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Game Developers Choice Awards 2019: Nominees/Predictions

January 11, 2019 Scott Thurlow Dialogue Tree

Time marches on, the new year has arrived, and thus the GDC has announced their nominees for the upcoming awards in March. And as I’m no exception to being a slave to time, I also once again will go over certain categories, (i.e. the ones I’m personally most interested in) giving my thoughts and predictions on them. Before I dive in though, just a quick reminder that these are distinct from The Game Awards previously covered (and in general thought to be more “credible” since the GDC is a peer-driven developer organization/event.) There is considerable overlap here, and I’m going to be sticking closely to my picks made for TGA, lest my own credibility wanes. However I am also nothing if not cynical, and so throughout I’ll be laying out both what I think will win vs. what I think should.

Let us start then as I have before (since time is also a flat circle) with the nominees for Best Audio. I chose Red Dead Redemption 2 and I definitely stand by that here. It is simply the most fitting soundscape to accompany the epic journey within the setting. Some standout tracks match perfectly to both big setpiece scenes as well as outside missions for whatever outlaw hijinks one gets up to during the course of exploring the Old West. I’m fairly certain the GDC will agree, but if not, I would point to God of War getting the win for the sweeping Norse score that compliments the story and action quite well.  

For Best Debut, I’ll reiterate that I’m less familiar with this year’s titles, as my gaming was mostly dominated by huge open world AAA titles in 2018. Nevertheless, I’ve heard some solid buzz around both Florence and The Messenger, and checked out some gameplay footage of each. Moss, being a VR title, might have an edge (though there is a separate category reserved for solely VR games) and does look quite impressive. My assessment is that Florence probably has the overall advantage, but again given my surface-level knowledge here, I can’t say with as much confidence, and could see myself being way off on this one.

That will bring up Best Design which is always one of the tougher ones to call. At the outset, I would say it’s a fairly even three-way standoff between the “big ones”– God of War vs. Spider-Man vs. RDR2, (which actually would be fucking cool to see as a fight in a game unto itself) any of which stands a decent chance and I’d be ok with. But in somewhat of a dark horse/sleeper pick, I could definitely see Into the Breach nabbing this one, since it was able to inject some unique slants and mechanics into the standard tactical/strategy isometric genre, making it feel fresh in what is often a crowded market.

Next onto the Innovation Award, and off the bat I disagree with even including RDR2 here. For all its strengths, it remains a ‘Rockstar game’ at its core. And while that does mean fantastic production value and quality storytelling, it isn’t particularly innovating so much as perfecting its long-established formula at large. Thus I’m completely discounting it from this category. What I would choose (in a bout of déjà vu) is Return of the Obra Dinn for its spin on the puzzle/detective-em-up as well as its stripped down, stark and striking visual style to go along with the mystery. Tetris Effect has significant goodwill swirling around it too, and would be a good second choice.

Best Narrative has become more and more my main category to keep an eye on since it’s one of the biggest aspects of interest to me in videogames. Again, sticking to my earlier stance, I’ll take Spider-Man because of how well it balanced the line between established lore and setting up its own high-caliber story within that framework. This though is where the RDR2 juggernaut may rear its head and the GDC will comply by feeding it the award. God of War can also earn this one easily, which would be more than acceptable as it still remains my pick for…

…Game of the Year. As I said, God of War in my estimation was the most complete and impressive experience as a whole. While the other titles here are not miles behind it by any means, GoW delivers the most on almost all spectrums of a game overall, and stands out as to how the medium can mature and change. It manages the feat of keeping the core elements of a widely respected and popular franchise/character intact, while expanding and growing the property in a positive direction, all without sacrificing integrity or cowing to short-sighted industry trends. Still, I can see it coming down to one last knock-down drag-out bout between it and RDR2, which for one last time I am not against winning here, I merely purport that GoW is superior in execution, if only by a narrower margin than it might seem.

Combing quickly through the list of honorable mentions, less stand out this time around, but even so I’d give credit to: Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, Far Cry 5, Detroit: Become Human and Where the Water Tastes Like Wine (and please let’s get a port of that for consoles!)

