What do I like most about video games? They always strive to do more, to be better.

Games we judged as the best of the best a few years ago might seem dated now. Some feature such tight, timeless designs that they do hold up over the long term, but these fall into a very small category. Otherwise, and in every way, this is the industry status quo: Nearly every game competes not only to outdo past iterations but to also completely dwarf every other title on the market. They don’t always succeed. But one way or another, gamers always benefit from the effort.

The industry moves forward, always forward. So we look back to applaud the new directions it took in 2012 and how they might influence what comes next.

Integrating the GamePad

Most Wii U launch titles relegate the GamePad’s spectacular functionality to stolid maps or inventory screens. Ubisoft’s ZombiU does that, too, but in ways that feed directly into — and significantly enhance — its gameplay. Your best tool to survive the undead hordes is the “Prepper Pad” — in fact, the GamePad itself re-created in the game. It scans and tags items, enemies, and exits, but narrowing your attention to the pad’s small screen leaves you vulnerable to attack and permanent character death. Picking through your items makes you feel completely exposed. When a survival-horror game makes inventory management into a completely nerve-wracking experience, you know it’s smarter than the average bear.

Honestly, I haven’t seen game controls so deeply symbiotic with their game since Dance Dance Revolution. ZombiU simply couldn’t exist on a different system, and it’s a beacon to other developers on how to take full advantage of Nintendo’s new hardware.

Silent storytelling

Minimalism isn’t exactly a new thing in games — see N+ and Limbo for details — but minimalism with depth of design and storytelling threads a fine needle with mountaineering rope. Journey, from Jenova Chen and thatgamecompany, did just that, building an epic story without any words, written or spoken. It didn’t need any, either. A deft combination of imagery, music, and interaction made us feel the joy of discovery, the struggle against adversity, the elation of flight. Journey created great complexity out of relative simplicity.

Not everybody stripped down that far, but more than a few games this year dialed back the interactivity to dial up a player’s personal interaction. “Don’t look or it takes you” set the tone for Slender in just six terrifying words. Antichamber’s tests only said enough to make you question every reflex you’ve learned as a gamer. Dear Esther gave you an island and a mystery, but nothing to jump over, no puzzles to solve, or even any items to touch. Like Journey, those approaches all left the explanations open to interpretation … effectively turning the stories themselves into interactive features. Those journeys became our journeys, full of sweeping emotions and buoyed by the indomitable urge to press onward.

Deconstructing our heroes

Sure, games offer a huge slice of power fantasy with a side of personal awesomeness, but I can’t remember ever playing so many out-of-their-depth characters as I did this year. We’ve never been more fragile. We played as children in Unfinished Swan and Papo y Yo. Postapocalyptic survivors in games like I Am Alive, ZombiU, and The Walking Dead always felt like they were mere inches away from disaster. A world of death quickly unraveled protagonists in Far Cry 3 and Spec Ops: The Line.

But that’s nothing compared to what we did to a lot of our old friends. Commander Shepard suffered from survivor’s guilt all through Mass Effect 3. Max Payne’s self-loathing never ran out of downward spirals to charge through (in slo-mo, of course) until he finally reached for the light again. Even the implacable, emotionless masks of Hitman’s Agent 47 and Halo 4′s Master Chief took serious hits as each found something deeply personal to fight for … fights that frequently came with devastating turns. When the Master Chief suddenly refuses a direct order, it’s time to re-evaluate everything he is.

Gamers have become an older, more sophisticated audience. The industry’s responded by adding vulnerability and depth to the people we play as, making us more sympathetic to their goals and more invested in their safety. And with games like The Last of Us and the Tomb Raider reboot scheduled to pound us mercilessly in 2013, you can expect this trend to extend well into the future.

Adventure games are still relevant

I was done with point-and-click adventure games back in the ’90s. I’m back on them now. The team at Telltale Games didn’t just keep the flame alive with The Walking Dead, their superlative five-part series based on Robert Kirkland’s graphic novel (and its television counterpart) … they brought modern game designs into what many considered an outdated genre.

And they did it with an elegantly simple device: the quick-time event. Turns out the same gameplay cliché that annoys me in God of War (and its many clones) instantly turns the usually static point-and-click exercise into a tense, action-packed struggle for survival. It’s panic-inducing to suddenly find yourself zeroing a shaky cursor on a shambling zombie before it takes a chunk out of protagonist Lee or, even more upsetting, to rescue darling Clementine, his young charge, from a grisly fate. That lends real danger to the rest of the story — survival feels tenuous indeed — and the split-second decisions you must make become even more agonizing.

