U.K. cult classic Darwinia is being released today via Steam. Since the actual relese time is measured in Pacific Standard, it was still technically availibie for preorder this morning, which means one could technically get the $2.00 discount. Despite being backlogged with games to play (my roomie's got a lot of Xbox titles), I went ahead and purchased it. One, because the game looks great. Second, I would like to see online content delivery at affordable prices become a serious reality in the games industry, and this is the best way I can think of to support that goal.
Even more interesting gaming news lies in the closure of Working Designs. In case you don't know, Working Designs is a company that worked solely in licensing and localizing obscure Japanese games for release in the States. If you've played any of the Lunar games on Playstation, you've seen their work. However, their releases during this generation have been slow as shit (only three games in five years), and failed to get the green light from Sony to localize the latest Goemon game after a very long time trying, and either one or both of these things combined to create a bad situation.
In the aftermath, I find myself fascinated by all of the debate being waged about the company. The fans blame the entire ordeal on Sony's insistence on cool, cutting edge games, and cite that WD was an incredible company that released incredible games and really cared about their fanbase. To them, the company has had a huge impact in the localization of Japanese games, and the loss is a huge one.
On the other hand, the non fans(naysayers and people who just didn't care) claim that it was all WD's fault; their infamous head honcho Vic Ireland took the company from a bad situation with Sega during the Saturn era and moved it into an equally bad scenario with Sony, all the while completely ignoring Nintendo and Microsoft as possibilities. They claim that WD took far too long localizing any games, and seemed to be more worried about their small fan base than about the rest of U.S. gamers. Finally, this camp claims that none of WD games were really amazing, but rather were "otaku bait", titles that were quirky and wierd for the sake of being so that would appeal to the "otaku-wai-wai" group of people that unshakingly believe Japan = better. To this side, Working Designs was great for its fans, and had the passion, but their business sense wasn't very good, and thus they were the product of their own downfall.
While I have never played a game made by Working Designs, I would say that, based on what I've read (and it is quite a lot), I would prob. side with the latter camp. I'm sure everyone at the company, including Vic, are great people who loved what they did. But wihtout a good business sense there is no way a group like them could last forever. And based on the amount of otaku bait products I have seen, I wouldn't be surprised if most of their games weren't really up to snuff. In the end, I think Ferricide puts it best: WD was basically a man and his associates getting paid to do their hobby for ten years. Not that bad if you think about it.
Finally, this is another good article, discussing how the RPG genre is so stale. The author cites how 4 games (one being Dragon Quest 8) managed to break the mold and really stand out, yet none of them will have much of an impact in the long run. This guy is is wondering why the genre is facing problems, but he managed to answer his own question. As long as unique, or just plain solid RPG's that do not follow the Final Fantasy mold are ignored, the longer it will be before the genre becomes fresh again. But as a great man noticed, Level 5's Rogue Galaxy will be outsold by a long shot by Kingdom Hearts 2 in Japan this month. I think we've got a long way to go...
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