Rockstar’s final episodic content for “Grand Theft Auto IV”
hits Xbox Live on Oct. 29 – and today the company is giving the first peak at
what the add-on will look like with the trailer "You’ll Always Be The King of This Town".
And, not to spoil the fun, but it might help to have your
boogie shoes handy - along with an extra wardrobe. The Ballad of Gay Tony” will also bring the usual level of chaos to
Liberty City.
As Luis Lopez, part-time hoodlum and full-time assistant to legendary
nightclub impresario Tony Prince (aka "Gay Tony"), players will
struggle with the competing loyalties of family and friends, and with the
uncertainty about who is real and who is fake in a world in which everyone has
a price.
The downloadable content will cost $19.99 (or 1600 MS Points). It will
also be available as part of a retail release called “Grand Theft Auto:
Episodes from Liberty City”. That disc will feature the content from the first
episodic release (“The Lost and Damned”) as well as “The Ballad of Gay Tony” on
one disc for $39.99. It will not require players to own a copy of “GTA IV” to
play.
The iPhone just became a much, much bigger threat to the
traditional video game industry.
Rockstar Games has announced plans to release “Grand Theft
Auto: Chinatown Wars” on the iPhone and iPod Touch this fall.
“Chinatown Wars” began as a Nintendo DS exclusive. It never
really found an audience, though. Once the exclusivity window expired, Rockstar
announced plans for a PSP version (which will come out Oct. 20).
The announcement comes on the heels of Rockstar’s another press
release, noting that the forthcoming “Beaterator” is also headed to Apple’s
products this fall. A PSP version of that game is due around the same time, as
well.
Rockstar’s parent company Take Two Interactive was slow to
get into the iPhone market, but its first effort - “Civilization Revolution” -
was a notable hit. It quickly became the top-selling paid application and is
still a fixture in the Top 25.
Development of iPhone ports of games for major publishers is
basically an incidental expense. The engine and assets are easily moved over
from other platforms and the conversion process is a relatively painless one.
Pricing is key, though. iPhone users aren’t likely to spend
more than $10 on an app, no matter how prestigious. Will Rockstar keep the
price at a reasonable level or try to push the limit on the power of the “GTA”
name?
Take Two and Rockstar aren’t likely to break down sales of
the iPhone version versus the PSP and DS versions, but the numbers are likely
to leak. And it will be very interesting to see which platform sells the most
copies (and makes the most profit).
If it’s the iPhone version, we could be a lot closer to an
iPhone exclusive game of a major franchise than we were a month ago.
Don’t look for any more “Godfather” or “Grand Theft Auto”
games in China.
The Chinese Ministry of Culture has forbidden websites from
featuring or publicizing games that heavily feature gangs, obscenity or gambling
-- and says it will severely punish sites that try to skirt the law.
“These games encourage people to deceive, loot and kill, and
glorify gangsters’ lives. It has a bad influence on youngsters,” said a report
from the Culture Ministry carried on the Xinhua news agency.
My colleague Clifford Coonan has more on the ban itself, but
the implications for the gaming industry are notable.
Gang games are still a big part of the industry these days.
Beyond the examples above, there’s also THQ’s “Saint’s Row,” Take Two’s “Mafia
II” and the upcoming “APB” – a massively multiplayer online game for the PC,
which are the most popular types of games in China.
And, depending on how broad a definition of the word ‘gangs’
the Ministry of Culture decides to take, the “World of Warcraft” juggernaut
could even find itself at risk. While Blizzard Software banned casinos in the
game four years ago, zealots could label Horde guilds as a gang – particularly
in the PvP zones (where players are permitted to kill each other’s characters).
There are implications beyond big, traditional publishers as
well. Facebook’s most popular game is “Mafia Wars” – which could give the
government further reason to continue blocking the social networking site.
(After the riots in Xinjiang earlier this month, China blocked access to
Facebook and Twitter. It’s unknown if that ban will be permanent or not.)
Like it or not, the ‘gang’ subgenre of gaming is not going
away anytime soon. And China is a growing market for the industry, as
developers and publishers finally begin to get a handle on ways to combat the
country’s significant piracy problem. This move by the government could
eventually have notable effects on the industry as a whole.
It looks like gamers just aren't ready for mature content on the DS.
Despite stellar reviews, a major marketing campaign and one of the biggest brand name in video games, "Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars" bombed last week. According to new data from the NPD Group, the DS-only version of "GTA" sold a pathetic 89,000 units in its first two weeks on sale.
It was the first effort by any publisher to bring a huge, M-rated franchise that has previously existed solely on living room consoles to Nintendo's portable device. It seemed hard to argue with the logic: The DS is the most popular console in the country and the world by far, with 26.3 million sold in the U.S. The conventional wisdom was that only kids' games and casual titles, as well as ones made by Nintendo, sold well. "GTA" publisher Rockstar decided to challenge that wisdom with "Chinatown Wars." Bad decision.
By contrast, last April's "Grand Theft Auto IV" sold 2.85 million units in just its first few days to a combined Xbox 360 / Playstation 3 install base of 14.4 million. Rockstar's previous two efforts to move "GTA" to a portable device: 2005's "Liberty City Stories" and 2006's "Vice City Stories," sold 158,000 and 108,000 units, respectively, during their first month on sale. And those were both for the PSP, which had (and continues to have) a much lower install base than the DS.
Even the Xbox 360 exclusive downloadable "Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned" has, I'm told, sold about 1 million units to that console's 13.5 million owners.
Rockstar has to be devastated by those numbers. And any third party publisher thinking about taking an M-rated franchise to the DS has to be paying attention and thinking twice.
Other important points from NPD video game sales data for March:
-Nintendo's actually sees a... DECLINE. Yes, sales for the Wii and DS both fell in March. It's the first time that has happened since, well, as long as I can find. Given that "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" came out last year, it's understandable on the Wii count. And DS sales have been pretty much flat for a while.
Combine that with the Wii's already infamous slip to second place in Japan last month behind the PS3, thanks mainly to "Resident Evil 5," and it's easy to see why investors have become concerned and Nintendo shares fell 17% on Friday.
But let's keep it all in perspective. Nintendo's sales are still extraordinary. The Wii and DS sold over 1 million units combined last month with no holidays, not even Easter, to boost them, and only one major DS release, "Pokemon Platinum" (which sold a very healthy 805,000 units). And library titles like "Wii Fit," "Wii Play," and "Mario Kart Wii" continue to sell extraordinarily well. Nintendo is like a team that has gone undefeated for several seasons and finally loses a game or two. It's not exactly time to become a Sony Cubs fan. I would have to agree with Barrons that at this point, Nintendo stock is being oversold.
-Industry revenue was down a whopping 17% for the month. But again, that's overblown. As NPD fairly pointed, Easter wasn't in March this year and there was nothing remotely on the scale of "Smash Bros.," which sold 2.7 million units last year.
Still, hardware sales were soft across the board. Every single console except the Xbox 360, which was supply constrained last year, saw a sales drop. So while things aren't -17% bad, they're not good.
The more notable figure may be that for the first quarter, industry revenue grew 0%. As in it was flat. That may be the kind of year 2009 is going to be: low or no growth. Not bad in a recession, but pretty amazing after 19% growth last year.
-"Resident Evil 5" launched big. No surprise there. Over 1.5 million units on PS3 and 360. The only other solid debut was "Halo Wars," which started off with 639,000 units. "Killzone 2," which launched at the very end of February, falls in that category as well. For Feb. and March combined, it sold 592,000 units.
-Sony won the baseball battle. "MLB '09: The Show" sold 305,000 units on Playstation 3, easily beating 2K's "Major League Baseball 2K9" on either console (the 360 version sold 205,000 and the PS3 sold less than that).
-Though they launched in the last week of the month, making it a little tougher to hit the top 10, neither Universal's "Wanted" nor Midway and Ubisoft's "Wheelman," starring Vin Diesel, tore up the charts enough to sell over 200,000 units. It's safe to say neither one will be a major hit.
Sometimes limitations are an artist's best friend.
Case in point: "Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars." It's a great DS game -- I'd put it in competition with "The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass" as the best game every for the system. But it's also a great "Grand Theft Auto" game. Definitely better than the recent expansion pack "Lost and Damned" and even a bit better than "Grand Theft Auto IV."
Why? It's a lot less indulgent than either of those games. Rockstar clearly put a lot of work into what works on the DS -- not just in terms of the controls, the processing power, and the graphical and audio limitations, but also the way most people play Nintendo's portable console in short bursts. The missions are tight, the controls are clean -- moreso than ever thanks to the touch screen -- and the violence is over-the-top fun in the best traditions of the series.
Sure, the physics, the graphics, and the gunfights that spread across multiple levels of multiple buildings are impressive and occasionally astounding in "GTA IV." But they're less exuberant and more visceral -- the game is a tragedy and the action always has that tinge to it. It's too intense and too involved to ever be pure fun.
