Top 10 Controversies
Next, we'll look at this year's ten biggest controversies, the public issues that fueled the big disputes and blog hits, alongside the industry moments that drew enough attention for their impact to resonate into the coming year.
Video Games and the Music Biz: Who Needs Who More?
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick went to war with words against Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman over whether games like Guitar Hero are helping keep music artists afloat -- or whether the games would sink without the songs.
Bronfman stated that, given that band games depend on their track lists, the amount of royalties the industry pays is "far too small", while Kotick retorted that such comments were not "respectful of how much we’ve done to bring new audiences into the market."
Although the long-term outlook for the popularity of band games continues to be in dispute, it's inarguable that neither party can do without the other. Kotick points out, however, that Activision's Guitar Hero: Aerosmith generated more revenue for the band than any individual Aerosmith album.
LittleBigPlanet's Qur'an Lyrics
 Media Molecule said it felt "shellshocked and gutted" when its long-awaited LittleBigPlanet was yanked back just at the cusp of its launch, after audio samples from the Qur'an, Islam's holy book, were discovered in the game's soundtrack.
Many Muslims consider the use of the Qur'an in music to be an offense, although the song's artist Toumani Diabate, a Grammy-winning Muslim himself, explained at length the context for the music.
Case of paranoia? Perhaps, but Muslim groups praised Sony's decision to be extra-respectful, while fans bemoaned the extra days' delay.
Electronic Arts' Bid For Take Two
The great big battle royale for the fate of Take-Two went on all year, through numerous bid renewals, FTC investigations, sports monopoly worries, nondisclosure agreements and, ultimately, a surrender.
The hostile takeover attempt drew the attention of Wall Street because of its similarity to Microsoft's languishing bid for Yahoo!. But it also attracted game fans largely thanks to what EA CEO John Riccitiello calls a "personal narrative" -- the visual of two powerful CEOs who both refused to yield their position.
Even analysts wondered if ego didn't play a role in the power struggle somewhere. The coming year is sure to yield some insight on the wisdom of both companies' positions.
Spore's DRM Debacle
Fans had awaited Will Wright's latest project since 2005. But the launch of Spore was met not so much with discussion of its game mechanics, but with a firestorm of controversy around its digital rights management system.
Those who stood in opposition to the title's comparatively rigid DRM fought back, inundating the game's Amazon listings with negative reviews -- and at one point reducing the title's user rating to a single star.
More importantly, the Spore issue brought to light just how complex the issue of game piracy is. And it increased the urgency on organizations like the PC Gaming Alliance to lead the charge in evaluating how piracy's impact on sales can be measured.
Ultimately, BitTorrent news site TorrentFreak claimed that Spore is the most-pirated game of all time, and armchair analysts speculate that the title was made to receive retribution for its copy protection methods.
Mythic's Crediting Controversy
Mythic Entertainment's drew fire when it was revealed that its new MMO, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning would only credit those staff members currently working at the developer, a move the International Game Developers Association immediately called "disrespectful".
The debate was on -- does providing credits to all employees on a project, regardless of their status, remove their incentive to stay with the company until the project's done?
IGDA chairperson Jennifer MacLean called that assertion "arbitrary, unfair and in some cases even vindictive... they simply don't hold up."
In the end, Mythic emerged as a studio on the forefront of thorough employee crediting. It announced its intention to create an online database that will list the names of all staff members who contribute to its projects. The IGDA's MacLean later apologized to Mythic's Mark Jacobs.
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My sources are:
* once upon atari episode 2 (http://www.onceuponatari.com)
* wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision)
* ign (http://games.ign.com/objects/025/025004.html)
If you've got any evidence to back up their goal of creative freedom, please let me know cause I really want to believe that statement. As far as I'm concerned Activision is worse than what EA used to be and I really hope Blizzard's not already been affected (http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/10/30/starcraft-ii-to-be-mom-friendly/ && http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/10/11/key-starcraft-ii-trilogy-details/).
