Word Laces Review

 When Apple Arcade originally launched in September 2019, it had 71 games to download and play. When you open the app store today you can pull up the full list of games in their original release order. If you scroll to the VERY bottom of the list, you'll find Word Laces, which in my estimation makes this the first game released for the service.

It seems somewhat symbolic actually, that a casual, innocent, lighthearted little word game would be the first that Apple put on the list. It seems like it almost communicated the intent of the service itself. 
Apple launched their Arcade service at a time when mobile gaming had long since become a cesspool of micro-transactions and ads. If you look carefully, it almost seems like Word Laces was sort of designed to exist in that kind of world. The game as it exists now is beautiful, simplistic and minimalist...and it actually feels kind of weird. There are only two game modes here, one of them offers 1 puzzle per day in the form of a daily challenge, and the other is just the normal mode you'll play, going level by level, solving the word puzzles. No fluff. Once you complete a puzzle, there's no ads or stupid fake money to spend. You just go to the next puzzle.

To look at the gameplay, Word Laces sums itself up exactly. You combine words using shoe laces. You'll see a variety of letters on the screen and sometimes combinations of letters, and you tie them together, in a string, to produce a word that represents or describes the picture you see on the screen. Within five seconds you'll know EXACTLY how to play this game. 

The puzzles are short and sweet, normally lasting about a minute or two. and once you finish you'll earn stars based on how many hints you used, not necessarily how efficient you were. I really liked that the game didn't pressure or rush me. After completing a puzzle you can always go back and do it again, should you so desire, and to compliment the main 1200 puzzle campaign mode, there is a daily puzzle as well, which I found to be much trickier than any of the 50 puzzles I've completed in the main mode.
For being such a simple game, I have to admire its breadth. 1200 is a LOT of puzzles. I've been playing this game with some intensity for over a week. I feel like I've been mainlining it in my spare moments. Having completed 50 of the 1200 puzzles, I feel like I've done a lot, though in the grand design of the game I haven't even hit 10% That might seem like a low number to justify a review...but honestly, I feel like I've seen enough of this game to know what it is. That doesn't make it bad. But it does make it kind of basic. 

I don't want to sound harsh. This is a pleasant little puzzler. I'm legitimately going to keep this on my phone. It's one of the best games I've seen on Apple Arcade that will start up in ten seconds, and lets me complete a puzzle in a minute or two. Play sessions in Word Laces can be REALLY short if you want them to be. On a computer or a game console that might not seem attractive, but on a phone, its awesome. This is a GREAT toilet game.

The stars you earn can be used to earn shoe boxes. When you finally earn a shoe box, you'll be rewarded with a random shoe, which has a corresponding lace for you to wrap your words with, and it also slightly changes the color of the background to add some variety. Its essentially a little bonus to change the color scheme and style of the game board while you play. Its a cute addition, as it always feels good to be earning something, but it really doesn't amount to much, and it certainly won't be the primary motivator to your continued play experience. The reason you will start this game up is the pleasure you get out of the puzzles, and that alone. 

Its worth saying before we end this conversation that I started playing this game on my iPhone. The next day I downloaded it on my Mac to see if it played any differently. I expected to start over, but actually my save file was perfectly synced with my phone, without me doing anything, or really even knowing that it was happening. Heck, I didn’t even know that was a feature. But as soon as I started the game on my Mac, the game started on the exact same puzzle I had been working on on my iPhone. I’m not sure how many Apple Arcade games do this, but if this is a feature that is common, its a really fantastic quality of life feature. But I digress, lets get back to the review.

Word laces is a little treat, neatly wrapped and thoughtfully presented. It's not the greatest word game ever made, but it doesn't have to be. Its a bite-sized shoebox of clever fun, and if you're even a casual fan of puzzle games, this one is worth a download.

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

Metal Gear Solid V is a game with weight and great significance. It has been, up to its release, a clear final hoorah from Kojima and team. It has been years since a game with such significance is accompanied by headlines of a parent company giving a big middle finger to their developers. But then you must consider that both sides are undoubtedly jaded. Konami has reportedly spent 5 years and 80 million dollars on the project, and Kojima and Team are working around the clock to deliver an experience that ultimately makes their mother company more money than it does them, while also trying to remove the credit of the game to whom it is due. Being so close to launch and the biggest project any of them have undertaken, its only natural that tensions would be high.

Still, it takes pressure to make diamonds. Metal Gear Solid 5 has escaped development and has been released with celebration and accolades. There has never been a stealth or action game like it. What it accomplishes in its presentation and in its moment to moment gameplay isn’t just an achievement. It is a milestone for storytelling and for gaming in general. In a few years time September 2015 will be remembered by gamers and the industry as a turning point in the PS4 and Xbox One life cycle, not just for the benchmarks in next generation technology, but for a new standard of greatness in videogames. It is a game that suggests conversation now, as well as a few years from now, when we can fully understand its impact on the medium. Already, MGS5 has soiled the experience of what would otherwise be considered fantastic AAA titles of the holiday season, because there just isn’t any way this experience is going to be topped.

Afghanistan, the game’s first setting, is a beautiful country. For Veteran MGS players, it presents a battlefield that has never been fought on. For newcomers, it's recognizable and accessible. But no matter where you’re coming from, it feels fresh.The mountains block off wide open areas, every one subtly leading to a choke point that becomes an enemy check point or base. No matter where you’re going in Afghanistan, you’re always headed toward action. That’s one of the great accomplishments in MGSV’s design: there is always something happening right in front of you and everything you take away from the enemy becomes something that you can use against them. I can steal a jeep from them and move around the countryside ala GTA. But once I’m done in Afghanistan I can also ship that jeep out and use it back at my base, and then when I return to the field of battle I can re-deploy it.

The last couple of years have been filled with open world games. And here we have yet another. But what MGSV does different is how the open world continuously directs you and then frees you to play the game how you want. As you travel, you will inevitably travel toward the enemy. The game almost MAKES you infiltrate bases. When you arrive at the base, however, the cuffs come off and you’re free to do as you please, whether you want to play this game like a shooter or a stealth/action thriller is entirely up to you, and both choices are going to work out pretty well for you. Perhaps the finest topping on the cake is that the decision to go loud or quiet is often made on the fly, and can change multiple times throughout the mission. What makes that fun is that the game doesn’t punish you for it, it just asks you to improvise.

When you do improvise, you will find a deep, glorious bucket of variety; the kind you can sink your teeth into. Its very reasonable to expect to do every mission in the game two or three times. And since the missions are varied, with wildly different objectives, all taking place at different bases with different variables and obstacles, the gameplay is a virtuous cycle of creativity, improvisation and fun.

