
Donating my Xbox - ecaradec
https://plus.google.com/u/0/105363132599081141035/posts/W3ys5fKnz5t
======
realo
IMHO his article was a good read. I even fell for the Spry Fox thing and
actually visited his website.

Judging by the colorful first page of the site, his games seem cool and fun...
Want to see them... I click PLAY, with a Sunday morning expectation of
something interesting coming up.

BLAM!

A f __*ing Facebook login screen. I am not a Facebook user. Never will be. Too
bad. I look again at his web page with a sense of loss. _His_ loss of my
attention.

Back to my Sunday morning coffee, on to the next article in HN.

~~~
andrewcooke
I was similarly disappointed, but dug out an android device and installed
something town for free. it was quite interesting - based on the mechanic
where changing one square in a grid affects the state of neighbours.

~~~
potkor
Triple Town. It's great though it's freemium (150 turns/day limit).

------
jasonpbecker
I sympathize a lot with what was written. I grew up on the Nintendo consoles
(my father got an NES from my mom for their first anniversary, which was less
than a year before I was born). I really enjoyed playing games straight
through my N64 I had as a young teen. But games after that lost a lot of
appeal.

At the time I thought it was because I was growing up and just wasn't into it
any more. Sure, I used to think spending hours playing Super Mario RPG, Diddy
Kong Racing, Banjo Kazooie, or Megaman X was a fun afternoon. Maybe I just
grew up.

But there have been a few games that have come out since that I have really,
truly enjoyed. Games like Psychonauts, Portal, Pikmin, and maybe a few other
non-P games (e.g., Twilight Princess which is a half-P). Increasingly I have
begun to feel like I didn't stop loving games, the games I loved just didn't
exist anymore or were too hard to find.

I like using a controller. I like playing something I laugh at. I like playing
something that stitches together a few basic motions/controls in complex ways
to challenge me. I like playing games that are fun with friends or fun for
friends to watch you play.

So for now, I mostly try and keep an eye on indie games that are cheap on
Steam that work well with an Xbox 360 controller (which is really quite nice)
on my Mac Mini. Occasionally I come across something fun and well done. But
whereas I could rattle off 50 games I would love to play with my kids one day
that I consider "classic", almost none of them were created post-Xbox. That's
a shame.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
You migh enjoy Braid. It lets you walk, jump and rewind time. Very simple,
very very complex.

~~~
gknoy
Braid is amazing. You progress by finishing levels, and collecting puzzle
pieces of a picture for each "world" -- and all seem to be snapshots of a part
of a man's life and relationship with a woman. Curiosity drove me on, and at
the end I found out that it wasn't at all about what I thought it was about.
The game is beautiful, engaging, challenging.

------
kenjackson
This is an odd post in that almost nothing rings true to me. The PC much more
than the console was all about keyboard mashing.

And post Kinect launch MS seems even less about hardcore gaming.

 _We don't even need to spend billions to get people to play them._

What does that even mean considering I've never heard of them?

------
iMark
I'm not a games developer, but I can relate to what Daniel wrote about game
forms, after playing Bioshock Infinite.

I love the game, but I did so mostly for elements of the design and story,
rather than the game play. That it was an FPS connecting the story rather than
a puzzle game, for example, was almost incidental to my enjoyment of it, and
given the story, I think a series of Myst-style puzzles would have been a
better fit.

Wouldn't have sold nearly as well, of course, and there's the rub.

~~~
kenshi
The reason I am not going to buy Bioshock Infinite is precisely because it
seems like a pretty mediocre FPS, married to an interesting narrative and/or
exploration game.

Don't get me wrong, I love FPS shooters. So when I want to play one, I want it
to be good.

I also enjoy exploration games, and from what I have seen of Bioshock Infinite
(I watched the ending and playthroughs on Youtube), it seems like it would
have made for a great Myst style game. If anything the gameplay looks like the
weakest part of Bioshock Infinite.