But that approach wouldn't work on the DS. You can't make action that big, involving and intense on an underpowered portable device. Rockstar wisely realized that and designed its new game accordingly. Here's how I describe the gameplay in my recently posted review of "Chinatown Wars":
There's nothing remotely resembling subtlety in the gun fights, which
essentially require players to blast away enemies as quickly and
brutally as possible. Driving is similarly chaotic, with an emphasis on
bashing cars and easy-to-accomplish drive-by shootings. The overall
feel is that of an arcade game, with short, intense missions that
perfectly fit the way most players use the DS while on the go.
"GTA" games work best when the characters and themes match the action -- That's why "GTA IV" was so good and "Lost and Damned" wasn't quite up to par. In "Chinatown Wars," Rockstar nails the writing, crafting a tale that's as irreverent as the gameplay:
The basic narrative formula is incredibly familiar to "GTA" veterans -- a foreigner arrives in Liberty City
and quickly finds himself caught up in a gang war, doing jobs for
unsavory and amusing characters while on a personal quest. But Hong
Kong native Huang Lee is not ridden with pathos like "GTA IV" protag
Niko Bellic. He's a smart ass who doesn't take anything or anyone he
finds in Liberty City too seriously.
Rockstar has great fun with
that attitude, using Lee to mock many of the clichés one might expect
in a game called "Chinatown Wars." When his uncle talks about the
family honor being "besmirched," Lee responds with a laugh, reminding
him that it's "2009, not 1403." Rockstar's trademark portrayal of the
culturally respected as corrupt and hypocritical plays out in genuinely
funny ways, with old Chinese men spouting lines like, "I know a proverb
about that once, but I forgot it."
Finally, while it hardly falls into the purview of a critical review, you have to give Rockstar the credit it always earns: With a big main story, dozens of side quests, and entire drug-dealing economy, local and wi-fi multi-player, and easy replay of every mission, the game is simply massive. Probably the biggest ever on the DS (save perhaps for, again, "Zelda: Phantom Hourglass"). In a down economy, Rockstar continues to give players some of the best value for their entertainment dollar.
It's understandable that investors and the media would be most interested in how "Grand Theft Auto IV" is performing for Take-Two, since it represented about 40% of the entire company's publishing revenue and 23% of its total revenue (which includes distribution via its Jack of All Games subsidiary).
That's why Rockstar's leadership is so handsomely compensated and gets a cut of the profits for its label, as well as ownership of new properties they create, going forward.
But of course Rockstar has other games, none of which have approached "GTA" in success. "Midnight Club: Los Angeles" its latest title, isn't even in the neighborhood around the ballpark (how's that for a metaphor?). Despite solid reviews, figures buried at the bottom of Take-Two's earnings filings with the SEC for the last two quarters reveal it has earned about $80 million in retail sales. That compares to $770 million for "GTA IV."
Some quick math, reveals that "Midnight Club: LA" has sold around 1.3 million units, which works out to an even 10% of what "GTA IV" has done so far. That's certainly not a disaster, but as CEO Ben Feder put it after the previous earnings call, it is "slower than expected." And it gives you a good sense of just how far behind "GTA" "Midnight Club" performs, especially in a recession where the biggest titles are dominating sales. Being Rockstar's second biggest franchise is kind of like being the second biggest online music store behind iTunes.
Take-Two also revealed in yesterday's earnings call that the original "Red Dead Revolver," which is getting a sequel this fall, sold a total of 1.5 million units. That's not a particularly impressive figure -- certainly not the kind of number that would make a company like Activision see a franchise. The fact that it's making a sequel indicates Rockstar is going with its gut that it can significantly on the original.
"Grand Theft Auto IV" may not be as big as "The Dark Knight" or "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," as I just wrote, but it's still pretty effing big. $750 million in sales in nine months is pretty damned good. And the Rockstar label, which makes most of its money from "GTA," accounts for 40% of parent company Take-Two's revenue. 2K Sports and 2K Games, by contrast, both of which release substantially more games, account for 25%.
That's why Take-Two signed a groundbreaking deal with Rockstar's top talent, primarily co-founders Sam and Dan Houser and Rockstar North president Leslie Benzes, in December that included ownership of future games and profit sharing.
In its earnings today, Take-Two detailed the first payments to "certain employees of Rockstar Games," (the Housers, Benzies, and possibly a few others): 2.85 million shares of stock. Or approximately $20 million at today's price.
Not a bad start. And of course that's separate from any payments the Rockstar leaders will be getting in profit sharing. The plan is in full effect this quarter and included new downloadable title "The Lost and Damned," which, Take-Two says, is already profitable (though they declined to say how many copies have been downloaded from Xbox Live).
Remember when "Grand Theft Auto IV" grossed over $500 million in its opening week last April and Take-Two bragged that it was the largest launch for any entertainment product? Well, they were totally right, but as new data released by Take-Two today underlines, it sure didn't have much staying power.
On its earnings call, the publisher said the "Grand Theft Auto" franchise earned another $60 million in the quarter ending Jan. 31, bringing the total since "IV" was released to $770 million. Given that the new game has shipped over 13 million units, it's safe to assume that the vast majority of that money is for it and not catalog versions. $750 million is a safe estimate.
That means "GTA IV" made about two-thirds of its revenue-to-date in the first week alone. Talk about front-loaded. By contrast, the year's biggest movie, "The Dark Knight," made about 45% of its total domestic gross in its first week (worldwide gross is really tricky since it opened in different countries on different dates). Even assuming "GTA IV" has some life left in it, it will have done well more than half its sales in the first week.
Let this also put to rest the old canard that video games may make more money than movies. Sure they can open bigger, since a lot of video game fans like to get their hands on a big title as soon as it's available. But "GTA IV" has made about $750 million to date and might get into the $800 millions. "The Dark Knight," by contrast, sold over $1 billion worth of tickets. And that's just box office. There's also DVD sales and rentals, cable, pay-per-view, video-on-demand, and eventually a broadcast airing. Add it all together and you've got well over $1.5 billion, or double "GTA IV."
Also worth noting: "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" is the biggest franchise installment to date, selling 21.5 million units. "GTA IV" is looking extremely unlikely to surpass that figure (in fact, I'm ready to state unequivocally it's not going to happen). That's perhaps no surprise, given that the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 currently have an install base about half the size of the Playstation 2 a year after "San Andreas" launched (not to mention that the latter game eventually came out for PC and Xbox). Then again, "GTA IV" is estimated to have cost $100 million to make, substantially more than "San Andreas." Higher costs and lower sales = less profits
In the category of news that informs us something wasn't a complete disaster comes this announcement from Microsoft:
["Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned"] eclipsed first-day revenue for all previous downloadable content on Xbox LIVE.
Well yea, given that it's the most expensive DLC ever available on Xbox Live, and it comes from one of the biggest modern franchises in the videogame industry, it had better have broken the record. If it hadn't, something would have been very, very wrong for Rockstar and Microsoft. Note that Microsoft only mentioned revenue, however, and not the actual number of units. We can safely assume from that that it didn't break the record for the most number of paid downloads by a piece of DLC, which appears to have been set by "Call of Duty 4's" Variety map pack last spring.
Without knowing how many copies of "Lost and Damned" Rockstar sold, we don't know anything really interesting. Like how many of the more than 10 million people who have bought copies of the game (the vast majority in North America and Europe and thus able to acces the DLC) bought "Lost and Damned?" And how much progress did Microsoft make on earning back the $50 million advance it gave Rockstar parent Take-Two for exclusive rights to "Lost and Damned" and the upcoming second "GTA IV" DLC.
All we know so far is that the "Lost and Damned" didn't launch way below everyone's expectations.
When you play a game for dozens of hours, little quirks can really annoy you. I know I'm not the only one annoyed by the mission re-start mechanism in "Grand Theft Auto IV." Specifically, when you fail a mission, you re-start at the point where you technically begin the mission, not where the actual action starts. In the case of "GTA IV," that means you have to drive somewhere, sometimes all the way across Liberty City. That can take two, three, even five minutes.
If you're like me, not the most consistently awesome gamer in the world, there are some missions that might fail 10 or 15 times. Which means you have to go on the same drive over and over and over. So many times that you have the route memorized. So many times that you've heard all the alternate dialogue Rockstar provided and while you're glad the character you're driving with has the good sense to just suggest you listen to the radio rather than repeat yourself, you're still annoyed. Can't I just re-start where the action begins? After all, while the realism of driving somewhere is appreciated and the use of car rides for conversations, rather than putting it all in cut scenes, is clever, we don't need it over and over and over. Once we accept that Niko can come back to life in a hospital every time he dies and re-start a mission via a text on his cell phone, I'm willing to accept the he magically teleports to where the action begins.
Clearly the developers at Rockstar North heard fans complaining about this. And/or experienced the problem itself. Which is why it's so satisfying to discover in "The Lost and Damned" that, when you die, you can re-start a mission exactly where you want to, at the moment the action begins. Smart move, Rockstar. I'm honestly grateful. And not only because there's that one goddamned mission that took me 18 tries to pass.
(When you saw the title I bet you thought I was going to talk about the full frontal male nudity, didn't you? You disgust me, pervert.)
