The Top 10 Devs in Gaming…#4 Ubisoft
April 30, 2009 by Mark Barley Editor in Chief · Leave a Comment
Ubisoft is a company that is sortof like your mother…everywhere at once. With locations in Barcelona, Shaghai, Dusseldorf, Casablanca, and Bucharest…with many more across Canada and Europe, it’s not hard to see why Ubisoft has been so successful. The company got its start as a publishing company in France, in 1986. Their first real hit, in gaming, was their in-house creation, Rayman; originally published for the Atari Jaguar.
Rayman was your typical 2D side scroller but it did its job and put Ubisoft on the map. Creating a unique character was the key to Rayman’s success. Decent power moves, levels, and story would give way to future games in the franchise. It wasn’t until the late 90’s early 00’s that Ubisoft really started to make a name for itself. Using the original Xbox, Playstation 2, and Gamecube to its advantage, making Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell across multiple platforms. Splinter Cell would be Ubisoft’s answer to the Action-Stealth genre of gaming.
Sam Fisher, the main character in Splinter Cell, was Ubisoft’s “Solid Snake”. Many think that his character was more realistic and more genuine than Metal Gear Solid’s, Snake. Later editions to the Splinter Cell franchise would include multiplayer aspects that would bring in huge amounts of fans and gamers alike, making the series a huge success. Sam Fisher was SEGA’s Sonic to Metal Gear’s Mario.
In 2003, Ubisoft’s Montreal branch decided to make Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, a hero quest that put a unique spin on adventure games. The game quickly became one of the most popular titles that year, coupled with the gameplay and the uniqueness of the style in which you could slow down time, the acrobatic moves you could preform, and the quality of graphics…PoP:SoT was Ubisoft’s next big thing. Ubisoft hadn’t had a success like this since the Splinter Cell series, and like that series, this one would produce many sequels. The game was such a success that Disney is making a movie about it due out next summer!
Ubisoft has quietly made and published some very good games over the years of its existence. Games such as XIII, Myst, Beyond Good and Evil…all quality titles. It’s most recent big success has come on the heels of their newest Action-Stealth game, Assassins Creed. A game in which you travel back in time to assassinate prominant figures of history, the game gives you beautiful scenery, great gameplay, large maps, and great stroy-arch that is being continued early in 2010 with Assassins Creed 2.
Ubisoft, after not being in the business as long as some of the other developers on this list, has not stopped putting out quality title after quality title. They are truly one of the best at what they do. I’m expecting big things from Ubisoft in the next two years.
To Recap:
- Mark Barley
The Top 10 Devs in Gaming…#5 Electronic Arts
April 29, 2009 by Mark Barley Editor in Chief · Leave a Comment
A billion dollar company, Electronic Arts, has made over 10 billion dollars since 2005. EA has a monopoly on just about every sports title there is, with the exception of Basketball. A lot of people don’t know that Electronic Arts got its start when the head director of product marketing for Apple decided to start his own venture in 1982. The company got its start as Amazin’ Software, later to be called Electionic Arts.
The early days of EA were spent in the publishing department, something they were very good at doing. Word in the inner circles was that EA gave their developers free reign to do as they wanted, which allowed for some very early success. In 1983 EA released a new game, M.U.L.E., a game with its main focus on multiplayer, it would revolutionize the way multiplayer was played in a game for a long time. It was later ported from the Atari 400 to the Commodore 64, PC, and Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
While M.U.L.E. was a great game, it wasn’t an EA exclusive, that didn’t come until Skate of Die! in 1987. Skate or Die! wouldn’t sell a record number of copies but it would pave the way for EA to turn its attention to a sports based market. Although there are many games that were developed solely by EA, they have also had their hands in some other subsidiary manage.
