Gamer's Outpost Press (Archived)

by Sehran Shaikh

Holiday Season 2014 is just around the corner, and we have some great games lined up to arrive on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and last-gen consoles, but in this feature article I won’t be talking about what’s coming in next three to four months, rather I would take a look back and see what has really happened in the past eight months.

Few games released during this period performed better than our expectations, however there are few games which were expected to be “Next Big Thing” in that particular genre but failed to deliver on all the promises. This feature is about three Overhyped new AAA IPs of 2014 which failed to delivered.

Titanfall:

It came from the developers who gave gaming world the billion dollar franchise “Call of Duty”, Electronic Arts and Microsoft, in short all perfect ingredients to be ‘the next big thing’ in multiplayer gaming, it was marketed and overhyped like never before by the trio Respawn, EA and Microsoft: They called it “Call of Duty series killer, revive first person shooting genre and some other unrealistic things which never happened before”.

But the verdict of consumers was completely the opposite, Titanfall was not a great game it was a “GOOD” game, but not exactly an Innovative and Ground-breaking experience. Many gamers tag it as “It’s Call of Duty With Mechs”. Titanfall fell well short of its GOAL.

Watch Dogs:

Watch Dogs had a Show-Stopper reveal at E3 2012 and was followed by another astonishing showcasing at E3 2013. The hype among fans went beyond limits, and was awarded a tag “Top Competitor” of GTA V. However, just a week before its official launch, Ubisoft shocked the gaming community and announced a release delay of Watch Dogs to 2014 and cited the reason as “development team needs more time to deliver on the promises and polish”. The game was put under cover, and Ubisoft did not talk about it for months, this lead to numerous queries from fans: Did a game that looked astonishing at E3 2012/13 needed polishing?

After a long silence, Ubisoft finally re-revealed Watch Dogs in May 2014, but it was not the game which open world genre fans saw at E3 2012/13, instead of polishing, graphics received massive downgrades.

Watch Dogs showed lot of potential after its initial announcement but the dominance of GTA franchise in open world genre is so strong that other games need to do something really special to grab attention. A perfect addition to overhyped games and not delivering on huge promises.

Destiny:

Destiny was in making at Bungie for many many years, and like many other games, initial announcement was very well received by both fans and critics. After cutting their ties with Microsoft, Bungie made few press statements that caught gaming community’s attention, “we don’t want to make Halo anymore” and “we want to do our own things and not be tied down to large company”.

But for Destiny, they broke both these promises, fans termed Destiny as “Halo Clone” with few differences/upgrades and signed 10 yrs deal with Activision. Destiny received “Mediocre” game reviews because it failed to deliver on big promises from Sony/Activision and Bungie: “story/plot was almost non-existent, no memorable characters, no social interaction whatsoever between you and other online players, missions were repetitive, ridiculous and unbalanced PVP.”

The main reason for Destiny’s downfall was Overhype, it was all time high. I’ve almost never seen a new IP get this kind of hype. Right from the start, Sony hitched their wagon completely to this game, and was super hyped mostly for PlayStation 4, like if it was a new Messiah.

Conclusion:

Why we should not lambaste publishers/developers for creating a over-hype, this is their job. These companies market their titles, create hype amongst fans etc and sell millions of units worldwide. We can’t expect an employee of Bungie/Ubisoft/Respawn/Sony/Microsoft or many others to take center stage and announce that “we’ve got a new game, it’s not best game or going to revamp/re-define the genre, but I think you’ll probably enjoy it”? That’s not going to happen.

Just keep your HOPES and HYPE level in check. Titanfall, Watch Dogs and Destiny all sold millions of copies worldwide, and these companies have made $$$. Definitely, in a couple of years we will be seeing sequels to these games, and you people will again so on blasting it as a terrible decision as previous installment/original title didn’t perform as expected and everyone hates it, but still the sequel will sell millions of copies worldwide. Once again we will discuss among us the same old thing “HYPE, HYPE, OverHYPE” and other non-sense things. FULL CYCLE will continue. So, keep your HOPES and HYPE level in check.

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by Saad Dada

Sony has had unbelievable success with the PlayStation 4 since it launched back in November of 2013. Microsoft launched the Xbox One a week later, and has been playing catch-up ever since. In order to keep up with the competition they knocked $100 off the cost, making a Kinect-free model to match the PS4’s price. And while the Microsoft exclusive ‘Titanfall’ did good business, it didn’t have enough of a major impact in taking down the Japanese juggernaut.

