Super Meat Boy: The Novel

Super Meat Boy: The Novel is one of the best books ever written.  In the modern literature industry, where virtually anyone can finish a book, Super Meat Boy: The Novel is a throw back to an earlier, better time.  Super Meat Boy: The Novel is available in only the bound hardcover format, a retro touch that all hardcore literature lovers who grew up reading books printed on the Gutenberg Entertainment System will appreciate.  If you're used to modern books, with their page numbers and other in-book tutorials, or even worse, used to Kindles that perpetually save your progress and allow you to restart wherever you stop (even mid-sentence!), Super Meat Boy: The Novel might not be for you.  But if you're a hardcore reader that misses the simple pleasures of the retro-reading experience--carrying large heavy books, using bookmarks, having bookmarks fall out your book and then needing to re-read several pages of the book until you can remember where you left off--then Super Meat Boy: The Novel will satisfy your hardcore retro reading desires. 

 

Super Meat Boy: The Novel starts off slow, the first 12 pages or so primarily consist of simple three to five word sentences to familiarize you with the idea that you'll be reading a book, and the types of words that will appear in this book.  This is nothing like an in-book tutorial.  However, mixed in with those sentences are famous lines from other books and stories!  These lines come out of nowhere and have nothing to do with anything but it's really neat to remember one book while you're reading another! You'll have to be a really dedicated hardcore reader to get all the references though.

 

Once you get past those first few pages the real action starts.  Super Meat Boy: The Novel is hard, so expect to fail often.  None of it feels cheap, though, because the font is so nice, and the words are all there in the book, so when you fail it's just because you didn't try hard enough to figure out that page's trick.  On some pages the words are in a completely random order and you'll be forced to experment until you find just the right order to read them.  One page was written almost entirely in homophones so you had to say it out loud for it to make any sense.  Another page was written in Sumerian!  And I know this is sort of a spoiler, but reading "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore FART thou, Romeo" in Sumerian is hilarious, and really hardcore retro readers will know that this is a sweet meta joke about the localization errors that often plagued Gutenberg Entertainment System releases. 

 

So the hilarious references to other books continue throughout even the challenging hardcore sections of Super Meat Boy: The Novel, which is good becasue it means that the book never strays from its central theme:  literature was somewhat different and less accessible twenty years ago, and only the truly hardcore and retro can remember that time and appreciate how the inaccessibility made literature more awesome.  This litearture enthusiast and self-proclaimed Gutenberg fanboy gives Super Meat Boy: The Novel a perfect review score of 10.  It's even better than Helen of Troy's tits!

 

 

*I actually thought Super Meat Boy was pretty fun, but good lord the reviews were frustrating.

Releasing My Ire

Duke Nukem Forever is "the joke Jay Leno told that made someone under the age of 72 laugh" of video games.  You know, because neither exists.

Part II of This Post Is Available For 400 Microsoft Points

Nothing brings out comment section fallacies like Downloadable Content! Bioware announced this week that there would be Mass Effect 2 DLC available on the game's release day. The content is free if you buy the game new but will cost extra if you buy the game used. And so began the handwringing.

The complaints are always hilarious and generally rely on two strange claims. The first claim is that the standard video game price points are magical and perfectly capture the costs of making a video game. Then there's the claim that content producers have no right to dictate the shape of their content. From these claims spring theories ranging from "consumers are so powerful that they will inevitably smite publishers employing odiuos DLC practices by never ever buying any of their products ever again," to "consumers are so subjugated that they have no choice but to submit those same publishers' offers of bonus content and $1,000,000 horse armor with open wallets."

The first claim is the silliest. The standard, American, current generation (including PC), $50-$60 price point is based on nothing more than the inertia of a 20-year-old idea that video games should cost about $50. If you are going to argue that the Xbox/PS3 $60.00 price point has any more than the most tenuous connection to publisher or developer costs (i.e. something stronger than "publishers don't charge $1 because they would definitely lose money") then you have a lot of things to explain. For example, why are the Xbox and PC versions of Mass Effect 2 different prices? Why will their respective console versions of Final Fantasy XIII and MLB 2k10 all cost $60 when they're released this March despite the two games' drastically different budgets and development costs? Gaming price points have almost nothing to do with costs. Sixty dollars is just a price that game publishers are comfortable will bring them sufficient revenue, and consumers are comfortable represents a reasonable price for "a video game." Unless it's on PC, then it's $50.