Is it possible to admire a game tremendously and still be disappointed by it?
It seems to me that's starting to be the question about “Grand Theft Auto.” I wasn’t on board with that view for “GTA IV” -- It made my top ten list for 2008. And that was, to be honest, before I had fully finished the story. I did a few weeks ago, and while I think it drags early in the third act and the final scene is really hokey, the penultimate mission, where players have to make a major moral choice, was incredibly compelling and brought together many underlying strands of the game nicely.
But three writers I respect, Variety’s three freelance videogame critics – Leigh Alexander, Tom Chick and Chris Dahlen – listed it as one of their most “overrated” or “disappointing” games of the year. Tom described it succinctly as, “One of the most amazing realizations of a real-world-ish place and one of my favorite games this year. Also the setting for a poorly told story and uninspired gameplay…” Leigh added that it’s “In many ways… the wildest and most poignant video game ever made -- but in most ways, it's over-weighted, illogical and emotionally manipulative…”
I thought they were all off base on “GTA IV.” But I find their viewpoint making more sense to me on “The Lost and Damned,” the new downloadable “GTA IV” episode, which I just reviewed for Variety.
As far as DLC goes, Rockstar has taken it to a new level. This isn’t extra content – it’s an entirely new game, complete with characters, a story, vehicles, challenges, and multi-player modes. It even fixes one of the most annoying parts about “GTA IV” (more on that in my next post) and adds some dead on new music (“Highway Star” in a game about a motorcycle gang? Hell yes.) And it’s not just quantity. Much of it is quality. The characters are well written, the cut scene animation is significantly better than in “GTA IV,” and some of the multi-player modes are really clever. All that for a $20 digital download? I’ve seen less for $60 on a disc. Rockstar, you have officially impressed me.
BUT… “The Lost and Damned” also has major problems, as I noted in my review. In particular, it’s a structural mess. Not only because the story is poorly paced and has a hugely unsatisfying finale, though it is and it does. Even more because the missions, most of which are remarkably similar to the ones in “GTA IV,” don’t fit this game.
Or rather, they don’t fit this character. Niko Bellic is, let’s be blunt, a sociopath. His ability to emphathise is minimal and his willingness to kill anyone and everyone is practically limitless. But that was the point of the character and the game actually addresses the consequences of his action at the end. So it works.
Johnny Klebitz, vice president of motorcycle gang “The Lost” is not a sociopath. He is specifically set up as a rational guy, in contrast to hothead gang president Billy Grey, recently out of jail, who’s eager to start turf wars, steal drugs, and other nasty stuff. Which is why, by the second act of the game, when Johnny is engaging is very Niko-esque missions that involve gratuitous mass murder, sometimes of police, just to make some money or help a friend or avoid blackmail, it made me cringe. It’s the wrong character for the missions. Or the wrong missions for the character.
It’s all summed up, really, in the finale. (I won’t reveal the exact details since the game has only been out for two days <sorry, Brainy Gamer>, but those of you who want to be totally surprised should consider this a spoiler warning). The game has blatantly been building toward a final confrontation. And because it’s heavily influenced by Western movies (not just in themes; even the fonts have a Western motif), I was expecting a dramatic showdown. The “GTA” equivalent of ten paces at sundown.
Instead, it’s an over-the-top, gratuitous orgy of violence that involves killing dozens (maybe hundreds?) of innocent security officers who are just doing their job. It’s unrealistic, doesn’t fit the character, and isn’t a satisfying end to the story, structurally or thematically. Everything that’s mature and sophisticated and interesting about “GTA” thrown out the window in favor of everything that moralistic critics unfairly say defines the series.
As always, I’m glad I don’t have to actually give a recommendation in my Variety reviews. Because if you like “GTA IV” gameplay, it’s an amazing value. If you want proof that DLC can be much more than a mere expansion pack, this is it. But if you’re looking for a well designed merging of story and gameplay, “The Lost and Damned” doesn’t deliver.
Capcom released its earnings late last week and buried in the stats was this little detail I almost missed: "Grand Theft Auto IV," which Capcom has been selling for Rockstar in Japan since November.
"GTA III," "Vice City" and "San Andreas" all sold poorly in Japan, at least compared to their massive worldwide figures. For such distinctly Western games, 4440,000, 560,000, and 419,000 units, respectively, aren't bad. But when you compared that to the 12.1 million, 15.3 million, and 22.2 million units, respectively, sold worldwide for each game, the sales are miniscule.
It looks like "GTA IV" won't be any different. In its first two months on the market, it sold just 280,000 units. For the sake of comparison, in its first week in the U.S. and Europe, the game sold over 6 million units.
Back in November I interviewed Rockstar VP creative Dan Houser about the Japan launch. He admitted that with the dominance of the Wii and DS in Japan -- platforms on which "GTA IV" is not available -- sales were unlikely to be massive. "Our hope is just to step it up a little," he said.
But it looks like it's not to be. Unless "GTA IV" does really well as a discounted catalog title, reaching the approximately 500,000 units its predescessors sold is probably the best case scenario. Of course, given the low install base of the Xbox 360 and PS3 in Japan compared to the PS2 for which the other "GTA" games were available, that could be considered something of an accomplishment. Nonetheless, compared to the 10 million-plus units "IV" has already sold in the West, that's another drop in the bucket.
It'll be really interesting to see how "Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars" for the DS performs in Japan (we get it in March; it'll probably land there later in the fall). Nintendo's handheld console is near ubiqutious in Japan, so there will be no issues with the platform. It will be a pure test of whether Japanese consumers dig the "GTA" franchise in 2009.
(Unless the "Chinatown" aspect makes a difference one way or another in Japan?)
One of the most innovative features of "Grand Theft Auto IV" when it launched last year was the ability to buy any one of the 150-plus songs on Liberty City's 19 radio stations via the in-gam "Zit" service and a partnership with Amazon.com's MP3 store.
That service isn't going anywhere with the upcoming "GTA IV" downloadable episode "The Lost and the Damned," which updates five the game's virtual radio stations with new tracks from artists including Busta Rhymes and Funkmaster Flex. But the Amazon.com partnership is.
About 10 months after the deal started, Rockstar is ditching Amazon.com and switching to iTunes. The update to the music download service, which ties into the Rockstar Social website, will come when "The Lost and the Damned" launches next week.
Apple, of course, recently decided to make the entire iTunes library DRM-free, eliminating that concern. And Amazon.com's MP3 store, which was only about half a year old and growing fast when Rockstar struck its deal last year, hasn't become very big. It's still fighting with eMusic, Napster, Rhapsody etc. for the scraps left beyond iTunes 90%-plus market domination.
Given all that, it's perhaps no surprise Rockstar is making the switch. Since many more "GTA IV" players are used to iTunes, more music will likely be sold, earning additional commissions for Rockstar and, probably more importantly, making the labels and artists who want to sell more tracks happier.
It's definitely a blow, however, for Amazon, for whom the Rockstar partnership was a big promotional opportunity and selling point last year -- one of the very few unique features of its MP3 store.
It's also interesting to see Rockstar adding new music to "GTA IV" via DLC, something I doubt few players were expecting for their $20. It will probably be a while until we see game soundtracks dynamically updated, but adding fresh songs via DLC seens kuje a great way to keep the game world alive and vibrant, not to mention a great way for labels to promote new stuff.
A few realizations I had while taking more time than I have had in a while to play videogames over the holidays...
Grand Theft Auto IV is better than I remembered, probably because the recent mini-backlash amongst some videogame writers has had me focusing on the flaws, particularly the weak writing later in the game (a feeling emphasized when all three of Variety's freelance critics listed it as either "disappointing" or "overrated"). But as I got to know Brucie and Roman and the McCreary brothers again, went on a motorcycle chase all over the city (including through the subways), and got in a car accident on a bridge that sent Niko hurtling through a windshield and into the river, then simply swam to the other side of the river without the game losing a beat, I remembered all the amazingly awesome things about this game that nothing else in 2008 matched.
The World Ends With You, which I gave a try on the recommendation of several critics, including one of our own, is not my kind of game. Given what a hard time I had with the old school RPG elements of "Fallout 3," perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that I really couldn't engage with the old school JRPG elements of this game. And the new stuff, like the d-pad rhythm based combat, really didn't work for me. I can't even say the game is bad, since I spent only an hour with it, which I found unbearable.
Nintendo's Wii is not such a dust collector after all. I admit I didn't engage with a lot of the best selling Wii games this year -- "Wii Fit," "Mario Kart," "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" -- so I thought I was of the "there's nothing good left on the Wii" camp that seems to be growing. But then I looked at my top ten list and realized three of the titles, including my no. 1, were Wii exclusives, and a fourth was also on PC, but I played it on the Wii. And then I played some more of them all and realized that while I still play 360 the most, the Wii has at least as much to offer me as the PS3.
These are not games we thought were bad, or even disappointing. They're the videogames that Variety's critics found fell the shortest of what most other critics and/or the public thought. It also, interestingly, the only category in this whole process in which all four of us agree about a game.
