In other news, guess what's going to get the living shit marketed out of it?
While a set of Angry Birds plushies made it onto this year's Hot Toy list, the only proper video game to make the cut is an Activision game that has Toys"R"Us as a marketing partner.
Earlier this year when Activision announced Skylanders: Spryo's Adventure, Toys"R"Us was right there at the game publisher's side. The press release described a global marketing partnership between the two companies, which made sense considering the Skylanders is the first game to merge toys and video games, allowing players to purchase new figures at the toy store, bring them home, and port them into the game. From the press release:
"We began discussing this concept with Activision and immediately knew merging the world of toys and video games together in Skylanders Spyro's Adventure would capture the imagination of a wide range of consumers, including kids, toy collectors and video game enthusiasts," said Jerry Storch, Chairman and CEO, Toys"R"Us, Inc. "We believe this product line is among the most exciting and unique offerings that will be seen at Toy Fair this year, and we are excited to partner with Activision to bring Skylanders Spyro's Adventure to Toys"R"Us stores this fall."
Apparently that global marketing partnership includes a spot not only in the 2011 Holiday Hot Toy List, a list that countless parents across the country reference when shopping for their children's holiday gifts, but a coveted spot in the Toys"R"Us Fabulous 15, which narrows the 36 item list into the very best of the best.
Of course that's not to say Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure isn't among the best of the best. Toys"R"Us obviously believes in the product's potential, or they wouldn't have enetered into the agreement in the first place. I love the idea of scanning collectible toys into a video game, and were my children old enough I'd buy it for them in a heartbeat. It just makes one wonder what other entries on the Hot Toy List are the products of global marketing partnerships.
The fact of the matter is that they went to the effort to dress their office for the press and potentially hide all evidence of any other games they've made. That goes beyond promotion.
I worked at Electronic Arts for a time. And their main lobbies are filled with things that advertise the newest games. They also have various displays around the campus showing bits from their past. Some are fairly sizable (For example, in building 209 they have a beat up Ducati motorcycle that was used in conjunction with Road Rash), but most are similar to the picture in the article of the glass showcase with all the old games. And some are hidden away from visitors eyes in locations most outsiders simply won't see. Employee break areas mainly, but you'll also see lots of stuff where the people work.
You know what I didn't see in that photo essay? Where the employees work. I saw what looked like areas that they would show public visitors that included mostly references to the recent (and upcoming) work with minimal displays for acknowledging past efforts. It could've been any games studio that ever existed for a decent length of time.
The fact of the matter is that you and people like you are just pissed off because Rare isn't doing the kinds of things you liked from them in the past. Maybe it's because they're associated with MS, maybe it isn't. But you don't like what they're doing now and you've decided to voice your disgust by accusing them of intentionally ignoring their past.
That fact of the matter is that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about right now. You weren't on the tour, you didn't take the photos, you didn't write the article, and I'd even go so far as to doubt that you've ever even been to the Rare studios
What you're commenting on is a photo essay that is presenting what must be a small selection of pictures taken on a press junket used to promote Rare and their work on the next game. And you're doing it very poorly. Of the twenty-one published pictures, seven have anything to do with Kinect and at least half of those are for the new game they're promoting. And five of them are either directly or inferred to contain things related to their pre-Microsoft days. Maybe six depending on what the BAFTA in the shoes picture is for (or maybe eight Kinect pics by the same token).
But hey, what the hell would I know about anything? Rare sucks and Microsoft sucks for making Rare suck.
Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited September 2011
Pff, my only beef with the deleter (who was easily guessable) was that I didn't get to kill him and that he was killed in offscreensville.
edit: Hey MS I'm sure are happy now, their transforming Rare has worked out well for their pocketbooks. I don't hate MS, I do however mourn what they did to Rare.
We're not pissed, we're depressed. :P And I personally thought it was interesting (and depressing) because it definitely symbolically drives home what Rare is emphasizing nowadays.
cloudeagle on
Switch: 3947-4890-9293
0
Options
Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
The fact of the matter is that they went to the effort to dress their office for the press and potentially hide all evidence of any other games they've made. That goes beyond promotion.
I worked at Electronic Arts for a time. And their main lobbies are filled with things that advertise the newest games. They also have various displays around the campus showing bits from their past. Some are fairly sizable (For example, in building 209 they have a beat up Ducati motorcycle that was used in conjunction with Road Rash), but most are similar to the picture in the article of the glass showcase with all the old games. And some are hidden away from visitors eyes in locations most outsiders simply won't see. Employee break areas mainly, but you'll also see lots of stuff where the people work.
You know what I didn't see in that photo essay? Where the employees work. I saw what looked like areas that they would show public visitors that included mostly references to the recent (and upcoming) work with minimal displays for acknowledging past efforts. It could've been any games studio that ever existed for a decent length of time.
The fact of the matter is that you and people like you are just pissed off because Rare isn't doing the kinds of things you liked from them in the past. Maybe it's because they're associated with MS, maybe it isn't. But you don't like what they're doing now and you've decided to voice your disgust by accusing them of intentionally ignoring their past.
That fact of the matter is that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about right now. You weren't on the tour, you didn't take the photos, you didn't write the article, and I'd even go so far as to doubt that you've ever even been to the Rare studios
What you're commenting on is a photo essay that is presenting what must be a small selection of pictures taken on a press junket used to promote Rare and their work on the next game. And you're doing it very poorly. Of the twenty-one published pictures, seven have anything to do with Kinect and at least half of those are for the new game they're promoting. And five of them are either directly or inferred to contain things related to their pre-Microsoft days. Maybe six depending on what the BAFTA in the shoes picture is for (or maybe eight Kinect pics by the same token).
But hey, what the hell would I know about anything? Rare sucks and Microsoft sucks for making Rare suck.
So when EA invites the press to demo, say, Mirror's Edge 2, they hide all references to Madden, etc and throw Mirror's Edge stuff all over their office?
