Educated Consumerism

So the recent PlayStation Vita refund debacle got me thinking, how could we possibly be so dumb to just fail to research what we're throwing money at? If you're unfamiliar with the news the short version is that Sony advertised that the PlayStation Vita would have the ability to stream PS3 games and other nonsense that sounds too good to be true. The result was people buying it with the expectation that they just made their home console pretty much portable and when it wasn't true...there was some kickback and some big names with official sounding acronyms got involved. Sony decided to avoid any drawn out legal bullshit and just refunded people who bought the handheld back in 2012 due to misleading advertising since only a few games supported the streaming function. So all this leaves me with is a question, are we really such trusting consumers that we didn't do our research before buying something that obviously sounds too good to be true (at the time)?

I mean, being able to stream a console game to a handheld system is a pretty big deal, you'd basically be able to turn the market on its head. I'd think that any game that could do that through the Vita would have been like, you know, using it as a major selling point. Like seriously, if your AAA PlayStation exclusive can be streamed onto a handheld device and taken anywhere you put that shit on your front page. If you don't...fire your marketing team, they're horrible at their jobs. We live in an age where people hunger for ease of access and will jump at an opportunity to get it.

Buying tech to enhance your game experiences is super common nowadays but I can't believe we're just taking advertisements at face value. When it comes down to it, an advertisement will always be trying to sell you the best aspects of a product and it is our responsibility, as savvy consumers, to do our own research and make sure we aren't wasting our time and money. Sony shouldn't have misled customers but at the same time we've got to take at least some responsibility here, we should have made ourselves more aware through research and just a dash of common sense. It would have led to less problems for Sony and less wasted money for people who bought a Vita expecting something that still isn't a reality. We're getting closer to the goal though, the Vita's functionality seems to have improved to the point where it isn't quite as misleading when they tell you that you'll be able to play PS4 games remotely.


Do your own research before you hop on a bandwagon! There will be less tears.

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The Pitfalls of Player Avatars

The word 'avatar' has been getting a lot of use in the modern gaming world as of late. It's primarily used to describe a character that is created at least in part by the player. We see more of them popping up as games take a turn away from established protagonists to the much more flexible avatar heroes. I can see why we're taking this turn, it's easy to get into a character that is literally whatever you want it to be. You appeal to nearly any demographic by having these play-dough heroes and it's hard to do them wrong, they're just a blank slate for the players to color in. This may not sound inherently evil or wrong but there is a rather disheartening trend emerging as a result of their popularity. We have no more heroes.

That may sound like a dramatic exaggeration (Okay, it kind of is) but it holds up fairly well when it comes down to it. Don't get me wrong though, there are certainly situations where you want players to  have control over their character designs i.e. D&D and anything formed of similar components. Those games allow players to draft up their own heroes, limited only by their imagination or how stingy their dungeon master is. That's where we want avatars but I would contest their inclusion in anything meant to be played alone. By its very nature the avatar hamstrings your ability to tell a story as a developer simply because everyone will have their own character, make their own choices, etc. How do you develop content for literally every character archetype? Answer is, in short, you don't! You make the most neutral and exploratory content that has no real grit to it so that everyone can run their own creation through it. I think that's why we see such a short main story in games like Skyrim and why, down the road, our content will become more same-y and bland.

Another interesting effect of the avatar nonsense is the dilution of the rest of a game's cast. Example, Fire Emblem Awakening! Now, there will be some major spoilers here so if you still haven't played the game and intend to, don't read on. So, in Awakening you can make a full-on, totally usable in combat unit of your very own and it's pretty cool. You're basically one of the most potentially powerful units in the game and that's kind of  okay. What isn't okay is that you totally overshadow the game's Lord character, Chrom. Now, in true Fire Emblem form you have access to a couple of Lord characters that are supposed to be integral to the story and be your anchor points/protagonists. However, once you reach the game's finale and confront the dragon Grima you are presented with an option; the player can choose to kill Grima with Chrom and seal him away for thousands of years, leaving the problem to resurface and be deal with by your descendants OR you can have your avatar kill it for good. Now, in nearly every other Fire Emblem game you are confronted with a similar choice but it's almost always the Lord who determines everyone's fate. This time, however, Chrom's role is literally...nothing. He is sub-par compared to your avatar in combat, characterization, and even story impact. You literally invalidate his entire character and purpose to the point of irrelevancy. Honestly, they could have just let you design your own Lord and have been done with it, but they didn't you get an avatar and his best skill is watering down literally everything around him/her.

