Quick Cuts

Still feeling a bit crappy, and not sleeping well. Didn't even play any games yesterday, which is proof I am sick.

• Great article about the fall of Kaos Studios. Not only did THQ axe Kaos, but they completely failed to support the game post-launch, so bugs went unfixed and cheaters had free run of the game. This is what happens when you focus too much on "beating" another company's games. EA's CEO is obsessed with taking down Activision, and isn't making a dent in World of Warcraft or Call of Duty, but at the same time is driving their studios into the ground.
• Halo 4 reviews are out and it's getting high praise. I think Microsoft is missing a huge opportunity to get a foothold in the PC gaming market by not making a Windows 8 version. Releasing it for Win8 and launching a revamped digital game store could have given them a huge boost in the PC gaming market.
• Nintendo launched their tv campaign. Not sure who they are trying to appeal to, with crappy dubstep and extremely vague demonstrations of "gameplay". Nothing about that commercial made me want to go out and buy a Wii U. Of course it's already selling out pre-orders and it will be impossible to find one on the shelves through Christmas, but is it going to do well in the long run? New consoles are just around the corner, and I just don't think they have enough at launch or enough time after launch to grab and hold a large percentage of the gaming market. Speaking of which...
• Sony is reportedly sending out Playstation 4 dev kits. If that is true, we are most likely looking at a holiday 2013 or early 2014 launch. I see people questioning the CPU/GPU power, but I like seeing the 8 or 16 gigs of system ram. The mention of 3D though, does not excite me.

Quick Cuts

Not much posting going on because I'm lazy sick.

• Take Two says Borderlands 2 was a hit with 5 million copies sold. It's interesting to note they said XCOM did well but they aren't saying any numbers. I suspect it was in the 2 million range, but not sure why they wouldn't announce it since a game like that isn't going to do BL2 numbers. Hopefully it is enough for AAA studios to keep making big budget strategy games.
• EA claims it now has 30 million registered users. Registered isn't necessarily "active" though. You routinely see 4 million logged into Steam daily (with around 80 million registered users), and I suspect that number on Origin is 1 million or less. It's making progress, but the storefront is still very awkward to use. Doesn't help when Origin-required games then have another layer on top with their Battle/Auto/whatever-log. 
• Interesting article about a theoretical one city block game. One of the things that always has bothered me about open world games is that most places are sparsely furnished, barely occupied, or just flat out unaccessible. I hope Spector or some other dev tries it out.

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• Some journalism vs ethics drama broke out today. My only issue with the whole thing is that writers need to fully disclose their ties to companies and products. While nothing she did many have been intentional, besides trying to win a PS3, it doesn't look good when she then removes Square Enix from her list of "consultant" companies on her profile. People who are in the public eye need to be careful when using social media, as it can be hard to separate what is work from what is personal. 
• On a side note to the above story, Geoff Keighley hasn't commented on the Doritos pic game sites are running, even though people are having a field day with it.
• Tis' the season for more game company layoffs. Seems like the game industry is a really tough one to make a lasting career out of. Unless you don't mind changing jobs and locations every few years.
• Chris Roberts' Star Citizen is easily making its goals. It looks great, but will it be relevant two years from now? I would have been more inclined to back the project if it had actually been closer to release. I assume the Squadron 42 part of it will be out well before the main game, but still it's going to be a long wait.
• I fully agree with this. 
• The new Medal of Honor game is getting trashed in reviews. Honestly, I hope the game does poorly enough they end the series. Forcing games onto one or two year cycles just ruins the brand and burns out developers.

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• Dice takes back what they said about color grading. While I personally don't care whether the feature is added or not, Dice really shouldn't have made such a big deal about adding it then turn around and take it away again. Their hardcore players are their primary playerbase at this stage in the lifespan of BF3, and pissing them off isn't a good idea.

• Firaxis announces first real DLC content. Not quite sure what to make of this. It appears to be very short, highly scripted new missions. From the sounds of it not a lot of content, which gets the anti-DLC crowd all riled up. I guess I actually need to beat the game before I can properly get annoyed.

• Medal of Honor: Warfighter is out today and looks pretty meh. I expect this game to end up in the bargain bin fairly quickly. EA either needs to outright ditch the series or put more effort into making it a game that is less brown different than everything else out there.

• Fallen Enchantress is out today. Yay, I get a free copy since I apparently bought the original Worst Game Ever Edition. Honestly though, the original was flawed and lacked direction, but it wasn't the complete shitpile people made it out to be.

• Krater FINALLY adds co-op. Unfortunately, it is way too late and I seriously doubt this game will get much of a boost with Torchlight 2 already out. I will check it out within the next couple days to see if they improved the game at all.

• Zynga laid off a bunch of people today (sssssssssssshocking). Probably going to see even more people jump the sinking ship before the next round hits. If they did indeed try to hide the layoff news in the onslaught of Apple press conference info, they partially succeeded. Mainstream news sites make no mention of it, however it's a headline on every gaming site.

• 38 Studios bankruptcy auction was today. One interesting tidbit out of it was that Zenimax (Bethesda and id Software parent company) purchased 200 used PCs. Sounds like they are ramping up production on something, maybe setting up for the rumored Fallout MMO.

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• I concur

• The Halloween update for Guild Wars 2 is out at some point today. Haven't played much due to the onslaught of game releases, but will definitely check this out. 

• Day 1 of Firefall Fest is underway. I like the game, but don't really understand what direction it is going. They seem to be dropping a lot of money on promotion recently. It's kind of the same path that Planetside 2 is on, kind of meandering all over the place.

• Is the Kickstarter craze dying out already? I hope other developers take heed and really put more effort into their sales pitches. And will Chris Roberts' we're-not-Kickstarting project be released before Valve's alleged spaaaaaaaace MMO comes out?