With Planetside 2, the innovation is in how you buy it. For a massively multiplayer online game like this, you’d expect to pay a monthly fee like millions of people do to play World of Warcraft. Instead, Planetside 2 is free to play. Sony makes money when you purchase new weapons, add-ons for tanks, and other items, though you can also earn these upgrades by successfully completing objectives as you level up. Plenty of smaller games found on Facebook or on smartphones use this freemium model; now the model has entered the MMO world.
Popular Mechanics, The 10 Most Innovative Video Games of 2012
We do piss and moan about the poor state of the video game press.
Often it is our closeness to the subject and our own motivation and bias (journalists are not allowed to have that unless, of course, we agree with it, in which case it is just telling the gospel truth) that leads us to jump on comment threads (here is the cesspit that fertilizes the whole thing) or blogs (:blush:) to decry an article as totally biased or invalid because the writer in question was paid off, did not spend enough time with the game, included something that was clearly a matter of taste or option, or used “your” when they meant “you’re” in paragraph twenty-seven.
It is really our own little culture war, where if you do not agree with me about game X, then you must be the enemy.
Part of me is annoyed by this. When I foolishly look at comment threads on gaming sites, I become depressed at the state of humanity.
And part of me sees video games as an entertainment medium and, thus, deserving of the same sort of coverage as any similar medium. How does the journalistic integrity meter rate TMZ or Entertainment Tonight or any of that ilk? Do we get out the torches and pitchforks when somebody gives a bad review to a movie we love? (If you don’t think we do, then you aren’t reading the right comment threads.)
But in the midst of that, nothing can rally gamers together like a non-gamer journalist covering games.
And so we have that quote at the top, retweeted by SOE in what I have to imagine was a moment of mixed emotion, where PlanetSide 2 is lauded as innovative because… if I read that right… they ripped off the business plan being used so successfully by Facebook and iPhone developers. As they said, “…the model has entered the MMO world!”
Zynga should sue!
PlanetSide 2 does merit some praise. How about getting a shooter to work in a huge sprawling environment where thousands of players face off? That seems to be a pretty decent accomplishment.
But to call it out because of its business model… which is pretty much the same as all of SOE’s other games at this point… plus all of the other free to play MMO titles out there… seems like calling out Heath Ledger‘s performance in The Dark Knight because of the cool clown makeup.
Not to mention that in the current online market, a subscription model MMO is about as common as a silent movie in the age of talkies. But here is somebody for which MMOs are World of Warcraft.
And so we must put the hapless noob in the pillory for his transgression. Point and laugh, people, point and laugh.
And rightly so, I would say.
But is this banding together against the ignorant outsider, the gamer Gaijin, a tribal thing? Is so-called professional video game journalism the worst… except when compared with the alternatives?
Or is this just the hubris of journalists… or the hubris of people in general… that we feel we can rush into anything, clearly ill informed on the subject at hand, and add something of value?
Oh, and that Popular Mechanic’s article was probably right on target with Journey…. and perhaps the rest of its list.
I don’t know. I didn’t actually play any of them besides PlanetSide 2. I am only indignant about the part of which I have first hand knowledge.
Which sort of describes my relationship with the daily newspaper. I believe whatever they write, except when it comes to articles about which I have first hand knowledge. Those are always riddled with errors and are as often as no flat-out wrong.
There is probably a lesson in that.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 