Monday, July 13, 2015

Mid-July 2015 Update!



I haven't done an update so since I'm feeling kinda down recently, I'll do one right now in the middle of July.

Games are really awesome right. They take you out of the real world and let's you enjoy the virtual...yada yada, you know what they say about entertainment. Well, Heavensward just dropped around a month ago and I have been spending most of my free time playing it. As far as the overall feel goes, I think it has delivered at least to its expectations if not better. There is so damn much to do! Hopefully once I start clearing them, I'll have more time to go back to doing other things.

Aside from that, Hearthstone's not so bad. I managed to hit rank 7 before the end of the month despite not playing as much. I tried a variety of cheap decks this time like Face Hunter, Hybrid Hunter, Midrange Hunter, Aggro Tempo Mage and Patron Warrior. Face got me all the way to rank 13 or 14 I believe before running into Handlocks that run double healbots. Midrange/Hybrid hunter then got me up to 10 and Patron Warrior all the way to 7. It's really interesting to see how the meta shifts over time and over ranks.

Meanwhile, my Persona Q is slowly...making some progress...lol

Now for more depressing news...mostly about the games industry because I care for it.

First, Iwata-san's passing. He's arguably the most engaging CEO in the games industry and possibly an inspiration of many aspiring game developers. It is truly a sad moment for Nintendo, for its fans and above all, for the games industry. Hopefully Nintendo recovers from it and continue creating great games. They just stepped into the social market, which is a big step but in the right direction imo.

That aside, a friend of mine discussed with me about starting his own indie game company. The last time I went to Casual Connect, it seemed that indie game companies are floating in SEA but now I know that Singapore is behind, if not sinking. Every indie game company I know are barely making ends meet. Some will probably be gone in a couple of years time unless they manage to land a crazy good title. Kinda depressing.

Starting an indie games company in Singapore sure is difficult. Basically what I heard is that you will get no funding until a playable version. 'Playable' is, of course, subjective but by normal means it takes like minimally 3 full months to create a 'Playable' version of a really small scale polished game. Money will then kick in through funding to keep everyone afloat to hopefully make their next game. Hopefully one day, one of your games will make it big and your company can grow.

Sounds nice in theory, except that there is no real incentive for people to stay in the company, I feel, other than your promises of a brighter future. As far as software development goes, there are so many higher paying jobs which practice better software development techniques compared to games so if you are your own boss running an indie company, you have to realize the 'competition'. I already have a couple of friends who are burnt out from a couple of years of games development despite studying to be a games developer for nearly a decade.

And this is just skimming the surface of the many problems that can occur.

Well, I'm not exactly rich, passionate or business-minded enough to start my own company. Just thinking of starting up an indie games company makes me jaded and tired.

Aside from that, Konami has done some questionable stuff a month ago from, I think, anyone's perspective. With Kojima Productions disbanded and the new Silent Hill cancelled, we can guess that internally, it's not very healthy. I do not have doubts that Konami will still be fine, but it seems like a mess in there so it will probably be some time before we hear any news I guess.

On the bright side, this weekend I have a LiSA concert and upcoming would be a Eir Aoi concert follow by maybe a Japan trip with hopefully another concert (Animax?), and following that would be AFA!

The best part of my 2015 is yet to come!

お楽しみ~!