--Spoiler Alert Has Ended--

This whole avatar dilemma stems from an attempt to further player immersion into games, which isn't a bad goal to pursue. I think that, while the goal may be noble, we're taking too many shortcuts in an effort to make it happen. I don't want to see watered down content meant to appeal to anyone who can hold a controller, you should be able to reach out to those demographics without compromising a story's integrity or pandering to people. We need to shift the focus back onto creating solid, compelling characters involved in a narrative that people actually want to watch unfold as they play. Even if we do refuse to let go of the wishy-washy avatar characters we need to design more dynamic supporting characters that aren't just completely overshadowed by the almighty player. Dark Souls does this through recurring characters interacting with you across your journey, often betraying or misleading you in some way for personal gain. It becomes less about what your avatar is doing and more about you being mindful of who you put trust in and they don't compete with your avatar in any way, shape, or form.

So hopefully the takeaway here is that while avatars may seem to be simple enough to incorporate in a game's narrative, be careful how often you use such a tool and be mindful of how it'll shape the rest of the experience. Most of the issues mentioned here are ones not bred from intention but by a passive ignorance towards character development and importance.

Stay sharp.

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Western Localization: True Horror.

Localization. I hate that word. It always gets flagged as a reason for why we don't get nice things, a catch-all excuse to not bring an eastern game to the west. I hate it when I see it on an MMO announcement because you can consider it shorthand for "You'll get it in like...two years?" which is just a bad day for everyone involved. We live in such an interconnected world at this point it just shocks me that some of this stuff just gets tossed on the back burner for a hell of a lot longer than it should.

Obviously localization is a necessary part of the development process for any game making the jump between hemispheres. Translation, in particular, shines as the primary component in much of the localization done, and that's great! If they just translated it and shipped it I'd be a happy camper, we'd see great games coming out at or near their peaks of interest and a lot more diversity in content. Instead, localization is used to justify changing or "westernizing" mechanics, cultural details, and the kicker...difficulty. This whole stereotype that western game players are stuck with basically insists we have the attention span of a spastic hamster and the willpower and coordination of a particularly listless sloth. I can't stand it!

There is evidence that counters the idea of localization being this lengthy "westernizing" clusterfuck everywhere. Dark Souls, a franchise with origins in Japan, has done quite alright in the west despite its incredible difficulty and steep learning curve. It's proof that not all of us fall into these groupings that so many developers seem to think we do and an indication that we don't need all this back and forth to get a game pushed out.

Console games typically have less of a release gap than your average MMO which is fine in some ways. MMOs typically come with a whole lot of content to work through in localization so some delay is understandable but I'm lost on the concept of not just doing the localization during the initial development cycle. What is it about an MMO that makes localization something you do AFTER the game launches? All too often you end up seeing things like Blade and Soul or Phantasy Star Online 2 that have been out for years without seeing a western release. It's so bad for those two in particular that translation patches are made for free just so we can try them out. People did what the developers could have done in the first place and we all end up playing anyway, so why the pointless bullshit? Even without going through the painful process of finding a western publisher (all of them are just so....ugh.) you can still open up international servers and at least capitalize on the ever-growing western playerbase.

It makes me grumpy how our interconnected world is and disconnected the game industry remains. I find it harder and harder to get excited for games when I see that they're from South Korea or Japan (less so) since I know I won't see it for so damn long. I'm going to be forced to learn Korean/Japanese/Russian at this rate, think of how productive I'll end up being! Oh the humanity!

All that grumpy blathering aside, I have the utmost respect for studios like XSEED since without them we'd lose out on things like Ys and Shadow Hearts...I don't wanna live in that world, man.

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