I actually thing Irrational missed a big opportunity by making the game a FPS.
Wasn't Myst a big commercial success back in the day? Wouldn't they have been
able to appeal to a wider audience if they had tied the narrative to a
something other than a FPS?

~~~
msabalau
For what it's worth, I'm generally indifferent to the FPS genre, play them
very badly, and still managed to gulp down this game in four evenings (on the
least challenging setting). Approached this way, the gameplay simply becomes
part of the emotional texture of the narrative.

Of course, a FPS connoisseur might find that their more refined knowledge of
what makes a good game of that type breaks their immersion, in the way that
(some) lovers of classical music find that they can't enjoy (some) popular
music.

Bioshock Infinite does have exploration elements, you can hunt around for
recordings and other evidence that reveal more about the background of what's
going on. Oddly enough, for me, rushing in guns blazing seemed more in
character, as opposed to carefully checking behind a store counter, seeing if
there is something more I could learn.

------
aaronbrethorst
I hear what he's saying, but I find it ironic that his current gig is making
freemium games for mobile, which I believe is a far more damaging trend than
FPS games like Halo ever could be.

Knock Bioshock Infinite for delivering dollops of voice-acted plot progression
along with explosions, headshots, and the like, but at least it doesn't
require me to pay a buck-ninety-nine to buy the coins to buy the lockpick to
unlock a door. (or wait 12 hours for my city to produce enough coins to buy
the lockpick. Whatever.)

------
jaimebuelta
I totally understand him, as I am also "that kind of gamer". I don't have a
taste for FPS and I've never owned a console. I play mostly on iOS devices,
and before that, Flash games on the PC.

But let's not forget that those games are HIGHLY successful, and it clearly
seems that there is a huge market for those. I am not surprised that some game
companies (MS among them) treat those games like "the only true way".
Fortunately, it looks like the gaming industry is expanding and other
alternative games are also being created and are easily accessible... Probably
the game industry will be more diverse and fragmented as a result, which is
great for gamers with not a taste for blockbusters... But while enough people
like to play violent FPS, the games are going to stay...

------
unalone
When I was a kid I hated the Xbox, hated Halo, and hated how it seemed to
create a new model for playing games. It was released when I was in middle
school, and I remember there being a sudden and abrupt shift in what kind of
gaming mentality there was.

Prior to the Xbox, console games were largely focused on lush, whimsical
landscapes with mechanics that required some puzzling to figure out. At least,
the games that kids played, anyway; I know Unreal Tournament and Doom and
Quake were big, but looking back I think those games all had a whimsy to them
as well. The arsenal in Unreal is way sillier than anything Halo's ever had to
offer (even Halo's energy sword seems kind of rote). And the major titles on
the N64 and Playstation and Dreamcast were titles like Mario and Sonic and
Crash Bandicoot – colorful worlds, puzzles often based on platforming.
Developers like Nintendo and Rare had a knack for creating controls and
visuals that seem to reward you for getting into them, so that even Rare's
Goldeneye 007 felt like an utterly silly game. (Proximity mine in the toilet!)

When Halo came out, it was immediately apparent that this was Microsoft's
grand new vision of gaming – "realistic" graphics, self-seriousness,
achievements, and an ugly competitive edge. My memories of Halo are almost all
multiplayer, obviously: generally, six kids sitting by a machine, two of them
unhappy because they sucked and consequently were cycled out every other game,
meaning they didn't get practice time either. The local teen center turned
into a place where a bunch of bro-types would hook up their Xboxes and play
each other all night, screaming at one another between rooms. The TV that was
used for movies got co-opted into another Xbox resource, so eventually the
whole place became a Halo pit. And online Halo (which started with 2, if I
recall correctly) changed the dynamic yet again, in a way that's familiar to
all of us: kids cussing at one another, players generally acting like little
shits.

Some of that all would have happened without Microsoft's "Xbox is a manly
console for men" marketing push. But you can absolutely look back and say that
Microsoft influenced developers in a bad way. Sony made a push to "cut
Microsoft off" with titles like God of War, which are similarly quote-unquote
epic. Halo opened the door for Tom Clancy games, Call of Duty, Assassin's
Creed, on and on. A number of older game developers decided, when they made
the change from 2D to 3D, to pursue a similarly "gritty" realism. Now there's
a gaming culture wherein genres are solidly defined and there's excruciatingly
little variation between game mechanics, visual style, or design mentality, at
least in the AAAs. And it's because of how relentlessly Microsoft pushed to
divide the market.

The old designers either shifted their styles along with this, or they ran out
of steam. Sega hasn't made a good game in over a decade – I won't even blame
that on their pursuing a "mature and edgy" vibe with the Sonic franchise,
though they seem to think that's what gamers want. They just ran out of ideas
for where to take Sonic. Rare had a couple of late-era successes, mostly Viva
Pińata, but the only thing they've done in five years is Kinect Sports games.
And Nintendo? They still stick to their old style, but this many years on
Nintendo's flaws as a game developer are showing. Aspects of their games which
were totally forgivable when they were building for N64 or even Gamecube are
starting to feel like irritatingly deliberate decisions on their part now. And
you know what? That would be okay if Nintendo didn't sometimes feel like the
_only_ company still pushing that particular aesthetic. If they were one
company among many, it wouldn't matter so much, but they're singlehandedly
trying to push against the currents of every other game developer on the
planet, and it's increasingly becoming clear that they're just not good enough
to carry that all by themselves.

Obviously, this is a view of just a limited slice of gamer culture. Indie
games absolutely borrow from the old-school design mentality more than they do
from the Halo mindset; I've seen more whimsy and fun in a single Humble Indie
Bundle than I've seen appear on the Xbox 360 since its release. Even there,
though, you can feel the influence somewhat, and it's spoiled some games that
I really wish I could have enjoyed (namely Bastion). And you do have both
occasional lighthearted breakouts (Katamari Damacy) and games that use the
self-serious mentality to incredible effect (Demon's Souls). This is a fad
which will pass with time, though I'm not so pleased at the thought that our
next big wave of developers are the ones developing for mobile and Facebook.
Angry Birds and Farmville are not a fun influence. But that's just the way it
goes. There'll always be good stuff if you know how to hunt for it. I just
miss the fact that for a decade or so, the best games were at the top of the
heap or close to it. I don't know if I realized how lucky I was as a kid until
that ended. The 90s were a great time to grow up a young gamer.

