Medium Mashup

Category: The Deep End

In-depth think-pieces about Movies, TV, and Games

  • Rocket League, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Mandatory Subscription Services

    rocket league

    When Sony moved to make Playstation Plus mandatory for Playstation 4 online play, they knew it was going to be an unpopular move. The way they broke the information in the middle of their legendary 2013 E3 presentation was pure industry slight of hand. Playstation fans were too excited about Sony’s big announcements, including the PS4 price point and Sony’s commitment to physical game trading, to pay much attention to a single bullet-point listing “Online Play” as a benefit of Playstation Plus. But after a few days, the fanbase began to catch on, and not everybody was happy that the Playstation Network was now modeling itself off of Microsoft’s Xbox Live.

    However, as Microsoft started giving free games to its Xbox Live Gold subscribers and Sony made their free-game service an online subscription, a funny thing happened to both platforms: their communities became stronger. On the Playstation 3, the Plus members were a small subset of the community, and many of the games that were given away for free had been available for years before. But on PS4, where most owners were subscribers out of necessity and the titles given away each month were new, many players found themselves playing the same new games on a monthly basis.

    (more…)

  • The Nielson System is dead. Long Live Subscription-Based Programming!

    Hannibal S3

    If all your knowledge of television came from internet speculation and hype, Hannibal might seem like one of the most popular shows on TV. There are countless forums, reviews, and think-pieces revolving around the show, an unlikely brilliant re-imagining of a played out franchise (I wrote my piece during season one, which you can find here).

    And yet, if you look at the Nielson ratings, Hannibal is one of the least-popular shows on network television. It has survived for three seasons almost entirely because it is a co-production with international production company Gaumont. However, this year, Hannibal slipped to a 0.4 rating and NBC finally cancelled the series. Shortly after, NBC added insult to injury and, apparently at the request of advertisers, moved the remaining episodes of the show to Saturday where it could do no harm.

    (more…)

  • Steam Refunds and the Importance of Culpability In Game Sales

    arkhamEarly this year, I wrote a piece on the state of broken game launches and the mentality of fixing a title after release. Not much has changed since that was published, especially in regards to PC games. While the PC platform was finally starting to get consistently strong ports from console-focused developers toward the end of the last console generation, now that the PS4 and Xbox One have launched, many developers are again focusing their efforts on console games and then offloading half-assed ports to PC. We saw it earlier this year with Warner Bros.’ Mortal Kombat X, which frequently crashed on users and, when a patch was released to fix the problem, ended up erasing their saved games.

    Just this month, yet another disastrous PC launch occurred with a different Warner Bros. title. Batman: Arkham Knight is abysmal on PC, requiring absolutely top-of-the-line PC components to even maintain 30 fps without major stuttering. The game forces a 30 fps framerate lock on users as well, frustrating people with high-end machines, and is missing several visual effects present in the console versions of the game. Even worse, most computers that can handle the game’s specs slow to a crawl during many of the batmobile segments. The game requires a $1000+ machine to get visuals and performance that is still inferior to the $350 Xbox One.

    (more…)

  • E3 Wrap-Up

    E3-logoYet another E3 has come and gone, and once again the gaming world is treading water in a sea of information. After hours of conferences and several more hours of demonstrations, there is almost too much information to even parse, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t try. If you want to check out the Twitch coverage I did with Unknown Hosts, go here to watch our past broadcasts from this week! Or, if you’d like to jump to our pre and post show coverage, just use the links provided below the company headings to see themc where available!

    But for a concise, written version of events, read on! (more…)

  • Ex Machina: Fun With Theories!

    Ex Machina(This post contains spoilers for the film Ex Machina. It is written under the assumption that the reader has already seen the movie.)

    I am not often interested in fan theories. The vast majority of the time, they consist of taking various tiny pieces of information, removing them from their intended contexts, and then placing them side-by-side with other unrelated pieces of information in order to create an argument. More often than not, fan theories just confuse the narrative further and substitute a clear purpose with wish fulfillment on the behalf of the theory crafter. In the rare event that a fan theory IS correct, it tends to be a theory that actually clarifies the narrative rather than muddling it (R+L=J, I’m looking at you).

    I admit: my theory on Ex Machina does not clarify the movie to the degree that some of the best fan theories do. I had a certain idea in my mind early in the film and, by watching the movie with the assumption of my theory’s reality, it may have colored my perception of certain scenes. That being said, I believe it to be a well-supported theory with a more interesting, complex approach than what was openly presented in the film.

    (more…)