Death by Paradox

 

If there's one thing about the whole life cycle of Life By You taught me- it's that after all these decades under the degradation of the EA hammer- people really want a competitor to the Sims brand. I guess it's something you never really think about if you've fallen off from caring about that franchise ever since EA decided to turn it into a simulator game for how many inconsequential pieces of nothing they tacked onto the product with a hefty pricetag. The bloat has gotten so ridiculous it's now a mental hurdle for new people coming to the game simply looking at the insane price to have at everything on offer and deciding- "you know what? I don't want that smoke!" The average consumer, and even the entrenched life simulation enthusiast, seems to have finally gotten around to the truth that if literally anyone else could scour some ground in this market- maybe things would be just that little bit more equitable on the consumer's side. Just a tiny bit.

The reason I know that so well is because when Life By You was first announced it looked like total crap and no one can convince me otherwise. Seriously, just look at it! Life By You seemed every bit the under-realised starter Unity project back when it's in those pre-Alpha stages of trying to figure out the bare basic idea of what it is you're even doing. Everything, from the character models to the UI looked placeholder- and it's only by merit of the publishers involved that I didn't immediately take it for another overly ambitious nowhere project helmed by a team of first time coders. Paradox's name alone was the only thing that led this game announcement any ounce of legitimacy in my wary eyes. But when you're just hungry for a competitor- you look past the face and see the heart.

Life By You promised full world simulation, instead of the aggressively regressive 'single plot' simulation that The Sims 4 has confusingly peddled for so very long now. Itself an absolutely humongous leap back from The Sims 3's simulation efforts which allowed people to wonder the whole neighbourhood if they felt like it. Of course, LBY promised to take things one step further by having all the town be playable on a whim, so that if one families' plight began to bore you could switch to see what the bickering couple down the road's life is like. That kind of seamless connectivity would obviously be impossible in the direction that the Sims went, making a genuine opportunity for more of the ultimate 'life sim' fantasy to be fulfilled. 

But then the game did also throb with an air of the overambitious too. There were those typical overreaches of promise that boasted more of insane propositions rather than legitimate possibilities. NPCs taking off their clothes and then leaving them on the ground to be interacted as objects? That is an insane level of dynamic deformation values that would need to be applied on every errant piece of clothing at all times- for a seemingly inconsequential feature. How about cutting flowers in a garden and then putting those flowers in a vast? Innocent enough, until you learn that was supposed to be tracked the entire way from the ground to the vase. This is 'watching an acorn turn into a tree' from the Original Fable all over again!

Still- I guess I speak ill of the dead with all this rambling because wouldn't you know it- despite the hype and the anticipation- Life By You was unceremoniously killed, axed, cancelled- by Paradox Interactive themselves. The game had been scheduled to go onto early access just a few weeks beforehand, it missed that deadline and then wiped it's slate totally clean but a stone's throw later. (Damn, I didn't Paradox was run by the Japanese Train board!) Now this pretty much came right out of nowhere as not enough eyes were on this game for media feelers to be out there. No trickle of troubled development scenarios managed to make it's way to the headlines and this all spiralled out of control before anyone outside really knew what was happening.

Now we have retrospectives from the now defunct studio, yes they killed the studio as well, telling us just some small measure of the puzzle- and the conclusions we can draw are... puzzling. William Delventhal posted his testimony to Linkedin on the matter, claiming that the game was actually coming together well and the milestones they had set for themselves seemed to have been approved by Paradox until suddenly they weren't anymore. The Early Access was cancelled for them, and with the same public announcement that the rest of us heard- the team lost their jobs. (Which is never going to be anything but the worst way to close a studio. Do you have so little respect for your own staff that you can't even break the news to them personally before airing it out for all the world to see and natter on? It's just a gross, yet common, practice.)

So everything was going well? In a situation like this it seems literally no one holds the answers aside from the suits themselves and all we can do is speculate amongst ourselves about a situation that seems to make no earthly sense. They had the tools to challenge the Sims, even to some small degree, and if that ultimately hadn't worked out for them then at least the attempt would have been made! Apparently the team seems to think what they had was above the minimum threshold to early launch, but someone higher was apparently playing on a totally different board. Maybe someone was looking at the roadmap to totally finish the game and just thought the expense wouldn't be worth the cost, or that the reputational hit of failure would be worse than that of giving up now. (To which most conventional logic would insist is demonstrably untrue.)