That’s all for the 2019 GDC predictions. Check back in March (and of course when our own Games & Gaming Culture top games episode releases) when the winners are finalized and I tally my score. Until then, cheers,

-Scott Thurlow

The Game Awards 2018

December 10, 2018 Scott Thurlow Dialogue Tree

This year’s Game Awards have just come and gone, and so it is time of course to insert my thoughts about the nominees and winners, in some of the categories of main interest to me at least. As usual, my standard disclaimer of I played what I was able to play stands, but will of course comment on other titles I’m at least familiar with, even if I wasn’t able to get hands-on time checking out. The full list of nominees and winners for all categories is available here over at the official site.

So let’s start as normal with game of the year and work down. The picks in this category were much stronger I thought than some previous years’. There was some very tight competition among the titles and I happened to play 4 out of the 6 total (For full disclosure these were: God of War, Spider-Man, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, and Red Dead Redemption 2.) I might as well mention here too that a good chunk of these titles shared nominations across a number of the other categories, making it a bit tough in general to decide which ones deserved the win within each specific category and/or how far the mileage goes to saying the same ones deserved multiple spots. All that said, let’s dive in:

Game of the Year
My Pick: God of War
Winner: God of War

As I said, a tight race, many of my close associates thought I would put Red Dead Redemption 2 sight unseen here, but (in what may be its own article later) I had my issues with it, specifically regarding a number of its mechanics. Spider-Man was a very strong contender, but in the end God of War edges them both out, as it was the most complete package overall, merging story and gameplay masterfully, and here is rightly recognized by the Awards for its achievement in that.

Best Game Direction
My Pick: Red Dead Redemption 2
Winner: God of War

The caveat that game of year and this category are essentially one and the same largely remains, as evidenced by God of War taking both. But in this case I would’ve actually given it to RDR2. Rockstar has always had stellar production value and the argument that their games, or at least many of the scenes, are directed on the caliber of Hollywood movies absolutely holds true in this instance. Without going into spoilers, that also bleeds over into plot, which as mentioned in the introduction, then itself bleeds over into narrative! But in any case, it would be my personal pick here, while Spider-Man and God of War would be the close runners-up.

Best Narrative
My Pick: Spider-Man
Winner: Red Dead Redemption 2

Another struggle to pick a clear winner, as there are certainly cases to be made for all. Detroit: Become Human was a noble effort, but I felt fell a little flat in its presentation and wasn’t as nuanced as it could’ve been in spots, particularly regarding its lofty attempts at analogous contemporary themes, and thus loses some of its impact story-wise. My instinctual reaction was, and still is, to hand this one to Spider-Man since it unfolded as a great original story; remaining true to all the characters and circumstances that are familiar to fans, while also being quite accessible to those who aren’t as versed in the lore. It was as good (or better) as some of the best Spider-Man tales, comic or otherwise, and that I think is the main reason it should get this spot. This time, RDR2 and God of War battle it out for a photo-finish second place, and thus I have no complaint with RDR2 winning here.

Best Art Direction
My Pick: Return of the Obra Dinn
Winner: Return of the Obra Dinn

Bit of an odd duck category, as the question probably is: what’s the difference between this and direction as a whole? My answer usually points to the aesthetics if not graphical quality of a game, versus its overall design. Given that, I’m initially tempted to give it to AC Odyssey, as while the world of ancient Greece was gorgeously realized, (not to say the worlds in the others weren’t quite beautiful, or at least fitting as well) I think the uniqueness of Return of the Obra Dinn shouldn’t be overlooked, and do check it out if you can, as it’s one of the most intriguing styles I’ve seen recently; and it seems The Game Awards (obviously correctly) agrees.

Best Soundtrack/Score
My Pick: Red Dead Redemption 2 (Woody Jackson and Daniel Lanois)
Winner: Red Dead Redemption 2 (Woody Jackson and Daniel Lanois)

Apologies to keep repeating this, but it’s an inescapable fact that any one of the titles could have taken home a win here. Bear McCreary’s work is well-known in this and other media, and the epic Nordic inspired score for God of War was fantastic. Similarly, the version of adrenaline pumping orchestral sweepings in Spider-Man by John Paesano added a lot to the feeling of inhabiting the world and being the character. Yet I think it’s the alternating badass and mournful Western/country tunes from Woody Jackson and Daniel Lanois in RDR2 that truly match the nature of the setting, seamlessly conveying the outlaws vs. lawmen mood, along with the highs and lows of the story throughout its entirety. I’ll mark this a double-kill, as the outlet and I agree here too.

