CD Projekt Red - The Good Guys Of Game Development

It'll be no surprise to you that gaming is big business. In this current generation of gaming, development budgets are huge, marketing budgets are bigger and the incentive for financiers to recoup their investment has never been greater.

This has lead to an annoying disparity for gamers over the last few years. It started with DLC on the last console generation, downloadable chunks of a game that we were encouraged to pay over the odds for to slightly expand the time we spent with a game and allowed for publishers to milk a franchise further down the line.

Sometimes DLC worked well. The tremendous Artorias Of The Abyss for Dark Souls and Left Behind for The Last Of Us were two pieces of content that significantly fleshed out the experience of the main game with new areas, new story points and even new ways of playing. Most of the time, especially with single player DLC (map packs for the likes of Call Of Duty are par for the course), paying for extra story content either wasn't worth it or felt like a distinct rip off. For instance, the From Ashes DLC for Mass Effect 3 that was released on the same day as the game and was actually already on the game's disc received a huge backlash.

In this generation of gaming there has already been a lot of controversy about the value of downloadable content. Evolve has roughly £100 worth of content which most gamers see as largely irrelevant and Destiny's initial DLC The Dark Below cost £20 and was considered underwhelming.

But more than just DLC there is a new scourge on the wallets of gamers: pre-order bonuses. A relatively new phenomenon, different retailers are now securing exclusive bundles of content to encourage players to preorder with them. This can come down to special editions too, given that in the UK it was retailer GAME who had the exclusive rights to sell the Bloodborne Nightmare edition. Further from this, depending on who you preorder Batman: Arkham Knight from you can get up to 4 different digital add ons ranging from maps, to characters to a skin for the bloody Batmobile. It's getting insane as to a point this is removing the choice of the customer to buy a game where they want, depending on who is selling which version of the game.

However, in this day and age there is one developer who is bucking this trend: CD Projekt Red. Today, 19th of May, marks the release date of the much anticipated The Witcher III: Wild Hunt. The Polish developer has long been one of the last big independent developers and their ethos revolves around making the games they they themselves would want to play. To this end, The Witcher games have been huge, sprawling and challenging epics, full of fantasy wonderment, violence and sex.

CDPR have long stated that they were on the side of the gamers. This is why there is only two versions of The Witcher III up for sale, the standard edition and the collector's edition. No matter which edition you buy, you get the exact same game disc with the exact same content. The difference between the two is the huge statue you get with the collector's edition.

Even the standard edition dwarfs some special editions of games. In the box you get a manual (when was the last time you actually got a printed manual in a box?), a huge map of the game world, some stickers and even a soundtrack CD. Then there is the free DLC programme, which means everyone who buys the game, whether it's preorder, in store release, online, standard or collector's edition gets 16 pieces of DLC for free over a period of two months. SIXTEEN! FOR FREE! These range from extra missions, to cosmetic items to characters. Basically the kind of things most games of this generation have been offering as part of a season pass.

The Witcher III does have a season pass, however this is one of the few times I would say it's completely worth it. For your season pass you get two huge expansion packs released next year which add roughly 30 hours to the length of the game, all for the same price as the underwhelming Destiny expansion pass.

CDPR know how to look after their customers. They know exactly how to offer additional content and garner grace for their efforts. In a world where the likes of EA, Activision and Ubisoft can rampantly gouge players for everything they're worth, CDPR are a breath of fresh air. The big players could learn a lot from them.

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Are Social Features Ruining Gaming?

The internet is a wonderful thing. The world is getting smaller every day as it gets easier and easier to communicate across the world in an instant. This in itself has been such a wonderful thing for the human race as we're all now closer than ever. I myself have friends across the world from Canada to Australia who I talk to more than I do with the friends I have who live in the same town as me.

With the surge in popularity of social networks it's now the norm to have a Facebook profile. In fact, whereas back in 2007 having a Facebook account brought sneers of derision or looks of confusion, it's now the case where those few people who don't have accounts are looked at like they're insane. "You don't have a Facebook? But how do you talk to your friends?" is usually the question that comes next, such is the network's ubiquitous stature (the answer to that question is a rant for another day, however).

But one area that Social networking has failed to permeate properly is gaming, so as a result developers and publishers seem to be doing their best to get players together and talking. With this latest generation of consoles, the race is on to integrate people as much as possible. Both the Xbox One and the PS4 are heavily linked to Facebook and Twitter (in fact, both encourage you to sign into your accounts when they set are being set up).  From both consoles you can instantly share gameplay videos and screenshots to your network of choice to show off something you've done or seen in a game.

