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Joystiq Streams: Transistor with Supergiant and a Steam giveaway [UPDATE: Relive the stream!]
Supergiant Games are builders. Back when the studio first formed up, Bastion was born as a game about cartography, discovering and building space as you stepped through it. Transistor, its latest for PC and PlayStation 4, may not share Bastion's literal take on building a world, but it does construct a strange, comprehensive universe defined by electricity and information. Cloudbank is vividly realized but still mysterious even after you've played the game. Is the city inside a computer, Reboot-style? Is it common for people to be turned into giant talking swords? It is a place with unusual rules, as strange as any real place. Good thing Joystiq Streams has a guide in Greg Kasavin, creative director of Transistor from Supergiant Games. Starting at 4PM EST, Joystiq will be streaming Transistor here and on the Joystiq Twitch channel alongside Supergiant Games' Greg Kasavin. Richard Mitchell will be playing the game while Anthony John Agnello hangs in the chat feeding your questions to Greg and Richard as we go. Not only that, we'll be giving away Steam copies of Transistor as we play! Joystiq Streams broadcasts live at 4PM EST every Tuesday and Thursday here and at Twitch.tv/Joystiq. [Images: Supergiant Games]
Bastion sales surpass 2 million
During a Transistor demo session at E3, Supergiant Games' Greg Kasavin confirmed that the studio's first game, Bastion, has sold over two million copies. "Bastion has done really well for us; it's sold over two million copies across all platforms," Kasavin said. "That puts us in a position to make games on our own terms and take the time needed to get it right." Part of that success was the seven-man team's pursuit of creating something "worth a damn" and not disappointing each other, Kasavin added. "Games take a lot of time and a lot of money, so we just wanted to make something that made people feel like they didn't waste their time or money playing it." Back at DICE in February, Supergiant founder Amir Rao said Bastion had reached 1.7 million sales.
Supergiant: Transistor PS4 deal doesn't influence port timing
Supergiant's relationship with Sony and the deal to bring Transistor to PS4 doesn't limit when or prohibit how the studio pursues ports. "Just the fact that we're shipping simultaneously on PC, I think, gives you some sense. They've been very accommodating," Supergiant's Greg Kasavin said of Sony during an E3 appointment. "After our initial launch, nothing is ruled out. It's our game and our IP – the game is making its console debut on PS4 and coming to PC as well. That makes the most sense for us as a small team; it's a similar path to what we did with Bastion," Kasavin said. "For us, it's really important to not be tied down for the long haul, because Bastion's success was not made on any one platform. That being said, our focus is absolutely on a successful PS4 launch and also our Steam PC launch, because if that does not go well, there will not be other versions of the game, most likely and so forth. "We're excited about what the PS4 is, what it represents and its potential to be a great home for a game like this. So that informed our decision and, you know, after the launch, who's to say? It's anyone's guess, but Sony has shown an incredible amount of faith in us. So in turn we plan to make it the strongest launch as we can. I think it's safe to say we're not going to be on other platforms two days after launch – or possibly ever. We simply don't know."%Gallery-191372%
How a physical copy of Bastion wound up in Afghanistan
"He told me they had no plans of releasing a physical copy in the future, but if I gave him my address then he would see what he could do," one lucky Reddit user and Afghanistan-stationed United States Air Force officer wrote on the social news site earlier today. User "bolivar-shagnasty" was speaking about Supergiant's multi-award winning Bastion -- a game only available digitally for both Xbox 360 and PC.But "shagnasty's" internet connection while stationed in Afghanistan is ... let's call it less than ideal. "My internet connection is disgustingly slow and it costs so much that it seems like price gouging," he wrote. And despite his best efforts to snag Bastion via both Direct2Drive and Steam, he was rebuffed at both stops. Rather than give up, however, he decided to shoot an email to Supergiant and see if the studio had plans to release a retail version of the game at some point.Supergiant isn't a big studio by any means. Beyond creative director Greg Kasavin, six other folks can refer to themselves as full-time Supergiant-ers. So when the Air Force officer emailed what he expected to be customer support, he actually got a direct response from the aforementioned studio head, Greg Kasavin.
Stranger's Dream is the last planned Bastion DLC
Supergiant Games' creative director Greg Kasavin made his way down the red carpet at yesterday's Spike Video Game Awards, and stopped to speak with Joystiq about releasing the excellent Bastion on the Google Chrome browser platform. "It was an interesting project from a bunch of different angles," he said. "We were very curious about it technologically, because I'll be the first to admit that as a game player, I have certain preconceptions about what browser-based gaming is like." The whole project took about two months to make, and the team was uncertain they'd match the console version in quality, despite assurances from Google. "We were skeptical, but we got it up and running and we were like whoa, this actually works." The company is also planning on releasing a pack of DLC called "The Stranger's Dream" next week that will take players through another Who Knows Where sequence about the Rucks character. When asked if there will be more DLC after that, Kasavin gave a flat "no," but he's not so clear about whether this is the end of Bastion for good: "We don't know that for sure, but it's the end of our plans." So what's Supergiant up to next, then? "We have a bunch of little things brewing and whatnot," Kasavin promises. As for platforms or genres, however, he told us that "it's too early to say."