But now the Seattle-based software giant has paid $2.5 billion to acquire Swedish company Mojang, the creators behind the popular videogame ‘Minecraft’. Could this be an attempt to one-up their Japanese rivals?

‘Minecraft’ is a hugely popular game but it doesn’t quite match-up with the likes of ‘Grand Theft Auto’, ‘FIFA’, or even the‘Call of Duty’ series. However, its popularity has allowed for it to be released on all consoles. It’s a fun game that appeals to all ages and requires creativity because one is able to create structures out of 3D cubes.

According to The Street, ‘Minecraft’ is “a kind of digital Lego without an instruction book – a building game where players construct their own world out of blocks, making anything from a forest to the Eiffel Tower”. For now, the game will continue to be available on all major platforms including Microsoft’s arch rival the Sony PlayStation.

However if Microsoft does decide to make Minecraft an exclusive title, it could possibly gain momentum over Sony. According to Eurogamer, the title has sold a staggering 54 million copies on all platforms (as of 25th June) and a landmark 100 million users were registered as of February this year. The fan base will no doubt want to get their fix, and if it’s not available on the PlayStation that could give Microsoft the upper hand. But even with the exclusivity, Sony has some major franchises to turn to. ‘God of War’, ‘Uncharted’ and upcoming exclusives like ‘Driveclub’ and ‘The Order: 1886’ offer limitless potential.

This generation consoles look to be more focused on hardcore gamers considering the PS4 was made to be a dedicated gaming machine. Xbox on the other hand went the ‘all-in-one entertainment system’ route with their Xbox One. And while Minecraft may prove to be a worthy purchase, it still may not be enough for them to match Sony’s lead.

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by Sam Machkovech

While opinions have been mixed on Destiny, Bungie’s first post-Halo video game, most impressions and reviews of the game thus far—including our own—have at least praised its online stability. That’s no small feat for an always-online game, especially in its first week, but error reports are beginning to accumulate from Destiny players across all four of the game’s consoles.

There’s a reason for that: Bungie launched its “shared world shooter” without much of a customer support structure in place. Eight days after launch, users who haven’t been able to connect—including one of Ars Technica’s own contributors, who still can’t get online with an Xbox 360 copy of the game—have exhausted all of the suggestions listed at help.bungie.net. At that point, those users are directed to visit Bungie’s forums, “staffed by community mentors who are here to help you.”

The end result is a funneling of complaints to a forum whose topics are broken down not by official categories but by hashtags. With nothing in the way of a trackable “ticket” system or a customer service hotline, users are stuck with a “#help” page that is currently dominated by topic titles like “I’ve Given Up on Destiny and Got My Refund; Here’s Why Maybe You Should Too” and “Bungie Please Give Us Info.”

Worse, our hunt for official Bungie posts resulted in only one major response thus far. A thread titled “Help us help you” starts with a post from an official Bungie account, which essentially asks users to figure answers out on their own:

We are working diligently to provide information that helps players resolve their Destiny issues. We are finding that many guardians are quite adept at coming up with new and interesting solutions to a number of the error codes they receive. If you received an error code and were successfully able to fix the issue, post your steps here.

Trouble in the zoo

Complaining users seem to be doing their due diligence before posting to Bungie’s forums, particularly a user who complained about Bungie’s animal-themed error-code system: “I have seen bee, fly, caterpillar, centipede, lion, flatworm, heron, etc,” PS3 user Lone Ronin wrote. “Really, enough to make my own zoo, and each as insulting as the rest since if the problem was my PS3 then GTA, BF, MOH, and COD would not hold a connection as well.”

Reported issues range from frequent disconnects within minutes of a mission’s start to the utter inability to log into the game at all, and none of Destiny’s four consoles is safe from reports. It’s hard to gauge how widespread the connectivity issues actually are, or which console has taken the worst drubbing.

Ars correspondent Robert Lemos confirmed issues connecting with the Xbox 360 version of the game; after following Bungie’s client-side recommendations, he additionally deleted every Destiny-related file and the system cache with hopes of success. “Two support chats with Microsoft later, and nothing is solved,” Lemos said. “They concluded that the Xbox is fine and my connection to Xbox Live is good.”

