GOOD NEWS. I'm currently talking with Craig over at ScrewAttack about what can possibly be done and working together with them. Will keep everyone posted, but this is an exciting development.
Hey, guys. So, I contacted everyone about things, and I'm waiting to hear back. Also talked to Larry over at ScrewAttack, and am seeing what we can cook up together, as well. Will post any new, good or bad, when I get it. Thanks, everyone.
HEY EVERYONE, it's Jeremiah Black. Josh called me today and told me I should log on when I got home and check out all the activity. I can't tell you how amazed and honored I am that everyone just doesn't want to see this show go quietly. From the petition to the fansite to this newest endeavor, you guys kick ass. JetPilot, thanks for the connection to Gametrailers, and Aerocheder, thanks for the connect to ScrewAttack. I'll be contacting them tomorrow afternoon, and will post any good news I get. Hopefully, we'll all be seeing more shows soon!
Thanks a lot. I had a lot of fun making the show. If you'd like to see more episodes, feel free to drop OnNetworks an email telling them so. Thanks again.
Just dropping a line to let everyone know that the show is still not being brought back as far as I know. I haven't heard any news from ON in a couple months, so I think I can take that as a sign that the show is over. Wish I had better news, but it seems I do not. Thanks everyone. Will post if I find out anything in the future.
Thanks, man. Most the episodes were originally written by myself as 1/2 hour television shows. So, I always appreciate more time to be able to round things out and tell a more involved story. Glad people noticed.
That's a good question. I just MAKE the shows; I don't handle the format distribution stuff- that's ON's thing. I think if you click on the "more" link on the upper right hand part of the page under the subscribe column, there might be some PC formats. That's a good question to email ON. Like I said, I'm the director, not the distributor. And I'm on a mac, so it's never come up for me personally.
Thanks for the nice words about the show. Hopefully, they'll bring us back. They want to. I think they just have to get it to make better financial sense for them to do more while still keeping the show free and reasonably on time every two weeks. I get a lot of emails and comments from a lot of people saying that this is their favorite ON show, so I can't help but feel it'll work out somehow. But it's out of my hands for now.
Thanks for the kind words about the show. But, I will say, it's not like ON doesn't like the show. They love it, too. But it's being halted until the sponsorship deals they're working on go through. Behind every show is a company. And behind every company is a board of directors looking to make their money numbers add up right. Just business, I guess. We'll see what happens.
well, be sure and drop an email to ONNetworks. Because as of right now, we've been let go! Guess there's stuff going on behind the scenes we don't understand... But hopefully, they'll bring us back.
I found out that the episode just kinda slipped through the cracks apparantly and has been sitting around at their offices for the last two weeks. I called them on monday to ask; they called me today and said they would put it up today. Hasn't come on yet, so I'm thinking tomorrow. If I don't see it tomorrow, I'll call again and see what's up.
Well, they've got to make money, too. I guess this all comes down to a numbers game in the end, just like all entertainment. If Play Value can pull in the needed sponsorship based on its popularity, then we'll all get what we want. If it doesn't make financial sense for ON to keep it going, then they can't keep it going. Nobody wants to see it go, but the numbers have to add up. We'll probably all know in the next month or so. But I don't really have any more info than you do on this. So, I'd just direct all inquiries to ON's mailbox.
No, they haven't. So, as of today, the show's on hold until they work it out on their end. They'll just be that one last episode going up any day now. Sooooo, I guess we'll all see what happens going forward. Thanks for being a great supporter of the show, man. I appreciate it.
1. Ha ha, yeah, that's kinda how I been feeling. Tired of waiting. So, I think I'm just gonna turn in the episode on Monday/Tuesday, and ON will publish it online shortly thereafter.
2. ON's working some sponsorship deals behind the scenes that will determine the future of the show. Even though I make all the shows, there's nothing I can really do at this point. Probably the best thing both me and the audience can do is just spread the word on the show. Obviously, the higher the viewer numbers go up, the better ON's negotiations will go in the show's favor. And then we can all get the new episodes all of us want. I know there's still a LOT of important history to cover.
1. Broadly speaking, the episode will be about game modding history. But it tells a really great story about a couple guys that not a lot of people know about. But the episode might only be 18 minutes, since there are a couple additional interviews I want to put in that I'm STILL waiting to come in. Might just go ahead and publish it anyway next week. Getting tired of waiting for those additional interviews to come in.
2. I want to do a machinima video! But after this last episode, my contract is up and it's up to OnNetworks to hire me to make more shows. Balls in their court.
3. Yeah, Dan's pretty popular and a gaming exprt. He probably gets more emails than anyone else on the show. Oh yeah, and he's also a good buddy.
Well, Activision's creation, Nintendo's seal of quality, the "lock out" technology were already well covered in previous episodes, so since I only have ten minutes, I didn't want to go over topics the show has already explored before. And emulators will be a whole episode unto itself! With only ten minutes, this episode was just going to go over some of the top precedent setting lawsuits for intellectual property law in gaming.
Hey everyone. I'll be back on Monday to comment more, but here's two quick notes before I go home for the day: (1) A new, special 22 minute episode is being finished next week. It's almost done now. Should be online shortly thereafter. (2) Dan isn't going anywhere!
Hello everyone. Thanks for the comments on the show! I'm incredibly glad to see so many people who love the show because, as you can probably tell, I love making it, too. I'm sorry about the delays between episodes, but, as I should remind everyone here, I am the writer and director of the show- which means, in a nutshell, I don't pay to make Play Value, I GET paid to make Play Value. OnNetworks pays for the show. And I know that On is working hard to lock down a great sponsor for the program, which is what the future of the show depends on. So, at the end of the day, I, too, am patiently awaiting news from the powers that be about exactly when more episodes will be scheduled. Thanks for tuning in, and expect a 22 minute special episode soon, as I'm about 1/2 way through making it now.
dude, get out of my head! I already wrote that episode and have just been waiting for the green light from OnNetworks to film it! Not only SMB2 but several others that changed once they left Japan. Hopefully, it'll get the greenlight soon. :)
Sorry everyone! I've been working on a new 1/2 version of the show lately. Everyone seems to like the show so much, I decided to try a traditional TV style 1/2 hour version of Play Value. It's coming along well, and it's a great story, so I hope you all like it. But next week, there's one more 10 minute regular episode coming before the 1/2 hour version launches. So, stay tuned and thanks for everyone patience!
1) yeah, but they can't compete in hardware anymore with microsoft, sony, nintendo- companies that are many, many times their size.
2) Yeah, the 2K series is Sega's.
3) Yeah SEGA make a star trek game for the Atari 2600 that came out in 1983, and a version for the ColecoVision that came out in 1984. I have both, actually.
Depends on if you're looking at the whole world or just America. Nights into dreams came out first in Japan on july 5th, 1996. But the N64 had already come out a couple weeks before. However, Nights would make it to the USA a month before the N64 did (August 31st, 1996 vs. September 29th, 1996). So, Nintendo was first. But Sega made it to America first.
Good call. Yeah, we had a whole thing about the power glove leading to the wii, but we had to cut it. We only have ten minutes, so we can't over a lot of stuff we want to.
oh yeah. Other people have discussed this, yoo. I very much want to do a history of handheld- covering the wonderswan and the led one's from the 70's and everything. No doubt.
Yeah, when the Two Johns made their first homemade demo of a side scrolling game for PC, they used the character of a Dangerous Dave and put him into Super Mario Brothers 3. They called it "Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement."
yeah, ha ha, I decided to leave all the low level "joystcik" freudianism on the cutting room floor. I don't about the Lara Croft/ Rick Dangerous connection. But I've read many, many interview with the game's creator who swears that he came up with the idea of making her female based on watching all his guy friends in the office prefer playing girl characters in fighting games. The interesting part is that she was originally called Laura Cruz, and was a South American woman, but then they made her British so us Yanks would dig her more. Anyway, I'll shoot you an email tomorrow an we'll catch up.
Arrrggghhh, yeah, another typo. I think that's two accidental typos in a row for me on the last two episodes. Sigh. Well, thanks for paying close attention! I guess that's a compliment at least. :)
Hey, how've you've been? Sorry, I've been out of touch. I just filmed another four episodes of the show, and have been working on an entirely new series on the side. Shoot me an email, and we'll chat about upcoming projects. Love your idea about the washed-up mascot!
Yeah, Libe's unexpected f-bomb string kinda surprised me/cracked me up, too. I just had to put it in. And that was me laughing when Jeff referred to Bonk's enormous noggin. I think I used the phrase "massive, invincible forehead" in our discussion of the character, but when Jeff said the word "noggin", for some reason it cracked me up.
The schedule is basically that a new episode is finished every other week. They go up around that often, give or take. Sometimes they are closer together, sometimes farther. But every other week has been the average for a while now pretty much. I expect I new one to go up any day now.
Ah, did I spell it with only one "d"? Man, I need an assistant, if I did. Good call- yeah, it's supposed ot be "Alex Kidd".
I've thought about current day properties, like Master Chief and Marcus Fenix, but I consider these more "franchise characters" than mascots- although they are franchise characters that are console exclusive. To me, mascots appear and make cameos in other people's games, and enodorse other properties from their company. Master Cheif kinda comes close, though. I guess I'm waiting to see if these characters evolve into more traditional mascots but for older gamers. The move by companies now seems to be to make franchise charaters that can appear in more than just games, like Lara Croft or Master Chief. First a hit game, then books, then movies, etc. Take then from being just video game properties and into properties that span all popular media.
The 1986 on the title screen is the original copyright date in Japan. 1987 is the commercial release date in America. Unless otherwise inferred, all dates that appear on screen are the USA release dates.
Yeah, that Mario Bros. came out in 1983, and it marked "jumpman" getting an actual name, "Mario", as well as a new profession- he was a carpenter in Donkey Kong, but then became a plumber in Mario Bros. It was also the first introduction of Luigi, his brother. While these are all interesting tidbits of info, they're really about Mario the character's evolution, not Miyamoto's evolution. As far as the game design itself of Mario Bros., the game is essentially just cosmetic variation on Joust from the year before, and didn't represent any big leaps forward by Miyamoto in design. So, I decided against including the info in the episode- which is about Miyamoto's pioneering game design. More about Mario can be found in the "Mascots" episode following this one.
you're quite right- this is one of the first that goes into recent consoles in any way. It's the goal to get more current on a lot of these episodes, but first, I'd still like to cover a few more key historial points before jumping ahead to today. I'm an Xbox junkie myself, so I'd love to do a rise of the Xbox episode- especially since it marks the first significant return of a US compnay to the Japan-dominated video game industry in 16 years or so.
Yeah, the increased technology of the arcades kinda created this home/arcade arms race, wherein the home would define itself by how well it reproduced the original arcade vision. But my point is that the real split between the home and the arcade isn't technological, it's creative. It's primarily about two distinct genres: long form and short form, I think. Just like there are movies you "must see" in the theater to get the full experience, there are games you "must play" in the home to get the full, long form experience.
Good call. Yeah, I wanted to put in some stuff about downloading online short form games for $5, $10, or $20 a pop. Also, the return of short form has allowed a lot of smaller developers, who otherwise couldn't compete with the major companies, get into the gaming arena by offering their games as online downloads for cheaper. Long form games are made for millions of dollars by as many people as it takes to put together a movie, but a small team (like an indie film or short film) can put together a great short form game and get themselves out there. Pretty sweet.
The episode was less of a "re-dress" and more of a "this is the stuff we wanted to do but didn't have time to go into in the other episode, so we split it off and made it its own". Don't know if we'll do a third in the series. Maybe- it's kinda fun to think about, and there's still plenty that we ran out of time (again) to go over!
Yeah, I know. There a ton of games that make me think "Arghh, why couldn't this have come out ten years ago when I had time to play it?" Short form gaming has made a comeback in my life, too.
Man, yeah the Pippin. That's a fun failed console that not everyone knows about. Those $600 big price tag consoles never did well. If macintosh had just embraced gaming on the mac platform earlier, then they probably would'nt have felt the need to make a pricey stand alone console.
I'd like to do an episode on famous vaporware that never even came out.
Yeah, we're planning an episode that's just ALL about handhelds, and we'll cover the Atari Lynx there. We mentioned it briefly in the Commodore 64 episode, so you might want to check that episode out.
