E3: Caveat Emptor

E3 is a time of anticipation, excitement, and promise as the future of gaming is laid out before our very eyes. Developers promise never-before-seen-worlds, new mechanics, new IPs, and evolving franchises and many people take these statements at face value. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with getting excited, expectations should be somewhat tempered and audiences need to be more discerning. After all, E3 is essentially a sales conference.


Caveat Emptor is Latin for “Let the buyer beware” and while it traditionally applies to real property, it can apply to other goods; video games perhaps. This phrase arose from the idea of information asymmetry, whereby the seller has more information than the buyer, i.e. the seller knows what defects and limitations exist and the buyer does not. This principle is less applicable nowadays in some countrieswhere consumer law protects buyers andas a result its teachings have all but been forgotten.


When the world’s media, and not just gaming media, is paying attention you can be sure that developers and publishers are pulling out all the stops. This is their time to sell their game to a wider audience, some of whom won’t catch another piece of gaming news until it entails Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, or it’s E3 once again.


As a result, trailers and sales pitches are big business in themselves. We no longer have to take developers at their word that their game will “make [us] its bitch.” Now they can show us themselves. Of course, that’s not to say that they hit the mark every time.


The timing of E3 in this regard couldn’t be any better as a learning opportunity. Watch Dogs was released just weeks ago and left many disappointed. It’s not quite as stream lined as many hoped – street crimes are sought out purposefully rather than by scanning the surrounding – and the graphics controversy has been covered in-depth in the past few months. And yet, two years ago at this very conference it opened our eyes to the future of gaming, singlehandedly winning E3 for Ubisoft.


Of course, Watch Dogs is not the only game to have promised so much and fallen short of its lofty targets. While many are currently celebrating the announcement of Grand Theft Auto V on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, it's worth remembering that even the mighty Rockstar has seen its title hampered by issues in its online component. Servers creaked at launch, as they seem to invariably do at this stage, players glitched their way to more money than they could spend, and players are still waiting for the day that they can execute the perfect online heist rather than just dreaming of it.


We can hope that this is just an isolated incident and that Rockstar will have learned some valuable lessons. Players, on the other hand, seem determined not to learn from experiences. “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” is an expression that needs to be taken to heart. If servers implode or bugs render games unplayable, perhaps it’s worth waiting to see how the game fares in fan, social, or professional circles.


E3 is an exciting time of year, no doubt. The industry needs excitement and enthusiasm, but it also requires higher standards. It needs audiences to beware.

This post appeared at: http://www.clickonline.com/games/e3-caveat-emptor/26468/#sthash.ySeoeWsY.dpuf

I'll take my Xbox One with a side of choice

“It takes less time to do things right than to explain why you did it wrong.”

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Since the announcement of the Xbox One, Microsoft has been inundated with requests, demands and complaints that it should release the console without the Kinect in the box. With E3 on the not-so-distant horizon, that request is to become a reality as Microsoft will release a standalone Xbox One just before the annual games conference kicks off.

The choice should have been with customers all along, a point made even more valid by the months that have followed the release of the Xbox One. Microsoft stated that the Kinect was a fundamental part of its next-gen offering, but its actions to date haven't backed it up. In spite of the company's initial console announcement, the Xbox One has its fair share of games and high quality ones at that. However, the Kinect has been left out to dry.

When the Wii launched, Nintendo made sure that people knew the capabilities, purpose and benefits of the controller. Just look at what Wii Sports did highhandedly for the console. Xbox One, and the Kinect, has no such title. Ryse could very well have been that title. It got the greenlight for the original Kinect, then was set to be a centrepiece for Kinect 2.0, but even that title shunned Kinect in favour of a more traditional control scheme.

Just Dance and Kinect Sports Rivals are certainly capable of showcasing the improvements between the Kinect's generations, but they're not system sellers, nor are they enough to convince gamers that Kinect is the future of entertainment.

The decision to release a Kinect-less Xbox One could be great for consumers and Microsoft. It certainly becomes a much more tempting prospect at that price, but we should still bear in mind that this is the latest in a line of u-turns and should save our gratification somewhat considering it is a choice that we should have been able to make previously.

It is the element of choice that has been Microsoft's sticking point since the announcement of the Xbox One. The company was forced to abandon its idea of a digital future after the backlash regarding its DRM practices and always-online requirement. But what if signing up to this was optional? When something is introduced that is so different to the status quo, it's going to take time, a lot of explanation and some real world experiences. A "beta" of sorts would provide outside observers with that experience, allow Microsoft to tweak the system according to feedback from those early adopters and allow Microsoft to pursue at least one of its initial core strategies.

E3 is always an exciting time and with this development it will be interesting to see how Microsoft follows it up and how Sony reacts. The countdown is on.