Mario Galaxy

Posted in Game Design, Mario Galaxy, The Matrix, Wii, by mskaggs on November 29th, 2007

Anyone else enjoying this game as much as I am?

Who would have figured the right handed joystick skills I developed on Mario64 could translate so easily to my left hand on the Wii?

In all seriousness, I’m finding the game enjoyable, interesting, not particularly challenging (yet), but very reminiscent of the experience I enjoyed while playing Mario64.

As a game developer, the things I find most interesting in the game design are:

1. How tossing in falling “star bits” can instantly liven up the game experience in areas where the game play might get a bit slow

2. The ability to have a second player collect star bits, stun enemies and in general help out the main player. Perfect way for the younger ones to get some great play time with an older brother or mom and dad.

3. How the new controller for the Wii takes the classic experience a step forward and then how “going upside down” takes it even a further step forward. There have been games that have done similar “upside down tricks” before, but in Mario Galaxy, it just seems natural. Bet it was fun for the designers to be thinking in all the directions 3D can provide.

4. Fun, light and bright levels that don’t draw on violence, nightmarish fears or shock to involve a player. The bee levels and the bubble level are great examples of content that feels fresh even though similar things have been done before.

I want to make a special note about the “upside down play” aspect of the game. It’s long been said that we “create worlds” when we make video games. Most worlds so far though are digital mockups of worlds fairly similar to our real world, especially in terms of things like gravity and time. The “Matrix” broke the barrier to freeing us from “regular time” by using “bullet time” and games followed suit. Mario helps break the barrier of “normal gravity” of platformers by introducing their new “relative gravity” concept. Very cool. Imagine what the future holds when more of these traditional type of constraints are broken….

No surprises here - Game renters don’t buy the games they rent

Posted in Console, Games, World of Warcraft, by mskaggs on November 29th, 2007

Magid Associates confirmed through a study that when a gamer rents a video game, it’s unlikely they’ll buy it afterwards.

Their data shows that less than 1 in 10 gamers buy a game after they rent it and then those people only buy 1 game for every 10 they rent.

Some might say this is a reason enough to shut down game renting or even make companies who rent games pay more to game publishers for each rental. What if instead, we turned the situation around and asked game publishers(and developers) to build better games?

The reasons sited for “not” buying included the games being too short and the quality being too low.

Imagine that…gamers are tired of paying full price for games they don’t think are worth the money. Then again, maybe they only have $50 to spend and would rather rent 10 games and play them a few days each instead of buying one game they can keep (and beat) forever?

As the installed base of game machines continues to grow in the US and worldwide, it seems logical that there will be more console players with less money they want to devote to spending on games.

The economic model of online games like “World of Warcraft” solves the rent vs buy issues by having the triple win of great content, a huge amount of content (can’t finish it in a weekend) and only being available with a monthly subscription or prepaid game card. With all the money they are making, it only makes sense that some of those features and benefits will start migrating their way to console products as well.

Link to the article at PC World.

Mario Galaxy Hits the Shelves in Japan…

Posted in Casual Games, Console, DS, Mario Galaxy, Nintendo, Wii, XBox360, by mskaggs on November 8th, 2007

And immediately dominates by selling 250k units in the first week.

Apparently it also sold more units than the next 9 top selling titles put together (more in this article from GamesIndustry.biz).

The next bit of interesting data from the same charts is how many of the top 10 titles were on each platform.

The tally:

6 of the top 10 selling games were on the DS

2 of the top 10 selling games were on the Wii

1 of the top 10 selling games was on the 360

1 of the top 10 selling games was on the PS2

Another sign of the strength of hand helds for sure. I love it when companies know their stuff and just execute no matter what the conventional industry thinking is. Go Nintendo!

GPhone - changing the playing field

Posted in Console, GPhone, by mskaggs on November 6th, 2007

Google announced their new “phone OS” and everyone’s already talking about how it’s going to change the industry, the world and more.

More here at CNET

Wouldn’t it be great if there were an “Open Game Console Alliance”? Interesting timing between Gerhard Florin’s comments at EA and this.