Weekly links #2

Soo, it turns out there aren't all that many gaming links in a week that I care about, but they're really good, so let's get to it.

First we have someone on Gamasutra busting some myths about beginning game developers. There's very good advice in the article, and it all revolves around the common theme that there is no recipe for success. It's a problem I see a lot with aspiring writers: they spent all their time pouring through books and blogs with advice on writing, instead of... actually writing. And practice is the only way you'll get any good. It's the same with game development.

But that's hardly controversial. The scandal of the week was a Capcom executive claiming that making games for the next generation of consoles will cost 8 to 10 times as much as until now. It bounced around the echo chamber of the Internet a few times, of course. Over at The Escapist, Shamus Young was quick to point out that he called it first, years ago. Which he did, repeatedly, and I agree with him. And sure, the prediction is just that. A fairly sensationalistic one, too. But... imagine it's true. Imagine that the next Star Wars: The Old Republic will cost 2 billion dollars. Even if you can find a producer willing to foot such a bill -- and they're already absurdly risk averse -- how are they supposed to recoup the investment? Find 10 times more players? Where? Or maybe charge 10 times as much and market only to the richest people on Earth, selling them gold-powdered boxes?

While we're in the doom-and-gloom department, a column on mmorpg.com points out the decline of MMORPGs, while joystiq.com tells us which games are going down with the Windows Live DRM scheme. You know, just in case you were tempted to buy a game with always-on DRM (or any other kind for that matter).

On a lighter note, we have someone else at Gamasutra discovering it's hard to criticize a game at all when you've been backing it on Kickstarter, keeping in touch with the developers and knowing what they went through. Well, hello! Welcome to the age of humanism, when creators are people rather than vending machines. Enjoy, it's a lot better than the Dark Age the 20th century has become thanks to Big Media.

Last but not least, we have Jeff Vogel pointing out how absurd it is to argue over what is and what isn't a game, and Cracked unearthing some really creepy stuff hidden in games. Have a laugh, and see you next week.