The Steam Community Market: A Misstep or the Start of Something Good?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/21/13 at 08:12 PM CT
Recently, Valve, the company behind the popular Steam PC gaming platform held an open beta test of a new Community Market feature built right into the Steam client. I didn’t pay much attention to this feature, as Gabe Newell’s statements about the motivation behind the creation of the Steam Community Market didn’t resound with me. A place for users sell each other insignificant virtual McGuffins? Pass! And, besides, with the well known lack of correspondence between “Valve Time” and any time-related mechanism in the real world should have meant that the Steam Community Market would possibly come out of beta In the Year 2525.
But Valve has exceeded expectations, yet again. After first releasing Steam Big Picture Mode within our lifetimes, they have also added the Steam Community Market, just in time for it to serve as a tie-in with this year’s Steam Summer Sale. So, what can one actually do with the Steam Community Market? Well, not a lot right now. In these early days, …
OUYA First Impressions – Part 2: The Software
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/14/13 at 07:05 PM CT
(Before continuing, please be sure to read the update addendum at the bottom of the first part of my OUYA first impressions.)
No game console is worth a damn without actual games to play on it. Many of the biggest failures in the Console Wars have learned this lesson the hard way. The OUYA strives to build its library of games both by catering to Indie developers in the hopes of landing some exclusives and by catering to OUYA owners by enabling them to try every game in the OUYA shop without paying a penny for the privilege. Indeed, the OUYA motto is, to paraphrase, “You shouldn’t have to pay for it unless you absolutely love it.” And with the years of Android game development standing behind them, the OUYA (theoretically) shows a lot of promise.
With the purchase of my OUYA, I was hoping to be able to play some of my favorite (read: ones I don’t absolutely despise) smartphone games on my TV: “Angry Birds,” “Fruit Ninja,” and “Jetpack Joyride,” along with my …
OUYA First Impressions – Part 1: The Hardware
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/07/13 at 01:38 PM CT
Ever since the Indie startup behind the OUYA console announced their project via Kickstarter, I’ve been intrigued. Not intrigued enough to actually back the project via Kickstarter and potentially end up with a fistful of vaporware to show for it, but intrigued enough to buy an OUYA on day one. Thanks to the American Independence Day holiday this past week, my OUYA took its sweet time getting to me from Amazon’s shipping warehouses, but it did actually manage to arrive two days earlier than anticipated. As of this writing, I have owned an OUYA for approximately 24 hours. In order to test out this all-digital, all-Indie console in the best possible environment, I took it to the MeltedJoystick HQ and connected it to the 30Mbps Internet available there. While I was able to get a good feel for the OUYA hardware in my single day of testing, the available software is still a bit of an unknown. So today I would like to share my first impressions of the OUYA console itself, with a …
Backlog: The Embiggening - July, 2013
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/28/13 at 02:01 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. The Summer Game Drought should be upon us in full-force, yet there are still a significant number of games releasing in July. July is also the home of the annual Steam Summer Sale and its absurdly huge discounts. I’m expecting to add almost every game on my Steam Wish List to my backlog this month, even though most of them are old(ish).
But what about NEW games?
July will be foisting a mere two licensed trash games upon the populace, both based on animated Summer movies: One involves a mutant speed snail, and the other one involves the incarnation of Communism in the 1980s. On top of those two abominations, we are also getting a new annual release of a game based on the worst sport in the world... in college.
July isn’t looking like a significant month for non-shovelware multi-platform releases. In fact, there is only one: A new ‘Dynasty Warriors’ game. Does anyone really care about this series enough to justify the …
The Third Console Curse is Real
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/21/13 at 04:01 PM CT
There is a term in the scientific world called “multiple discovery.” This term refers to the concept that every scientific breakthrough is made simultaneously, or near-simultaneously, by multiple different individuals in completely distinct and unrelated locations.
Years ago, I thought I was quite clever in inventing a concept I called the “Third Console Curse.” Recently I discovered that others across the Internet had multiply discovered the same concept. Of course, in retrospect, coming up with the Third Console Curse didn’t really require any great feats of intellectual prowess, but merely the ability to observe and recognize simple patterns.