There are kinks in the armor. It should be brought up that the game’s portrayal of the “main” female character is adolescent and unamusing. At every chance, the camera focuses on her feminine body, and has a poor excuse for making her walk around in a slim bikini. For a soldier, she has an awful lot of swing in her hips, and the scenes she stars in limit her to being a caged pole dancer. On the battlefield, she is a worthy foe. Off the battlefield, she is a sex symbol. I really wish that in 2015 we could get passed something as simple as this. But every time she comes up, it is a scene with missed potential. For a game that is so skilled at discussing adult topics, seeing Quiet onscreen just brings me back to high school, when my friends and I gawped at anything that had legs.

The disappointment that the character Quiet carries is a similar downer that you’ll encounter when your expectations for the game’s story are dropped into a mud pit. It begins with Hollywood bravado and then evolves into a sort of nuclear-soup; a by-product of something that was supposed to be powerful and threatening but now just takes up space in a warehouse. Sickening as the thought is, Metal Gear Solid 5 won’t be remembered for it’s story, yet it may be remembered as the greatest Metal Gear Solid game.

The Metal Gear Series has always excelled at storytelling-off the wall as they all may have been. Yet in telling their stories, they also sacrificed good design. After all, people may remember MGS2 fondly, but the fact of the matter is that you couldn’t play the game for ten minutes in any capacity before coming across a cut scene that led to an urgent and mandatory objective. Metal Gear Solid 3 forced a stealthy slog through the forest, transitioning to a pause screen where you equipped some new clothing so you could cross a river and then repeat the process after you’ve crossed said river. Metal Gear Solid 4, as much of a masterpiece as that was, was a movie. Period. They were all excellent games, but  They were games that pushed you forward. In doing so, they each killed all the motivation of returning to the story for multiple play-throughs.

The Phantom Pain takes a left turn that no one suspected; it finally embraced that fans weren’t interested in watching Snake anymore-they just wanted to play as him. It comes as perhaps the simplest of all video game design decisions, yet the impact that it has had on this game is astonishing. It’s finally fun to PLAY metal gear. “Play” is the perfect word for it too, because once the story is completed and you’re left with nothing but the ambition for growth, the game becomes a playground that you want to return to every Saturday. You know those monkey bars that you swung on all the time? It was fun to just go across them the way they were intended, but on the second week you started skipping bars. On the third week you were hanging upside down, and on the fourth week you started jumping off of them.

Each base in The Phantom Pain will be revisited multiple times, but each time you come back you’re going to do things just a little bit different-just to shake things up. When you do, you’ll find that the gameplay continues to become deeper and more creative than you originally gave it credit for, even 100 hours in.

The good far outweighs the bad. Mostly because the way fans will remember this game as the best in the series has very little to do with the story. It is the finest culmination of the ideas and gameplay innovations that has characterized Metal Gear Solid in the last 30 years. It is the ultimate realization of the tactical/espionage/action gameplay. Maybe it wasn’t what I wanted; But I think what I wanted wasn’t really what I needed. After all, the real story of the Metal Gear Solid saga ended with 4. We all knew it. When the fifth entry was announced, the last thing on our minds was the story. So it was before we ever played it, and so it will be long after we put it down-but that gameplay-man, that was something special.

The Real Value of PS Plus

You've been told to put your money where your mouth is. So you do, and before you know it, you're investing your life savings in renewable diapers.

Seriously though, crappy jokes are one thing, but there is a lot of merit to the idea of "putting money" where one's pie hole is. Behind the saying is the idea that if you REALLY believe in something, or you REALLY want something to happen, you'll actually throw money at it. That's significant because money is the one thing most people have a hard time giving up.

And the value of money, while different for everyone, is also significant to everyone. So when someone tells you that something is "free" your ears are of course going to perk up. Everyone's ears perk up at the idea of getting something for free.

Playstation Plus gives players free games. Sony very cleverly shrouded PS Plus by first providing it as a perk for loyal customers, but then eventually made it mandatory for playing online. Most gamers aren't worried about the idea, because Sony butters up the situation with some legitimately good games every month at no charge.

Most of my Playstation library is made up of PS Plus games because I'm one of those guys who works a retail job and barely has any expendable income to pay for a full priced retail title. To me, PS Plus is a great opportunity to have fresh games coming in all year that can keep me playing, interested, and challenged for less than the cost of a full priced game. It's almost the only way I can get new games under the income bracket I live on. Even when I come across more money, I put it toward real things that matter-like working on a broken car or buying necessary things for my wife and children.

As it happens, as much as I enjoy games on PS Plus, I also don't play them that much any more. I have had to think long and hard about how I love Spelunky so much, and admire the storytelling of Ether One, and love the gameplay mechanics of Rocket League, and appreciate the efforts of Never Alone. Truth is, when I have a couple hours to enjoy a game, I don't want to play any of those. The only reason I can come up with as to why I'm not interested in picking them up is because I actually invested nothing in them in the first place. I got all of those games for free. Because of that, enjoying them or getting something out of them doesn't create any consequence.

To nail this point down, I purchased Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition from Nintendo's Humble Bundle for $1.00 (I know, I'm a cheapskate. But I made sure every penny went to the developer.) I played it for an hour, enjoyed it and then set it down so that I could focus on beating Splinter Cell. One month later, the game came out on PS Plus. I downloaded it for free, and I never started it up. I never have any INTENTION of starting it up.

I like the game. I'm actually looking forward to playing it on my Wii U. But I still won't play it on my Playstation, even if the Playstation version allows me to earn trophies and play online with my friends. I don't care. I actually paid money for the Wii U version. I invested in it. I put my money into it. In my mind, the Wii U version is worth more.

I know that we are technically "paying" for PS Plus games because we pay for the membership and the games are part of a membership. I understand that. But the fact of the matter is that Sony actually just wants money to support their network and they use the games to sweeten the deal and keep people subscribed. If PS Plus money only went toward online play and data backup features, the majority of subscribers would drop their subscription for 6 months out of the year.

The truth is that with any game, or any item for that matter, we value things more when we actually pay for them. Free things might be cool, but they're also worthless, because you didn't assign any value to them in the first place.

I have always enjoyed Mario games. I loved Super Mario World and Super Mario Sunshine and the New Super Mario Bros on Wii and DS. More than any of those games, I've played and loved New Super Luigi U, and Mario 3D Land (on which I obtained 5 stars on my play file). The only reason I love those games more is because I paid for them. And I want to keep returning to them because, in a way, they are giving back to me what I put into them.

Playstation Plus is still cool, and I will still subscribe, but I don't really value the idea of free games like I used to. The fact is that I want to put my money in the things I REALLY want and REALLY believe in. And those are the games that I forked over money for.

My Ten Favorites

IGN has a a great schedule of articles where each writer is contributing their personal lists of favorite games of all time. It inspired me to create my own list for the very first time. I love top ten lists, but they sure are hard to put together.