I actually had to step away from The Walking Dead for a while after its devastating third episode. No other game this year did that to me. That little tick-tick-tick countdown behind every choice made Telltale’s simple point-and-click drama as intense … no, more intense … than any high-octane shooter or jump-scare horror game. More, please.

Games are growing up (maybe)

Two years ago, a trailer showing callous killer Agent 47 eliminating a squad of PVC-clad gun nuns wouldn’t have raised much more than a few eyebrows. Hey, we’re the medium where all the ladies in Dead or Alive get a dedicated physics engine for the boob-jiggle. It’s just a game, after all, so who cares?

Except that’s an argument you can make when you’re 12. The average age in the gaming community hovers in the mid-30s.

2012 saw a heightened awareness of and direct confrontation against the sexism that’s long been a part of this industry’s DNA, both in and out of the games themselves. Halo 4′s multiplayer shipped with a zero-tolerance policy toward racist or sexist language — fittingly announced by executive producer Kiki Wolfkill and Microsoft executive Bonnie Ross — and lifetime Xbox Live bans for violators. Gearbox Software tried to include a special character class in Borderlands 2 for less-experienced players before lead designer John Hemmingway self-sabotaged by calling it “girlfriend mode.” Despite that gaffe, it still presented a serious attempt at inclusiveness … which is the opposite of sexism.

We’ve got a long way to go, baby. But at last it seems like we’re moving in the right direction.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The time is ripe for independent studios; they can make any beautiful, inspiring idea into a game and expect it to sell. Developer Thatgamecompany took players on a wordless adventure with Journey, and Playdead’s Limbo made us ponder what happens to us after death. An indie game that combines the rich culture of graffiti with a tale of overcoming abuse sounds like just the magic ticket. But even the most moving recollections can leave out a few key parts.

WHAT YOU’LL LIKE

A meaningful story
As far as contributing to the artistic side of the medium, developer Minority Media’s Papo & Yo deepens the collective pool and shows how powerful games can be as a means of expression. Creative director and writer Vander Caballero effectively captures the traumatic experiences of a young boy named Quico, who endures the ongoing abuse of an alcoholic father. When the boy escapes into a magical world, however, helplessness turns to empowerment. In the shifting city, which players can manipulate like a toy, we meet Monster, a seemingly gentle beast who turns into a demon when he ingests wild green frogs.

Visually powerful
Papo & Yo relies heavily on visuals to tell its story and emotionally invest players, and that means the game uses cues in the environment to point them in the right direction. It also takes the time to develop a complicated relationship between Quico and Monster through different visual narratives and scenes.

If players get stuck, the hint boxes located in convenient spots are a fun way of setting them on track again without spoiling the full experience. The way you use the boxes is cool, too. Quico puts one on his head, revealing a series of helpful child’s drawings on each of the inner sides. Exit this screen and you can run around wearing it for as long as you like.

Child’s play
The game’s five to seven hours of puzzles are short and relatively easy, but their simplicity doesn’t make them any less enjoyable. Like the architecture, the game twists on itself at every corner, and no puzzle feels the same. Each one is as distinct as the colorful graffiti strewn across the city walls.

The city itself resembles a living creature with humor and charm for its flesh and blood. You can pick up the fat frogs and splatter them on the wall, causing them to vanish. Small, box-like houses will sprout legs and wobble away to cartoony sound effects, and your chipper toy robot Lula boosts your jump with its jetpack. You can even use Monster’s giant belly as a trampoline when he’s sleeping. Little details — like losing a shoe or even finding stray soccer balls to kick around — give the game more personality and a genuine sense of change.

Finally, the minimal controls are friendly to gamers at any experience level, creating a prime opportunity for players to focus on the story as much as the gameplay.

WHAT YOU WON’T LIKE

One step back
Unfortunately, Papo & Yo suffers from a mess of technical shortcomings and problems that do impair progress and overall enjoyment of the game.

While the environment is a lovely sight to behold, the character models are outdated, and their lips don’t move when the characters speak. It’s a little strange, especially considering that they exhibit facial expressions plenty of other times.

