The video-game industry has been through ups and downs in the past few years, and even the arrival of Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4 hasn’t prevented some developers from folding, some publishers from contracting.

But Bethesda Softworks is growing, and has seven studios working under its banner. For Pete Hines, the Maryland-based company’s vice president of public relations and marketing, the success is a result of designers creating games they want to make.

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It might seem like a cop-out, but whether you’ll appreciate The Elder Scrolls Online really depends on whether you’re interested in it because you’ve been playing other games in the Elder Scrolls series or because you’re a fan of massively multiplayer online games.

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This week, we see how a video game can be ruined by how it depicts women. Another, a great game, stars a First Nations protagonist. Not to be outdone is a game designed to punish players because they like it. And the South Park kids get into games in a big way.

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There’s a weird energy to Sunset Overdrive, a video game coming this fall from Insomniac Games. It’s bright and whacky, and after playing it for about an hour I was left with the kind of exhausted excitement I remember having after spending an afternoon with a toddler.

I got a chance to sample the game during a press event in early April at Insomniac’s studio in Burbank, California. The Xbox One exclusive puts players in the guise of a hero in Sunset City as society collapses. The game is about wielding crazy weapons while rapidly traversing an environment using parkour and skateboard movements.

It might be the end of days, but as creative director Marcus Smith said during his opening remarks to media, for the player it’s more like the “awesomepocalypse”. Smith also mentioned that both he and game director Drew Murray became fathers around the time when development on Sunset Overdrive began.

Which helps to explain why the apocalypse the two men helped create in Insomniac’s Resistance 3, which had a palette of browns and greys, is so different from the brightly-coloured end of days in Sunset Overdrive.

In an interview, Smith admitted that becoming a father was a factor. “I think it definitely has an impact. During the Resistance days we were preoccupied with the end times. And I think a lot of that has to do with the preparation. It’s a huge, life-changing event to have a kid.”

Murray added that they were in the final days of development on Resistance 3 when they were coping with the sleep deprivation that comes from raising a newborn. He called it being “in the drudgery”.

“And then around one or one and a half they’re giving back, and they are out there and they are discovering the world. And it’s fun,” said Murray. That joy, he said, went into Sunset Overdrive.

Georgia Straight editor Charlie Smith once told me that having children is an expression of pure optimism. At the time, I was a few months away from becoming a father, but now that I’ve got a few—okay, seven—years behind me, I appreciate what he was saying.

A father has a different view of the world. “You look at the world differently because now you’re seeing it through the eyes of a kid,” agreed Insomniac’s Marcus Smith.

When he visited Disneyland as a college student he couldn’t help but be jaded and cynical. But he’s since taken his young daughter and admitted to loving it. “Because I’m there with someone who really is enjoying it for the first time.”

“The world is how you look at it,” said Murray. “When you have a kid, everything is new again. As an adult, you have a choice of how you see the world.”

And how to build the virtual worlds that we play in.

Cross-posted at the Georgia Straight

Marvel’s super heroes are being thrown into Disney’s virtual toy box, Disney Infinity. In a live video broadcast online today (April 30), the company revealed that Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes will launch this fall.

The video game franchise was first released last August. It includes a series of games as well as collectible toy figures that appear in the virtual worlds when they are placed on a platform that connects to game consoles. In the past year, Disney has been capitalizing on its vast roster of characters and stories, including Frozen, The Incredibles, Monsters Inc., Phineas and Ferb, and Pirates of the Caribbean.

“Disney has always been about making memories with your family,” said Jimmy Pitaro, on stage at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, California. The president of Disney Interactive went on to say that the company believes that “if we build great products, market success will follow”.

Global sales of Infinity games, action figures, and peripherals have reached US$500 million since it released last August, said Pintaro, who added that NPD Sales Group numbers indicate that the interactive gaming toys category continues to grow.

Comic writer Brian Michael Bendis and Joe Quesada, Marvel’s chief creative officer, showed off the first six figures in the Marvel Super Heroes line: Black Widow, Captain America, Hawkeye, Hulk, Iron Man, and Thor.

Said Bendis, who helped create the story for the first game experience and assisted with dialogue: “The stuff they’re announcing today is just the beginning. There are characters and stories that are coming up that will blow your mind.”

The new edition of Disney Infinity is being referred to as “2.0” and will be available for iOS, PS3, PS4, Windows, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. Infinity general manager John Blackburn said that everything from “1.0” is fully compatible, including the base, the figures, play sets, power disks, and even the virtual worlds created by players.

The first starter pack includes Black Widow, Iron Man, and Thor, as well as an Avengers play set piece that puts players into Marvel Manhattan, which has buildings from real New York City as well as iconic buildings from the Marvel universe, such as Avengers Tower.

Character classes and character-specific skills and abilities are being introduced, and players will be able to choose how to upgrade their characters based on simple skill trees.

The process of creation in the Toy Box Mode has also been simplified, and players will be able to design and customize interior spaces, too, for the first time.

And in recognition of the fact that 60 percent of player time is spent in the Toy Box, structured play experiences are being introduced also. Two introduced at the announcement were a tower defence game in which players defend Asgard, and a dungeon crawler game where the levels are generated procedurally.

Cross-posted at the Georgia Straight