These games are not in order and they are not what I consider to be the greatest games of all time. These are my favorites. These are the games that I have spent more time playing than any others. These are the games I look back on fondly. These are the games that make me glad I'm a gamer. My list, in no particular order, follows.

1. Final Fantasy VII

Final famtasy VII is a dead giveaway. I had been playing games all my life, but this was the first game that showed me games could make me laugh, cry and pee all over myself out of fear. FF7 wasn't a scary game in the least, but sephiroth was a character you feared. That dude murdered EVERYONE. Despite making it through the entire game three times, I never beat Sephiroth. Not because he was too hard, but because I was just too scared to travel to the bottom of the crater to try. I was too young to be able to overcome the emotions I had about that character. I was so attached to Cloud and the rest of my party that I didn't want to risk Sephiroth killing all of them. To this day, I have never beat this game start to finish. Still, with the timeless drama and tragedy of the plot and the superb characters, ff7 taught me that games could tell stories, and that alone changed my gaming life forever.

2. SSX3

The best dreams are the ones we have almost tasted. SSX3 came out at a time when I was snowboarding literally any time I had the opportunity. As I learned to stop, carve and get a third of a second of airtime in real life, I was going home and busting mad tricks in SSX3. The physics of the game and ridiculous courses can't even be mentioned in a sentence with "realistic" but be careful. The way clothing ruffled in the wind, the birds sang and tweeted off of bare branches in a quiet lonely mountain landscape and the expertly crafted animations of the characters snowboarding through that powder, A passby would use that word. I spent hours cruising through the snowy mountain landscape moving from event to event. You could fast travel in the game, but because touching the d-pad ever so slightly would cause your character to lean just an inch to the left or right, making an easy relaxed turn down the hill into the next slope style event. I explored every inch of that mountain...well almost. I made it to 99% completion. I couldn't find the other hidden cash snow flakes, but boy did I try. This game, more than any other, was fantasy fulfillment.

3. Metal Gear Solid 2

Mgs2, like ff7, taught me the kinds of stories games could tell. It excelled in Hollywood cinematic flair, but also created the most interactive environment I have personally ever seen or heard of in a game. Flour bags spilled flour and revealed infrared lasers, fire extinguishers blinded guards, the stem of a wine bottle could be shot off, guards could be hidden in lockers, boxes and a guard would shake his butt if you pointed at his crotch, begging you not to kill him. I've never seen that much detail in a game, and I spent dozens of hours beating it again and again playing around with those environments. Yeah, Raiden sucked, but that gameplay was something else.

4. Maximo: Ghost to Glory

This game is a close win. Ninja Gaiden almost took the cake for being the hardest game I have ever played. But Maximo wins out, making it my crown of action platforming skill. It took me three months to beat this game. Thats significant when you consider that during that time, I literally did nothing else, all day. I just played games. This game is harder than ninja gaiden because, besides the unforgiving platforming action, it's very possible to get a game over and have your save file deleted by the game. You only have so many lives and chances. If you exhaust them, you have to start from scratch. As hard as ninja gaiden was, it allowed me an infinite number of continues. When I beat the last boss in Maximo, I had only a few lives left. I was flirting with the chance of losing three months worth of hard work. The last boss fight was a perfect finale too, because it took place in a pitch-black castle, where your enemy would only be revealed by random lightning strikes in the storm outside the shattered stained glass windows. I barely won that fight. My heart was pounding.

5. Double Dragon 3

My earliest days of gaming were spent playing coop with my brother. We still do it today in the rare event of finding the time, the game and the platform. And the money to support such things. Double Dragon 3 is my earliest memories of coop. The fitting soundtrack was perfect and the adventure took you across the entire globe. I played through this game with my bro dozens of times, and it is among my fondest memories of childhood. We would later move on to other coop experiences. But this was the first.

6. Tales of Symphonia

This is an odd one. The story wasn't the best ever, the blurry environments frustrated both my eyesight and my opinion of good design and the combat system, while a really fresh action rpg, eventually became more repetitious than most jrpg's. It wasn't the best at anything but it was really, really good at everything. Tons of side quests and extra content, coop, and just enough charm and character to absorb you. I beat this 60 hour adventure five times. Once with my sister, Taylor. Great memories and probably the one game that I have invested the most time in. I wouldn't give it any awards, per se. But it's one of my favorites. I just had a ton of fun with it.

7. Dark Cloud 2

Such a gem. Although I only played through the game fully one time, it was the only game that I ever invested 100 hours into a single game file (I probably did in WOW, but I can't confirm that). Of the RPGs on this list, this is the one that I look back on most fondly. I played this game when I was becoming discontent with my seclusion in Canada, feeling alone in the world and helpless in my situation. Seeing Max fix a broken empty world to build a better future was something that really struck me. That gameplay offered more variety than even ff7 and the music was sublime. The combat was intense, intentional but forward thinking. When you fought with a weapon in this game, you did so with the intention of causing it to grow, because that was the only way to level up. The story, about a boy who was looking for his mother, his source of comfort and security, also resonated with my desire to move away from childhood, but also remember what is so important in it. This game gave me a certain kind of peace in those uncertain days. Again, something I was surprised video games could do, but I was very thankful during that time that this game was doing that for me. Among RPG's, this one might be my number one. I wish I could revisit it today.

8. Super Smash Bros. Melee

I could have been a professional player at smash bros. melee I murdered all of the friends with Link. Match after match after match playing against 3 level 9 AI's (free for all. I could do two lvl9 on one but three was just stupid) my buddy Lance matched my skill with Roy, and we spent plenty of time in the fountain of dreams, dueling it out neck and neck. There are several games on this list from the Nintendo GameCube, and several more that almost made the list, but this one is the game I would recommend to anyone who owned that cute little cube.

9. Dynasty Warriors 3

I've played a LOT of dynasty warriors, but 3 was my first experience with the series. My brother and I discovered this game together, And after playing the demo a dozen times, convinced our dad to buy us the game. we unlocked all forty characters and collectively killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers together. This is probably the most time my brother and I spent together in any one game, and, despite being a mature adult, I miss the simple pleasure of the hack and slash action of these games. As shallow as the story might be in the battles, if you look harder through the menus and character relationships, its actually one of the deepest stories you'll find in gaming.

10. Resident Evil 4

The scariest game of all time is resident evil 4. I beat this game literally more times than I can count. I knew every secret, enemy location, weapon upgrade and could quote every gorgeous cut scene. I earned five stars in every stage with every character in mercenary mode, earning me the hand cannon. I beat the piss out of this game. Yet even when I was at my finest hour murdering zombies, the intensity of this game still gave me the occasional jump. You can't beat that. I owned this game on GameCube, rented it on ps2 and bought it again on pc. I played this through my Highschool years and college. In fact, this is the only game on my list that I played during college. That says something.

