What's Up With Video Games? (April 2022)

Hey patrons,

I’m still planning on changing the name of this newsletter at some point soon, be warned! I just haven’t landed on the right replacement yet. I find naming things so incredibly difficult, honestly, and by now it feels like every single games reference has already been turned into a video show, or a newsletter, or a podcast. There’s nothing left!

This process has only made me feel more sympathy for Adam Conover, the properly famous American comedian, who was contracted by IGN to produce a podcast called Humans Who Make Games a couple of years ago, only to discover that some YouTube channel he’d never heard of already had a very similar name. Adam, I should add, was extremely gracious about the whole thing.

Anyway, let’s take a look at what’s been happening over the last few weeks, shall we?

GDC might be back, but it’s not looking good for E3

The Game Developers Conference returned to San Francisco at the end of March, having been cancelled in 2020 and digital-only in 2021. I’m really pleased to see the show back up and running (for one thing, it gives me the chance to listen to a bunch of great talks and hopefully find some inspiration for future PMG work), although it wasn’t without its controversies.

In the days following the event, attendees shared some of their frustrations on Twitter when it came to COVID rules being ignored and the much-increased presence of crypto at this year’s conference.

E3 2022, by comparison, has been cancelled outright. Video game’s most bombastic show was originally meant to be coming back in-person too, although that was scrapped just a few months ago. Now it looks like the online-only replacement has gone the same way. Not a great sign for the future of the Electronic Triple, although the ESA has promised that it’ll be returning next year.

[Read in 12 mins] Scandals, snake oil, and optimism: GDC is back | This Week in Business

“It's been a while. How long? Well, the last normal GDC -- the 2019 show -- was the big coming out party for Google Stadia, which has come and (mostly) gone since then. It's actually been over a year since Google shut down its Stadia first-party studios.”

[Read in 10 mins] Wordle creator describes game’s rise, says NYT sale was “a way to walk away”

Having sold Wordle to the New York Times for an "undisclosed price in the low-seven figures", the game’s creator reflects on its development, its copycats and his decision to sell up and leave behind the word game that just about everybody seemed to be playing.

[Read in 2 mins] John Romero Remembers How Sierra On-Line Nearly Acquired id Software In One Of Gaming's Biggest "What-Ifs"

Worth reading for Romero’s quote about showing one of Sierra On-Line’s founders Wolfenstein 3D for the very first time and them not being particularly impressed.

[Read in 8 mins] Goodbye E3, the Trade Show That Changed My Life

“It’s easy to poke fun at the event; it’s been dying for years, and my last major interaction with the event was the organisers leaking my personal information online... And yet I find myself mourning the death of a marketing stunt because of my history with it, because attending E3 was, for a long time, the “you made it” moment of being in this industry. Walking through the gates of E3 was, itself, validation. You were part of the club.”

The latest from Activision Blizzard

[Read in 3 mins] Some Activision Blizzard studios will require proof of vax as worker walkout continues

Activision Blizzard’s workers continue to test their strength when it comes to organising and collective action, following the sexual harassment lawsuit becoming public last July. Here, workers staged a walkout in response to the company’s decision to remove its requirement that employees working together in-person need to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

[Read in 3 mins] Call Of Duty Maker Says It's Raising Pay For QA, But Not Unionizers

“Contract QA staff across the company will be converted to full-time, and also see their minimum hourly rate raised to $20. That’s a big deal for some of the game industry’s most poorly treated workers, but in a twist the new raises won’t apply to the workers currently unionizing.”

[Read in 3 mins] California Lawyer Quits Over Allegation Newsom Meddled in Activision Case

California governor Gavin Newsom is accused of having interfered in the ongoing Activision Blizzard lawsuit on behalf of the games publisher, with one of the case’s leading lawyers being fired and another resigning in protest. Politico later reported that somebody on the company's board had previously donated $100,000 to Newsom's campaign in 2021.

Other bits and pieces

[Watch in 22 mins] What Happened To Neil deGrasse Tyson's Video Game?

MinnMax investigates Space Odyssey: The Video Game, a Kickstarter-backed project involving Neil deGrasse Tyson that seems to have all but disappeared.

[Read in 2 mins] Wargaming pulls out of Russia and its home nation of Belarus

"The company will not profit from this process either today or going forward. Much to the contrary, we expect to suffer substantial losses as a direct result of this decision.”

[Read in 5 mins] Will the video games industry ever confront its carbon footprint?

As some limited parts of the games industry have started to reckon with the environmental impact of their creations, The Guardian’s Alex Hern asks why so little attention seems to be directed towards the energy being consumed while playing the games themselves.