Good memeory! Here's the scoopp: Nintendo gave Coleco Donkey Kong rights for the Colecovision console as this episde covers. They did NOT give it to them for their computer the Coleco Adam which was coverde in the "Rise of Nintendo" episode. Coleco just made it for the Adam without asking. Actually, Nintendo sold them "cartridge rights", so Coleco could have fought their using it on the Adam in court (since it was on a cartridge), and they might have won. But Nintendo was so mad, that they just apologized and dropped it.
Yeah, I loved Congo Bongo. Pretty hard though, as I remember it. As for the TI 99, there's an episode on the Commodore 64 coming up soon, and we briefly mention some old computers from the early 80's during the great home computer rush that Commodore eventually dominated. Can't remember if we covered Texas Instruments stuff. though. TheTi99 was 1981, no?
Thanks everyone for the nice words about the show. As of right now, there are only the 10 episodes listed on this page, but more will be forth coming shortly.
Thanks for the kind words. I, too, would love a 22 minute show. Like I said at the beginning of the show, we're going to get more in depth the longer the show goes on, so I hope you'll continue to find the material more and more interesting.
Yeah, Thrill Kill, Postal, Manhunt, Ethnic Cleansing, Manhunt 2, and BMX XXX were all games we talked about, but they all had to get cut, since we have an 8 minute time limit on the show. So, I focused more on the milestone controversies. You're right though, it would have been a good addition, but with that 8 minute limit.... somethings had to go.
Yeah, the next episode (which is already finished) that will be up is all about the SNES CD attachment that never was. Look for it next. As I said, I just finished it, so it should be up shortly.
Thanks for the comment and for the nice words. Of course, you are right, and it's a correction worth mentioning. Boy, I loved those games (I was a big Genesis guy). It's nice to have some people that we're actually behind the games come on and give their two cents. Thanks again for stopping by.
I totally agree. The EA exclusive license deal set the stage for a lack a innovation big time. NFL 2K5 was revolutionary for the price. I was so angry when the NFL signed the exclusive EA deal. If there's one lesson anyone can learn by watching all these shows, it's that competition is always good for the industry and always grows the market and leads to more creativity.
Sorry about the wait for the new episodes! I promise to try not to let it happen again. Personally I was a Genesis guy, not a SNES guy, and Sega's downfall broke my heart. It's true that it's been a looong time since a good Sonic game came out. In fact, a lot of Sega Genesis charaters didn't age too well. They were all very "extreme", "rad", and bunch of other early 90's stuff that time wasn't too kind to. Mario titles, by contrast, have aged much better. I, too, wish I had more than 8 minutes to get into these topics. I'd love 20 mintues to be able to explore how Sega of Japan made bad decision after bad decision that ultimately doomed Sega, and how Sega had the genesis, the nomad, the game gear, the pico, the 32x, the sega cd, and the saturn all out at the same time, as well as a few arcade boards. There was no way any company could support so many incompatible systems at the same time with decent software. Anyway, we shall seee if the powers that be will eventually expand the show into something more in depth! Oh, and as for the game gear, yeah, they'll be a handheld episode coming up that will go into the gameboy and the nomad and the Lynx, as well. In Sega's defense, they did continue to make GREAT football titles for other hardware, until EA signed an exclusive liscence deal with the NFL. That boxed SEGA out, and left the Madden franchise as the only game in town. Damn, SEGA can't catch a break!
The intellivision had a CP1610 general purpose CPU chip which was capable of supporting 16-bit addresses. So it is technically the first 16 bit console. But by the age of the Turbographics-16 ten years later, consoles had more than just a CPU; they would also have a seperate graphics chip. And the Turbografx-16 was the first to have a 16 bit graphics chip in addition to its 8-bit CPU, so it is also referred to as the first 16 bit console (because it had a 16 bit dedicated graphics chip). Both could claim (and both do) the title of "first 16 bit console" based on how that title is defined. Kudos to you- you've noticed something that perhaps we should talk about in a future episode- all the arguments between companies about who was "first" to do something, and how that they justify claiming the title. Sometimes one is right; sometimes they're both right, sometimes they're both wrong. There was much fighting over these issues in all the advertising between companies back in the day, and the fighting was really nasty.
I actually own a copy of "Chi No Rhondo" and we are all very well aware that it was a pc engine game from Japan. However it was available for purchase in the US only via magazines ads While you correctly point out that the PC-engine was a fairly decent hit in Japan (as was the Saturn), it was not in Amercia, which is the market that Play Value focuses on. Were this show 30 minutes instead of 8, I would love nothing more than to go into Japan in each episode, but alas.... I would claim that because all the really great games were availble in Japan and not in the US, this was proabaly the exact reason it was a hit there and not here. Also, the CD-Rom add on WAS difficult to find in the US. It was available mostly in major cities, but not in smaller ones. It was not available in the city I grew up in, and I was personally forced to buy it via mail order. It came in an absurdely huge box that was 90% foam padding, and I was fored to buy all my games for it via mail order as well, due to the lack of software support from my local Toys R Us. This experience was not uncommon. The Sega CD's improvent in power was not MUCH more, as you claimed. The addition of Red Book Audio was great, but not something that exactly blew minds for most consumers, and the Genesis was still limited to 64 simultaneous colors (a huge, huge drawback for FMV games) and the output limitations of the same old Motorola 68000 processor that the Genesis had. Anyone with an internt connection can go to wikipedia and see the hardware specs, but my point is that the hardware improvents were negligible, and mostly didn't even bring the Genesis up to the (in terms of graphic output) hardware specs of its chief competitior, the Super Nintendo, which had a clock rate of 21 Mhz, and 256 simultaneous colors out of a possible 32,000! It was the addition of hundreds of MB of more starage was the main leap in technology (at least for consoles, as PCs were already had CD-roms for quite some time). Perhaps, I should have stated "the hardware upgrade was negligible in terms of enhancing the graphic output given a $150- $200 price tag, and red book audio or no red book audio, most consumers were not impressed."
However, thanks for bringing up some great points of clarification to the discussion. Please keep posting on issues such as these, to help clarify some deeper points that deserve more depth than an 8 minute show is able to provide.
Shandi's a friend, but she just got busy with other projects, and I like to make a lot more episodes than she had time to be in. She's really cool, and it's a shame, but she just didn't have the time at the end of the day.
Zsciaeount and GericVas: Hey, you guys are reading my mind! The episode about the Sony Playstation and how Nintedo publically humiliated them by announcing they were going with Phillips for the SNES cd add-on, and sony's BIG karmic PS1 revenge has already been written and filmed! It's coming up as episode #10, so look for it! And episode #6 and #7 is a two part series on 12 major failed consoles (6 per episode)- included in which is the Sega 32x, sega cd, turbo-grafx 16, and sega saturn. Also, coming up is episode #8 which is all about sega vs nintendo and how they briefly pulled ahead with the genesis but then completly fumbled and blew it after that. All these have already been shot and are being edited as we speak, so it won't be long, guys. I also have scripts written for an episode on RPGs and MMORPGs- the history and social phenomenon of the genre, but those won't be until around episode 15-16 or so. Hey, localization is a GREAT idea for an episode (like all those crosses taken out of castlevania!). I'll keep that in mind BIG time. Funny translation errors in both the games and the instruction booklets could also be mentioned in that one (and there's a lot of them). We're doing an episode all about mascots that we'll probably save the mega man stuff for. I know it's been covered before but I can't resist doing an episode on John Romero and ion storm and daikatana and all that. Great stuff, and I've already scripted most of it. It will probably be old hat to you guys, but most people will still get something out of it. I'd say the first 12 episodes or so of Play Value will pretty much be video games 101 stuff, and the next 12 will be more in depth and stuff you guys will enjoy more. But I gotta start with the basics and get everyone up to speed first. For example, in talking with people who like the show, I found out a lot of people didn't even know what the Famicom was before watcing! So, you see, I gotta start simple, and work my way up, so no one gets lost. GericVas: yeah, Atari/Tengen didn't totally disappear, you're right. In fact, it was the next year that they were all fighting over tetris! But they were largely just a minor 3rd party software company, not really any threat even up through the Lynx and the jaguar. After the tetris story, it was really Sega's time to step up and challenge the King (nintendo), but that whole thing's covered, like I said, in episode #8. Coming up are also episodes on colecovision and a brief history of notable controversies in gaming. Also slated for the program are episodes on god-games, commodore 64, vaporware, and a bio on miyamoto. As we get through the first 12, I'll be talking with people like you two guys more to discuss some good ideas for the next season, so we'll all keep in touch on the boards. Zsciaeount: Yeah, we have some good editors, but I also help them when I'm directing on set to make editing easier. Like I always remind the talent not to use pronouns, so everything's always nice and clear and what we're talking about never gets lost. Also, the people on the show have been on TV many times doing commentray on tech/games stuff, so they instinctively know how to discuss things off the top of their head, but also package their thoughts in a way that makes for easy editing. So credit where it's due to those guys, too. But it's really just me casually talking to each person on the show for a couple hours about the topic at hand (that's me off camera they're looking at while they speak). Just a bunch a guys who know a lot about games having fun chatting about this and that- pretty casual vibe, except I'll come to the shoot with a notebook of double-checked numbers and release dates in case anyone aciidentally gets one wrong (rare, but it happens). Anyway, it's a fun show to make and (hopefully) a fun show to watch. Thanks for checking the episodes out and I promise, sooner or later, we'll get around to more and more good stuff. - JEREMIAH BLACK, Director, Play Value
Zsciaeount: Thanks for the comments. Two things: (1) the panelists are actually not reading script snippets at all. The 8 minute episodes are cut from hours and hours (no joke) of extemporaneous discussion, and the nice interlocking feel is a testament to our great editors who cut for the smoothest show possible. So, thanks for the compliment! (2) Play Value is a show that is less about unearthing groundbreaking, never-before-known information within video gaming history, and more about taking video game history to a broader audience via a visual, rather than printed, medium. In fact, if you read most of the comments here, you'll find most people didn't know much of what's been covered (see the comment right below yours as an example). Should you find yourself already familiar with most of the subject matter, then congrats!- you're a true gaming history buff, and our hats are off to you. But most of us aren't yet up to that level, and that's what play value's about- bringing everyone up to speed. And over the life of the show, it's our plan to get more and more detailed as our audience masters all the basics and becomes ready for more advanced looks. So noobs will love the first episodes, and more advanced gamers such as yourself will probably get more out of the show later on. Anyway, thanks for watching, and we hope to see you back. - Jeremiah Black, Director, Play Value.
The shows are all 8 minutes in length, but we just made out first 10 minute episode last week. If people like it, we'll be exploring making the shows longer in the future. I'd perfer to make them longer, as well.
GericVas: Yeah, I wanted to get into the whole drug culture of Atari more. LIke how there were heroin needles on the floor of the restroom there and all sorts of crazy stuff. And also how that influenced the games they made, and, by extension, influenced even modern games. But I ran out of time! - Jeremiah Black, director, Play Value.
Super Mario Brothers is typically credited with holding the #1 spot with around 40 million sold. And Tetris is typically credited with the #2 spot with around 33 million sold. The problem is that Tetris' sales number of 33 million ONLY counts the Gameboy sales. Once you factor in the millions and millions of computer versions, cell phones versions, ipod versions, console versions, arcade versions, and everything else (like the episode said, Tetris has appeared everywhere with over 70 versions out there), Tetris is EASILY the best selling game of all time
The problem is that Stein had NEVER paid the Russians for any of the sales he was making. That was the whole deal- Stein talked a good game, but he never actually paid up. The Russians was really mad, and were looking for a way to get him out of the picture and bring in someone who would actually keep their word and pay them their money. And that was Nintendo.
Yeah, my favorite part of the Tetris story is how all the bad guys lost in the end. Stein got left with nothing, and Maxwell ended up dead after looting all the pensions from his company. But, yeah, too bad for Pajitnov- but he's still doing ok. Of course, Nintendo, as always, made a jillion bucks.
Oh yeah! Maxwell actually called Gorbachev and got him involved on Mirrorsoft's behalf. Belicov from ELORG was getting threatening telexes from the Kremlin. Belikov later said that if it had been 10 years earlier, and the Soviet Union wasn't preoccupied with being on the verge on collapse, he probably would've been killed or sent to the gulag for giving Nintendo the rights!
to GericVas: Yeah, after we shot this, I found that BBC documentary on Tetris. Except it was an hour, I think, not a half hour. To be honest, the story is so complex and has so many twists and turns that you really do need an hour. But, like you said, this episode pretty much sums it all up in 8 minutes, although there are a lot of really interesting side stories and detals that didn't make it in. As far as legal factors go, I've been making video game shows for years for internet and cable tv, and have never had any problems with game companies. Game companies are really nice and have a good respect for us in the gaming community. The only company that is fairly hard nosed about that sort of thing is Rockstar with the GTA games, but that's really more because of the copywritten, high profile music catalogue in the GTA games than the gameplay footage itself (which is understandable). So, if I use GTA footage, I simply sub in stock music and everybody's cool with it. All the game companies I've dealt with over the years have had no problem with shows like these because its (a) it's a historical documentary and (b) it's also good promotions for the games.
