Unfettered Blather

I received “Guitar Hero” boxers for Christmas.

Eat my shorts.

Since Jason is too busy strutting about his personal management fiefdom, cruelly ordering his personal lackeys to whip the wage donkeys slaving away at their desktops, I decided to post today’s article.

Besides, after the last few days of mind-crushing stress I have gone completely loopy and an determined to screw off as much as possible today consequences be damned. Enough rationalizations already, lets get cracking baby!

I am not sure how the casual reader of this blog will take this post, mainly because Jason seems to have turned this place in to some unholy shine to Guitar Hero and Rock Band, but I think breaking convention on occasion is a good thing..

I was watching The Escapist’s review of “Sonic Unleashed” and I couldn’t agree more with the fundamental point being made.

To generalize the question, lets broaden it’s scope a tad with: Why do so many 3D platform games just plain suck? I’ve played many of the titles mentioned in the review and once games like Mario and Sonic made the transition to the third-dimension the joy present in them quickly diminished. It’s not impossible to create a good 3D game with these character. Mario64 when it wasn’t trying to wow us with the mere fact it was 3D (something at times they seemed to relish to the point of narcissism) could create levels that retained much of the original’s charm. Granted these levels were few and far between (literally!) and much of the game was spent walking to these occasional gems with not so much as a koopa to bar your way.

3D games suffer from the fact that there just isn’t much to do but walk around the damned place. This gets thin and breaks flow, something the 2D brethren games were all about, you were flowing in one direction and most of the time the game could be described as a series of fast paced puzzles.

Sandbox is a theme that is a blessing and a curse. Being able to roam the environment in agame like Saints Row or Grand Theft Auto is fun because it adds a sense of depth outside of the missions, on games like Sonic and Mario this comes across as ancillary bullshit that gets in the way of the game. 2D games were all about the final goal, you were always heading towards that goal in one direction consistently, you never had to question the final result or wonder if you were progressing or just taking part in some fruitless mini-game exercise. This forward moving pathway was what made the games so addictive. I am sure we remember the feeling of playing “just one more level” in Sonic on the Genesis or Mario on the SNES. It brought you just one step closer.

3D games suffer from the same level, characters and environments over and over again. It just gets old going down the same streets to deliver some mcguffin to some random jerkoff to gain a minor advancement. Sandbox games are fine, but it’s fast becoming a tired concept where the complexity of the freedom is weighing down the gameplay. Few games do this well or understand it, Mercenaries on the PS2 ranks as one of the few titles I feel actually made good use of it.

3D games aren’t bad concepts they are just too cheap and too closely related to sandbox games for their own good. I firmly believe there is a lot of potential for them as a market but there needs to be a few changes

For starters, dump the overburdened sandbox aspect. No more going back through levels repeatedly or finding keys to open obscure doors in some house three stages back where you had to spend hours trying each door to find the right one. If you do this, fine, but do it in good taste and common sense. Limit your sandbox environment. There is nothing wrong with this if you pace the game and each reduced option leads to a better experience. Sandbox abuse is jsut as irritating as a lack of options but many developers err on the side of caution instead, giving us too much to do.

Secondly, get off your ass and design new levels, not variations of the same levels in the same city, new unrelated levels with new bad guys with different attacks. This isn’t easy (who said anything worth doing is easy? remember that saying guys?) but that was the charm of the past games. Remember “The Flying Battery Zone” in Sonic? The music? The electrified traps and adversaries? If you think ten baddies is great for an entire game, you’re not connecting, think big numbers. Challenge us, wow us with design and art.

Want to see a great 2D game that still holds it’s own? Play “Skull Monkeys” on the PS1, it is still a clever, creative title that took 2D games someplace new.

All of these big hardware specs mean nothing if you are going to create cheap titles that rehash the same monsters, levels and themes a few times over ad nauseum. I know we can do better than this. I know we can create charming games that entertain for more than 6 hours with most of that time being walking from location A to location B, there is just too damn much walking around in games period! I don’t feel like plunking down $60 to walk around. I have a sidewalk outside my apartment door for that.

Finally, if you want to capture the charm of a 2D game, just make a damn 2D game! There is nothing wrong with this style, especially considering how poorly many of their 3D compatriots are being viewed. Some of the most popular and well-received games are revived styles that were considered by many to be out of date. Guitar Hero, Rock Band and Guilty Gear are prime examples of older game styles updated and loved by next generation players. I would gladly play a new 2D Sonic game with next generation graphics and level designs. Yet Team Sonic and Nintendo insist on trying to make a 3D game work come hell or high water. Why are people so dedicated to making bad ideas work when they obviously don’t understand the reasons behind success and failure?