I have my own example - I toured Blizzard's headquarters. There was art, statues, and all kinds of shit from ALL of their games. There was an Orc statue all the way back from 1994's WarCraft: Orcs and Humans. They had trailers/cutscenes from all of their games (including old ones) on the TVs in their lobby. There was even a poster for that stupid flash game they made that you could play while you waited in line for Blizzcon tickets. Did they showcase their latest stuff? Sure. But they didn't hide all traces of past work from public (well, press) view.
I have my own example - I toured Blizzard's headquarters. There was art, statues, and all kinds of shit from ALL of their games. There was an Orc statue all the way back from 1994's WarCraft: Orcs and Humans. They had trailers/cutscenes from all of their games (including old ones) on the TVs in their lobby. There was even a poster for that stupid flash game they made that you could play while you waited in line for Blizzcon tickets. Did they showcase their latest stuff? Sure. But they didn't hide all traces of past work from public (well, press) view.
Whoa, awesome dude, you never told me about this! How long ago was it?
Man Santa, you're acting as if I asked you to explain why Mass Effect 2's plot sucked. Relax.
We're not pissed, we're depressed. :P And I personally thought it was interesting (and depressing) because it definitely symbolically drives home what Rare is emphasizing nowadays.
Also, if Warlock doesn't know what he's talking about from that article, then do any of us know what we're talking about based on, well, anything put up on the Internet ever? We may as well shut down this thread and cancel our internet subscriptions if that's the case.
What the hell kind of counter is this? None of you even did the math on the pictures and you all made it seem like the whole thing all but ignored their past. You comment but you have no seeming ability to analyse what you see. I can't fault you for not having any perspective on what a games company might actually look like, but I can take issue with the reaction to a photo essay fluff piece mainly intended to promote the new game.
What they are doing is putting on a public fact that rightly promotes their current projects. They're a game company, not a museum. Your expectation for them is exceedingly high and never had a chance to be met to your satisfaction.
I have my own example - I toured Blizzard's headquarters. There was art, statues, and all kinds of shit from ALL of their games. There was an Orc statue all the way back from 1994's WarCraft: Orcs and Humans. They had trailers/cutscenes from all of their games (including old ones) on the TVs in their lobby. There was even a poster for that stupid flash game they made that you could play while you waited in line for Blizzcon tickets. Did they showcase their latest stuff? Sure. But they didn't hide all traces of past work from public (well, press) view.
Whoa, awesome dude, you never told me about this! How long ago was it?
I have my own example - I toured Blizzard's headquarters. There was art, statues, and all kinds of shit from ALL of their games. There was an Orc statue all the way back from 1994's WarCraft: Orcs and Humans. They had trailers/cutscenes from all of their games (including old ones) on the TVs in their lobby. There was even a poster for that stupid flash game they made that you could play while you waited in line for Blizzcon tickets. Did they showcase their latest stuff? Sure. But they didn't hide all traces of past work from public (well, press) view.
Did Rare? Because I still count five pictures related to pre-Microsoft content.
Man Santa, you're acting as if I asked you to explain why Mass Effect 2's plot sucked. Relax.
We're not pissed, we're depressed. :P And I personally thought it was interesting (and depressing) because it definitely symbolically drives home what Rare is emphasizing nowadays.
Also, if Warlock doesn't know what he's talking about from that article, then do any of us know what we're talking about based on, well, anything put up on the Internet ever? We may as well shut down this thread and cancel our internet subscriptions if that's the case.
What the hell kind of counter is this? None of you even did the math on the pictures and you all made it seem like the whole thing all but ignored their past. You comment but you have no seeming ability to analyse what you see. I can't fault you for not having any perspective on what a games company might actually look like, but I can take issue with the reaction to a photo essay fluff piece mainly intended to promote the new game.
What they are doing is putting on a public fact that rightly promotes their current projects. They're a game company, not a museum. Your expectation for them is exceedingly high and never had a chance to be met to your satisfaction.
...the whole thing DOES all but ignore the past. They went out of their way to photo anything non-Kinect Sports related, and the fact that what little they found was small or trophy related is pretty telling. Compared to how large and up-front the Kinect Sports stuff is. That's what my brain came up with when analyzing that.
So how do you explain Blizzard going out of their way to reference the past? I don't have expectations like that. I would have liked to see some non-small acknowledgement of the past, but hey.
Like I said, I posted this merely to point out that Rare is now "Kinect Sports or GTFO." You can read a lot into a company's philosophy by how they decorate their public areas. And no, I'm not kidding.
Switch: 3947-4890-9293
0
Options
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Speaking of which, what's going on with Infinity Ward?
Speaking to Infinity Ward's Director of Communications and Community Manager, Robert Bowling, at a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer event in Sydney we're able to get a little additional insight into the game and, specifically, what makes the development team tick.
On the topic of whether the Infinity Ward or Sledgehammer crews concern themselves much with the competitive corporate bickering higher up the chain the answer is, unsurprisingly, no.
"Not at all, there's no buy in on that sort of stuff," says Bowling. "We don't care about sales numbers, we don't care about competition, we don't care about beating anyone. Our 100 per cent focus is making a game that we're going to love to play, that we're going to be proud of, and that we know that our fans are going to play. To us, we don't care if there are three people playing it or 30 million people playing it. If there are three people having a great time then we've done our job correctly and we will be happy."
Either he's gonna lose his job within six months, or Infinity Ward will be shut down by Activision. I really hate being the one to say that, I don't hope it happens, but... there's no way Kotick is gonna let that attitude fly.
0
Options
MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
Why not?
That's some pretty excellent PR double speak right there, Kotick would be proud of that level of pure bullshit.
0
Options
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
So how's Gamefly reacting to the news that Netflix Qwikster is getting into the game biz? Very blandly:
GameFly is putting on a strong face as it prepares for its greatest competitor to the game rental space to date: Netflix. Well, the behemoth's disc distribution division is called Qwikster now -- a change that's taking folks some time to wrap their brains around -- but the fact remains: Netflix's distribution network is an efficient beast. It is a key aspect GameFly has struggled with over the years.
