Japan and the West
Posted on Jul 14, 2011 in Rants
There is a reasonably obvious trend with most Japanese games, and that is the intended audience. Many Japanese games never get any exposure outside of the country of origin, as it is believed that the target audience of these games is exclusive to the land of the rising sun.
Games that do get western translations (or just simply releases) only come out after a significant delay - two years is a very common waiting period for a lot of games. But at least it's better than no release at all, which happens all too often.
I find this extremely annoying for several reasons.
A Case Against Console Hacking
Posted on Mar 1, 2011 in Rants
Well, nice work, Nintendo. Flash cartridges work on the 3DS without any hardware or software modifications required. Admittedly, they're only running DS games, but it's already a step towards the whole system going under. After one day, a significant part of the console has already been hacked. I can only hope that the 3DS part of the console will remain locked down for a long, long time. Unfortunately I doubt that's a likely scenario.
As an owner of a DS flash card myself, it's understandable to ask: why do I not want this console hacked? Firstly, I'm not a pirate. I only play games that I own on my flash card. Secondly, I'm a huge fan of the DS and want to see the successor to it succeed in places where the original did not.
Rant: "Game Design" Degrees
Posted on Feb 9, 2011 in Rants
This is one subject I talk about a lot - university degrees in "Game Design". These courses have become extremely popular over the past few years - and why not? Everyone loves games, and a lot of people would love to make them as a profession. Why, you could be in the credits of the next Uncharted, Gears of War, or Mario game! This is a dream that many gamers have had - I know that even now, I would love to work at a popular game studio. And you would too.
I want to talk about people who have gone the next step from thinking about it: actually studying games design at university. These people have good intentions - they hear about these degrees, they like the sound of them. Unfortunately they're going about it in the completely wrong way.