Best Performance
My Pick: Melissanthi Mahut– Kassandra in AC: Odyssey
Winner: Roger Clark– Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2

Again, I wish all of these voice actors were officially recognized because every one of them turned in an amazing performance. Yuri Lowenthal as Peter Parker was natural and convincing as hell, while Christopher Judge’s older and (somewhat) more reserved Kratos displayed both the authority central to the character and a vulnerability not previously present in his personality. Forced to pick though, I would have to hand it to Melissanthi Mahut as Kassandra in AC: Odyssey for the range and charm she brought, whether in serious moments of the plot or in more light-hearted/romantic portions, as it really went a long way to making her one of the best protagonists in the series to date. Roger Clark’s Arthur Morgan as the actual winner is perfectly fine, as his role as the character is multi-faceted and praiseworthy indeed.

Best Indie Game
My Pick: Return of the Obra Dinn
Winner: Celeste

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to play many of these this year, as the major AAA titles took up the lion’s share of my gaming time. But from what I’ve gathered of each, it seems Dead Cells was highly regarded as new entry in the Metroidvania genre, while Into the Breach was touted as an equally well-done tactical turn-based strategy title. So admittedly by default, my limited pick is Obra Dinn, which combined its aforementioned striking art style with a murder mystery/detective puzzler. Kudos to Lucas Pope (whose prior title was Papers, Please in case anyone forgot) for delivering another quirky but quality indie game. Since I’m not very familiar with the real winner, Celeste, I’ll simply congratulate it and move on.

Best Action
My Pick: Far Cry 5
Winner: Dead Cells

No interest in Destiny or CoD (who were among the nominees) for years, but I do still enjoy the Far Cry franchise, and quite liked 5 (despite some story shortcomings as I laid out in an earlier post.) Dead Cells being the actual winner leaves me sort of neutral; it’s fine I suppose, congrats to it as well and maybe when/if I get some more free time I’ll give it a go.

Best Action/Adventure
My Pick: God of War
Winner: God of War

I will keep saying this until The Game Awards and perhaps pundits besides myself in general do something about it: I think having separate categories for “Action” and “Action/Adventure” is a completely absurd, if not meaningless distinction. However, as they insist upon the separation, it was between AC: Odyssey and God of War, and to maintain some shred of integrity, I’ll go with God of War, since I already claimed it as game of year. So chalk up another alignment between myself and the Awards, which I’m satisfied with.

Best RPG
My Pick: Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire
Winner: Monster Hunter: World

Woefully, I was unable to get to any of the major RPGs this year (debuff on me, I know I know.) Monster Hunter: World was hugely popular, critically and commercially, although a title I personally wasn’t interested in, but it looks like everyone else loved it enough to hand it the spot here. So to cop out, and because of familiarity with the developer and cast involved, I will lame-duck hand it to Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire; a title which I very much wish to play, and will hopefully carve out some time in the next year to do so.

So there we are, another year, another award showcase complete. Overall I’m mainly content with how it went down, some very deserving titles earned their wins, and for one final time I’ll reiterate that many could’ve easily swapped spots and still would’ve been fine. The GDC awards should be coming up next, so keep an eye out for that and my obligatory armchair analysis. Until then my friends,

-Scott Thurlow

Play to Pay: The Machinations of Microtransactions & the Lure of Loot Boxes

November 14, 2018 Scott Thurlow Dialogue Tree

Below is the transcript of my talk given at the 2018 Mid-Atlantic Pop & American Culture Association.

Check out the full episode here at the Games & Gaming Culture section of the site.

 

Play to Pay: The Machinations of Microtransactions & the Lure of Loot Boxes

Welcome everyone. Today I’ll be speaking about microtransactions/loot boxes in games; covering a brief history of their origins, some of the tumultuous developments over the past year or so, and finally an accounting of where they roughly stand now, with a dose of my own opinions thrown in.

First, a broad trajectory of the current situation can be traced back to the rise of free-to-play mobile games. Traditionally, these games offer an initially complimentary but limited pool of resources, usually enough for a tutorial on their use. Once these are spent, they proceed to encourage and/or outright entice players to buy more of the premium currency du jour in order to either: progress faster, skip an arbitrarily imposed time-limit that otherwise prevents the accumulation of further resources, or some combination thereof. This model was sustainable due to the fact these games are, as a tautology, free at the outset and the MTX are by and large optional, ancillary to playing and enjoying a given game, albeit at a slower pace.

