Danielle Riendeau of Polygon in an Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker producer and director Koichi Hayashida and Shinya Hiratake:

“We began with Super Mario 64,” Hayashida told Polygon via video conference. “While Super Mario 64 was quite an interesting game, we heard that roughly 20 percent of gamers found it too difficult,” he said, brandishing a copy of the Nintendo 64 game. “We kept that comment that the game was too challenging and made games like Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World with that in mind.”

But, in making 3D Land and 3D World, the team felt it was getting away from a fundamental design principle that made Mario 64 so special: the idea that the levels were a sort of “diorama” or a “garden in a box,” entire worlds contained in relatively compact structures. In creating the Captain Toad stages for Mario 3D World, the studio was able to go back to that idea, and keep the challenge level accessible.

That’s how the team created the handful of stages starring Captain Toad for Super Mario 3D World. They represented a different style of play from the traditional 3D platforming in the rest of the game — slower paced and more cerebral, they offered players something of a refresher between obstacle courses and cat-powered wackiness.

In addition to the variety of interesting cross-overs and spin-offs, it seems like Nintendo has been a bit more open as of late, offering more peaks behind the certain.

As for Captain Toad, I love that Super Mario 64 stands as its foundation. However, my favorite part of Super Mario 64 is the challenge. It is always great to take a swing at impossibly difficult missions year after year. There is almost a “young grasshopper” feel to it. I hope Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker’s accessible “challenge level” isn’t too far removed from Super Mario 64.

Either way, this interview solidifies my thought that Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is genius.

Paul Tassi writing for Forbes:

It just seems like a strange pairing, and I think if Upton or her support staff understood the industry more, they’d realize that Game of War is a relatively spammy title compared to other offerings in the video game industry, and rather beneath one of the most famous supermodels in the world. Though I suppose what was almost certainly a multimillion dollar paycheck for no more than a few day’s work will draw all the kind words the game requires.

It’s an interesting, unsettling age we live in where games can be bad by nearly anyone’s standards, but still be hugely profitable with enough marketing to herd easily-addicted players toward a microtransaction-stuffed title. It seems to be working quite well with Game of War, but I’m not sure how long these kinds of titles can continue to find success, as they seem to have a short shelf life once players get tired of being milked endlessly.

While I find the Game of War marketing campaign adolescent and lazy, I don’t have a problem with Upton being placed in ads or the game itself any more than I do Kevin Spacey in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. I’m sure she was offered a fine deal for her likeness. In-game celebrity is something we should be getting used to. (Peter Dinklage voiceover in Destiny, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood)

Regarding Tassi’s thoughts on the longevity of “these kinds of titles”, Transformers: Age of Extinction grossed $1.09B. Bay’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles grossed $474.4M. I hope you see what I’m getting at here. And I’m a huge TMNT fan.

UPDATE: It looks like Game of War has released a new version of their Twitter campaign, reading “Will you be the hero?” vs. “Will you be my hero?” Note that the banner image differs as well, with less of an upfront focus on Upton. Context suggests “the” seems more in-line than “my”, but is this a variant or a rebrand?

Luke Plunkett, Kotaku:

I get that making games is hard. That publishers force deadlines on teams, that accounting for millions of players is rough work, that a myriad of technical complexities mean completely eradicating bugs is an impossible task.

As a paying customer, though, I just don’t care anymore. Why? Because right now, the blockbuster video game industry is taking more than it’s giving back.

Another good read about the growing trend of broken games, the need for bigger testing budgets, and the call not to pre-order games.

Plunkett continues:

If a car, or DVD, or rice-cooker, or phone, or basically anything else launched with significant parts not working, or not working as well as advertised, it’d be slammed. People would demand their money back, and they would get it, because there is an expectation that when you pay money for something, it works.

My similar thoughts from November 11, 2014 below:

This does not, however, address the problem of protection from broken product. This is not film or music— botched playback would never escape manufacturing; a bad bounce would never escape the studio. Pre-orders for products so deeply rooted in real-time mechanics and engineering, notoriously subjected to time crunches and annual release dates, cannot wisely be considered for pre-order without subjection to reviews. While I implore patiently waiting for reviews on this type of product, release date and post-release date embargo lifts, as Kuchera implies, are cowardly and bullshit.

Hat tip to Brett Batesole.

MIT lecturer Michael R. Trice on #GamerGate numbers, emphasis his:

In both the case of tweets and RTs about 500 accounts create half of the total volume in the conversation. Regular daily participation floats around 3,000 users. Then there’s a large body of several thousand accounts dipping a toe in the conversation.

This suggests that however organized or unorganized the movement, the conversation around #GamerGate on Twitter has a central core limited to a few hundred highly active accounts. The total mass of the conversation is in the tens of thousands, though over 80% of those members are involved on less than a daily basis.

Interesting case study. Social media can certainly act as a megaphone for tiny groups and individuals. These small groups get even louder when they play to our natural sensitivity toward criticism, threats, and negativity. An 8-year-old kid and sound as legitimate and scary as a group of fully capable 28-year-old adults.

@Spaceageapp:

Making sure Space Age is colorblind friendly.

Awesome accessibility awareness. And top level too. (Tap Options on the title screen and there they are!) That alone earned Big Bucket Software my $3.99.

Space Age: A Cosmic Adventure is currently available for iOS. Looking forward to playing. Also hearing great things about the soundtrack by Cabel Sasser.