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2009 is a little over a week away. I've already covered the games and events that 2008 a great year. Now, as a new year approaches, I wanna make sure that there are things never get repeated. Not everything was a bed of roses in the game industry and this list should be a checklist to make sure that there's no more crap within the industry. And in tribute to one of my favorite comedians and social commentators, Bill Maher, here's a list of New Rules!
New Rule: Shigeru Miyamoto doesn't have to defend Wii Music for three straight months! You'd think that the man behind Donkey Kong, Mario, Zelda, Star Fox and is responsible for about five of the best games of all time, wouldn't have to work as hard as he does to promote Wii Music because he didn't work nearly as hard to defend Super Mario Galaxy. I mean, John Romero still coasts on his career
New Rule: Keiji Inafune has to kiss the ass of employees at Platinum Games. When you think of Capcom becoming a giant publisher, it wasn't mainly of the backs of Mega Man. Resident Evil, Street Fighter II, Devil May Cry, and the VS. series had a lot to do with that. So, while Inafune-san dismisses the contributions and creators of those games, it's that creativity that allowed his company to give him the cushy job that he has.
New Rule: Bobby Kotick must be forced to be play an Activision game without the words 'Call of Duty' or 'Guitar Hero' in the title. He should be locked in a room and play the 'Cabela' series, all the Barbie games, the recent crop of Spiderman games, and all the shovelware from Activision on the Wii. Then, he can probably do a conference about all the money his company made without that sleazy grin on his face.
New Rule: There has to be at least one person who plays video games on the executive board of any publisher that favors profits over quality. It's a scientific fact that if you utter the word 'integrity' in a meeting about 'Bratz', heads will explode. This way, Ubisoft can get rid of that awful 'Imagine' series.
New Rule: Developers have to stop saying that it's hard to develop games for the PS3. No it's not! There are many games available for download that didn't rely on a $30 million budget or 200-people teams. There's a group of people who can handle complex programming, tasks-programmers! It's what they're good, it's what they went to college for, and it's the reason why you hired them.
New Rule: First-person shooters fans are not the epitome of hardcore gamers. They're loud, can't wait to show you how macho they are, and are just waiting to burn off some aggression. Just like a lame mosh pit! And like mosh pits, they just take up space and ruin a good time for other gamers not part of that lame love-in.
New Rule: Stop with the damn cutscenes! There are so many games that have flows just completely ruined because it wants to take 10 seconds to show you a door is open. You wanna know how to tell a door is open? I just solved a damn puzzle to unlock it. And I go through it. You also don't need to show off the whole level to let me know that I'm gonna have to kill someone to get to the next room. I'm playing an action game and I have a gun. And I just did it two levels ago. It's called consistent game design.
New Rule: If you're going to continue to bother with cutscenes, use clips from other movies. Trust me, it wouldn't bother anyone if you're playing a game and a random scene from Tropic Thunder plays. And if developers still wanna use cutscenes, take a damn film course and learn why a scene shouldn't be 30 minutes long.
New Rule: Anyone who writes on a message board or leaves a comment on a article must pass an english class. I'd take more comments and insults seriously if they were spelled correctly. So let's work on that first. Then we can move onto grammar and reading, so no one is able to take statements out of context. And then, you won't feel so angry and can just read an article and move on to play video games.
New Rule: The Wii is in direct competition with the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360. They're competiting for money! And they make their money by selling...video game systems! And on those systems, people buy and play video games! And they can be found at....video game stores! What's the difference between Call of Duty 4 and Carnival Games? Nothing! You're still fooling around with buttons and joysticks to accomplish something. One is just better at compelling you to do so.
New Rule: Any Wii owners who is 'bored' with their system and believe that 'it has no games' must give up their systems for free. No eBay/Amazon crap. You're obviously too sophisticated for No More Heroes, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Mario Galaxy, Boom Blox, Call of Duty: World at War. And you're way too cool to download World of Goo, Lost Winds, or anything on the Virtual Console. So, you need to cut this 'nuisance' out of your life and stick with games where you shoot people over and over. Money shouldn't matter and you should have no problem giving it up for Christmas.
New Rule: Real hardcore gamers don't trade in games. How many times did you see a Harry Potter fan trading in the first six books of the series to get a deal on the last book. Never. Or did you see anyone give up their Iron Man comics to see the big screen adaptation? Of course not (that one was completely impossible). But that point is, if you buy something, you collect it - not just for resale. Fans of other forms of entertainment don't get rid of their old stuff to enjoy the new stuff. And stop whining about prices. That what makes a gamer 'hardcore'.
New Rule: Gamestop must give out sexual favors to anyone who trades in anything. Everyone knows that their profits come from all the money they pocket from selling used games and refurbished systems, so like a real whore, they should reciprocate the goodwill from time to time. So, any time they push a pre-order on a gamer, that gamer should have a favor returned.
New Rule: Stop giving awards to Guitar Hero and Rock Band for best music. I'm not saying any of the music is bad but I'm pretty sure I have most of the songs in my collection or on iTunes. That's doesn't take any effort to get someone's favorite playlist in a game. Especially when you those awards ignore the people who actually take time to compose original music for a game.
New Rule: If you play Guitar Hero and Rock Band, play different games. I'm sick of strangers coming over to parties looking like tools with a plastic guitar. Simulating 'Detroit Rock City' isn't the only thing I wanna do on the 360 when you come over. I'd probably like to race you in 'Burnout Paradise' or play Halo 3 in co-op. Or any game where I don't have to pay nearly 200 dollars and other people can't leech off me. Let's play something where I can sit down and just use a damn controller.
New Rule: Nintendo must release the guy in charge of releasing great games for the Virtual Console from being held hostage. I know he's somewhere hidden in the US. We know he loves Sin & Punishment. He probably likes Mother 3 a lot. He also likes Yoshi's Island and Majora's Mask. He also knows that there are many owners with Wii Points going unused.
New Rule: Microsoft didn't rip-off Nintendo for the new Xbox Live experience. For one thing, you can actually watch movies on the 360 without hacking into it. And I can play games online with friends without having to send a facebook message, taking pictures of my friend codes and sending text messages to play. If they wanna ripoff anything, they can learn how not to make shoddy hardware.
New Rule: People who can't cover the Wii, Playstation 3, DS, PSP and Xbox 360 equally shouldn't be allowed to get paid from their websites or magazines. These 'journalists' are obviously just covering their favorite games and genres, so they shouldn't be entitled to the same thing other people are when talk about their favorite hobbies: zilch.
New Rule: Video games can never be art if publishers don't treat developers like artists. Tomonobu Itgaki quit Tecmo earlier this year after a long time at Tecmo, where he was responsible for some of their best and lucrative franchises. Clover closed down because Okami didn't sell a lot of copies. However, if writers can't come up with anything more than a damn doomsday scenario, then it doesn't deserve to be art.
New Rule: People buy and play video games all year long, so advertise accordingly. Marketing departments shouldn't have to wait until two weeks before a game is released and two weeks after it comes out to get people to buy a game. Would it really be too much work to get a GTA IV ad on the air? And stop advertising on Comedy Central, ESPN, Sci Fi, Spike, G4, Vh1, MTV, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, and USA. That audience probably got their preorders already. Why not go for ads on Oprah, The View, Ellen, Regis & Kelly, Saturday Night Live or even the Super Bowl! Or are marketing executives taught to never see outside polls and numbers?
Happy New Year, Video Games! (Im celebrating early to get an early jump on my partying).
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