Honorable mentions:

Contra: Shattered Soldier was the sequel that the world should have received better. I loved playing the original with my brother, but this one holds a particularly special place because it was the first game that I worked for and bought with my own money. I think I ended up playing that game more than I should have, because I was just so proud of the fact that I had earned it. I played a ton of coop with my friend Lance, but I played it by myself even more. Again, a game I never beat. Super hard, but crazy fun.

Way of the Samurai: talk about a choose-your-own-adventure. This game could be beaten in an hour, but the sheer depth of the characters, the conversations and events that happened in every corner of this game made it such a rich experience for me. Every time you play this game, as long as you make one decision differently, will create a completely different experience. Even winning and losing changed the storyline. The glorified rock, paper scissors combat and the danger of your precious swords breaking made the game dangerous, rewarding and urgent. The number of times I beat this game is in the dozens. This game almost beat resident evil 4, but I KNOW I didn't play this are more than re4, so it ultimately lost

Gun: this game only makes it because it was really fun and fulfilled my fantasy of playing a western. I LOVE westerns and this game totally nailed it. A fantastic story, great gunfights and enough sidequests to make an rpg jealous. It falls short on the list because, while there were a ton of things to do, the activities ultimately didn't last that long. The game could be completely beaten in under 25 hours. Because of that, I Ultimately didn't sink months of my life into this game, but that's only because I ran out of content. I did EVERYTHING there was to do in this game multiple times.

Ff12 is, in my opinion, a technically superior game to ff7. The combat is more fun and the story is more focused and mature. The overall design is more consistent and the world is more captivating. Ff7 beat this game to make it on my list because ff7 came first, and I played it more. Now this is tricky because ff12 also came out my freshmen year of college. I had to beat the game in a single 5 week span before I went back to school after Christmas break. I went through the game a second time when I got out of college and got married. Ironically, I also didn't beat this game. The first time I went through it, I got to the end but had to leave for school and the second time I was 80 hours in and just got burnt out (I was trying to level up all party members equally. big mistake) If I had the chance, I would go through this game again, and it might just be giving ff7 a run for its money.

Just for kicks, here are the games that might make the top 10 list ten years from now. These are games that I am currently playing and having a ton of fun playing, with no end in sight.

Spelunky: a score chasers dream. Spelunky captures the rogue like in a side scrolling platformer the dungeons are different every time you play. The game is notoriously difficult and fun. The game is endlessly replayable, and crazy as it may seem, it's actually perfectly fair in its difficulty. I love the randomness of the game, the instant challenge it provides and the drive that it gives me to beat my high score. I also love that I can start it up and play it for five minutes.

Minecraft: Minecraft is a textbook videogame. It is more videogame than any other game I have ever played. It is the definition and bare bones, no-fat added parfait of pure gameplay. It nails the mystery, danger and challenge by the nature of the design, without any incentives from the player or computer. Surviving and improving my place in the world is what keeps me playing this game. I have already sunk 50+ hours into this game and it threatens to do more. It's the ultimate video game toy box, that's easy to pick up, put down and pass around.

Hearthstone: Blizzard's card game hits all the right spots in addiction, pick up and play and incentive. Its optimal to log in every day, but not required. Its beneficial to spend money, but only if you suck at the game. In a perfect blend of strategy and luck, I enter a game knowing that its up to my ability to plan and be proactive in my attack, but I know a curveball can be thrown at any mminute. I think about this game way too much, but it's so ey to pick up and so easy to put down given how little time it takes to okay a game. I see myself playing this, minecraft and spelunky for years to come.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf

I have written about Nintendo a few times on this blog. This post is going to be another one. I will narrow it in a bit, though and focus more on the games than the company.

For the last five months I have been playing Animal Crossing for the 3DS. If you don't know anything about it, try watching some videos of it on Youtube. Watching other people play it through a web browser doesn't exactly do the game justice, but it will give you some idea as to the gameplay and objectives of the game. The remainder of this post will assume that you have watched those videos or played the game for yourself.

Nintendo games carry with them a sense of magic. Mario is most commonly known for carrying that magic, but the truth is that pretty much every game Nintendo makes carries it to some degree or another. It's a company that works so hard on the game, budget doesn't really matter, nor does the timeline. They just pour time and money into it until they are in love with it. That love ultimately carries over into the player's heart. Animal Crossing is a product of that love both from the creators and from the players. It is a game that is so distinctly "Nintendo" that if any other company attempted to copy it, they would just look stupid.

Other games have attempted it in differentiated form, and have even profited from a decent go at it (I think of Harvest Moon, Farmville and Second Life). But those games don't carry the same love affair with their players that Animal Crossing does, and there is good reason for it.

If the game could be compared to anything in reality, it would be compared with a long walk. Picture your favorite season, the perfect weather, an afternoon with no appointments and the rest of the weekend off of work. It is a world where there are no consequential obligations, mandatory jobs or stressful decisions to make (unless you're freaking out about how to decorate your room). In Animal Crossing, the act of bug catching or fishing is mandated only by your desire to actually do so, because if not for that, the game would never make you do it. You can do anything you want in Animal Crossing, or anything you don't want.

Gaming convention would argue that a player needs an objective or an incentive. Animal Crossing SORT OF has those, but not really. Certainly not as they're traditionally presented. Like a long walk, you play the game simply to enjoy it; to take in the world and relax. Like the walk you used to take to your best friend's house, its predictably familiar, but every trip will carry something just a little different. But even if it doesn't, its still just a pleasant walk to make for the sake of it.

Animal Crossing is a reminder that life, in the grand scheme of things, is simple. It is a reminder that human needs are simple, that goals, desires and dreams are not just common, but perfectly alright to have. And that no matter how big we want to be, we all still want to have what our characters in Animal Crossing have: A place to live, a few things to get around to, and a surrounding of friends to share them with.  

Mainstream Gaming

The discussion of journalism as it relates to video games goes back as far as the early days of Nintendo Power. A recent article at Kotaku contributed very well to recent arguments that gaming journalism needs better writers who speak to the "people" (that is, normal people who wouldn't be interested in reading about games anyways).

If video games can be talked about to a common man, and be discussed by a common man, then they will have reached the pinnacle of a truly mainstream audience. They will be as relevant as books, movies and popular music. I agree with her sentiments entirely, as well as the articles she references, but there is a greater problem that the wider gaming audience is missing that is keeping gaming from becoming truly mainstream.