Comparatively, Bungie has given its players no phone number or even Twitter handle to contact with any complaints or concerns—which stands in stark contrast to Blizzard, another game developer in the Activision family, whose Battle.net support page offers a ridiculous glut of contact options. “I can’t even CALL you guys,” one Bungie forum poster wrote after talking about his help getting a digital download refund directly from Microsoft. “And if I did, the analogous scenario would be that I would just reach an automated voice that would say ‘PLEASE HOLD’ with no further information… and no one would ever actually pick up the phone.”

We have questions out to Activision and Bungie about current Destiny connectivity issues and whether the companies plan to institute a more robust support-reporting system for the always-online game. We’ll update this post if we receive a response.

Update: Bungie issued a statement to Ars Technica that blamed “a small number of issues” on “largely the result of Internet filtering from institutions like universities. Bungie’s networking team has been working actively with those institutions and hardware providers to make sure we’re doing everything we can to keep people playing.” Bungie did not respond to our questions about the company’s current customer service methods.

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by Eddie Makuch

When Activision announced Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare back in May, comparisons to Respawn Entertainment’s Titanfall were immediately made, with claims flying that Advanced Warfare was an imitation of Titanfall because it was future-focused and had mechs.

Now, the studio behind this year’s Call of Duty, Sledgehammer Games, has responded to a criticism that Advanced Warfare is a “ripoff” of Titanfall. Advanced Warfare and Titanfall are two very different experiences and people will realize that when they play, according to Sledgehammer co-founder Michael Condrey.

“No matter how hard you try and try, people will always be convinced that Advanced Warfare is a ripoff of Titanfall,” someone on Twitter wrote to Condrey. He replied, “Not worried about it. When people play it in November, it will speak for itself.”

Titanfall launched in March for Xbox One and PC, before coming to Xbox 360 in April. Advanced Warfare, on the other hand, will be released across Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, and PC on November 4.

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by Erik Kain

Plenty of gamers appear to be disappointed with Bungie’s new video game Destiny. That’s why it was bombed on Metacritic the day it launched, receiving about as close to zero out of ten as you can get from gamers on day one, though that number has come up quite a bit since the initial bombing, hovering in the 6 out of 10 range.

Many critics seem to agree that the game is by and large a lackluster effort.

The Escapist’s Jim Sterling gives the sci-fi shooter a 6/10, calling the game “overwhelmingly unimaginative” and noting that its gameplay is “a cocktail of ideas taken from other titles that specialized to create superior experiences.” Sterling, like many other critics, found himself underwhelmed by the story and the world.

“Destiny exists in the shadow of multiple games,” writes Sterling, “taking a little from each, and doing nothing truly remarkable with any of it. It’s a prime example of how the nebulous concept of “content” can be used to puff up a game without adding anything to it. There’s a ton of “stuff” in Destiny. You’ll never want for things to do … but it’s terrible at providing motivation to do any of it.”

Polygon employed two critics to cooperatively review Destiny—Arthur Gies and Phil Kollar—and they collectively gave it a 6/10.

Gies is unimpressed with the game’s lack of things to do outside of shooting, and notes that even the shooting stuff gets old thanks to all the repetitive environments.

“Boiled down to its essence, Destiny isn’t like other MMOs, because shooting is all it does,” writes Gies. “There are no character relationships to explore, no crafting to speak of. There’s no monuments to build or spaces to make your mark on. In fact, there’s not even much variety to speak of — each environment in the game feels small, and playing just through the campaign missions, you’ll see the same parts of them multiple times. You’ll spend literal hours retreading the same ground, shooting the same mobs.”

Jeff Gerstmann at Giant Bomb also delivers a 6/10 (or three stars out of five) as does GameSpot’s Kevin VanOrd.

Some smaller sites gave higher scores, but by and large the consensus among major gaming sites with scored reviews published is a solid 6, which for all intents and purposes is a “D” letter grade.

User scores on Metacritic average to 6.4, pretty in keeping with what critics are saying, though lower than the 75/100 average from critics.*

As Paul Tassi notes, this means that critics and gamers are pretty lined up on this one, which isn’t always the case.

But it’s also true that plenty of gamers really do like Destiny and are enjoying it quite a lot, and one interesting thing I’ve read in forums and comment sections is the notion that critics are giving the game a low score because they didn’t get early review copies and had to play the game pretty much right at launch.

This is a totally preposterous idea, of course. Lots of games have this problem, including many titles that are online only, including the very well-reviewed Diablo III (88/100 from critics, 3.9/10 from users on Metacritic.)

