February, 2010

Industry — 2 Comments
8
Feb 10

Streamed games – hype or hope?

Mario meets cloud computing.

There’s more to digital distribution than just online sales – being able to instantly buy and (sometimes) play games online is only a part of the puzzle.  Where the game runs, where the game is stored, and how you “own” the game are equally important. Steam, Good Old Games, and similar services are the simplest model; by and large, they replicate bricks and mortar stores by providing a catalogue and a distribution system (in their case, the internet). As a category, these “Games on Demand” system are most likely to be the dominant model for the foreseeable future. Continue reading →

Culture — No Comments
3
Feb 10

This is Week – Cultural Melting Pot Edition

Language, race and verbal communication.

The Good

Games speaking in their Native Tongues

We can handle foreign films in their original spoken forms, so why is it that we have an inability to immerse ourselves in the multiple languages that could appear in our games? Even Avatar, with its make-believe lexicon, had large chunks of its spoken audio translated into text (albeit, via an incredibly horrible font).  Thankfully games like Metro 2033 are proud enough of their origins and feel strongly enough about their settings to offer up the ability to play in their original language, in this case Russian. I may be the only one, but I long for a day where localisation returns to its written roots – except this time sticking within the bounds of English grammar. Continue reading →

Industry — No Comments
1
Feb 10

Dancing elephants and digital distribution


If you don’t watch out, you’re liable to get stomped.

So far we’ve had a look at what the future holds for digital distribution and how data mining’s going to change the way we interact with our vendors of choice. But, that doesn’t answer the question: Where do we currently stand? Continue reading →

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