That problem is consistency. It is haste. It is ubiquity. It is complication. There is no "one" platform that a neanderthal can point at and say "video game." No, there is a bevy of boxes and systems. A capitalist free-for-all of whatchamacallits and doodads that all play games competently in their own unique way.
The problem is there isn't one game system. There are fifty. And all of those game systems have different buttons, different games, different costs and different barriers to entry. This wide conglomerate of devices that make up the gaming industry makes the everyday consumer's eyes glaze over. It is only the gaming elite that understand that Mario is ONLY on a Nintendo. Fewer still within the elite understand that the Wii U actually has a backwards compatible library known as the Virtual Console where you can play the original Super Mario Bros. It is a game that is twenty years old and arguably single-handedly responsible for the creation of the market as we know it today, but only a fraction of a percent of the worlds population knows it can still be played on a modern console.

The amount of devices available today is bewildering. Working a retail job at Best Buy full time plus coming home and reading tech articles for an hour isn't enough to keep up with the movement of technology as it relates to the consumer. That's part and parcel of the modern age. Change is good. Competition is good. But neither are helpful when you're trying to alter a nation's culture.

Books became wildly popular because they accomplished two things: They were widely accessible and they were consistent. Once the printing press was invented and education became more accessible to common folk, there was a ravishing thirst for literature. Books were still expensive, but they were freely accessible, especially thanks to Benjamin Franklins creation of the library. Imagine what the book industry in America would have looked like if there was no consistent language. Imagine an early America where you could only read Pride and Prejudice in Spanish. "To read The Secret Garden, young man, you ought to learn French." Would Moby Dick be heralded as a classic if you could only read it in Russian? Here's the best part: Now after these books are released, lets come up with four brand new languages that people have to learn in order to keep reading; any book that we publish henceforth will no longer use French, Spanish or Russian. They'll be written in Turkish, Georgian and Irish. In the year of 1954, The Lord of the Rings will be published as a Turkish exclusive.

Books became mainstream in America because they were all printed in English. Movies became popular because they were easily accessible and could be experienced at any theater. The same is true of music. In any generation of the modern age, there was never more than one standardized format for listening to music. The entire world transitioned from vinyl to cassette. There weren't five different formats to enjoy music on. The same thing happened when CD's replaced cassettes.

This market observation is consistent with movie media as well. The whole world went from VHS to DVD. Then from DVD to Blu-Ray. (There are still some people making that transition) but notice there aren't 3 different brands split down the middle, fighting for the consumer wallet-share. In certain times, there were formats that fought hard to become the standard, but once the standard was picked, the others drifted away into oblivion.

The problem is technology and the constant movement toward "bigger and better." Instead of staying stationary and creatively working around barriers. The creative side can be seen historically toward the end of a console's lifecycle, and the games reflecting in dynamo developers creative methods of pushing aged hardware to it's gum clenching limits. After that brief re-taste of a golden age gone by, the old hardware is set aside to make room for the bleeding edge. It is at this stage, when the old begins to get pushed out, that the biggest sales in the console generation occur. The innocent and unknowing consumer sees the bargain happening at his local retailer. After hearing for years about this great entertainment box, decides to finally fork over the cash and jump in on the fun. Then as he sits down in front of the tv that night, he turns on his Xbox 360 only to see advertisements for the Xbox One, only one of many of the latest and greatest game systems. Now he feels pretty stupid.

Such was the case of the Nintendo DS, the Wii, and the Playstation 2. Radically popular consumer devices that are still used today. Yet once the consumer picked them up, they were no longer relevant to the watercooler conversations, and thus get written off as a fad investment by the majority user.
For games to be mainstream, a platform must be mainstream. For this great pass time to be accepted in popular discussion, it must be widely accepted in a single, consistent, unchanging form. An example would be the Playstation 4 or the Xbox One. But instead of a new generation of consoles coming out in ten years, the market must hold itself still and offer no new, updated products. Time alone will allow the platform to mature to a point where every living room has one; when that happens, the product will have completely matured and the ecosystem it provides will be completely populated. By providing a consistent, unchanging platform, a consistent experience can be delivered to the end user. THAT is what the average consumer needs in order to make gaming a part of their lives.

When the average consumer makes an investment in something, they don't consider that they will need to upgrade the device or service in a few years time. They see a need, provide for the need and then close the case. An example would be a common item like a refrigerator or an oven. Go sell an oven or a fridge to someone and ask them what they need the item to do for them.

"Sir, I see you're shopping for fridges."
"You're an astute, observational young man. Why, yes I am."
"Sir, I perceive that you have particular needs that you need this fridge to provide."
"Most definitely, young man. It must be a fridge of fridges."
"And this great fridge which the world will knock on your door to marvel at. What should it do?"
"I need it to keep my food cold."
"How long will you keep this fridge that you're purchasing today?"
"I'll keep it until it breaks."

A videogame system in the eyes of the average consumer is not different from a fridge, an oven, a bed, or even a television. Once it has been purchased and plugged into the living room, its simply another part of the house. It is not something they look forward to or anticipate using, its simply something they will occasionally use and tell their friends they own. If that user, then, is to be a part of the wider conversation of gaming, and is to pick up that newspaper advertising the latest gaming headline, that game system needs to be relevant for the next five, ten and fifteen years. Otherwise he won't know what on earth anyone is talking about.

Ultimately a mature console cycle creates a massive used-game market, which negatively impacts margins on games and hinders the purchase of newer games. The answer to that issue is to make digital sales a priority. Thus, maximizing profit for creators and allowing greater access of titles to the user. If it ends up holding true that this is the last generation of living-room game consoles, the efforts of Sony and Microsoft to offer online memberships for game libraries makes a lot more sense, as it allows more control to content providers and ensures profitability for creators over the long term. Its not unlike a cable provider.

 The only alternative to a consistent hardware platform is a unified software that is adopted across multiple manufacturers (SteamOS) but thats not necessarily the best solution. SteamOS provides a flexible, long-term living room solution for gaming, but the nature of PC development will insist on cutting edge hardware on the side of the end user, which means they will eventually need to upgrade. Of course, upon upgrading, all of thier old games will still work, which does eliminate many barriers. Unfortunately, its a less than desirable solution in a situation where its reasonable to expect more. As great an idea as SteamOS is (and I am in full support of it) it will not be able to contribute to a national culture that accepts gaming as a pass time of the everyday consumer. If Valve decides to put a long-term cap on how powerful the hardware is allowed to be in any given SteamBox, then my argument against SteamOS will not stand. But I doubt that's going to happen.

If console manufacturers are interested in this vision becoming a reality, the strategy will need to be implemented in this coming generation (Wii U, PS4, Xbox One). Sony and Microsoft already provide a subscription games service, so they are well on their way. Nintendo has been making progress by providing digital copies of games before the retail version is available. Eventually a subscription service from Nintendo may be appropriate as well, but their software offerings and excellent eShop format may end up serving them just fine. Despite the strength of the PS4 out of the gate, Sony is the company I would be worrying about long-term. Because they removed the Playstation Eye from the console package, consumers will have to adapt to a complicated controller that may hinder them from picking a game up quickly. If I had to pick the best companies suited for this long-term play, I would choose Nintendo first, then Microsoft.

