Kyle Orland

I covered the show for Joystiq. All the posts can be found here, but here are some highlights:

• Joe Danger dev explains why publishers don’t get downloadable games
• Can Kinect handle a player lying down? Yes and no
• Lionhead talks about Fable 3 voice stats, emotional storytelling
• Rare discusses new challenges of Kinect development
• Double Fine’s next projects: four ‘smaller’ games
• Develop: Molyneux talks Fable 2 problems, Fable 3 fixes
• Sony limiting use of 1080p 3D in PS3 games
• Develop: How a movie screenwriter helped save Enslaved’s story

As usual, there was no shortage of highly anticipated games at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo. But amidst all the new game announcements, there were a few games that were conspicuous by their absence — games that had been announced or mentioned at past E3s that were, for one reason or another, relegated to the shadows for this year’s show. Here’s a rundown of some of the games we missed at this year’s show, and the latest on their status.

(full article)

At first glance, the set of five independently developed computer games that went on sale as a downloadable bundle on May 4 didn’t seem especially noteworthy. Even the collection’s name reflected its lack of pretension: The Humble Indie Bundle (HIB) — containing PC, Mac and Linux versions of indie favorites World of Goo, Aquaria, Lugaru HD, Gish, and Penumbra (plus late donation Samorost 2) — wasn’t trying to revolutionize the way indie games are sold and distributed. It was simply “a unique kind of bundle that we are trying out,” as the official Web page put it.

But when the bundle was taken off the market 11 days later — after attracting over 138,000 purchases and nearly $1.3 million in donations — that built-in humility started to look a little ridiculous. Sure, those numbers would be a drop in the bucket for a big-budget developer, but for the relatively small world of indie games, the HIB was a veritable blockbuster.

“When you’re an independent game developer, and there’s no publisher or other middle-man, you only need a tiny amount of sales in order for it to be a gigantic success,” said Jeffrey Rosen, co-founder of Penumbra publisher Wolfire Games and one of the men who organized the HIB.

(full article)

In the last decade, eight states and two cities have passed laws that try to restrict the sale of violent video games to minors. In each case, federal courts have blocked those laws as unconstitutional restrictions on free speech.

That’s a pretty good track record, as far as the game industry is concerned. But all those successes could be rendered moot when the Supreme Court takes up the case of a California violent game law in its next session, starting this October.

“Frankly [I'm] a little bit nervous, because you just don’t know what the Supreme Court is going to do,” said Sean Bersell, Vice President of Public Affairs for the Entertainment Merchants Association, a party to the Supreme Court case. “They kind of wiped the slate clean and said, ‘We’re going to decide this issue.’”

(full article)

On March 23, Nintendo of Japan leaked the existence of a new portable system codenamed the Nintendo 3DS. According to the leak, the new dual screen portable will support “games [that] can be enjoyed with 3D effects without the need for special glasses.” With further details on the system not expected until June’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, we wondered: how would a glasses-free 3D portable work. Here are a few possibilities.

(full article)

It was midnight Greenwich Mean Time on Feb. 28 when the errors began showing up. Millions of PlayStation 3 owners the world over tried logging on to Sony’s online service only to be greeted with the now-famous cryptic message: “An error has occurred. You have been signed out of PlayStation Network (8001050F).” Even players that didn’t want to go online were unable to play most of their games, because their systems had reportedly “failed to install trophies.” Debug units — used by developers making PS3 games and journalists trying out early review copies — were reportedly stuck in an endless cycle of reboots. Later in the day, Sony officially suggested to most of its customers “that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality…”

Panic ensued. “PlayStation Network down” became the 14th most popular search term on Google.  #Sony and #PS3 became trending topics on Twitter, as did the pithily misspelled #ApocalyPS3. A thread on gaming message board NeoGAF generated nearly 8,000 posts discussing the issue in a single day. Popular gadget blog Engadget labeled it “a full-on PlayStation disaster.”

An then… the problem fixed itself. Exactly 24 hours after the errors first appeared, they disappeared just as suddenly, and PlayStations the world over started working as intended once again.

Looking back, the reaction to this temporary problem — caused by a leap year interpretation error in an internal chip on most older PS3s — seems a bit overblown. But it definitely didn’t seem overblown at the time. “The overall tone of PS3 owners was a frantic one,” said Anthony Severino, owner of community site PlayStation Universe. “The PlayStation Network has been down before, but this bug left users unable to play their games — games they paid hard-earned cash for. … As time went on, panic turned into anger, sending a larger portion of the PlayStation community on a tirade.” Joystiq blogger Griffin McElroy, one of the first to cover the breaking story, said the initial reaction from gamers was “just what you’d expect,  a lot of rage and fear from the PS3-owning community, and a whole bunch of braying and guffawing from the diehard 360 fans.”

The weekly gaming talk show talked to me about the death of Crispy Gamer (interview starts at 2:08)

(View on YouTube)

In this episode, former Crispy Gamer editor Kyle Orland and ex-Blizzard tastemaker/game entrepreneur Keith Lee join Bitmob co-founders Demian Linn and Dan Hsu.

The eclectic group discusses augmented reality games, Xbox Live achievements, Blizzard’s formula for constant success, the future prospects of rhythm games, and more.

(Download MP3 — 54.7 MB 59:42)
(More info on BitMob.com)

This week famed game journalist Kyle Orland joins Lara, Julian and Cory to discuss the dissolving of Crispy Gamer, the state of freelance journalism and more!

(Download MP3 — 47MB, 1:22:11)
(More info on GamersWithJobs.com)

As I write this, all the letters I type are slowly falling down and drifting ever so gently to the left in my mind. And I keep imagining a little figure in overalls, about two letters high and one letter wide, jumping on top of those letters as they appear, or bashing them from below to unlock valuable coins inside.

The reason for these odd hallucinations is Tuper Tario Tros., a Flash-based combination of two of the most addictive games in history — Tetris and Super Mario Bros. — into a game that … well, it isn’t quite as addictive as both games combined, but is awfully close.

(full article)