"GameFly has expanded steadily over the past nine years by focusing exclusively on video gamers. We are the only retailer offering games physically and digitally for both rental and purchase," GameFly responded in a statement when asked about Qwikster. "Gamers can try before they buy, choosing from new releases and classic titles that span the last decade. GameFly has more than 8000 games for 10 console and handheld systems to choose from, and over 1500 Windows/Mac games are available for download."
GameFly is preparing for the digitally distributed future with acquisitions like Direct2Drive, which will allow the company to add "Unlimited PC Play" for free to its service offerings this holiday.
"GameFly is the leading video game rental service, and we have continued to grow even as Blockbuster and Redbox increased their investment in console games."
It's bland but if you think about it, what choice do they have other than to stick to their guns and buckle down for the upcoming competition? I mean, I guess they could say, "We're going to vamp up / stream line our physical distribution process." Maybe they should.
0
Options
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
That's some pretty excellent PR double speak right there, Kotick would be proud of that level of pure bullshit.
Honestly, I've seen Kotick stick to the, "We want to be the best, we want everyone playing, etc" kind of rhetoric. The "we wanna make the game we want to make and play!" message isn't one he runs with.
I think you would see the same reaction (only much more pronounced) if Nintendo went in a direction in which they ignored all their main franchises and only emphasized on Wii series games and items you could buy for your Mii. If such was the case and this had been a tour of their headquarters for Wii Sports Resort 2 people couldn't really fault them for advertising their new game, but their new direction and lack of anything relating to Mario/Metroid/Zelda would surely disappoint those on the tour and those that were finally seeing their headquarters for the first time and comparing it to what they might imagine.
...the whole thing DOES all but ignore the past. They went out of their way to photo anything non-Kinect Sports related, and the fact that what little they found was small or trophy related is pretty telling. Compared to how large and up-front the Kinect Sports stuff is. That's what my brain came up with when analyzing that.
So how do you explain Blizzard going out of their way to reference the past? I don't have expectations like that. I would have liked to see some non-small acknowledgement of the past, but hey.
Like I said, I posted this merely to point out that Rare is now "Kinect Sports or GTFO." You can read a lot into a company's philosophy by how they decorate their public areas. And no, I'm not kidding.
Here is an important quote in the article. (It should be noted that the text of the article acts more as captions of the picture above it, rather than the text of an article with appropriately selected pictures.)
Aside from wandering the grounds, much of our time was spent playing Kinect Sports: Season Two. To celebrate the occasion, Rare split media into groups and ferried them to six different rooms, each of which was specially decorated to coincide with a unique sport, be it darts, baseball, football or, in this picture, tennis.
They were there for Kinect Sports 2. It should never come as any surprise that most of the pictures were going to be about that.
They had to go 'out of their way' to take pictures of everything else because if they don't, then people would demand to know why a visit to Rare didn't have anything to do with their past. And again, nearly a third of the pictures deal with this. The rest of the pictures, the largest group, is about what the buildings look like, a break area, and the surrounding countryside.
How do I explain Blizzard? They make WoW, Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo. What the fuck else are you going to see? Blizzard has apparently decided to make their public areas contain lots of stuff from all the things people really like about them. So what? Does that mean Rare should make the lobby all about R.C. Pro-Am?
I can read just as much into the same thing you are. The public areas are about the present and future of the company. And this distresses you and others. The fact that you leapt to the conclusion of 'GTFO' is why you are bad at this kind of commentary. You are actively trying to say that Rare is doing poorly because they aren't devoted to focusing on the things they did more than a decade ago.
Your whole concept here is that you're upset because a press tour for a new game didn't devote massive space to the history of a company when you probably liked them better. This is not as reasonable a position as you might think.
Microsoft has lost $5.5 billion on Bing since the search service launched in June 2009, but the company's search losses actually pre-date that. In fact, the software giant has never made money in its online services division. Since Microsoft began breaking out that unit's finances in 2007, the company has lost a total of $9 billion.
...the whole thing DOES all but ignore the past. They went out of their way to photo anything non-Kinect Sports related, and the fact that what little they found was small or trophy related is pretty telling. Compared to how large and up-front the Kinect Sports stuff is. That's what my brain came up with when analyzing that.
So how do you explain Blizzard going out of their way to reference the past? I don't have expectations like that. I would have liked to see some non-small acknowledgement of the past, but hey.
Like I said, I posted this merely to point out that Rare is now "Kinect Sports or GTFO." You can read a lot into a company's philosophy by how they decorate their public areas. And no, I'm not kidding.
Here is an important quote in the article. (It should be noted that the text of the article acts more as captions of the picture above it, rather than the text of an article with appropriately selected pictures.)
Aside from wandering the grounds, much of our time was spent playing Kinect Sports: Season Two. To celebrate the occasion, Rare split media into groups and ferried them to six different rooms, each of which was specially decorated to coincide with a unique sport, be it darts, baseball, football or, in this picture, tennis.
They were there for Kinect Sports 2. It should never come as any surprise that most of the pictures were going to be about that.
They had to go 'out of their way' to take pictures of everything else because if they don't, then people would demand to know why a visit to Rare didn't have anything to do with their past. And again, nearly a third of the pictures deal with this. The rest of the pictures, the largest group, is about what the buildings look like, a break area, and the surrounding countryside.
How do I explain Blizzard? They make WoW, Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo. What the fuck else are you going to see? Blizzard has apparently decided to make their public areas contain lots of stuff from all the things people really like about them. So what? Does that mean Rare should make the lobby all about R.C. Pro-Am?
I can read just as much into the same thing you are. The public areas are about the present and future of the company. And this distresses you and others. The fact that you leapt to the conclusion of 'GTFO' is why you are bad at this kind of commentary. You are actively trying to say that Rare is doing poorly because they aren't devoted to focusing on the things they did more than a decade ago.
