Podcast 108: Ask Your Questions!

Imagine if instead of releasing playable DLC modules, a story-driven JRPG released high-quality narrative content in the form of visual novels, narrative podcasts or serialized stories. Would you pay for content like this? Do you think that games can anchor a multi-media franchise in the same way that the Witcher novels created the basis for a highly successful trilogy of RPGs? (We've seen a bit of this with FFXV Brotherhood, or the FFVII compilation and even FFX to some extent, although much of this content was either not originally released in English or not consistent with the rest of the franchise, like Advent Children.)

What alterations do you think could be made to the turn based strategy genre to move it to VR? Could we see a switch to a Tabletop Wargame style interface, or perhaps a move to an pauseable action model, with very large maps to lend itself to slower play and Valkyria chronicles -style movement? I could get pretty excited for commanding troops from inside my tank, with some futuristic AR readouts telling me my hit ?% :)

If you had to Buy one game shown at each E3 press conference, (and could only buy one) which games would you buy and why? (Meaning one game shown at Sony conference, one game from Nintendo Presentation, EA, Ubisoft, and so on...)

Steam has just recently opened a pandora's box; they have chosen to take a very hands-off approach to the games that are located in their library. So long as they do not violate the law and/or are not 'troll' games. This has caused a bit of a divide with gamers all over the place on the issue. Some are glad that games like the visual novels will not get filtered just because they have higher sexual content then many want in their games. Others are worried that this will allow games with hate speech or balant racism or sexism in and those shouldn't be allowed there. Others still are just worried that the overall quality of each game will drop. It would seem this has caused a problem without a cure all answer. What are your thoughts on the situation? Do you think Steam needs to be stricter on the content that is allowed there? Or is the idea of you should just ignore the games that insult you a better option? Thanks for your time.

ReyIvory

How disappointed were you with Square’s press conference? Recycled trailers, no FFVII, no FFXVI and most importantly no FFVIII on PS4.

Are there any novels you'd love to see adapted to a video game? Are there any games you'd like to see translated to a novel or have a spin-off series of books rather than movies like Advent Children and Kingsglaive. No copping out on the Witcher, Mike! lol

I personally think that this years press conferences, despite some surprises, were very dull. Whether it’s unenthusiastic hosts or a lack of exciting titles overall, what do you think is causing E3 conferences to be so dull. P.S. I write this having not yet seen either Sony’s Conference nor the Nintendo Direct. Hoping both of those are great.

Price Everett

How do you feel about games presenting you with ambiguous moral decisions? Do you prefer straightforward good/evil in your open-world games, or gray-area complexity? What about games that present ambiguous moral choices and then impose a "correct" answer on you afterwards (usually via rewards/penalties/karma system)?

As I put on Discord - What do you think of Microsoft gobbling up Ninja Theory and what does it mean for the example it set for independent development if anything?

ChocolateRob

It seems like Post Apocalyptic games are more prevalent than ever (going off of what I've seen at E3). Why do you think that studios tend to oversaturate certain genres instead of trying to do something completely new?