The past year of video games in three stories. Due to the whims of the print-publishing biz, you'll be reading this with a holiday-appropriate seasonal drink in hand, safely insulated from December weather, but I'm writing this in early November. It's a sunny 85 degrees outside in San Francisco, the U.S. elections haven't happened yet, and people are just starting to tweet about Wreck-It Ralph--certainly not ideal conditions for writing a year-end wrap-up column.
So instead of casting about for wise words on the game industry's past year (Crowdfunding! Studio closures! Mobile games!), I'll leave the year-end stuff to our esteemed contributors and colleagues in our Year In Review feature, and instead list three moments that defined 2012 in games for me.
By Patrick Miller
-this article was originally published in the December issue of Game Developer
Execution at E3
» Personally, I've never been particularly worried about the effects of violent video games on younger players, or people in general--in my opinion, anything over-the-top or tasteless in games tends to be present in far larger amounts in the rest of popular culture. But if there was ever a moment where I stopped to think about it, it would have to be during the Sony press conference at this year's E3, when a stadium full of grown men and women watched the virtual point-blank shotgun execution of a man pleading for his life during the The Last of Us demo and immediately erupted in applause.
On one hand, that moment was completely understandable; it was a pitch-perfect moment for a demo, and if I had been sitting in a friend's living room watching that same sequence, I probably would have reacted with enthusiasm. Hearing thousands of people cheering at that moment, on the other hand, made me feel a little sick--and considering that demo capped off a long reel of ultraviolence, a little bit worried for the state of triple-A games.
In retrospect, I remember that moment less for my cynicism in the moment, and more for the chills that ran down my spine. Emotionally evocative moments in and around games are to be treasured, I think--even if that emotion is disgust.
Game of phones
» I had the good luck to serve as a judge on the panel for Tokyo Game Show's 2012 Sense of Wonder Night, which is the show's accompanying independent game showcase event. Memory of a Broken Dimension walked us through haunting vistas of an alien world; Grandmaster looked into the life of homeless people in Ukraine; I could go on and on, but I'll stick to talking about one of my favorite games there.
Taiso, by Japanese dev team Zacozaco, is very simple. It's an iPhone game where you control a gymnast--"Taiso" means "gymnastics" in Japanese--and you launch that gymnast a certain distance by using your iPhone's accelerometer. Basically, it's an iPhone game about throwing your iPhone as high in the air as possible.
Naturally, Taiso is full of emotionally evocative moments; the thrill of throwing your iPhone in the air, the relief when you catch it intact, the loss and regret when you don't. The fact that three independent devs--two of which spent the development period going to girlie bars and all-you-can-eat barbecue joints, according to the presentation--can whip up a game in Unity that hits us in the feels harder than any major 2012 title gives me lots of hope for 2013.
Where everyone knows your name
» I attended GDC Online this year, just in time for us to say goodbye to Austin (see the December issue, GDC News, page 52) . On our second night there, I went to a "barcade" called Recess with Gamasutra editors Kris Graft and Frank Cifaldi. We tried to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game, but it just wasn't happening; the beer was good, but the broken controls kind of killed it, and arcade beat-em-ups aren't nearly as fun when they're on free-play mode (a lesson for free-to-play developers, perhaps!).
The next night, I joined a few dedicated arcade-goers in a nighttime jaunt to ArcadeUFO, Austin's go-to arcade with genuine Japanese-style head-to-head fighting game setups, Pop'N Music cabinets, and even a Pac-Man Battle Royale four-player setup. The money these days might be all up in the massively multiplayer crowdfunded casualcore mobile/social/free-to-play markets, but there is simply nothing like the experience of walking into a room far from home and throwing down in some Marvel vs. Capcom until you've made some new friends.
On to the next one
» I have no doubt that 2013 will bring us a new truckload of buzzwords that promise even-more-photorealistic graphics tech, more DAUs/MAUs/ARPUs/ARPPUs, and consoles with bigger GBs than last year's--and it'll be our collective job to sort out the wheat from the chaff. But when I remember 2012, I'm not going to remember a buzzword; I'm going to remember the games I played, the people I played them with, and how they (the games and the people) made me feel.
Execution at E3
» Personally, I've never been particularly worried about the effects of violent video games on younger players, or people in general--in my opinion, anything over-the-top or tasteless in games tends to be present in far larger amounts in the rest of popular culture. But if there was ever a moment where I stopped to think about it, it would have to be during the Sony press conference at this year's E3, when a stadium full of grown men and women watched the virtual point-blank shotgun execution of a man pleading for his life during the The Last of Us demo and immediately erupted in applause.
On one hand, that moment was completely understandable; it was a pitch-perfect moment for a demo, and if I had been sitting in a friend's living room watching that same sequence, I probably would have reacted with enthusiasm. Hearing thousands of people cheering at that moment, on the other hand, made me feel a little sick--and considering that demo capped off a long reel of ultraviolence, a little bit worried for the state of triple-A games.
In retrospect, I remember that moment less for my cynicism in the moment, and more for the chills that ran down my spine. Emotionally evocative moments in and around games are to be treasured, I think--even if that emotion is disgust.
Game of phones
» I had the good luck to serve as a judge on the panel for Tokyo Game Show's 2012 Sense of Wonder Night, which is the show's accompanying independent game showcase event. Memory of a Broken Dimension walked us through haunting vistas of an alien world; Grandmaster looked into the life of homeless people in Ukraine; I could go on and on, but I'll stick to talking about one of my favorite games there.
Taiso, by Japanese dev team Zacozaco, is very simple. It's an iPhone game where you control a gymnast--"Taiso" means "gymnastics" in Japanese--and you launch that gymnast a certain distance by using your iPhone's accelerometer. Basically, it's an iPhone game about throwing your iPhone as high in the air as possible.
Naturally, Taiso is full of emotionally evocative moments; the thrill of throwing your iPhone in the air, the relief when you catch it intact, the loss and regret when you don't. The fact that three independent devs--two of which spent the development period going to girlie bars and all-you-can-eat barbecue joints, according to the presentation--can whip up a game in Unity that hits us in the feels harder than any major 2012 title gives me lots of hope for 2013.
Where everyone knows your name
» I attended GDC Online this year, just in time for us to say goodbye to Austin (see the December issue, GDC News, page 52) . On our second night there, I went to a "barcade" called Recess with Gamasutra editors Kris Graft and Frank Cifaldi. We tried to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game, but it just wasn't happening; the beer was good, but the broken controls kind of killed it, and arcade beat-em-ups aren't nearly as fun when they're on free-play mode (a lesson for free-to-play developers, perhaps!).
The next night, I joined a few dedicated arcade-goers in a nighttime jaunt to ArcadeUFO, Austin's go-to arcade with genuine Japanese-style head-to-head fighting game setups, Pop'N Music cabinets, and even a Pac-Man Battle Royale four-player setup. The money these days might be all up in the massively multiplayer crowdfunded casualcore mobile/social/free-to-play markets, but there is simply nothing like the experience of walking into a room far from home and throwing down in some Marvel vs. Capcom until you've made some new friends.
On to the next one
» I have no doubt that 2013 will bring us a new truckload of buzzwords that promise even-more-photorealistic graphics tech, more DAUs/MAUs/ARPUs/ARPPUs, and consoles with bigger GBs than last year's--and it'll be our collective job to sort out the wheat from the chaff. But when I remember 2012, I'm not going to remember a buzzword; I'm going to remember the games I played, the people I played them with, and how they (the games and the people) made me feel.