Nintendo's Wii U is best suited for this strategy because of the casual nature of the controllers. The Gamepad doubles as a tablet and the secondary controllers mimic the everyday tv remote. The Wiimote is perfectly functional for casual play, while the gamepad lends itself to deeper, more complicated control schemes, while offering a second screen experience built-in. The software library certainly doesn't hurt them either. Using the eShop to advertise classic game experiences like Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros and Wii Sports will provide nostalgia and familiarity, which can provide an entry-level gaming experience for the everyman. The eShop also doubles as an effective digital billboard, where new games are readily provided and the latest news from Nintendo can be watched via Nintendo Direct (which is a genius strategy, I don't care what anyone says). Again, for the Wii U to be truly mainstream, it has to be in everyone's living room. That can only happen by not releasing another console in five years; a temptation Nintendo will have a tough time fighting.

Microsoft's all in one strategy is unappealing for gamers, who understand different devices and their functions. But the average consumer can gain a lot from having everything in a single box. The ability to connect a cable box to the experience is a big win. Music and movie services are also more easily understood on the Xbox, and the casual gamer can play using Kinect, which is easy to understand and great for parties. Long-term, the Xbox will have an easier time fighting the upgrade cycle. The perverse amount of RAM and the flexibility of the system (plus the massive hard drive) will give Microsoft some nice leverage ten years down the line. But again, ten years isn't enough time. Fifteen years, even twenty years may be necessary.

Do console upgrades need to stop entirely for the rest of time? No. But they do need to be slowed significantly. Long enough for familiarity to set in. Long enough for everyone in the world to have the opportunity to own one for themselves. Of course, none of this HAS to happen either. Over the course of a decade, its difficult to say just how much profits will be affected by used-game sales (a priority on digital will not completely solve the problem) and maintaining consumer interest for such a vast period of time will be a huge obstacle to overcome. But if it is decided that these console cycles are long enough and technological relevance is too important to the industry, gaming will only continue to be a hobby enjoyed my hundreds of millions of gamers. Not billions of everyday people.

Nintendo, oh Nintendo

I don't care what anyone wants to say, Nintendo is like a crazy jester that was backed into a cliff-side by all the sane citizens of the village. As he stands on the edge of this cliff, quietly wondering what he is going to do, he plays the same horn and tells the same jokes, hoping the townsfolk will accept him for who he is. The townspeople, bewildered, have compassion in their hearts for this jester. They want to nurture him, feed him, educate him and make them a part of their happy village, but every time they approach the jester, he backs away like a scared little lamb. They chased him to this cliffside as they desperately tried to reason with him, but now it looks like he wants to jump and nobody is sure what they should do about it.

Thats Nintendo. That Jester is Nintendo.

Tooting the same horn, trying the same cheap tricks, showing the same stoic confidence they always have while keeping that happy-go-lucky attitude with all their press releases. This is a company that refuses to pick up and move even when its obvious that the meteor is GOING to strike the town you've been living in. The WHOLE world is changing right now.

Europe is going bankrupt, Microsoft is re-hashing ALL of its products, Apple's stock price is in freefall for seemingly NO reason, the entire stock market is artificially inflated, the President of the United States is forcing a healthcare plan on a society that wants nothing to do with it. The Canadian Loony is worth more than the American Dollar, Japan's manufacturing bubble is popping, South Korea is about to get a bomb dropped on its butt.

EVERYTHING is changing right now. EVERYTHING and EVERYONE is adapting and moving and strategizing, fighting desperately to stay alive and keep things moving.

Everyone EXCEPT Nintendo.

For the last 25 years, this company has relied on Mario, a console every 5 years, a handheld every 5 years and a fanbase that refuses to let them die. That's IT.

Lets get one thing straight here. The fanbase Nintendo found with the Wii is a fanbase they will NEVER get back. I've personally talked to the mothers and fathers who owned a Wii. They are now obsessed with iPads and smartphones and all the cute 99 cent games they can find on there. In another 5 years there will be something else for them to obsess about, but it ain't gonna be a Wii or anything else Nintendo makes, unless they truly change.

I am going to sound a little crazy in this post. But hopefully you'll at least consider what I'm talking about.

Nintendo is actually competing with the biggest, most powerful, most influential companies in the world. These companies are putting strategies in place that make any single persons interaction with computers or technology an interaction with that company.

Microsoft got into the console business for the very reason that is happening today. Bill Gates envisioned a day where there would be a tv in every living room and a computer connected to it that fed content to the viewer. Thats what the Xbox does now and when they reveal the Durango in a month, thats what its going to do. In addition to that, there is Windows Phone for your pocket and then Smartglass to make it a tv remote. Windows 8 for laptops, and the Surface for taking to the office or to class. Pretty much anything you would call "technology" is a business Microsoft is now in.

Apple TV? The iPad? the iPhone? The Mac? All a single ecosystem

Samsung TV's? The Galaxy phones? The Galaxy Tabs? Samsung washers and dryers now communicate with their smartphones.

Google is doing the same thing. Sony is (poorly) doing the same thing. LG is trying to play middle ground by partnering with Google and just making good products in literally EVERY category.

But Nintendo, who makes ONE thing, is sitting in a corner doing the same thing they have always been doing. A console every five years. A handheld every five years. Make a Mario game. Are we seeing a pattern here?

Then again, amidst all the chaos right now, the only companies that AREN'T panicking are Apple and Nintendo. Nintendo is like the Apple of videogames, come to think of it. Both are innovative, bull headed, consistently stick to their own agendas regardless of what everyone else does, and both have massive cash reserves. Both are hated by many, faithfully loved by a few and survivors through dark times despite everything...and everyone else is panicking and second guessing themselves. Microsoft speaks for itself, and Samsung's great leader insists that the company must be in a "perpetually state of panic."

Corporate America and the financial gurus that manage it insist that if a company isn't growing, its dying. That if a market is penetrated it can only shrink and become unprofitable and so the day traders of the world look to the big boys for their ROI's. If you listen to the radio and tv shows and investor shows, tech companies come up more often than oil, because its a massive, lucrative business. Its a money-hungry power struggle in the world of tech and the big companies who have made it this far are fighting tooth and nail to win the approval of the customer and the investor, but mostly the investor. Because the customer doesn't do the hiring in corporate America. The investor does.

Nintendo and Apple, despite being massive financial successes in their time, and having to hear the cries and complaints of their customers and of investors in what they are doing wrong or right, just quietly smile, retreat to their offices after a hard day at the press event and go back to doing whatever the heck they want. And they always, ALWAYS make money doing it. Maybe they aren't as successful as company A or company B, but they're certainly never for want of their piece of the pie.

