Ellen Page must be a bit annoyed at Sony what with this and then another of their developers getting quite close to using her unlikeness unauthorisedly.

All we need now is to discover the theme music to Beyond recites verses from the Koran.

Well he bored Yoshida to sleep and now this clusterfuck so it seems unlikely Sony will be bank rolling him again. My guess, Kickstarter in 12 months.

I don't see them so much as games as a way of involving people more in a pre-set narrative. Looking at it that way, it has value, just not as much as some people like to make out.

adkm1979 wrote:

I'm not that interested in FPSes, military or otherwise.  I do like games that explore relationships and emotions.  My concern is that if Cage is lauded, as he has been, as the master of games exploring such themes, then more money will be mindlessly pumped into this shit instead of where it is more deserved.  From what I played of Fahrenheit and Heavy Rain (I refuse to buy a copy of Beyond) all he does is stifle gameplay into trite interactivity, where other games are exploring how to mature games without hamstringing them at the same time. So, yes, I would dearly love him to fuck off and stay fucked off.

Is he that widely lauded? His games all seem to get mixed responses. And what games are trying to explore relationships/emotions that he's preventing money from reaching? That's a genuine question there - I like that style o'game and would like to play more, but I don't know of many.

Absolutely not saying you can't dislike him and what he does with his games, of course. We all have different likes.

He seems to get a lot of financial backing if nothing else. Exclusives with a hollywood star!

Good name for a band that.

Why does Sony put so much stock in a failed filmmaker?

I really enjoyed Omikron.

Would the developer be safe from a lawsuit if they can produce a fully naked image of Bill Dafoe to prove that a nude 3d model is standard practise ?

tigerswiftly wrote:

Is he that widely lauded? His games all seem to get mixed responses. And what games are trying to explore relationships/emotions that he's preventing money from reaching? That's a genuine question there - I like that style o'game and would like to play more, but I don't know of many. Absolutely not saying you can't dislike him and what he does with his games, of course. We all have different likes.

Was he not one of the people rolled out to spearhead the PS4 reveal?  That, to me, indicates his standing in Sony's eyes.  As for him preventing money from reaching other games, obviously I can't say that money he got would have gone anywhere near certain other projects, but for example two games I've played recently were Rain and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, both of which explored these themes while doing a better job of still being a game.  Both would have benefited from extra pennies.

The fact that you say that you like that 'style' of game, though, makes me think we are talking at cross purposes.  I don't think that 'style' of game is a game at all, and it depresses me that drivel like Journey and The Walking Dead are being mentioned.  These things make the mistake of removing anything that makes the game a game, and all that's left is a story told by people who aren't as good at storytelling as those they are imitating.  That's why I'd rather see titles like the ones I've mentioned above get more attention.  The gameplay was less challenging than many games, but it felt like more TLC would have improved that aspect without harming the storytelling.  Cage takes his extra pennies and pumps them into digitising Ellen Page's chuff for extra maturity, with no interest in making more of a game.

Sorry, I think my reply is all over the shop here, hope you can untangle my meaning.

Have I said the thing about how we need a different term to describe Cage's work, Journey, Walking Dead, etc. 'cause they're not trying to be games, recently?

But what defines a true game then? I think it's stupid to say Journey (which I loved) or Walking dead aren't. They're interactive, therefore a game same as any other. Sure they're a little less interactive than some other games but that doesn't mean they aren't proper games.
Of course you can not enjoy them but to suggest they aren't really "games" is kind of stupid.

Cage is very hit and miss. He doesn't have the best grip on characters and story but I liked that he actually followed through on making your actions count in Heavy Rain. Sure I failed some stuff due to awkward QTE stuff but the added weight of your actions helped the game big time.

I like that sony is willing to take big budget chances on people like Cage and Ueda. It doesn't work out all the time but it's better than just funneling that money into generic shooter 6.

I imagine contract stuff on nudity in films and such would be very particular on how much is shown and for how long. Surely this would breach something in there.

It should be stated that the non-game field is now pretty rich of breadth re: topics and content, running all the way from Flower, Noby-Noby and Dear Esther to a slew of Flash stuff on novel experiences like Dys4ia. There could certainly be a thread to cover them and prop new instances. I suppose we could dignify them all with Interactive Fiction/Essay label, since they do operate at such.

Unfortunately I just don't find them especially interesting. For me, the intellectually compelling challenge is marriage of writing and (fresh) themes with the rule states of games and more open-ended simulation. If a Journey was twinned with Dark Souls it'd be supremely satisfying.

Problem is, critical categories: Putting Dear Esther up against Halo is crucially unjust to the former. Like, if you're looking for another thing in Halo's bracket, in any game's bracket, Esther has literally no answer to it, as in it wasn't even conceived to provide one - you can't get 'better' at it. I think that makes it important to distinguish the mediums to give each a fair shot. They're serving highly distinct ends.

Mere pushing of buttons + visual feedback does not mean they're the same species, though clearly there's some kind of slack commercial conditioning around selling them as if they were.