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Weekend Confirmed Episode 34
by Garnett Lee, Nov 12, 2010 12:00pm PSTCall of Duty: Black Ops dropped this week and we've been playing it along with, oh, a few million other folks around the Net. It hoards the spotlight in Whatcha Been Playin? and fair warning, there are some spoilers in the discussion but with a clear disclaimer beforehand. Battlefield Play4Free and the Vietnam DLC for Bad Company 2 also come up as shooters rule this week's show. In the Warning your counter-points to the idea floated last week of 2-3 hour games get us started and we also open the question of how susceptible to fatigue Call of Duty looks to be? News of Rock Band developer Harmonix hitting the sales block, a handful of new game announcements, and more wrap it all up in the Front Page.
Weekend Confirmed Ep. 34 - 11/12/2010
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Listen to Weekend Confirmed Episode 34 (player window will pop-up)
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Weekend Confirmed comes in four segments to make it easy to listen to in segments or all at once. Here's the timing for this week's episode:
Whatcha' Been Playin: Start: 00:00:00 End: 00:30:10
Whatcha' Been Playin and Cannata-ford a New Game: Start: 00:31:14 End: 01:04:29
The Warning: Start: 01:05:34 End: 01:37:29
Music Break featuring "Line 'em Up": 01:37:29 End: 01:40:40
The Front Page: Start: 01:40:40 End: 02:05:20
NFL 'Tailgate': Start: 02:06:20 End: 02:16:10
Music Break this week features "Line 'em Up" by Final Gravity. This track is from their "4 Pack" EP available on iTunes and CDBaby. For more from them check out the official Final Gravity site. And if you're in the LA area, Final Gravity will be opening for rock guitarist Gary Hoey (who, if you don't know the name, shreds) at the Brixton on the Redondo Beach Pier, Thursday, December 16 at 9pm.
Original music in the show by Del Rio. Get his latest single, Small Town Hero on iTunes. Check out more, including the Super Mega Worm mix and other mash-ups on his ReverbNation page or Facebook page.
Jeff can also be seen on The Totally Rad Show. They've gone daily so there's a new segment to watch every day of the week!
Our Official Facebook Weekend Confirmed Page is coming along now so add us to your Facebook routine. We'll be keeping you up with the latest on the show there as well.
Comments
Yes FPS multiplayer is very gratifying and competitive, much like a sport, but it wasn't so long ago that people were making the same arguments about fighting games. When Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tekken and Virtua Fighter were all people were talking about, you heard the same arguments about infinite replay value and competitive legitimacy. And those arguments still hold true - those games still are competitive and have a ton of replay value - but the masses have had their imagination captured by new genres and experiences over the years.
There have been tons of shifts like this. JRPGs were HUGE for a time after FFVII was released. Racing games were on the front of everybody's mind when Gran Turismo made simulation physics and extensive car customization the new big thing (and Need for Speed followed up by cashing in on the Fast and Furious, making NFS Underground the best-selling game of 2003), and it was only a few years ago that all anybody wanted to play was GTA and its clones.
The market will shift again, and I think the next shift will come from an unexpected place. Farmville. I think social gaming is going to hit critical mass pretty soon, when developers start offering deep experiences that seamlessly and unobtrusively sync up with the social media that already dominates our downtime.
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Whether it's specific franchises that fall out of favor (and there are numbers to support the idea that many gamers have had their fill of Halo....too bad, considering the games just keep getting better), or the genre as a whole (as with the fighting genre), I think that the FPS can and eventually will fall out of top spot as far as cultural relevance and fervent fandom.
Something else will hit the zeitgeist at the right time and shake up the makeup of the industry. Shooters will always be there, just as sports games and racing games will always be there. I just don't think they will always be the BIGGEST games.
For the record, I love shooters and will continue to play them. But I didn't always, just like I didn't always like fighting games, or racing games, or RPGs, or RTS games. Each of those genres experienced a bit of an explosion and drew new players like me in. I've stayed with all of them, not everybody did. But I have no doubt that there will be another genre that explodes down the road, becomes the next big thing, and shooters are suddenly in the same position as sports games. Regular, reliable, profitable, but in the shadow of another, bigger deal.
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