Whatever the case it leaves us with the situation where EA's ant farm life-sim has won again without lifting a finger. Top god without making any concession, without fighting for their audience and without learning any valuable lessons about value propositions. I won't pretend to have been a diehard supporter of Life By You- but I like the potential of life sims and was really excited for the future back in the days of Sims 3. Now the genre has stagnated, and apparently the barrier to break in is so overwhelming that a publisher seemingly designed for the sole purpose of developing titles for this kind of crowd- long form deep focus style games, can't take the risk. Can't wait for Sims 5 where EA starts charging us for slots to maintain simultaneous households! (I'm only half joking- I bet they've at least considered that.)

God Games

The rules of everything

You are God. The sun rises because you placed it, the seas rear because you made it, and the people live their daily lives of ambient sandboxing because you allow it. Don't get me wrong, you're not the 'brimstone and fire, all must obey my dictatorial wrath' sort of god. (Unless you want to be but that's typically a lot more trouble to pull off than it's worth) You're the kind of handy-man god who travels around fixing problems, which is rather active of you for a deity now you think about it. But you're not doing any of this because you particularly want to, maybe you're the altruistic type and all that but everyone has their limits, no this is more of a duty. Because helping the people makes society run smoother which then allows it to expand and the grander life is the more you get to play with- except with a larger populace comes more problems to solve. Eventually you'll notice that you're not really having as much wild untamed fun and you expected to be having, rather just stolen moments here and there, you're really spending most of your time fixing relationships, or clearing bypasses or managing species, and then it hits you; you're not a god at all, you're just a glorified busybody. That is my experience with the God games genre.

I've had the inkling to talk about God games after the recent early access release of a game I've waited a long time for which, whilst it doesn't fit perfectly into the margins of a 'God Game', it certainly does run many pertinent parallels. That game is Starmancer, and it's actually more of a management build-a-base game in the vein of something-like Dwarf fortress, but when you really break it down to the essence that isn't a million miles away from what God games are. God games throw the player into the shoes of show sort of administrative entity that presumes to have control over the lives of all they observe. This entity manages, constructs, problem solves and works as some otherworldly foreman in a lot of these games, with the whole 'god' aspect only really becoming apparent due to the layer of separation between the player and the character's within the world. Wherein lies the confusion, at least for me, about what constitutes a 'God game'.

 For example, in Stellaris you theoretically take control of the leader of a civilisation and control every aspect of that intergalactic societies growth, diplomacy, economy and combat. You are the supreme leader. Except, this civilisation has an elected leader, one who will undoubtedly (through the course of your game) die and be replaced with another leader. You remain in power regardless. In fact, it's totally possible to have no idea that elections are even happening despite the fact that's supposed to be your position which is drastically changing. So are you 'god' in that game? Does that count as a God game? I think that, frustratingly, we're looking at a 'yes' and 'no' situation here, where less 4X managerial oversights hanging over the player is preferable. But then, in Tropico things on that front are handled pretty casually, but you're still very distinctly identified as El Presidente and can even be killed off by rebels if you do a bad enough job. So is Tropico a God game series? In truth, I haven't the foggiest; but you know who would know? 

Peter Molyneux, the man, myth and game developing legend himself. Black and White, his first foray into this sort of game, is easily one of the most influential of the genre and pioneered so much of what makes God Games what they are in today's world. And you know what, I've never played it or it's sequels. That's right, I'm a heathen and I present myself for the custom summary execution accordingly. Before I do I should talk about what exactly it is Black and White gave to the player, you know, for prosperities sake. That was a game which literally put you into the shoes of a god as they ruled over various tribes who, curiously, actually judged your actions to try and figure out your moral alignment. It's curious, as many God games purposefully place you outside of the magic box and thus free of direct judgement, but I suppose the appeal of being worshipped or feared was strong enough to erase such contention because Black and White is widely love to this day.

My first God game, that I can remember, was actually a more stylistic one which caught my eye called From Dust. That was a game where you weren't so much a 'god' as you were an elemental force of- okay, you were totally a god. Basically you played this floating invisible ball that could manipulate the elements to help out a tribe of peoples with their fight for survival. Usually by moving water to put out lava and stuff like that. What drew me to the game was the sandbox premise of screwing around with elements, but obviously that's not what these games are about and I found myself a little disillusioned by that fact. Since when does God have responsibilities? Tasks? Hard lines to which he is forced to abide? Maybe Black and White would have been more up my alley, but I suspect that this might be a genre founded on a false reputation of total, unerring, freedom rather than a true 'god like' experience. Which sucks for me, but I suppose is what the audience has been trained to want now. 