There’s a sort of scale or hierarchy attached to MTX. Games like: Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, Fortnite, Warframe, Paladins (and many others) offer a multitude of items and cosmetic options via various packages and tiers, but at the end of the day, are restrained to supplementary aesthetic elements, with no direct impact on gameplay.

Moving into the sphere of AAA releases with MTX, what’s usually pointed out as the obvious contentious aspect are that these are full-priced games containing baked in additional purchases, some of which contribute to heavily unbalancing the core experience, both in terms of single player and multiplayer. The most prominent example being Star Wars: Battlefront 2. And the reason for which brings me to what is often the most maligned mutation of MTX: Loot boxes. Arguably the most insidious form, as they’ve been compared to (and in fact declared by some regulatory bodies to be synonymous with) gambling.

Loot boxes employ the tactic of preying upon the psychological predilections most akin to addiction. Their construct is that instead of paying what may or may not be deemed a reasonable price for a known quantity or item, the player purchases an essentially random generator. Rather than outright buying something specific, you buy the possibility of getting it, or conversely getting something that is entirely undesired/worthless, again depending on the given game and the utility or rarity of items in the possible pool.

A recent Australian study conducted showed a link between that portion of the population with addictive tendencies to, predictably, being more susceptible to loot boxes, providing some hard evidence that these companies are knowingly exploiting a certain portion of the audience in the name of the almighty dollar.

There are certainly other avenues to consider on top of the above. For example horror stories have circulated of children running up credit bills on in-game/in-app purchases, which I’ll just mention one notable instance of: In the spring of this year, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery, a by all accounts cheap cash grab mobile game; the nature of which was highlighted in a widely shared section wherein the player’s character model was shown being graphically strangled by a vine, which could be countered by buying more ‘energy’ to escape. Perhaps more egregious since a majority of the audience were largely tweens and younger. The end result was these kids asking their parents for real money to prevent their digital avatar from being horribly digitally murdered. Now that’s admittedly on the extreme end of the scale, but I think it goes to show just how far some companies will go to squeeze more cash from their user-base with dubious and tasteless tactics.

Returning to BF though, as it became the galvanizing factor for the backlash after the beta released last October, when a large portion of players voiced their concern, verging on outrage, precisely because it was based on paid loot boxes and thus randomization of upgrades, unlocks and progression; making them doubly a gamble, and creating the possibility of wildly unbalanced matches, depending on how much players were willing to spend on pulling the slot lever of the system, which by design the game enticed them to do constantly. Understandably due to this, many expressed extreme displeasure with these circumstances.

In response, publisher Electronic Arts held an AMA reddit session. Shortly after providing the community with…unsatisfactory answers, the thread infamously became the most downvoted response in the platform’s history and remains so to date. Since, as it turns out, pissing off both Star Wars fans and videogamers, which have significant crossover on the Venn diagram, at the same time is a bad idea. Indeed EA was known for similar behavior prior, but this was the watershed moment that catapulted the controversy and rippled across the industry and beyond.

In the fallout of that debacle, EA was forced to walk back their original “vision” and completely remove loot boxes for the release version. But the damage had been done, and the stain spread to other high visibility titles attached to well-known IP which followed suit. For example, Middle Earth: Shadow of War removed loot boxes well after (6 months) the initial sales window, and eventually the entire marketplace option. The ESRB [Electronic Software Ratings Board] in Feb. 2018 added a label on games that contained MTX, and that was pretty much the extent of their contribution and stance. Sort of like nutritional information: may contain gluten or high fructose corn syrup or what have you, without actually weighing in or taking a side, and basically washed their hands of any other responsibility.

As the issue continued to persist and reverberate both within the industry and the public awareness, that was the point when government entities began to step in and directly attempt to mandate, classify and curtail these practices. Just some of the highlights include: Hawaii House of Representatives member Chris Lee stating in a press conference regarding BF: “This game is a Star Wars-themed online casino designed to lure kids into spending money…it’s a trap!” Elsewhere, in June, Valve was forced to disable item trading in two of their games: CS: GO and DOTA2 due to the Dutch gaming commission labeling loot boxes and the ability for players to trade items from them as gambling.

In August, Activision-Blizzard was forced to remove them from Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm in the Belgian region due to their classification as gambling under local law there. Publisher 2K ran a “petition” asking customers in the region to lobby the government on their behalf in response to having to remove loot boxes from NBA ’19.

