T w e n t y S i d e d

My column this week is a bit on the Phoenix Point controversy and why it’s destructive to the crowdfunding scene. I talked about it on the podcast this week, but this column is a text version of that rant for those of you who aren’t into the whole multimedia thing.

The problem is that developers are using crowd money to make demos so they can shop their project around and secure more traditional funding. I don’t have a solution for this. Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe this is an inherent flaw in the crowdfunding scene. Backers wind up being investors with no ability to hold the studio accountable, and that makes them vulnerable.

Lots of game projects die / get canceled before they reach release. Most of them vanish without us ever knowing they existed. Unless the project was based on established IP or the team featured a famous industry name, we don’t usually care. If the investors lose their money, nobody really sheds a tear for them because:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Experienced Points: Why Too Much Success Is Bad for Crowdfunding”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

My column this week serves two purposes. First, I wanted to acknowledge the bad timing of my article two weeks ago when I praised Anthem just before a flood of news stories revealed that things were worse than they seemed on the surface. Secondly, I wanted to shine a light on Warframe because it really is strange how little attention the game gets.

Every week is a new discovery of something cool that Warframe does, followed by a new annoyance that makes me ragequit. I keep getting disgusted, storming off, but then coming back because I miss the gameplay. Nothing else feels this fluid. I don’t mean “it feels good for a grindathon looter-shooter”, I mean the game feels good to play, period. While you do spend a lot of time working towards long-term goals, I hesitate to call it a “grind”. I associate grind with static gameplay against repetitive enemies in the same environments, and Warframe is the opposite of that. It’s so good I keep forgetting just how annoying it is, and so I have to come back every day so I can be reminded of why I quit yesterday.

I don’t know if that’s a criticism or an endorsement, but that’s where I’m at with this game right now.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Warframe is Strange Fun”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.