Yeah, the show is only about the US market. I wish I had enough time to go into other countries. The Master System KILLED in Brazil as well as Europe. No kidding.
Jon Rose: I agree completely. Also, the failure of the dreamcast was a failure brought on largely by the incredible amount of ill-will that Sega had generated with its previous blunders. Game developers, especially EA, didn't want any part of it due to Sega's previous history of abondoning their hardware at the first sign of trouble. And the public was extremely wary of anything bearing the Sega name and for good reason. All it took was for Sony to merely announce the Playstation 2, and that was enough to convince most consumers to wait an entire year for it, rather than pickup a Dreamcast. Sega never could fully shake its reputation as an unstable hardware investment. Shame. Such a great console.
GericVas: Hey, we went pretty easy on the Vectrex! While I completely agree with you that all mediums evolve, my point (which is expaned in part two of this series) is that most of the consoles that failed to catch on, failed on creative grounds, not technological grounds. And there are some lessons to be learned along the way, like focusing on the multiplication of hardware is a sure-fire way to kill a system. I liked the Sega master system, but it did bomb next to the NES, despite being a better piece of hardware. But, again, it just didn't have games to compete. Since Nintendo had exclusive agreements with all the great 3rd party companies, all Sega could really offer were ports of their arcade games, and they didn't port very well at all on an 8-bit system(which led to the creation of the 16bit genesis). Nintendo had the games, Sega had the hardware. And games always win in that fight. The Genesis wasn't a failed attempt; the Genesis did really well and shifted the whole industry. But the sega-cd, the 32x, all that... well, that's in the next episode. As for the Sega Dreamcast, I debated whether or not to cover the dreamcast in this series. There are already so many Sega consoles discussed between part 1 and 2. Ultimately, I decided not to include the dreamcast, and I will focus on it in a upcoming episode which will be all about the Dreamcast, and can give it the space it deserves. It's failure to catch on was more complicated than I could cover in 45 seconds or so, and the Dreamcast was really, really great. It deserves its own show.
Once Nintendo really took off in 1987, they ditched Worlds of Wonder and went solo. And Worlds of Wonder was really counting on Teddy Ruxpin being a big hit in 1987, but the public had moved on, and Worlds of Wonder lost a ton of money with a warehouse of unsold Teddy Ruxpins. And Worlds of Wonder lost a lot of money when the stock market crashed in 1987. Yeah, 1987 was a bad year for them.
Yeah, it's funny the things people got away with in gaming's early days- stuff that would get you sued and shut down instantly today. I'm not sure about how Nintendo would've fared with the NES buried by the 7800. MS had soooo much money to launch and buy up game publishers that Nintendo never did. Nintendo had to do it from the ground up by cornering the whole American market early. And a big part of Nintendo's rise was that its 3rd party games were so good. And its 3rd party pames were only so good because game companies had no other options. So, I dunno. Without being able to corner the whole US market early, Nintnedo might never have had the money or clout to compete against multi-billion dollar companies like Sony and MS. Even then, they got pushed to 3rd place by the Xbox and Playstation2. But a part of me thinks that somehow Nintendo would've pulled it off. They had some of the best 1st party titles of all time, and good software always finds a way. I guess like you said- it would've just taken longer and been a bit rockier.
No Mattel NES here, but Sears made their own version of the Atari 2600 that sold in their stores. Same exact console- different packaging and name on the front. It caused a lot of consumer confusion. But there were no differences between two two other than branding.
I am 100% sure that Atari would've just buried the NES deep in the closet, and then pushed the Atati 7800. It came out later that that was their plan all along. Thank God we avoided that. We'd all be playing Pole Position VIII right now.
Great question. Nintendo sold rights to Coleco for the Colecovision console. They did NOT also sell them the rights to their computer, the Coleco Adam. Coleco just made it for the Adam computer without asking, probably assuming it was cool since they had made it for the Colecovision before. But Nintendo was furious. Two different Coleco machines. Two different sets of rights they needed to buy. Doh!
GericVas,
This is jeremiah black, the director of the Play Value. Thanks for watching the show and for the feedback. Believe it or not, I agree with a lot of what you say, but you have to realize that the show is only 8 minutes long. So, we have to be specfic. The company history of Nintendo is another episode altogether, as is an episode about all the consoles before nintendo. With only 8 minutes you have to pick one point in history and do it as best you can. The episode you're talking about (and which I'd love to have made) is an entire 1/2 hour special, if it's done right. With only 8 minutes, I must pare down and focus in on simply nintendo's rise from japan to america. Be patient! There's dozens of episodes coming which will talk about all the cool stuff we love. You've only seen the 1st two episodes, and there a LOT more coming. For example, I just filmed the sega vs nintendo episode you were talking about, and, yes, we mentioned the olympics game coming out on the wii with mario and sonic! So, be patient, budddy. We're only two episodes into a show that's going to go for a while. But, hey, don't foget about the newcomers, though. I always enjoys making newcomers into gamers like us, and that's part of what this show is about.
Thanks. I just finished the new episode on arcades today, so it should be up soon. There's another one that scheduled to go up first, and then it'll be next.
Whoa- you are one big fan of old school gaming! Well, in a couple episodes look for a new episode that covers the arcade more in depth and discusses its resurgence. It's episode 13, and it's coming in a few weeks- hopefully you'll feel a good connection there. By the way, eveyone in this video played all the classic arcade games in their time (except one who caught the 2nd wave a few years later). But I'll pass on to everyone (and the makeup girl) how young people think they look on camera. Cheers!
Well, I was going to let this debate die, but I wanted to chime in to correct two incorrect rebuttal points that are commonly circulated in various threads online by my arcade loving friends. (1) myth#1: "the arcade industry took in 6 billion in 2006". Actually, the domestic US gross for all arcade video games was 2.2 billion. Adjusted for a 267% US inflation index, that means arcades today pull roughy 5% of the dometic US gross they did in their 80's heyday. The 6 billion number continues to be circulated, but is incorrect as it is the gross of ALL vending (fooseball, cigarette machines, etc.) and not simply video games., which of course, is what the show is about. Good people can agrue all over the use of the word "death" and how appropiate it is to use in this context, but the decline is, in fact, quite severe. Which brings us to point #2: (2) "Arcades still exist". Well, yes, arcades still do exits in the US. But, in the 80' heydey, there were 24,000 dedicated arcades (not even counting FECs). There are roughly 4,000 now- roughly 16% of their former number. Again, the word "death" may be too strong for some, but the decline is quite large. Also, check out BMIgaming or playmeter online to see the continuing decline in both units and grosses year after year. In fact, In the last years alone (2004-2006), the grosses halved for dedicated video arcade games. Twin Galaxies on their website writes well on this subject, lamenting the huge absence of arcades as an everyday American fixture and mentioning that less than 1% of the arcades listed in Twin Galaxies’ original database are still in existence. Thanks for reading, and thanks for keeping the discussion civil. - jeremiah black, director, Play Value.
Splatter: oh, sure there was a demand. But those were never top sellers or killer appz on any 16 or 32 bit consoles. Just more of a smaller, niche demand. And the "all aracde games suck" comment isn't what you seem to think it is. He's referring specifically to "final fight" style games when you try to take them home. Many of those "final fight" style games (punisher was my favorite) simply threw swarms of enemies at you, and they were only fun because you came into the arcades with a limited amount of quaters and so it was fun to see how long you could last with the money you brought in. At home, with endless continues for free, a lot of the fun is suddenly gone and the game's not really as fun anymore. That's his opinion anyway, I thought it was interesting so I kept it in the show.
MESSAGE FROM JEREMIAH BLACK, DIRECTOR OF PLAY VALUE: Splatterfan, thanks for chiming in. I didn't address it because I've been working for the last 12 hours, and I'm dead tired. Remember, you're just chatting with me. I'm chatting with half a dozen people, emailing back and forth, directing new episodes of Play Value, and new episodes of some entirely different shows that I do. But, I just had some coffee, and now I would like to address the NEO GEO issue. I'll come back and discuss the sports game comment later because I'm about to all alseep on my keyboard. Before i begin, does everyone here know that in 11 days SNK is scheduled to cease doing repairs on the neo geo and neo geo products? So, if your hardware or software is busted, get it fixed NOW, before they stop taking orders and close up shop on the 31st!. Ok, now back to the topic. Neo Geo has many fans, so I understand why some might be upset. But I stand by the perspecive of the show, namely that neo geo did not change the face of gaming nor give us a glimpse into what the future of gaming was going to be. We can put aside discussion on the prohibitively high price point for both the hardware and the games, and the fact that it lasted 14 years, not 15 (1990-2004). The fact is that Neo Geo was always a niche console, pure and simple. You simply can't compare the install base and overall cultural influnece of the NES or the genesis or the SNES in 1991 to the neo geo. And over the course of that 14 year history, SNK's neo geo failed to become a top 5 console upon its debut, stopped being covered entirely by US game magazines in 1995, stopped manufacturing consoles in 1997, and then SNK went completely bankrupt in 2000. Although beloved by its fans, it wasn't exactly 14 years of high flying glory in the USA. It was 14 years of being the best 2D console ever made, in a culture where the mainstream wanted 3D graphics and more immersive games- in other words 14 years of catering to a dedicated minority. No shame in that whatsoever, but that's is what it was. Most importantly, arcade style gaming became less and less of an atractive idea to most consumers as time went on. Most American kids simply didn't want coin-op style games in their home. Most kid's tastes grew to want long form narrative games. In fact, kids are wanting even longer games these days (like WOW). I'm sorry, and I respect everyone here, but the Neo Geo was a popular niche console that simply wasn't an influnce on the future. It stayed around in America much in the same way that vinyl records have, because some people love them and it was the BEST ever for what it was. But the future of music distribution is mp3s. Now we can debate if that's good or bad, but that's what's happening. Similar to a game such as Dragon's lair, the neo geo blew people's minds, but it simply didn't predict the future of gaming or portend where the industry was headed. The industry was headed to where the customers were headed. And they were headiing to 40 hour, FMV filled, long form, 3D games. Ask any 100 people on the street about nintendo or the neo geo, and see where most people spent their money and childhood. And since the neo geo was the best 2D console ever made, we can bemoan this, but it's true. These are, as spaltterfan requested, the bare facts. Home Neo geo was only ever a fraction as popular as the all various consoles that dominated its life span. So, while I deeply apologize if I offened anyone, I stand by the position of the show that the neo geo failed to become an influential console, not because of the price, but because the future of gaming was going into deepr, more immersive, 3D, long form gaming than short form, aracde, coin-op style gaming. Thank you, everyone for your time and patience. And thank you for cleaning up the language on the board. I will return when I have time to address the "sports gaming" comment. Not sure when that will be, but I will try to get to it soon. After that, I'll be happy to take some questions about the show, but I can no longer return to the boards to forever continue this discussion. As you can see on the site, this show is not a one time special, but a weekly episodic series, so I must concentrate on other topics and leave the board or there will be no more episode to fume over. :) Thanks again, everyone. And keep gaming. (And rememeber to get your neo geo or pocket neo geo fixed in the next 11 days.)
