ART211W - Entry 10

I figured, hey, for my last blog, why not do something that really expresses how I feel about corporations in the game industry.

In The Groove is a game that was developed by Roxor games and released in arcades in late August, 2004. Becoming a hit with hardcore Dance Dance Revolution players, ITG gained steam and a squeal was released in June of the next year. Unfortunately, Konami, the creators of Dance Dance Revolution, took action, and a lawsuit in October of 2006 brought production and work on a third game to a halt.

This brings up a very interesting point. ITG is based on a free, open-source program called Stepmania which has been around for a few years prior to development of the arcade adaptation. Konami has long been aware of this freeware clone and was unable to take action against it, due to it being open source and free. Unfortunately, when the first iteration of ITG was released for arcades, it required a preexisting DDR cabinet to be installed in. Thus, the intellectual property battle began, with arcade owners unwilling to strip off existing decals from their machines, players could easily misinterpret the Roxor product as being a Konami one, and Konami took action with this. Why they waited so long was probably due to their arrogance for owing a monopoly in the industry. From their point of view, it was just another wanna-be dance game.

What they didn't expect, however, was the cult following the game created, with more and more players switching to ITG over DDR due to unique innovations that the DDR series lacked. Songs requiring players to use their hands, perform "rolls" on extended notes, and dodging mines added to the growing stale gameplay of the existing games. This, along with the added expert difficulties, kept players interested enough for the squeal. Konami, seeing a real threat, took action. Players who knew the game well enough knew that these features had existed in the PC ports of Stepmania for years, and were confused as to why Konami was -just now- taking action.

Needless to say, it's the classic "large corporation taking out the smaller guys" scenario. Konami won the suit and immediately halted the series. There have been no games with the In the Groove name since the lawsuit and the acquisition of the rights to the series. Players were horribly upset with the killing of a great alternative and Konami's DDR series continued the stale, boring path it had before. Even with players begging for innovation, they refused to listen.

With the latest release of DDRX, however, elements from the ITG series seem to be making an appearance. "Shock Arrows" are now introduced in some expert difficulties, these are arrows that are not meant to be stepped on. Sounding familiar? Mines from ITG have made an appearance, although a much less visually appearing, and stupidly dumbed down version (they only appeared 4 at a time, never individually or able to be placed creatively enough.) Even with this, though, it seems that the series is still a dull as before, with lacking creativity and promoting the same-old-same-old.

This pulls another key topic. When the rights to something are acquired and content is reused (although rehashed), does the company who now own the rights deserve the credit for this innovation? What is it that makes the existing creators of these techniques be pushed to the side and shoved out of the way by major corporations? Why is it that Konami refuses to have ANY sort of competition in their "music game" industry, wouldn't that help them to make a better product by seeing the competition and how the public responds?

Apparently, Konami's marketing and research department has a LOT to learn.

Associated links:
http://www.konami.co.jp/en/news/topics/050511/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Groove_(series)#Lawsuit

ART211W - Entry 9

Edit: ADFGSDFGSDFG I HATE YOU BLOGSPOT. STOP DELETING MY POSTS.

Edit 2:

Associated Link: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/08/22/

Ah, the good old web comic scene. Here is a priceless Penny Arcade comic depicting another one of life's little indulgences. With gaming becoming more and more competitive, it seems that normal talents appear to be overshadowed. PA takes a fun jab at this by presenting Photoshop Hero.

While this comic takes a fun jab at all the "Hero" styled games, it also presents another fun question about what "talent" truly is. It seems that with these stylized games comes apparent bragging rights. Talent is, already, hard enough to try to pinpoint, but with the added fact that any video game is pushing competition and being able to have bragging rights it's becoming harder and harder to separate the useful skills from the completely pointless, mainly due to whoever is playing seems to take pride in what they're doing. Human nature is, unfortunately, liable to fall to this flaw, taking a simple task of playing a game and pushing that skill, mentally, to the point of being able to call it a "skill"

This is, sadly, the downfall of most modern games. Instead of focusing on gameplay and character-based storylines, we have giant "band simulators" and a plethora of games that are plagued by the requirement of plastic peripherals and only promote bragging rights. Even on the boxes for games, the fact that "learn to rock out for fame, glory, and bragging!" is written right there immediately points out the true intention of playing.

So what exactly is considered a skill, or better yet, true talent?

ART211W - Entry 8

Associated Link

YouTube has, since it's formation, been a social site where anyone can post videos of whatever they desire. From cats jumping around, to seeing your friend dive headfirst into a pile of bananas, YouTube has become the hot-spot for people to become noticed. However, with any forms of creative expression, some people will take their "creativity" to the extremes.

YouTube "poops", as they've come to be known, are basically created by taking any video that can be found, and either spoofing it, or applying every single effect and distortion possible. Usually, these videos make little to no sense. The video above, however, is a twisted spoof of this random piece, which still makes...almost no sense. More common 'poops' are mashups of footage from, basically, anything. More common, though, are the spoofs of other, seemingly useless videos. A spoof of Vince's ShamWow! commercial has quickly become one of the most popular videos that have spread around the internet.

This brings up an interesting topic, though. With the whole idea of "cultural remixing", when is too much, too much? Is the remixed video property of the person who mashed together the footage, or is it still the original author's work?