Struggling to grasp what was actually a God game and what wasn't, I resorted to the ever-unreliable Steam store page to help elucidate me, when I realised that I had Spore: the highest rated God game on the platform. Now there's a game with a lot of freedom, as you raise a civilisation from being a cell on an asteroid to a space-faring race of war like gorilla people; if that's what you're looking for. (I always was) Spore leaned a lot in creativity, with having you design so much from the clothes and spaceships to the very bone structure of your civilisation, and it did so in a fairly intuitive and fun way. But it wasn't a sandbox, there were rules and you were never in that position of 'screw around with everything' that the genre might imply. At this point I think it's pretty clear what the actual barrier is between the promise and reality is, isn't it? It's the medium. These are games, and thus that demands some conflict for the player to tackle. Games can't really let the players do everything they want, else they risk losing their attention too early as the breadth of the possibilities get explored too quickly. Therefore challenges are crafted, Gameplay loops are installed and suddenly your godlike abilities aren't feeling too godlike anymore.

The only exception to this rule, as far as I understand it, would be the Sims; or rather how the majority of people say that they play the Sims. I'm a masochist so I'll just go ahead and say it, I don't cheat when playing the Sims. (At least not the later ones, the early ones forced my hand by being the slowest things imaginable.) This is pretty much the purest example of a 'do anything game', because they readily give you the tools to create humans, craft houses, sometimes even decide the shape of an entire city. (at least they did in Sims 3. 4 is, naturally, less creative) In my eyes, playing around with the lives of the virtual Sims represents the only example of the God game genre that totally lives up to the promise of it's name, as you become the amoral god of these doomed people, toying with their lives and removing the ladder out of the pool whenever you see fit. A true all-powerful despot for the ages!

So as you can likely tell; I'm not actually a big fan of the God game genre. I think it's an interesting dichotomy of concept vs execution wherein if the original premise where ever actually achieved you'd have a game which isn't very interesting at all. Even with the Sims, when you start installing cheats and doing whatever you want it gets boring pretty quick and I know I'm usually onto to the next game pretty fast; so does this make this a genre built on lies? I don't think so. More one built on a general shared understanding between the game developers and the players that not everything needs to be ridden to the letter. Some see this as exciting and freeing, I see this as a genre that will never achieve it's truest potential. I suppose ultimately it just lands on a matter of taste.

Video Game jobs

Workung 9 to 5, what a way to make a living!

In the world of fictional story telling, we are all ruled by our desires to be something extraordinary. Whether that be a particularly skillful individual or particularly lucky one, a great many of wish to shirk our more mundane daily duties and embark on some epic, life-changing adventure. In particular, one thing that none of us want to deal with is the responsibility and effort that comes with a soul-crushing nowhere job. (Unless you're one of the lucky ones doing what they love. In which case, god speed to you good sir.) With that in mind, isn't it a little bit funny when those power-fantasy driven video games that we play enforce some dull job upon us?

I'm not talking about being tricked into doing various repetitive task, or rather not just that, I mean the times in which the developers thought it apropos to simulate a real-life job within their world and have players slog through it. Of course, some games are built around such a premise and those I take no issue with. Classic video game 'Paper Boy', for example, has players simulate the life of a bicycle-bound newspaper delivery boy who has the worrying tendency to smash the front windows of everyone too cheap to subscribe to his service. (Sounds like this kid has a future in the Mafia.) Other games, however, are clearly focused around other endeavours and yet take time out of their 'save the world' schedule to have you waste time in exchange for chump change.

One set of games which made an absolute habit out of this practice throughout it's entire main-lineup is the Fable series. These games are based around the well-worn concept of a born hero struggling to save the, very English, kingdom of Albion from the baddie of the week. Of course, such campaigns are hardly cheap for an aspiring hero. One needs to keep themselves flush with a stead supply of healing potions, new armours and weapons, and the latest fashionable haircut (and I'm just listing the essentials) none of which is handed to the player for free. Thus, in every game there comes a time wherein the hero must take to the streets and perform 'jobs' in order to fund their adventures, at least until they can get into more profitable endeavours. (Like real estate. I'm serious.) In Fable 3 your Hero is given the choice of being a blacksmith (fitting enough), Lute player (okay...), and Pie Maker. (How many pies does this society realistically need?) Not only is this the best way to raise income in the early game, but it is the most direct source of capital for the late game too, meaning that even once the Hero raises to the highest office of the land, (as they do in every game) the citizens of Albion can still enjoy the presence of their reigning monarch at the local pie stand.

Another title that approaches the concept of 'jobs' in a manner that is a little more fitting, would be American highschool simulator; Bully. Just as with most Rockstar games, Bully is full of side activities for the player to embark on to various ends; some confer respect with particular factions, most award some sort of collectible upon their completion and a few give cold hard cash. But unlike other Rockstar games, In Bully the protagonist is a highschool kid, meaning that the side jobs available to him are suitably- part time. In Bully, players are given the choice to join a paper route in order to make some extra pocket money, or take to mowing lawns to get what they need. Both tasks are as tedious as they sound but offer enough consistent cash to make them worthwhile pass-times. Plus, unlike in real life, you rarely have to wait for new cash-in-hand opportunities as the grass seems to magically grow the second before you go to cut it. Bully is kind enough to award money for completing quests too, meaning that one isn't forced to subject Jimmy Hopkins to such vivid glimpses of his future careers if they don't want to. (Choice is nice.)