Unnecessary handicaps
For a game that involves a lot of running and jumping from platform to platform, Papo & Yo would have benefitted greatly from the ability to grab ledges. This isn’t a game designed to test a player’s skill. Rather, it’s about communicating a message about a real-life issue and designing a game that immerses players in a fantastical and liberating world. Handicapping players isn’t necessary.

Neither is slapping a timer on one puzzle early in the game. This particular challenge gives players only so long to traverse a set distance and pass through a gate, but it’s the only instance of a timed challenge in the entire game.

Glitches and bugs
Another puzzle later on makes absolutely no sense, and to make matters worse, the area’s hint box is sitting on top of a nonexistent floor. Try to pick it up, and you’ll fall straight through the environment.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the game’s only serious glitch. You’ll deal with slowdown for the entire duration of Papo & Yo, but it worsens significantly toward the end. Occasionally, you’ll snag on the terrain when running, too. These two problems are annoying and frequent, but at least you won’t have to restart like with the game-breaking glitch mentioned above.

CONCLUSION

Papo & Yo is a welcome addition to the growing library of creative indie games whose purpose is greater than just engineering fun gameplay, but minor technical issues turn into major woes for Minority Media’s debut release. A little more polish could have saved players unnecessary grief, and it’s that kind of inattention that will keep some gamers away from an otherwise delightful game that’s full of lighthearted humor and dark monsters a little too real for comfort.

Score: 80/100

Papo & Yo was released for the PlayStation 3 on August 14, 2012. The publisher provided GamesBeat with a download code for the purpose of this review.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Everyone has their opinion on who should portray their favorite novel, comic book, or video game characters in movie adaptations. Unfortunately, “perfect” casting choices, like Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier in X-Men, are few and far between.

To avoid casting disasters such as Bob Hoskins and Dennis Hopper in the Super Mario Bros. film, we’ve formed a list of actors who actually resemble popular game characters. For shits and giggles, we threw in some offbeat recommendations, as well.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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You might have seen this collection of movie poster clichés earlier this year (courtesy of French blogger Christophe Courtois). It shouldn’t surprise you that video game box art has its own recurring visual motifs, and I’ve collected 11 of them here.

For simplicity’s sake, I’ve mostly limited this to titles from the current generation of hardware (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii). Otherwise, we’d be here all day.

Face-to-face

TV screenwriter Eddy Canfor-Dumas says, “Conflict is drama.” And he would know because he wrote Supervolcano.

Even non-narrative games like Pac-Man center around two forces in opposition, and the designers of game covers can express this in any number of ways. You can’t beat the classics, however, and sometimes it’s enough to just have two characters demonstrating their antipathy by getting into one another’s face.

Notable offender: Developer/Publisher Rockstar’s Bully: Scholarship Edition mixes up the formula with a difference in height between the two people staring each other down.

Guns pointed up

Modern video games are just straight-up full of guns, so it makes sense that many covers focus on their characters’ relationship to their hardware. It’s hard to show people holding guns without making them look too threatening, however, so the workaround is apparently to show them casually pointing their weapon into the air.

Notable offender: See that woman on the box for House of the Dead: Overkill’s Extended Cut? She’s pointing two guns up.

In the shadows

In this age of gritty reboots and cynicism, some video games have gotten pretty dark, and their covers reflect this in the most literal way possible. Apparently, the quickest way to convey to a prospective player that your game is for-reals serious is to design a cover in which your hero glowers in a poorly lit room.

Notable offender: Limbo’s and Alan Wake’s shadow-intensive covers make sense, considering the darkness inherent in their design. But why does a boxing game like Electronic Arts’ Fight Night: Champion need to go all monochromatic?

Screaming

Good visual art expresses emotion, and I can’t think of a quicker way to do so than to just have a picture of a person screaming.

Screaming probably appears on so many game covers because it can mean so many things, like anger, pain, fear, or aggression. But mostly, it gets us a bunch of pictures of people with their mouths open.

Notable offender: Dead Space: Extraction’s screaming heroine was so memorable that gaming blog Joystiq devoted an entire day to sneaking her into every image they posted on its site.

Explosion in the background

A game’s box is often the first impression a title makes on us, and it only has a few seconds to let us know that its contents are fun and exciting. Some can accomplish this with brand recognition and scantily clad warrior princesses, but it never hurts to goose up the excitement a little.

And in many cases, the shortest route to excitement is blowing some shit up.

Notable offender: Developer Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 flips the script by featuring the only non-orange explosion in this image.