~~~
thomholwerda
"When Halo came out"? As opposed to the endless steam of first person shooters
that came before it that were even more straightforward, simplistic, and
violence-driven?

Blaming Microsoft for this is insane. There is virtually no difference between
Wolfenstein and Doom on the one hand, and Halo and Gears of War on the other -
except for better graphics. If you think this is a trend of the past decade,
then you either weren't a gamer in the '90s, or you are letting nostalgia
colour your perceptions.

~~~
unalone
Wolfenstein and Doom were simple, playful, colorful. Even as game devices
became more powerful, there was a playfulness to FPSes that you can see in
titles like Perfect Dark and the Unreal series.

One of Halo's major innovations was that it removed the health bar. In a
shooter like Doom or Goldeneye, you have let's say 100 HP, and different
weapons deal a different amount of damage. It's just like any fighting game
with a health bar. Halo replaced that with a shield system, wherein being shot
repeatedly wasn't a game-ender if you could get away long enough for shields
to recharge. It changes the pacing of the game substantially, especially in
multiplayer. The jittery feeling of older games, where every shot counts and
you always have to be on the lookout for your opponent, was made both slower
(because other players weren't constantly trying to get a shot on you and wear
you down) and a bit more mindless (because once you got into a firefight, your
only choice was to shoot the other person repeatedly or else there'd be no
damage left whatsoever).

This complements the self-seriousness of the Halo games, which absolutely
inspired the direction of the next-gen titles. Halo was "grittier" and less
silly than previous shooters had been. In Wolfenstein, you were fighting
enemies like robo-Hitler. In Doom, the enemies you were up against were
inventive, silly, and fun. And the push towards realism was by no means
inevitable. Look at Unreal Tournament 2004, which was a touted push towards
enhanced graphics and gameplay that took advantage of modern systems, but
which remains an utterly comical game. The violence is whimsical and comic;
the levels are far more ridiculous than Halo's or Halo 2's. It's a pretty
game, as far as that goes, but the prettiness is used for exaggeration rather
than for "grit". So obviously that path was not only possible for games, but
it led to quite a few very good games over the last decade.

