It should be no surprise that this week is a little slow on gaming news. After all, anything worth mentioning should have come up at E3 last week. But, there are a few stragglers and interesting side notes, so let’s go:
David Goldfarb, game director for Payday 2, has expressed some of his thoughts on next-gen consoles. His attitude may surprise you.
“Next-gen to me is not about selling your graphics and not about connectivity in the living room and it’s not about allowing me to socially network with people at all.
“I don’t give a shit about any of those things actually.
“[It’s] people giving me compelling new mechanics. “I’m tired of shooting people, like, allow me to have other actions to interacting with things.
“That to me would actually mean the next generation, it could also be control mechanisms or input. Maybe that’s going to be in the new Kinect, maybe it will be some other new haptic feedback thing, maybe it’ll be VR stuff you know with [Oculus] Rift – which is really cool.”
Payday 2 is a shooter, so it’s a little odd that he mentions being sick of shooting things. His game is a different kind of shooter though. Bank heists require both planning and co-operation. I can’t help but think this should lead us to a game, or series of games, based on the Parker novels by Donald Westlake (aka Richard Stark). Payday is touching some of the concepts, but Parker isn’t about shooting people. He has no reservations about doing it if it gets the job done but guns make noise and noise usually attracts the kind of attention that can make a job go sour. I’d like to see a game where someone pitches the job, Parker helps to plan it, decides how many pros are needed (balancing the aid of additional men versus splitting the take), and then executes the plan. Naturally things will go wrong and you can smartly adapt or watch the whole job devolve. Partners could go rogue, third parties could get involved, money can go missing, etc. Someone let me know when that game is on the way.
It’s been a rough couple of days for IO Interactive, as Square Enix has laid off approximately half the staff. As usual, this is the result of a restructure and refocus of the organization’s priorities. The studio has canceled all projects except the next Hitman game, as that franchise will now be their sole intent. What this means for the future of their other titles (Kane & Lynch, Mini Ninjas, etc.) is unclear for now. Lay offs are never good news, but Square Enix promises they are looking to relocate staff to other studios where appropriate and are working with other companies for outplacement. As always, good luck to the employees and families affected.
On the flip side, CD Projekt Red is opening a new studio in Krakow, Poland. Most well known for The Witcher series, the new developer’s new studio will be working on one of two new IPs planned. According to managing director Adam Badowski, “aside from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077, the studio aims to develop two smaller (approximately 20h of gameplay) premium quality titles.” The Krakow studio will have about 20 people and will be working on one of those games.
Unfortunately for Microsoft and XBox One, the end of E3 has not seen the end of their public relations debacle. I’ve already made my feelings about the competing consoles clear, as has Arse-bot. Further drawbacks to Microsoft’s system continue to appear.
For instance, two much anticipated downloadable titles for the 360 are wanted for the next-gen system, but apparently won’t get to it. DayZ (the Arma 2 mod from Dean Hall) and Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty (an HD remake of Abe’s Odyssee) can’t come to One because Microsoft will not allow self-publishing. In the current rules, developers are required to make a publishing deal with either Microsoft Game Studios or a third party, but cannot publish thier games themselves. Lorne Lanning, Oddworld developer and former Microsoft employee, is clearly very frustrated: “Who’s in touch with their audience? And who seems out of touch with their audience? All we know is we’ve tried to get our games on their platform and we can’t do it – and I even helped them release the box.” Asked about publishing on PS4 and XBOne, Dean Hall said “Sony lets you self-publish and they don’t make you pay for updates.” On the other hand, “Microsoft requires you to have a publisher. They have no digital distribution strategy and they require you to pay $10,000, or whatever it is, for updates.”
Other news has come about the PlayStation 4 as well, not all of it positive. It was glossed over in the E3 presentation but has since been confirmed that PS+ will be required for online play. According to Fergal Gara (SCE UK) this decision was made to help lower the cost of the new console. They’re also looking to increase performance and reliability. Also mentioned but not clarified was that “a version” of DriveClub would be free to Plus subscribers at the console’s launch. It has since become clear that Plus subscribers won’t be getting a full retail copy of the game at no charge. It will be limited, though the details of the limitations have not been clarified.
But don’t feel bad if you don’t want to spring for the Plus subscription. Free services aren’t as bad as you might expect. The multiplayer function of retail games will be limited, but free-to-play online games can be Plus or not, depending on the publisher. Many will still be available without the subscription (e.g. Blacklight: Retribution, Warframe, DC Universe Online and PlanetSide 2). The auto-update service currently exclusive to Plus will be available to all on the PS4. The sharing services also fall outside of Plus, so they’ll be free to everyone as well.
One good piece of news about next-gen has also arisen. Microsoft has confirmed that first-party published titles will not a see a price increase from the $60 level currently set on XBox 360. Third party published games are free to set a different price, as is currently the case, though I wouldn’t expect it to differ wildly. Specific confirmation hasn’t come from Sony regarding prices, but several launch games are already available for preorder and are being advertised at $60 as well. The question on everyone’s mind now is whether digital versions will be any cheaper. Considering digital copies don’t need physical media printed, don’t include packaging, shipping, employee handling, etc. they really should cost less. The used game controversy could be slightly appeased by dropping $5-10 off the retail price when you download the game instead.