MESSAGE FROM JEREMIAH BLACK, DIRECTOR OF PLAY VALUE: Hey guys. Thanks for the responses, Splatterfan glad to have you back. Well, it seems like everyone is nice and calm now. I wasn't planning on returning to the forums for a couple days (deadlines on other stuff are looming) but I wanted a few things made public because what was being implied by some was incorrect. So, just to clarify. (A) There was no "rush" to make a follow up episode in response to these posts. The follow up episode was written (and has already been partially shot) loooong before this. In fact, the episode(s) is really about 18 months old, as it was originally a pilot for a weekly 1/2 hour television show I was directing 1 1/2 years ago. Except in that whole 1/2 hour we covered most of what you and splatterfan and others mention so passionately. Now that it's been re-packaged to 8 minutes, I split it up into two halves- one stating arcades are dead, and the other saying they're coming back and have always been around in Japan, and (to a certain extent) here. Neither episode is as detailed as I'd like them to be. But oh well. If everyone out there would like to mail me a check for $10,000, then I'd be willing to make a 2 hour documentary on the whole subject that would make everyone happy. We could even get Peter Jacobsen to come in and talk about golden tee! :) Nevertheless, responses to the show are over 99% positive and less than 1% negative, showing me that my decision to put 1/2 as episode 1 and the other as episode 12, wasn't that bad. But, I suppose I'd put it at episode 2 if I could go back in time, to avoid so much fighting and negativity between the viewers of differing perspectives. Like I said in an earlier post, if anyone still really cares, I can try to have it bumped to the #9 slot at this point, because, aside from a two part series on failed consoles, none of the upcoming episodes are really tied to each other (although there is an order I'd prefer them in for clarity). So, again, while I respect and value the education, opinions, perspective, and dedication of the posters here, I will not be writing the season to accomodate a vocal minority. The show has been watched in this last week alone tens of thousands of times, and negative feedback has been largely centered around about a dozen people. I'm not trying to belittle anyone's perspective in the least, because it's quite a very infomed dozen people, but I can't do my job this way- especially when most of the dissenting perspective has already been covered and is coming out a future episode already. I'm very sorry, and I mean no offense by that in the least, but if you care to watch the other episodes of the show and read the other forums, you'll see me in there too, telling people that future episodes are coming and to please be patient. And when it comes out, everyone may like the episode or everyone may not, some will feel it didn't go too far, some will feel it went too far. But, that's just gonna be the show. Everyone out there who works in a creative field knows that nothing will please everyone and certainly not at 8 minutes. So, I hope you guys really like it, but if you don't, then I hope you understand that with 99% positive feedback, I'm gonna have to just move on. at some point. (B) the video wasn't "dropped" or "backed away from" by other sites hosting it, as "editor" claimed or might like to believe. It's gone because it was being illegally hosted. I personally didn't mind it, but, as the director, I don't own or distribute this program and so I have no sway over such matters. Anyone out there with any television experience will understand this. (c) speaking of television experience, I wouldn't put too much stock into reading into a press release for a look at what the show is "really" up to. The distributor and parent company of a show such as this does their job, and I do mine. This was the same way when I making shows for direct tv and cablevision. Programming directors would cut entire commericals for programming I produced, and we'd never even met each other! If you want the straight dope about content, please ask me: the director of the show. The people that own and sell the show have a whole different set of expertise, skills, and job duties. Please respect the distinction. I think you'll find that there are very few directors who are willing to come online (on top of the 60 hours a week I already work and raising my 3 year old son) to chat with the gaming commuity and do their best to address concerns that arise from 1% of a show's audience. But I like the gaming community, so I do this wiithout being asked. All I ask in return is that everyone please try to get along.
ANOTHER MESSAGE FROM JEREMIAH BLACK, DIRECTOR OF PLAY VALUE. To doodah: If you cannot stop insulting people here and make your points nicely like "Editor" does, I will personally call the administrators and have you removed. As the director, I don't like to get involved with the show's distributor, but you need to tone the hatred down, buddy. Let's all play nice. And please don't publicly deny you posted a link to a very nasty site filled with people posting personal information on the cast for the purposes of sexist harrassment. I saw it, and so did the administrators, and we all talked about it . You're still here because we're waiting for everyone to calm down and start getting along on here as adults. But please don't lie about it. An apology would be better. To "editor": check out my previous comments. If you want, post your email and we can speak directly. The episode you want is already coming, but we can still discuss it if you like. As for splatterfan1988 and Eugeneleyritz and everyone else, I think everyone's made their respective points already. So, let's just let the back and forth die for a bit, please.
MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR OF PLAY VALUE: Hello everyone here! My name is jeremiah Black. I am the Producer and Director of Play Value. You may have seen me here before, as I pop on the boards every now and again to say hi and answer questions from everyone posting. And now that I've popped back in, I see a lot of angry people! Some intelligent posts like the last one, and some nasty ones. Before I clear up a few things about this particular episode, I'd like to tell all the people who were frustrated with this episode that your concerns have already been addressed in an upcoming episode of the show. This series is designed in 12 episode "seasons". And they are all filmed up front, and then released (like most tv) weekly, long after they've already been completed. The first episode of the the inital run of 12 was to be "the death of the arcade" and was to feature how arcades are currently running at only about 5% of their glory days, and how the new generation of americans wanted story not score. The last episode of the 12 was to be called "Return of the aracde!" and was to feature the success of the arcades in Japan, and the resurgence (popularized even on colsoles by the Wii) of smaller form games that focus of the art of game design and less on the current "story", FMV ,40 hour narrative games that currently dominate the younger generation in the US. With every episode there's always a certain amount of, "why didn't you mention ______? Are you crazy?" And the answer is typically the same. We only have 8 minutes to deal with. So, as such, we are limited to presenting only one perspective or "take" on the particular subject, and muct save alternate perspectives for future episodes. As I said, this episode was to focus on why arcades currently hold around 5% of the market share they used to in America, and to present the popular opinions and tastes that led to this state. Not only are arcades not as popular, but arcade style gaming is largely unpopular with the new generation here in the US. But that's changing as 40 hour FMV narrative games grow more and more boring and repetitive and people rediscover the thrill of short form gameplay. Hence the future episode "Return of the arcade!", which will also cover the fact that (like home video games) the arcade never really died in Japan, and just like the Japanese brought home video games back to like in 1986 after the market crashed here in the US, the Japanese are bringing arcades and arcade style gaming back to America and validating all the arcade loving diehards who are still playing. Hits like Dance dance revolution, Guitar hero, and even the currnt trend of classic arcade bars will also be covered as well as games like Golden tee. Actually, most of this was actually in the closing of the 1st episode but was cut due to time constaints, and it will be repurposed for the future episode. So, let me close with two things. (1) please keep it nice and friendly on these boards. Please. I can't stress that enough. We all love games here, so we should really be making friends with each other. Not arguing and being nasty. (2) Like I 've said on the boards here in the past: be patient! It's a weekly 8 minute show. Everyone's concerns WILL almost ALWAYS be addressed in future episodes. The limited scope of each program is a by-product of the time constraints, and there will be many, many episodes coming out that will cover all the things we know and love. Oddly enough, I was just discussing this with another producer friend of mine just last week. And he said, "Man, there's just so many factors outside of your control that determine what eventually makes it into a piece and what doesn't. But, it's funny how if something doesn't make it in the show, people just assume you don't know it." I laughed at the time, but it seems less funny now. :) Trust me, fellow gamers, there's nothing that's been posted here or elsewhere that we're all not perfectly aware of at Play Value. It's all coming out in the future. I know the upset people online are aracde enthusiats, and so feel a certain amount of passion for the issues. That's great, but the fact is that consoles do dominate rght now, and so you'll have to wait a little bit (episode 12) to be vindicated. Perhaps in retrospect, I should've made "The return of the aracde!" the very next episode (episode 2), to immediatly go with this episode. But, at the time, I thought it would be cool to close the season with it (episode 12), so I could get to consoles faster (which is all 95% of the viewers care about). Well, if in two weeks, anyone here still cares, I can try to get the "return of the arcade!" episode moved up to the episode 9 slot, but that's the best that can be done at this point. Sorry about that; these things are planned out pretty far ahead. I'll be checking in tonight briefly, so if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. Thanks guys, and keep gaming- Jeremiah Black, Director/Producer of Play Value.
GericVas: The episode is less "forgotten consoles" as it is "failed consoles". The episode is a lot about why certain consoles failed and others didn't. Some of them were great (dreamcast); some of them sucked biiiig time (atari jaguar). But we're going to explore a dozen or so and discuss why each one ultimately didn't catch on (including a discussion about the hands down worst console of all time which was... stay tuned. Anyway, hope you like it. Look for it in about 5 weeks or so. Unitl then. they'll be a new episode up every week about other awesome stuff. - JB
Hi, this is jeremiah black; I'm the director of this show. The colecovision episode is being shot in about 3 weeks. Unfortunately, since I stay a few episodes ahead of the weekly release schedule, this means you won't see it for another 6 weeks or so. But it's coming! Intellivision doesn't get its own episode, but it's mentioned in deatail in a recently shot episode about forgotten consoles. And, yes, it was the sports console of its time- similar to the sega dreamcast in that regard. Glad you enjoyed the show.
Play Value - College Dreams- the story of General Computer
GOOD NEWS. I'm currently talking with Craig over at ScrewAttack about what can possibly be done and working together with them. Will keep everyone posted, but this is an exciting development.
Play Value - College Dreams- the story of General Computer
Hey, guys. So, I contacted everyone about things, and I'm waiting to hear back. Also talked to Larry over at ScrewAttack, and am seeing what we can cook up together, as well. Will post any new, good or bad, when I get it. Thanks, everyone.
Play Value - College Dreams- the story of General Computer
HEY EVERYONE, it's Jeremiah Black. Josh called me today and told me I should log on when I got home and check out all the activity. I can't tell you how amazed and honored I am that everyone just doesn't want to see this show go quietly. From the petition to the fansite to this newest endeavor, you guys kick ass. JetPilot, thanks for the connection to Gametrailers, and Aerocheder, thanks for the connect to ScrewAttack. I'll be contacting them tomorrow afternoon, and will post any good news I get. Hopefully, we'll all be seeing more shows soon!
Play Value - College Dreams- the story of General Computer
Thanks a lot. I had a lot of fun making the show. If you'd like to see more episodes, feel free to drop OnNetworks an email telling them so. Thanks again.
Play Value - College Dreams- the story of General Computer
Hey everyone,
Just dropping a line to let everyone know that the show is still not being brought back as far as I know. I haven't heard any news from ON in a couple months, so I think I can take that as a sign that the show is over. Wish I had better news, but it seems I do not. Thanks everyone. Will post if I find out anything in the future.
Play Value - College Dreams- the story of General Computer
Thanks, man. Most the episodes were originally written by myself as 1/2 hour television shows. So, I always appreciate more time to be able to round things out and tell a more involved story. Glad people noticed.
Play Value - College Dreams- the story of General Computer
That's a good question. I just MAKE the shows; I don't handle the format distribution stuff- that's ON's thing. I think if you click on the "more" link on the upper right hand part of the page under the subscribe column, there might be some PC formats. That's a good question to email ON. Like I said, I'm the director, not the distributor. And I'm on a mac, so it's never come up for me personally.
Thanks for the nice words about the show. Hopefully, they'll bring us back. They want to. I think they just have to get it to make better financial sense for them to do more while still keeping the show free and reasonably on time every two weeks. I get a lot of emails and comments from a lot of people saying that this is their favorite ON show, so I can't help but feel it'll work out somehow. But it's out of my hands for now.
Play Value - College Dreams- the story of General Computer
Thanks for the kind words about the show. But, I will say, it's not like ON doesn't like the show. They love it, too. But it's being halted until the sponsorship deals they're working on go through. Behind every show is a company. And behind every company is a board of directors looking to make their money numbers add up right. Just business, I guess. We'll see what happens.
Play Value - College Dreams- the story of General Computer
Ha ha. I'll let TJ know. We're having dinner and a beer tonight.
Play Value - College Dreams- the story of General Computer
well, be sure and drop an email to ONNetworks. Because as of right now, we've been let go! Guess there's stuff going on behind the scenes we don't understand... But hopefully, they'll bring us back.
Play Value - College Dreams- the story of General Computer
Yeah, I don't know why they labeled it wrong. I'll see if they can change it.
Play Value - College Dreams- the story of General Computer
ha ha. I think I just barely made it. Not my fault!
Smart Girls At The Party - The Writer - Cameron
great, great show.
Play Value - Mine!...Gaming and Copyright
They fixed it. Simple communication error. Hapens.
Play Value - Mine!...Gaming and Copyright
yo! Email me personally, so we can chat. It's been a while.
Play Value - Mine!...Gaming and Copyright
No, that's the new episode. I just checked it. They just mis-labeled and mis-titled everything for some reason. Sigh.
Play Value - Mine!...Gaming and Copyright
I found out that the episode just kinda slipped through the cracks apparantly and has been sitting around at their offices for the last two weeks. I called them on monday to ask; they called me today and said they would put it up today. Hasn't come on yet, so I'm thinking tomorrow. If I don't see it tomorrow, I'll call again and see what's up.
Play Value - Mine!...Gaming and Copyright
Don't know what the deal is. The episode was turned in 12 days ago. I'll be calling on Monday to ask what the holdup is.