~~~
benihana
> _Wolfenstein and Doom were simple, playful, colorful._

You were in middle school when Halo came out, so I can be fairly certain you
were too young to remember Wolfenstein and Doom being released. And you're
completely wrong. Those games were not simple and playful and colorful. They
were gory, and violent, and brutal and complex. I had to play them when my
parents weren't paying attention because of the excessive gore and satanic
overtones. Doom was not some simple little game, it introduced the concept of
circle strafing and multi-level enemies in FPS.

> _The jittery feeling of older games, where every shot counts and you always
> have to be on the lookout for your opponent_

Ha, really? Quake introduced the term run-and-gun. You didn't make every shot
count, you just fired a barrage of rockets and bullets all towards your
enemies.

> _Halo was "grittier" and less silly than previous shooters had been_

Yeah, demons from hell with miniguns for arms and blood dripping off their
fangs are super silly. And the those Covenant grunts run around comically when
you throw a sticky grenade to them... so gritty.

~~~
zalzane
I may be wrong, but I think the parent's point is that nitty gritty
realism/brutal/gory/violent games were niche before the advent of halo/xbox.

What would really be helpful is a sales chart for FPS games between 1990 and
present, but I'm not sure where we could go to obtain such information. I
suspect that there would be a burst in the popularity in FPS games from niche
to mainstream status around the release of either halo, counterstrike, call of
duty 4, or one of the quakes, but I'm not sure which one.

~~~
chrisrogers
Halo (and really, Rare's FPS platform) brought the FPS niche from
PC+keyboard+mouse to console and controller. This introduced casual gamers to
the world of the hardcore competitive nature of Doom/Quake/Unreal Tournament,
a multiplayer environment where winning meant shooting your friend in the
face.

You didn't have to maintain a massive gaming rig or be committed to computing
in order to get into FPS now. All you needed was an xbox.

That signals the divide. What PC games were cute in the 90s? If one removes
the 'educational' ones like treasure <x>, it's always been one of grittiness
and machismo. Halo bridged the gap and let that scheme flow into consoles. And
its clear that it is more successful with the consumer.

~~~
laumars
_> Halo (and really, Rare's FPS platform) brought the FPS niche from
PC+keyboard+mouse to console and controller. This introduced casual gamers to
the world of the hardcore competitive nature of Doom/Quake/Unreal Tournament,
a multiplayer environment where winning meant shooting your friend in the
face. You didn't have to maintain a massive gaming rig or be committed to
computing in order to get into FPS now. All you needed was an xbox._

Quake III was released on the Dreamcast. Duke Nukem 3D was released on the
Saturn and Playstation. Doom was released on the Megadrive/Genesis. Halo
wasn't the first FPS to be released on the console. Not by a long shot.

~~~
chrisrogers
I certainly agree that those games appeared earlier on the timeline. But
Halo/Rare FPSs were the first to be outstandingly successful in their control
and playability scheme. The console versions of those games you list were
hampered by their platforms and would all likely be considered less playable
than their PC counterparts. Thus the genre could not break in as it could with
Goldeneye or Halo.

------
hollerith
We do not like to discuss it, but a lot of people get a kick out of inflicting
harm -- "fucking shit up" in other words -- and some game developers pander to
that.

I remember a blog post from the late 90s or early 00s that pointed out that
the marketing material (trailer or ad copy) for one FPS bragged about the
realism of the gore, e.g., of the blood that spurted from the wound when you
shot someone.

------
maked00
True, true. This also applies to most game publishing houses, not just the
mothership.

There is a group-think mob mentality that ravenously follows the whims of top
management as 'hip' and mere players are referred to as scrubs and considered
not worthy to make suggestions or criticize.

Go to any popular MMO forum and criticize any portion of the games supposed
backstory, and prepare for the waterfall of developer lead fanboy rage in
response.

There are various tropes baked into this culture. All the 'bros' know that
universally pet classes must always be second class citizens. Don't overlook
how pay to win, and lottery style 'mystery boxes' that asian cultures are so
fond of, almost overnight became fixtures in almost every online game now.