Mario has had some success in this, Sonic is a dismal failure.

I don’t think 2D games are dead, they have been pushed out of the market by people who have failed to understand and capitalize on what made these games so popular and entertaining. 2D games aren’t out-of-date, they have been kicked to the curb because they wre no longer fashionable. This pretentious idea mixed with confused design has only lead to games best left unmentioned. Someone needs to really look long and hard at saving 2D and 3D action games from the confusion the average player feels when playing them. Direction is something these games sorely lack and I think the best way to do that is to tidy them up, drop the pointless wandering around with innumerable side quests and get back to the actual experience.

The automotive bailout seems to be the biggest news story these days and the issue isn’t the result of a simple linear progression of problems, but a collision course with disaster from multiple directions by all involved.

The hearings in Washington initially pointed out the attitude towards business in the entrenched management culture of the big three.

The auto industry initially came to congress preaching nothing short of Armageddon. Their first, cynical attempt was to try to scare congress and through media coverage, the public in to giving them a bailout to prop up their bad business practices. It didn’t work. Now they are trying to negotiate with congress and are resorting to token gestures of “good will” to sway public opinion. I doubt anyone thinks that a CEO giving up a corporate jet is going to have a discernable financial impact on the operation of a business than needs nearly ten billion dollars a month to operate.

While I feel the automakers do not deserve to be bailed out, I believe in the end they will be given taxpayer money. Fresh financial timber to shore up a rotten structure. I see nothing wrong with expecting a financial plan to be submitted with how the money will be spent and what returns we can expect in a specific framework. I have to do this if I ask for a business loan afterall but once the money is in hand I firmly believe it will only postpone the inevitable. Detroit wants money to weather what they see as a storm, not change directions. There mere fact they originally would be given federal money to fund their own research in to alternative fuel vehicles is absurd. Creating a better product is the responsibility of the manufacture to stay competitive. Why should they be rewarded or bribed to do it faster? Any industry that adopts such a view to something as fundamental as their continued viability has to be viewed with reasonable suspicion.

Detroit’s problems are blatantly obvious and have been preached to them for decades. Still they refused to do anything about it other than stay the course.

That being said, hybrids are not the answer. On a personal note, lets be perfectly honest, nobody really wants the damn things. They may buy them as a result of the recent and equally fanciful fuel crisis we suffered through, but that was necessity. Americans want trucks and SUVs and that desire has not changed.

Detroit refused to adapt and the collapse of the truck and SUV market is a prime example of the inept handling of the industry. Detroit steamed ahead with utter abandon when people started clamoring for better fuel economy and those associated with the industry made the case that Detroit would have to change to keep the market booming. Token measures were taken to help shore up sales when the crisis was in full swing but these weren’t real solutions and were little better than half-hearted measures several years beyond the point of no return.

There has to be some kind of award for any industry that can take something as strong and popular as truck sales and ruin them. The auto industry is accomplished at failure.

Yet they expect people to trust them with a bailout? The bailout for the automakers couldn’t come at a worse time. The public has been threatened, scared and forced in many respects to bailout failed financial institutions. We helped the airlines, an industry that has teetered on the brink of financial failure for years while continually sacrificing customer service. Now we are being asked to save another industry? Could this have come at a worse time

Despite all of the varied opinions , hype and spin most Americans realize that our financial and industrial institutions are fundamentally broken and unable to adapt and compete. We are being asked to fund the status quo on our diem and we are being blackmailed (the banks), threatened or scared in to submission. People now are well aware of this fact and are growing tired of it, it is a testament to the abuse of bailouts and the cynical attempts to use them as wells to sustain failure. In a society that shuns any form of discomfort it is a stark contrast that many people would rather face financial hardship instead of paying for billion dollar band-aids to be used on a patient with a brain tumor.

The biggest point to all of this mess is that it was completely avoidable. All of the challenges the industry faces today are a result of a stream of bad decisions from making poor quality products, failure to respect and compete with the foreign markets, refusing to find new and efficient technology in a timely fashion and listening to the pulse of the market.

A lot of industries are raising prices these days to supposedly offset the increase in fuel (hah!), shipping, wages or whatever bullshit they feel will best suit their quest to make an extra dime off the backs of their customers.

Frankly I’m at a loss to understand anyone on the subject. Since I am involved in the hobby business to an extent let me set up a scenario that can be applied to any industry.

Company A decides to offer a much improved product with bonus features and added options. They raise the price a few bucks and people rave over this new release. Other competing manufactures take note including discount manufactures that offer no frill products as alternative.

