Happy Thanksgiving!

To my U.S. SVGL friends, have a lovely holiday and hopefully some off-work time! Take Michael Abbott's advice: Bring the Wii home along with New Super Mario Bros. Wii and play it with your cousins and young ones. You won't be sorry.

SVGL will be on hiatus until next week. If you're bored over the holiday, there's probably some fun stuff to do at SVGL -- revisit the archives, vote in the latest poll, or check results of past polls, too. Use the ShoutMix chat in the right hand sidebar to see who else is hanging around the computer over the holiday and make some new friends or something!

Thanksgiving is a time for quality time with family (here is a post about my family). It's also often a time where people go stir crazy and feel trapped in the family homestead. That's why, two Thanksgivings ago (whoa time flies), I recommended you Guest House, this fantastic, intriguing escape-the-room game -- revisit it or check it out for the first time! When nursing your turkey coma, sneak off and give it a try.

What will you be playing over the weekend? I honestly doubt I'll be playing anything -- you might imagine that some of the time, playing video games is the last thing I want to do with my not-work time!

[Thanksgiving Day Parade Pikachu pic nicked from Giant Bomb.]

Comparisons

"That's what you're going to show to Ebert to convince him videogames are a legitimate art form? You're going to show him the morph bomb and expect him to nod repeatedly, and admit that the story of an extinct bird race and a woman with a bazooka on her arm is just as meaningful as La Dolce Vita? Seriously?"

-- Anthony Burch, Destructoid, 'Why Comparing Metroid Prime to Citizen Kane Is Ludicrous'

"The implication of this being that treating games as the inwards-facing exclusive province of boyish adolescence is perfectly acceptable as long as Mom and Dad aren’t looking; if they are, though, hide the controllers and put on a tie. This inferiority complex runs so deeply in the gamer mindset that we will often swear up and down it does not exist while we continue unbridled our wildly passive-aggressive approach towards the artistic establishment, equal parts brash and defensive, trying to look older and more experienced than our years: the hallmark of youthful insecurity."

-- "Matthew Wasteland", 'He Was Always Trying To Prove Himself'

Bonus Material: Here's me earlier this year on why I'm tired of the Citizen Kane thing.

I'll just say it for the record now: I think repeatedly raising Kane is amateurish and useless. It's self-defeating shorthand for what Bogost and Wasteland correctly identify as the real desire: legitimacy for games.

...Legitimacy, in this case, actually meaning 'the approval of others' or 'the ability to fit in,' I suspect.

[dunno where i got header picture. if it's yours and you want credit, comment or mail me.]

Oops?

"We believe that the optics of this hardware cycle have been significantly distorted by the explosive growth of the Wii console."

-- Doug Creutz, Analyst, Cowen Group

Social Behavior

Yesterday, we were talking about social networks on consoles as yet another item of evidence that persistent, connected social experiences are where it's at. But when it comes to game design, it's cool to see that this trend isn't happening only in this much-buzzed social networking space.

Designers of traditional console games are looking at creative new ways to use multiplayer, too. No longer does "multiplayer" simply mean "some kinda group mode on an FPS where you either help each other or kill each other or play capture the flag," and I think we'll see more evolution and creative thinking about connected play as it becomes the norm, not the rule.

For example, look at Demon's Souls. If you saw my Kotaku feature 'In Praise of Hard Games,' you might remember producer Takeshi Kaiji's story of the inspiration for Demon's Souls' multiplayer -- it came from an experience he had of strangers helping strangers when several cars were stranded in the snow. In Demon's Souls, the multiplayer experience doesn't so much allow people to play together as it does allow them to share the same world, collaborating only when circumstances make it valuable and interesting.

In that way, the multiplayer enhances a solo experience, rather than acts as a separate "mode." And the fact that your interactions with other players are always anonymous -- you'll never know who left you that helpful message, or who that phantom was that helped you beat the boss -- it works with the lonely, ghostly feel of the game rather than clutter it with the presence of too many "others," which is often a turn-off for people who like games to be private experiences (me, me).

Over at Gamasutra, my colleague Christian Nutt recently talked to the producer of Monster Hunter Tri about (among many things) how the game's converging two popular design trends and using them to enhance each other. On one hand, it's becoming more and more fashionable to take elements required for the designer to communicate with the player -- say, HUDs and gauges and numbers -- and minimize them, or better yet, make them a seamless part of the environment, to aid immersion.

RPGs and strategy titles, however, rely heavily on statistical information, making this trend a bit more challenging to implement. With Monster Hunter Tri, the team focused a lot on making the monsters behave in lifelike ways -- that way, players could gather information about the monsters and about the environment through observing behavior and not by reading data screens.

The team also decided not to show monsters' health. It would seem like this would be the sort of concession to realism that would be enormously frustrating for players -- but on the other hand, in a game that relies on its multiplayer components, it was a deliberate choice aimed at encouraging social behavior. When certain information is withheld from the player, it encourages groups to talk among themselves and collaborate, learning the location of enemy weak spots, sharing monster strategies, and things like that.

Demon's Souls allows you to earn your body back if you die, but your "soul form" is weaker than your physical form, which is slightly counter-intuitive -- why make a game harder the more players fail at it? Kaiji has said that choice was intended to encourage players to work together using the phantom system, by which ghosts can aid other players and vice versa.

Withholding information or cranking the challenge level to force players to use multiplayer seems slightly risky from a design standpoint -- until you think about it some. Remember an earlier generation, when half the fun of gaming was all about "secrets"?

