week. "FINALLY. Did I say FINALLY enough? One more time: FINALLY.
"It's not like we've had any lack of ideas, only a lack of opportunity or anyone who wanted to finance it. Then Kickstarter came along and a door opened—this was FINALLY our chance to sidestep the publisher model and get financing directly from the people who want to play an Obsidian RPG. I'd much rather have the players be my boss and hear their thoughts for what would be fun than people who might be more distant from the process and the genre and frankly, any long-term attachment to the title."
They're targeting a spring 2014 release. The game will cost you $25 (or $20 if you're an early supporter). And it'll be PC only, because Avellone is "tired of designing content and interactions that caters to consoles and console controllers."
"Those limitations affect RPG mechanics and content more than players may realize (especially for players who've never played a PC RPG and realize what's been lost over the years), and often doesn't add to the RPG experience," he told me.
Avellone also echoed something I've written quite a bit about: the value of having conversations with gamers. Kickstarter can free a company like Obsidian from the message-driven shackles of publishers and allow designers like Avellone to be as open as possible.
"It's nice to be able to TALK about our Kickstarter projects, not just with devs, but with fans directly," he said. "Want to share a vision doc? Sure! Want to show early screenshots and concept art? Sure! Normally that kind of sharing with the community is strictly monitored and shackled, and often, we can't share what we're working on until way, way, way down the line of the development process. That's always struck me as one of the worst business models in an industry where iteration is key."
So what's the game actually going to look like? The final product is still at least a year and a half away, but Avellone shared some thoughts on how Project: Eternity is shaping up:
Combat will be old-school. "It'll feel like Baldur's Gate 2. After discussions here, we decided to pursue a similar combat style to the [games on the Infinity Engine, like Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale]—real time with pause. It'll offer the same breadth and depth of combat choices as you'd expect from combats in Baldur's Gate, and our combat system has been one of the first systems we've delved into for the Kickstarter."
The world is totally original. "It's fantasy with its own voice. Josh Sawyer has been leading the charge with the world and race creation—at first glance, players will recognize archetypes and seemingly-familiar landscapes, but often, we just use that as a means to draw you in and let you begin to see the subtleties and differences. Our first goal with the world creation was to make a world that's fun to explore first, and then construct the lore, factions, and conflicts around that."
This is a game with soul. "So there are a few things—we want the player to be able to build their own character, and we want the player to be able to evolve and grow. And this growth wouldn't be limited to the first game, but would continue into subsequent titles as well. The story and world is built around the concept of magic and power tied to a character's soul, and the player's soul and the souls of his companions are... special."
You won't get to create your own party. That's not a bad thing. "Much like Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment, the player creates one character and gathers a party while exploring the world. We'll be giving the companions as much love and attention as we've done in our titles in the past, from Torment all the way up to [Neverwinter Nights 2:] Mask of the Betrayer and Fallout: New Vegas. We don't want them to outshine the player, but support him and act as a sounding board for his decisions and choices in the game. Our desire is the player character and the companions (if they survive) will go beyond simply one title into future installments."
It will look like the old classic isometric games. "While Project: Eternity heralds back to the Infinity Engine games our fans have played, we'll be using a different engine and it will be isometric. We feel isometric lends itself to more tactical party-based play."
If the Kickstarter fails, they'll just try again. "[We'll] refine the idea, figure out what didn't work, then try again. The nice thing about KS is that you know in 30 days (often, less) if your idea doesn't resonate with the public, rather than 2-3 years down the line or trying to pump so many marketing dollars at people they become brainwashed into liking an idea that never resonated with them in the first place. (That's my final rant.)"
If the Kickstarter succeeds, this will be a franchise. "It means we FINALLY have a world of our own that we can build upon, not just for this title but for future releases down the line. We've wanted to do our own RPG world for a long, long time, and it's been hard to pursue outside of existing franchises. Project: Eternity is our chance to take all the RPG knowledge, mechanics, lore, and characterization we've learned over the years and turn it into the game our fans have been hungering for."
![Zynga Hits Back Hard At EA Over Sims Copyright Suit [Update]](http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17z4dkj71wqssjpg/medium.jpg "Zynga Hits Back Hard At EA Over Sims Copyright Suit [Update]")
Remember when EA sued Zynga? Well, the FarmVille makers aren't just going to lie down and take it. They're back in the ring and swinging like never before.
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All that cash gets you a neoclassical home that sits on 1.27 acres in Moreno Valley, California, with a giant pool, fully equipped guest house, wine cellar and oodles of expensive-looking marble all over the place. The estate was built in 1992, and likely came after Tramiel's dealings with both Commodore and Atari had truckloads of cash coming in on a daily basis. It's more square footage than 