Company A realizes just how popular their product is and decide to offer the options on follow-up items but warn with the added cost, inflation and manufacturing the cost will increase by an extra 5%. Customers happily pay this increase to continue to receive the added benefits.

The competing manufactures realize they to can sell their products for higher cost so some attempt, but many do not to improve their products instead simply slapping higher price tags on the box. The discount manufactures attempt to tap this market by offering only slight increases in quality from their original product but they meet and then begin exceed Company A’s price.

Companies industry wide are now in a race to see “what the market will bear” and some increase their costs by over 100%, in some cases 150%. The reason is always “the economy” for their $25 item costing $40 or even $60.

Distributors for the products begin to reduce the quantity of product ordered for their warehouses out of fear they will be left holding an unpopular brand in the evolving market. Customers seeking to buy these inflated items are frustrated to find they are unable to aquire the product as distributors underestimate sale quantity to avoid major risk by holding large amounts of unsold merchandise.

Manufactures then approach and assail their distributors for cutting orders as their sales have slumped. retailers have cut back on purchases which makes the distributors nervous and some customers have been forced to buy less product to justify the increase in cost.

On the flip side, many of the customers of these products readily accept and even defend the price increases . No harm, no foul right?

At least thats what people keep telling me because it’s always excused as “a standard business practice”

Now I tried to be generic but this is exactly the problem in the industry I am associated with and the overall point of my argument is simple. I have no problem with making a profit off your product. There are plenty of balances out there like competition and customers taking up the yolk of responsibility. If something is being priced higher than you find reasonable then you should not buy it and stick to principles. The effect of reduced sales should be a sign to the manufacture that they have overburdened their market and risk doing damage to it.

While all of this is true it rarely happens in a way that comes to a positive balance. People are terrible at balance. I am not suggesting some form of socialist cure, those are worse than the disease.

Still, I would appreciate one thing

Stop telling me it’s “okay”. Its not. If you’re greedy and driven by said greed then thats perfectly fine, but please spare me the nebulous “standard business practice” bullshit. I am not going to buy it.

If you want to treat your customers like cattle thats fine, apparently nobody minds but frankly I do and none of this pseudo-ethical schlock you’re peddling is going to convince me it’s anything but greed run amok. I am not a member of the crowd and you are forcing me to make decisions based on my ethics over something as mundane as a hobby instead of just enjoying it.

If you are making a tidy profit at $25 for years and everyone decides to see how far they can push the envelope before things break then you’re treating me like some faceless and nameless putz you can lie to in order to line your pockets. Nobody seems to take issues with being lied to in order to perpetuate these myths. If market competition is fine and dandy then why can’t they come out and say they want to raise prices to see how much we will bear? Oh thats right, people would pitch a fit.

How would you feel if someone told you they were going to double the cost of a product just to see if they can get you to pay it? Would you buy it? Most people would scoff if not outright spit in their face for the insult. But since it is hidden under the banner of business and most people want as much as they can get their hands on right away, they will offer a free pass.

I have raised my prices at my company in the past to compete, but I have never pulled numbers from the air or gone above and beyond just to see how much and how far I could push my clients. I’ve also never lied to them.

The argument always devolves in to a game of “pass the blame”. If people still pay for it then obviously the price is fair, Congrats, you’re completely off the hook.

Sorry, no dice. The initial disrespect and lie to perpetuate the increase is still there.

Many industries have formulas that govern prices across the board, many are well guarded secrets because of the ratios but the basic breakdown remains the same. This attempt tosses those practices to the wind. I’ve actually sat and listened to people talk about how much they think they can get out of a product before people get pissed. They are literally running estimates on how long it takes you to feel like you’re a tool and walk away. Maybe a stable customer base that feels rewarded for being your customer is preferable? Call me crazy.

Bottom line. This is sadly the way business works and people expect it. Whatever profit you can squeeze out is considered fair profit but please spare me the “no harm, no foul” tales. Nothing based on dishonesty and a lack of respect produces a good result no matter how much money you make. The next time you use the “standard business practice” euphemism,just state it more clearly as “the ends justify the means”.

The problem is when it’s out in the open it suddenly becomes the 800lb gorilla in the room people try to hide with lame excuses and said euphemisms. I honestly wouldn’t mind so much if there weren’t so many staunch defenders and people willing to uphold the practice for the people that see them as the biggest group of suckers around.

We had a big party at work. Naturally we did it off-site. Although the booze wasn’t free plenty of people, myself included, chose to imbibe heavily.

At one point I’m sitting at a table with two of my co-workers when a woman from another department sits down and says. “I am so messed up right now and I want to get laid tonight!” The only response I had was “Well, seeing as how two of us are married and the other is gay I’d say you’re out of luck.”