Back to Community Management!

It has been exactly a month since the last entry I wrote. I expected to do it with more frequency, but I had a Huuuge amount of work to deal with...
Four days ago I ended my contract with Gammick Entertainment as Lead Tester for some games for DS, Xbox360 and Nintendo Wii. I've learned many stuff, specially about Lotcheck and TCR processes for both Nintendo and Microsoft. At first sight, the quantity of points you have to check for a game to pass the QA filter for these two companies it's scary, but it can be handled pretty well once you get to the hands-on.

I'd like to thank all the people from Gammick for their trust on me, as well as Enjoy Up for keep'in it real. I hope Zombie BBQ hits the top of the DS lists when it's released this autumm!

Now I'm in Switzerland, waiting to start my new job just tomorrow... I'm back to Community Management, a role which I enjoyed a lot working as Spanish CM for Warhammer Online some months ago. I think the next week I'll be able to tell you something else about it ;)

About Devil May Cry 4 not selling so well... and PC vs Consoles!

I've just read an article in Destructoid.com about the "Devil May Cry 4's lackluster PC sales".
Coincidence or not, this last wednesday I went to buy some games (Age of Conan, Prey, Dungeons & Dragons Online, GTA Vice City, and the Expansion Set for Diablo II, all of them for PC), and, while I kept cheking the games in the shelves, I came across with many, and I mean really many, copies of DMC4. I got one, reversed it and checked the back, inconsciously looking to be amazed by the screenshots. After the scrutiny, my first thought was: why so many text (add to this the fact that it was of a considerable SMALL font size) and so small, dark screenshots? Obviously, it didn't get my attention, and I left the copy again in the shelf...
Besides of what in my opinion is a bad marketing strategy (small, lack-of-detail screenshots and many text on the back of the retail box), THERE WAS ANOTHER REASON WHY I DIDN'T BUY DMC4. It's all linked with my previous gaming experience...
The only Devil May Cry that I've ever played was DMC2 for the PS2, only for 20 minutes, and I didn't like it much, because apart from some nice combos, the 3D environment seemed to me totally wasted. I saw such great possibilities for a compelling videoadventure looking at the nicely crafted scenarios, that after having checked that the game was a classic beat'em-up, I totally lost the interest on it (of course because I've played many beat'em-ups and I didn't see anything new under the horizon).
AND THERE'S STILL ANOTHER REASON WHY I DIDN'T BUY DMC4. I love Resident Evil 2. I played the PS2 version, and I think it's one of the best games ever. Really. Excepting for the Spanish translation, which is terribly awful. Some months ago, I bought the PC version (as I travel abroad, I regard my laptop as my only gaming companion... I'm lying, include the DS too), and even that I tried hard to configure the controller (better forget playing with mouse and keyboard) I was unable to get it right... and there's a HUGE difference when playing with a controller specifically designed for the game (CONSOLE VERSION) than doing so with mouse or keyboard, or even with a controller but with a very bad controller configuration option screen (PC VERSION). So, if Resident Evil 2 wasn't able to properly manage the PC-Controller configuration, how I may not think it could happen the same with Devil May Cry 4, specially when coming from the same company? (I also think the looks of the characters DMC-RE reinforced this feeling of 'it will happen the same').

Maybe you will agree, maybe you won't, but this is why I didn't contribute to raise DMC4 in the weekly selling chart. (The only hope is getting an Xbox360 controller and try RE2 on my PC. If it works, I'm willing to give DMC4 a change, sure).

Zombie BBQ coming soon... Is it the end of 'Hard' games?

I know that many gamers are waiting for the release of this game, which name is a clear indicator of the killing spree that we'll witness on our DS. I'm having the pleasure of helping Enjoy Up (trough Gammick Entertainment, which is the editor that hired me) on the testing phase, and even the deadlines are pretty tight, they are always open to criticism and willing to polish small details here and there so the game is properly shaped and ready for the pre-XMas? release...

Many people may remember the first game from Enjoy Up, Chronos Twins for the DS. There circulated the shared opinion amongst the media that its difficulty was far beyond the standard we are getting used to.
The "casual" trend affects all genres, and nobody seems able to handle the situation but to unwillingly adapt to it... (at least when speaking about developers. If we speak about investors, we all would agree that their preferred saying is "all about business", and this alone answers their stand about the topic)

Does it mean "hard" games are condemned to extinction? I don't think so.

A hard game doesn't imply it will be so deadly difficult from the very beginning that almost nobody will finish it. If it's so, it's better to call it a 'bad' game, as the problem is not the 'difficulty' in itself, but rather a poor game design. A hard game isn't a game that starts by killing you cheaply either... well, it shouln't be, generally speaking, unless it's called Rick Dangerous 2! Do some of you old school gamers remember that game? I wonder if RD2 would make it now with the "so-easy-to-complete" games that plague the games market. That game was all about the "killed-memorize-try again-killed-remember-success". As you kept advancing, you could "smell" the dangerous situations in advance and, having previously developed your cautiousness and reflexes from the many times you had been killed, you could succeed in some difficult situations even at the first try. I'm yet to experience this feeling again, but no game seems able to repeat this magistral formula... That's why Rick Dangerous 2 is a classic, I suppose.

Related to this, I can confirm Zombie BBQ won't be a one-shot game (which, taking into account the recent catalogue for the DS, it´s relieving), and as such, it will need some attempts to be finished... Does it mean it's a 'hard' game? Nop. Does 'nop' mean it will be an 'easy' game? Nop again.
The difficulty curve of the game has been given much love, and I'm confident most players will be happy of what Zombie BBQ has to offer, as it's neither a 'difficult' nor 'easy' game. But ey! I'm under a NDA binding yet, so let's wait a bit before sharing more news about this frikin' BBQish game!

Games Tester life ain't that easy!

I'll export a couple of posts I had on my former blog, and take advantage of it to introduce myself to all of you. At the bottom, you can watch a video from 2005 that was broadcasted in a popular Spanish channel. It was recorded when I was working at Gameloft Barcelona as Games Tester.
Luckily, I'm still in touch with many Gameloft's ex-colleagues, and I'm even working currently with some of them at Gammick Entertainment in Barcelona.

A warning first: the language spoken in the video is catalan, and it'll be incomprehensible for most of you (even we are 7 million speakers throughout the world and numbers are raising!)... basically, the interviewer asks about the pros and cons of being a games tester... it will be easy for you to notice the expressive intonation at the first question I was addressed:

"what did your friends say when you told them you are working as games tester?"

Even my friends always tell me how "Lucky" I am, I've had to explain them many times the same old story, until they have realized that being a Games Tester maybe isn't all about fun, as they initially thought... I'll talk about this topic on later entries, just not to bore you much for the moment.. so see you soon on the same Game-Channel!

And now, the video...

In the beginning there was... the GAME.

It was time to go, find a better place, and rebuild the stuff from afresh... I had a blog that I didn't update in a regular fashion, mostly because its editor was neither intuitive nor friendly, and because the lack of time during the last six months, which have been really hectic. On this new adventure, I'll try with Blogger and we'll then see where do we go from here... I hope it comes to be an interesting and funny adventure with all of you yet-to-know gamers around the globe! =)

It all started with a personal introduction, as always happens in every tale..