Moby Dick

This is the first game I've ever played that is based off of a famous book called, Moby Dick. The game is a competitive yet team driven game that tells a story about sailors that are going after the great white whale. The first thing I can say about this game is that it's a process and can take up some time depending on the level of difficulty you choose. My group decided to go with only five chapters. The chapters determine how long you want the game to be and before each new chapter, you have to go through Moby Dick.

When starting out, you basically have to build a crew. It takes quite the crew in order to go after something like Moby Dick right? There are many other obstacles as well besides Moby Dick. There are many cards that help you and can get in your way during your journey. In-short, it's also a deck building game or rather hand-building. So, it starts with building a crew, which also means building up your strength against the great whale, which is actually key to survival. You will have cards that can either help you increase your strength, money, or crew, however that being said, there are also cards that can hurt you. There are "curse" cards that can decrease your strength and there are other effect cards that can destroy your crew. That aside, the game really is sort of a gamble. Hence, the nice custom made dice that are given to you. These determine many factors in the game such as damage, chance for something, etc. It's there to be fair with everything. When you get the basic mechanics down, you build up to the final chapter. In this chapter, it's just survival of the fittest. This is why I mentioned earlier that having a strong crew is essential. The one who is the last man standing wins the game. There are a lot of factors in the game that's for sure that will take some time to get used to and are challenging to remember because there are many different cards, but yet in only 3-4 categories.

What really interested me in this game is that it was started by a community fundraiser, which is what we are seeing a lot in today's world for any form of art as long as the community likes the idea. This project in particular can be found on Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/827765657/moby-dick-or-the-card-game), which surprised me because the creators only required $25,000 when it hit over $100,000. This seems to be the future of the industry where the community funds the projects and it shows that people are interested as long as the idea is good or the company has some form of reputation people seem to know about.

In conclusion, Moby Dick is a highly competitive game where the rules can change just by a single flip of a draw. It's only fun when you know the rules, but then again, every game has some sort of a process. The initial hook might not be there for everyone, but if anyone is fond of a small role-playing game, this is the game for you.

Gaming Industry Rant

Let me first start out by saying that I love video games. I grew up playing video games and I even used to play semi-professionally at one point in my life like participating in local tournaments, Cyber Athletic League aka CAL (old school), ESEA, etc. Personally, I am interested in the storytelling and/or the gameplay. Now, video games are at a new level of entertainment where standards have gone way up. Video games that are competitive, visually stunning, that have amazing storytelling, etc. have gone through this drastic change over the years to the point where to me, it’s basically an interactive movie. As an inspiring actor, I became really interested in this new level of entertainment. So, I want to ask you the question that I asked in one of my previous posts as a reminder and what you might have missed. Do you think, a typical $60 game is expensive? 

Here are the answers I received.

Basically, yes and no. Yes, because well let’s face it, not everyone has money growing on trees or have other priorities to pay for. Then no, because the quality, standards, and expectations have been raised to the point where the cost to make a game has gone way up.

Next question…..How much of that $60 actually goes towards the publisher and the developer?

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Video_game_costs <——Check this out. Especially check out the graph.

I came across this interesting topic by looking up actors for video games and I looked up Troy Bakerwho has voiced for Joel in The Last of Us, The Joker in Batman: Arkham Origins, Booker in Bioshock Infinite, and many more characters that I’m pretty sure you have seen throughout his career, but didn’t know it was him. He went over the following topics about the video game industry:

-Brief history
-The cost
-Companies
-Actors
-DLC
-Suggestions

There’s a lot more he went over during his panel earlier this year, but it got me really interested to look into how video games are produced these days. During the panel, he made this brilliant analogy between a game disc and a coffee cup.

Basically, the coffee cup is the disc and the coffee (the contents of the cup) is the game itself.

Look at all that deliciousness. Just like a game, you will enjoy it as long as it’s good.

Now, just like a game disc, once you’re done with all the content of the game, what do you do with the disc? Do you sell the game? Do you give it to GameStop for in-store credit?

A gamer gives GameStop a used game that is relatively new because they completed everything in that game within I don’t know….a week for an example. GameStop will give some form of in-store credit in return. However, GameStop will sell that game for nearly the full price. None of that money goes towards the publisher or developer. Smart and a brilliant business strategy, it’s capitalism at its best. Not saying this to put down GameStop, just stating what goes on. But, it has become the “Napster of the video game industry.” -Troy Baker. Plus, there is no way to beat it.

Next question…..Why do you think DLC exists?

According to Troy Baker, it’s so that you don’t sell that disc. Basically refilling the cup with coffee so you don’t throw away that cup. Publishers and developers make DLCs so that you will hold onto that disc or game.

I think it’s safe to say that the video game industry metaphorically is trying to turn a coffee cup into a coffee mug that would want to keep for the rest of our lives.

Interesting topic yes?

Let’s take a break really quick and go off on a tangent here by looking at some of these pictures that I think might shock you.

Sam Worthington was Alex Mason in Call of Duty: Black Ops. Yes, he is also Jake Sully from Avatar.

W. Earl Brown played as Bill in The Last of Us. Guess what? He played as Warren from There’s Something About Mary.

Yup. Same actor!

Yes, Gary Oldman was in *enter drumroll here* Call of Duty: Black Ops! Played as Viktor Reznov.

Do you remember this game? Jet Li in Rise to Honor.

Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe in Beyond Two Souls.

Ashley Johnson who is now known for playing Ellie in The Last of Us. Did you know she was in The Avengers?

Yup. She was the waitress.

Did you get the game because of the publisher and developer’s previous work? Or did you get the game because of the actors and actresses? Also, why don’t the veteran actors and actresses in video games get their names on the cover? Credit to all these actors and actresses though.

Troy also discusses actors being in video games and that it’s not the actors who sell the games, it’s the game content that matters the most. Also at the end of the day, making the shareholders happy. So, instead of me ranting about this topic, how about I let Troy Baker discuss it at one of his panels. I just found the topic so interesting that I wanted to make a post about it. It’s also the fact that I definitely would not mind at all auditioning for video games that have an amazing story to tell, gameplay, etc.

Anyways, I thought I would just share my thoughts on the video game industry and big thanks to Troy Baker for bringing up this interesting discussion. Thanks for reading and checking out this post!