When it comes to the games themselves, things are different. Now games are being built with their own "social spaces" and efforts to bring players together in faux-meaningful ways. Do you remember the hoopla that Bungie made over Destiny? Promises of drop in drop out online gameplay, seamless social integration, blah blah blah. The technology was impressive but the game suffered as a result. You had The Tower, a space where you could interact with other Guardians, which eventually boiled down to people just standing and dancing together. For all the grand promises about how the game would bring players together, it really just provided an area to dick about in outside of the main game.

Then look at the concepts in the game itself. Much was made over the game's hardcore Raids, requiring six man teams to take on extreme challenges that dwarfed what you would find in the main campaign. Bungie set some rules in stone for the Raids though, that there was no matchmaking for raids, you had to go in with six players and you all had to be over a certain level before you could even access the area.

Now, I'm sorry, but the idea of rounding up five other players on a weekly basis to grind the same challenge over and over again does not appeal to me. Forcing people together like this does not a social experience make.

It's not just with Destiny, Evolve made a big fuss about it's 4v1 hunt concept where all the hunters had unique abilities and everyone needed to work together to win. Great idea. The problem is, when playing with matchmade team mates the game is simply no fun. It's great fun if you have people you can reliably get online with whenever you want, but without those bonds or the ability to communicate the game is an unbridled mess. When I'm playing as the Monster I can always tell when I'm playing against a party or not (mostly due to whether I win or lose).

Games like these end up alienating their audience because of the vast promises made on these "social features". Destiny proved to be dangerously shallow unless you had the will, want or desire to grind endlessly for heroic or legendary gear, whereas Evolve was disappointingly thin on features and suffered due to the unbalanced nature of it's multiplayer when matchmaking was involved.

That's not to say social features are a bad thing in general. You only have to look as far as Bloodborne, with its inherited online features from the Souls series of games. There is a unique social backend to the game which is very subtle, but can prove to be incredibly useful and helpful to players of all levels. From being able to summon other players to help you in your game at any point or the ability to leave notes and messages around the level to warn other players of traps or upcoming enemies, the system isn't new, but it works in context with the game you're playing.

But the best thing about Bloodborne's social features? Neither From Software nor Sony went on a platform bragging about it. They didn't go out and say "look how awesome it is that players can work together!" No, instead it's just a feature of the game that is explained in tutorials, nothing more and nothing less.

Then there's the weight of expectation on the social side of games these days. DriveClub was universally broken from the start because of such a poorly managed yet critically integrated "club" system. Or what about Sim City with it's disastrous always online DRM and the focus on people building competing cities? Both games failed because they focused so much on doing something clever rather than being actually good games.

And for one last point, a lot of these social based work on dedicated, proprietary servers beyond the PSN/XBL set ups. So what happens when the player base drops? EA has already proved that it's not willing to keep servers switched on for years at a time and as soon as the player base in their sports games drops below a certain threshold they sunset the game and turn off the online features. This wasn't so much of an issue for games like FIFA which are annualised and don't have a shelf life much beyond a year, but what happens when Bungie realise no one is playing Destiny any more? Are they going to turn off the servers and render the always online game entirely unplayable?  All of these social based games make grand promises but at the end of the day they have a limited lifespan. When people stop playing them, the publisher or developer will eventually just switch them off.

What's wrong with a good game with a solid multiplayer that makes sense? I don't want to play a game where I'm forced to interact beyond partying up with people and kicking some ass together. I don't want to be social with my gaming, I don't want to have to post to facebook to unlock achievements or trophies and I certainly don't want to spend £45 on a game only to find that I can't play it because the weight of the world is forcing the server to buckle. Give me a game with a solid multiplayer and a good story mode and please, just leave it at that.

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Microsoft Secure Xbone.com Domain

Microsoft have secured the web domain for Xbone.com.

Despite the assertions of Xbox Love director of programming Larry Hryb (a.k.a Xbox Live mouthpiece Major Nelson) that the term Xbone is distasteful and disrespectful, Microsoft have bought the domain.

Just two days ago, Hryb took to NeoGAF and proclaimed ""I don't like it.  It disrespects the teams that have put in thousands of hours (already) into the development of the product. Sure, it's cheeky but I don't care for it myself."

For those unsure, the nickname is a contraction of Xbox One and was coined within minutes of the name being announced back in April, spreading like wildfire over the Internet (as such high profile things do).