It’s a lie to say that sandbox games let the player “do anything they want”; they still have an underlying vision, as we saw in "Fallout 3." So what’s "GTA IV’s" vision? That the American Dream ain’t perfect? That consumerism infects our lives? That talk radio lies to us? This is dimestore cynicism. It’s easy to admire the parts – the drunk effects, the jazz fusion station, the consistently interesting mission design, the Ricky Gervais cameo, and the way the cars go so much faster when you hit the highlife. But the sum ain’t there.
A niche game for budding game designers, disguised as an all-ages, endless dreamscape. And here’s a question: why do the games that bet big on user-generated content consistently expect users to dive into specialized skills such as platformer level design, puzzlecrafting, or 3-D modeling, when the two types of content that real life people actually put on the web – text, and photographs – are neglected?
Castle Crashers (The Behemoth)
It’s not like me to bash an indie. But "Castle Crashers’" single-player campaign was repetitive and undistinguished, and four-player co-op was good for maybe an hour – an hour that’s now better spent with "Left4Dead."
When fans rattle off all the awesome things they saw and did in “Fallout 3,” I can hardly argue. But I don’t understand why all the tedious, old-fashioned RPG tasks in between don’t bother them more. Whether I’m agonizing over how to distribute all my points and perks after finding out I made a bunch of bad choices the last time I leveled up, working through a dialogue tree with one of the information repositories known as “people,” struggling with the mediocre combat, or just trying to find the stuff I need so I can move on, 80% of “Fallout 3” is a slog to get to the 20% that’s actually worth experiencing.
The ultimate problem with “LittleBigPlanet” is that it’s impressive, but nothing more. Wow, sackboy is cute. Damn, those level-building tools are remarkably easy to use. Holy cow, that user created level looks just like a working calculator / a lamborghini / “Duck Hunt” / “God of War.” But there’s nothing remotely engaging about the experience, unless you’re in that small minority with dozens of hours to kill and the desire to make an awesome platforming level.
The fact that you push four buttons to a beat and everything's really
cute doesn't make up for the fact that this is a painfully simple RTS
with absolutely no substance.
Leigh Alexander
Professor Layton and the Curious Village (Nintendo / Level 5)
Why are charming little animations an excuse to glorify the sort of dull school workbook designed expressly to validate Mensa wannabes?
It's adorable, I'm heartened by the vision behind it and couldn't be more impressed with Media Molecule and its beautiful execution. But at the end of the day, I'm a fan of video games because I want the professionals to make them for me. I don't want to make video games, I don't really care what my "friends from the Internet" have made, and I often wonder how many people really do care -- and how many people just leapt on board the bandwagon of positive sentiment surrounding an effort they admired.
One of the most amazing realizations of a real-world-ish place and one of my favorite games this year. Also the setting for a poorly told story and uninspired gameplay, and the subject of a system-shattering PC port.
Awesome graphics! And those little sack people are so cute I could just eat them up! Now where's the game?
Braid (Number None)
This is not a game that moves and it's not very accessible. You need to have a stomach for old-school platformers and mental brick walls. Which is a shame, because the place Braid eventually goes is sublime.
Coming Monday morning: The best videogame(s) of 2008
"Most disappointing" does not necessarily mean the worst (after all, we don't want to shower Brash with too many prizes). Rather, these are the games that Variety's critics believe fell the furthest short of our expectations and their potential.
Finally, an accessible social videogame that uses peripherals to let anyone play music. Oh wait, I’m thinking of “Guitar Hero. And “Rock Band.” And even “Ultimate Band.” "Wii Music" is an unnecessary, cacophonous mess of a game (if it even is one, not that it matters) in which most attempts at making music sound worse than an elementary school orchestra. Though I can’t say I’ll ever forget the David Lynch-esque experience of watching a cheerleader, a sitar player, and a man in a dog suit performing “Daydream Believer.”
To a certain extent, this choice is a stand-in for the many lame licensed titles (“Lost: Via Domus,” “Iron Man,” everything from Brash, and on and on) that show Hollywood and game publishers still don’t really have their act together. But “Wall-E” was the most disappointing of them all because it took source material overflowing with romantic spirit and devolved it into a product so unimaginative and formulaic (Wall-E shooting a gun? Really?) it could have come straight from the film’s corporate overlords at Buy n Large.
Perhaps I didn’t read the marketing materials right, but wasn’t "Spore" supposed to be about evolution? Nothing in this awkward mash-up of “flow,” “Civilization,” and a space rpg resembles real physical or cultural evolution, in which inherited traits and competition inescapably define a species’ fate. The irony is that the “creature creator,” which EA released for free a few months early to whet gamers’ appetite, is far and away the best part of this disappointing package.
So gorgeous, so technically excellent, so intriguing at first -- which makes it especially crushing that under all that richly-realized Africa is yet another first-person shooter, and endless litanies of the same ambush mission over and over.
In many ways, it's the wildest and most poignant video game ever made -- but in most ways, it's over-weighted, illogical and emotionally manipulative, so that its ploddingly earnest storyline, its precious character tropes and its over-pretension nearly suffocate its fun and sharp cleverness
Like everybody, I read all the advance hype for the game. And I don’t think my disappointment in the final release stems from backlash, so much as confusion: playing through one full campaign and a couple restarts, I never felt like I saw the point, never had an intuitive understanding of any of the decisions I was making, never felt the urge to go back and try a different path, and never believed that the three key parts of the game - play, create, and share - worked together in any but the most simplistic ways. Instead of revolutionizing user generated content, it trivialized it: Yes, your hermaphrodite alligator man has very spiky eyebrows, but if they don’t impact gameplay, who cares?
" Mirror’s Edge"frustrated and annoyed a lot of players. Its soothing aesthetic didn’t match its difficulty: imagine trying to play a game of "Rock Band," except the song stops cold every time you miss a note. Combat should’ve been truly optional, and the cheapest deaths should’ve been caught in playtesting. And yet in spite of it all, I keep coming back to it – for the almost sensual pleasures of sliding down a sheer glass wall or riding the top of a subway train, or feeling the “oomph” as Faith slings herself over yet another ledge.
...and a dozen other shooters with high production values, elaborate cinematics, ample headshots, and nothing else to offer. I slogged through a lot of these this year, but "Fracture"saw the biggest boost from LucasArts and the most hype for its supposedly innovative “make a pile of dirt almost anywhere you want” mechanic. So I’ll honor it as one of the year’s highest-profile duds.
Coming Monday morning: The fifth best videogame(s) of 2008
It's not a good year for videogaming without an almost perfect racing title lighting up the room. "Midnight Club: Los Angeles" is this year's belle of the ball, with its crowded and evocative Los Angeles-a-like serving as a shrewdly crafted rumpus room for the same great driving physics that graced "Grand Theft Auto IV," but this time with better AI in the other cars. No one does traffic like Rockstar, bless their city-building hearts. But this next-gen "Midnight Club" will really ruin other racing games for you once you see how well it plays by actually looking at the world instead of a minimap. Not since "Forza" invented a color-coded gravity indicator (really!) has a driving game so successfully put you in the driver's seat instead of behind a TV screen.
Chris Dahlen
No More Heroes (Marvelous and Ubisoft / Grasshopper Manufacture)
Probably the roughest and least accessible game on my list, "No More Heroes"succeeds because of the way its story explores one of pop culture’s best lies - namely, that an average schmuck can become a winner through doggedness and hard labor, whether it’s pumping gas and cleaning trash, or spending half an hour wearing down a lolita with a lethal baseball bat. And the fact that after all that, Travis Touchdown remains a schmuck, is the perfect kicker.
Ben Fritz
No More Heroes (Marvelous and Ubisoft / Grasshopper Manufacture)
The first action game to successfully embrace the Wii from the ground up, rather than jamming in something that works 100 times better on a PS3 or 360. The swordplay and wrestling are a bloody good time and the villians are over-the-top awesome. But “No More Heroes” really stands out for the way it overflows with style tailor-made for its audience, giving gamers the ultra-violent, retro, bombastic, hilarious fantasy life they never knew they wanted. It’s “The Last Starfighter” for otaku.
Leigh Alexander
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (Konami / Konami)
Though "Castlevania" creator Koji Igarashi persists, in the face of fan pleas to the contrary, in pursuing the franchise in 3D and on next-gen consoles, the long-running series continues to shine on the DS. There, its jaw-droppingly complex and artful 2D sprites can take center stage, while the stylus controls make for intuitive mechanics that don't try to overhaul the basics. Previous DS "Castlevania" titles have excelled, but "Order of Ecclesia" combines a lovely heroine, environments as variegated as they are visually captivating, and the smashing new "Glyph" game system for what feels like the series' richest and most challenging entry since the classic "Symphony of the Night."
Coming tomorrow morning: The sixth best videogame(s) of 2008
Liberty City is awe inspiring not
only for its beauty, but its subtle rhythms and sharply drawn, often hilarious denizens. Despite
it’s massive scope, “GTA IV” is an intimate affair that slowly opens itself up
as the player, much like Niko Bellic, discovers how exhilarating,
disheartening, and up-for-grabs the American dream is. If only Rockstar had
figured out how to integrate open world mayhem with a tightly structured story,
it could have been a truly great game.