Electronic Arts churns out sports titles every year, and they are widely considered a hit amongst the sports market population. These titles literally go unchallenged as far as competition goes. ESPN and MTV have both produced TV shows about the football video game franhise, Madden. That’s how popular they are. After the early successes of these sport franchises, EA decided to devote a whole division of their developing staff to these games. This division would be known as EASN. That name didn’t work out too well as the broadcasting company, ESPN, sued EA for infringement, saying that people would become confused and thinkg that ESPN was behind the EASN games. This caused EA sports division to change their name from EASN to EA Sports. EA Sports then became the biggest purchaser of licenses in the video game world.
EA was built, figuratively, during the 16 bit era. Their contributions to the SEGA Genesis would help the console sell far beyond expectations. Madden, NHL, NBA Live, PGA Tour (what we know as Tiger Woods Golf now), and other sports titles were born during this time. If you are a sports fanatic, chances are you have played one of these titles in the past 10 years.
Electronic Arts has come a very long way from their early sports title domination days. Today, they are the developer of some of the biggest titles out there. Medal of Honor, Need for Speed, Burnout, The Sims, Command and Conquer, and most recently, Dead Space, a survival horror game that was one of the best of 2008. In that same year, EA took over Take-Two Interactive only to drop it’s bid later that year.
Electronic Arts has steadily become one of the top video game developers in the market today. They, time and time again, produce some of the best graphics, visual presentations, and gameplay in their games that the market has to offer. The future is very bright for EA.
To Recap:
- Mark Barley
Megaman FTW Video Game Rant I: Wii Remote accessories are a jerk move by a jerk company.
April 28, 2009 by Quinten Vaughan · 3 Comments
Some players are growing more and more dissatisfied with Nintendo’s business practices regarding the Wii Remote. Wii MotionPlus has been announced at only 20 dollars per unit, which doesn’t sound like much at first. One will see, however, that when the numbers are added together, this adds just another dollar to the already large and growing price tag on Wii Remote accessories. Buying retail, players already have to pay up to 60 dollars per controller for every Wii Remote with a Nunchuk that they buy. Even if players try to skimp the price down by buying rechargeable batteries instead of a Wiimote docking station, this extra 20 dollars means that players can now expect to pay a total of 85 dollars for every fully equipped Wii Remote that they buy.
What makes this even worse for some is that no one can predict yet how necessary the Wii MotionPlus accessory will be. What if developers are afraid no one will buy games that require the extra accessory and make games that don’t require it? This will make every one bought basically amount to wasted money. Or, even worse, what if game developers swarm to the opportunity of making games that use Wii MotionPlus, all but forcing players to pay yet again for another accessory.
This has caused some to raise a crooked eyebrow at Nintendo’s recent market strategies. What good is buying a console if I can’t play tomorrow’s games with today’s controllers? I, for one, think that it is just plain backhanded to release a console and advertise it for its low cost to then slap customers in the face a year later with extra accessories that quickly bring the system’s cost up to those of its competitors’ consoles. Nintendo is robbing its customers by releasing below-par hardware and then selling them a way to ‘fix it’ later. Why couldn’t Nintendo have just built the Wii Remote with this level of motion detection from the beginning? Maybe they made some technological break-through within the last year and they don’t want their fans to miss out? The problem is not that Nintendo couldn’t release Wii MotionPlus as a part of the original remote, but that they simply didn’t. Anyone with eyes can see that the slot Wii MotionPlus will take on the controller has been on their controllers from the beginning. They planned this from the beginning, and they couldn’t have done that if the technology wasn’t already there.
Put simply, Nintendo planned to sell the system cheap from the start by making it less than it could have been. That way, plenty of people would swarm to the opportunity to buy the cheapest console on the market. Then, over the years, force feed their customers tons of add-ons and accessories that individually cost little, but added up make quite a hefty sum. Its a business strategy that is great for Nintendo’s profits, but bad for any of its customers that don’t like being jerked around. A business strategy that some feel Nintendo has been using all too often lately.
Its too soon to say for sure how Wii MotionPlus will be received by the masses of customers, but distaste for Nintendo’s recent tactics has been building and building since the release of thew Wii, and it can’t be long before players hear about the next big accessory or add-on and just say ‘no.’
