[Games] Final Fantasy: A Request for Alternate Apparel

Looking over my games collection recently I was reminded of how much I enjoyed playing through Final Fantasy XII. When I think back to Final Fantasy XII, one of the first things I remember vividly about that gaming experience was the character of Fran. I appreciated almost every characteristic about Fran: the voice acting, the devilish red eyes, the long white hair, the backstory, the aesthetics of a lanky figure wielding a polearm, etc. The one aspect I didn't particularly care for, though, was her outfit.

I'm not contending that her outfit is offensive or that Square Enix shouldn't have designed this costume by any means, but for me personally I'd rather not watch my main character run around in a g string for the several dozen hours of my gameplay experience. I also understand that the underlying mechanics of JRPGs currently differ from that of Western RPGs on the user customization. Western RPGs are moving in the direction of allowing players more control over their characters' gender, appearance, personality, backstory, etc., while JRPGs, and particularly the Final Fantasy franchise, have been holding the line against these sorts of cosmetic customizations to their characters. While I personally relish carving out the details of my video game RPG characters, I can see the argument that giving the user too much control over customizing their character (and the narrative especially) makes game development significantly more difficult and expensive.

All understanding to the hardships of game development aside, I do not understand the management decision to not allow such a simple customization as allowing the player a few alternative outfits for their characters. First off, I know that Square already has a mountain of conceptual work already done for their character appearances; no studio worth its salt these days wouldn't, especially for a triple A title. All characters have at least a few iterations of ideas for their characters look before settling on their canonical character representations. I'm also not proposing a plethora of choices, or granular choices necessarily, but 2-4 different, overarching costumes to select from would be nice. While this would require the studio to convert the concept sketches to 3D character models, as well as implementing some mechanism in game for switching appearances, this seems like a small development cost for the user satisfaction it would provide.

I think a great example of where this was done was Mass Effect 2. I was ok with the character of Jack, but had a similar dislike to Jack's default flashy appearance as I'm citing with Fran's. After all, bare skin isn't so great at absorbing laser fire, or so I hear. Bioware, however, built in an alternate outfit that was a bit more to my liking. There was only one alternative outfit, I had to earn it, and it wasn't available until the middle of the game, but there was an alternative and I was grateful for it.



So yeah, Square, you don't have to give us the world, but could you let us cover our characters' bums, please? Some of the areas you make us go are rather chilly, after all.

[Games] Kinectimals

Kinectimals looks like a game for people who don't own pets or whose pets don't like them. I don't think this game is going to move 360 hardware, nor do I think it will convince children they don't still want a puppy.

[Games] Down the Rabbit Hole of the Used Games Market

A few weeks ago on IGN Girlfight the topic was raised of Electronic Arts move to strip out online multi-player as a separately purchasable feature (free to those buying new). The latter part of the debate moved into the legitimacy of the used market and the morale issues surrounding it. A key argument expressed was that used games sales fail to yield revenue for those that produce the game in the first place, which particularly in the games market have a crippling effect on the smaller developers. As a software developer myself I have to say this discussion gave me pause and forced me to reexamine my thoughts on the topic.

There is certainly a ring of truth to the argument. The simple reality is that if you don't give a company money for their product they don't have as much money to pour into future versions of said product. However, if we assume for a second the logic that all consumers should avoid contributing to the used games market a great many questions are immediately evoked. Should I not lend out games to other people? Should I not rent games? Should I not donate games to Goodwill? Do I need to buy 2 copies of a game if both my spouse and I want to play it? Why not donate money to smaller, independent game studios? By treating this one argument as an axiom we've called all property rights surrounding video games into question, and it's quite a rabbit hole.

I haven't really encountered this notion as much with music, although it's no longer as germane today with digital sales being what they are. Even when it was relevant, though, I don't think it was as big of an issue because for groups you really liked you bought merchandise from and went to concerts. The game markets are gradually coming around to doing these side elements as well to add to their revenue streams, and I think it's a very wise way to go. I certainly indulge in these side markets with games I really like such as Mass Effect, where I have all the DLC, a t-shirt, and a lithograph. Even for Castle Crashers I have a Red Knight sitting on my desk at work.

So the verdict for me personally: it's all business. Is it fair for EA to separately charge for multiplayer functionality? - Yes. Is it fair for them to charge $100 for a game? - Yes. Is it fair for people to sell their physical copy of a game? - Yes. Are any of these things wise? - I don't know. These are all things, however, that are fair for consumers and developers to do, devoid of applying morale "right" and "wrong" to them.

Phone Interface Foible

Using my wife's cell phone to find a number last night I discovered a rather large design issue in its interface. The top-left button has an icon "<-", yet it is not a Back button, as I've been convinced it should be from over 15 years of web browsing. How is possible that anyone designs an interface like this? I have to imagine every single person who has anything to do with designing cell phone interfaces has been browsing the Internet for at least 10 years. How is it possible that no one thought that the average citizen would recognize this symbol and its positioning as a Back button?

What does this button do instead, you might ask? It dials the contact. My scenario with this feature was browsing contacts, clicking the wrong contact from the list (taking me to that contact's detailed info page), immediately clicking what I thought was the Back button and accidentally dialing the contact. This scenario occurred twice before I actually got the contact information I needed.

The only way to make this feature worse would be to have it automatically dial 911.