Face in your face

Some games discard the old reliable guns and explosions in favor of something a little more character-focused…and nothing focuses more on a character than an extreme closeup of their face.

Notable offenders: Super Meat Boy, SpongeBob Squarepants, Billy the Puppet from Saw, and God of War III’s Kratos are so in-your-face that their covers don’t have room for anything else.

From the waist up

If all those faces in your face made you uncomfortable, this batch of game art will be a little easier on your territorial bubble. It may not help that so many of the people on these games appear to be threatening you, though.

Notable offenders: This may be the preferred format for superhero games. Wolverine, Spider-Man, Batman, Thor, and Green Lantern all appear from the waist up.

“Look at my back”

Some characters are just rude. Here we are, just trying to pick out a game, and they can’t even be bothered to face us. You can’t take it personally all the time; occasionally, the subjects have their hands full with some kind of giant monster or an explosion. But others couldn’t care less and look back over their shoulders as if asking if we like the view.

Notable offender: Developer Capcom’s Devil May Cry 4 manages to sneak in a back shot of series hero Dante, who appears behind Nero, the game’s new character. Nero, for his part, appears from the waist up (see above).

3 people in a row

Three, as we know, is a magic number, which is probably why so many game boxes feature three characters standing in a row. Some of them mix it up by just putting three giant heads or torsos in the sky, but they’re not fooling anyone.

Notable offender: Publisher Sony’s PlayStation Move Heroes gets a special mention because it has not one, but two sets of three characters arranged in a row.

Hero in the middle

Main characters are at the center of the action, so why not get superliteral and put them in the center of the cover? Also, make sure it’s just them, so nobody is confused over who the game is about.

Notable offenders: War games like the Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises all favor this look.

The White Void

A lot of cover artists are into minimalism. That’s what I tell myself, anyway; the other possibility is that the designers of these covers just forgot to add a background.

Notable offenders: It’s easier to name platforms and companies for this one than specific games. Wii titles, Electronic Arts’ sports franchises, and Red Faction: Armageddon publisher THQ love the White Void.

In conclusion

If you’ve been looking closely throughout this article, you might have seen a few games pop up in more than one category. One title in particular contains four of the elements I’ve discussed here, and for that, I am declaring it the Ultimate Cliche Box Art.

Cover tropes: This is your king.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Copenhagen-based developer Playdead announced the U.S. release of a boxed edition of 2010′s unsettling 2D puzzle-platformer Limbo today.

The new set, which was previously only available on Amazon.de, costs $24.99 and includes DRM-free copies of Limbo for PC and Mac, a soundtrack, art cards, a sticker shaped like the main character’s head, and 3D glasses so you can really immerse yourself in the creeping terror  (or cosplay as that one goon from Back to the Future).

Limbo tells the story of a young boy’s journey through a nightmarish monochromatic wasteland as he searches for his sister(?). Along the way, he faces deadly traps, challenging physics-based puzzles, and a terrifying giant spider. The title has sold over a million copies on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and Steam since its release, and it was part of the most recent — and most successful — incarnation of the pay-what-you-want Humble Indie Bundle.

You can purchase the new version here.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The fifth incarnation of the Humble Indie Bundle, a pay-what-you-want collection of games, has received $4 million dollars in contributions during its first week. That money will be split between the developers, Child’s Play (a charity that sends video games to children in hospitals), and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (a non-profit group of lawyers, policy analysts, activists, and technologists who fight for gaming rights).

Supporters have purchased more than 485,000 bundles during the first week, with an average donation of $8.24. Some choose to pay much more than that, like Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson, who currently leads all contributors with $9,999.99.

The collection of indie titles includes fan favorites such as Psychonauts, Limbo, and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Contributors receive the games via download without any form of digital rights management. They also receive free soundtracks for many of the titles.

This easily outpaces last year’s Humble Indie Bundle 4, which made $2.37 million in two weeks according to a message sent to GamesBeat by Electronic Frontier Foundation senior activist and core Indy Bundle crew member Richard Esguerra.

GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your early-bird tickets here.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly checkH our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best games stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, 38 Studios founder Curt Schilling calls out the governor of Rhode Island for damaging remarks, Activision settles lawsuit with former Infinity Ward heads West and Zampella, and Trip Hawkins resigns from Digital Chocolate.

