The Weekend Paper - December 6, 2014

Photo courtesy dualshockers.com

This has been an exciting weekend for video games. With The Game Awards (which are on track to finally becoming something the industry can be proud of) and the Playstation Experience in Las Vegas, a lot of news has broken about new games in the last two days. The future looks very bright for the industry, but I think that future would be nothing without indie games and never has that fact been more clear than this weekend. 

Games like No Man's Sky and Minecraft before it, have given publishers the courage to support independent developers not only with big money, but with creative freedom as well. It's encouraging to see true indie games like Adr1ft, Tacoma and Before premiering in prominent spots on The Game Awards, but even more encouraging to see big publishers supporting small teams like EA with Hazelight and Activision with Kings Quest. Maybe these publishers are just trying to squash out the little guy, but the current business model doesn't leave indie developers with very many weaknesses. It's a good time to be a gamer, and I would imagine, a good time to be a game maker. 

But anyway, here are this week's topics: 

• Arcade Fire is one of my favorite bands, but I haven't fallen in love with any of their albums like I did when I first heard their debut, Funeral, back in 2005. 
• My wife isn't a gamer. So it was especially comical to listen to her commentary of last night's Game Awards broadcast. 
• Infamous: Second Son isn't perfect, but it's one of the best games I've played this year. 

Come back next week for more. Have a great weekend.

Cheers!

Daniel Jones