NickSchaden

Live service games are taking the wrong lessons from Fornite

04.04.24 | Gaming | ∞

Fortnite is a gaming success story that is paradoxically underreported, underrated, and misunderstood by the many new games as a service (GaaS) that try to emulate its feature set. Mainstream hype about Fortnite (e.g., billion dollar Disney investments, musical collaborations with Lady Gaga) obscures a primary reason the game continues to crush virtually every would be competitor in its path: it nails its fundamentals beautifully.

Every time I boot up Fortnite, I have enormous flexibility to play how I want. Within its multiplayer shooter core, there’s an immense variety of skins and other customization options. The artistry isn’t always for me, but the cosmetics set a consistently high quality bar. When I start a multiplayer match, I can chase the XP goals I’m in the mood for, whether combat-focused, exploration, or a mini battle pass narrative story. Skill based match making strikes a good balance; I can challenge myself by purposefully landing in frenzied hot zones or begin a match far away from the action to take things at a slower pace.

Fortnite also respects my money and time. Its battle pass doles out decent, reasonably varied rewards at a faster clip than most of the competition. Even half finished, I end up earning enough V-bucks to allow me to buy a future battle pass at a reduced rate. The time to kill is reasonably high compared to other popular shooters like Call of Duty or Apex Legends, which gives me a competitive opportunity to react and fight back against better players. Matches rarely last longer than twenty minutes.

Dreams of 4K HDR are fading into 1080p realities

03.19.24 | Technology | ∞

A year ago, I criticized Netflix for gatekeeping their highest quality video and audio content behind a premium tier. Max, Prime Video, and Disney Plus have since added similar pricing structures. If you want 4K HDR and Dolby Atmos movies from the biggest four streaming sites, you’ll have to pay more, anywhere from $3 to $7 a month. On a practical level, it ensures the majority of the home movie-watching audience will do so capped at the same 1080p and Dolby Digital 5.1 streams we’ve had for over a decade.

As someone who wants the home movie experience to be great, this is depressing news, especially when the pipeline of high quality audio and video has never been better. Modern capture tech ensures that most film productions, regardless of budget, record in a 4K HDR-friendly format. As home internet bandwidth improves, more households can stream higher quality content without stuttering. Also, practically every TV sold today, including entry level models, supports 4K HDR, while Atmos-ready soundbars and sound systems are more affordable than ever.

Naughty Dog and the pitfalls of flat hierarchies

03.07.24 | Work | ∞

Watching Grounded II, a documentary on the making of The Last of Us: Part II, revealed unexpected parallels with my career. Making video games differs from shipping web apps, but the doc highlighted common challenges in navigating developers through hard deadlines, decision making, and resource management. I walked away from the experience with a newfound appreciation for how engineering managers can help ship great products.

Naughty Dog, the studio behind TLOU2, didn’t share my optimistic view on EMs. For most of its history, the studio went against industry trends by rarely hiring producers (dedicated roles to manage the project’s timeline and resource needs) or people managers. Department leads served as both individual contributors and quasi-managers. Naughty Dog leadership argued the producers and managers were a “crutch”, bureaucratic red tape that slowed down productivity and stifled creativity. Boasts around flat studio hierarchy appear as an aside in the documentary’s opening act.

The unfulfilled ambition of the Xbox ecosystem

02.22.24 | Gaming | ∞

During last week’s business update, Microsoft leadership reaffirmed two differentiators for the Xbox ecosystem: Game Pass (every first party game coming day one) and platform accessibility (cross-play, cross-save, cloud streaming). Yet I don’t see either feature today as a compelling reason for net new gamers beyond the PC and console core – Xbox’s stated long term growth target – to jump in with Xbox. They are features with huge potential but are stuck today in alpha mode.

Game Pass unquestionably has a lot of great games, but most of the library encompasses small, under the radar indie titles or older catalog hits. Microsoft puts all its first party titles on the service, but none have the marquee prestige and popularity of franchises popularized on rival systems from Sony and Nintendo. Furthermore, I find the onboarding process on Game Pass intimidating for newcomers. There’s a bewildering number of choices, and the Game Pass app’s recommendation system is limited and simplistic; there’s no sense of individual game length or difficulty to guide new players.

Xbox’s third party gambit

02.08.24 | Gaming | ∞

Recent news suggests Microsoft will shift Xbox to a multiplatform release strategy; existing and future first party games, including Starfield, Indiana Jones, and Gears of War will be ported to PS5 and Nintendo Switch. While we won’t know the whole story until a “business update” next week, I expect the change to be extensive, with many if not most top tier titles available soon on PSN and the Nintendo Store. In the face of lagging sales and stalled Game Pass subscriptions, the corporation is making a big bet that will attempt to thread a needle: keep an Xbox ecosystem sustainable – digital purchases on the Microsoft Store, lively Xbox Live network, Game Pass subscribers – while going multiplatform with in house studio games to generate additional revenue.