You’ll also find previews LEGO: Lord of the Rings, Hitman Absolution, Metro Last Light, and Rock Band Blitz. GamesBeat also reviewed Go Ninja, Dragon’s Dogma, and Mad Riders.

GamesBeat:

The DeanBeat: What to expect at E3

Machinima scores partnership to promote highly anticipated Hawken game (exclusive)

Warner Bros. to bring online battle arenas to consoles with Guardians of Middle-earth

Warner Bros. confirms LEGO: Lord of the Rings video game (preview)

Just what kind of game is Star Wars: 1313?

Hitman Absolution lets you perform hits in giant crowds (hands-on preview)

Konami Pre-E3 2012 event: More Castlevania and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Go Ninja is like Canabalt with gore and swords (review)

Activision settles lawsuit with former Infinity Ward heads West and Zampella

Battlefield 3 gets numerous tweaks and fixes, just in time for new $50 “Premium” service

Intel Video Superstars competition calls for gaming filmmakers

Sony next-gen console almost used download-only format

4 celebrities (other than Curt Schilling) whose games failed

The Nordic Game Program matters to everyone

TERA publishing VP reminisces starting a company, westernizing an MMO, and a little friendly competition (exclusive)

Mad Riders is beautiful but flawed (review)

Metro Last Light fights shooter fatigue with deeper single player (hands-on preview)

Dragon’s Dogma is an ambitious open-world action fest (review)

Rock Band Blitz trades peripherals for pandemonium (preview)

THQ attempting creative math to maintain NASDAQ listing

Investigating something wicked in The Secret World

Nvidia demos upcoming Hawken mech game using cloud graphics (video)

VentureBeat

Robert Bowling dishes on his move from AAA to Indie (exclusive)

Game pioneer Trip Hawkins was forming a “rebel alliance” among indie game developers (exclusive)

Kixeye expands to mobile games, creates Australian studio

Microsoft says it has sold 67M Xbox 360s, 19M Kinects, and generated $56B in game revenues

Leisure Suit Larry creator wants “infringing” Kickstarter campaign taken down (exclusive)

Badgeville raises $25M to break out from the pack in gamification

Struggling publisher THQ names game veteran Jason Rubin as president

Gaming pioneer Trip Hawkins resigns from Digital Chocolate

Curt Schilling dings Rhode Island governor for damaging remarks on 38 Studios

5 Hit Points: We quiz the creators of You Don’t Know Jack

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The Humble Indie Bundle, the pay-what-you-want indie-gamestravaganza, is back with its fifth offering, and this one includes the highest-profile titles to date.

Through June 14, gamers can pick up first-person frightfest Amnesia: The Dark Descent, developer Double Fine’s sequel-deficient Psychonauts, Playdead’s creepy puzzle-platformer Limbo, and Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (the game that invaded everyone’s Twitter feeds when it came out) for any price they see fit. Those who pay more than the average ($7.13, as of this writing) will also receive Supergiant Games’ action-role-playing game Bastion. Everything is playable on Mac, Windows, and Linux.

All of the games arrive free of any digital rights management, so they’ll be yours to do with as you wish. Your purchase also includes soundtracks for all five games in both MP3 and Free Lossless Audio Codec format.

As usual, bundle purchasers can decide how to distribute their money between the games’ developers, Humble itself, and charities The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child’s Play.

You can learn more and pick up the bundle here.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Eleven companies out of the 159 associated with the Nordic Game Program (NGP) received a total of 5 million Danish crowns (DKK) for the project’s final year. For many gamers outside of Europe and primarily Nordic countries, this is barely news.

But, gamers really should care. The NGP unites five countries with distinctly different languages and heritages in a goal to not only support and develop games but to also promote a sense of creativity found in all forms of Nordic media. Without the NGP, games like Limbo, Ilomilo, and Amnesia: The Dark Descent might not exist.

The Nordic Games Program started in 2006  by the Nordic Ministers of Culture with the goal to unite independent developers in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden to make games with a cultural flair. Originally, the project focused on kids games but soon moved beyond this idea. This is the NGP’s last year, and while funding is down from the all-time high reached in 2007 (12 million DKK), creativity continues to inspire developers and program organizers.

The wealth of kid-focused media in the region directly influenced this idea to unite Nordic countries. The Icelandic TV show Lazytown is a prime example. It ran from 2004-2007 and inspired children all around the world to get up, dance around, and try to lead honest, healthy lives. It was such a breakout success that it still runs in syndication in the U.S., and a new series is currently in the works. It developed a massive fan base akin to the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic phenomenon.