Play Value - Mine!...Gaming and Copyright
Hm. Not sure why the new episode isn't up yet. I'll contact ON monday morning and see what the deal is.
Play Value - Mine!...Gaming and Copyright
Well, they've got to make money, too. I guess this all comes down to a numbers game in the end, just like all entertainment. If Play Value can pull in the needed sponsorship based on its popularity, then we'll all get what we want. If it doesn't make financial sense for ON to keep it going, then they can't keep it going. Nobody wants to see it go, but the numbers have to add up. We'll probably all know in the next month or so. But I don't really have any more info than you do on this. So, I'd just direct all inquiries to ON's mailbox.
Play Value - Mine!...Gaming and Copyright
No, they haven't. So, as of today, the show's on hold until they work it out on their end. They'll just be that one last episode going up any day now. Sooooo, I guess we'll all see what happens going forward. Thanks for being a great supporter of the show, man. I appreciate it.
Play Value - Mine!...Gaming and Copyright
I'll take that bet
Play Value - Mine!...Gaming and Copyright
Soon, I think. I turned it in yesterday. So I'd imagine ON will publish it any day now.
Play Value - Mine!...Gaming and Copyright
1. Ha ha, yeah, that's kinda how I been feeling. Tired of waiting. So, I think I'm just gonna turn in the episode on Monday/Tuesday, and ON will publish it online shortly thereafter.
2. ON's working some sponsorship deals behind the scenes that will determine the future of the show. Even though I make all the shows, there's nothing I can really do at this point. Probably the best thing both me and the audience can do is just spread the word on the show. Obviously, the higher the viewer numbers go up, the better ON's negotiations will go in the show's favor. And then we can all get the new episodes all of us want. I know there's still a LOT of important history to cover.
Play Value - Mine!...Gaming and Copyright
Oh yeah, Valve is in there! But the episode mostly goes back to before Valve.
Play Value - Mine!...Gaming and Copyright
1. Broadly speaking, the episode will be about game modding history. But it tells a really great story about a couple guys that not a lot of people know about. But the episode might only be 18 minutes, since there are a couple additional interviews I want to put in that I'm STILL waiting to come in. Might just go ahead and publish it anyway next week. Getting tired of waiting for those additional interviews to come in.
2. I want to do a machinima video! But after this last episode, my contract is up and it's up to OnNetworks to hire me to make more shows. Balls in their court.
3. Yeah, Dan's pretty popular and a gaming exprt. He probably gets more emails than anyone else on the show. Oh yeah, and he's also a good buddy.
Play Value - Mine!...Gaming and Copyright
Well, Activision's creation, Nintendo's seal of quality, the "lock out" technology were already well covered in previous episodes, so since I only have ten minutes, I didn't want to go over topics the show has already explored before. And emulators will be a whole episode unto itself! With only ten minutes, this episode was just going to go over some of the top precedent setting lawsuits for intellectual property law in gaming.
Play Value - Mine!...Gaming and Copyright
Hey everyone. I'll be back on Monday to comment more, but here's two quick notes before I go home for the day: (1) A new, special 22 minute episode is being finished next week. It's almost done now. Should be online shortly thereafter. (2) Dan isn't going anywhere!
Play Value - Mine!...Gaming and Copyright
Hello everyone. Thanks for the comments on the show! I'm incredibly glad to see so many people who love the show because, as you can probably tell, I love making it, too. I'm sorry about the delays between episodes, but, as I should remind everyone here, I am the writer and director of the show- which means, in a nutshell, I don't pay to make Play Value, I GET paid to make Play Value. OnNetworks pays for the show. And I know that On is working hard to lock down a great sponsor for the program, which is what the future of the show depends on. So, at the end of the day, I, too, am patiently awaiting news from the powers that be about exactly when more episodes will be scheduled. Thanks for tuning in, and expect a 22 minute special episode soon, as I'm about 1/2 way through making it now.
Play Value - SEGA Dreamcast
Ah, it's just a general timeline I had put together to look cool. It's not really perfectly accurate. Good eye, dude. :)
Play Value - SEGA Dreamcast
dude, get out of my head! I already wrote that episode and have just been waiting for the green light from OnNetworks to film it! Not only SMB2 but several others that changed once they left Japan. Hopefully, it'll get the greenlight soon. :)
Play Value - SEGA Dreamcast
Sorry everyone! I've been working on a new 1/2 version of the show lately. Everyone seems to like the show so much, I decided to try a traditional TV style 1/2 hour version of Play Value. It's coming along well, and it's a great story, so I hope you all like it. But next week, there's one more 10 minute regular episode coming before the 1/2 hour version launches. So, stay tuned and thanks for everyone patience!
Play Value - SEGA Dreamcast
soul calibur!
Play Value - SEGA Dreamcast
Sorry about the delay, everyone. I'll have a new episode up in about ten days or so!
Play Value - SEGA Dreamcast
new episode in ten days!
Play Value - SEGA Dreamcast
1) yeah, but they can't compete in hardware anymore with microsoft, sony, nintendo- companies that are many, many times their size. 2) Yeah, the 2K series is Sega's. 3) Yeah SEGA make a star trek game for the Atari 2600 that came out in 1983, and a version for the ColecoVision that came out in 1984. I have both, actually.
Play Value - Controllers
Depends on if you're looking at the whole world or just America. Nights into dreams came out first in Japan on july 5th, 1996. But the N64 had already come out a couple weeks before. However, Nights would make it to the USA a month before the N64 did (August 31st, 1996 vs. September 29th, 1996). So, Nintendo was first. But Sega made it to America first.
Play Value - Controllers
yeah, i realize now we're gonna have to do a whole episode on peripherals.
Play Value - Controllers
I wanted to. I just didn't think anyone else would care about controllers that much besides me. Looks like I was totally wrong!
Play Value - Controllers
Good call. Yeah, we had a whole thing about the power glove leading to the wii, but we had to cut it. We only have ten minutes, so we can't over a lot of stuff we want to.
Play Value - The Founding Fathers
oh yeah. Other people have discussed this, yoo. I very much want to do a history of handheld- covering the wonderswan and the led one's from the 70's and everything. No doubt.
Play Value - The Two Johns
Yeah, when the Two Johns made their first homemade demo of a side scrolling game for PC, they used the character of a Dangerous Dave and put him into Super Mario Brothers 3. They called it "Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement."
Play Value - The Two Johns
it's coming soon!
Play Value - The Two Johns
Yeah, we have an episode coming up that's all about portable systems. And we will 100% go into the game and watch!
Play Value - The Two Johns
Oh yeah, I'm always open to fan ideas. Though we usually plan them out 4 episodes in advance.
Play Value - The Two Johns
thanks!
Play Value - The Two Johns
Every two weeks is the average, i think. sometimes it's every three weeks, sometimes it's every week.
Play Value - Women In Gaming
yeah, ha ha, I decided to leave all the low level "joystcik" freudianism on the cutting room floor. I don't about the Lara Croft/ Rick Dangerous connection. But I've read many, many interview with the game's creator who swears that he came up with the idea of making her female based on watching all his guy friends in the office prefer playing girl characters in fighting games. The interesting part is that she was originally called Laura Cruz, and was a South American woman, but then they made her British so us Yanks would dig her more. Anyway, I'll shoot you an email tomorrow an we'll catch up.
Play Value - Women In Gaming
Arrrggghhh, yeah, another typo. I think that's two accidental typos in a row for me on the last two episodes. Sigh. Well, thanks for paying close attention! I guess that's a compliment at least. :)
Play Value - Gaming Mascots
You're right. That's how they justified it logically. But my point is that they did so in order to make a cuddly mascot for themselves.
Play Value - Gaming Mascots
I'm totally down with that.,
Play Value - Gaming Mascots
Hey, how've you've been? Sorry, I've been out of touch. I just filmed another four episodes of the show, and have been working on an entirely new series on the side. Shoot me an email, and we'll chat about upcoming projects. Love your idea about the washed-up mascot!
Play Value - Gaming Mascots
Thanks. We're happy with the time limit extention, and hope to keep it at ten minutes going forward now that we've gotten the "ok" from up top.
Good call- an episode on machinima is definitely on the list for future episodes when we start getting more current with the topics.
thanks man for all the nice words.
Play Value - Gaming Mascots
Yeah, Libe's unexpected f-bomb string kinda surprised me/cracked me up, too. I just had to put it in. And that was me laughing when Jeff referred to Bonk's enormous noggin. I think I used the phrase "massive, invincible forehead" in our discussion of the character, but when Jeff said the word "noggin", for some reason it cracked me up.
Thanks for watching.
Play Value - Gaming Mascots
The schedule is basically that a new episode is finished every other week. They go up around that often, give or take. Sometimes they are closer together, sometimes farther. But every other week has been the average for a while now pretty much. I expect I new one to go up any day now.
Play Value - Gaming Mascots
Ah, did I spell it with only one "d"? Man, I need an assistant, if I did. Good call- yeah, it's supposed ot be "Alex Kidd".
I've thought about current day properties, like Master Chief and Marcus Fenix, but I consider these more "franchise characters" than mascots- although they are franchise characters that are console exclusive. To me, mascots appear and make cameos in other people's games, and enodorse other properties from their company. Master Cheif kinda comes close, though. I guess I'm waiting to see if these characters evolve into more traditional mascots but for older gamers. The move by companies now seems to be to make franchise charaters that can appear in more than just games, like Lara Croft or Master Chief. First a hit game, then books, then movies, etc. Take then from being just video game properties and into properties that span all popular media.
Play Value - Shigeru Miyamoto
The 1986 on the title screen is the original copyright date in Japan. 1987 is the commercial release date in America. Unless otherwise inferred, all dates that appear on screen are the USA release dates.
Play Value - Shigeru Miyamoto
oh yeah- 100%. Gunpei NEEDS to be done, too. Just don't want to do two bios back to back. Need to wait a bit.
Play Value - Shigeru Miyamoto
Yeah, that Mario Bros. came out in 1983, and it marked "jumpman" getting an actual name, "Mario", as well as a new profession- he was a carpenter in Donkey Kong, but then became a plumber in Mario Bros. It was also the first introduction of Luigi, his brother. While these are all interesting tidbits of info, they're really about Mario the character's evolution, not Miyamoto's evolution. As far as the game design itself of Mario Bros., the game is essentially just cosmetic variation on Joust from the year before, and didn't represent any big leaps forward by Miyamoto in design. So, I decided against including the info in the episode- which is about Miyamoto's pioneering game design. More about Mario can be found in the "Mascots" episode following this one.
Thanks for watching.
Play Value - Sony Vs. Nintendo
you're quite right- this is one of the first that goes into recent consoles in any way. It's the goal to get more current on a lot of these episodes, but first, I'd still like to cover a few more key historial points before jumping ahead to today. I'm an Xbox junkie myself, so I'd love to do a rise of the Xbox episode- especially since it marks the first significant return of a US compnay to the Japan-dominated video game industry in 16 years or so.
Play Value - Return of the Arcade
Yeah, the increased technology of the arcades kinda created this home/arcade arms race, wherein the home would define itself by how well it reproduced the original arcade vision. But my point is that the real split between the home and the arcade isn't technological, it's creative. It's primarily about two distinct genres: long form and short form, I think. Just like there are movies you "must see" in the theater to get the full experience, there are games you "must play" in the home to get the full, long form experience.
Play Value - Return of the Arcade
Good call. Yeah, I wanted to put in some stuff about downloading online short form games for $5, $10, or $20 a pop. Also, the return of short form has allowed a lot of smaller developers, who otherwise couldn't compete with the major companies, get into the gaming arena by offering their games as online downloads for cheaper. Long form games are made for millions of dollars by as many people as it takes to put together a movie, but a small team (like an indie film or short film) can put together a great short form game and get themselves out there. Pretty sweet.
Play Value - Return of the Arcade
The episode was less of a "re-dress" and more of a "this is the stuff we wanted to do but didn't have time to go into in the other episode, so we split it off and made it its own". Don't know if we'll do a third in the series. Maybe- it's kinda fun to think about, and there's still plenty that we ran out of time (again) to go over!
Play Value - Return of the Arcade
Yeah, I know. There a ton of games that make me think "Arghh, why couldn't this have come out ten years ago when I had time to play it?" Short form gaming has made a comeback in my life, too.
Play Value - Commodore 64
Man, yeah the Pippin. That's a fun failed console that not everyone knows about. Those $600 big price tag consoles never did well. If macintosh had just embraced gaming on the mac platform earlier, then they probably would'nt have felt the need to make a pricey stand alone console. I'd like to do an episode on famous vaporware that never even came out.