[Read in 7 mins] Fez at 10 years old: Phil Fish resurfaces for a rare interview

Eurogamer bags the elusive Phil Fez for a short interview on the anniversary of Fez, the game that forever changed his life. Having publicly quit the video game industry twice now, it’s especially interesting to hear that he’s “constantly making games and cancelling every single one of them before they're even announced”.

[Read in 5 mins] Ramadan Brings Muslim Communities Together, And It Deserves A Place In Games

“It only started bothering me a few years ago, when I realized Animal Crossing had every holiday in there but not Ramadan. It was a reminder that my holidays are different–something I had always recognized growing up as a Muslim in the Netherlands, but a feeling I had rather avoided in games. “

[Read in 3 mins] Is Apple Arcade even a thing any more?

Just a short blog post here, but one that got me thinking. Following a fantastic launch, which introduced me to some absolute gems like Grindstone and Sayonara Wild Hearts, what’s happened to Apple Arcade?

[Read in 15 mins] What Final Fantasy 14 Taught Hironobu Sakaguchi About the Series He Helped Create

“It didn’t take long for word to get around that Final Fantasy’s creator was playing Final Fantasy 14. Sakaguchi used his own name, so fans quickly recognized and greeted him about the world. Some would approach with what they described as “shaking hands,” but Sakaguchi would laugh and suggest they calm down so they could have a nice conversation.”

What have we been playing?

Chris - Card Shark (PC, Switch)

Speaking of games shows making their return, I popped along to WASD in London for a couple of days at the start of this month and had a brilliant time of it. It’s an indie games show, for the most part, and oh boy, did I play a good one.

Card Shark is a game about learning how to cheat at cards in order to rip off French nobility in the 18th century and, I think, fund a revolution? Bombing around France in a stagecoach, you and your mentor fleece unsuspecting marks for all you can, while trying not to raise their suspicions in the process.

The first trick you’re taught is perhaps the most straightforward of the lot: posing as your master’s valet, you learn how to sneak a look at his opponent’s cards while pouring their wine. The difficulty comes in the fact that you can only pour that wine for so long before it overflows their glass and gives the game away. And so you steadily learn to get a feel for how long a normal pour should take, allowing you to keep your eyes locked firmly on the cards.

Once you get the hang of this, it’s onto bigger cons and bigger prizes, as you’re taught to false shuffle the deck, sneak a winning Ace into your master’s pocket, or rig the next hand that’s dealt.

Card Shark won’t be out until later this year, but there’s already a demo on Steam that I’d highly recommend you give a go.

Anni - Farming Simulator 19 (PC, Xbox, PlayStation)

So I didn’t grow up on a farm, or live in the countryside, or have any particular connection to these big, chunky machines, but driving around and kind of winging it has let me enjoy the Farming Simulator in the way a child would enjoy a box full of new toys. I don’t really care about optimising what grain drop I deliver my barley to, or anything like that, because just seeing the process from ploughing, to seeding, to harvesting is a peculiar kind of fun.

There is so much attention to detail in simulating different kinds of friction on different surfaces that I've found myself sticking with the game way longer than I’d have expected. I was excited to find out what a New Holland T6 Series, with a little more horsepower, felt like as it pushes through the mud (be careful you don’t crush your crops, I learned this the hard way).

Admittedly I don’t think I’ll be in this for the long haul. As soon as money becomes more of a pressure and my focus shifts from the sensory experience to actually running a well functioning farm, I’ll just find it stressful, I think. But for now, at least, it’s not.

As a kid I remember playing games like GTA and Simpsons Hit ‘n’ Run — any game that had vehicles in — I’d always prefer to roleplay being a sensible motorist rather than ripping my way through to the next checkpoint. I’d follow the rules of the road and go about an imaginary routine of picking things up from shops, waiting at traffic lights and parking with enough space either side so that other vehicles would have room to manoeuvre. I think part of this sense of nostalgia I’ve been getting from Farming Simulator is that it’s a game designed around just that: simulating a sensible life where you drive around moving things from A to B.

Quinns - Horizon: Forbidden West (PS4, PS5)

As the happy owner of a Sony PlayStation®5 console device, this month I've had the chance to play Horizon: Forbidden West. I once had an editor who described the most technically ambitious videogames as "cathedrals", and that's exactly what Forbidden West feels like — you're exploring a vast, collaborative masterwork made by hundreds of expert craftspeople. The actors, the modellers, the animators, the musicians, the technical artists, the concept artists- everyone's been empowered to push their craft to the next level, and I feel constantly in awe of their work.

Oh, and the game's great too. Dropping into a slow-motion slide to fire an arrow through the gills of a killer robot dinosaur feels exactly as good as you'd expect.