Your whole concept here is that you're upset because a press tour for a new game didn't devote massive space to the history of a company when you probably liked them better. This is not as reasonable a position as you might think.
Yet they didn't just go to the rooms featuring Kinect Sports. They spent a lot of time in the public areas, like the cafeteria and lobby. And it was crammed with wall-to-wall Kinect Sports 2. They said this in the article.
Besides, saying that they had to "go out of their way" to take pictures of stuff that ISN'T Kinect Sports stuff heavily implies that Rare is, as we're asserting, all about Kinect Sports.
And even though a third of the pictures had non-Kinect Sports stuff, they were all tiny and insubstantial. You told me to analyze, so I did.
As far as Blizzard goes... yes, they have a bunch of different games. That's because they've decided to make their public face all about their rich history of games. Rare has chosen to make their public face nothing but Kinect Sports 2. Even though, as you said about Blizzard, Rare has made a lot more stuff that people like about them.
Besides... when did I say they were doing "poorly?" I said it depresses me, because it shows that the company isn't the same as it once was and isn't even giving small thought at their past. I didn't say anything about Kinect Sports 2 going badly.
I guess the bigger question is: why does this assertion upset you so much? It apparently does, since you're making such strongly negative and knee-jerk comments about my mental capacity. What does "I'm bad at this type of commentary" even mean?
Isn't it at least mildly surprising that Activision hasn't taken some reins at Blizzard and told them "hey all the sweaty nerds care about is WoW, that's our moneymaker, deck yourselves out in that shit?"
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
You know, if it wasn't for this thread I would have had no idea Rare even made a game recently (Kinect Sports). I hadn't heard of it at all before I started to read the thread.
How do I explain Blizzard? They make WoW, Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo. What the fuck else are you going to see? Blizzard has apparently decided to make their public areas contain lots of stuff from all the things people really like about them. So what? Does that mean Rare should make the lobby all about R.C. Pro-Am?
Right, and Rare made Battletoads, Killer Instinct, Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Conker, Banjo Kazooie, etc etc. That is the kind of stuff I would expect to see at their own company headquarters. Something cool like a life-size statue of Pimple from Battletoads, his fist in the shape of an anvil, punching Fulgore from Killer Instinct. A bust of Joanna Dark back to back with James Bond. Pictures of squirrels and other past mascots, some doing humorous and inappropriate things. Nothing like that was there though aside from a Conker poster they snuck a picture of, some bananas hinting at Donkey Kong, and a few small other details here and there.
The lack of all of this can be attributed to the opening of their headquarters for a press event for Kinect Sports 2, but it seems unlikely that they would scrape nearly everything else relating to anything else just for that. I think the really telling thing is that Microsoft has since bought them out and probably insisted that things relating to their past at Nintendo be kept to a bare minimum. Even then, its still odd that Viva Pinata and Perfect Dark aren't seen. But Microsoft didn't seem too pleased with their performances and is all about the Kinect and its games now, and so their headquarters was made to reflect that. So really I think that all of this can go back to when you summed things up by saying: Rare sucks and Microsoft sucks for making Rare suck.
Why all this fuss over what is or isn't in <insert game company>'s office? That's the least interesting/relevant part of the actual work that goes on. I've been to many game company offices and it's a crapshoot what you see. I work across the street from Nintendo of America HQ and got to visit it a few years back. They've got a tiny little museum that's, honestly, pretty disorganized and messy. It's not even open to the public, just visitors that employees bring in. Do I think that Nintendo itself is unorganized and messy or something? Hell no. Also, the Xbox/Microsoft Game Studios offices for a long time, were in a really crappy office park at the end of 520 and we didn't have a lot of "nice looking stuff" in our lobbies and buildings. Does that mean we didn't care about our products or history? Certainly not, it just wasn't a big priority. Nowadays, we have a really awesome campus and cool stuff in our lobbies and buildings. It's great and I enjoy bringing visitors, but I also think it's far less important than the actual work that goes on here. Also, people's actual offices/cubicles tend to be where you see the most pride and passion. I've got a billion trinkets around here from all the products that I've worked on, but that's not going to be shown to the press/media.
tldr - I wouldn't bother trying to "read between the lines" regarding Rare's offices. For all you know, it was just something a random admin thought of, and no one else at Rare thought it was important enough to disagree with or fight over, since there's far more important things to be concerned about.
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Just as a bit of a devil's advocate, it's a bit much to expect a company to have souvenirs around from a product they made twenty years ago. That's a long time for any company to hold on to keepsakes, not to mention the fact that the vast majority of the people who worked on the old stuff are probably long, long gone by now. Unless the guys who started out there back in their 20-30s are happy coding forever, most of the guys from the "good old days" would now in leadership positions or at other jobs and be vastly outnumbered by the people who didn't work on all that stuff and don't really care.
0
Options
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I guess the bigger question is: why does this assertion upset you so much? It apparently does, since you're making such strongly negative and knee-jerk comments about my mental capacity. What does "I'm bad at this type of commentary" even mean?
You find something related to gaming and then post it. Sometimes in whole, sometimes only excerpted, and sometimes with what you feel is a key paragraph related to a point of snark that you wish to make.
And yet it never seems to deal with what is actually going on. The whole thing reads like the website was invited (along with lots of other people) to preview the newest game the company made. And they decided at some point that rather than focus on the game, they'll talk about the campus instead. Which they do.
They talk about what it looks like when you enter the building. It's devoted to Kinect Sports. Their recent game and related to what they were invited for in the first place. But while they were there, they checked the place out and showed some items related to their 'beloved' past.
And your whole reaction was that Rare is fully avoiding their past, possibly at the behest of Microsoft, and that this means that Rare has succumbed to one of many memes related to the horrible decision to leave Nintendo and be bought out by Microsoft.
Your only attempt at actual analysis is to say that the lobby means a lot about a company and how their willingness to promote their latest games means that they lost their way or something. Instead of it being a company who is actually proud of their latest games and want people to see them.