Play Value - Commodore 64
Man, that'd be a sweet find. Come back and post something if you manage to track it down.
Play Value - Colecovision
Yeah, we're planning an episode that's just ALL about handhelds, and we'll cover the Atari Lynx there. We mentioned it briefly in the Commodore 64 episode, so you might want to check that episode out.
Play Value - Colecovision
Ugh. It was bound to happen sooner or later, I guess. Thanks for the heads up.
Play Value - Colecovision
Good memeory! Here's the scoopp: Nintendo gave Coleco Donkey Kong rights for the Colecovision console as this episde covers. They did NOT give it to them for their computer the Coleco Adam which was coverde in the "Rise of Nintendo" episode. Coleco just made it for the Adam without asking. Actually, Nintendo sold them "cartridge rights", so Coleco could have fought their using it on the Adam in court (since it was on a cartridge), and they might have won. But Nintendo was so mad, that they just apologized and dropped it.
Play Value - Colecovision
Ruben,
Thanks. Brings back a lot of memories for me, too, while I'm making them. Man, I had good times playing games as a kid...
Play Value - Colecovision
Yeah, I loved Congo Bongo. Pretty hard though, as I remember it. As for the TI 99, there's an episode on the Commodore 64 coming up soon, and we briefly mention some old computers from the early 80's during the great home computer rush that Commodore eventually dominated. Can't remember if we covered Texas Instruments stuff. though. TheTi99 was 1981, no?
Play Value - Colecovision
Thanks everyone for the nice words about the show. As of right now, there are only the 10 episodes listed on this page, but more will be forth coming shortly.
Play Value - Colecovision
Thanks for the kind words. I, too, would love a 22 minute show. Like I said at the beginning of the show, we're going to get more in depth the longer the show goes on, so I hope you'll continue to find the material more and more interesting.
Play Value - Controversy!
Yeah, Thrill Kill, Postal, Manhunt, Ethnic Cleansing, Manhunt 2, and BMX XXX were all games we talked about, but they all had to get cut, since we have an 8 minute time limit on the show. So, I focused more on the milestone controversies. You're right though, it would have been a good addition, but with that 8 minute limit.... somethings had to go.
Play Value - Controversy!
Yeah, the next episode (which is already finished) that will be up is all about the SNES CD attachment that never was. Look for it next. As I said, I just finished it, so it should be up shortly.
Play Value - Controversy!
ha ha. Yeah, where WAS that SNES attachment anyway?
Play Value - SEGA Vs. Nintendo
Oh, they did it! Nintendo doesn't really publicly attack like that, but these were special circumstances.
Play Value - SEGA Vs. Nintendo
Thanks for the comment and for the nice words. Of course, you are right, and it's a correction worth mentioning. Boy, I loved those games (I was a big Genesis guy). It's nice to have some people that we're actually behind the games come on and give their two cents. Thanks again for stopping by.
Play Value - SEGA Vs. Nintendo
100% I agree. It was the best sonic ever! Oh how I miss good sonic games...
Play Value - SEGA Vs. Nintendo
I know how you feel. I liked Sonic CD a lot. But the few good ones they had were just buried under so much garbage.
Play Value - SEGA Vs. Nintendo
I totally agree. The EA exclusive license deal set the stage for a lack a innovation big time. NFL 2K5 was revolutionary for the price. I was so angry when the NFL signed the exclusive EA deal. If there's one lesson anyone can learn by watching all these shows, it's that competition is always good for the industry and always grows the market and leads to more creativity.Play Value - SEGA Vs. Nintendo
Sorry about the wait for the new episodes! I promise to try not to let it happen again. Personally I was a Genesis guy, not a SNES guy, and Sega's downfall broke my heart. It's true that it's been a looong time since a good Sonic game came out. In fact, a lot of Sega Genesis charaters didn't age too well. They were all very "extreme", "rad", and bunch of other early 90's stuff that time wasn't too kind to. Mario titles, by contrast, have aged much better. I, too, wish I had more than 8 minutes to get into these topics. I'd love 20 mintues to be able to explore how Sega of Japan made bad decision after bad decision that ultimately doomed Sega, and how Sega had the genesis, the nomad, the game gear, the pico, the 32x, the sega cd, and the saturn all out at the same time, as well as a few arcade boards. There was no way any company could support so many incompatible systems at the same time with decent software. Anyway, we shall seee if the powers that be will eventually expand the show into something more in depth! Oh, and as for the game gear, yeah, they'll be a handheld episode coming up that will go into the gameboy and the nomad and the Lynx, as well. In Sega's defense, they did continue to make GREAT football titles for other hardware, until EA signed an exclusive liscence deal with the NFL. That boxed SEGA out, and left the Madden franchise as the only game in town. Damn, SEGA can't catch a break!Play Value - Failed Consoles - Part Two
Yeah, it was just better as far as its technology.
Play Value - Failed Consoles - Part Two
The intellivision had a CP1610 general purpose CPU chip which was capable of supporting 16-bit addresses. So it is technically the first 16 bit console. But by the age of the Turbographics-16 ten years later, consoles had more than just a CPU; they would also have a seperate graphics chip. And the Turbografx-16 was the first to have a 16 bit graphics chip in addition to its 8-bit CPU, so it is also referred to as the first 16 bit console (because it had a 16 bit dedicated graphics chip). Both could claim (and both do) the title of "first 16 bit console" based on how that title is defined. Kudos to you- you've noticed something that perhaps we should talk about in a future episode- all the arguments between companies about who was "first" to do something, and how that they justify claiming the title. Sometimes one is right; sometimes they're both right, sometimes they're both wrong. There was much fighting over these issues in all the advertising between companies back in the day, and the fighting was really nasty.
Play Value - Failed Consoles - Part Two
Dude! Sweet find! That's some rare history, right there.
Play Value - Failed Consoles - Part Two
ShootingLove:
I actually own a copy of "Chi No Rhondo" and we are all very well aware that it was a pc engine game from Japan. However it was available for purchase in the US only via magazines ads While you correctly point out that the PC-engine was a fairly decent hit in Japan (as was the Saturn), it was not in Amercia, which is the market that Play Value focuses on. Were this show 30 minutes instead of 8, I would love nothing more than to go into Japan in each episode, but alas.... I would claim that because all the really great games were availble in Japan and not in the US, this was proabaly the exact reason it was a hit there and not here. Also, the CD-Rom add on WAS difficult to find in the US. It was available mostly in major cities, but not in smaller ones. It was not available in the city I grew up in, and I was personally forced to buy it via mail order. It came in an absurdely huge box that was 90% foam padding, and I was fored to buy all my games for it via mail order as well, due to the lack of software support from my local Toys R Us. This experience was not uncommon. The Sega CD's improvent in power was not MUCH more, as you claimed. The addition of Red Book Audio was great, but not something that exactly blew minds for most consumers, and the Genesis was still limited to 64 simultaneous colors (a huge, huge drawback for FMV games) and the output limitations of the same old Motorola 68000 processor that the Genesis had. Anyone with an internt connection can go to wikipedia and see the hardware specs, but my point is that the hardware improvents were negligible, and mostly didn't even bring the Genesis up to the (in terms of graphic output) hardware specs of its chief competitior, the Super Nintendo, which had a clock rate of 21 Mhz, and 256 simultaneous colors out of a possible 32,000! It was the addition of hundreds of MB of more starage was the main leap in technology (at least for consoles, as PCs were already had CD-roms for quite some time). Perhaps, I should have stated "the hardware upgrade was negligible in terms of enhancing the graphic output given a $150- $200 price tag, and red book audio or no red book audio, most consumers were not impressed." However, thanks for bringing up some great points of clarification to the discussion. Please keep posting on issues such as these, to help clarify some deeper points that deserve more depth than an 8 minute show is able to provide.
Cheers and happy gaming- Jeremiah Black
Play Value - Atari vs. Nintendo
Shandi's a friend, but she just got busy with other projects, and I like to make a lot more episodes than she had time to be in. She's really cool, and it's a shame, but she just didn't have the time at the end of the day.
Play Value - Atari vs. Nintendo
Yeah, good call! The Galoob lawsuit is one of my favorites. I'd like to do an "all lawsuit" episode some time in the future.
Play Value - Atari vs. Nintendo
Zsciaeount and GericVas: Hey, you guys are reading my mind! The episode about the Sony Playstation and how Nintedo publically humiliated them by announcing they were going with Phillips for the SNES cd add-on, and sony's BIG karmic PS1 revenge has already been written and filmed! It's coming up as episode #10, so look for it! And episode #6 and #7 is a two part series on 12 major failed consoles (6 per episode)- included in which is the Sega 32x, sega cd, turbo-grafx 16, and sega saturn. Also, coming up is episode #8 which is all about sega vs nintendo and how they briefly pulled ahead with the genesis but then completly fumbled and blew it after that. All these have already been shot and are being edited as we speak, so it won't be long, guys. I also have scripts written for an episode on RPGs and MMORPGs- the history and social phenomenon of the genre, but those won't be until around episode 15-16 or so. Hey, localization is a GREAT idea for an episode (like all those crosses taken out of castlevania!). I'll keep that in mind BIG time. Funny translation errors in both the games and the instruction booklets could also be mentioned in that one (and there's a lot of them). We're doing an episode all about mascots that we'll probably save the mega man stuff for. I know it's been covered before but I can't resist doing an episode on John Romero and ion storm and daikatana and all that. Great stuff, and I've already scripted most of it. It will probably be old hat to you guys, but most people will still get something out of it. I'd say the first 12 episodes or so of Play Value will pretty much be video games 101 stuff, and the next 12 will be more in depth and stuff you guys will enjoy more. But I gotta start with the basics and get everyone up to speed first. For example, in talking with people who like the show, I found out a lot of people didn't even know what the Famicom was before watcing! So, you see, I gotta start simple, and work my way up, so no one gets lost. GericVas: yeah, Atari/Tengen didn't totally disappear, you're right. In fact, it was the next year that they were all fighting over tetris! But they were largely just a minor 3rd party software company, not really any threat even up through the Lynx and the jaguar. After the tetris story, it was really Sega's time to step up and challenge the King (nintendo), but that whole thing's covered, like I said, in episode #8. Coming up are also episodes on colecovision and a brief history of notable controversies in gaming. Also slated for the program are episodes on god-games, commodore 64, vaporware, and a bio on miyamoto. As we get through the first 12, I'll be talking with people like you two guys more to discuss some good ideas for the next season, so we'll all keep in touch on the boards. Zsciaeount: Yeah, we have some good editors, but I also help them when I'm directing on set to make editing easier. Like I always remind the talent not to use pronouns, so everything's always nice and clear and what we're talking about never gets lost. Also, the people on the show have been on TV many times doing commentray on tech/games stuff, so they instinctively know how to discuss things off the top of their head, but also package their thoughts in a way that makes for easy editing. So credit where it's due to those guys, too. But it's really just me casually talking to each person on the show for a couple hours about the topic at hand (that's me off camera they're looking at while they speak). Just a bunch a guys who know a lot about games having fun chatting about this and that- pretty casual vibe, except I'll come to the shoot with a notebook of double-checked numbers and release dates in case anyone aciidentally gets one wrong (rare, but it happens). Anyway, it's a fun show to make and (hopefully) a fun show to watch. Thanks for checking the episodes out and I promise, sooner or later, we'll get around to more and more good stuff. - JEREMIAH BLACK, Director, Play ValuePlay Value - Atari vs. Nintendo
Zsciaeount: Thanks for the comments. Two things: (1) the panelists are actually not reading script snippets at all. The 8 minute episodes are cut from hours and hours (no joke) of extemporaneous discussion, and the nice interlocking feel is a testament to our great editors who cut for the smoothest show possible. So, thanks for the compliment! (2) Play Value is a show that is less about unearthing groundbreaking, never-before-known information within video gaming history, and more about taking video game history to a broader audience via a visual, rather than printed, medium. In fact, if you read most of the comments here, you'll find most people didn't know much of what's been covered (see the comment right below yours as an example). Should you find yourself already familiar with most of the subject matter, then congrats!- you're a true gaming history buff, and our hats are off to you. But most of us aren't yet up to that level, and that's what play value's about- bringing everyone up to speed. And over the life of the show, it's our plan to get more and more detailed as our audience masters all the basics and becomes ready for more advanced looks. So noobs will love the first episodes, and more advanced gamers such as yourself will probably get more out of the show later on. Anyway, thanks for watching, and we hope to see you back. - Jeremiah Black, Director, Play Value.Backpack Picnic - Hypothetical Stuff
Best one yet. Let us know how many takes it took on the opening shot.Play Value - The Fall of Atari
Thanks, guys!
