Hello and welcome back to the 5 Points of Gaming. This week seemed be a lot more boring, at least in regards to the games industry. Perhaps its because no Indie darlings decided to jettison logic and reason away to make a few dollars. Or perhaps it’s because I have no cool trade partnership that impacts games significantly to talk about. Either way, definitely going to need Ubisoft or EA to do them in order to get something controversial to happen. So, let’s begin, hopefully with a bang, although this week has been more of an unconfirmed meh.
1: Kojima is gone, or is he on vacations, or is he…I don’t even know:
Hideo Kojima had a going away party thrown! Congratulations to him, he’s finally leaving the soul-sucking, ignorant offices of Konami. Perhaps he’ll start his own development company, and bring us his next hit franchises ‘Totally Not Metal Gear Solid’ and ‘Definitely Not Silent Hill’. Or, perhaps he will join another development company, such as anyone not named Konami, and create more games with great game play and awful dialogue. Or perhaps, he’ll simply retire from games and go off to an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, live in a nice hut without internet and hold Fuck Konami Fridays, where he spells out ‘Fuck Konami’ with copies of ‘Metal Gear Solid V’ and then burns the words in a ritualistic, cathartic form of therapy. Nonetheless, I wish him the best!
Wait, what’s that Konami? He’s going on vacation and is definitely not fired despite not you guys shunning him and trying your best to remove his name from the existence of any of his works! Ah, well that makes complete sense then. I imagine he was having a ‘going on vacation party’ then? I mean, I had one of those last time I went too, their quite common. What’s that, the subtle sarcasm just went over the head of some of my readers and now they might ask for one of those parties before their next vacation? My bad. Listen, Konami, you don’t treat someone like they don’t exist, ask reporters not to mention their name when interviewing them, and disregard someone entirely when their magnum opusis released and then say ‘Well jk, they’re just on vaction!’ Either you got wet feet and want him back, or you guys somehow think saying he’s on vacation will stop his name being mentioned to you again. Either way, it’s not working out too well.
Reportedly, Hideo Kojima is under a non-compete for 6 months after his termination, so basically he can’t talk about it until around December, so this whole situation is one, big uncomfortable mess. Konami is not known for its forthcoming and honest nature, and if the reports are true, Kojima can’t be forthright legally speaking, so this just seems like a stalemate where only one side can really actually lose. Best guess is Konami told Kojima he would be canned after the release of MGS V, and after the game sold a bazillion copies they second guessed themselves and are saying he’s on vacation, hoping to win him back during his non compete window. The best advice in that case to Kojima would be this; get out while you still can.
2: Total War Warhammer and the Confusing DLC:
Gah, Creative Assembly why?! I love Warhammer, but come on! Day One Faction DLC, announced 6 months before release, that’s low. You guys aren’t even hiding the fact that you’re trying to induce as many preorders as possible! Not only does this make me think your game is going to be as buggy as ‘Rome II’, but god is this scummy. Skin packs or something not vital to the game I can at least ignore or pass over with mild indignation, but an entire faction! Not only that, but the Chaos Warriors, a cool faction, that plays a core part in the Warhammer universe.
Now, the official Twitter account keeps clarifying that the whole Chaos faction won’t be gated off behind the Day 1 DLC, just the Chaos Warriors faction. I want to point out that saying it’s not all of one of the main factions, just part of it is no excuse. I don’t understand why you guys do this kind of thing. If someone is going to pre order a 60 dollar game about RTS Warhammer battles, then a free pack of DLC is not going to induce them anymore than just being a good game. Perhaps focus more on delivering a good game than simply trying to find ways to destroy consumer goodwill
3: Steam Support:
In a recent interview, Steam promised to try and give better support, stating that its current setup was broken and clogged beyond acceptance. Well duh! My god, how did the pioneer of digital games distribution not realize that their support system sucked? That would be like Steve Jobs stating in a Press Conference “We realize now that the internet is important to a computer, so we’ll uh fix that”. When people, myself included, are waiting two plus weeks for a response to simple and easy to fix problems, it’s not that hard to realize there’s a problem. Steam has worse customer support than Time Warner Cable and insurance companies combined. That’s hard to do, and it’s appalling that it’s taking so long to correct
4: Assassin’s Creed Syndicate met with resounding indifference:
And so the dead horse continues to be beast into the ground. This time, the “thrilling” series takes place in London, where gameplay, as Jim Sterling describes it, ‘it’s basically Saint’s Row but way less fun’. Yea, not exactly a glowing endorsement from very many game coverage sites. Hmmm, perhaps I have a solution Ubisoft. Remember the last really good AC? Yea, ‘Black Flag’! You know what that had? Fun, swashbuckling, high seas naval combat, you say? One of the high points of the franchise, according to most people, huh? Well why don’t you fucking do that!!!! My god, what was the point in adding naval combat, only to ditch it after a second game utilizing it?! It’s like Ubisoft is run by Konami….
5A: PS4 continually outsells Xbone:
What a shock. The system that didn’t have the cancerous tumor that is the Kinect associated with it is leading in sales. Perhaps Microsoft regards focusing on advertising the TV and Kinect capabilities of the Xbone while Sony just talked about the hardware on its rig. Then again, I’m sure Microsoft must be satisfied with the fact that their one Kinect user, Phil Spencer, really enjoys watching the NFL while waving his hands spastically. Then again, maybe they also would like to be known for something other than, ‘Well I guess their doing better than the [Latest Nintendo Console Here]”
5B: Company that Fucked Up the Most this Week:
Creative Assembly/Sega. Yea it wasn’t a hard choice, none of the usual suspects have done much, and Ubisoft didn’t mess up, just released a predictably boring AAA game. Meanwhile, Creative Assembly had to go and mess up all the hype I had for another Warhammer Fantasy game. Why can’t they just let EA do all the scummy things in the games industry. No, instead, they have to make things difficult and make me dislike them. I look forward to when they try to sell the Greenskins as DLC and try to pass it off as “Well the slightly Greener Ones will not be paid, just the Green Ones, which are statistically for no good reason”
