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Weekend Confirmed 70 - PixelJunk lifelike, Bastion, Space Marine
by Garnett Lee, Jul 22, 2011 11:00am PDTGarnett returns and brings back with him tales of a trio of PixelJunk games. He got to play lifelike and demystifies its creative approach to interactively remixing music. He also got some more stick time with Sidescroller and a peek at the just announced Monsters for social networks. Jeff snuck off to Comic Con but he'll be back next week with a full report. Xav and "Indie" Jeff, though, bring plenty of their own ammo to Whatcha Been Playin, including Bastion and the upcoming Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine. Some of your thoughts on the nature of online shooter players sparked the conversation in the Warning and Xav brought a "fat stack" on news for the final segment. And it all wraps up with Finishing Moves.
Weekend Confirmed Ep. 70: 07/22/2011
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If you're viewing this in the GameFly application, you can play Weekend Confirmed Episode 70 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: 00:29:37
- Whatcha' Been Playin Part 2: Start: 00:30:11 End: 01:00:09
- The Warning: Start: 01:01:14 End: 01:31:58
- Featured music I Come to Shanghai - "Eternal Life Volume 1 Track 1" Start: 01:31:58 End: 01:35:38
- The Front Page news: Start: 01:35:38 End: 02:11:37
This week's featured music comes from the excellent sophomore effort by I Come to Shanghai. Robert Ashley, host of the excellent A Life Well Wasted podcast, and Sam Frigard put a ton of love into their new work, titled "Eternal Life." It's available now on the official I Come to Shanghai site as a 320 kbps mp3 for the amazing price of whatever you name. Yep, you decide how much to pay them for it. Or, for hardcore audiophiles, a lossless FLAC version is available for $8 from their bandcamp page.
Eternal Life Volume 1 is actually the band's third recording. Their second was lost to technical gremlins and statistically improbable disasters. Volume 2 of Eternal Life is currently in the works and should be out soon.
Help Garnett's brother Andrew on his donation drive to ride for Children's Hospital. If you can, please give him a hand in supporting a good cause.
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 Cannata 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!
For more information on the Play for Japan Charity Album, visit the group's official site.
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
When Riccotello came into EA, he was all about creating great new IP and creating partnerships with developers. He basically sold investors on the idea that EA's fortunes were decreasing because their IP was getting stale and the content wasn't as good as it could be.
Now I personally think he was right. But introducing a ton of new IP in the middle of a generation, when it's going to be fighting for consumer dollars against Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, Halo, Gears of War, God of War, is a very difficult proposition. And EA didn't help themselves by releasing games before they were REALLY polished to AAA quality (Army of Two, Mirror's Edge) or sending them to die in the middle of the holiday season (Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, The Saboteur, etc).
So the plan didn't work, or at least didn't pay immediate dividends to investors and EA lost a ton of money. So then Riccotello, either because he legitimately believes it or just wants to save his job, convinces the investors that EA's future would like in a streamlined portfolio of known IPs and tons of casual games.
So now you have EA doing their best Activision impersonation. BF3 is their CoD, Star Wars is their WoW, and they also have Need for Speed, Mass Effect and their sports titles.
The problem is that some partner titles like Shadows of the Damned and Bulletstorm, were signed before the change in direction, so EA was obligated to publish and distribute them. So they did... only they did so spending as little effort and money as possible as they geared up for the release of BF3, which they're basically hoping to float their entire fiscal year.
Had EA opted to introduce new IPs toward the beginning of a new generation, when there's less brand power in the marketplace, then I think Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, Mercs 2, The Saboteur, Bulletstorm and all the other partners games - including Shadows of the Damned - would have done better and given EA what they originally wanted: a new portfolio of bankable IPs to grow their revenue.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 16 replies.
I don't think there's a playtime-to-price value ratio, but for me, there is at least a definite threshold.
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