The New Cash Cow

Dead Space is a terrifying horror series that I, regretfully, have yet to snap up and play past the demos. If I'm honest, it's because I'm incredibly fragile and, given the choice between putting myself through a nightmareish fight for survival and having a nice sit down with a cup of tea and a zero per cent chance of nerve-janging, Lovecraft inspired mutant zombies, I will consistantly choose the latter option.

But, I appreciate a good, fully-immersive world, regardless of its living standards and, from the tiny, tiny bits I have played of Dead Space (Only the first demo. I wasn't very good at it either), you really felt the struggle. Makeshift weapons, limited resources and a menu system that remained within the gameplay created a truly realistic and, importantly, unbroken survival experience. I can't really explain why I haven't played more.

So news that the new, third installment is changing, subtly, the game's style; its experience, has, unsurprisingly, met a wall of controversy. A new, more practical weapon selection, a sign of a shift from survival horror to all out action, which could make the game a jarring, possibly even disappointing addition to a well-acclaimed series. But, undoubtedly, the most feather-ruffling revelation about the game is the implimentation of micro-transactions or, more importantly, the ability for players to use micro-transactions to gain upgrades much quicker than through the basic gameplay.

Micro-transactions are not a new thing. If you have games on Facebook or your smart phone then you'll have seen them, probably even bought into them. These usually take the form of small purchases of specific resources that speed up the gameplay of, otherwise free, casual games, although you will also see packs of extra levels or costumes and other such pointless decorations that can be purchased to expand more elaborate console or PC games. Dead Space 3 would appear to be the first example of a premium, console game making use of in-gmae micro-transactions on top of the original purchase of the game.

So what problem does this cause? None, really. It has been made clear that the resources you will be buying are still available to collect during gameplay, although far slower. And, seeing as it's a single player game, one person making use of the micro-transactions will not gain a direct advantage over those who don't. The advancements may not even make too much of an impact to gameplay. Unlike the free-to-play games that saw the genesis of the phenomenon, I doubt the game will become a tediously long exercise of patience for the player to see progress. It will likely prove an entirely unobtrusive, optional feature of the game.

But, on the cynical side, it just would be EA that pulled this stunt first. Games at the top end of the spectrum already carry considerable price tags. It's a hell of a step to take to try and ask for more after this. And, here are EA just going ahead and doing it. It's not necessarily any worse than the business model of Blizzard with World of Warcraft, which not only charges for the game and its expansion packs, but also pays a monthly subscription that you need to play. Admittedly, this is intended to go towards the servers that run the expansive online community, but you naturally assume that the most is being made of this. It is, at least, not as blatent as what is going on with Dead Space 3, where money is being asked in exchange for things you will get anyway. True, it is optional, and no-one needs to take up these transactions (at least, I hope. I presume there will be no tricks to make playing the game without transactions painfully difficult.) but there will be people who do take this up. And it will encourage future use of this model in premium games. There is a clear line that you hope will never be crossed and assume there is sense in the publishing agencies to never try. But you never know with these companies.

The thing that bothers me the most, though, is what this does to the quality of the game. Especially with the Dead Space series, where immersion into the environment is vital for the success of the story you tell. If you then give the option to players to buy whatever they want, whenever they want, how do you also maintain the sense of fear, the sense of isolation, and desperation. With a single player game like this, where you are trying to move through a narrative, I can only see it being ruined when you reach the designated marketplace for whatever transactions are going to get crowbarred into the game. It's bad enough playing something where the mentality is to try deserately to conserve resources only for the game itself to let you in on a massive stockpile of health and ammo just in time for the nearby boss that you'll have to face. Having points where you are literally broken from the experience whilst you sit through another invitation to go to the PSN store (or other, xboxy equivalent) just in case you want to pick up some mega tools for the next fight is going to make playing these games a ridiculous exercise.

In an interview, the game's producer, John Calhoun, said that including micro-transactions was intended as a way of boosting the audience - There's a lot of players out there, especially players coming from mobile games, who are accustomed to micro-transactions. They're like "I need this now, I want this now". They need instant gratification. So we included that option in order to attract those players, so that if they're 5000 Tungsten short of this upgrade, they can have it.. - This sounds flimsy at best, and reeks of a guy trying to make excuses for money-farming. The fact is that "instant gratification" has been a part of games since probably the first Ataris. You want all the weapons now? Just type in idkfa. Invulnrability? That'll be Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start. What is being implimented in Dead Space 3, then, is simply the marketing of cheat codes. However, it seems as though they're already in danger of being undercut.

The Games Parade

It’s fairly painful even thinking about games at present. Due to a fairly restrictive income and a general inability to make any assured decisions with what to do with my free time I feel like my current relationship with games is akin to them being the shiny thing that came to be in my possession inside a locked glass cabinet for which I was not given the key.