The article does not actually say exactly where they went. Clearly the lobby, one caption mentions the cafeteria (hard to believe that maybe they fed the gather press...), and they saw a patio, farmland, and the exterior of the worker bee hive. And in the end, twenty-one photos were selected to be used in a piece that speaks mainly about the campus.
And according to you, this must mean that Rare is no longer as glorious as they once were. Rehab then says:
Oh joy. You would have to huff an incredible amount of paint to be able to muster up any excitement for the future of Rare or such a tour after reading through that feature. When you get to that one solitary photo showing off all the games from their past it really gets you to think about all the great games they could be working on now if they still had any franchises worth developing for and most of their talent (quite literally) hadn't left. I think the thing that sums it all up best aside from the last few paragraphs is the fact that there are two links along the side for an article titled: Rare's Scott Henson: 'We Didn't Fall Off The Map'
And a specious comparison between a fluff piece about the campus and how a single link, to the side, mixed with a bunch of 'related' links (related in that they're about Microsoft, the 360, Kinect, and Rare) is indicitive of the poor state of a company that gets trashed for 'not having any franchises worth developing for'.
(And a skim of the article seems to be about how some mucky-muck with the company is talking about how awesome the company still is. What a scandal!
Though it spends most of it's time talking about how they were better before Microsoft. Almost like they're proving Henson's point.)
You are terrible at commentary because you drop tidbits that mostly conform to a narrative you wish to present and then expect everybody to somehow buy into it without needing to do their own thinking? How many times has somebody posted a link to a small write up that has no real context and than tried to use it to prove whatever pet theory they're trying to push.
Not long ago, somebody posted a link to an article which was a summation to an interview held elsewhere about how stupid Factor 5 (or whoever it was) was. And then people here immediately seized on this blurb as proof that it was true. So I did the thing I feel has to be done: I pointed out that the linked article contained no real information and was a summation of content that couldn't be easily seen by everybody.
You want to bitch about poor games journalism? Don't engage in the same shitty practices these other terrible places do.
This specific article is about the Rare headquarters. They were there for Kinect Sports 2 and while they were there, grabbed some shots for the folks who are more interested in the pre-MS days. This article does not prove that MS is too rigorous. This article does not prove that Rare is abandoning their past. It is twenty-one pictures, fourteen of which are about the company property, and five of those are about the things you wanted in the first place.
It should not be a surprise that they didn't devote much time or effort into the past of the company. And yet you and others are trying to argue that this matches the common sentiment that Rare is a fallen company. Why should an article that was not intended to be about Rare's history spend much time talking about Rare's history?
And what did that related article which proves how bad things are for Rare have inside of it:
“Fallen off the map is interesting when you sell over three million units,” said Henson. “I like that falling off the map. It’s great success in this industry.”
To be fair, Rare has done what many studios can only dream of, creating a successful IP praised by reviewers and loved by millions, something it’s made a habit of in its 26-year history.
Rare, Ltd. Rest in peace, we hardly knew ye.
Proper analysis of the industry means trying to put things into a larger context. Dumping a link, selectively quoting, and encouraging people to conclude the worst isn't analysis. It's games 'journalism'.
Basically if you pretend that Rare looks like that every day then yeah it's depressing. But it's pretty obvious they got all dressed up for the press junket, so it's hard to say that's the way things look around there day-to-day.
Eh, I visited NIS America's office a while ago. It's mostly a big room with several desks and a few smaller meeting rooms off to the side. There were a few posters with game art here and there (mostly Disgaea). There's a game room with miscellaneous games (both English & Japanese) and some merchandise. That's about it. I imagine most video game offices are about like that - not exactly something to get excited about.
Also, is it any news to anyone that the Rare of today has pretty much nothing to do with the Rare of yesteryear? I wouldn't be surprised if there's nobody there who has been there for longer than 5 years.
Proper analysis of the industry means trying to put things into a larger context. Dumping a link, selectively quoting, and encouraging people to conclude the worst isn't analysis. It's games 'journalism'.
And failing to even acknowledge my thought-out counter analysis to your assertions and instead continuing to make inflated accusations about my intentions as well as knee-jerk assumptions about my mental ability isn't analysis either. It's bullying that isn't worth taking seriously.
Electronic Arts put the biscuit in the basket nearly a half million times last week. The publisher today revealed that it sold 451,000 copies of NHL 12 in the game's first week on sale.
NHL 12's sales were top shelf (where momma hides the cookies).
The hockey sim posted franchise-best retail receipts of more than $27 million worldwide for its launch week, with the number of copies sold up 19 percent year-over-year. The publisher also said gamers posted 6.9 million online game sessions during the launch week, the most in the series' history.
EA Sports updated this year's version of the series with a new "Full Contact" physics engine. The publisher aimed to increase realism in the game, adding in such features as goalies that can be interfered with more realistically, as well as net battles. It also revamped the Be a Pro career mode and added a handful of legends to the game, including Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and Gordie Howe.
EA's plans for hockey don't end with NHL 12. The publisher also today announced NHL Superstars, a free-to-play Facebook game that will launch early next month. In Superstars, players will cobble together a team of pros and pit them against their friends' squads in head-to-head matchups.
Based on a detailed, four-hour analysis of this article, consultation with the last decade's worth of serious video game theory, the font the article was printed in, its use of the word "also" and the author's astrological sign (The Clump of Random Boring Stars), I have concluded that Charlie Sheen is a chupacabra.
Just to clarify, my particular phrasing there has to do with how things associated with Rare and Microsoft's relationship have long been thought to be linked to the huffing of paint.
