By: BigLord

BigLord — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:21:22 +0000

^Can’t unsee. GRAMMAR NAZI RAGE ENGAGE!

By: Sion

Sion — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:11:29 +0000

Am I the only one who notice that in the 3rd panel is says “I just needed to a find place” when it should say “I just needed to find a place”.

~S~

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:13:50 +0000

Adam R., I’m going to have to disagree that the problem now is lack of quality control. I think that the issue is more that it’s harder to get a good game the kind of recognition it deserves. Think about it, what are some of the last few games considered “good”? Odds are good that it’s either a $100 million-budget game, helped by a ton of good reviews, or part of an already developed franchise. Yes, there are some games not worth their weight in carpet fibers, but that’s in part because it’s trying to emulate a type of game, where people yell it’s only a clone, and partly quality control.
What’s big now? First Person Shooters, American RPG’s, sandbox games. So someone with a neat puzzle game is going to have a difficult time getting the kind of funding to make it stand up to the A-titles. That’s what happened with Braid, a game that supposedly cost nearly $200,000 of the guys own money. He got lucky with a couple of shining reviews and a boatload of word of mouth, but there are plenty of other great games made by fantastic teams that slip under the radar because no one wants to try something new, especially when there’s a new GTA or Final Fantasy. Don’t get me wrong, games like GTA and such deserve (usually) the credit they get; time, money and devotion were all put into making very sound, very fun games. But there is a great deal more available that no one will ever play because they don’t know about it.
EA seems to have based their entire business model on the idea that the name can keep selling the same games, and a problem that has risen is, well, it’s been working. I know enough people who don’t play any other game except the newest Madden title, or the insanity around The Sims titles. So, when it comes to the game industry, they have more money than god, meaning they don’t need new game ideas, and if they want one, they can buy some other company for one.
Ideally, the best quality control is the consumer, with good games being rewarded, and quickly made, piss-poor games dieing off. But, like I said earlier, good games are expensive, and big companies don’t want to risk that kind of an investment on some unknown game, and little people with great ideas can’t have the fantastic visuals the companies have. And people don’t want to spend $10 on a downloadable title, for fear that there really isn’t any quality control.
Of course, if talking about the Wii, just throw this whole argument against the wall. There’s no control, and no one seems to care.

By: Adam R

Adam R — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 02:46:42 +0000

This is happening again sadly enough, slowly, but it is. EA with shit-tastic games and stupid and ridiculously useless/overpriced DLC. Microsoft's XNA, people see games like the dishwasher and others and say "lol this is great and he made it by himself? I have ideas!!! I can maek munez 2!!?11", and what do we get, check the community's top best games; Xbox 360 Massage games, shitty fighters that look worse than Sega Genesis ones, games based around farts…. We seriously need to control this crap before it goes out of hand again.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:56:36 +0000

A system starts out proprietary, then opens up to third-party developers. A rampant success story leads to an explosion of development from new inexperienced developers, then garbage titles crash the entire market and the platform goes under.

Wow, sounds like the iPhone app store and Apple.

Comments on: Skeletons in the Landfill

By: BigLord

By: Sion

By: Mike

By: Adam R

By: Paul