I really want the shiny thing. I just don’t trust in it enough to smash open the cabinet. Besides, I might need the cabinet. Cabinets are important when you’re supposed to be an adult, right?

But there it is. What with one thing and another, I have kind of stepped out from the games machine for now and, slightly distressingly, maybe forever.

But games are still very shiny. More than ever, perhaps.

And this weekend has been the annual parade of shiny things, E3. I’ve not often paid much attention to it but I always appreciated the announcements and the inevitable awkward and embarrassing moments from the Big 3 consoles as they make their presentations. But, for those not connected enough to actually be there in person, the real attraction of E3 is the plethora of trailers and game play footage that get brought out for the occasion. Quite frankly, what I have seen from this year’s showcase has been almost incandescent.

If you haven’t seen the trailers, there are plenty of ways to do so, so I won’t give any transcripts or anything. But, as I’m sure you can imagine, they were typically shiny and alluring. However, I couldn’t help but notice that, with my cynical sunglasses shielding my eyes, there was just the slightest hint of forced lighting behind the glow. As is the way of trailers, I guess.

Now, I know trailers are, when all is said and done, the worst indicator of whether anything will be worth your time. They are marketing tools, engineered so as to appeal to as wide a scope of demographic as it can. They can, conveniently, cut out all the bad that might exist within a game and completely camouflage what type of game you’ll end up playing. They are aloof, mysterious creatures, dancing in the light, singing from the rocks and telling us absolutely nothing.  Or telling us too much, at least in terms of story. My biggest issue with the Tomb Raider trailer was how much of the story was just nonchalantly spilled out to us. It’s annoying and something I know has been bugging film viewers for years as well.

Tomb Raider is proving to be a real puzzler for me, personally. The original games I missed out on due to not getting a Playstation until five minutes before the Playstation 2 came out but I’ve witnessed them through friends and the action/puzzles/adventure mix that I saw was enough to pull me in and drag me to buy some of the later games on the later generation consoles. They hold a place in my heart, even if the ridiculousness was gradually escalated with each new instalment. I totally accept the need for change. This new game is looking like a serious change. For once, Lara actually looks like a real woman. This is definitely change.

The quite-astonishingly-large-elephant-in-the-room surrounding the game, though, is that, well, it’s very sinister. Now, alright, running around long-lost tombs shooting tigers and finding world ending artefacts to add to your collection is also very sinister. But the footage released so far is looking for a new scale in terms of sinister. This search is being carried out alongside The Last of Us; a brutal survival-fest through fungus afflicted zombies and roving bandits. Typical game scenario. But, like Tomb Raider, the content so far has been intense, to say the least.

I’m not coming out against the portrayal of such subjects. I view video games as an art form and, as such, should be allowed to present whatever they want if done so in the interests of art. And these games are definitely doing what they are doing for a reason. I can definitely see that. Additionally, this dark ‘realism’ is nothing new. Remember Saw? But I didn’t see those films. Never wanted to. I just didn’t feel that spending my free time watching two hours of hyper-real violence was a good way of stepping out of real life for a bit. I worry that the more I see of these games as more and more trailers and game play footage is released, the more I will worry these games are eschewing art for violence.

Inversely, I also worry that as more footage is released it will ruin the experience of playing the game. Both these games have taken much effort in showing the world and horror that you as the player will be submerged in that they are actually taking away some of the horror. The publishers have certainly succeeded in piquing my interest but I’m definitely a bit sore that I’ll miss out on the suspense and shock from the game play experience. I guess, in that respect, this is a no-lose situation for the publishers.

It is this reason that has kept me from seeing the new footage of Assassin’s Creed 3. In fairness to Ubisoft, they tend to do well at keeping secrets but I just don’t need to take that risk. I definitely want to play their game, they have thoroughly hooked me. I don’t need to see anymore until release day. To the other extreme, I took a look at the trailer for The Unfinished Swan, and learned very little at all. It sounded intriguing but I really will need to see more to know if it’s worth playing. Considering this was E3, you’d feel this was the weekend to have a bit more than an arty teaser for those not able to go there and test it. It doesn’t pay to be uninformed.

Obviously, trailers play a role in marketing and the lustre they generate obviously succeeds. But E3 is fairly unfulfilling in this way. It’s very hard to hear about what the game is. Penny Arcade has made an effort in bringing back information behind the scenes and the returns have been really interesting to me, at least. I can watch trailers whenever. What I want from E3 is more news about the real quality of the game; to hear how it plays, how gripping the story is (without spoilers, obviously), what plans the company has in its further development up to release. I’m tired of just looking of shiny things.