Still Alive

I don't think I have ever gone an entire week in the history of Sexy Videogameland without posting, but here we are! Thank you for your emails, but no, I am neither sick nor dead -- I just took a couple days off of work in order to move and am still catching up. I am stealing wireless from my next-door neighbor until I can get set up in the new spot, the connection is horrendous (which is why this post has no picture), and am confronting a backlog of unplayed titles and stuff I missed.

Since then, we've been busy at Gamasutra, too; Activision is doing fairly well, and promises to keep doing well by monetizing everything it can and by bleeding franchises to death; paradoxically, Bobby Kotick seems to think development talent will not be attracted to the company unless they can work only on low-risk licenses and sequels and sequels and sequels. THQ, unfortunately, is not doing quite as well, analysts feel deceived and the company's instituting a turnaround plan.

EA did not do as well on the quarter as it wanted to, as its losses widened and it laid off about 600 people across, I think, pretty much all of its studios globally. But Riccitiello says it took a hunk out of what would have been its profits in order to put $150 million toward investments in newer business models like online games and digital distro, given that he (and other gaming execs and analysts) are noticing consumer behavior at retail taking a little bit of a bruising thanks to the crap economy.

It also restructured its casual business -- instead of having Pogo, EA Casual, its Hasbro-licensed stuff and The Sims in separate arenas, it seems to be moving toward consolidating them all under The Sims umbrella; at least, it's integrating Hasbro and EA Casual into that group, citing the fact that they all enjoy the same target audience. Makes sense, I guess. It also put the founder of that chick TV channel, Oxygen Media, on its board, probably to help focus the casual biz a little.

Most game companies are taking losses right now, though it remains to be seen whether there'll be any long-term damage. NPD results for the last month, when they arrive, should be pretty telling; until now, we've only been able to speculate on whether the downturn is affecting game buying, but most analysts have said that the next round of NPD should show for sure.

So with all this fancylike bizness reportin', almost all my new games -- Fable II, Fallout 3 and FarCry 2, mainly -- remain in seal. I am patiently chipping away at Order of Ecclesia as I ride the subways around to check out my new Brooklyn neighborhood, but you can expect me to start digging into October's Big Three soon. By the time I have anything substantial to say, everyone will already be all about Gears 2, Mirror's Edge and, of course, Left 4 Dead. Then, of course, Persona 4 is coming out, which I have already pre-ordered because it looks awesome-awesome-awesome. Even still, I trust the readers of the noble state of SVGL to have an attention span a bit longer than a hamster's. Right?

Oh, about Ecclesia -- I really wish it had a sprite gallery so that you could watch the animations in slow motion (maybe it does, and I haven't unlocked it yet). They're so beautifully done that I keep trying to pause the game and look at them, which of course takes me straight to the menu screen.

Also, how cool would a Castlevania game be if it had a sprite editor? Maybe even a map editor, like as an alternate mode? As the undisputed emperor of 2D joygasm, Iga and his team should really consider it.

One more thing about Ecclesia -- I am guessing that Konami.jp has awesome wallpaper art up for it just like they did with Portrait of Ruin, which has spawned some of my favorite game pics of all time, but I am Japanese-dumb and cannot navigate the site (and internet, yeah). Has anyone seen/heard of these, and if so, have you got a link? [Edit: Nevermind, I found it -- still, if there's a Rapidshare of artbook scans or something, that'd still be awesome.]

But anyway, if you've sent email and I haven't answered, now you know why! And speaking of Still Alive, Gamasutra republished Game Developer's fab Portal postmortem, which I loved reading.

You guys are the best; thanks for your patience.

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