Of course, two of the  most notable projects out of the NGP are certainly not for children. Limbo and Amnesia might not appeal to a more general audience, but they still embody what the Nordic Ministers of Culture wanted to do when they started the program. These titles showcase the often offbeat and distinctive game design styles found in many European projects. They emphasize the myriad of depths that environments can have and certainly embrace darkly whimsical art direction.

Ilomilo, which was actually a launch title for the Windows Phone 7 platform, shows that positive and more child-friendly projects can definitely keep up the same design philosophy. It was a cute, cheery, and breathtakingly rendered puzzle game that emphasized congruency between environments and audio atmosphere.

You might have noticed that two  NGP successes eventually landed on Microsoft hardware. This is because Microsoft is one of several companies offering funding for the project and was a primary backer in the 2010 Nordic Game Program game jam.

The first Nordic Game Program ends this year, but that doesn’t mean the entire project is over. The NGP recently revealed its plan for another program – only for three years rather than the original six. The emphasis for the next three years is development support and exportation.

The Nordic Game Program is important because it provides funding and support for independent developers in a region steeped in media creativity. Nordic television has already made a name for itself around the world, and now it’s time for games.

Nordic games matter. You’ve already played and enjoyed them even if their origin wasn’t flaunted as much as it should have been. Hopefully, future titles will find the same Western success that Limbo and Amnesia have.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Facebook’s Timeline lets you place an image at the top of your profile. Sure, you could add a crummy, awkwardly cropped family photo — or you can use a kick-ass cover from your favorite video game.

We’re releasing seven days’ worth of artwork, each with a different theme, that you can use to decorate your Facebook profile:

• Sunday: The Modern Era
• Monday: Modern-Retro
  
• Tuesday: The Indies
  
• Wednesday: The 8/16-bit Era
  
• Thursday: Social and Mobile
• Friday: Arcade
• Saturday: Future Games

Today’s batch of covers features 10 popular titles from independent game developers. Click on the thumbnails to enlarge the pictures, then right-click (or ctrl-click for Macs) them and hit “save image as” to save to your computer.

Limbo

PixelJunk Monsters

Super Meat Boy

Fez

Braid

Cave Story

Minecraft

Bastion

World of Goo

Journey

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Reddit user Blizzlock discovered something interesting in the beta of developer ArenaNet’s upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game Guild Wars 2 last weekend. The description of the in-game ability “Crippling Shot” reads, in part, “Shatter your foe’s dreams of becoming an adventurer with a single arrow to the knee.” This will sound familiar to players of last fall’s epic RPG Skyrim, in which non-player guard characters would often lament the losses of their own adventuring careers.

While developers referencing other companies’ games is nothing new (think of all the cake references since Portal’s release in 2007), a few game makers have gone all-out with their nods to other titles. For example:

Grand Theft Auto III kills the Wheelman

Developer Rockstar Games’ open-world crimefest includes a mission called “Two-Faced Tanner,” which tasks players with tracking down and killing a “strangely animated undercover cop” who is “more or less useless out of his car.” Savvy players would recognize the target as Tanner, the protagonist of Ubisoft Reflections’ (then Reflections Interactive) Driver series. In Driver 2 (which hit stores a year before GTA3), Tanner can leave his car and steal other vehicles on the road; Rockstar apparently did not approve of other people intruding on its turf. The GTA3 developer even goes so far as to match Tanner’s car to the one he drives in his own games and recreate his bizarre running animation.

Trials Evolution shows how low it can go

What do dirt bikes have to do with children wandering through dark and frightening woods? Nothing whatsoever (I hope), but that didn’t stop developer RedLynx from including a level based on Danish studio PlayDead’s spooky puzzle-platformer Limbo in Trials Evolution. If that seems like an odd match for an Xbox Live Arcade racer, you’re right, but the stage (shown in the video below) is undeniably cool in action. Not only does the environment look and sound like Limbo, right down to its gloomy silhouette aesthetic, chirping crickets, and a cameo from its trademarked giant spider, but RedLynx also drops Trials’ traditional rear three-quarter camera in favor of Limbo’s wide-angle profile perspective.

Valve vs. Capcom: Whoever wins, zombies lose

I saved the strangest one for last: a game of literal one-upmanship.

