I did not see in the interview an explanation for why they have rolled their desks away from their signature half-life series for so long. Even if the team is thoroughly jaded on half-life, the fans have been clamoring for more for too long. A top-down corporation would have been on half-life 9 by now, granted, but having none since hl2 episode 2 is too extreme in the other direction.
My tendencies vary depending on the game I am playing. When playing a shooter I am a speed runner. I like to see in just how few hours I can run through a game like half-life 2. When playing rpgs I tend to be a completionist, exploring multiple possible endings in DAO/DA2. There are a few other categories that apply, not mentioned in this article. In strategy games I tend to be an expansionist, grabbing as much territory as I can until everything that I can see is under my control. I find 4c games like civilization appealing while in this mood. Anyone who lies near my domain, like the Borg in "Star Trek" will be conquered and then assimilated by my empire. This prevents them from expanding and taking the territory I want to expand into. There is nothing worse than when a rival settler or colony ship arrives at a spot I want just before mine does. Another way I like to play is as the Perfectionist. In this mode I will play at the insane level where if you die once you are done and then have to restart from scratch. One failure is an unforgiveable mistake and that character deserves to die. Only a perfect game, with no mistakes is worthy of completion. This applies to some rpgs and strategy games, and I appreciate studios who thoughtfuly include this option for gameplay, such as the Witcher series.
I agree with the concept that we are the only advanced civilization existing in the galaxy. There have been a number of publications regarding the Fermi paradox which states that if there were any advanced spacefaring civilizations in the galaxy that they would have colonized the entire galaxy within 1 million years give or take 500,000 years depending on reasonable estimates of achievable interstellar propulsion. Since this obviously has not happened, there are no advanced civilizations capable of interstellar travel in this galaxy.Also based on my take on the Drake euqation, I would estimate that any large galaxy, such as ours or Andromeda likely has at least on advanced space faring civilization. Considering this, the future merger of the milky way and Andromeda gaalxies could be an extraordinary event indeed, assuing our civilization survives until then. If so there is no doubt that we will have colonized the entire galaxy.
One of the downsides of capitalism is also it's strength. The primary purpose of a capitalist system is to have firms compete with each other in order to lower the final cost of their products. The result is more people buying your product, and more profit. The result of that is more people buying your stock resulting in more capital to expand or put in your Swiss or Carribean bank account. But most of the wealth generated goes to workers and then the local population. So there is always pressure to cut costs which means cut corners on the quality of the product. Of course if you cut too much quality from your product the consumers may shun it. But firms will always try to cut the quality of their prodiucts in favor of quantity and profit. The big firms are well-oiled machines and will do this much faster and more notably than smaller firms.If you do not like what they are doing to their product then stop buying it and buy from someone else who is doing the right things. It won't take much time before the big firms come around after they see their profits go down.
I am glad to see somebody at a high level within the industry confirm (likely in a moment of inadvertent blunt honesty) what many have been saying for years now. The bigger the firm the more the focus on the bottom line. The result is a product that is superficial and lacks depth which they try to make up for with flashy and expensive advertising and gfx in game. Quantity is always traded for quality. The end result is mediocre games that could have been great and in some cases great games like DAO that are gutted to mediocrity in an attempt to maximize profit via the same old formula. The indies arose and are thriving out of this general perception of absent depth in the games to fill in the void. Ultimately the cost of generating high-end gfx will come down while the big producers learn a bit from their mistakes resulting in better products from all of the developers and a happier consumer base..
The bottom line here is that there was bad management from within the company and from the government of RI. If Schilling had a sound business plan, and a leaner payroll, then he should have been able to get venture capital instead of taking public capital as a handout. There was too much overhead in both the number of employees and especially the manager payroll and they were over-extended on too many projects at once for a start-up with no income stream coming in yet. Jumping into an mmo at that point I think was the financial killing blow. I would point the finger most squarely at the CFO, but all of the senior managers are to blame for these kinds of errors. The state gambled with the taxpayer's money and lost and they will pay the price during the next election. The senior managers will likely get off Scot free and move on. The rest of the workers, despite good quality work on KA are screwed. I am also heartened by the other developers posting their employment opportunities in the wake of this fiasco. Given more time, more detail will leak out about how this went down at the management level, and it won't be pretty.
On the serious side, this reeks of retailers using metrics to establish price points. The core concept to understand here is WTP or willingness to pay. The main variable the effects this calculation is an estimate of the wealth of the buyer(s). Evidently the retailers all made the same calculations, which is the concerning part or should be for the government. This smells like there may be a trust between the retailers of this market that needs busting or this is an amazing coincidence. Perhaps all of them hired the same firm to crunch their numbers, or maybe there is only one accountant in Australia capable of crunching them and they had no choice.
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