(On a side note: This reaction to low review scores for Destiny just helps prove a point: As a game writer, you’re pretty much doomed no matter what you do—even if you avoid social justice warfare in favor of just writing about games. With the whole #GamerGate thing swirling about, the notion that game journalists and critics are all corrupt and in bed with game makers has taken center stage. But just as quickly, readers will accuse critics and websites of petty retribution over a late review copy.)

For my part, as I’ve been reviewing Destiny, I can’t help but feel like it’s simply an incomplete effort. For all the talk of a vast and epic story, the game feels rather short. Multiplayer feels a little bare-boned. And the worlds get boring and repetitive quickly.

Now this is quite a lot of cash to lay down after already dropping $59.99. And while Bungie has confirmed that the expansion will include a new story and new content for each of the game’s modes—story, Patrol, Strike, Crucible—they’ve also confirmed that it will reuse some of the game’s areas.

Which makes me want to gnash my teeth and rend my garments. If the game were truly open world, this wouldn’t be an issue since retreading old ground is sort of the par for the course in game’s like Skyrim and most MMOs. But in a game delineated into very specific, instanced missions, reusing so much of the same territory is extremely frustrating. Playing through the same enemies in the same zones in several different game modes is irksome and tedious, and I can only imagine my frustration at this after spending another twenty dollars.

Perhaps even worse is the way the expansions will begin to fracture the game’s community. When certain maps or game modes are only available to gamers who purchase the DLC, this creates a segmented community. We see this with Call of Duty each year, but it’s almost more crucial to an MMO-like game for everyone to be able to play in the same arenas.

I think Guild Wars 2 still has one of the best models in this regard. New content and special events are always available to everyone who purchased the game. Everyone playing the game is involved in the same universe with the same features, and revenue streams are maintained through microtransactions that are largely either aesthetic or buffs.

Whatever controversy Destiny has stirred up based on its failure to deliver on the vision originally created by Bungie will only deepen as paid expansions set up new boundaries between players. And unless Bungie can work miracles and really make this game a living, breathing experience I’m not sure it’s going to have the sort of shelf-life it needs for the long haul.

Both Bungie and Activision should be looking at the long-term vision at this point, also. You can make a few dollars on selling an expansion, but if it ultimately hurts your game’s community you have a problem. Think of how long it took for Blizzard’s first World of Warcraft expansion to launch. The Burning Crusade launched three years after vanilla WoW and included two new races and their new starting zones, the enormous Outland area, an increase of the level cap from 60 to 70…essentially tons and tons of new content, years after the release of the original game.

Admittedly, all of this content came at a suggested retail price of $39.99 and you still had to pay that monthly subscription. Destiny doesn’t require a monthly subscription and its expansion is half the price. But does it come with half the content? Multiple high-level dungeons and raids? New races? Mounts/vehicles? A sprawling new story?

Not that I mean to compare Destiny directly to World of Warcraft, though in some ways it is the first MMO from publisher Activision-Blizzard since the release of WoW, whether or not Bungie is calling it an MMO.

And certainly looking to the success of World of Warcraft to glean lessons in running an MMO-ish community is a reasonable thing to do.

Either way, it will be interesting to see if the most pre-ordered game in history, and one of the most hyped, has the staying power to survive a poor critical reception and a dearth of content. Will a community fractured by DLC just three months after a game’s launch be able to survive?

And will Destiny become a game alive and vibrant enough to sustain long-term interest and loyalty?

We shall see. Whatever the case, while Destiny plays it safe in almost every regard, it’s somehow managed to be one of the most controversial games of the year, and quite possibly the most divisive video game release of 2014.

Stay tuned for my review of the game’s PvP system, The Crucible.

by Patrick Frye

The Destiny game is not meeting the expectations of a good number of gamers, and some believe the most apt word to describe the video game is “sterile.” But is Bungie right when they said you simply have to play further in to get to the good stuff?

In a related report by The Inquisitr, an Activision press release claims Destiny sales numbers have already reached $500 million, but it’s possible this claim is not entirely true.

Writing for Forbes, Paul Tassi has been playing Destiny a good number of hours, and he claims it’s the sky high expectations of gamers that has led to disappointment.