As for the article itself, it even mentions that a tour through Rare's headquarters would have been much more exciting in the late '90s and how going through and looking at their current project (even though they said its good enough) that you get a sense that the magic is gone. Obviously Rare is still performing well. Hell, I'm sure they are making money hand over fist with all the crap people can buy for their avatars, for instance. The feature about getting a look inside Rare even brings up the 3 million units Kinect Sports sold. That related article about Rare falling off the map has more to do with how they have fallen out of place with long time fans and losing relevancy with the (ugh, I always hate using this term) hardcore gamer, not with how well their company is doing. Just above Aegeri admits that he just assumed that Rare was dead and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people thought that. Not everyone goes into the "inside baseball" part of the industry to see they're doing a lot of things internally for Microsoft and most wouldn't associate their identity with something like Kinect Sports at all. For them, they identify with Rare from the glory days of before.
If you don't care about all that or the quality of Kinect Sports (and are only looking at the performance) then of course there is no reason to see any of what was shown in within that feature as disconcerting. I'm guessing that is the case if you bring up R.C. Pro AM out of all the things relating to Rare's past. But if you find yourself agreeing with this when you would rather see more of this or this from Rare, then yeah, it is a little depressing.
Five if you count Demonware and Beachhead. Beachhead, the house running Elite is technically a studio, and Demonware does the franchise's netcode.
Infinity Ward and Treyarch alternate on yearly CoD. Sledgehammer was making a CoD action-adventure game, rumored to be space marine-ish, but that was cancelled in the prototype stage so they could help with MW3.
EDIT: Six. I forgot Raven Software does DLC duties.
I think Sledgehammer just gets work offloaded to them and assists the other two companies with their games in addition to working on the new model for multiplayer. It does seem kind of absurd but Call of Duty is all the rage right now, so its kind of understandable.
did they make that last banjo & kazooie game? i feel like if they had done a direct sequel and not nuts and bolts people would have been more keen on rare. kinect sports is fun but the vast majority of people never played it and probably won't, so it's easy to ridicule when you just see people demoing the game and doing body-waggle
Rare really pushed the limits of the NES, even early in its lifespan. Nintendo wouldn't give them a development unit so they reverse engineered the hardware and made Slalom, their first video game ever, which impressed Nintendo so much that they brought them on board and bought a chunk of the company.
For as hated as Battletoads is as a game, it's a technological marvel. They were able to do a lot of things no other games did, including finding enough CPU time to load a new sprite for the main character every frame, allowing them to have a lot of detailed and varied animations. Not to mention how complicated it is to get parallax working on the NES, and they do it both vertically and horizontally (levels 2 and 3).
Heck, Snake Rattle & Roll stylistically reminds me of early N64 games, with a locked diagonal camera.
Posts
http://kotaku.com/5842126/the-toysrus-2011-holiday-hot-toy-list-has-a-video-game-ringer
Edit: Damn you, I had somehow managed to forget the whole Deleter thing.
I worked at Electronic Arts for a time. And their main lobbies are filled with things that advertise the newest games. They also have various displays around the campus showing bits from their past. Some are fairly sizable (For example, in building 209 they have a beat up Ducati motorcycle that was used in conjunction with Road Rash), but most are similar to the picture in the article of the glass showcase with all the old games. And some are hidden away from visitors eyes in locations most outsiders simply won't see. Employee break areas mainly, but you'll also see lots of stuff where the people work.
You know what I didn't see in that photo essay? Where the employees work. I saw what looked like areas that they would show public visitors that included mostly references to the recent (and upcoming) work with minimal displays for acknowledging past efforts. It could've been any games studio that ever existed for a decent length of time.
The fact of the matter is that you and people like you are just pissed off because Rare isn't doing the kinds of things you liked from them in the past. Maybe it's because they're associated with MS, maybe it isn't. But you don't like what they're doing now and you've decided to voice your disgust by accusing them of intentionally ignoring their past.
That fact of the matter is that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about right now. You weren't on the tour, you didn't take the photos, you didn't write the article, and I'd even go so far as to doubt that you've ever even been to the Rare studios
What you're commenting on is a photo essay that is presenting what must be a small selection of pictures taken on a press junket used to promote Rare and their work on the next game. And you're doing it very poorly. Of the twenty-one published pictures, seven have anything to do with Kinect and at least half of those are for the new game they're promoting. And five of them are either directly or inferred to contain things related to their pre-Microsoft days. Maybe six depending on what the BAFTA in the shoes picture is for (or maybe eight Kinect pics by the same token).
But hey, what the hell would I know about anything? Rare sucks and Microsoft sucks for making Rare suck.
edit: Hey MS I'm sure are happy now, their transforming Rare has worked out well for their pocketbooks. I don't hate MS, I do however mourn what they did to Rare.
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
PSN - Brainiac_8
Steam - http://steamcommunity.com/id/BRAINIAC8/
Add me!
We're not pissed, we're depressed. :P And I personally thought it was interesting (and depressing) because it definitely symbolically drives home what Rare is emphasizing nowadays.
So when EA invites the press to demo, say, Mirror's Edge 2, they hide all references to Madden, etc and throw Mirror's Edge stuff all over their office?
I have my own example - I toured Blizzard's headquarters. There was art, statues, and all kinds of shit from ALL of their games. There was an Orc statue all the way back from 1994's WarCraft: Orcs and Humans. They had trailers/cutscenes from all of their games (including old ones) on the TVs in their lobby. There was even a poster for that stupid flash game they made that you could play while you waited in line for Blizzcon tickets. Did they showcase their latest stuff? Sure. But they didn't hide all traces of past work from public (well, press) view.
Agreed.
Valve has been hittin' dem AYE ARE GEES pretty hard these days.
Whoa, awesome dude, you never told me about this! How long ago was it?
What the hell kind of counter is this? None of you even did the math on the pictures and you all made it seem like the whole thing all but ignored their past. You comment but you have no seeming ability to analyse what you see. I can't fault you for not having any perspective on what a games company might actually look like, but I can take issue with the reaction to a photo essay fluff piece mainly intended to promote the new game.
What they are doing is putting on a public fact that rightly promotes their current projects. They're a game company, not a museum. Your expectation for them is exceedingly high and never had a chance to be met to your satisfaction.
April last year :P
http://www.scrollsoflore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=102
Did Rare? Because I still count five pictures related to pre-Microsoft content.
