Link: Gamestop Creates Untapped DLC Demographic

This reminds me of three or four years ago when practically every gaming website was more or less laughing at Gamestop's reliance on physical product, clamoring that digital distribution would make up the majority of dollars spent on videogames by 2015. Silly game journalists, none of you were business majors!

Anyway, we're here in the future and while DLC does not make up the majority of console videogame sales it does represent a very appealing marketplace. Many things can be said about my employer's business practices, but I am impressed by the cleverness and forward-thinking Gamestop has displayed in implementing digital sales in stores over the past two years. It sounded ridiculous on paper, but in-store digital sales are an all-around good practice for everyone involved.

It's not often I fail to see a downside to any given something.

A Tale of Souls and Swords, Eternally Repackaged

I believe strict "speak when spoken to" policies will be integrated into their relationship soon.

This was a fun one to put together as a test for my new monitor.  I found a rather nice IPS panel monitor on sale locally, and the timing could not have been better.  The wonderful thing about IPS is viewing angle, meaning the slightest shift of my head will no longer cause the colors on my screen to darken/lighten.  The distortion was a real pain when trying to color digitally, and over time began working as a somewhat subconscious discouragement from working on my tablet.  My beautiful, beautiful Wacom tablet.  How I have missed Thee.

I've been thinking about Zelda games lately.  Thinking about their flaws, how these flaws have grown and evolved over the years, and how they've come to negatively impact sales in the franchise.  Look at last winter's Skyward Sword for the Wii: it was far from being the industry-wide event past Zelda games have risen to.  Or perhaps I only feel that way because I opted not to play it?  I believe Zelda games have been heading down that path for a while now, but Skyward Sword wasn't even able to turn heads from those not confined within current Nintendo fandom.  A new Zelda game was unleashed upon the world, and owners of competing videogame consoles were left decidedly not jealous.

Of course, much of that is opinion based only on examples I have personally witnessed, so it is rather presumptuous as an analysis.  The sales numbers paint Skyward Sword as a general success, and it was, especially for a dying system.  Zelda games have maintained their high level of polish and clean presentation, too, so what am I on about?

My problem has a whole lot to do with The Legend of Zelda franchise no longer revolving around exploration and discovery.

Again, a terribly presumptuous thing to say when I have only played a demo of the most recent Zelda game.  For that one I can only approach the situation by the descriptions and opinions of others.  And because that's an unfair, weakass way to dissect the subject of gameplay, Skyward Sword will be from here on ignored in my argument.  I will let those of you who have played SS read on and decide for yourselves if my criticisms apply.

So, exploration and shit.  Join me in reverent flashback and pop in the original Zelda.  You can do this mentally, I'm sure.  Beyond the title screen and an optional (<---- very important!) scrolling introduction to The Story So Far, we are thrust into the land of Hyrule with no explanation of how to approach it.  If we are Normal People who do not choose to sit idly at a title screen for thirty seconds, we don't even know it is called Hyrule.  There is no tutorial, there is no hand-holding, there is no arrow or golden light pointing us towards the path of success.  Character movement is a simple exercise to learn, and we are free to travel a path left, up, or to the right.  There is also a visible cave that seems to command the most intrigue.

If our first stop is not that cave, we are going to get fucked in the ass.

Aggressive creatures lie in wait down every path.  By default, Link (our protagonist -- but back then we were calling him Zelda) has no means of conquering his many, varied foes.  Link's most basic and practical form of defense, a sword, waits in that initial cave.  Demons will attack us, we will scurry about confused and lost, and we will die.  Now, let's say a persistent, cave-averse player manages to make decent progress in this vast, dangerous world in spite of their defenseless situation.  They, too, will eventually die simply because  the game's design necessitates the defeat of some foes to progress.

This would be a problem if we were playing a stupid, poorly-crafted videogame.  Fortunately, death in the sprawling overworld sends the player back to the very first screen of the game.  The same screen which features an obvious doorway and an instantly-recognized, instantly-understood monster-killing item.  No matter how many times this player takes the wrong path, the proper way will be thrown in their face.  Eventually, they will make the right move, and learn that caves are generally kind of worthwhile actually in this game.  In a modern gaming age where the most basic tasks are expressed in blunt, artless text, the simplicity and thoughtful design at work in 1986's Zelda is rather brilliant.

I have much more to say on the subject, and will at a later time, but the basic message exists in these first minutes of the very first Legend of Zelda entry: this is our game to play, and we are free to approach as we see fit.  Is that how you remember Twilight Princess?

For Your Consideration

A link, for your consideration.  It's rather long, so I've quoted an area of particular focus below.

Trichordist: Letter to Emily White

"The existential questions that your generation gets to answer are these:

Why do we value the network and hardware that delivers music but not the music itself?

Why are we willing to pay for computers, iPods, smartphones, data plans, and high speed internet access but not the music itself?

Why do we gladly give our money to some of the largest richest corporations in the world but not the companies and individuals who create and sell music?"

Probably not.

Well, I guess the sad truth is we pay for those things because we don't know how to not pay for them.  Music can be made intangible, digital, and thus easily distributed.  The music player we keep in our pockets...not quite so intangible.  Aside from that, I find some level of value in the notion that we should, by default, be encouraged to spread wealth to independents and smaller companies since we are essentially forced to give it to already-rich behemoths.

Perhaps that sounds strange, but when we pirate music (where payment is perceived as optional) in reaction to money we're practically (and often literally) under contract to extinguish I imagine a sort of imbalance would be created.  Robbing from the poor to give to the rich, in a way.  For most of us the idea of deleting piracy entirely from our lives probably sounds a bit extreme, but for the sake of good health for the industry I hope we all at least consider the financial conditions of individual artists.

Not all music we listen to goes AAA Super Platinum in sales.  Throw some bones their way.

That's more like it.

Concerning this article as a whole, there are certainly a few points that make me uneasy.  There's a high amount of aggression towards file-sharing sites, for one, without consideration paid to non-piracy uses.  However, that may be why I enjoyed reading this piece: despite presenting several opinions I disagree with, there were enough agreeable nuggets and a calm enough tone that I found it overall thoughtful and worthwhile.  Any music fan should read for the sake of getting their cogs turning, at least.

Thoughts and comments always welcome!