In most cases, Xbone is used with a slightly derogatory inflection, but more often than not it simply rolls off the tongue easier than Xbox One

Heading to Xbone.com, visitors are greeted with a Bing search results page. It's unlikely that Microsoft will do anything with the page, given the company's distaste for the term

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Xbox One Release Date Revealed

Microsoft have finally confirmed that the Xbox One will be released on 22nd of November in North America, the UK and about 11 other territories.

This places the Xbone release a week behind the PS4 in the states but a week ahead of its European release date. Make of that what you will.

Microsoft has also confirmed that it has made a number of Xbox One Day One edition consoles available for preorder after stock had sold out. The Day One edition comes with a free digital copy of FIFA 14 in Europe.

As has been previously reported, the Xbox One will retail for £429 in the UK from launch. Preorders are getting thin on the ground and merchants such as Game and Amazon are no longer guaranteeing standard edition consoles for the launch day. A Day One edition preorder will be guaranteed for launch day but new pre orders of the standard edition console aren't held to the same date.

So the battle lines have been drawn for the end of November. Which are you more excited for? The PS4 or the Xbox One? Make yourself heard in the comments below.

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PS4 and Xbox One launch lineups revealed

Gamescom is in full swing over in Cologne. As well as the reveal of the PS4 release date (November 29th in Europe), the lineup of games on release has been revealed:

• Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag 
• Basement Crawl 
• Battlefield 4 
• Blacklight 
• Call of Duty: Ghosts
• Contrast 
• DC Universe Online 
• Doki-Doki Universe 
• DriveClub 
• FIFA 14 
• Flower 
• Hohokum 
• Just Dance 2014 
• Killzone: Shadow Fall 
• Knack 
• Lego Marvel Superheroes
• Madden NFL 25 
• Minecraft 
• N++ 
• NBA Live 
• NBA 2K14 
• Need for Speed: Rivals 
• Pinball Arcade 
• Planetside 2 
• Pool Nation Extreme 
• ResoGun 
• Skylanders: Swap Force
• Super Motherload 
• The Playroom 
• Tiny Brains 
• Warframe 
• War Thunder 
• Watch Dogs 

Now, Microsoft still haven't revealed the specific release date for the Xbox One, all we know us that it's going to be November. They have, however, released their launch line up, which closely resembles the PS4 list, with a few differences:

• Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag
• Battlefield 4
• Call of Duty: Ghosts
• Crimson Dragon
• Dead Rising 3
• FIFA 14
• Fighter Within
• Forza Motorsport 5
• Just Dance 2014
• Killer Instinct
• LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
• Lococycle
• Madden NFL 25
• NBA 2K14
• NBA LIVE 14
• Need for Speed: Rivals
• Peggle 2
• Powerstar Golf
• Ryse: Son of Rome
• Skylanders: Swap Force
• Watch Dogs
• Zoo Tycoon
• Zumba Fitness: World Party

As you can see, there's quite a few cross platform titles, as is the case at each new generation release.

We also know then prices of the consoles, with the Xbox One retailing for £429.99 in the UK whereas the PS4 will undercut that by retailing at £349.99.

It's a good year for gaming.

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Microsoft: Kinect No Longer Mandatory for Xbox One

That's right, you heard it correctly, Microsoft has backtracked again over a controversial feature in the Xbone.

IGN reports that from one of their Ask Microsoft Anything Q&A sessions, Xbox Corporate Vice President Marc Whitten came out stating that gamers will still be able to play games and watch media on the Xbone without the Kinect sensor plugged in.

So while this obviously disables the likes of voice commands and "wave your hands in the air" control methods, some people will be more than happy with this. There had been growing concern since the original device reveal about what would happen if the Kinect became damaged? Would you not be able to use your Xbox?

Well, so it seems you can still play games and use the media controls to a degree. It will disable some of the tent-pole features that Microsoft have defined for the Xbone, but at least it allays some of the fears about it. A lot of people did not like the fact that the Kinect sensor was always on, always listening for the "Xbox On" command. Some people even, in some paranoid way, believed that the Xbox would be constantly monitoring the room and could even be recording conversations, seeing as the microphone on the sensor was always on.

However, there are still some questions left around this. Should you wish to disconnect the Kinect sensor, are games going to be affected? Microsoft is keen to have kinect support built in to almost every game, so having it disconnected could affect the gaming experience. Then there is the much reported patent that Microsoft holds where Kinect can identify how many people are in a room watching a film and it's supposed ability to determine if you hold the correct licence to show the film to that many people.

In my mind, I never really liked Kinect on the Xbox 360, so the ability to use the Xbone without it pleases me to a degree. Should I get my hands on an Xbone, I would prefer not to use the Kinect sensor at all. Time will tell how much of an impact disconnecting it will have on the experience.

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