Looking towards other Rockstar games, The Grand Theft Auto franchise is full of side jobs throughout their titles. (Especially in the 3D era) In 3, San Andreas, Liberty City Stories and both Vice cities, you can assume the role of a taxi driver in a makeshift version of 'Crazy Taxi'; San Andreas and Vice City both have prominent meta game threads whereupon you run a chop shop in order to be rewarded with unique vehicles and one can even find a rare job in Los Santos wherein you become a part-time pimp. (Okay, that might just be exact clone of the Taxi mini-game in a different vehicle but I'll count it.) In the same vein, the Saints Row series also had a decent number of jobs for the player to partake in, although the tended to get more outlandish as the games did. In Saints Row 2 you could become a reality TV cop or a Demolition derby driver, whilst in Saint Row 4 you ended up trafficking weapons and starring in a murderous version of Takeshi's Castle.

Seeing as how things are threatening to get a little too exciting, let's tone things down to the most sedate level possible; namely, the jobs of Skyrim. As this is a title that take place in a fictionalized version of the dark ages, it is only fitting for the daily life of Tamriel to reflect that- simpler time. And, as this franchise is a lot more poe-faced than Fable, that means you won't be getting any 'guitar hero' style lute mini games. (Maybe in TES6.) In Skyrim, one can make an honest living by partaking in three peaceful job opportunities, lumberjack, miner and farm hand. All of these activities are mostly automated and just require the player to have the right tool for the job, (Except for farming, in which there is no requirement) and they are all excessively boring for a player to partake in. Whatsmore, the 'living' you make from these jobs is hardly enough to keep fed all day, let alone support you throughout the game. This is a key example of a video game job that literally exists for nothing more than role play potential.

Okay, this next topic may not have a one-to-one comparison to a real job, but it's still a game concept formed around the work of manual labour, so I'd be remiss to disclude Death Stranding from my list. In Kojima's latest art-house thriller,(?) the protagonist is thrown into a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world in which his assigned task is the transporting of key materials all across America. (Think U-haul, only without the trucks.) This mean that aside from all of the weird supernatural goings on and bigger than life characters, the meat of the gameplay is essentially just the act of walking from one point to another for hours on end. In that way, Death Stranding does truly capture the tedium of cross-country courier work. (I assume Couriers have to fight off bandits and other worldly ink monsters too.)

There is one game out there that is notable for the way how it features 'going to work' as one of the key game play features. It simulates finding a job, keeping a job, and trying to keep your sanity in the moments in between. And no, it's not some psychological horror game, (Although that description I just made up did sound like a cool indie title)I'm talking about 'The Sims'. As a game that attempts to simulate the going-ons of everyday life, to varying levels of success, it only makes sense that the working life is represented within the gameplay. Throughout the years Maxis have adapted the way that they've presented jobs, but since Sims 3 they seemed to have hit a sweet spot between having players act out some jobs and having them plain disappear for 8 hours for others. (That's how you tell the difference between boring jobs and jobs so boring that game developers can't even figure how to pretend it's fun.)

At the end of the day the inclusion of real life jobs in video games can seem perfunctory, but I like to see the situation as one of perspective. In these adventures wherein the lionshare of time is spent robbing banks or fighting dragons, it's nice to take a step back now and then and appreciate the slower moments. (Even if your appreciation is marred by the fact that your character is currently partaking in back breaking labour.) At that point is because a question of pacing, which I think is a discussion that is very unique within the world of games compared to other forms of creative media. Although I will say, at least one of the jobs I mentioned today does very little to calm my nerves and instead invokes vivid spikes of hypertension akin to PTSD. But that's just me.

The Sims: a depression killer?

Citation needed.

I had a blog planned for today, as I usually do, which got thrown out the window the second I happened upon an interesting article on my Google suggestions. (Good job, Google algorithm, you've figured out which kind of articles I'll click on.) So what could have driven me off of my course, you ask. What article was so attention grabbing that I immediately scrapped everything else on the spot the moment I saw it's potential? "Playing the Sims makes you 'healthier and happier', scientist reveals." Published by the Sun with a byline dedicated to one Becky Pemberton. Oh Rebecca, what absolute drivel are you feeding the public today?