Leigh Alexander
Chrono-Trigger DS (Square Enix / Square Enix)
Is it cheating to rank a remake among the year's
top ten? Not when it's quite this good. It's true that the original SNES game,
widely regarded as one of the best RPGs ever developed, didn't need too much in
the way of an improvement -- but this edition's subtly optimized for the DS,
wisely allows purists to play with classic controls, and through a cleaner,
more naturalistic localization, proves itself an absolute must-have for old
fans and new-audiences alike. Welcome back, champion.
Tom Chick
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel (CDV / Ascaron)
Probably the most perfect embodiment of the
mindless joy of a good action RPG. It's all about the loot and the leveling. The wild battles along the way and the lovely graphics are fine, too. But it's all about the loot and the leveling. Mostly the leveling. 200 levels of leveling, every one of them a lovely dilemma for how to spend your skill points. Still, the loot is pretty nice. It wasn't a good year for action RPGs. "Space Siege" and "Too Human," both showed up by the no-budget indie "Depths of Peril?" Then "Sacred 2" came out and showed us how it's done.
Yes, the story's a mess, the canon is simplistic
yet obtuse, the small tactical firefights that made the first one so replayable
are missing, and it's also kind of easy. But "Gears of War 2"crept onto my list thanks to about a dozen
amusement park-style spectacles that took my breath away - like the gunboat
flume ride on an underwater river, or the spectacular reaver race across the
open plains, or the chance to ride a brumack - which for the uninitiated, is a
little like hanging off the back of Godzilla and making him kill everybody.
This is how you thrill.
Coming tomorrow morning: The eighth best videogame(s) of 2008
A car game that even a reviewer who hates car games can love. Its
graphical dazzle is as glitzy as the world of West Coast street racing it portrays with
the satirical disdain that serves as developer Rockstar's hallmark. The
technically impressive in-game transition from a realistic Los Angeles to an overhead map lit with
linking lights is one of the year's coolest special effects, and the point
system for passing races is welcome and friendly for players not quite so
bad-ass as their gleaming, fully customizable car might indicate. Energizing,
enervating and infinitely replayable.
As a commercially successful game, "The Club" was
doomed. A shooter based on replaying the same levels to see if you can improve your score? But consider that it was from a developer known for the Project Gotham Batman-less racing games (a game based
on driving the same route to see if you can improve your time?). And consider this is also the developer of the maddeningly addictive score-based compulsion of "Geometry Wars" games (it's all in the multiplier, baby!). Now it clicks. And by "clicks", I mean it slides into place with the
decisive ka-thunk of chambering a new shell in a shotgun. Bizarre Creations has taken what they know and managed to create something I haven't seen in a very long time: a shooter that's unlike any other shooter I've ever played.
I went back and forth on whether to list
this. On the one hand, while I was
playing this game, there was nothing else in the world I’d rather have been
doing. Bartending is my mini-game of the
year; the real estate feature made "Fable
II"an ideal dollhouse for grown-ups. At the same time, the story was underwhelming, and only one of the
characters had three-dimensions – and it wasn’t the player. Or the dog. I felt like the entire game was just setup for the Big, Important Choice
at the end, and while the choice was haunting, I wound up feeling played.
Based on everything I read, I thought I’d need earn a PhD in
Kojima Studies to even remotely enjoy this game. But it turns out “MGS 4” has
loads to offer anyone who appreciates an uncompromised directorial vision and
expertly crafted stealth gameplay. Sure, the overwrought cutsenes are as creaky
as Snake’s knees, but just like its hero, “Metal Gear Solid 4” unapologetically
holds onto its old school values and proves they’re not quite as irrelevant as
those in thrall of the new would like to think.
Coming today at noon: The ninth best videogame(s) of 2008
Here's an interesting statistic from Take-Two's earnings today that I almost forgot to mention.
"Grand Theft Auto IV," along with catalog sales of other "GTA" titles, has generated $710 million in net revenues for Take-Two this past fiscal year, which ended Oct. 31. Take out the tiny amount "GTA" catalog sales probably represents, and we're talking about $700 million in six months (though only $40 million of that came last quarter, meaning "GTA IV" did the vast majority of its sales in the first two months). By the time the current quarter is done and the game spends some time in catalog, it could be approaching $800 million or more.
The year's biggest movie, "The Dark Knight," has grossed about $1 billion. But that's gross. Net box office revenue to Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures was probably half that. Now granted, by the time "The Dark Knight" cycles through DVD, pay TV, cable, etc. it will certainly make more money than "GTA IV." But the fact that they're even close is remarkable. "Grand Theft Auto" is one lucrative media franchise.
No wonder Strauss Zelnick felt he had to dish out an unprecedent deal to keep the Housers and other top talent in-house. Would you want to risk messing with that formula? Especially when that one brand, and primarily that one game, represented 60% of publishing revenue for an entire year?
Following today's announcement of a new contract for the brothers Houser, Leslie Benzes, and other top Rockstar folks with Take-Two, I spoke to the publisher's chairman Strauss Zelnick about the deal. If you don't yet know the full details about the pact, as well as Take-Two's weak guidance that sent its stock tumbling, read it here.
If you already know, you may enjoy some excerpts from my interview with Strauss:
Me: It's obvious from the unprecedented structure of this deal that it was ver important for you that the Housers and other top Rockstar folks remain with Take-Two. Why is that? After all you would have retained ownership of the label and the "Grand Theft Auto" brand anyway.
Strauss Zelnick: We've said all along that one of our key strategic elements is being the
most creative company in the business and that means aligning with the most talented and
creative folks in the business. The folks who are at the top of the Rockstar label fit that bill
to a tee.
Me: It seems like they were more valuable to you than any other videogame publisher, since they're so associated with "GTA." You have experience in the film and music businesses and you know there sometimes the talent is bigger than the product, but that's not really true here, right?
SZ: You’re right it is in may instances involving videogames to distinguish top
creative teams from the IP they create. In the movie business it's rather typical to do a sequel with
different actors or even a different director.
In the interactive entertainment business it's more typical that creative teams continue
with certain properties. But in this case it's way more than "GTA." This is a team that has been
responsible for the top selling IP in the business... Rockstar Games has a unique successful creative culture. It was terribly important for us to be in business with them and we’re proud able to align the interests of our colleagues with our company and stockholders.
Me: Take-Two never really revealed the details of their last deal. Is this new contract fundamentally different, or is it basically the same type of terms, but just bigger and better?
SZ: Profit sharing is a new structure and is terribly different from what they had before.
Me: With Sam, Dan, Leslie and other folks at Rockstar forming their own company and Take-Two funding and distributing those games but them owning the IP, is that where they'll put all their new creative energy? Will they still create new properties for Rockstar, which Take-Two would own, as well?
SZ: The arrangement is basically a continuation of the prior arrangement. The bulk of
their acitivities will be focused on IP that has been and will be created by Rockstar.
In addition, there will be the opportunity to create incremental properties
owned by those individuals on an entrepreneurial basis and published exclusively by take two.
Me: So they will create new games for Rocktar as well?
SZ: Yes, their primary activity is unchanged. They will be creating IP owned by Rockstar, which is
in turn owned by Take Two. There is also the opportunity to create some IP on their own.
Me: The announcement says it includes "several other key members" of Rockstar's creative team beyond Sam, Dan, and Leslie. Who are they?
SZ: We're only talking about the three principals today.
Me: On a related topic, in the spring you were negotiating a new contract with ["Bioshock" creative director] Ken Levine. I assume that must be done, since he's working for you on a new project.
SZ: We haven’t said anything about that. But we're thrilled to be in business with people like
Ken, ["Civilization" creator] Sid Meier, [sports studio president] Greg Thomas.
[Note: I've updated this post by essentially replacing it with the article I just finished writing for Variety, which I think captures all the important info much better. I'll be following this up with a Q-and-A with Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick about the deal very soon.]
The creators of “Grand Theft Auto” are sticking with
Take-Two in an unprecedented deal that includes a cut of the profits
and full ownership of future games.
Ending months of speculation about whether top talent at Rockstar
Games, the Take-Two label that makes the ultra successful “GTA” and
other franchises, would remain when their contract expires in February,
the publisher has signed them to a new three year contract through 2012.
Deal includes Rockstar co-founders Sam and Dan Houser and Leslie
Benzes, president of the Scotland development studio that makes most
“GTA” games.
Though Wall Street welcomed the news, Take-Two stock plunged 19% in
after-hours trading Wednesday as the publisher unveiled lower than
expected guidance for 2009 due to caution over the weakening economy.
Compensation under the new contract comes primarily through profit
sharing for the Rockstar label,
which contributes nearly half of
Take-Two’s revenue. Though videogame creators typically receive
royalties based on sales of specific titles they make, Rockstar talent
is believed to be the first to get a major stake in overall profits.