One of the Xbox 360 Achievements for Capcom’s 2006 zombie-basher Dead Rising was called “Zombie Genocider.” To unlock it, players had to kill 53,594 undead enemies (the population of its setting of Willamette, Colorado). Two years later, when Valve released its own apocalypse-action game, Left 4 Dead, it included an Achievement called “Zombie Genocidest,” which demanded the murder of 53,595 brain munchers. See, that’s fun with suffixes.

Capcom fired back in 2010′s Dead Rising 2 by including an Achievement with the funny-in-a-different-way name of “Z-Genocider 2: Genocide Harder,” which raised the required body count to 53,596. Valve has yet to raise the bar again.

This story has an interesting side note: Radical Entertainment’s horrible-person simulator Prototype, released in 2009, awards an Achievement/PlayStation 3 Trophy called “Trail of Corpses” for dispatching 53,596 enemies. Radical beat Capcom to the punch, but failed to stick the joke-name landing. It’s a little awkward, really, like a guy who barges into the middle of a conversation, laughs at a joke someone just made, and then tells the same joke and forgets the punchline.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Are games art? Let’s hope not.

Gamers have fits of Internet rage when non-gamers attack the video game industry. Roger Ebert has spoken out against the idea that games can be an art form. Most gamers will tell you that Ebert doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But what if he does? What if he’s right? What if games actually aren’t “art” at all? Don’t panic. Back away from the ledge. Here are five good reasons why it doesn’t matter whether or not games are art.

1. Art is bullshit
Recently I was at the MOMA in New York, viewing highly touted modern art. Most of it was crap. The only thing that made it “art” was that a museum hung it on a wall and said, “This means something.” I started watching the people more than the art itself and seeing the confused looks on their faces that said, “I don’t get it.” Yet, they nodded, showed mild appreciation with a smile, and leaned in as if a closer look would provide clarity. The truth is that most people want to be told what is and what is not art rather than make that determination for themselves. Art of this nature is often defined for the consumer, not by the consumer. Which means most art is manufactured as art. It’s not organic. It’s bullshit.

I don't get it.

It doesn’t stop at art in a museum. I enjoyed the Oscar-winning movie The Artist, but many people spoke highly of it only because it was a movie you were supposed to speak highly of (it’s a silent film released in 2011 — how daring!). “I guess I’m just not smart enough for this movie,” someone told me after seeing it. The movie itself isn’t questioned — it’s already been deemed an artistic endeavor, after all — so the viewer questions herself. If you don’t get it, well, you must be stupid.

The idea of “art” itself is corrupted, because the public — the consumer — isn’t determining what is and is not artistic. It’s the industries themselves and the media making those decisions for the populace. We risk that same level of corruption of integrity if we stress that games must meet similar artistic standards that we see in museums, in theaters, and in novels.

2. Games go beyond “art”
The hang-up on games being labeled as art (or even potentially being art) is foolish. It attempts to tie games to a standard similar to other mediums. But games aren’t like those other forms of entertainment. Games are interactive. You don’t just read or watch a role played out for you; you become that role. In a game, you have constant influence on what’s happening. Even the most linear of games is still altered by when you choose to jump. Fall and die, and the narrative evolves, even if that evolution is merely restarting at a previous checkpoint.

Gamers worry that if what they play isn’t recognized as an art form, it loses validity. That’s a very limited view of what video games offer. Games are something new, something that can’t be so easily defined as “art” or even as pure entertainment. Emotions are elicited in a whole new way with games so that even something as basic as Pong can cause a more visceral reaction than just about anything shown in the New York MOMA. Don’t confine a whole new way to experience and think about the world to old concepts. Games are something new, something different.

3. Sports don’t need to be art
Fourth quarter, time winding down, fourth and long with one last shot at the end zone — this is about as tense a moment as you get in football. It’s not art, though, is it? And yet millions watch football each Sunday, unconcerned with what Roger Ebert or anyone else thinks of what they enjoy. Sports thrill us, engage us, dominate our lives, and connect us as a society. It’s not art by any traditional definition, but that doesn’t make it any less valid of a way to spend a Sunday.

I’d argue that sports bring a unique narrative. The drama isn’t just about who wins, but who has a grudge against whom. Doesn’t it matter a little more when Peyton Manning faces Eli Manning on the gridiron? Sports fans know who talked smack about whom, who has a history of blowing it at the end of games, who is overpaid, who’s a cheap player, etc. That’s part of the drama of sports. In the proper context, it’s as intriguing as a Hollywood plot, but no one worries about whether or not it’s art. It’s sports. It’s different, right? Well, so are games. They entertain, inform, move us in unique ways — but they are something different than what we’ve usually labeled as works of art.

