Lookin' Back on 2008
2008 is history.

For many folks, they are probably not upset to see it go. It brought us the biggest drop in the stock market since 1931, a lot of lost jobs, mortgage failures, company closures, and the embarassing socialization of major parts of our entire financial industry.

For my part, I found myself forced to evacuate the mainstream videogames business yet again - this time, apparently, in the nick of time. Last time I had a year to stew over the wisdom of my departure before discovering I'd made the right decision. I could say, "Never again," but I have also learned never to say never.

This year, we won a game-in-a-year competition with a "pilot" version of Frayed Knights. Alas, winning the contest turned out to be a lot less rewarding than anticipated. A sign o' the times, I guess. But the best thing about the contest was that it forced me onto a pretty hard schedule and really pushed me in some good directions. It also provided me with a ton of feedback which compelled me to make some major changes to the game (but also confirmed some of my more core design instincts were not too far off track).

I had several other personal goals that were met, including writing paid articles and taking the plunge to really learn about investing and trading on the equities market. As far as taking the plunge into the world of investing (trying to see if any of my gamer instincts will serve me there...), I really don't know if I could have picked a better year to learn.

This year saw the release of a fourth edition Dungeons & Dragons game. The jury is still out on it, but the word so far seems to be that it has been a mild success. Maybe that was as good as could have been hoped for in the economic downturn (I certainly haven't been their bestest customer evar following the switch), but it certainly does provide a new chapter in a saga that began in 1974 (or, arguably, earlier) and was the grandfather of the passtime I love and am so involved in today.

2008 saw an explosion of new Massively Multiplayer Online RPGs, particularly amongst the lower-budget tier - yet it also saw some pretty spectacular failures that continued to demonstrate that merely making a game "Massively Multiplayer" is not a license to print money. Flagship Studios' big release, Hellgate: London, was a thud heard round the world. Richard "Lord British" Garriott's magnum opus, Tabula Rasa, was around only a little over a year before making a December announcement of its upcoming closure. Age of Conan launched with a bang, but now seems to be on life support. And while not an RPG, Fury was another highly publicized MMO which closed down this year after less than a year in operation.

On the hardware front, pundits continued to declare the death of the PC as a gaming platform. PC gaming, on the other hand, stubbornly ignored rumors of its own demise and continued to grow in sales - particularly when online gaming and online sales are factored in. On the console front, the Nintendo Wii seemed to be the big winner, the XBox 360 enjoyed a steady growth, and the PS3 suffered a difficult year in spite of Blu-Ray's victory over the HD DVD format. Did Sony win the battle only to lose the war? I wouldn't go that far, as I think there are several battles still to come. But I imagine executives at Sony have had to take second helpings of humble pie this year.

Single-player RPG Fans were treated to several great titles this year across multiple platforms, from the U.S. and European release of the "expanded edition" Persona 3: FES (a "cult hit") and Persona 4 for the aging PS2, Fable 2, Tales of Vesperia, and of course the much-anticipated Fallout 3. Xbox fans were also treated to the surprise announcement that Final Fantasy XIII would be released on the 360 as well as the PS3. Avernum 5 (for the PC), Geneforge 5 (for the Mac), Kivi's Undeworld, The Spirit Engine 2, Mount & Blade, and Laxius Force were some significant new additions this year.

Indie games in general saw a steady growth in attention, if not in profitability. 2008 was the year of several high-profile "indie" releases, including Castle Crashers and Braid on the 360, Multiwinia, the aforementioned Mount & Blade, and World of Goo.

And bringing it all back to home again, 2008 was the year that I rediscovered that my time really is a terribly finite resource and I don't have nearly the time to play / make / write as much as I'd like. There is a lot I'd like to do with my various projects and with this site that I haven't managed to pull off yet, so those goals are getting moved from 2008 to 2009. My intent is still to make this blog (and the forums) a top source of information and commentary on indie RPGs, to a lesser degree indie "adventure games," and anything peripherally related (including RPGs and indie games in general).

If there are ways I can make this site more valuable to you for that purpose, let me know!
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 4:10 AM (Permalink)