The Armchair Empire - Editorials: Summer Rambling

There aren't a lot of news announcements to post in the summer, so let's yammer on about other stuff!.

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Summer Rambling

The summer wind-down is within sight. Hanging out at the beach, doing some downhill biking, hitting the pool, summer camp – it all seems to be winding down. It’ll all return to normal with the last hurrah of Labour Day. The warm weather might last into October (and maybe Europe will have cooled off by then) but then we’ll all be back into the regular grind that stretches for a solid 9 months. From where I write this, sunny Vancouver, BC (Canada), home of the 2010 Winter Olympics, the time from September to May is prime gaming time. Although we’ve been fortunate the last couple of years, it’s the time of year that tends to get the most inclement weather. It’s way easier to game in the Fall and Winter when the weather isn’t so good and bikini’s are all in storage than it is when the sun’s baking down and exposed, tanned flesh is the order of the day. Maybe this is why publishers don’t exactly flood the market during the summer months. More likely is has to do with the game industry’s focus on the 4^th Quarter. (If you want a rant on the 4^th Quarter see the Related Links in the sidebar.)

During the summer, many of the top-selling games have some kind of movie tie-in or are expansion packs to already well-received and established titles. There seems to be a bit more strategy involved in releasing a game in the summer since there’s a real fight to keep the attention of gamers. But publishers put out some of the best quality titles in the summer for one reason: they can put out crap for the 4^th Quarter and still make money.

My logic goes like this. Less but sure-to-sell titles are released in summer because it’s too hard to compete with people getting out and doing things. Just take a look at GMR’s list of top-selling games for June 2003 (in GMR September 2003). The top six titles in the overall list – Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, Star Wars Galaxies, WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne, Enter the Matrix, The Hulk, and Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide – is a perfect example of what I’m writing about. Each title on the list either has a movie tie-in or is an expansion pack to a well-received title. These titles will sell regardless of the time of year. If they were released in the 4^th Quarter they wouldn’t sell as well for the single fact that the industry chooses that time to completely flood the market with titles – some good, some bad.

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The Summer titles could be considered sniper shots, Fall and Winter titles are shotgun blasts of rock salt.

I really don’t mind the targeted summer titles – it gives us more time to enjoy the outdoors – but a winter spent picking the salt out of your ass can be tiring. (Not to mention irritating.) The last few shots of Summer are being lined-up but you can almost hear the cartridges being loaded into the shotgun of Fall. How’s this for a solution: only make good games!

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I’ve strayed a bit from the original idea behind this editorial, which was going to be game cancellations but I’ve never been accused of being coherent so I figure I’m safe.

LucasArts recently kicked Full Throttle 2 to the curb with a short missive from Simon Jeffery, president of LucasArts stating, “We do not want to disappoint the many fans of Full Throttle and hope everyone can understand how committed we are to delivering the best quality gaming experience that we possibly can,” which tells us exactly nothing. If the game has been cancelled why not come clean with the full story? Is the dirt that bad? Something is bound to leak out through FatBabies but why not take a different tack? It would have been more refreshing to hear Jeffery say something like, “It just wasn’t coming together for reasons X, Y, Z.” The main reason behind this is that LucasArts is a private company – reporting to no shareholders – so they don’t have to answer to anyone. It’s cancelled, end of story. But gamers will continually ask the “What if…?” question. What if it was really good? Of course, if you managed to snag any Full Throttle 2 memorabilia (such as the LucasArts 2002 Christmas card), hang onto it – it might be worth something to a collector if a sequel never sees the light of day.

And while I’m not on the subject, why do most new Xbox games smell like fresh Play-Doh after you peel off the shrink-wrap covering? Is the case actually made from PlayDoh extract? The smell never lasts long and it doesn’t seem toxic but could it be harmful? Enquiring minds want to know if the cases are actually exposing gamers everywhere to cancer causing substances.

That brings me to the topic of Brute Force (XB). Can someone please tell me why the word most associated with this title is “Halo”? And why did everyone think it was going to be Halo? They don’t even share any letters in common!

Nintendo’s GameCube isn’t the walking dead console that many magazines and websites are indicating. Yes, Nintendo has stated that they’ll be halting production of the unit soon and sales, although still going, may not match sales by Playstation 2 or Xbox but it’s far from dead. I’ve railed about this before. Saying a console is “dead” is completely misleading. Not only that it puts the fanboy element into overdrive: Nintendo fanatics defend the console and Xbox and PS2 fanatics get the hammers out. Advice to gaming journalists everywhere: keep your yaps shut about GameCube being dead. For that matter, any console being dead. Or anything about the PC vs. console fiasco. Drop it, I’m sick of it.

Same goes for irate emails. I understand some things are simply irritating but why offload it into an email and send it to a stranger? If you have a suggestion or rational, thoughtful comment to make, jump right in. Complaining that Armchair Empire didn’t give your favorite game a perfect 10 is not a particularly constructive use of your time.

Anyway, my drink is getting warm so it’s time to add some ice. Tune in next month when I’ll get all warm and mushy with nostalgia about the first 3 years of Armchair Empire’s existence.

- Omni

(August 14, 2003)


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