Secondly, I think shooters are over done and we need to move further way from them, as I lean toward in my closing. The games industry has an image problem. We have an image that says we are all about violence and nothing more. When we take a relatively nonviolent and family friendly game and turn it into a shooter, that shows that we are not moving away from that image. That is bad.

As for “hands on experience” with the game. Of course I don’t have any experience with it. I am not at E3. However, I did watch as 3 people played the game. I watched as they took something as fun and clever as Plants vs Zombies and turned it into something it is not.

Considering it seems like you’re just basing this on images and not-first hand experience with the game, I think you’re not really getting a point across.

A step-backwards? This is an original concept on a genre that genre that needs something fresh. People complain about the lack of original idea in the shooter scape, then when someone actually take a chance by genre-busting, people complain that it’s “not what we wanted”. Gamers are fickle and part of the reason why people still view the industry in such a poor light. If you want something different, make it yourself.

Hey, at least you can say one person actually bothered to read your “op-ed”

My thoughts after the E3.
Sony hit so many nails right on this one. The console price, the better exclusive titles on release and time ahead (FF15, KH3 etc), Cloudbased gaming library. The biggest change being the indie game self publishment will really hit Microsoft hard. That is such a huge step in the right direction. In terms of the 5$ subscription for being able to play online and get the benefits of that, Sony has just taken the step that Microsoft took a long time ago with the xboxlive fee and embraced that as well. I dont think any potential XBOX to PS converters will have a problem with that. And although online gameplay from PS3 now has shifted to become a monthly fee, its still my belief that THAT is the lesser of two evils but that the gap of “evilness”, between each will grow to be huge and more damaging for Microsoft and something that they didnt quite imagine could be the case for them.
IF i am to buy a console, im definately going for PS4, since i skipped ever buying PS3/Xbox360. I am a hardcore PC fan and i will always be one (Bestplatform4Life), but it would be nice to own a console again.

Thanks for respondinghere. On the side of competition I would say this. You can be first to market or you can be best in market. Rarely, barring a lot of money, can you be both. SkyFar chose to be first to market at the detriment of being any good. So now it is up to you to be best in market.

Besides that, we seem to somewhat agree (except for the ‘competition is what this is about’ thing).

It’s also telling that your final assumption is completely off – do note that we were the last to find out that Skyfar was the midst of a media storm. It’s safe to say a lot of people consider the game to be a rip-off, and we simply agree.

We don’t care about competing with clones, we just think they shouldn’t be part of our industry. As for competing – if we can stay afloat, we’re happy. If people are inspired by our games and release an inspired game before we do, we’re happy. If people copy and clone our game and beat us to the market, we object.

I’d argue it’s a cynical view to think of games as just a space to compete in. Beautiful things can happen if people cooperate willingly, instead of rip each other off.