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Opinion Why we play games; Experiencing the impossible. By Josiah Sapp     I find it interesting to step back and to not only observe the world around me but to also ask why the world is the way it is. What compels people to do what they do? What are all the ways we communicate with each other? Why are cultural norms different across countries? It’s fun and enlightening to ask big questions but the answers aren’t always what they first appear to be. This post starts a three week journey into one of those big questions. Why do we play games? The answer to that question is varied and broad. It depends on all manner of factors including age, race, culture, lifestyle, and gender to name a few. In recent years, researchers have found that there’s a lot that goes on in our brains when we play video games.     In a brief description, gaming is a form of entertainment. A type of media that people pay for and consume much like movies, mu...

Opinion Mods not microtransactions: How to keep players engaged. By Josiah Sapp     Players invest a lot of their time and money in games that they believe in. We want the best experience for the investment. Developers and publishers make a living because we spend money on their product and spend time in their creation. It’s a highly competitive market and the tactics are cut throat. If a studio isn’t on top of the gaming trends, they get shut down or reallocated elsewhere. That’s why we get stories like Visceral studios being disbanded and their projects getting canceled. What they were working on, in theory, wasn’t being developed in line with future trends of the marketplace. Studios want their customers to return to their game while spending money on extra content. The avenue in which developers have achieved this retention and spending is through paid DLC and microtransactions to varying degrees of success. It seems, however, that all games are doome...

Opinion Video game exclusives: A relic of the past that’s losing its value. By Josiah Sapp     In the early nineties, there was a famous dispute between Nintendo and Sega. Nintendo had an iron grip on the gaming industry and Sega wanted to be the ones to rival them first and take them down. This is known as the console wars and it’s effects can still be felt today. During the “wars”, both companies had a champion for their cause. A mascot that would represent them to the masses. Nintendo had the loveable Italian plumber Mario and Sega had the fast paced, edgy Sonic the hedgehog. Both companies screamed from the mountaintops “You can only play this character on our console!” Thus pitting customers against one another forcing them to choose one gaming console or other. This is where exclusivity began and gaming companies are still trying persuade use with the same argument today.  Sony vs. Nintendo vs. Microsoft     The...

Opinion Releasing unfinished games: The perfect storm of hubris and ambitious deadlines By Josiah Sapp     My very first gaming console that I remember playing was the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Playing games like Donkey Kong Country and Mega Man X to my heart’s content. As a young lad, it would be incredibly disappointing to get half way through the game to only find out that I could never finish it unless I paid for another cartridge. Unfortunately, games today do have that problem and it’s infecting the industry as a whole. With the invention of beta demos and live updates, unfinished games are going up for sale and people still buy them. Why do gamers buy into a practice that is blatantly hurting the gaming community and why do game developers/producers feel like they can get away with it? It’s a combination of excessive pride and ambitious deadlines.     In today’s fast paced world of gaming, not being able to p...

Opinion Video game graphics; Going backward is moving forward. By Josiah Sapp     When I was growing up, the main thing that told me if a game was good or not was what the game looked like. The more realistic the graphics the better. That proved to me that a game was going to be entertaining because it was a cool thing to look at. I remember bringing home a Sega Dreamcast and playing it for the first time. The realism was unbelieveable. It was so good that my grandpa sat down to a watch a football game and didn’t even realize that we were actually playing that year’s iteration of Madden. Recently, graphics have been taking a back seat to gameplay and storytelling. It seems like a step back but the industry is moving forward as a whole. Minecraft     The independent (indie) game scene has really exploded over the past ten years. You can’t look at a top ten games list without including an indie game or two. Whether it be for originality...