For those unfamiliar, The Sun is a shameless tabloid who became so desperate to offload physical copies that they started a trend of slapping pictures of half naked girls on page 3. (You can thank the tireless entrepreneurial mind of, professional creep, Rupert Murdoch for that particular evolution to journalism.) In the modern day such doesn't translate so well to the Online space, so The Sun have secured their relevance the same way that any online tabloid does; clickbait. (Hey, it works.) With all that in mind, I can't say that I'm surprised to see such a frivolous story make it to their pages, but I still feel compelled to respond when the subject is a matter that I am infinitely more familiar with than Miss Pemberton is.

"From the sounds of it, you seem to refute the claim that the Sims makes one happier and healthier." You're damn right I do. And matters are not helped by the fact that someone (likely the Intern that Becky choose to edit all this together whilst she argued with the Starbucks waiters about the creaminess of her cappuccino) decided that the best accompanying image for this article would be from 'The Sims: Freeplay'. Now, I'm not going to pretend to be the most objective person in the world, especially not in an article where I'm poised to rip apart other people's opinions, but I speak with unchallengeable certainty when I say that 'The Sims: Free Play' is neither healthy for you nor emotionally enriching.

At the cusp of EA's decent into the rapacious pit of Mobile games, they heralded their arrival with the aforementioned 'The Sims: Freeplay'. This was a game which practically pioneered time-gating technology to such an abhorrent degree that it genuinely revolutionized the way that countless Mobile game Devs fleece their consumer base. So of course, that means they had actions that were tied to a stamina bar which would regenerate once every hour, (Letting you experience the heart-stopping action of watching your Sim catch their breath for 60 minutes) actions for your Sim to undergo which would last for the real time equivalent, (Wanna see a Sim watch TV for half an hour? Got you covered!) and certain actions which, inexplicably, could only be activated at a certain time on a certain day of the week. (Oh, did you miss that Friday deadline? Wait until next week. That's a real world week, by the by.) All of this could be avoided by kicking papa EA his dues and earning the right to have fun. Not too much fun, however, because at the end of the day you're still playing the Sims. Is that game the face of 'happy and healthy' gaming experiences? If so, I might as well just hang myself now because that's the most grim future for gaming that I could possibly imagine.

Am I getting hung up on what is likely a misplaced image planted by somebody who doesn't care about their job? Sure. But I must it does put an absolutely foul taste in my mouth as I go into the meat of the article. (Good job, Becky!) Firstly, Ms.Pemberton starts off with a hypothetical asking the reader if they spent hours creating the dream home in The Sims 'back in the day'. Before informing us that such could benefit our mental and physical health according to a scientist. (There's so much to unpack here.) Firstly, how narrow of a perspective must you have of the Sims to assume that people played the game purely to make their dream house? The Sims isn't a building game, it's a life simulator wherein the bulk of the gameplay is about steering fake people for an, often satiristic, fictional life. Once again, I'm being nitpicky so I'll move on. Secondly, The Sims isn't a 'back in the day' franchise but a very active one which put out a major expansion earlier this year (Island life) and has another planned for the very near future. (University life.) And Thirdly, doesn't the phrase usually go "according to Scientists?" What, this guy couldn't get any of his colleagues to proof read his work?

Steven McKeown, a Psychoanalyst, proposes that playing games can "serve as a healthy escape to everyday life." Following up that it "is a better alternative to other vices like alcohol and drugs." (Oh really, Steve? What an enlightening discovery you've made there, truly worthy of the scientific annals. We'll stick that right next to the mapping of the human genome, shall we?) 'Games= better than drugs', you can understand why we needed a scientist to come to that conclusion. "The suggestion that we may spend more time in a virtual world than the physical one has been developing speedily over the years and has fast become a way in which we can live an alternative life in exactly the way we want." Stevie's implications as to the immersive on video games and the reality of it replacing real life seem to verge on abstract, but I have seen similar ideas expressed in my research into Trasnhumanism (And, you know... in the Matrix) so I'll give him the benefit of doubt here.

He then goes on to bring the Sims into this by claiming that it "can allow a person to escape social normality, its pressures and chronic stresses that are so prevalent in the real world, it allows the gamer to create a perfect reality in which they play the main character and have full control over the outcome." Okay once again, classic 'I've never played this game' syndrome. Part of the key facet of The Sims (heck, any video game with replayability value) is that you don't have full control over the outcome. In fact, your efforts to influence the outcome is what we call 'the gameplay'. What makes this more appealing than the real world is the way in which the consequences are artificial and can be waved away, just like with any game. Usually I wouldn't be so harsh on phrasing like this, but most Scientists that I've spoken to or read about are almost neurotically specific about wording. I suppose that makes Steve a bit of an anomaly in that regard.