Belgium/The Netherlands seemed to emerge as one of the main battlegrounds between regulatory commissions and publishers, as in September EA outright refused to comply with an edict to remove loox boxes from the latest FIFA, putting themselves in direct violation of the established ruling, and currently in the process of being taken to court over it– proceedings are still ongoing. EA was also forced to disclose odds on FIFA premium lootboxes, revealing some of the most desirable top-tier rewards have a less than 1% chance of appearing, which seemed to only confirm suspicions about their validity and nature. Also in Sept, Finland joined in with scrutinizing loot box practices regarding CS:GO in relation regional lottery laws. Shortly after that, 15 other European gambling committees, along with the state of Washington, began investigating loot boxes and possible injunctions against them. The issue has been the hot-button topic of the videogame industry over the past year and persists to this day. We’ll likely see more conflicts between publishers who make games with MTX/Loot boxes vs. their customers and regulatory bodies in the future.

Nevertheless, at this point it looks like the tide is turning against them. After the furor of BF and related titles, the consumer pushback combined with pressure from various entities that imposed stricter limitations on MTX/loot boxes to hold the worst offenders accountable, and at least in some instances forced them to curb the practice, which of course I advocate as a positive development, and will hopefully continue to be the case going forward.

So, thanks again, and of course for an additional 50 red gems, you can get a chance to win this talk in epic and legendary versions as well.

-Scott Thurlow

The Echo of “Hereditary”

June 21, 2018 Chris Morgan Narrative Timbre

If you’ve listened to our review of A24’s newest horror offering, “Hereditary,” directed by Ari Astar, then you know how much I hated the film. The experience of watching this in the theater was frustrating. I often felt bored due to the tedious nature of most of the scenes, editing and run time. Upon reflection, however, I found the resonance of what I heard affecting. The echo of which has caused me to reexamine this film. 

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Far Cry 5: Big Bombast, Scant Soul

April 17, 2018 Scott Thurlow Dialogue Tree

[Contains spoilers]

 

Far Cry 5 was born in controversy long before it was released. The original promo art caused a bit of a stir and was accused of both provoking and encouraging some kind of vague alt-right sentiment and/or being an indictment on the state of American society. This backlash against it died down pretty quickly in the aftermath (as such things often do) and was mostly forgotten by the time it actually did release, a few weeks back. Having recently completed the campaign of FC5, the first thought that comes to mind is–if only it was indeed intending to tackle and sustain such a thorny and timely topic on any but the broadest of lines. Now that I’ve experienced it firsthand, I have a number of items to discuss, so let’s pile into the pickup and get to it.
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Game Developers Choice Awards 2018: Winners

March 29, 2018 Scott Thurlow Dialogue Tree

So this year’s GDC Awards have come and gone, and the winners have been posted. I’m a little late to the game this year, as we’ve been busy at TLS with some redesigns and remodeling etc (on this very site) some of which are still in progress. Still, I would be remiss if I didn’t look back and compare/contrast my predictions with which games took home what awards. With that said, let’s go down the list and see once again how my K/D ratio played out.

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My Fair Amphibian-Man: The Music of “The Shape of Water”

March 1, 2018 Chris Morgan Narrative Timbre

There is a style to Guillermo del Toro’s films that is simultaneously recognizable and elusive. Indeed, there are certain design aesthetics he favors, often letting the story dictate the production design rather than adapting the story to conform to a certain look.

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Game Developers Choice Awards 2018: Nominees

January 9, 2018 Scott Thurlow Dialogue Tree

It’s been exactly a year and the GDC Awards have announced their latest nominees. In what is probably now a tradition, I’m going to comb through the list and pick out a few categories and entries that lay within my particular myopic games purview.

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Star Wars: The Last Jedi: A Meta Metaphor

December 19, 2017 Scott Thurlow Dialogue Tree

[major spoilers ahead]

The Last Jedi hit theaters this past weekend, and inevitably the tidal wave of opinions, reactions and rants washed over this galaxy, ranging from the usual ‘best since the original’ to ‘sucks worse than ever’ and all shades between. Read More

Star Wars Battlefront II Beta: The Good, The Bad, The Sarlaac

October 12, 2017 Scott Thurlow Dialogue Tree

The early access beta for Battlefront II just ended yesterday (after EA somewhat surreptitiously extended it by two more days) and after pouring a number of hours into it, I return from a galaxy far far away to give my initial impressions and thoughts on what was teased.

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