True gaming art.

4. For the people

Games are for the working class. Yes, fat cats can enjoy games, too, but the core of gaming is designed for people who work hard, don’t make a ton of cash, and need to disappear from the world for a little while at the end of the day. Though it takes hundreds of people and millions of dollars to make some of the top titles in the industry, it’s the average Jane and Joe struggling to make a living who keep the games biz thriving.

The “games as art” debate is merely a cry for legitimacy. It’s as if we need non-gamers to see games as some evolved form of entertainment in order for it to be OK for us to enjoy them. Let snobs be snobs and have their lives of snobbery. Games are for us — the common person. We don’t need validation to make video games “legitimate” in any way. Heck, we should despise such accreditation from people who seriously don’t have a clue about this form of entertainment. Games are ours, not theirs. We need to keep it that way. Being labeled as “art” takes away some of the subculture of gaming that is still vital to its long-term survival.

5. Who cares?

Does it matter if games are art? If games were recognized as being equal to an Oscar winner or the National Book of the Year, would you experience them differently? It shouldn’t even matter if other people love a game you love. If you think Limbo’s dark dream world is the most incredible thing you’ve ever seen in a game, it shouldn’t matter if your friend thought it was dumb. It certainly shouldn’t matter what a bunch of non-gamers think about anything in gaming. Pity them for not being able to enjoy the things games have to offer — true immersion, social connection, and emotional gratification.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about games. It doesn’t matter how others categorize games. What matters is how you experience, enjoy, and share games with others in the gaming community.

5 Good Reasons is a GamesBeat opinion series from Hilary Goldstein. Each month, he takes a controversial stance on a topic important to gamers.

Goldstein writes about video games for a living. The former editor-in-chief of IGN.com, he is currently a freelance writer and games consultant. His work has appeared in OXM, GamesRadar, IGN, and GameSpot among others. Even Swamp Creatures Get the Blues collects his short fiction work and is available on Amazon.com. Follow Goldstein on Twitter @hilgoldstein.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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According to an update from Polytron Corporation, Fez has sold almost 20,000 units in its first day on the Xbox Live Arcade marketplace. The perspective-warping platformer launched on Friday the 13th but didn’t suffer any unluckiness outside of some game-breaking bugs. Currently, the pixel-art puzzler sits at an even 90 on Metacritic, and our own review is generally positive.

For comparison, here’s a quick overview of how some other popular Xbox Live Arcade games have sold in the past:

• In its first week of sales, Braid sold 55,000 units. The puzzle-platformer went on to surpass 450,000 in total unit sales.
• Record-breaking Shadow Complex sold 200,000 copies in its first week. Its total lifetime sales reached 600,000.
• In its first month of sales, Trials HD sold through 300,000 units. Since the motorbike platformer’s release in 2009, it has sold 1.8 million copies.
• After its first two weeks on the marketplace, Limbo sold 244,000. It peaked at just over 892,000 total units.
• The number-one selling game of all time on XBLA is Castle Crashers, with over 2.6 million paid downloads.

Amongst that company, Fez is most comparable to Braid and Limbo. All three are indie darlings that hit the Xbox 360′s downloadable-content platform in the leaner seasons of spring and summer. Each of these titles are also critically acclaimed with Metacritic scores of at least 90. But as Limbo benefited from a greater installed base of Xbox 360 owners than Braid enjoyed, so Fez will benefit even more.

In 2008, the year Braid hit XBLA, Microsoft had sold approximately 26 million Xbox 360s worldwide. By the time of Limbo’s 2010 release, that number approached 50 million. With double the amount of 360s in people’s homes, Limbo (892,000 units) sold almost twice what Braid (450,000 units) did.

Two years later and the Xbox 360 install base has reached 65 million, which can only help Fez maintain a strong tail.

Nearly 20,000 in 24 hours is a healthy start. If Fez can overcome any negative word-of-mouth based on its technical hiccups, then it should continue to sell well. According to the game’s leaderboards, Fez now has over 26,000 total players. At $10 per download, that’s already a $260,000. Not bad for a game that looks like an NES title from the 1980s and forces players to use their heads.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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