Skulls of the Shogun escaping Windows 8 exclusivity
Rayman Legends wouldn't sell enough on Wii U, says Ubisoft
Criterion staff assisting Ghost Games with Need For Speed: Rivals
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified first DLC is Xbox-exclusive
Hotline Miami 2 preview: curtain call
Weekend Confirmed Episode 55
by Garnett Lee, Apr 08, 2011 11:00am PDTScheduling challenges make it a three-chair show this week. On the upside, that means there's plenty of room to spread out for Jeff, Garnett, and this week's guest Andrea Rene, host of Mahalo Video Games Today. They get right in to Whatcha Been Playin? with The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile, Ratchet and Clank All 4 One, and more. An unexpected debate on whether survival horror games must be scary spills into the Warning before taking up the question of "narrative dissonance" raised by the Sword and Sorcery developers Superbrothers, who also drop a tune from the game's soundtrack on us for this week's featured music. We wrap it all up with videogame news in the Front Page and Finishing Moves.
Weekend Confirmed Ep. 55: 04/08/2011
Subscription Links:
- Subscribe to Weekend Confirmed in iTunes
- Weekend Confirmed is also available in the Zune Marketplace
- Subscribe to Weekend Confirmed via RSS
If you're viewing this in the GameCenter application, you can play Weekend Confirmed Episode 55 directly.
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 Part 1: Start: 00:00:00 End: 00:27:15
- Whatcha' Been Playin Part 2: Start: 00:28:061 End: 00:58:40
- The Warning: Start: 00:59:50 End: 01:31:40
- Featured Music "COM-64" by Jim Guthrie: 01:31:40 End: 01:32:58
- Front Page news: Start: 01:32:58 End: 02:14:44
This week's featured music is the track "COM-64" by Jim Guthrie from the iPad (and soon iPhone) game, Sword and Sworcery. Guthrie (jampants on Twitter) is a composer/singer/songwriter in Toronto with a legendary solo discography, he's a veteran of bands like Royal City & Islands and an acknowledged influence on other Canadian success stories like Broken Social Scene, Feist, Arcade Fire, and Owen Pallett (formerly Final Fantasy).
The Sword and Sworcery EP is available in digital form through iTunes and Bandcamp or as a 12" vinyl. Get all the details from the game's music page. And of course, the game is also out now on iPad and should be soon for iPhone/iPod Touch.
Big thanks go out to Craig (the1console on Twitter), artist, animator, and writer on Sword and Sworcery, for connecting with us.
Original music in the show by Del Rio. Get his latest Album, The Wait is Over on iTunes. Check out more, including the Super Mega Worm mix and other mash-ups on his ReverbNation page or Facebook page, and follow him on twitter delriomusic.
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!
Remember to join the Official Facebook Weekend Confirmed Page and add us to your Facebook routine. We'll be keeping you up with the latest on the show there as well.
Comments
On one hand, is it really surprising the people buy into the stereotypical masculine action character in action games? As a gamer who likes action games, I don't really give it a second thought about what main character I'm playing. When I'm playing Nathan Drake or female Commander Shepherd, or a Cole, if the character is interesting enough for me to want to play them, I don't start thinking "why are these characters always so similar?"
The games still are FUN, developers are still able to make these characters INTERESTING. It is true that these games are marketed at a certain segment (males 18-39), and its probably true that a lot of these males like the types of main characters that are in the games today. Are we going to say that the only reason these stereotypical gamer characters in these games that sell millions is because they are the only ones available OR maybe the audience that buys the most games like these characters.
Developers sometimes try to infuse some character diversity through side characters and such, and really, I feel that's enough for most people.
You guys play a lot a lot A LOT of games. You grow tired more quickly of the typical characters just because your game volume is so much larger. Sure I'd like some more diversity in my main video character protagonist. Sure i'd like a gay male character that is a blatant stereotype that saves the world or goes through interesting experiences. Sure I'd like a strong female without size DDD breasts and that doesn't wear skin tight pleather. But the main audience doesn't seem to be demanding such characters. Developers can try to infuse these characters but they also have to think about marketing and sales. Maybe you'll get a neat indie title that can do these things, but I wouldn't really expect a 50 million dollar game to do this until the demographic grows bored of the current crop of video game protagonist.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 8 replies.
Just imagine if Nathan Drake was gay. If Elena was Erin. Would the awesome gameplay, Drake's awesome sarcastic personality still win over gamers if they were forced to accept that he was gay? Making a huge generality, the video game masses are far too immature when dealing with anything related to homosexuality. Even sometimes on this very podcast, the feeling that homosexuality in video games is something to be exploited for shock value rather than serious character trait is sad...even if it isn't intentional.
I think if you look at a marketers perspective, they come to the developers and publishers and go "hey look, these are the types of characters in the games that sell millions"...of course as a business person and then a game maker, you go "I have to make my main protagonists like this so we can sell games to continue to make a living and do what we love." If there is even a chance of a negative impact on sales if you make your character deviate to far from the norm....these big budget titles wont do it. Why take the risk....
Sure, maybe in an indie game...but that's always been true...
Of course we get tired of the same stereotypical ripped white guy who is either funny or an idiot or both...but these characters are in games that make money....and at the end of the day video games are a business for making entertainment for profit....mainstream gaming anyways. There will always be titles in the future that take "new" types of protagonists, but that's not likely to be the norm
You must be logged in to post.