“It just doesn’t seem like what was promised. It’s a giant world, but it’s empty, as I explained in detail yesterday. We were promised a ‘shared world shooter’ and quasi-MMO like nothing else before it. Planets to explore! Sci-fi mysteries to uncover! A whole new video game universe to enjoy over the next ten years. And yet, that’s not what the final game delivered, at least not at launch. It’s largely empty maps with an uncomfortably sterile hub world, and on top of it all, a story so incoherent even the game’s most ardent defenders admit it’s terrible….

“In short, it’s about expectations. The problem is that when we heard news about a shooter MMO from Bungie, we expected all the best things about the two genres. The massive universe with so much to discover. Characters to meet, mysteries to solve, friends to make, and so on. Instead, we got the worst aspects of an MMO, grinding for marginally better gear in repetitive zones, without the backdrop of an interesting universe at all. Bungie got two of their key points right, the amazing visuals and the tight gameplay, but they missed everything else.”

It’s reviews like this that has Bungie playing damage control. Bungie Executive Producer Patrick O’Kelley said in an interview posted to Xbox Wire that the best parts of Destiny require committing enough time.

“Twenty hours in, I think that players will find that they’ve evolved to playing a whole different kind of game than the shooter that started them off. They’ll find that they’re immersed in a different world, and are deep into the history of their characters. They’ll have built a community of other players. And, without realizing it, they’ll have learned some sophisticated mechanics that enable them to gear up and dive into a six-player cooperative raid, in pursuit of high-level exotic weapons and armor.”

Many gamers are finding that you can expect around 16 hours of gameplay if you focus on just the main story of Destiny. Besides putting in the extra time, Bungie is also already planning new free updates and of course there is the two larger DLC packs coming down the pipeline.

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by John Papadopoulos

Ah, the delay of GTA V PC has sparked lots of discussions about it. And contrary to what most people believed, Rockstar went ahead and officially explained why the PC version has been delayed. According to the company, this particular version needs more development time in order to be amazing and polished as possible. Yeap, you read that right: Rockstar is talking about optimizations, and that’s obviously a good thing.

As Rockstar claimed:

“We’re glad to see so many of you are excited for the upcoming release of the new versions of GTAV and we look forward to sharing more details with you soon. We are also incredibly excited to be bringing GTAV to the PC, but the game requires a little more development time in order to ensure that it is as amazing and polished as possible.”

For what is worth, Rockstar’s game testers have been testing the PC version on Steam yesterday and today. It appears that every week these two game testers are testing the PC version, so hopefully more of them will get to test it once the current-gen console versions are out.

GTA V is coming to the PC in January 2015.

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by Maya Mayfield

We are counting down the days towards the official launch of Destiny and unless you have been living in a cave with your eyes and ears closed, you may be wandering what all this Destiny hype is all about. So before the big launch, here is everything you need to know about Destiny to get you ready for battle.

Our Future Foretold in The Stars

Destiny is a first view shooter developed by Bungie, makers of the Halo series. The game is set to launch this coming Tuesday September 9th 2014. The history of Destiny starts seven hundred years into the future, on Earth’s last surviving city, housing the few remains of our golden era.

A gigantic, mysterious alien known as the Traveler looms above our planet, its origins are unknown, but what we have learned is the Traveler has been our protector since the invasion began. Its mysterious power and knowledge has helped us fight against a ruthless intergalactic force bent on eradicating our race.

Guardians are the last form of defense against these alien aggressors. Tasked with defending the few remaining humans left on Earth, Guardians must seek to find the mysterious power source of these cruel monsters and save the entire galaxy in the process.

Destiny is the first game in its kind to feature a shared world action adventure, shooter experience. The game puts you both in the seat of story narrator and main character. As one of three Guardian classes, (Hunter, Titan and Warlock) you will travel the galaxy battling to stop our extinction.

What makes Destiny such a unique and thrilling experience is that you don’t have to save the entire galaxy alone. Just like the recent Guardians of the Galaxy Movie by Marvel, working as a team with friends or other Guardians that appear in your games timeline is the true recipe for success – and although you can of course go it alone, Chuck Norris style. The added fun of taking down an alien strong hold as part of a 3 man fire team would be so much more fun and rewarding.

While you explore the outer-worlds of Mars, Venus and even the moon, Destiny’s online servers will seamlessly match your skill level with others who can help you conquer the invading forces. The game will also feature exclusive public events which you can choose to either join or not. Destiny will also include loads of co-op and multiplayer modes like, Clash, Skirmish, Salvage, Rumble Iron Banner, Combined Arms and Control.