Bastion launch trailer is part prologue, briefly anti-log
Bastion's hero smashes a couple of logs with such ferocity in this launch trailer, we couldn't help but draw attention to it (not to mention our ability to conjure up eye-rolling headlines). Writer and designer Greg Kasavin describes the creative process behind the video in sincere detail on the Supergiant Games site. While footage of the vividly drawn action-RPG would have sufficed, the small development team created original art, music, writing and narration specifically for today's presentation. "We iterate until the level of our nitpicking makes us want to kill each other or ourselves, which is when we know we're done," writes Kasavin. Bastion launches this Wednesday, July 20, on Xbox Live Arcade as part of Microsoft's Summer of Arcade promotion.
Indies react: PAX East as a showcase for small studios
Like so many PAX shows before it, this year's PAX East showcased a ton of indie games -- the gaming equivalent of a Williamsburg dubstep show, if you will. In our experience at this year's event, larger industry players like EA and Bethesda showed off their titles with hired hands and private theater viewings, choosing to exhibit older demos rather than new content. The indies and smaller studios, on the other hand, were out in force. Beyond bringing playable versions of their games to the show -- even Fez was playable, for the first time in several years of development -- the indie studios brought themselves. They continued the tradition of directly engaging with attendees and, often, solicited game-testing feedback on the fly. "I approached PAX East as a three-day playtest session. I learned so much about what works and what doesn't just from standing in the back and observing how people played the game," Fez co-developer Phil Fish told Joystiq. "It's also an amazing morale boost to be told by so many people that your game is great."
Spec Ops: The Line may face censorship; Dubai taking the 'wait and see' approach
"It takes place after an unimaginable natural disaster has struck the region," says former GameSpot editor-in-chief and current video game producer Greg Kasavin, discussing 2K Games' recently revealed shooter, Spec Ops: The Line. The unimaginable natural disaster he's referring to is a catastrophic sandstorm and the region is the financially precarious Dubai. With the one-time booming city-state finding itself in something of a bust, following the global economic downturn, scenes of Dubai's world-famous skyscrapers buried in sand surely struck a nerve. "We will have to review the game first before issuing any decision on whether to ban it or allow it," Mohammed al Mutawa, a video games censor at the United Arab Emirate's National Media Council, told The National. Juma Obaid Alleem, the director of media content at the NMC, told the newspaper that 'before a video game is released in the UAE, the NMC assesses whether it conforms with local laws and notifies authorities if it does not.' From there, we see references to "international matter" and "Ministry of Foreign Affairs" and we figure it best to take the 'wait and see' approach Mr. al Mutawa referred to. For his part, Kasavin is playing up the setting as a "fantastic location from an architectural standpoint" but is quick to point out that "the game uses the location purely as a location." He explained to The National that 'the enemies ... in the fictional Dubai would not have any clear religious or political beliefs associated with them' and that 'none of the shoot-outs took place in mosques.' With myriad games having angered religious or national groups before – everything from Resistance and the Church of England to LittleBigPlanet and the Qur'an – the Spec Ops team has plenty to learn from. We'll know more closer to the game's expected 2011 release. [Thanks, mister_jOBe; via LA Times]
GameSpot editor-in-chief resigns, now a developer
Greg Kasavin, GameSpot's editor-in-chief, has announced his resignation from game journalism to work for the enemy, an as-of-yet-unnamed game developer, "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get my foot in the door and contribute to one of my favorite gaming franchises." Kasavin, born 1977 in Moscow, joined the website in 1996. Regardless of what you may think of GameSpot and their review system (2-point inflation, anyone?), the gaming news site is a powerhouse in the industry that carries a lot of weight. We wish Kasavin the best of luck and hope, for sake of curiosity, that we find out soon what studio (and in what aspect) he has found himself a part of.[Thanks, Einhanderkiller]
12-hour Oblivion marathon starts on Monday
It looks like GameSpot's taking a page from Joystiq's gaming book by trying a 12-hour marathon with a retail copy of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for the 360 this Monday.There will even be a live video feed of executive editor Greg Kasavin "driving" the game, but that will only be available to GameSpot subscribers. (Booo!) The event's currently scheduled for Monday, March 20, 6:00 PM-Tuesday, March 21, 6:00 AM PT.Greg'll be "offering commentary about the experience as it transpires" via the picture-in-picture feed, but he won't be taking part in the concurrent subscriber chat room planned so as "to avoid any outside influences on his time spent evaluating the game." Well, good luck, Greg, and make sure to stay hydrated... 'cuz it's gonna be a long night.See also: Oblivion release imminent -- March 20 (it's official) 48-hour Xbox 360 marathon begins… now! Super-frustrating boss fight in Kameo Joystiq's massive Xbox 360 launch weekend blowout: the aftermath