Pact also includes an equity grant of Take-Two stock that will vest over three years.
Most significant part of the deal, however, is that the Housers,
Benzies, and other Rockstar team members will establish an independent
company to develop new videogames that they will fully own. Take-Two
has agreed to fund development in exchange for exclusive distribution
rights.
Intellectual property ownership by creators is rare in the videogame
industry and unprecedented for those who are employees of major
publishers.
In an interview, Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick said the Housers and
Benzies will spend most of their time working at Rockstar and continue
to create games for that label, along with sequels to existing
franchises, while also working on new games for their independent
company.
“This is a team that has been responsible for the top-selling IP in the
business and has a uniquely successful creative culture,” Zelnick told
Daily Variety. “It’s terribly important for us to be in business
together with them and we’re proud to align the interest of our
colleagues with our company and stockholders.”
April release “Grand Theft Auto IV” has already sold more than 10
million units worldwide. In addition, Take-Two has high hopes for a
downloadable expansion pack to the game that will be released in
February and a spin-off for the Nintendo DS coming out in March.
However, Rockstar games have been selling modestly so far this fall as
the videogame business has slowed down along with the economy.
On a conference call with analysts, Take-Two CEO Ben Feder said “GTA
IV” has performed only “OK” lading up to the holidays. He characterized
initial sales for Rockstar’s car racing game “Midnight Club: Los
Angeles,” which was released in October, as “slower than expected.”
Take-Two’s overall performance for the quarter ending October 31 was in
line with previous guidance, as the publisher lost $15 million on $323.4 million in revenue. That’s up from a $7.1 million loss on $292.6 million
in revenue last year and was driven primarily by “GTA IV,” “NBA 2K9,”
and the company’s successful “Carnival Games” family franchise.
However, Wall Street was disappointed by Take-Two’s conservative
guidance for the current quarter and the fiscal year ending next
October. Though the company always suffers in the year following a
major “Grand Theft Auto” release, investors didn’t expect revenue to
dip from over $1.5 billion to between $1.1 billion and $1.25 billion,
as Take-Two now says it will due to the ongoing recession, which has
already impacted competitors including Electronic Arts.
“It’s important to remember that consumers of interactive entertainment
are as effected by the economy as other shoppers,” Zelnick noted.
“We’ve taken a hard look at our forecast for the next 12 months and
we’ve significantly reduced our expectations.”
Take-Two stock closed up a fraction at $12.07 Wednesday before earnings and the Rockstar deal were announced.
On Tuesday I had a brief but interesting interview with Rockstar Games' co-founder and creative VP for an article I did about "Grand Theft Auto IV's" Japan release. Given that most major events in American pop culture, be they movies or videogames, get a simultaneous or near simultaneous worldwide release, I thought it was interesting that "GTA IV" was hitting the world's biggest videogame market six months after it came out in the U.S. and Europe (where it has already sold more than 10 million units).
One of the reasons is obvious: Compared to the rest of the world, "Grand Theft Auto" games barely sell in Japan. They do better than many Western titles, but as a percentage of worldwide sales, Japan is miniscule. Here are the stats from the last three:
Grand Theft Auto III Worldwide: 12.1 million; Japan: 444,000; Japan as % of worldwide: 3.7%
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Worldwide: 15.3 million; Japan: 560,000; Japan as % of worldwide: 3.7%
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Worldwide: 22.2 million; Japan: 419,000; Japan as % of worldwide: 1.9%
(According to GamesIndustry, "GTA IV" topped the charts in Japan its first week, selling 133,000 titles on PS3. The Xbox 360 version came in no. 7)
I spoke to Dan about why that is, what the plans are for "GTA IV's" release in Japan, and a few other topics. You can read the resulting article in Variety here. But since the transcript of my last interview with Dan Houser was such a hit, I figured I'd provide the whole thing here, in only slightly edited form:
Me: It has been six months since "Grand Theft Auto IV" was released in North America and Europe. Why the long disparity. Is it commercial considerations or production?
Dan Houser: We weren't ready at the same time. We're not a Japanese company [by which he means Rockstar and parent Take-Two don't operate in Japan] and we needed a Japanese partner there. We have had difficulty in the past releasing games there due to content issues. But we weren't really ready to get it out before the downtime of summer and this is the next window that's available.
Me: You didn't want to release it in the summer?
DH: If it slips out past April or May, then June to August is very quiet. "GTA IV" disproved the traditional model of all big releases have to come out in October or November. We're moving past that from what we previously thought were six months in which you could release a game to nine months. But it's still a quiet time in the summer. This for us was the next big window.
Me: Did you dub the voices for Japan? Or are you doing subtitles?
DH: We have always released ["GTA"] with subtitles. With the facial animation we do, it would be enormously expensive to dub it... We also just think it works better with American voices.
It wouldn't be a problem because they are used to playing games spoken in English and they still have to read a lot of things on screen regardless.
American accents are part of the experience. We toyed back in the day with doing some radio stations in Japanese, but we were told by local experts that wouldn't help because people like to hear and feel that they are in America. From our perspective the goal is a very immersive experience and part of that immersion is to hear people speaking English in American accents.
Me: Is there much controversy about the games' content in Japan compared to what you have seen in the U.S.?
DH: We had a lot of trouble between the release of "Vice City" and "San Andreas" in Japan. There was a big content outcry and that was a battle that needed to be fought. All of those issues were resolved so we didn't face them this time.
"Vice City" came out and went well, but then they wouldn’t let us release "San Andreas" until the changed the ratings system. So "Vice City" came out with a similar delay as this, roughly six months. Then "San Andreas" came out in the U.S. in late 2004 and two years later in Japan. It was ratings and political hell there for a while.
Me: Capcom is distributing "GTA IV" in Japan? Is that because Take-Two doesn't have a presence?
DH: Yes, Capcom. They did all the "GTA's."
Take-Two doesn't have any distribution there. We felt when we were first going in it's a very alien market and we need local expertise at all points of the chain, be it relationships with retailers, ratings bodies, or different parts of Sony and Microsoft. We were already dealing with enough other issues in terms of the culture.
Capcom has been a great partner. They love releasing foreign games. They have a great record. We have done other games with other people there, though...
We just released "Bully" there with Bethesda, who have a Japanese arm. We look at it on a case by case
basis. We basically offer it out to a bunch of
them and see who’s got the most energy behind a particular product. [Imports are] not a huge department for Capcom so they are heavily focused on "GTA IV," which is why it wasn't the best home for "Bully." It's not
always just about money, but how much energy they put behind anything.
Me: How do you handle the marketing there? I know Rockstar likes to produce all of its marketing materials in-house, but surely you need some help in Japan.
DH: We work together on that. They tell us what works, based on the art style or vocabulary of what worked over here. Then they localize it.
I was walking through [Tokyo's shopping and entertainment district] Shibuya last week and seeing all of the same posters we have here, but some were in Japanese.
They love the stuff we make. They work with us. It tends to be that they want it to feel very similar.
One of the mistakes we made early was a T-shirt for "Vice City" on which we translated 'Vice City' into Japanese. It turns out that
doesn’t work culturally. We were told they want to see 'Vice City' spelled in English. So the logos on
the posters were exactly same, but with a Japanese subtitle.
Me: It seems like "Grand Theft Auto" is such a uniquely American work that you can't disguise it.
DH: We make that part of the sales. How it's sold there is as this American experience. I did a couple of press interviews and both the guys I spoke to very much liked that it features a foreigner as the lead. They said that's where 'GTA IV' can really engage them. It feels like they're visiting American with him. That was really good to hear.
Me: Is that true for most players in Japan? It's the world's biggest videogame market, but it seems like a lot of people there are playing RPGs on their DS and the sort of thing that are very, very different from "GTA."
DH: It's true that of the three markets we're in, Japan is not that huge. In Japan, Nintendo is a massive market. We're on Xbox and PS3 and our goal is to do very well on those. We're taking a long-term goal with Japan of trying to grow the game and grow the interest. We're doing decent numbers over there. For a Western game, we're doing amazing numbers.
But we're veryambitious and we want the game to compete with the biggest Japanese titles. We're not there yet and don't think we're going to get there necessarily with 'IV." Our hope is just to step it up a level. The response we were getting from people is that they've never seen anything like this before. They saw it creatively as very advanced.
We're consistently sold more games over there. "San Andreas" was down a little from "Vice City," mostly due to softness in the PS2 market.
Me: Is there a small but rabid group of hard core "GTA" fans in Japan?
DH: Oh totally. Definitely. People we were speaking to were saying, "I don't play games, but this makes me want to start playing them again." It's a more open and engaging concept than a lot of Japanese-designed games have become. They tend to be more corridor-based and less open. That was half the people we spoke to. The other half have played every "GTA" since "III" and started asking incredibly detailed questions.
Me: That's interesting people were comparing it to recent Japanese games, since I've been reading a lot
recently about how Japanese videogame development is in a creative rut
and a lot of the energy is really now in the West.