Stevie Wonder then goes on to tell us (or rather a representative from media conglomerate Unilad, with whom the interview was being conducted) that people without a means of escape face the risk of suffering from "Burn out." The reason why The Sims is particularly good for this, in Steve's eyes, is because it allows players to explore lives or personality in a way they hadn't done so previously. Welcome to games, Steve, they're all kinda like that! I know it may be surprising to hear, but before DOOM I had never spent time curb stomping demons under my space boots, before Fallout 4 I'd never engaged with everyone I ever speak to in mildly sarcastic tones and before Skyrim I'd never slain a dragon, absorbed it's soul and used that power to defeat a World Eating primordial Wyvern. (I may have been lying about one of those.)

From this point on I have to admit, I may not quite know what it is that our psychoanalyst is getting at “Our consciousness is very adaptable and allows us to create an opening to different paradigms of reality every time we focus on alternate versions of life through our thoughts. With the assistance of life simulation games such as Sims we can enhance our inner experience." Honestly, Steve sounds like a really trippy guy to hang around as he is the only person I know to use the word 'paradigm' un-ironically outside of a TED talk. As for the rest of his claims, I honestly can't help but wonder where the 'This message is sponsored by EA' label comes into it.

The reason I say that is because if there is one game, of all games, that is likely to heighten your sense of vivid despair, it's the Sims. This is a game in which the primary antagonist that the player spends the majority of the game fighting is themselves, and everything you want to accomplish and/or achieve is dependant on you satisfying your requirements to be fed, clean, relieved and happy. It's a microcosm for the issues that we face everyday and, just like when it comes to maintaining a real human being, all it takes is for you to fall behind on one aspect for your Sim's balance to go spiralling out of control. So perhaps one could argue that this game does a good job in teaching folk how to better organize their life, but I've been playing these games all my life and I'm a god damn shambles. (That particular gripe might be a little personal.)

None of this is to even take into account the way that The Sim's pimp, EA, manages to squeeze it's player base's wallets clean every release. It may be a distant memory today, but I still remember when The Sims 3 was discontinued and Maxis announced Sims 4 with a fraction of the features and twice the price. It has been half a decade since that release and the community are only now receiving 'University Life'. (An aspect that was present in Sims 3.) EA have managed to make a mint by overcharging for these 'expansions' at anywhere between £17.99 to £35 per pack. When these expansions number around about 29, (Not counting University life) you can see how the price for the whole package grows ridiculous. Want to know the worst part? The game itself isn't even worth any of that. Honestly, none of the Sims games are and I will debate any two-bit EA scrooge who insists otherwise. You may think that this paragraph is a bit beyond the point but ruminate on this; would you feel happy and healthy after taking stock of your Sims spending habits and realizing that you've put 3 digits behind it?

Okay, so I've established that Stevie boy is talking out of his ass, but just who is this guy and why does his opinion matter? Well, he's a psychoanalyst and hypnotherapist who's claim to fame is that he has had a number of celebrity clients over the years.(I'm not going to start judging the hypnotherapy profession, but I will acknowledge that there a vocal group of medial professionals who very much do.) Also, he's one of those people who proclaims himself "The UK's number 1 coach and psychoanalyst", without detailing what metric he is comparing himself too. (Also, 'Coach'? Does this guy work with junior football teams or something?) He is also very proud of an 'Interational Mental Makeover Retreat' that he created which looks to be run out of a picturesque villa/compound in Italy and costs around £3000 for a six night stay. (Not sure about you but I can't read anymore of this for all the red flags waving in my eyes.)

So, is this whole news story just ill-informed gibberish spouted by a pretentious hack who looks like the kind of guy who'd wear sunglasses indoors? No, it's not just that. It's also a necro-story dug up by the Sun which I've seen bought up by other outlets as early as April of this year. Apparently The Sun are having a slow News week. But what more do you really expect from Becky Pemberton, given that her usual content includes many deep diving articles such as; The Queen wrote a furious note to one of her top chefs after she found a SLUG in her salad, (How improper!) Bride’s wedding gown roasted for looking like a swimsuit, (Gosh, so embarrassing!)and Mum saves time by putting her daughters to bed in tomorrow’s clothes. (What an inspiration.) Not that I'm much better, writing about all this crap in order to provide myself with content, but what do you want for nothing? 

Big Series/ little mobile

It's only me...

Yesterday I voiced my concern about the recent news that Splinter Cell might (read: without a shadow of a doubt.) be making it's way to mobile in the future. This might come off as a tad elitist without any context, so let me share the reasoning behind my furrowed brow and disapproving tuts. Firstly, I have very little against the platform of mobile gaming, in fact I love the concept of being able to take games on the go and play them wherever and whenever you want. (I won't openly admit to engaging in emulators but let's just say that I've used my phone to keep myself up-to-date with my Pokemon fandom for a while now.) What's more, I find it heartening to think how far mobile gaming has seeped into the public and furthered the reach of the industry. Statista estimates there to be around 2.3 billion mobile gamers in the world this year, just imagine what heights that could reach a decade down the line.

