Gamasutra Expert Blogs: From Rubber Banding To Beatles: Rock Band's Weak Sales

Author: by Staff

In highlights from Gamasutra's Expert Blogs, industry notables write about why the lagging sales of The Beatles Rock Band weren't surprising, why audio guys design on nice speakers and rubber banding in racing games. In our weekly Best of Expert Blogs column, we showcase notable pieces of writing from members of the game development community who maintain Expert Blogs on Gamasutra. Member Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while the invitation-only Expert Blogs are written by development professionals with a wealth of experience to share. We hope that both sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information about the blogs, check out the official posting guidelines. Here are the top blogs for the week: This Week's Standout Expert Blogs - Validation Theory (Taekwan Kim) Taekwan Kim brings up what he calls the "validation theory" in his latest blog post. Here, he argues that "a consequence is a reward whenever it validates the player." See exactly how that relates to games in this extensive post. - Why Audio Guys Use "Nice" Speakers (Mark Kilborn) Raven audio lead Mark Kilborn explains why sound designers use "nice" speakers when creating games instead of ones found in the "real world" that would reflect ones owned by the average consumer. "Don't think we're using big speakers because we just want to hear things on a big, loud system. That's not the case at all," he says. - Character Development (Gabriel Lievano) Immersion Games programmer Gabriel Lievano goes over four points about why people play games, and how that relates to the relationship between a player and a game. - Message to MTV Games: Don't Blame The Economy (David Wesley) David Wesley with Northeastern University writes: "MTV Games blames disappointing Beatles: Rock Band sales on economic factors and competition. In reality, MTV has succumbed to an unconscious psychological bias to be overly optimistic even when faced with overwhelming evidence." Here, he explains why he wasn't so surprised about flagging sales. - Rubber-Banding as a Design Requirement (Dave Mark) AI expert Dave Mark examines the oft-lamented (by gamers) design choice of "rubber-banding" that's often found in racing games. While some categorize it as "unfair," Mark takes a closer look at the value of the rubber band design.