Writing in for a post in Publicola Sam Machkovech gives his suggestion for the top five gaming failures of 2009 and he gets it all wrong.
At least, that’s what I think and I don’t mind saying so.
He starts off by slamming ODST. That’s wrong. ODST has a simple campaign single-player level but it’s not a single-player game.
Mr Machkovech suggests the biggest vfialure of the year is the city of Seattle. He suggests Value failed this year. What? The year the world went zombie mad. Look at the number of Left 4 Dead 2 blog posts this year – the positive ones – and claim Valve failed. Insanity. Today the rather rubbish Midnight Rider’s single made the YouTube charts.
He suggests Wizards of the Coast failed this year. Did Dungeons and Dragons 4 come out this year? If not it’s the year I started to play it and the year it started to feel real. It’s the year Magic the Gathering made the xBox. That’s a huge success.
He suggests Microsoft failed this year. That’s an interesting argument to make in Japan where the PS3 trounces the xBox. It’s not even an argument here in Europe where Live is miles ahead of Home and we can watch Sky TV on demand.
He suggests Popcap had a bad year. The very fact we’re talking about a company which was making simple flash causal games illustrates Popcap’s success.
Dear me. Sam Machkovech’s post pinged my radar, he’s entitled to his views and I feel entitled to roll out the mantra; “wrong, wrong, wrong!”
Links for Sam’s Top 5 Gaming Failures and his Top 5 Gaming Successes.
Thanks for reading my piece at PubliCola. I feel strongly about the successes and failures alike of Seattle's gaming scene, and you may appreciate my look at Seattle's Top 5 Gaming Successes here: http://publicola.net/?p=21666 . But I invite you to re-read the bit about Seattle as a city not backing its game developers. It's not about the games made in Seattle, but about the city's silence that surrounds so many quality, money-making projects. Something tells me you and I are actually on the same page here. Cheers. -SM
Thanks very much for swinging buy here Sam. It's good of you to do so and I didn't expect it at all! I take your point. You're egging the city on to support its gaming children, so to speak. I'm still keen to call out specific defenses even if we're both making the same underlying point. What I *need* to do is make sure there's a link back to your original post (a sign that I was too tired when I blogged this) and I'll add a link to your 5 successes too. You're also very welcome to do a… Read more »