------
bmalicoat
The author is making some pretty big generalizations IMO. While I agree there
is a culture of gratuitously violent games -- which the market responds
positively to -- there are also many incredible games that feature no
realistic violence. Fez, Minecraft, LIMBO, and Braid come to mind. I work on
the Xbox Platform Team and I feel like we have an accurate representation of
the interests of the gaming world (and in fact the non-gaming world -- many
people simply don't play games). Maybe things were/are different on the teams
actually making games, but my team is very well-rounded. We play FIFA,
Spelunky, and Trials Evolution in our down time...obviously the bro-est of
games.

------
LordIllidan
I don't think it's just bro types working on Halo, Gears and other FPSes.
There was an article (also posted here, I believe) about a woman developer's
origin story. [http://caitiem.com/2013/03/30/origin-story-becoming-a-
game-d...](http://caitiem.com/2013/03/30/origin-story-becoming-a-game-
developer/) \- She worked on Gears and Halo 4.

There's a time and a place for all games - the mindless shoot em ups, or the
whimsical indie types. Or the serious Dark Souls types. Or even the cinematic
types with a ridiculously large cinematic to gameplay ratio.

------
ChuckMcM
I wonder about people exposed to this sort of action from middle school on:

 _"Filling out the gaps in the 7-12 hours ride are moments of rote game play
with all possible feedback knobs tuned to 11. Blood, brains, impact.
Innovation is located at 11.2. This makes you feel something visceral."_

Having cognitive issues similar to being exposed to porn from this age on. We
are starting to read about people who've come forward and said they are
unhappy with their sex life and have tied it back to their early porn
exposure. I wonder if there isn't a similar effect in recreational activity.

In high school one of my friends was an adrenaline junkie, they were crazy for
that feeling of being right on the edge. They satisfied that edge by doing
crazy things which could have killed them (sadly eventually it did). But most
of my friends weren't affected and while a roller coaster ride was exciting,
the lack of adrenaline when hiking didn't ruin hiking for us, or sailing.

So do we have people who can't spend their spare time doing something like
reading or walking because it doesn't give them a jolt of adrenaline, like
we've had folks say they had troubled being satisfied with "normal" sexual
relations ? Any thoughts on how we could test that?

~~~
jaetldev
Excessive risk taking could have structural/physiological root causes.
[http://www.mendeley.com/catalog/impulsivity-risk-taking-
beha...](http://www.mendeley.com/catalog/impulsivity-risk-taking-behavior-
focal-frontal-lobe-lesions/)

The authors experiences about gaming seem to be dramatizations of fairly
common first world teenage problems - which are exaggerated here for
advertising.

------
outside1234
I'm going to refute this whole post with one word: Kinect

------
verygoodyear
It's funny that in some ways iOS and Android, arguably the most widely used
gaming systems atm, actually foster the kind of games he's talking about
wanting to make.

There's still the mainstream bro games, but it does seem developers have more
of a chance to make a living off their ideas.

------
baby
> Strategy over button mashing!

That made me think of QTE. We never needed those things, but still they gave
it to us. And keeps giving it to us. It's lazy gameplay, it's a "I'm a
developer, I have a cutscene and I'm too bored to integrate real gameplay into
it".

~~~
lloeki
As always there's balance to be had: done right it gives a sense of urgency
and involvement in what would otherwise be another "lean back and watch things
happen" cutscene, whereas done wrong it annoyingly interrupts the flow at
best. Personal experience: God of War QTEs feel entirely disconnected and over
the top, whereas (Square's) Tomb Raider QTEs help in breaking the fourth wall
and draws me into the scene.

~~~
joosters
Zero Punctuation's Tomb Raider review would disagree; not just the QTEs but
the increasingly common scenes where 'you have control' but if you don't
immediately head in the right direction you'll die. It's not just Tomb Raider,
Uncharted is also repeatedly guilty of this.

[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-
punctuation...](http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-
punctuation/7025-Tomb-Raider)

------
taude
I enjoy playing indie games as well as the corporate blockbusters. I'm glad
there's a market for both. However, Is it just me, or can anyone else not wait
for Battlefield 4!

------
iam
Has it ever occurred to the OP that maybe the Xbox 360 was such a huge success
precisely because of the culture of the employees there?