...the whole thing DOES all but ignore the past. They went out of their way to photo anything non-Kinect Sports related, and the fact that what little they found was small or trophy related is pretty telling. Compared to how large and up-front the Kinect Sports stuff is. That's what my brain came up with when analyzing that.
So how do you explain Blizzard going out of their way to reference the past? I don't have expectations like that. I would have liked to see some non-small acknowledgement of the past, but hey.
Like I said, I posted this merely to point out that Rare is now "Kinect Sports or GTFO." You can read a lot into a company's philosophy by how they decorate their public areas. And no, I'm not kidding.
Either he's gonna lose his job within six months, or Infinity Ward will be shut down by Activision. I really hate being the one to say that, I don't hope it happens, but... there's no way Kotick is gonna let that attitude fly.
That's some pretty excellent PR double speak right there, Kotick would be proud of that level of pure bullshit.
It's bland but if you think about it, what choice do they have other than to stick to their guns and buckle down for the upcoming competition? I mean, I guess they could say, "We're going to vamp up / stream line our physical distribution process." Maybe they should.
Honestly, I've seen Kotick stick to the, "We want to be the best, we want everyone playing, etc" kind of rhetoric. The "we wanna make the game we want to make and play!" message isn't one he runs with.
Here is an important quote in the article. (It should be noted that the text of the article acts more as captions of the picture above it, rather than the text of an article with appropriately selected pictures.)
They were there for Kinect Sports 2. It should never come as any surprise that most of the pictures were going to be about that.
They had to go 'out of their way' to take pictures of everything else because if they don't, then people would demand to know why a visit to Rare didn't have anything to do with their past. And again, nearly a third of the pictures deal with this. The rest of the pictures, the largest group, is about what the buildings look like, a break area, and the surrounding countryside.
How do I explain Blizzard? They make WoW, Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo. What the fuck else are you going to see? Blizzard has apparently decided to make their public areas contain lots of stuff from all the things people really like about them. So what? Does that mean Rare should make the lobby all about R.C. Pro-Am?
I can read just as much into the same thing you are. The public areas are about the present and future of the company. And this distresses you and others. The fact that you leapt to the conclusion of 'GTFO' is why you are bad at this kind of commentary. You are actively trying to say that Rare is doing poorly because they aren't devoted to focusing on the things they did more than a decade ago.
Your whole concept here is that you're upset because a press tour for a new game didn't devote massive space to the history of a company when you probably liked them better. This is not as reasonable a position as you might think.
HEY, if Microsoft can turn the XBox division around to start making a profit, they can do the same with Bing!. Also, don't bring up the Zune. <.<
Yet they didn't just go to the rooms featuring Kinect Sports. They spent a lot of time in the public areas, like the cafeteria and lobby. And it was crammed with wall-to-wall Kinect Sports 2. They said this in the article.
Besides, saying that they had to "go out of their way" to take pictures of stuff that ISN'T Kinect Sports stuff heavily implies that Rare is, as we're asserting, all about Kinect Sports.
And even though a third of the pictures had non-Kinect Sports stuff, they were all tiny and insubstantial. You told me to analyze, so I did.
As far as Blizzard goes... yes, they have a bunch of different games. That's because they've decided to make their public face all about their rich history of games. Rare has chosen to make their public face nothing but Kinect Sports 2. Even though, as you said about Blizzard, Rare has made a lot more stuff that people like about them.
Besides... when did I say they were doing "poorly?" I said it depresses me, because it shows that the company isn't the same as it once was and isn't even giving small thought at their past. I didn't say anything about Kinect Sports 2 going badly.
I guess the bigger question is: why does this assertion upset you so much? It apparently does, since you're making such strongly negative and knee-jerk comments about my mental capacity. What does "I'm bad at this type of commentary" even mean?
I assumed they were dead.
Right, and Rare made Battletoads, Killer Instinct, Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Conker, Banjo Kazooie, etc etc. That is the kind of stuff I would expect to see at their own company headquarters. Something cool like a life-size statue of Pimple from Battletoads, his fist in the shape of an anvil, punching Fulgore from Killer Instinct. A bust of Joanna Dark back to back with James Bond. Pictures of squirrels and other past mascots, some doing humorous and inappropriate things. Nothing like that was there though aside from a Conker poster they snuck a picture of, some bananas hinting at Donkey Kong, and a few small other details here and there.
The lack of all of this can be attributed to the opening of their headquarters for a press event for Kinect Sports 2, but it seems unlikely that they would scrape nearly everything else relating to anything else just for that. I think the really telling thing is that Microsoft has since bought them out and probably insisted that things relating to their past at Nintendo be kept to a bare minimum. Even then, its still odd that Viva Pinata and Perfect Dark aren't seen. But Microsoft didn't seem too pleased with their performances and is all about the Kinect and its games now, and so their headquarters was made to reflect that. So really I think that all of this can go back to when you summed things up by saying: Rare sucks and Microsoft sucks for making Rare suck.
tldr - I wouldn't bother trying to "read between the lines" regarding Rare's offices. For all you know, it was just something a random admin thought of, and no one else at Rare thought it was important enough to disagree with or fight over, since there's far more important things to be concerned about.
- Don't add me, I'm at/near the friend limit
Steam: JC_Rooks
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JiunweiC
I work on this: http://www.xbox.com
You find something related to gaming and then post it. Sometimes in whole, sometimes only excerpted, and sometimes with what you feel is a key paragraph related to a point of snark that you wish to make.
And yet it never seems to deal with what is actually going on. The whole thing reads like the website was invited (along with lots of other people) to preview the newest game the company made. And they decided at some point that rather than focus on the game, they'll talk about the campus instead. Which they do.
They talk about what it looks like when you enter the building. It's devoted to Kinect Sports. Their recent game and related to what they were invited for in the first place. But while they were there, they checked the place out and showed some items related to their 'beloved' past.