DH: I have in the past had famous Japanese designers say that stuff
to me off record. We grew up looking at Nintendo in particular and other big Japanese companies as a sphere that we could never get anywhere close to -- Up to and
including the days of N64. Certainly in the early days of 3-D gaming they were light years
ahead of Western companies.
When we started Rockstar, the charts were dominated by sports
games, mostly Western made, but apart from that all the other stuff was Japanese or
Japanese rip-offs. That was the early PS1 time frame. Since PS2 really got going and
into PS3 and Xbox 1 and 360, things have really moved, apart from Nintendo, to being dominated by Western-developed stuff completely. The Western charts now are split 50/50. There has definitely been a shift in which European and North American developers have found out how to make quality games.
Me: Given how popular the DS is in Japan, it seems like your upcoming DS version of "GTA" ["Chinatown Wars"] could have more potential there than anything else you've done.
DH: It's funny I was just talking to some people 10 minutes ago and saying we need to speak with
potential partners about how to do the DS game in Japan and how we'll approach it there. I think that game has enormous
potential everywhere. It's unlike anything else, but it still works well so if you like DS games, you'll like
this game. Our feeling is it should work really well in Asia and Europe and in the U.S.
But we have got to find a partner and see what’s going down with our
options there. We haven’t spoken to any yet because we wanted to get "GTA IV" out of the way first.
Me: On another topic, I have to ask you about the "GTA IV" downloadable content you're doing. Do you still expect that to come out this year?
DH: I'm not sure. It's going well. But we don’t know a date. We hope to be announcing
that in the next few weeks. We're still figuring out a few things. We're more focused on
quality than dates, always have been. But the development is going really good. It's shaping up to be
something we're very proud of. That was our goal
Me: Do you think you'll talk at all about what the DLC will be and how it will fit into "GTA IV's" story?
DH: We want to give people a rough idea so their expectations are
roughly in line. We don't want them to imagine it's this enormous
thing that it can never be...
Doing a big digital launch is something we've never done before. It's virgin territory, but at the same time, we feel very exposed because there's no case history. No one ever came out with major DLC for a major game like this before.
It's new territory for everybody. We're making it up a little bit as we go
along. That's always fun, but it makes you nervous.
Me: Like how do you price something like this?
DH: How to price it. Whether to release it day-and-date everywhere... Europe and the U.S. I'm sure will be day-and-date or within a few days, but I'm not sure about Japan. It's a small Xbox market...
You even have to ask what time to release it at. We have some
experience of doing through releasing our trailers. It can slow down sections of the 'Net.
What works as a great time on the east coast may be late for
Europe
and too early for the west coast. Those are all things we wouldn’t normally think about.
[FYI, Houser's statements are all quotes, just edited slightly for clarity. I did re-arrange the order of a few questions for flow. I also cut here and there, indicated by ... when appropriate. I wasn't able to write down my own questions as I asked them, since I was busy keeping up with what Dan said, so my questions are approximations of what I remember asking. Also, the photo is borrowed, with gratitude, from Edge.]
Apologies for my absence since early last week. Many of you probably know that this is one of, it not the, busiest weeks of the year for videogame reviews, so I've been absolutely buried with writing and editing reviews, as well a tracking down a big story that I think you'll all find really interesting when it's done in a few days, plus other assorted things.
I have a few really good (I think) forthcoming posts that I hope to start writing by tomorrow. Meanwhile, rather than fall endlessly behind, here are links and very short summaries to some of our recent reviews in Variety. I'd call particular attention to "Fable 2," which has a very good shot to be my favorite game of 2008:
Fable 2: "No interactive world has ever felt quite so alive," says Variety's pretentious twit of a videogame blogger. "Deep, accessible and endlessly adaptive, it's a boundary-pushing experience."
Far Cry 2: Chris Dahlen, in his first review for Variety, calls this action sequel "stunningly beautiful and morrally harrowing," but "plodding in its execution."
Midnight Club: Los Angeles: "Detailed beyond most players' interests," writes Leigh Alexander, "the game still manages to be broadly accessible thanks to simple controls, a smooth mission structure, and jaw-droppingly stunning graphics."
LittleBigPlanet: Above referenced pretentious twit describes it as "[A]n exercise is anti-immersion, attracting even the most casual player to its irresistibly adorable cartoon world, then slowly pulling back the facade until they're left with a blank canvas."
Rock Revolution: "Overly complex where it should be simple and soulless where it should be rich," says Leigh.
There was only one real piece of news (as in something interesting that we didn't expect) at Nintendo's
press conference this morning, but it was a doozy: Rockstar is making a new "Grand Theft Auto" game exclusively for the DS called "Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars."
It's the first time the uber-popular "GTA" franchise has come to a Nintendo system since 2004's "Grand Theft Auto Advance" for the Game Boy and it's a coming together many of us thought would never happen again, since the Nintendo audience tends to skew younger than Rockstar's and its consoles don't have the processing power that "GTA 4" demanded.
But there's no ignoring the massive install base of the DS, which Nintendo says will hit nearly 100 million by March. Sure, lots of kids and older players who aren't into "GTA" have a DS. But pretty much every core gamer has one as well these days. So there's no reason Rockstar make an M-rated game and target them.
Parent company Take-Two Interactive has got to be excited. It's coming off the huge "Grand Theft Auto IV" launch and has the first downloadable content promises for the end of this year. Then there's yet another piece of "GTA" content coming next winter -- and it's for a platform with a bigger install base than the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 combined. That means it's at least a year until Take-Two has to worry about not having any new "GTA" content on the immediate horizon, which will please Strauss Zelnick and his investors.
Details thus far are light, though the game is coming out this Winter. Rockstar promises it's a wholly original story in which "players will navigate their way through the streets as they uncover the truth behind an epic tale of crime and corruption within the Triad crime syndicate." Despite the DS's lack of power compared to even the PSP, Rockstar says "Chinatown Wars" will have the same "unprecedented amount of depth" that "GTA" games are known for and will also take full advantage of the handheld console's touch screen.
Game is being developed by Rockstar Leeds, which also made the PSP spin-offs "Vice City Stories" and "Liberty City Stories."
(This story previously said "Chinatown Wars" will be the first "GTA" game ever on a Nintendo console. As a few commenters pointed out, that was wrong. That was my bad for blogging in a rush during E3 madness and not doing enough research.)
Another detail from Take Two earnings that I had missed: Rockstar has pushed back the release of "Grand Theft Auto IV's" first batch of episodic content until the company's first fiscal quarter of 2009, which runs from November 1 to January 31. It was originally supposed to come int he quarter ending October 31.
Take Two's official word is that the delay is to "provide a better balance in Take-Two's release schedule." That does make sense. But I wonder whether Rockstar was going to have it done? When I spoke to Dan Houser in April, he said that "there's not much going on with it" and that they probably wouldn't start thinking about it until after "GTA IV" shipped. Even assuming they got right to work in May, that's only six months to produce something pretty substantial.
More coming on Take-Two Interactive earnings soon, but I had to immediately post the new sales figures from "Grand Theft Auto IV." Take Two revealed that it as of May 31, the game has sold 8.5 million units to consumers and 11 million total into retailers (meaning that's what stores ordered and eventually expected to sell.
Remember that in its first week, "GTA IV" sold 6 million units. So things have slowed down a bit since then, but it's still racking up huge numbers and seems well on its way to being the best selling Xbox 360 and PS3 games (Infinity Ward recently revealed that "Call of Duty 4" has sold over 10 million units, but I don't know how many of those were PC).
Based on the $500 million-plus figure that Take Two put out along with first week sales, basic math indicates that is has now generated over $700 million in sales, with over $900 million worth of games sold into retail.
With EA's bid for Take-Two expiring on Friday, Houser is making it pretty clear -- as far as he could given the circumstances and his reputation -- that he'd have no problem with the deal going through. This is the key part of the story, as far as I can tell:
If EA succeeds in acquiring Take-Two, some analysts believe EA's star developers might demand a bigger share of game proceeds.
Another possible kink: Rockstar's history of autonomy.
If EA ends up with Take-Two, Mr. Houser says it's unlikely that he
would go so far as to seek EA's approval for game content. Still, he
calls Mr. Riccitiello "the real deal" and sees some appeal in an EA
alliance, which he says would make Rockstar a "much smaller fish in
much bigger pond."
"I'm not someone who has any kind of problem with
that," says Mr. Houser, who says EA turned him down for a job in the
late 1990s.
As any reporter knows, business executives only talk when they have a good reason (or at least a reason they think is good). Sometimes it's as simple as wanting to publicize a product or themselves. Sometimes they're trying to raise their own profile or that of their company. Sometimes they're looking to push ongoing negotiations in a certain direction. I certainly know most sources don't talk to me out of the kindness of their hearts.
So when Rockstar chief Sam Houser goes on the record several weeks after "GTA IV" launches, but just a few days before Take-Two shareholders have to decide whether to accept EA's $26 per-share offer, and has nice things to say about John Riccitiello, he's telling the world that he's cool with this deal, if not outright endorsing it.