So my problem isn't with the concept of mobile gaming, nor am I driven by some hipster-esque distaste for the popular; my issues stem for the fact that the actual games themselves are an embarrassment to the industry. I have written an article on this specific topic before, but just to recap, the vast majority of mobile games are some of the worst excuses for entrainment you could subject yourself too. Most are passionless, devoid of ingenuity and creativity and absolutely dripping with microtransactions and anti-consumerist practises. Some may wonder where the concepts of obfuscating premium currencies, moneypit lootboxes and intimidating time-exclusive offers, first came from; well, most rose to fame from the humble market of mobile. With the player base being so big and the community comprised of mostly casual gamers, (Who are more likely not to question the money grubbing, assuming it to be the norm.) small developers manage to rake in silly money using these tactics and so it was only a matter of time before the industry grandfathers caught up.

"But these mobile developers are usually small developers." You may argue. "Surely a big studio with experience behind them, manpower, capital and, most importantly, a reputation to uphold, would endeavour to make their mobile debut worthwhile." And you'd think that, but remember, money is the be-all end-all of the corporate world; why put effort and passion behind a project when you can simply follow the path of least resistance and get the same rewards. It may sound like I'm being disparaging, and I am, but it does make sound business sense to invest as little as possible for the most returns. ("Don't hate the player, hate the game", I suppose.)

Because of this, we are starting to see a trend amongst big games companies wherein they drag in the rotting carcass of one of their beloved, dead franchises and stick it on the mobile platform for all to see. No, I'm not talking about adapting the gameplay and mechanics that made the franchise great whilst porting it to more accessible systems (That would actually be pretty cool.) I talking about crafting a pathetic archetypal-mobile game clone and slathering it with a familiar coat of paint. I'd imagine meetings go something like; "Oh, people seem to be sinking a lot of money into runner games. We have a mascot famous for running don't we?" and then we end up with the Sonic Dash games. (Yes I said games.) That isn't the only example we have of nostalgia baiting either.

Electronic Arts have appeared so much on my blog that soon I'm going to have to start giving Andrew Wilson an assistant writer credit; but trust me, EA earns their place in my daily word-count with gusto. This time I'm dragging them back under the 'shame' spotlight in order to verbally lash them for the mess of a game that they called Dungeon Keeper. For those who are unfamiliar, The Dungeon Keeper series ran back in the late 90's and allowed players to assume the role of the overlord/architect of an expansive dungeon system. Players had to set up traps and defences in order to hold off against plundering humans and righteous heroes that seek to confront you. The whole concept was a fun subversive look at medieval fantasy and carried the delightful dark humor that one would come to expect from the same developers who made Theme series: Bullfrog Productions.

Of course, things changed once EA got more involved with them. Dungeon Keeper 3 was cancelled and Bullfrog were moved to working exclusively on the more profitable Harry Potter franchise until their complete assimilation back in 2001. This left EA with all of the licences and none of the responsibility to uphold their quality, but at least they waited until the game got nostalgic before going at it with a hacksaw. In 2013, EA and Mythic entertainment announced that they were creating a mobile game that would be a "twisted take" on the Dungeon Keeper franchise, and I cannot think of a more deliciously ironic statement that has ever been uttered.

2014 saw the release of one of the worst "reimaginings" to ever grace gaming. Final Fantasy 10 fans may complain about how their remake sacrificed artistic integrity for the sake of a higher resolution, but Dungeon Keeper fans get to top that with a game that was such a corporate cash grab that the British Advertising Standards Authority had to clamp down on EA for "misleading advertising" in claiming the game was free. In this Dungeon Keeper, players had to build their dungeons in real time, with every tile taking days or weeks to be mined out (Creating a cavern could literally take months.) But, not to worry, because you could speed up the time that each action took with a little bit of premium currency. Imagine the marketing techniques of Clash of Clans on steroids and you get 2014's Dungeon Keeper. Whereas in the original games you could set up your base and engage in raiding in about 10-20 minutes, here you had to make it either your life or your bank account's work in order to even reach the actual gameplay. That is assuming that this game even had raids, I don't think anyone managed to stick around long enough to find out. Needless to say, this was the last Dungeon Keeper game.