It’s a risk; no gaming company has succeeded as such an extensive third party publisher and simultaneous platform holder. Executed poorly, the plan could push the Xbox ecosystem into an eventual death spiral: gamers shift away from Xbox with its lack of exclusives, the install base drops, so other publishers stop porting games to Xbox, which leads to fewer players, until eventually Microsoft pulls the plug. Xbox hardware and accessories are dead, the digital library goes kaput, and Microsoft becomes a pure third party publisher like Sega.

4k Blu-rays: excellent format, questionable lifespan

01.29.24 | Technology | ∞

I have mixed feelings about 4K Blu-rays after plowing a lot of time and money into the technology. The format has significant hurdles for everyday TV watchers that make me question its longevity. Yet the upgrades have been substantial, at times incredible, even with a dated home theater setup.

That upgrade stems from Blu-ray’s unimpeachable picture and sound quality. In an era where most movies on streaming sites are compressed 1080p, where 4K streams may not even be an option unless you’re on a premium monthly plan, a 4K Blu-ray’s rock solid 4K HDR image looks sensational. The detail can be astonishing. In Blade Runner, as a character reads a newspaper, I can make out the text on individual articles. 4K Blu-rays also preserve the original film grain for movies shot on film stock, given the high quality scan. It’s a subtle effect that adds character, especially for older, classic films.

In fairness, you can purchase and rent many streaming movies in 4K. It’s also a commonplace resolution for streaming originals on services like Netflix and Apple TV Plus. However, because the data transfer rate on streaming is a third to a quarter of that on Blu-ray (streams top out at 40mbps, while Blu-ray maxes to 128mbps), the former relies on compression and other algorithmic tricks to deliver video.

Learn from the films you love

01.16.24 | film | ∞

To become a better film watcher, go beyond collecting favorites. Ask yourself why some of your favorite movies are the way they are. Favorites are idiosyncratic, personal, and influenced by forces beyond what’s on the screen. The more you understand your tastes, the better you’ll be able to find movies to watch in the future. And just as life can influence how we appreciate film, looking back on what we enjoyed can help us reflect on our lives.

This is an opinion borne out in my personal best of 2023. Four out of my top five pointedly reject the traditional “Hollywood narrative” approach to genre.

Killers of the Flower Moon is an epic western that explores systematic racism and unbridled capitalism without redemption, hero, or savior. The Zone of Interest is a Holocaust movie that engages with its horrors sonically but not visually. It “humanizes” the banal desires of its Nazi protagonists, which makes their actions all the more chilling. Past Lives is a romance that rejects an easy love triangle for a more mature vision where one can lose a soul mate and still live a fulfilling life. Anatomy of a Fall is a courtroom drama that avoids dramatic swings, explosive climaxes, and tidy resolutions.

My favorite games of 2023

12.28.23 | Gaming | ∞

Many professional critics consider 2023 one of the best years in gaming we’ve had in a long time. OpenCritic underlines this opinion; more games than average this year landed a coveted score of 85 or higher. But I was left mildly underwhelmed by what I played.

“Keeping up” as a modern console gamer is a challenge, with time available as my main hurdle. Many of the most acclaimed games this year – Baldur’s Gate 3, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty – are massive action adventure RPGs. They demand at least thirty-plus hours of my time to complete and are challenging to dip in and out of casually. Multiplayer experiences like Call of Duty or Halo Infinite still have a steep learning curve to play competitively. I never felt like I had the focus (or reflexes) to play matches without being repeatedly ripped apart.

The big budget games I did invest time into this year almost universally underperformed. Forza Motorsport is excellent when I’m racing on the track, but the overall single player experience lacks personality, and I’ve encountered many game breaking bugs and crashes. Starfield has gorgeous production and audio design, and I had a blast running through the game’s many faction quests. But eventually, character progression felt meaningless, with exploration that felt like a total afterthought. Diablo IV, as I’ve written about previously, had a great gameplay hook but suffered from a lack of variety and forgettable narrative. Call of Duty: Warzone’s DMZ mode was a mid-year multiplayer favorite, but Activision effectively killed it off.

Stumbles aside, my favorite game experiences this year, as in 2022, remained shorter. You can easily wrap up three of the five listed here in twelve hours or less. Another has daily puzzles that routinely take me under five minutes to complete. All have been a blast to play and are accessible enough to recommend to almost anyone.

A better TV picture in an hour or less

12.19.23 | Technology | ∞

The holidays are the prime season for new TVs. You may have bought one on sale. Or you’re encountering a “new” set because you’re visiting friends or family or taking an extended stay in a hotel or Airbnb. The ugly truth is that most TVs, even great ones, are left at their factory default settings, which are often flawed. They suffer from unnaturally smooth motion, garish colors, washed-out blacks, or parts of the image clipped out of existence.

We get bad defaults because manufacturers make a consensus choice across many tastes, TV content, and lighting conditions. That setup isn’t for you if you care at all about mirroring the creators’ artistic intent on a movie or TV show.

Better days are ahead for that TV with a few minutes in the system menus. If you have the extra time, you can calibrate brightness and contrast in under an hour to make the picture even better.