Apparently you can now make magazines that specifically list their audience right in the title. “From the makers of @lazy_guy and @high_school_dropout comes the hit new tv show @you_don’t_respect_yourself.” @Gamer, yes that is the real name, is a gaming magazine centered around Best Buy’s bangin’ gaming scene. Wait, what? I don’t get it. First off, other than batshit crazy EGM and “You had to get a subscription with your Edge Card.” GameInformer, who cares about modern US gaming mags? All the good ones, Edge specifically, come from the UK anyway where people still have news stands they frequent.
The story broke as part of a job listing. Kyle Orland, formerly of Crispy Gamer and even before that at Joystiq, reported on his blog that a friend of his who has written about games, Andy Eddy, updated his linked to include a reference to @Gamer Magazine. And then Kombo.com gets confirmation from Best Buy PR (along with any other site that asked). What a way to make a splash in the industry, a link and a small blog and some guys email you about a name and the whole thing comes out. I really want to buy Half Baked, the Magazine now.
This is going to end poorly, for however little it does cling to life. I would like to work for them though, I wonder if they’re hiring?
Speculation, oh how I love to speculate. In my mind I think of it as waxing insightful on a topic, as though that means anything other than bullshitting.
There is a URL that is displayed when a player unlocks the platinum trophy for God of War 3. It leads to a full-screen flash page of a statue in a rainstorm. Every once in a while the lightning flashes, causing the image of a man (above) to become visible. The website in entitled “Spartans Stand Tall“. Plural. Up in the top right-hand corner is a gauge running around the outside of a shield with a “V” on it. The gauge is currently at 75%.
Speculation time! In an interview with Joystiq, Sony made it clear that while the God of War trilogy was completed the franchise was not. Plans for further games were already in the works, but the form in which the news games would take had not yet been decided. Now we have plurality of Spartans in a URL at the end of GoW. Ladies and Gentlemen (let’s be honest), I present to you the newest protagonist of the God of War series, angry guy in the rain. *Thunderous Applause* *Meek Bow* Thank you, good night!
I recently was explained that page-rankings exist and that I suck. I can’t really refute either of those claims but the second one has really got me down. It turns out that I am ranked 23,811,562nd on the internet. Frankly, and I don’t know why, I expected much better. Joystiq, a place I one day hope to work, is 1,723. That means I can now mathematically prove that they are 13, 819 times better then me. But wait, there are 15 writers on Joystiq which means individually any one member of the Joystiq editorial staff is only 921 times more popular or respected. I can live with that.
People who know me know that I am a huge fan of the Joystiq Podcast and especially Justin McElroy. The whole JP crew happen to also be some of my favorite bloggers but the Justin is my favorite on-air personality. I’m sorry Chris, I know how much that pains you.
Anyway, a few years ago I made a T-shirt mock-up of “I’m gonna kill you… wake up.” It’s a little JP meme taken from an on the street experience at GDC. At the end of the email I told Chris that he should add me on XBL. No shit, he actually did. This might have been right before the whole place blew up or maybe he was just getting rid of another person. To this day I am amazed he hasn’t deleted me. But that opened the door.
I thought I might as well go for the whole set and, with the recently added (at the time), ability to look through your friend’s friends list, I quickly found Justin and Ludwig‘s gametags. I opted not to send a friend request to Ludwig because I was young and naive and afraid I would never play him because he’s an ocean away. The time has passed and I know his friends list is full up now, whatever. I’m not bitter about it, really. So I sent the friend invite. Somehow he wasn’t completely thrown by the guy with 8 friends, 1 being his boss, none of the others being people he knew, and added me.
Are you listening Internet? The tectonic plates on which you are anchored have been fundamentally shifted, spewing gobs of molten awesome. Through this phoenix-like resurrection comes the re-birth of not only modern games criticism but also one of the largest and most preeminent fixtures of the Internet blog-o-sphere. 30,000 lolcat were either displaced or reported missing in the ensuing Internet earthquakes.
Yes, Joystiq, the all-things-french aficionado and video game blog owned by AOL Time Warner (they also own you, you’re like brothers in a way), has gone through a thorough face-lift, reorganizing, and streamlining. Try to find something that hasn’t been improved, made more clear, or more convenient. Gone are the days of confusing and pointless “tag-clouds”. All the fanboy sites have been congealed and rearranged into 3 sections representing the 3 major companies in the new-gen market today. Poke around, leave a comment, take a look, or if you’re me, thank your lucky stars they didn’t change their color scheme.
Like this, but everyone is probably in sweat pants.
I wish I could be a real games journalist. Here I am, basically yelling at kids in a swimming pool (do you like that analogy for the internet? I just came up with it right then), trying to get my voice heard, when you’ve got the 400 lb gorilla that is Joystiq just pulling developers aside at will to discuss games. Joystiq, with its awesome might, has wrangled 9 different game industry insiders (mostly lead developers and studio owners/founders) to ask them the tough questions and get the tough answers. First on the chopping block, “What’s up with lame endings?”
The consensus seems to be that delivering an ending that would meet the player’s expectations just isn’t possible, but there are also good points made about the nature of narrative itself in games. A character can’t fail, even though you yourself can (you just reload/respawn), so like in books or movies where failure can lead to growth and a richer story arch, a game is tethered to you winning every engagement you enter that isn’t in a cut-scene (a tactic that again divorces you from the stories impact). It is a very interesting read that made me ponder back on all the games I’ve played. The only games I can think of that lets you fail without it being scripted but still return to the original narrative time and again are the Pokemon and GTA games and even those don’t acknowledge you have failed. The player just pays a penalty (usually with in-game currency), and the story progresses without any impact.
So head on over to Joystiq and catch this week long feature. I know I will.
what they’re saying