Nintendo, as a company, is the father and mother of video games. No matter what anyone else does, they know what they're doing, why they're doing it and what needs to happen next. Everyone else is going to panic and invest in market A or B in order to diversify "risk" but Nintendo is happy to do what it has been doing for the last 25 years.

I was reading a blog on IGN earlier today. The writer innocently wrote about the games he goes back to time and again every year. The games he just can't get enough of and can't wait for more of. He talked about why he liked them or challenges he created for himself on them. It was such a refreshing thing to read. Not just because of the description of simple, innocent joy that gaming can be, but because it brought me back to earth. I've spent my whole post-college career looking at profits of company A or B, while telling myself when I go to work "its not about the money. Its about the customer" and then I come home and criticize company A or B for not meeting financial goals.

Sure they've got jobs to do, but this whole stock exchange thing is only 100 years old. Men should do what they enjoy, find a single thing to be good at and do it for the rest of their lives. As an obscure song taught me just before I became married, "Decide what to be and go be it."

Oh, by the way. That blog I was reading? Almost every game that the writer mentioned was made by Nintendo. Much to my surprise, the comments that followed, the majority of the 900 of them (just a few hours after his post) were agreements from his readers, that they too kept going back to Nintendo games.

The father and mother of video games, despite being surpassed in sales and "market share" and "mind share" and competitors winning the love of the common "mature gamer" and "hardcore gamer," Nintendo still made the games that these gamers came back to after so many years. It was inspiring.

Maybe the whole world just needs to be more like Nintendo.

The Mistaken Belief of the Free-to-Play Model

There has been an awful lot of talk about the emergence of social games and free-to-play entertainment. Quite a bit of the talk outside of the general news article is hype-fed proclamations that a new age is coming and the structure of the video game industry will be turned upside down; the prophets of this new age claim that free-to-play models will eventually power the financing of every game that is released from this age onward.

Free-to-play is a new idea in video games, and a delightfully original one at that. The income alone that powers the advertisements, while it may or may not be enough to justify the cost of production for the developer, at least allows the developer a little bit of reward for their work, while also agreeing with the desire that everyone should have a crack at their app. That "free" price tag under the title of a game when a gamer is browsing through their app store is a no-commitment welcome to a shot at an original piece of work. Even though many would argue that ninety-nine cents is an extremely reasonable price, the argument still stands that "free" is always more attractive than "cheap" and while everyone has their differences about what a single dollar means to them, "free" means the same thing to everybody.

The accessibility of the app store, combined with the advertisement and micro-transaction powered income model, at least gives everyone an open, no risk opportunity to try something new. For such an easy-going, open market to exist is the developers dream. We are finally at a place where computers fit in our pockets, and we can customize them to perform the exact tasks that we need them to do no matter where we are. This is especially exciting for the budding game developer. There have been plenty of notable free-to-play games that were just made by two or three guys. Not that they are revolutionary works of art, and I typically delete the games after an hour, but I look at the credits of the app, seeing that only a few people worked on it, and I know I made their day just by downloading their game and giving it a shot. Thats a dream come true for the basement programmer.

Then there are more expansive games, made by teams of more than fifty people. Big budget games that take a developer dozens of people more than a year of dedicated programming and designing. And lo, these are free to play as well! Just like the budding, basement game developer, these big companies are powering their games using advertisements and micro transactions as a means of income. Initially, this idea has worked out very well for the developers, who have banked very well for being frontiersmen in this new idea. I love it when people find new ways to make money, and I applaud them when they do. I also get very excited about growing markets. But I've got a big, bulky question mark floating over my head about casual-gaming and the new free-to-play model that is literally taking over mobile gaming and internet gaming.

First lets talk about advertisements. I'm sure we have all actually taken a second out of our day and realized how many advertisements we are buffeted with on a daily basis. Lets go through a typical day.

I wake up and get some cereal. While I'm pouring by breakfast in a bowl I get hit with a "Enter the vacation sweepstakes!" with a big airplane picture hovering over my golden oats. Then I get dressed and head to work. On the way, I listen to radio, which is financed by an advertisement every 3 or 4 songs, who tells me with a deep voice that they want to "see me in a Kia". Meanwhile, I'm driving by billboards that are telling me how low I can get my insurance. At work, I spend all day throwing advertisements at people, asking them if they would like to try our new "Cherry Berry Chiller" and follow-up with how golden and cool they will feel inside while they are drinking it. Then I come home (hearing and seeing the same ads I drove by eight hours earlier) and turn on the tv with my wife, which is financed by 33% of airtime being dedicated to commercials every hour. Then I have some me time and I get on facebook to find out what my friends are up to. Right next to my best friends status update about his new painting, I see an advertisement for another computer, or another leather coat, or another single woman who wants to date me (I never knew I was that desirable until facebook told me). Then when I turn on Playstation 2 to play a snowboarding game, I see nothing. No banners, no trailers, no offers. Nothing.

Up until a short while ago, videogames have been free from obtrusive advertisements, and let me just say those were good days. in 2005, EA got incredible amounts of criticism from both gamers and press for using real world advertisements for Axe deoderant in their Need for Speed games. The argument was made that video games, like books or movies, were an escape from reality, and seeing advertisements removed the fantasy from it. EA defended itself by saying it was a way to justify the cost of developing the game, which everyone knew was a lie from the bowels of hell, because the Need for Speed series was enjoying its most successful days.
The Need for Speed series was enjoying success from a dedicated fanbase that was willing to throw fifty dollars out of their wallet to escape into the fantasy. They had a good reason for being upset: fifty dollars is a lot of money, but its money well spent on a great game, and the players understood and agreed with that. They felt like their purchase had been cheapened, however, when, like so many other entertainment formats, they had advertisements shoved down their throats.

That was an age when gaming was still an exclusive pass-time to gamers.
A lot of average, everyday people didn't understand it (and still don't). Oft-heard criticisms sounded like, "fifty dollars for a stupid game? Stop wasting your time and money." then there were more personal ones like "find something more constructive with your time; videogames are for kids." and now, seven years later, those same people that I can pick out from my past are now playing Words with Friends and Angry Birds.

Who changed? The developer, the games or the audience? All three actually, in that exact order.
If I asked any of those new "casual gamers" who made Angry Birds, they wouldn't be able to tell me. Even though they see the developers name every time they start the game up, they don't know who made it. Likewise, if i asked them what they appreciate most about angry birds, they might be able to muster something like "I like the big red bird" The same goes for Words with Friends and every other casual game on the market. Its not because these companies are not memorable or that the games themselves are unintelligent, its because casual gamers don't care. This is the harsh reality that the game industry needs to get its head around: "casual gamers" are not gamers.

