Okay, so he didn’t actually use the word “casual.” But in an interview with Game|Life’s Chris Kohler, Castlevania series producer Koji Igarashi dropped a variety of hints indicating that he was less than happy with the new “3-D versus action game,” and that he feels pressured to create cheaper, more casual gaming experiences.
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Solid community-created game content, when done right, is every publisher’s fantasy. Game companies hope and pray for the day when talented fans of their games take the time to explore the development tools and put together competent, high-quality additions to the original product. It’s a win-win for everyone: Assuming the user’s content takes off, the original publisher sees increased interest and sales for their game, the add-on creator gains attention, fame, a major résumé bullet-point, and a potential paycheck, and the end-users get added value to their favorite game (typically for free). Continue Reading

As the sun rises on the very last day of E3 2008, GameCyte contemplates the time they spent last night with the gods of rock, and the time they wasted with the rock of Konami. In pictures, right after the jump. Continue Reading

It’s Wednesday morning in beautiful Los Angeles, California — home of the 2008 E3 Media and Business Summit — and your beloved GameCyte staffers have now accumulated a combined total of eight hours of sleep. We’ve already hit the pavement to bring you more E3 coverage; but before we lose ourselves entirely in the flood of digital fun and Texan speeches, here’s a brief update with some of yesterday’s more obscure observations. Continue Reading

Technically, the 2008 E3 Media & Business Summit doesn’t even start until today, Tuesday, July 15th. Yet, here we’ve been, all through Monday, braving the sweltering Los Angeles heat to bring you the first wave of news and promises. GameCyte will be here for the duration, checking in on all your favorites, bringing you updates from press conferences yet to come, and reporting on our exciting line-up of hands-on previews we’ve got planned for the week. So, as we set out for the first proper day of E3, here’s a brief update on some of the assorted fun we had on Monday — and what you can look forward to today. Continue Reading

I have something of a confession to make: I ruined E3 for everyone else. Last year’s castrated and mismanaged show was my fault. The ESA’s decision to make the show invite-only and exclude a wide variety of small or independent companies is a result of my actions. The show’s questionable status today, with companies fleeing the ESA and refusing to attend E3, can be blamed on me. I wrecked E3 for the world, and I’m sorry. Continue Reading

Ten days ago, after an incredibly successful viral marketing ploy ensured truckloads of eyeballs were at the ready, Blizzard Entertainment unveiled the long-awaited Diablo III at their Worldwide Invitational in Paris. Many were pleased. But in the days since, a single online petition has revealed that at least 40,000 individuals were not.

They took issue with the game’s art style, decrying the oversaturated, cartoony look, which they felt was more like the fantastical World of Warcraft than the gothic bloodletting adventure they’d come to know and love. Is their opinion justified? Does it matter either way? Continue Reading

Time’s up, fellow geeks! It’s time to decide who deserves Wii Points in order to worry about their hard drive space, making you “geeks and otaku” just like Laurent Fischer said. In the last two weeks, we’ve gotten a handful of stories from a few of our more dedicated and worrisome readers, each trying to out-nerd the last in a shameless bid for free Wii Points. The deadline has passed, and today we shall select our two winners. But, first, in order to prove to you that we’re qualified to judge you, we’d like to share our own otaku moments — tales so pathetic that we wanted to use them to win the prizes ourselves. Oh, if only we were eligible for such things!

Shameless anecdotes and contest winners, after the break! Continue Reading

It is said that you should never look a gift horse in the mouth — but if you choose to get your news from the same equine orifice, you might want to check the animal’s pedigree.

That’s what GameSetWatch did in November 2006, when it noticed that PlayStation-friendly blog ThreeSpeech was a “semi-official” media outlet, and traced the website’s ownership to a PR firm named Ramp Industry — before it came out that the whole affair was funded by Sony Computer Entertainment UK.

But today, ThreeSpeech’s huge potential bias is not remotely newsworthy — as we explained last week, there are any number of useful corporate gaming blogs that utilize the resources of their sponsoring game companies to provide marketing and public relations functions directly to their audience. Got your sodium chloride handy? We’re going to look at a few more places to get news… straight from the horse’s mouth. Continue Reading

Next week, your faithful GameCyte editors will brave the harsh environs of Los Angeles to attend the 2008 Electronic Entertainment Expo. We’d say we hope to see you there, but since last year, E3 has instituted a fairly strict “by invitation only” policy, relegating attendance to exhibitors and press. As such, unless you’ve got an official, non-transferable invite, we won’t be seeing you on the show floor, or at the many conferences and presentations this year. We’d love to bring you along, we really would; we know you’d love to see all the games your favorite companies are working on, and ask those crafty developers the questions you genuinely care about. Well, we can still do that last part on your behalf! E3 is a big show, after all, and we won’t be able to do extensive, detailed features on every game there. So, we’d like you, the readers, to tell us which companies matter to you. Based entirely on reader input, we’ll set aside a full feature for the developer or game of your choice, getting answers to your questions and delivering the goods on your upcoming favorites. Continue Reading