~~~
johncarpinelli
Was the Xbox 360 really a huge success? It came second or third in sales for
its generation of consoles. 75 million units in seven years is a small number
compared to mobile devices. Android sold 144 million devices in Q4 2012 alone.

I think the next generation of consoles are going to struggle against cheaper
systems like OUYA and tablets.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Console_wars#Worldwide_sales_fi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Console_wars#Worldwide_sales_figures_6)

Wii – 99.38 million as of 31 December 2012

Playstation 3 – (IDC January 2013 estimate: "about 77 million")

Xbox 360 – 75.9 million as of 31 December 2012

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone#Historical_sales_fig...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone#Historical_sales_figures)

~~~
minitrollster
> Was the Xbox 360 really a huge success? It came second or third in sales for
> its generation of consoles. 75 million units in seven years is a small
> number compared to mobile devices. Android sold 144 million devices in Q4
> 2012 alone.

Yes it was a huge success. Even though it didn't sell as many consoles as
others, its tie ratio flat-out beats[1] both the Wii and the PS3, and that's
quite an important metric that's almost never taken into account, but that
contributes a great deal to the success of a platform.

[1]. [http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Tie-
Ratio/G...](http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Tie-
Ratio/Global/)

~~~
marshray
So 'tie ratio' is basically number of games sold per hardware unit?
Interesting. For example, North America seems to buy about 50% more games per
unit than Japan, with the exception of the PS1 and (S)NES.

I wonder if/how this affects the projects of different studios? E.g., should
we expect games from Japan to tend to have broader appeal?

------
muyuu
This is so glorious I almost want to undelete my Google profile to give my
first +1 that never happened.

Almost.

Still, great post with which I sympathise greatly.

------
chaostheory
I'm happy he went indy. His company seems to be doing well.
<http://spryfox.com/>

I've seen both Triple Town and Steam Birds featured on the App Store. I think
both were in the top 10 at one point or another.

------
jccalhoun
so he was working for the company that made the hardware and was shocked to
find out that the company was very invested in maximizing the market for their
hardware?

------
emiliobumachar
Rule #1 of blogging: if you mention your company or service, it should be a
link. I don't have hard data, but I think the need for googling "spry fox" (or
guessing the url, spryfox.com) lowers the number of people who go on to the
OP's site by a full order of magnitude.

Good post otherwise.

~~~
QuixoticChris
It adds credibility and class to the post though. It keeps the attention on
the post's content, and feels less like a random plug.

~~~
visakanv
Eventually, people will develop strong immunities to random plugs, and all
marketing will have to be this way- subtle, genuine, real. Can't wait.

~~~
unalone
This is assuming that this post is primarily marketing rather than a guy who
is emotionally invested in both game design and his past getting something off
of his chest.

Sure, it acts as self-promotion, but it's cynical to assume that _everything_
that promotes anything was created first and foremost to sell stuff.

------
mrjava
Great post and good luck with the new games!

------
OGinparadise
_I'm driven by ideals that fit poorly with an industrialized console
monoculture: What if games can connect people? What if they can improve the
world? What if they bring happiness and joy to our lives?_

His company as founded a few minutes ago, 2010 in real years
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spry_Fox> . Give it a few more years before the
holier than though attitude, who knows what you'll do during the next
downturn. See Zynga

------
lolwutreddit
tl;dr

~~~
mbel
It is quite well written and takes 2-3 minutes to read, if you find this piece
too long, why are you browsing hacker news in the first place?

Seriously, I'm not sarcastic, I'm curious. Most of articles linked here seem
to be longer.

------
BlokkiesJoubert
As usual, it is per definition very bad for men (white men) to have something
- a club, a community - of their own.

~~~
Karunamon
If that's what you're getting from this article, you either have very strange
ways of reading the same text I did, or you are a fool.

The entire point of this rant was that the author did not feel welcome in this
"club, community" and didn't like what it entails. I can sympathize with that
somewhat, and I bet you can too.

~~~
walshemj
well the op seems to like the Kawaii elements but some of the more intense
Kawaii stuff can verge on creepy.