Stay tuned for a full review of Destiny on our official website and Godspeed Guardians, Earth is counting on you.

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by Sam Mattera

“[It’s just] a bigger iPod touch,” said Satoru Iwata, Nintendo’s CEO, in response to Apple’s unveiling of the first-generation iPad back in 2010.

Iwata wasn’t necessarily wrong, but Apple has clearly had the last laugh: The explosion of mobile gaming, led in large part by Apple’s iPad, has had a devastating effect on Nintendo’s business. Nintendo’s handheld DS and Wii living room video game consoles, released in 2004 and 2006, respectively (long before the iPad), were somewhat of a popular phenomenon, moving a combined total of over 250 million units.

But their successors, the 3DS and Wii U, have been far less successful. The Wii U, in particular, has fallen short of Nintendo’s expectations, while the 3DS is on track to sell barely a third as well as its predecessor. As of Nintendo’s last report, the two systems have combined for just over 50 million units sold.

With its hardware rejected by the market, some investors have called on Nintendo to shift its focus to established mobile platforms, bringing its legendary franchises like Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda to Apple’s iOS.

But Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo board member and creator of both franchises, has some harsh words for mobile gamers. In a recent interview with Edge magazine, Miyamoto derided the casual approach these platforms endear.

“Pathetic”

“In the days of the DS and Wii,” Miyamoto told Edge, “Nintendo tried its best to expand the gaming population.”

The DS, and to a much greater extent the Wii, sold well because of their appeal to consumers who had traditionally avoided video games. During the Wii’s heyday, in 2006 and 2007, the mainstream press was flooded with articles marveling at the Wii’s widespread appeal. Nintendo found willing consumers in unusual places — even nursing homes.

But times have clearly changed — many of these consumers have moved on. More adult women now play video games than teenage boys (the traditional video game market), but only because of the rise of mobile platforms — where women spend more time and money on games than men.

“Because of the spread of [smartphones and tablets], people take games for granted now,” Miyamoto quipped to Edge. “The sort of people who, for example, might want to watch a movie. They might want to go to Disneyland. Their attitude is, ‘OK, I am the customer. You are supposed to entertain me.’ It’s kind of a passive attitude they’re taking, and to me it’s kind of a pathetic thing.”

Miyamoto’s status in the video game industry is unparalleled, but his comments to Edge reek of sour grapes. Now that these casual gamers have moved on to other platforms, Miyamoto insists that Nintendo is happy to see them go.

“It’s a good thing for us, because we do not have to worry about making games something that are relevant to general people’s daily lives.”

Nintendo refuses to change its strategy

Unlike other operating systems, Apple’s iOS and OS X are only available to buyers of Apple-made products. Similarly, Nintendo has long kept its games confined to its own hardware, and if Miyamoto’s comments are any indication, that strategy does not seem likely to change anytime in the near future.

“There are always people who really want to get deeply into a game … We want to create, and they want to experience, something unprecedented all the time. For us to meet these goals, we needed dedicated hardware that is designed to cater to the needs of these avoid gamers … That’s why I believe that Nintendo … will be sticking to these dedicated game machines.”

There’s already evidence that Nintendo is beginning to embrace this new, enthusiast-focused strategy.

The Wii’s remote was notable for its relative lack of buttons — just four, compared to nearly a dozen on other controllers. But the buttons are back: Last week, Nintendo unveiled an update to its 3DS — a new version of the handheld packs two additional shoulder buttons and a second analog stick. The new 3DS also offers swappable faceplates and connectivity with its forthcoming Amiibo figurines — initiatives that should generate additional revenue from its most committed customers.

Nintendo’s stubbornness could guarantee future losses
Although Nintendo has a sizable cash hoard — about $7.5 billion as of the end of June — the company has struggled to remain profitable in recent quarters, posting a more than $200 million loss last fiscal year. While it was courting a casual audience, core gamers have largely migrated to the PlayStation and Xbox brands, leaving Nintendo with far fewer customers with which to sell its games to.

Without the support of third party publishers, and their popular franchises like Call of Duty, Madden and Grand Theft Auto, it’s difficult to imagine Nintendo succeeding in this new endeavor.

http://www.gamersoutpost.net/

by Brian Crecente

Gearbox Software studio head Randy Pitchford did “whatever the fuck he likes” when it came to the marketing and promotion of Aliens: Colonial Marines, according to documents filed this week in the class-action lawsuit claiming the game was falsely advertised at trade shows.