The premise behind the Third Console Curse is that every videogame hardware developer will completely and inexplicably fail on their third try, regardless of their success or failure on their first two tries. The observational datapoints that back up the existence of the Third Console Curse are the Nintendo 64, the Sega …
E3 Impressions 2013
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/13/13 at 03:34 PM CT
With last year’s E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo being a complete let-down, it seemed that the former extravaganza of all things videogame was flagging and all but doomed. But this year’s E3 proved that it’s not really the expo format that’s the problem, it’s what the exhibitors bring (or fail to bring) that makes or breaks the show. This year, we have not one, but two new 8th Generation consoles (actual consoles, not icky handhelds) and all of the excitement that comes with such reveals. Is it any wonder that this year’s E3 is the most memorable in recent history?
Microsoft:
Want: Microsoft to stop making consoles
Not Sure if Want: “Project Spark” (for Windows 8)
Do Not Want: Xbox One, its launch exclusives
After their introductory tease of the Xbox One, which perplexed gamers due to the fixation on sports and TV instead of videogames, Microsoft finally solidified the details of their nebulous DRM disaster… and it pretty much lived up to everyone’s …
Backlog: The Embiggening - June, 2013
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/08/13 at 02:08 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. It has been an entire year since I began tracking the monthly embiggening of my backlog due to new releases. While, on paper, it would appear that my backlog has increased by 15 games over the course of the past year, in actuality, most of those games just went on my wish list, so as to prevent my backlog from growing out of control. Since they’re on my wish list, I can still keep track of them, but I can also wait for them to drop in price. When one has 40+ games backlogged, paying full-price for anything new would be completely idiotic. Of course, since I haven’t been feeding it and have been plugging away at completing old games that have been lingering in it for years or decades, my backlog has actually shrunk by ~20 games. I’m happy about that!
But what will happen to my backlog in June? This month is typically smack-dab in the middle of the Summer Game Drought, during which few games come to light. However, it’s …
Review Round-Up: Spring 2013
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/02/13 at 03:06 PM CT
Welcome back to another installment of the MeltedJoystick Review Round-Up. Here’s what our staff has reviewed since last time:
Nelson’s Reviews:
This Spring I continued chiseling away at the lower strata of my backlog, blasting away everything from the 8-bit and 16-bit eras except for the entire ‘Phantasy Star’ series. Maybe I should play those in a marathon session this Summer…
Outside of those ancient games, I cleared out the remains of my PS3 backlog in preparation for the goodness that 2013 is finally bringing to that bereft console’s library (along with a bunch of horribleness, but we takes what we can gets), and continued to sample a wide variety of Indie games on Windows (with mixed results, just like last quarter). The one thing I desperately wanted to do in Spring was experience a good, recent RPG… but I was sorely disappointed, as the only good RPG I played in the Spring was originally released the year I graduated from high school.
After early …
Adding Indie Insult to Xbox One Injury
Chris Kavan - wrote on 05/22/13 at 01:24 PM CT
Nelson pointed out a long list of things that Microsoft bungled when they revealed the Xbox One. And, unsurprisingly, he's not the only one to think that reveal was an unmitigated disaster. And I hate to kick someone while they're down, but this is Microsoft, so I don't feel that bad actually.
Besides having the Kinect 2 watch you while you sleep and not being able to share games with your friends (without a fee) - I don't have to tell you Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot with gamers. But what about shooting themselves in the foot with developers? Specifically the indie kind - you know, the kind being talked about as being in a new golden age. While it's sometimes hard to find quality amidst the quantity - it is there. Every gamer should do themselves a favor and watch Indie Game: The Movie to see just what goes on behind the scenes to make an indie game. So what does indie gaming have to do with the Xbox One? Only that Microsoft has taken the step to stop indie …
Xbox One: Putting “It” All in One Place
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/21/13 at 05:53 PM CT
After months of speculation and rumor-mongering, Microsoft has finally revealed the true identity of the console-formerly-known-as Durango: The Xbox One. Apparently someone at Microsoft has difficulty with counting in the single digits, as the Xbox One is actually the THIRD Microsoft console, and that moniker seems more fitting as a retroactive title for the original Xbox from the 6th Generation.
I understand what Microsoft was trying to accomplish with the name, though, as the reveal event put on display the Xbox One’s ability to be a one-stop shop for all forms of TV-based entertainment, and shows it to be a significant improvement over Nintendo’s half-assed TVii app. Of course, as someone who watches 2 hours of TV per week (not counting incidental viewings of whatever news program or gameshow might be running while I’m eating a meal), the fact that Microsoft’s new console more closely resembles a glorified cable box than an actual game console is not inspiring.
But …
View Archive