I do not mean the title of gamer to belong to the elite hobbyist that plays at least an hour every day. I use the title loosely. A gamer can be someone who enjoys an hour of gaming once a month, and only if friends are present and participating. I would call that person a casual gamer. But that is not the same person that the industry refers to when revenue and growth statistics are thrown into the airwaves. The "casual gamer" the industry is talking about has absolutely no interest in video games, has no interest in sharing them with anyone, and has no interest in investing any more than a dollar into a game for the rest of their lives. They don't enjoy videogames. They don't appreciate the world that it sucks them into, they don't like the characters that try to interact with them on the screen, and they certainly don't want to post a high score to beat all their friends.

The origin of the "coverted" casual gamer looks like this: She was on a bench waiting for the bus. There was no one left in her contacts list to call, there was nothing she wanted to do on the internet, there was nothing interesting on facebook, and she just wasn't in the mood to take the book out of her bag and start reading, so after gazing through the app store and seeing the game that the world simply will not shut up about, she thinks "whynot?" and downloads the game and plays it for five minutes. The industry would now label this girl as a "casual gamer" when she has absolutely no interest in playing video games. She downloaded Angry Birds because she was bored and it was her last resort.

The example I gave above is not a special case. It comprises the entire market that mobile gaming is building itself around. Free-to-play games have plenty of tricks to suck this market in and get a few dollars out of them. These strategies work, and I am legitimately happy for the company that enjoys this success. But right now casual gaming is being treated as the industry-saving economic boost that will restore sales growth in a stuck and static market; and that perception is dangerously misleading. It's about time that someone came out and just said it: casual gaming is the Furby of electronic entertainment. Remember Furby? Sure you do. Everybody's mom wanted one. All the little kiddies loved them. They were so cute and cuddly and filled the black hole in everyones life. That is, until people got bored with the idea and moved on. The same thing happened with tickle-me-elmo, and again with the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Tamagotchi, Harry Potter, Silly Bandz, Lite-Brite, Etch-A-Sketch, and the Spice Girls.

Normally I wouldn't care about this, because its just an example of people finding a fad and cashing in on it. I'm a huge supporter of that. But it has come to a point where the big boys are questioning their entire income model. Nintendo is in a complete panic. They created the touch screen for gaming, but they have since been surpassed. They created motion controls for gaming, but have since been beaten. Now they're on the verge of releasing a product that combines both technologies, investing their livlihood into its success, and the public couldn't care less. Sony is losing money left and right; having its hands in too many markets, the company has lost a competitive edge. Now it is looking to its entertainment division to pick up the slack, while the inside of the division is shaking in its boots, wondering whether or not to release a new console. Microsoft is gambling more than it ever has on its Windows 8 operating system, after releasing Vista and 7, which the public just didn't come after in droves to adopt. Meanwhile, the video games division is trying to balance having every form of entertainment in one box, something their biggest competitor seems to have mastered overnight.

There is a lot of fear in the industry right now. A lot of that fear stems from the roots of the public interest. Video games really just aren't being talked about right now. This is coming from a guy who checks half a dozen video game web sites every day looking for a new article to read. On top of that, consoles and developers have finally hit a brick wall on affordable technologies. building games bigger than they already are is dangerous to a budget like a foreign explosive to a bomb disposal team Hit the right switch and you're golden, hit anything else and your world is over (see: Kingdoms of Amalur). Want to know why this is the first time in gaming history that consoles have extended their life cycle to 150% of their expected use? Now you know. Game development cannot extend beyond its current budgets and still remain profitable. Big games like Call of Duty take too much time, too many people and too many resources to be any bigger than they already are. For the first time, going bigger isn't just risky, it's plain stupid. If the Playstation 2 had been the latest technology for 7 years instead of five, game critics would have torn series like Call of Duty apart for being horribly repetitive and looking too much like its predecessor. Now, these games are getting away with it because they have to. The whole industry has to. The attitude of quiet confidence in simply not moving that companies had has turned into a frozen panic in the wake of growth of "competitors"

Amidst all this confusion, a platform, built by a company that has never openly supported video games of any kind has become the dominant contender, supporting casual free-to-play games by the thousands. Besides that, sales of consoles are beginning to slump; the market has been penetrated, the products have matured, and one single company emerges from the ordinary and begins dominating literally every form of digital entertainment we enjoy.
To say it plainly, Apple is a behemoth that has made so many calculated advances in so many industries with so much unparalleled success, companies are beginning to view it like the Angel of Death, dreading when the unstoppable power will come for them. But the games industry is an nut Apple will not crack. How do I know? Because Apple itself has made one active, calculated, risky move in supporting games. It is called Game Center, and it completely sucks. The fact that, being this far in the game, Apple hasn't made any moves toward requesting developer support for video games speaks worlds about what they know about the industry. What says more is they just don't get how essential physical buttons are to gaming. If they did, you had better believe they would have made a controller by now. But fanatic Apple analysts haven't even spotted so much as a patent. Talk about lazy.

I do not point any of these things out to call gamers to arms, or to announce the apocalypse of interactive entertainment. I'm saying all of this to send a message to the negatively fused critic who thinks this industry has approached a cliff. This free-to-play fad will pass (notice Facebook's horrendous IPO and the leech known as Zynga following closely behind the falling stock price). Free-to-play gaming has worked for the few who jumped on the idea, but it is not going to work for everyone. The practicality has made it an attractive alternative for the cheap gamer, but the constant pressure to pay more will drive them away shortly. Gamers as a whole simply will not be kosher with a constant reminder that they could spend more and get more; that pressure is equal to that of a salesmen coming back to your door every morning to remind you about the same product you refused to buy yesterday. Games are only getting away with it right now because its new. Once the idea wears out, free-to-play advertisements and micro-transactions are going to die just like the old furby.

I love video games, and throughout my whole childhood I wanted my parents to give a tenth of an inch of care about my favorite pass-time. I would have mowed the whole lawn, taken the trash out all summer and gotten A's in all my classes if I could sit down with my dad for an hour to play a game with me. But when I grew up I finally came to grips with the fact that its just not going to happen. My dad is never going to be interested in games like I am, and no matter how bad I want him to like them, he's just not going to.

The gaming market is shaping itself into the boy I once was. It is conforming and bending its own rules, its own understood convictions and principles just to get people who can't stand games to give just five minutes of their time to enjoy the things that we enjoy. It started out as a novel idea, but now its turned into a passion that is destroying the way the industry depends on its own survival. No matter what changes in the world of entertainment, there will always be those who play games and those who just don't care to. Until these recent years, that separation has driven the industry to new heights of greatness; now we have descended into a little boy that just wants attention from people who don't even know who he is or what he is here for.
-Tyler Shippam