If you can't then talking about this fictional past will only make the current situation look worse.
Here's to pitfall and desert strike...
the whole ending at the grave for about 4 hours of jumping from unrelated topic to unrelated topic in a meaningless and futile attempt to tie up a million loose ends. by the time the credits finally rolled i was bald from pulling my hair out.
one and two had very good stories, particularly two, but guns of the patriots had a story written by a 15 year old boy with ADHD.
>>>Bart Stewart: "Part of me wants to object that any game that was excluded for months from PC gamers should be excluded from this list. Is it helpful to reward a publisher with a 'best of' award or honorable mention for a game on a particular platform if that platform wasn't considered worthy of support at the game's launch?"
Bart may not realize that there is a growing trend of releasing the PC SKU of games months after the console SKUs. This has nothing to do with disrespecting the PC as a platform. Rather, it has to do with combating piracy.
By releasing the PC SKU well after the console versions have had a chance to sell through their peak period (1-3 months post-launch), publishers avoid having pirated PC copies cannibalize sales of the console SKUs. Also, anyone who *really* wants to get their hands on a particular title might be willing to purchase the console version rather than wait a few months for the PC one.
It's not a perfect solution, but it makes a fair bit of sense. After all, nobody benefits from PC piracy except the pirates and those who steal games, and our livelihood by doing so.
When we critically consider other forms of entertainment - for instance, literature, movies, and theater - we can focus on both the phenomenal experience of the thing, and on the formal quality of the thing being reviewed. It isn't a perfect approach, but it gets at the heart of the matter, which seems to be twofold: "is this thing well put together", and "will I be moved by this thing in some fashion?" It doesn't take a vast and complex understanding of the field to speak to those points, either - we all know that a review citing poor special effects and horribly mixed audio (arguably formal issues) suggests that even an exciting science fiction story (the experiential side of things) will come across poorly on film.
The interesting question, I think, is whether we should we approach games (be they electronic or otherwise) in the same way, and if so, whether the tools that we can borrow from other critics are sufficient?
What makes this a remarkable news item though, was that Sony reacted to a gamer's post on a forum, rather than a complaint by any organization. Muslim organizations didn't complain because it was in fact a hymn, but you saw a gamer stating his opinion, and Sony taking that as a representation of over 1.5 billion people. It seems from my limited research that Sony did little in making an effort to contact organizations like the Muslim Council of Britain...which would have saved them a lot of hassle in delaying the title, reprinting BluRay discs, and in affecting launch sales.
Am I to understand that Gamasutra thinks that make of Tris a tetris-like game for the IPhone is a thief? Cause he made an clone of Tetris?
1MGS4/MGO
2Fallout 3
3Lost Odyssey
4Last Remnant
5Soul Calibur 4
6Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
7Crisis Core
8Valkyrie Chronicles
9Resistance 2
10Farcry 2
Also an indie game not mentioned anywhere here is Passage. It's a very simple 2d experience that only lasts five minutes. Nevertheless I found that it had a profoundly emotional effect on me and is certainly worth checking out at least once.
http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/
How about "obtain illegally" rather than "steal"? Does that work for you? Call it what you like if it makes you satisfied.
I'd just ask readers to consider a couple of points.
1. The PC is hardly the only platform on which piracy occurs -- Gamasutra itself recently published an article on the massive, almost casual piracy of games for handheld devices in Asia. Singling out the PC for a delayed release may not be justifiable on piracy grounds alone.
2. The question I raised -- regarding the decision to reward publishers (with a mention in a "best of platform" category) despite excluding the gamers who prefer that platform by not initially launching the game on that platform -- I think stands on its own regardless of the reason for not launching on a particular platform. As I said in my original comments, it's not something I'm losing sleep over, but I do wonder whether it's a good principle generally for anyone who publishes widely-read judgements on games. That said, Chris's response satisfied me that some thought went into the decision to do so, so I have no serious complaints. As I said then, I thought the games that made it to Gamasutra's "best PC games" list were generally excellent... once they came out for the PC. :)