The Sept. 2 filing by Sega of America details the publisher’s take on why Gearbox is just as culpable in the case as Sega. The company’s attorney writes that despite Gearbox’s claims that they weren’t involved in marketing, Gearbox participated equally, sometimes overstepping bounds or keeping Sega in the dark about promotional decisions.

Aliens: Colonial Marines was released Feb. 12, 2013, to harsh criticism and low review scores. Some players and reviewers noted that the game’s visuals didn’t match what Sega and developer Gearbox showed off of the game prior to release at fan and press events.

These demos, which Gearbox co-founder Randy Pitchford called “actual gameplay,” according to the filing, were criticized after the game’s launch for featuring graphical fidelity, AI behavior and even entire levels not featured in the game. Our review of Aliens: Colonial Marines featured a gallery highlighting some of the differences between a 2012 video walkthrough of the title, and the same level in the final version of the game.

In August, Sega and the plaintiffs reached a tentative agreement for $1.25 million, much of which was to be paid out to people who had purchased the game before Feb. 13, 2013. According to court documents, Gearbox attorneys were told they could be included in the settlement if they agreed to pay an additional $750,000 into the settlement. But instead, Gearbox filed a motion to throw out the case. Gearbox argued it shouldn’t be included in the suit because it operated as a contractor, and that Sega had final say on the game and its marketing.

Gearbox Software is fighting to have the tentative agreement thrown out, saying that the settlement with Sega would leave Gearbox “holding the bag” in future lawsuits despite being a contractor, that they weren’t a part of the settlement negotiations and that it isn’t a fair deal for gamers.

In the motion filed this week, Sega notes that it was initially given “absolute discretion” with regard to marketing decisions, but that the publisher was contractually required to discuss and consult Gearbox on all marketing activities.

“The parties had to mutually agree to the ‘precise particulars of marketing assets’ delivered by Gearbox,” according to the motion. “Gearbox’s participation — Randy Pitchford’s, in particular — was a key element in the ACM marketing strategy from the beginning.”

An enclosed proposition document noted that Pitchford is a “respected development celebrity and is guaranteed to be headline material in worldwide press coverage.”

The motion goes on to say that the E3 2011 demo, which many point to as the crux of the misleading advertising, was created entirely by Gearbox.

Following the presentation, Gearbox officials told Sega officials that the demo was the bar the game should be held to, according to an internal email.

“During one of my conversations with Gearbox today I verified that the E3 Demo is indeed the bar that we should use to determine where the entire game will be,” Matt Powers, senior producer at Sega of America, wrote to a handful of other Sega employees. “That is Gearbox’s plan and what they believe in. I just wanted to double-check with them and since I did I figured I would pass that along to you.”

The filing lists eight other examples of times when Sega says Gearbox made announcements to the press and public without Sega’s approval, sometimes despite specific requests not to, according to the motion.

That includes E3 2011, when Sega officials noted that Pitchford went well beyond the bounds of a prepared questions and answers document Sega provided and “talked a LOT beyond what was in there.”

Other examples included posts to the game’s website, announcements at a community day event and releasing an unapproved screenshot. This seemed to culminate in October 2012, when a member of the Sega PR team spoke with a Gearbox official in person about what they called “leaks.”

“I spoke face to face to [Gearbox’s Steve] Gibson about their persistent panel leaking,” Matt Eyre wrote in an email to other company officials. “Effectively — it’s Randy [Pitchford] doing whatever the fuck he likes. Apparently he did it twice on [Borderlands 2] also, against, against all plans and despite the fact they asked him not to. I think our best result here is that we have no more panel sessions …”

The filing also refutes Gearbox’s earlier claims that they never received any payments tied to the sales of Aliens. According to the filing, Sega paid Gearbox millions of dollars in advance royalties in the form of milestone payments. These were payments tied to the timed completion of things like a demo.

“If and when Sega recoups the royalties advanced to Gearbox in the form of milestone payments, Gearbox will receive a percentage of the net receipts for each sale of ACM,” according to the motion.

The motion, which asks the court to ignore Gearbox’s request to block the settlement with Sega, does not address earlier claims by Gearbox that it paid millions of its own money to finish the game.

The next hearing is being held on Oct. 29.

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