First party controllers from Nintendo, Microsoft, and SEGA have all had equal durability in my eyes. Only SONY has had some problems for me in this department, but even those are still light years better than third party pads.
As far as I'm concerned, unless you're crazy cheap, 3rd party controllers really are only good for gutting to do things like making custom arcade-style controllers and such.
Fighting Sticks and specialized controllers are the only ones where you are allowed to go third party.
Agreed. Actually, going back to gutting them to make your own custom controllers, you can see why most third party controllers are crap. Apparently, the first party controllers tend to have higher quality switches (not that surprising), but the drawback is that you can't really take them apart to do anything useful with them without completely destroying the switches. Most third party controllers use cheaper switches that rely on a rubber membrane switch similar to those in cheaper keyboards. However, the membrane isn't directly attached to the electrical contacts on the controller's PCB, making it very easy to solder real buttons like you'd get from an arcade supply store to them.
Oh specialized controllers. If I had stacks of cash to blow I would so upgrade to the Rock Band 3rd party Ion drum kit. $300 though!
If I had stacks of cash left after doing everything I want to do to the mighty van, I'd do the same goddamn thing. Though, I'd feel a bit guilty buying fake guitar stuff when I have a proper one sitting right there, which I've neglected to play for a few days.
Oh specialized controllers. If I had stacks of cash to blow I would so upgrade to a real electronic drum set and connect it to the console using the MIDI adaptor. $3000 though!
Regarding the Ion drum kit though, it worked well for about a year before the components started to get wonky, and I ended up having to trash the whole thing because most of the pads and cymbals just stopped working after two years. The kick pedal it comes with is pretty crap too. Still, I had a blast with the thing while I had it. At this point I'm a good enough drummer that I need to go all out or not at all.
Well from what I've read, and what PA's posted, to me it just sounds like they've got projects they would like to work on, that they have had to put on the backburner because they simply don't have time. Things like PA Presents, while still awesome, take away from things like Automata, etc..
Is this what kickstarter is for?
Well, based on Kickstarter's own Guidelines I do believe things like this are what kickstarter is made for. They've got creative ideas that they simply cannot execute because they need to devote time to making money....so if the money just appears, they've got less of a need to make money, and more time to make awesome...
There's been mixed opinions about the whole thing.They are the guys that brought us an awesome webcomic and two (maybe more in the future) PAXs. They've got a lot of fans, and at the end of the day, this is just another way for fans to support them. Had Kickstarter failed, nothing would have changed and it would just be the same old Penn Arcade we've known and loved.
I've had this discussion, but basically I think they badly communicated what they were trying to do. They presented the Kickstarter as a way to remove ads from the site, when they should have been more up front about how it was more about giving them time to work on other things. Things that they don't have time to do now because of responsibilities to advertisers.
I think had they presented it that way there would have been much less outrage.
1. Nintendo 2. Sega 3. Microsoft (I have a controller on its way out) 4. Sony
I'd actually re-order that and put Sega on top. I went through at least three N64 controllers back in the day while all of my Sega controllers (Genesis and Dreamcast) still work perfectly today.
I've had this discussion, but basically I think they badly communicated what they were trying to do. They presented the Kickstarter as a way to remove ads from the site, when they should have been more up front about how it was more about giving them time to work on other things. Things that they don't have time to do now because of responsibilities to advertisers.
I think had they presented it that way there would have been much less outrage.
I don't think I understand completely what is going on. What "responsibility to advertisers" are there? They just put up the ads, what time would be freed if they didn't have to?
I don't find it wrong to ask people to support a site, but why is it on kickstarter? Why didn't they just put an optional subscription service to the site that is ads free. Kickstarter is for kickstarting things...
So Ouya is now promising OnLive support at launch. Does this change things at all? I still have zero interest, but maybe this will help it not suck so much for people who really want to believe they will have fun with it. I still have a hard time believing they'll get the thing out the door.
Once again, it needs to get out of the every game is free to play market in order for me to take it seriously.
It's definitely made a calamity of their marketing message. "Every game free to play! A purely open indie playground!" is now working hand in hand with a pricey subscription service for AAA titles.
This just gave me an idea. What if a game company used the Adobe Creative Cloud model for their games? You would need to have an entire line of terrific games that are multiplayer, and they would all have to still have player communities that were still large enough. Then for $30 a month someone will get access to all the games, all updates, and all future games made by your company no matter what as long as you keep playing. People pay almost that much for just one MMO, so it's not too far fetched. The only thing is you have to actually maintain an entire lineup of games that never end.
It is definitely a good idea on paper, but the first company I would think of is Valve, and they're content with free to play and selling hats.
I think as we shift more and more towards digital distribution your idea becomes more feasible. If there were ever to be a big F2P backlash, people could turn to this subscription model.
This just gave me an idea. What if a game company used the Adobe Creative Cloud model for their games? You would need to have an entire line of terrific games that are multiplayer, and they would all have to still have player communities that were still large enough. Then for $30 a month someone will get access to all the games, all updates, and all future games made by your company no matter what as long as you keep playing. People pay almost that much for just one MMO, so it's not too far fetched. The only thing is you have to actually maintain an entire lineup of games that never end.
The buffet model was essentially Gametap, a service that impressed me quite a few times. The idea itself is very sound (although the promise of all future games and a populated multiplayer world seems somewhat farfetched), I'm convinced Gametap failed because of poor management.
I think that model reminds me of the cable networks where they give you access to "all these channels" and that works great for a lot of people, but there is always going to be some segment of the market that prefers ala carte. It's possibly quite viable, but it does come with downsides.
Wasn't Gametap generally just a buffet of old games though? I think what Scott is proposing is pay for the promise of new releases.
It had some new releases, and an attractive number of "Came out 4 months ago, didn't sell well, publisher wants to cover losses" titles, but you weren't going to see a Call of Duty on there. It may be more attractive now as designers realize the stability that a large player base brings (even if those people are playing for free).
However, I think $30 a month is a little extreme for that model. I can't remember the last time I spent that much on a PC game, and charging monthly is usually compared to buying 1 game a month.
OnLive basically does that, the package subscription deals. But then you have to deal with OnLive, which works great most of the time with the desktop app but I've had horrible luck running games off the OnLive console. Yes, I have an OnLive console. I got it for free because reasons.
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There's been mixed opinions about the whole thing.They are the guys that brought us an awesome webcomic and two (maybe more in the future) PAXs. They've got a lot of fans, and at the end of the day, this is just another way for fans to support them. Had Kickstarter failed, nothing would have changed and it would just be the same old Penn Arcade we've known and loved.
I think had they presented it that way there would have been much less outrage.
I don't find it wrong to ask people to support a site, but why is it on kickstarter? Why didn't they just put an optional subscription service to the site that is ads free. Kickstarter is for kickstarting things...
I think as we shift more and more towards digital distribution your idea becomes more feasible. If there were ever to be a big F2P backlash, people could turn to this subscription model.
However, I think $30 a month is a little extreme for that model. I can't remember the last time I spent that much on a PC game, and charging monthly is usually compared to buying 1 game a month.