His actual quote may be very mild, but it's his decision to talk right now that speaks volumes. He also speaks about Rockstar's reputation for independence, and the story goes into the label's "bad boy" reputation, which to me is a symbol to investors that Rockstar doesn't intend to change one iota under EA, which is to say they intend to keep making hugely successful "GTA" games just like they always have.
The only question is, what does Strauss Zelnick think of it? The fact that Take-Two COO Gary Dale (who formerly worked with Rockstar) was allowed to talk on the record means that Zelnick must have not fought against the story, at a minimum (Rockstar does have its own very independent PR strategy).
So is Zelnick signaling that he's softening on his resistance to the deal at all now that "GTA IV" is out and a big hit? Will Houser's signal that he and his Rockstar team will be just fine under EA motivate any more Take-Two shareholders to sell? We'll find out by Friday.
PS Too bad the Housers remain so resistant to having images of themselves in public. I would have loved to see one of those classic WSJ sketches of Sam the way he's described: "[sporting] a scruffy beard that stretches to the top of his chest."
Remember when I reported last month that, according to Take-Two Sources, "Grand Theft Auto IV" was on track to sell over $400 million at retail in its first week? Turns out my sources underestimated by around $100 million.
As I'm reporting in Variety this morning, Take-Two and Rockstar actually sold more than $500 million worth of "GTA IV" units, totalling more than 6 million units. That demolishes the $300 million-plus record that "Halo 3" set in September.
In fact, "GTA IV" broke that record on its first day, selling $310 million, or 3.6 million units on April 29. "Halo 3" sold $170 million on its first day in the U.S. (the game didn't quite have a simultaneous worldwide release)
And to the extent that it matters -- only a bit, in my book, given how different the economic model is -- it's bigger than the closest comparable box office record we could find: $404 million over six days for "Pirates of the Caribbean: at World's End."
Given that huge first week figure and that there's likely to be a surge in sales come the holidays (at least amongst the more permissive or clueless parents out there), I'd say "GTA IV" has a very good shot at beating "San Andreas'" franchise record of 21.5 million units.
Strauss Zelnick and his team are sure to be happy, since this make's Electronic Arts' case that it can do an even better job with the "GTA" franchise than Take-Two a bit harder to argue. It'll be interesting to see today whether investors had sales this massive built into Take-Two's stock price or if its get a bump.
Looking through my ever-growing pile of recent games, it occurs to me that the two best games of 2006 -- in this muchmaligned reviewer's opinion -- have both been released in the past month. So if you never played "Okami" or "Bully" and you have Wii or Xbox 360, I highly highly recommend picking them both up. I can say without reservation that they are both better than anything that has come out so far in 2008.
Last Friday, Rockstar Games was in L.A. giving journalists an in-depth peek at “Grand Theft Auto IV,” along with a look at the improvements in “Bully: Scholarship Edition,” the 360/Wii version of 2006’s awesome “GTA at prep school.”
Demo’s were done at the Chateau Marmont hotel (but of course… where else would Rockstar do demo’s but Chateau Marmont?). I can’t deny that I was a little distracted the whole time wondering how many times Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears ever collapsed (from exhaustion, of course) in the very room I was sitting in. But once I got past that, I was just as impressed as I hoped to be by “GTA IV.”
Rockstar’s VP of development Jeronimo Barrera (who led me through the demo) wasn’t shy about how much of an advance his team thinks the game is. “’Grand Theft Auto 3’ changed the industry tremendously, but in many ways this is a bigger leap,” he boasted. (Sure, it’s kind of a canned line. But he sure seemed to believe it.)
Let’s start with the way he’s not right: Fundamentally, “GTA IV” is the same game we’re used to – the basic structure created in 2001’s “GTA III.” It’s a third person action title about a newcomer to Liberty City who meets lots of people, goes on missions both to earn money and fulfill a personal goal, and is capable of wreaking total havoc along the way.
We’ve also got the series’ trademark character types, from thugs to funny small-time gangsters to a stoic lead. Protagonist Niko is an Eastern European immigrant who is aptly described by one guy he meets as “a badass mofo who ain’t afraid to take cats down.”
But how is Jeronimo right? Graphically, “GTA IV” is really a cut above. Not so much in the minutiae, but the depth. As we’ve come to expect from “GTA,” there are no loading times, but the number of people and vehicles, the variety of settings, and the believable actions of them all are tremendous. Seeing the Manhattan skyline from Brooklyn (or Liberty city’s versions of them) is just plain awesome.
Ditto the dynamic character and vehicle actions. Shoot a guy in the knee and he hobbles. Blow out a car’s right wheel and it veers in that direction. Pull a gun on a civilian and she’ll beg for her life. Liberty City feels alive and responsive. Even though it’s not as big in area as San Andreas, there’s more richness and depth along the way, which I consider a very welcome tradeoff.
Finally, “GTA IV” attempts to seriously integrate modern day technology in a realistic way. Niko has a cell phone that he can use for any number of purposes. We’re used to cell phones that occasionally ring with player instructions, as in “No More Heroes,” but Niko can place calls on his and get responses. In the example I saw, he called 9-1-1 so he could –- you guessed it -– jack a police car. I also saw Niko use the police car’s computer to look up a criminal’s address. And I’m told “GTA IV” features in-game Internet access as well. I didn’t get to poke and prod those applications, so I have no idea how deep they go, but the idea of a character who can proactively and dynamically use modern communication tools is a qualitative leap forward in gameplay if it works.
There are some other less impressive but still welcome advancements, like a weapons system that works perfectly well –- nothing amazing, but finally “GTA” is on par with other action games. In-game music looks like it’s going to once again be ultra-deep and will probably feature some new on-demand twists we haven’t seen before. Personally, though I was kind of enjoying the right-wing talk station. It just felt right on a respite in the car between shooting sh*t up.
Not as much to say about “Bully: Scholarship Edition.” If you never played the original “Bully,” I highly recommend it. On PS2 it was my second favorite game of 2006 (only behind “Okami") and really wowed me with its solid gameplay and satirical eye. “Scholarship Edition” amps up the graphics, adds a few amusing missions and classroom activities, and includes some offline multi-player mini-games. Perhaps enough to make those who missed out on “Bully” first time around to feel like they got something for the wait, but not exactly a tricked out "director's cut" for those who have played it before.
(For a full gallery of new "Grand Theft Auto IV" screenshots, click here.)
With the release of "Grand Theft Auto IV" coming up -- and, let's be honest, my wanting to start this blog off with a bang -- I thought it was worth letting readers know about a major story in the intersection of Hollywood and videogames, arguably the biggest ever, that almost happened last spring.
For years, everyone in Hollywood has wanted to get their hands on "Grand Theft Auto." Big name producers and senior execs at major studios all did their best to convince Rockstar to give up the film rights to their franchise. But the brothers Houser were reluctant, and who can blame them? "Grand Theft Auto" is a huge cash cow and has a bigger profile in the young male demo than most TV shows and movies. And God knows there have been a lot of awful videogame-based movies that hurt the property more than they helped. So, even amongst those able to navigate the Rockstar bureaucracy and talk to the right people, the answer was always "no."
But last year, something changed. By the spring, a deal was virtually in place with one of the six major studios to start developing a "Grand Theft Auto" movie. Eminem was quite possibly going to star.
I can't be sure of the reasons why Rockstar was finally open to a movie deal, though I suspect it had to do with the new management at parent company Take 2. This was soon after the board was ousted following a financial scandal. The new (and current) chairman, Strauss Zelnick, has significant ties to the traditional media industry given his previous posts as CEO of BMG music and president of 20th Century Fox.
How close was this deal to happening? Reporters at Variety (and, I have since learned, other publications) were preparing their stories based on conversations with the studio in question. Internally at Take 2, people were talking about it as a done deal. Then at the last minute, it all fell apart. I'm told Take 2 couldn't finalize terms with the studio, though I'm not sure if it was a purely financial issue or if, in the end, the publisher got cold feet about giving away rights to its baby.
Who knows if Rockstar will ever be willing to make a movie deal again. But for those who think that in principle the publisher would never be interested, last year's events prove them wrong. Perhaps one day it'll happen. Maybe even before the "Halo" film.
Update (2/4/08, 4:25 PM): Someone from Rockstar pinged me with this statement, attributed to VP/co-founder Dan Houser, that they have been giving to other journalists who apparently called to ask about the above story. It doesn't really contract my post since, as I said, no deal was ever in place. But I certainly stand behind my reporting that it came awful close.
Rockstar was not involved in this project in any shape or form nor is
it something that we're currently interested in. There was no GTA
movie in the works as far as Rockstar is concerned. Some movie
producers were trying to put something together to entice us to make a
movie, as studios and production teams frequently have done in the
past. This proposal was no more interesting than the numerous others we
receive. We never entertained proceeding with the project.
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Chris Morris reports on the business and culture of video games and offers analysis of recent events and industry trends.
Tips and feedback are encouraged at chris.r.morris-at-gmail-com
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Chris Morris reports on the business and culture of video games and offers analysis of recent events and industry trends.
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