Amazon: Is There Anything They Won’t Sell?
April 28, 2009 by Quinten Vaughan · Leave a Comment
Very recently, Amazon has been selling Xbox 360 games. What’s so different about this? Tons of places sell 360 games. But, do they sell Xbox Live Arcade games? No. Amazon.com now Xbox Live Arcade (Xbla) games. No more leftover points sitting in your account, forcing you to buy more points to use them all; no. Amazon sells these games at even amounts. Portal: Still Alive? $15. The original Banjo-Kazooie? $15. All even amounts. How does this work?
You are given a code upon purchase, and when entered, you get the game. Pretty simple premise; and the same goes for WiiWare; that’s right. You can buy WiiWare games the same way. Buy the game, enter the code, enjoy. But why would people do this with WiiWare? Simple; to get rid of the never-ending headache of using all of your points. After every purchase, you seem to have 300 points. Not enough to get anything. So, you buy another point card, and strategically plan out your buys. But, then, something amazing comes along, and you have to have it. But, then you finally get rid of all of them. You see it, and want it. The cycle repeats.
But in all seriousness, why would Amazon offer this? Simple; it sells almost everything. It has to sell more. That is Amazon’s main drive. They sell physical games; why not go digital? There’s a whole market out there they can reach out to. When there’s an opportunity for money, take it. Thyt’s exactly what they’re doing here. What will they sell next? Kidneys? Babies? Drugs? I’m kidding there, but I am very surprised to learn of this. Will it revolutionize the industry? Most likely not. Is it a convenient option? I should say so.
~Quinten Vaughan
Top 10 Devs in Gaming…#6 Square Enix
April 28, 2009 by Mark Barley Editor in Chief · Leave a Comment
Everyone knows the name “Square”…if you’ve ever played an RPG (Role Playing Game) on a console, chances are you played a Square Enix game. That’s where Square Enix draws it’s expertise from, RPGs. A lot of people don’t know that Square Enix was not always Square and Enix. Back in the day, Square and Enix were rival software companies in Japan.
Enix made their mark with Dragon Quest (now known as Dragon Warrior in the States) series. It originally got it’s start on the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) with a lot of the same characters, weapons, and plot lines that have appeared in the series over the past 20 years. The series was a huge success and gave Enix a stronghold on the Japanese market.
In steps Square, a publishing company at the time, and the company had a pretty rocky start. During their first years as a new company they nearly had to declare bankruptcy due to some not so “hit” games. Destiny…Square had it. This grave news led Hironobu Sakaguchi to title Square’s last game the would publish as Final Fantasy. That name, Final Fantasy, was chosen to signify the company’s last effort to bring a breath of fresh air to the RPG market. The rest, as you know, is history.
While the Final Fantasy series saved Square from going under, it may have saved a gaming genre from being lost forever. Fans of the FF series will tell you that FFVII is the greatest RPG ever, while other fans will tell you that FFV is the greatest. The common denominator being, all the Fantasy games are great in their own accord. The early games were 16 bit RPGs that immersed us in a great story, the mid 90’s games gave us great gameplay with a great story, and the games of the late 90’s early 00’s gave us great games with great graphics and great cut sequences. There has been a steady progression in the Final Fantasy series for almost 20 years now.
There have been other Square Enix successes through the years, not just the Final Fantasy series. Chrono Trigger, Kingdom Hearts, and Front Misson to name a few. These games have propelled the traditional RPG genre to new heights. Square has not always stuck with the RPG genre though…they have crossed the genre lines a few times in their day. Rad Racer back on the NES was a pretty good racing game, Parasite Eve back on the original Playstation was a genuine survival-horror game. But as time has told us, Square is the best at what they do and that’s create traditional style RPGs.
In 2003, the two rivals, Square and Enix, made one of the biggest video game software mergers in history. They would team up to monopolize the Japanese Role Playing Games market. Square Enix just recently bought out another software company, Eidos…to become SquarEidos.
To Recap:
- Mark Barley