The idea that $60 can or even should accurately capture and reflect input costs (even including things like theoretical resale value? Really?), is bizarre. The only way the Magic Price Point makes any sense at all is if you assume that every video game publisher/developer can predict exactly how much time and effort they should expend on a game in order to make it "worth" $60/copy to them. This, I think, is closer to the truth. Compaines don't always get the calculus right, of course, but it's pretty much the idea behind budgeting. But that undermines claim number two.

Content producers get to decide what content they produce. The counterarguments are all facially absurd, but they persist nonetheless. A common complaint about Mass Effect 2's day-one DLC is "it should just be part of the game if it already exists." First, in this case at least, it is part of the game. Every copy of Mass Effect 2 includes a copy of the dreaded, already extant DLC in the game's standard $60 purchase price. But, even if that were not the case, several problems surface. Is timing really that important? All three Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies were filmed simultaneously. Were New Line Cinema just being dicks when they released them seperately? Why or why not? Does this complaint only apply on the release date? Mass Effect released two DLC packages subsequent to it's 2007 release. Must every new copy of Mass Effect sold now include those two DLC packages for free? If not, how is that any different than releasing a game and a DLC package simultaneously? If so, must every copy of Mass Effect 2 also include a free copy of Mass Effect? How is that different? Bioware and EA produced something that they called "Mass Effect 2". They are charging $60 for it. They also produced other stuff related to Mass Effect, like novels, comic books, and downloadable content for Mass Effect 2. They are charging various prices for these things. You can buy these things if you want to, or you can leave them on their shelves.

Underlying all these claims is a weird theory of supply and demand. The analysis takes as a given that the consumer will purchase a product, but seeks to extract concessions from the producer anyway, either as a reward for the consumer's purchase or to make it "fair." I guess a reasonable transaction plays out like this:

Consumer: Hello developer. I am definitely going to buy one of your games when it becomes available. I am so exicted that nothing will stop me from buying it.

Producer: Great! You're going to love this game. You may want to buy some of the other products we're releasing along with the main game. We think they'll be great for people who want to expeirence more of the game's world!

Consumer: Sorry, I need all of your associated products for free. Otherwise, I will perceive this purchase as a karmic injustice. And I'm definitely going to make this purchase no matter what you do, so you have a large incentive to comply with my demands.

Producer: You're right.

There's a really simple remedy available to you, the consumer, if you feel a product is unfairly priced: don't buy it. But it's up to you to determine whether something is fairly priced. And you can't buy things that don't exist. Again, Bioware has put out a "Mass Effect 2" that they think is reasonably valued at $60. If you agree, you can give Bioware $60 and they will give you one Mass Effect 2. If you buy it used instead of new, the value exchange is a little different. If you buy a used copy for $50, Bioware receives nothing, your used game dealer receives approximately $30-35 ($50 minus whatever it bought the used copy for) and you receive $10 in savings. That's great. Now Bioware charges you $10 for something that is included in new copies of the game. If you buy the content, you're back where you started, paying $60 for game plus extra content. The other parties shares will be different but that's not your problem. You get something else by waiting though. What if you hate the game? Then you come out ahead. Instead of paying $60 for a game you don't like and extra content you won't use, you've paid $50 for a game you don't want and kept $10 for yourself.
You've essentially bought insurance. If the DLC ends up costing more than the savings, and you want the DLC, you've over insured.  Sorry, welcome to life.

The same calculation applies to preorder bonuses. If you are 100% positive you are going to buy a game, there is no downside to preordering it the month before and getting an extra gun. If you unsure whether you want a game, you can wait until reviews come out, or rent it first. You won't get the extra gun, but you are hedging against the chance of wasting $60. I can't imagine there are many people who are sure they want Mass Effect 2's Terminus armor, but unsure whether they'll like the actual game.

I just don't get the consternation.  Can someone explain it to me?