That isn't even the only time that EA pulled this trick, just the most well known. The Sims suffered a similar fate with Sims Freeplay. That game follows the exact same structure as Dungeon Keeper, with actions costing precious time or even more precious premium currency. Then there was E3 2018. That was the E3 in which EA did the apology tour for Battlefront 2 and ramped up excitement for the upcoming Anthem with a sizzle reel of uninteresting action. (In their defence, now we know the history of Anthem's development it is amazing they had anything ready for this E3 at all.) But none of those were the real focus for EA, judging by how they devoted the most conference time to their new mobile title, 'Command and Conquer: Rivals'. Just as strategy fans were begging EA to give them a new C&C, they turned around and gave us a 6-minute snoozefest of a presentation about this husk of a game. Now it's out, I can confirm that the thing isn't as desperate for your wallet as their previous mobile attempts, but it's still embarrassingly basic to be considered the follow-up to the most storied real time strategy game of all time. Guess it just cost a lot less time and money to make a mobile game

The other big mobile event of recent years would have to be the botched announcement of Diablo Immortal. This game was another 2018 casualty, announced by Blizzard at fan celebration event: Blizzcon, and suffered a brutal public execution. Diablo fans had been waiting a long time for the announcement of a new game since the last one, 2012's Diablo 3, failed to live up to the hype of the franchise. Fans crowed into the amphitheatre all excited to get a glimpse of their next obsession when the reveal was made that this new game would be a mobile entry. (Cue the sad trombones) Things were not helped when that poor foolish developer, after reading the iciness of the room, joked "What do you guys not have phones or something?" (Hire that dude at EA, he's got the foot-in-mouth routine down pat!)

Diablo is a very storied franchise that birthed a whole genre around its gameplay style. (I'd even argue that it birthed the looter shooter genre, but I'll save it for another blog.) It is a game that built it's community among some of the first hardcore PC gamers and has always been sure to cater to their origins. Then Diablo Immortal was announced, with it's re skinned characters, outsourced workload and identical gameplay to the last, critically panned, release. It should come to no one's surprise, least of all Blizzards, that one fan approached the mike after the show to ask if this was all just some "Out of season April Fools prank." (That actually happened by the way.) Blizzard have since come out to defend the decision, claiming that it was done with the intention of 'expanding the franchise' or some such corporate rot, but it doesn't take a genius to see the truth: There's a lot of money-pie on mobile and Blizzard thought they were due a slice.

Recently we've had a few classic series go the way of mobile fodder. Bethesda, ever keen to assassinate their decades worth of consumer goodwill, took time out of their E3 conference to announce their mobile remake of Commander Keen (See what I did there?) Square Enix recently announced a follow-up to their archetypal-mobile money sink Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. And Nintendo recently broke their promise about staying away from microtransactions in their mobile outings with the pay-wall ridden, Dr. Mario World. Not all of these mobile outings sound the death knell for their respective franchises but they are an affirmation to fans that quality is no longer the primary area of concern for these specific brands. And that may just be even worse.

So perhaps you can now see why I find myself scared for the future of Splinter Cell now that Ubisoft have aimed it at the mobile market. Things are only worsened by the fact that this E3, Ubisoft announced: Tom Clancy's Elite Squad; a crossover mobile game between all the Tom Clancy brands that looks to be another archetypal-battle game. Just seeing their low-polygon rendition of Sam Fisher makes my heart sink to think about what dire straits the Splinter Cell franchise could, and likely will, end up in.

Recently there was a little bit of hope for Splinter Cell fans in the form of a surprise cameo from Sam Fisher in 'Ghost Recon: Wildlands'. (I may have even picked up the game solely because of this cameo.) He was even being voiced by Michael Ironside again, which had players bouncing off the walls with excitement. "Ironside it back! The next game's announcement is merely a formality at this point!" However, the next E3 went by and all we got was this foreboding snippet from Yves about what size coffin he wants to bury the series in- I mean, how "There will be new types of experiments, but on more different devices." And it got me thinking to that crossover itself.

There in one scene in which Sam is talking with the player's CIA handler, Karen Bowman, about how he is a relic of the past. Sam refutes that claim and mentions how there was another guy, "Army infiltration- he wore a bandana or something." to which Karen replies "I heard he finally retired." For those who don't know, this is subtle reference to Metal Gear and the fact that, after 'Survive', the series is now dead. These franchises have acknowledged each other now and then throughout the years, alongside Gabriel Logan from Siphon Filter, so it feels strange now to think that only Splinter Cell remains. Sam shares these sentiments when he remarks "Then it's only me..." with a pensive stare.  I bring this up because, in someways Splinter Cell is the last gaming link we have to the golden age of stealth games, those others might be gone but Sam is still around to hold the torch. But I fear that may be in peril once he is relegated to a low-effort currency farm mobile game and the franchise is hung out to dry. It may just be the end of an area, and I find nothing more sad than thinking of the once proud stealth genre going out with a whimper instead of a quiet chokeout like it deserves.