Play Value - The Fall of Atari
The shows are all 8 minutes in length, but we just made out first 10 minute episode last week. If people like it, we'll be exploring making the shows longer in the future. I'd perfer to make them longer, as well.
Play Value - The Fall of Atari
GericVas: Yeah, I wanted to get into the whole drug culture of Atari more. LIke how there were heroin needles on the floor of the restroom there and all sorts of crazy stuff. And also how that influenced the games they made, and, by extension, influenced even modern games. But I ran out of time! - Jeremiah Black, director, Play Value.Play Value - Tetris: Splitting the Iron Curtain
will try and get this fixed asap.
Play Value - Tetris: Splitting the Iron Curtain
Super Mario Brothers is typically credited with holding the #1 spot with around 40 million sold. And Tetris is typically credited with the #2 spot with around 33 million sold. The problem is that Tetris' sales number of 33 million ONLY counts the Gameboy sales. Once you factor in the millions and millions of computer versions, cell phones versions, ipod versions, console versions, arcade versions, and everything else (like the episode said, Tetris has appeared everywhere with over 70 versions out there), Tetris is EASILY the best selling game of all time
Play Value - Tetris: Splitting the Iron Curtain
The problem is that Stein had NEVER paid the Russians for any of the sales he was making. That was the whole deal- Stein talked a good game, but he never actually paid up. The Russians was really mad, and were looking for a way to get him out of the picture and bring in someone who would actually keep their word and pay them their money. And that was Nintendo.
Play Value - Tetris: Splitting the Iron Curtain
Yeah, my favorite part of the Tetris story is how all the bad guys lost in the end. Stein got left with nothing, and Maxwell ended up dead after looting all the pensions from his company. But, yeah, too bad for Pajitnov- but he's still doing ok. Of course, Nintendo, as always, made a jillion bucks.
Play Value - Tetris: Splitting the Iron Curtain
Oh yeah! Maxwell actually called Gorbachev and got him involved on Mirrorsoft's behalf. Belicov from ELORG was getting threatening telexes from the Kremlin. Belikov later said that if it had been 10 years earlier, and the Soviet Union wasn't preoccupied with being on the verge on collapse, he probably would've been killed or sent to the gulag for giving Nintendo the rights!
Play Value - Tetris: Splitting the Iron Curtain
working on it, working on it. Thanks, man!Play Value - Tetris: Splitting the Iron Curtain
to GericVas: Yeah, after we shot this, I found that BBC documentary on Tetris. Except it was an hour, I think, not a half hour. To be honest, the story is so complex and has so many twists and turns that you really do need an hour. But, like you said, this episode pretty much sums it all up in 8 minutes, although there are a lot of really interesting side stories and detals that didn't make it in. As far as legal factors go, I've been making video game shows for years for internet and cable tv, and have never had any problems with game companies. Game companies are really nice and have a good respect for us in the gaming community. The only company that is fairly hard nosed about that sort of thing is Rockstar with the GTA games, but that's really more because of the copywritten, high profile music catalogue in the GTA games than the gameplay footage itself (which is understandable). So, if I use GTA footage, I simply sub in stock music and everybody's cool with it. All the game companies I've dealt with over the years have had no problem with shows like these because its (a) it's a historical documentary and (b) it's also good promotions for the games.Play Value - Failed Consoles - Part One
Yeah, the show is only about the US market. I wish I had enough time to go into other countries. The Master System KILLED in Brazil as well as Europe. No kidding.
Play Value - Failed Consoles - Part One
Jon Rose: I agree completely. Also, the failure of the dreamcast was a failure brought on largely by the incredible amount of ill-will that Sega had generated with its previous blunders. Game developers, especially EA, didn't want any part of it due to Sega's previous history of abondoning their hardware at the first sign of trouble. And the public was extremely wary of anything bearing the Sega name and for good reason. All it took was for Sony to merely announce the Playstation 2, and that was enough to convince most consumers to wait an entire year for it, rather than pickup a Dreamcast. Sega never could fully shake its reputation as an unstable hardware investment. Shame. Such a great console.Play Value - Failed Consoles - Part One
GericVas: Hey, we went pretty easy on the Vectrex! While I completely agree with you that all mediums evolve, my point (which is expaned in part two of this series) is that most of the consoles that failed to catch on, failed on creative grounds, not technological grounds. And there are some lessons to be learned along the way, like focusing on the multiplication of hardware is a sure-fire way to kill a system. I liked the Sega master system, but it did bomb next to the NES, despite being a better piece of hardware. But, again, it just didn't have games to compete. Since Nintendo had exclusive agreements with all the great 3rd party companies, all Sega could really offer were ports of their arcade games, and they didn't port very well at all on an 8-bit system(which led to the creation of the 16bit genesis). Nintendo had the games, Sega had the hardware. And games always win in that fight. The Genesis wasn't a failed attempt; the Genesis did really well and shifted the whole industry. But the sega-cd, the 32x, all that... well, that's in the next episode. As for the Sega Dreamcast, I debated whether or not to cover the dreamcast in this series. There are already so many Sega consoles discussed between part 1 and 2. Ultimately, I decided not to include the dreamcast, and I will focus on it in a upcoming episode which will be all about the Dreamcast, and can give it the space it deserves. It's failure to catch on was more complicated than I could cover in 45 seconds or so, and the Dreamcast was really, really great. It deserves its own show.Play Value - Rise of Nintendo
Once Nintendo really took off in 1987, they ditched Worlds of Wonder and went solo. And Worlds of Wonder was really counting on Teddy Ruxpin being a big hit in 1987, but the public had moved on, and Worlds of Wonder lost a ton of money with a warehouse of unsold Teddy Ruxpins. And Worlds of Wonder lost a lot of money when the stock market crashed in 1987. Yeah, 1987 was a bad year for them.
Play Value - Rise of Nintendo
Yeah, it's funny the things people got away with in gaming's early days- stuff that would get you sued and shut down instantly today. I'm not sure about how Nintendo would've fared with the NES buried by the 7800. MS had soooo much money to launch and buy up game publishers that Nintendo never did. Nintendo had to do it from the ground up by cornering the whole American market early. And a big part of Nintendo's rise was that its 3rd party games were so good. And its 3rd party pames were only so good because game companies had no other options. So, I dunno. Without being able to corner the whole US market early, Nintnedo might never have had the money or clout to compete against multi-billion dollar companies like Sony and MS. Even then, they got pushed to 3rd place by the Xbox and Playstation2. But a part of me thinks that somehow Nintendo would've pulled it off. They had some of the best 1st party titles of all time, and good software always finds a way. I guess like you said- it would've just taken longer and been a bit rockier.
Play Value - Rise of Nintendo
No Mattel NES here, but Sears made their own version of the Atari 2600 that sold in their stores. Same exact console- different packaging and name on the front. It caused a lot of consumer confusion. But there were no differences between two two other than branding.
Play Value - Rise of Nintendo
I am 100% sure that Atari would've just buried the NES deep in the closet, and then pushed the Atati 7800. It came out later that that was their plan all along. Thank God we avoided that. We'd all be playing Pole Position VIII right now.
Play Value - Rise of Nintendo
Great question. Nintendo sold rights to Coleco for the Colecovision console. They did NOT also sell them the rights to their computer, the Coleco Adam. Coleco just made it for the Adam computer without asking, probably assuming it was cool since they had made it for the Colecovision before. But Nintendo was furious. Two different Coleco machines. Two different sets of rights they needed to buy. Doh!
Play Value - Rise of Nintendo
GericVas, This is jeremiah black, the director of the Play Value. Thanks for watching the show and for the feedback. Believe it or not, I agree with a lot of what you say, but you have to realize that the show is only 8 minutes long. So, we have to be specfic. The company history of Nintendo is another episode altogether, as is an episode about all the consoles before nintendo. With only 8 minutes you have to pick one point in history and do it as best you can. The episode you're talking about (and which I'd love to have made) is an entire 1/2 hour special, if it's done right. With only 8 minutes, I must pare down and focus in on simply nintendo's rise from japan to america. Be patient! There's dozens of episodes coming which will talk about all the cool stuff we love. You've only seen the 1st two episodes, and there a LOT more coming. For example, I just filmed the sega vs nintendo episode you were talking about, and, yes, we mentioned the olympics game coming out on the wii with mario and sonic! So, be patient, budddy. We're only two episodes into a show that's going to go for a while. But, hey, don't foget about the newcomers, though. I always enjoys making newcomers into gamers like us, and that's part of what this show is about.Play Value - The Death of Arcades
Thanks. I just finished the new episode on arcades today, so it should be up soon. There's another one that scheduled to go up first, and then it'll be next.
Play Value - The Death of Arcades
Great points. We actually talk about this in an upcoming episode which revisits the arcade. Look for it in a couple weeks.
Play Value - The Death of Arcades
Whoa- you are one big fan of old school gaming! Well, in a couple episodes look for a new episode that covers the arcade more in depth and discusses its resurgence. It's episode 13, and it's coming in a few weeks- hopefully you'll feel a good connection there. By the way, eveyone in this video played all the classic arcade games in their time (except one who caught the 2nd wave a few years later). But I'll pass on to everyone (and the makeup girl) how young people think they look on camera. Cheers!