And your whole reaction was that Rare is fully avoiding their past, possibly at the behest of Microsoft, and that this means that Rare has succumbed to one of many memes related to the horrible decision to leave Nintendo and be bought out by Microsoft.
Your only attempt at actual analysis is to say that the lobby means a lot about a company and how their willingness to promote their latest games means that they lost their way or something. Instead of it being a company who is actually proud of their latest games and want people to see them.
The article does not actually say exactly where they went. Clearly the lobby, one caption mentions the cafeteria (hard to believe that maybe they fed the gather press...), and they saw a patio, farmland, and the exterior of the worker bee hive. And in the end, twenty-one photos were selected to be used in a piece that speaks mainly about the campus.
And according to you, this must mean that Rare is no longer as glorious as they once were. Rehab then says:
And a specious comparison between a fluff piece about the campus and how a single link, to the side, mixed with a bunch of 'related' links (related in that they're about Microsoft, the 360, Kinect, and Rare) is indicitive of the poor state of a company that gets trashed for 'not having any franchises worth developing for'.
(And a skim of the article seems to be about how some mucky-muck with the company is talking about how awesome the company still is. What a scandal!
Though it spends most of it's time talking about how they were better before Microsoft. Almost like they're proving Henson's point.)
You are terrible at commentary because you drop tidbits that mostly conform to a narrative you wish to present and then expect everybody to somehow buy into it without needing to do their own thinking? How many times has somebody posted a link to a small write up that has no real context and than tried to use it to prove whatever pet theory they're trying to push.
Not long ago, somebody posted a link to an article which was a summation to an interview held elsewhere about how stupid Factor 5 (or whoever it was) was. And then people here immediately seized on this blurb as proof that it was true. So I did the thing I feel has to be done: I pointed out that the linked article contained no real information and was a summation of content that couldn't be easily seen by everybody.
You want to bitch about poor games journalism? Don't engage in the same shitty practices these other terrible places do.
This specific article is about the Rare headquarters. They were there for Kinect Sports 2 and while they were there, grabbed some shots for the folks who are more interested in the pre-MS days. This article does not prove that MS is too rigorous. This article does not prove that Rare is abandoning their past. It is twenty-one pictures, fourteen of which are about the company property, and five of those are about the things you wanted in the first place.
It should not be a surprise that they didn't devote much time or effort into the past of the company. And yet you and others are trying to argue that this matches the common sentiment that Rare is a fallen company. Why should an article that was not intended to be about Rare's history spend much time talking about Rare's history?
And what did that related article which proves how bad things are for Rare have inside of it:
Rare, Ltd. Rest in peace, we hardly knew ye.
Proper analysis of the industry means trying to put things into a larger context. Dumping a link, selectively quoting, and encouraging people to conclude the worst isn't analysis. It's games 'journalism'.
Also, is it any news to anyone that the Rare of today has pretty much nothing to do with the Rare of yesteryear? I wouldn't be surprised if there's nobody there who has been there for longer than 5 years.
Zeboyd Games Development Blog
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
And failing to even acknowledge my thought-out counter analysis to your assertions and instead continuing to make inflated accusations about my intentions as well as knee-jerk assumptions about my mental ability isn't analysis either. It's bullying that isn't worth taking seriously.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6335842/nhl-12-sets-franchise-sales-record?tag=newstop;title;3
Based on a detailed, four-hour analysis of this article, consultation with the last decade's worth of serious video game theory, the font the article was printed in, its use of the word "also" and the author's astrological sign (The Clump of Random Boring Stars), I have concluded that Charlie Sheen is a chupacabra.
So Activision has three CoD studios?
Sledgehammer
Treyarch
IW
???
As for the article itself, it even mentions that a tour through Rare's headquarters would have been much more exciting in the late '90s and how going through and looking at their current project (even though they said its good enough) that you get a sense that the magic is gone. Obviously Rare is still performing well. Hell, I'm sure they are making money hand over fist with all the crap people can buy for their avatars, for instance. The feature about getting a look inside Rare even brings up the 3 million units Kinect Sports sold. That related article about Rare falling off the map has more to do with how they have fallen out of place with long time fans and losing relevancy with the (ugh, I always hate using this term) hardcore gamer, not with how well their company is doing. Just above Aegeri admits that he just assumed that Rare was dead and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people thought that. Not everyone goes into the "inside baseball" part of the industry to see they're doing a lot of things internally for Microsoft and most wouldn't associate their identity with something like Kinect Sports at all. For them, they identify with Rare from the glory days of before.
If you don't care about all that or the quality of Kinect Sports (and are only looking at the performance) then of course there is no reason to see any of what was shown in within that feature as disconcerting. I'm guessing that is the case if you bring up R.C. Pro AM out of all the things relating to Rare's past. But if you find yourself agreeing with this when you would rather see more of this or this from Rare, then yeah, it is a little depressing.
Five if you count Demonware and Beachhead. Beachhead, the house running Elite is technically a studio, and Demonware does the franchise's netcode.
Infinity Ward and Treyarch alternate on yearly CoD. Sledgehammer was making a CoD action-adventure game, rumored to be space marine-ish, but that was cancelled in the prototype stage so they could help with MW3.
EDIT: Six. I forgot Raven Software does DLC duties.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
I think Sledgehammer just gets work offloaded to them and assists the other two companies with their games in addition to working on the new model for multiplayer. It does seem kind of absurd but Call of Duty is all the rage right now, so its kind of understandable.
Well . . . damn!
But I recognize that it isn't that studio anymore.
Rare made that? RARE?!
*Head Explodes dancing to Lvl 1 music*
For as hated as Battletoads is as a game, it's a technological marvel. They were able to do a lot of things no other games did, including finding enough CPU time to load a new sprite for the main character every frame, allowing them to have a lot of detailed and varied animations. Not to mention how complicated it is to get parallax working on the NES, and they do it both vertically and horizontally (levels 2 and 3).
Heck, Snake Rattle & Roll stylistically reminds me of early N64 games, with a locked diagonal camera.