Play Value - The Death of Arcades
Well, I was going to let this debate die, but I wanted to chime in to correct two incorrect rebuttal points that are commonly circulated in various threads online by my arcade loving friends. (1) myth#1: "the arcade industry took in 6 billion in 2006". Actually, the domestic US gross for all arcade video games was 2.2 billion. Adjusted for a 267% US inflation index, that means arcades today pull roughy 5% of the dometic US gross they did in their 80's heyday. The 6 billion number continues to be circulated, but is incorrect as it is the gross of ALL vending (fooseball, cigarette machines, etc.) and not simply video games., which of course, is what the show is about. Good people can agrue all over the use of the word "death" and how appropiate it is to use in this context, but the decline is, in fact, quite severe. Which brings us to point #2: (2) "Arcades still exist". Well, yes, arcades still do exits in the US. But, in the 80' heydey, there were 24,000 dedicated arcades (not even counting FECs). There are roughly 4,000 now- roughly 16% of their former number. Again, the word "death" may be too strong for some, but the decline is quite large. Also, check out BMIgaming or playmeter online to see the continuing decline in both units and grosses year after year. In fact, In the last years alone (2004-2006), the grosses halved for dedicated video arcade games. Twin Galaxies on their website writes well on this subject, lamenting the huge absence of arcades as an everyday American fixture and mentioning that less than 1% of the arcades listed in Twin Galaxies’ original database are still in existence. Thanks for reading, and thanks for keeping the discussion civil. - jeremiah black, director, Play Value.Play Value - The Death of Arcades
Splatter: oh, sure there was a demand. But those were never top sellers or killer appz on any 16 or 32 bit consoles. Just more of a smaller, niche demand. And the "all aracde games suck" comment isn't what you seem to think it is. He's referring specifically to "final fight" style games when you try to take them home. Many of those "final fight" style games (punisher was my favorite) simply threw swarms of enemies at you, and they were only fun because you came into the arcades with a limited amount of quaters and so it was fun to see how long you could last with the money you brought in. At home, with endless continues for free, a lot of the fun is suddenly gone and the game's not really as fun anymore. That's his opinion anyway, I thought it was interesting so I kept it in the show.Play Value - The Death of Arcades
MESSAGE FROM JEREMIAH BLACK, DIRECTOR OF PLAY VALUE: Splatterfan, thanks for chiming in. I didn't address it because I've been working for the last 12 hours, and I'm dead tired. Remember, you're just chatting with me. I'm chatting with half a dozen people, emailing back and forth, directing new episodes of Play Value, and new episodes of some entirely different shows that I do. But, I just had some coffee, and now I would like to address the NEO GEO issue. I'll come back and discuss the sports game comment later because I'm about to all alseep on my keyboard. Before i begin, does everyone here know that in 11 days SNK is scheduled to cease doing repairs on the neo geo and neo geo products? So, if your hardware or software is busted, get it fixed NOW, before they stop taking orders and close up shop on the 31st!. Ok, now back to the topic. Neo Geo has many fans, so I understand why some might be upset. But I stand by the perspecive of the show, namely that neo geo did not change the face of gaming nor give us a glimpse into what the future of gaming was going to be. We can put aside discussion on the prohibitively high price point for both the hardware and the games, and the fact that it lasted 14 years, not 15 (1990-2004). The fact is that Neo Geo was always a niche console, pure and simple. You simply can't compare the install base and overall cultural influnece of the NES or the genesis or the SNES in 1991 to the neo geo. And over the course of that 14 year history, SNK's neo geo failed to become a top 5 console upon its debut, stopped being covered entirely by US game magazines in 1995, stopped manufacturing consoles in 1997, and then SNK went completely bankrupt in 2000. Although beloved by its fans, it wasn't exactly 14 years of high flying glory in the USA. It was 14 years of being the best 2D console ever made, in a culture where the mainstream wanted 3D graphics and more immersive games- in other words 14 years of catering to a dedicated minority. No shame in that whatsoever, but that's is what it was. Most importantly, arcade style gaming became less and less of an atractive idea to most consumers as time went on. Most American kids simply didn't want coin-op style games in their home. Most kid's tastes grew to want long form narrative games. In fact, kids are wanting even longer games these days (like WOW). I'm sorry, and I respect everyone here, but the Neo Geo was a popular niche console that simply wasn't an influnce on the future. It stayed around in America much in the same way that vinyl records have, because some people love them and it was the BEST ever for what it was. But the future of music distribution is mp3s. Now we can debate if that's good or bad, but that's what's happening. Similar to a game such as Dragon's lair, the neo geo blew people's minds, but it simply didn't predict the future of gaming or portend where the industry was headed. The industry was headed to where the customers were headed. And they were headiing to 40 hour, FMV filled, long form, 3D games. Ask any 100 people on the street about nintendo or the neo geo, and see where most people spent their money and childhood. And since the neo geo was the best 2D console ever made, we can bemoan this, but it's true. These are, as spaltterfan requested, the bare facts. Home Neo geo was only ever a fraction as popular as the all various consoles that dominated its life span. So, while I deeply apologize if I offened anyone, I stand by the position of the show that the neo geo failed to become an influential console, not because of the price, but because the future of gaming was going into deepr, more immersive, 3D, long form gaming than short form, aracde, coin-op style gaming. Thank you, everyone for your time and patience. And thank you for cleaning up the language on the board. I will return when I have time to address the "sports gaming" comment. Not sure when that will be, but I will try to get to it soon. After that, I'll be happy to take some questions about the show, but I can no longer return to the boards to forever continue this discussion. As you can see on the site, this show is not a one time special, but a weekly episodic series, so I must concentrate on other topics and leave the board or there will be no more episode to fume over. :) Thanks again, everyone. And keep gaming. (And rememeber to get your neo geo or pocket neo geo fixed in the next 11 days.)Play Value - The Death of Arcades
MESSAGE FROM JEREMIAH BLACK, DIRECTOR OF PLAY VALUE: Hey guys. Thanks for the responses, Splatterfan glad to have you back. Well, it seems like everyone is nice and calm now. I wasn't planning on returning to the forums for a couple days (deadlines on other stuff are looming) but I wanted a few things made public because what was being implied by some was incorrect. So, just to clarify. (A) There was no "rush" to make a follow up episode in response to these posts. The follow up episode was written (and has already been partially shot) loooong before this. In fact, the episode(s) is really about 18 months old, as it was originally a pilot for a weekly 1/2 hour television show I was directing 1 1/2 years ago. Except in that whole 1/2 hour we covered most of what you and splatterfan and others mention so passionately. Now that it's been re-packaged to 8 minutes, I split it up into two halves- one stating arcades are dead, and the other saying they're coming back and have always been around in Japan, and (to a certain extent) here. Neither episode is as detailed as I'd like them to be. But oh well. If everyone out there would like to mail me a check for $10,000, then I'd be willing to make a 2 hour documentary on the whole subject that would make everyone happy. We could even get Peter Jacobsen to come in and talk about golden tee! :) Nevertheless, responses to the show are over 99% positive and less than 1% negative, showing me that my decision to put 1/2 as episode 1 and the other as episode 12, wasn't that bad. But, I suppose I'd put it at episode 2 if I could go back in time, to avoid so much fighting and negativity between the viewers of differing perspectives. Like I said in an earlier post, if anyone still really cares, I can try to have it bumped to the #9 slot at this point, because, aside from a two part series on failed consoles, none of the upcoming episodes are really tied to each other (although there is an order I'd prefer them in for clarity). So, again, while I respect and value the education, opinions, perspective, and dedication of the posters here, I will not be writing the season to accomodate a vocal minority. The show has been watched in this last week alone tens of thousands of times, and negative feedback has been largely centered around about a dozen people. I'm not trying to belittle anyone's perspective in the least, because it's quite a very infomed dozen people, but I can't do my job this way- especially when most of the dissenting perspective has already been covered and is coming out a future episode already. I'm very sorry, and I mean no offense by that in the least, but if you care to watch the other episodes of the show and read the other forums, you'll see me in there too, telling people that future episodes are coming and to please be patient. And when it comes out, everyone may like the episode or everyone may not, some will feel it didn't go too far, some will feel it went too far. But, that's just gonna be the show. Everyone out there who works in a creative field knows that nothing will please everyone and certainly not at 8 minutes. So, I hope you guys really like it, but if you don't, then I hope you understand that with 99% positive feedback, I'm gonna have to just move on. at some point. (B) the video wasn't "dropped" or "backed away from" by other sites hosting it, as "editor" claimed or might like to believe. It's gone because it was being illegally hosted. I personally didn't mind it, but, as the director, I don't own or distribute this program and so I have no sway over such matters. Anyone out there with any television experience will understand this. (c) speaking of television experience, I wouldn't put too much stock into reading into a press release for a look at what the show is "really" up to. The distributor and parent company of a show such as this does their job, and I do mine. This was the same way when I making shows for direct tv and cablevision. Programming directors would cut entire commericals for programming I produced, and we'd never even met each other! If you want the straight dope about content, please ask me: the director of the show. The people that own and sell the show have a whole different set of expertise, skills, and job duties. Please respect the distinction. I think you'll find that there are very few directors who are willing to come online (on top of the 60 hours a week I already work and raising my 3 year old son) to chat with the gaming commuity and do their best to address concerns that arise from 1% of a show's audience. But I like the gaming community, so I do this wiithout being asked. All I ask in return is that everyone please try to get along.Play Value - The Death of Arcades
ANOTHER MESSAGE FROM JEREMIAH BLACK, DIRECTOR OF PLAY VALUE. To doodah: If you cannot stop insulting people here and make your points nicely like "Editor" does, I will personally call the administrators and have you removed. As the director, I don't like to get involved with the show's distributor, but you need to tone the hatred down, buddy. Let's all play nice. And please don't publicly deny you posted a link to a very nasty site filled with people posting personal information on the cast for the purposes of sexist harrassment. I saw it, and so did the administrators, and we all talked about it . You're still here because we're waiting for everyone to calm down and start getting along on here as adults. But please don't lie about it. An apology would be better. To "editor": check out my previous comments. If you want, post your email and we can speak directly. The episode you want is already coming, but we can still discuss it if you like. As for splatterfan1988 and Eugeneleyritz and everyone else, I think everyone's made their respective points already. So, let's just let the back and forth die for a bit, please.Play Value - The Death of Arcades
MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR OF PLAY VALUE: Hello everyone here! My name is jeremiah Black. I am the Producer and Director of Play Value. You may have seen me here before, as I pop on the boards every now and again to say hi and answer questions from everyone posting. And now that I've popped back in, I see a lot of angry people! Some intelligent posts like the last one, and some nasty ones. Before I clear up a few things about this particular episode, I'd like to tell all the people who were frustrated with this episode that your concerns have already been addressed in an upcoming episode of the show. This series is designed in 12 episode "seasons". And they are all filmed up front, and then released (like most tv) weekly, long after they've already been completed. The first episode of the the inital run of 12 was to be "the death of the arcade" and was to feature how arcades are currently running at only about 5% of their glory days, and how the new generation of americans wanted story not score. The last episode of the 12 was to be called "Return of the aracde!" and was to feature the success of the arcades in Japan, and the resurgence (popularized even on colsoles by the Wii) of smaller form games that focus of the art of game design and less on the current "story", FMV ,40 hour narrative games that currently dominate the younger generation in the US. With every episode there's always a certain amount of, "why didn't you mention ______? Are you crazy?" And the answer is typically the same. We only have 8 minutes to deal with. So, as such, we are limited to presenting only one perspective or "take" on the particular subject, and muct save alternate perspectives for future episodes. As I said, this episode was to focus on why arcades currently hold around 5% of the market share they used to in America, and to present the popular opinions and tastes that led to this state. Not only are arcades not as popular, but arcade style gaming is largely unpopular with the new generation here in the US. But that's changing as 40 hour FMV narrative games grow more and more boring and repetitive and people rediscover the thrill of short form gameplay. Hence the future episode "Return of the arcade!", which will also cover the fact that (like home video games) the arcade never really died in Japan, and just like the Japanese brought home video games back to like in 1986 after the market crashed here in the US, the Japanese are bringing arcades and arcade style gaming back to America and validating all the arcade loving diehards who are still playing. Hits like Dance dance revolution, Guitar hero, and even the currnt trend of classic arcade bars will also be covered as well as games like Golden tee. Actually, most of this was actually in the closing of the 1st episode but was cut due to time constaints, and it will be repurposed for the future episode. So, let me close with two things. (1) please keep it nice and friendly on these boards. Please. I can't stress that enough. We all love games here, so we should really be making friends with each other. Not arguing and being nasty. (2) Like I 've said on the boards here in the past: be patient! It's a weekly 8 minute show. Everyone's concerns WILL almost ALWAYS be addressed in future episodes. The limited scope of each program is a by-product of the time constraints, and there will be many, many episodes coming out that will cover all the things we know and love. Oddly enough, I was just discussing this with another producer friend of mine just last week. And he said, "Man, there's just so many factors outside of your control that determine what eventually makes it into a piece and what doesn't. But, it's funny how if something doesn't make it in the show, people just assume you don't know it." I laughed at the time, but it seems less funny now. :) Trust me, fellow gamers, there's nothing that's been posted here or elsewhere that we're all not perfectly aware of at Play Value. It's all coming out in the future. I know the upset people online are aracde enthusiats, and so feel a certain amount of passion for the issues. That's great, but the fact is that consoles do dominate rght now, and so you'll have to wait a little bit (episode 12) to be vindicated. Perhaps in retrospect, I should've made "The return of the aracde!" the very next episode (episode 2), to immediatly go with this episode. But, at the time, I thought it would be cool to close the season with it (episode 12), so I could get to consoles faster (which is all 95% of the viewers care about). Well, if in two weeks, anyone here still cares, I can try to get the "return of the arcade!" episode moved up to the episode 9 slot, but that's the best that can be done at this point. Sorry about that; these things are planned out pretty far ahead. I'll be checking in tonight briefly, so if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. Thanks guys, and keep gaming- Jeremiah Black, Director/Producer of Play Value.Play Value - The Death of Arcades
Hey Fat Bird, Jeremiah Black here. Thanks for the compliment. I love backpack picnic, so right back at you with the high praise. By the way, Jeremiah Black isn't my real name either. Oddly enough, my real name is also René Pinnell. Dude, what are the odds of that?! Don't cash my checks.Play Value - The Death of Arcades
GericVas: The episode is less "forgotten consoles" as it is "failed consoles". The episode is a lot about why certain consoles failed and others didn't. Some of them were great (dreamcast); some of them sucked biiiig time (atari jaguar). But we're going to explore a dozen or so and discuss why each one ultimately didn't catch on (including a discussion about the hands down worst console of all time which was... stay tuned. Anyway, hope you like it. Look for it in about 5 weeks or so. Unitl then. they'll be a new episode up every week about other awesome stuff. - JBPlay Value - The Death of Arcades
Hi, this is jeremiah black; I'm the director of this show. The colecovision episode is being shot in about 3 weeks. Unfortunately, since I stay a few episodes ahead of the weekly release schedule, this means you won't see it for another 6 weeks or so. But it's coming! Intellivision doesn't get its own episode, but it's mentioned in deatail in a recently shot episode about forgotten consoles. And, yes, it was the sports console of its time- similar to the sega dreamcast in that regard. Glad you enjoyed the show.Comedy Insider - Women In Comedy
So, go see her at the club!