How did you learn how to get the whistles in Super Mario Bros. 3? How did you learn which walls were breakable in Symphony of the Night? How did you get infinite lives in Contra? You didn't look it up on the internet back in those days -- you heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend. Someone told you. Someone showed you. One day, you had a pal over, and you had the controller in your hand when he told you where you were supposed to stand to get something neat to happen.

You knew about the ins and outs of video game worlds because people told you, and then next time, it'd be your turn to be the cool kid who knew where a hidden room was. The way that you interacted with friends had the ability to enrich your relationship with a game (as I discussed in my July Escapist feature about how our childhood imaginations made simple games more exciting). Gaming also developed an entire mythos of urban legends, "secrets" that were way more rumor than fact (see the "Video Game Lies" wiki!). That was fun, wasn't it?

That's true social gaming, much more interesting than headshotting strangers and calling them names into your microphone. Now that gaming is working together better with a broader definition of "connectivity" -- one that integrates with real-world social behavior and is less game-specific -- hopefully we'll see more examples like these!

Blockbuster 2.0

"Video games" used to refer solely to one type of product; if you wanted to get granular, you could say there were "video games" and "computer games" (the phrase "video games" encompassing both home consoles and arcades).

Fast forward to now, and games have diversified so much by platform, specific genre and target audience that the word often feels inappropriate -- Farmville is nothing like Modern Warfare 2 which is nothing like World of Warcraft which is nothing like Wii Play, for example. We can embrace that there are loosely different sub-spaces, or vertices, of the game industry that have entirely disparate audiences and means of delivery, and therefore often completely separate design goals.

Which is why it's kind of nice when you start to see spaces converge, with design lessons from, say, Facebook gaming employed on Xbox Live. Have you tried Facebook on your Xbox 360 yet* (or will you try it on your PS3)? I'm actually skeptical that anyone will make their console a primary means of engaging with Facebook; Facebook works so well because on a computer, it integrates so easily and so thoughtlessly with the device on which users spend a significant share of their working or student lives.

Rather than accessing Facebook via console instead of on a computer, it's pretty clear that users will simply be able to augment their Facebook use -- if video game activity is a part of their lives, they'll now be able to reflect that on their social networking profile.

Which is why the Facebook integration is an even bigger value-add for video game platform holders -- and for gaming itself -- than it is for its users. Think about how many of your non-gaming friends and family will be able to see, at a glance, how much fun you're having unlocking achievements and earning trophies; it's like built-in social outreach not only for the fact you own a console, but for every single game you play.

Developers will also be able to work with their own ideas for Facebook integration and what kind of updates their games send. There could be some fun design implementations for this, don't you think? Taking the the socialization around games outside of the game itself and into the real world could create some cool game mechanics if you got creative.

Major facebook games like Pet Society and Farmville have millions of users because of the viral principle -- your friends see you playing it, and these days, those kinds of games are so pervasive that it no longer takes them sending you an invite for you to join them; you know whether or not you're interested because you're observing friends' activity.

Facebook integration with game consoles means major titles have the potential to tap into some of that "virality" (no, that's not a real world, but two-point-oh marketing types think it is). That's huge for traditional gaming. You might ask why Xbox Live needs access to a social network when it is a social network -- this is why.

During my coverage of Microsoft's E3 presentation, I said the biggest game-changer of E3 would be the one that received the least gamer buzz, and I stand by it!

*Note that if you're a Silver member, Microsoft's gonna let you try Facebook and Twitter, among other things, for free this weekend.

The Number Crunch

When I meet people and the "what do you do for a living" question comes up*, my new acquaintances tend to jump to the conclusion that I somehow fund my lifestyle by playing video games all day long, or they assume I simply do nothing but write reviews (for the record, I'm happy I don't!)

Although many of you who visit me here at Sexy Videogameland are probably more familiar with my consumer writing -- you might've found your way here because of my editorials, or my Kotaku columns, Escapist features or reviews, for example -- I make my living as a business reporter at Gamasutra, as you regular SVGLers know.

If there is a lull in SVGL posts, as has happened often lately, and you want to know what I've been doing with myself**, just search Google News for my byline and you'll see all my daily

Gamasutra pieces (and probably some occasional results about other people named Leigh Alexander, some of them criminals). Or better yet, just read Gamasutra, because I'm not too shy to say I think the news and features writing my coworkers do under the supervision of maestro Simon Carless is pretty top-shelf.

Anyway, the majority of my time is spent writing business news. And it's ironic that folks I meet out in the real, non-internet world tend to have trouble wrapping their head around games-as-business, because now more than ever, that's what it is, first and foremost. If it weren't for the prolific indie scene, the growth of alternative business models and social gaming, we'd have a worrying Hollywood-ization on our hands here.

The core games industry cares about investors, who care about Metacritic scores; the fates of our favorite titles and studios are determined by numbers, and success is measured in fiscal quarters, unit sales and revenue dollars. So while we as gamers might not give a rat's ass about the monthly NPD, about Nintendo's profit forecast or EA's restructuring, stories like this are a

crucial barometer of How We're Doing, and this has been a particularly tricky year for industry numbers.

Slump, Slump, Slump

You may or may not have noticed that the games industry has "declined" all throughout the summer months of 2009, which means that when we compare each month's sales dollars to the same month in 2008, we're not measuring up. Why should you care? Well, because how much money the industry is making affects everything from game budgets to publisher slates for next year, it determines how many gambles publishers can take on new IP, it determines how confident investors feel in buying into game companies, and overall, it spells whether or not we are a healthy, growing industry or a struggling one.

We had nothing short of a stellar year in 2008 -- the biz's Best Year Ever, by many estimations, in terms of both the quality and diversity of the title slate and the strength of those titles' performance. Remember how happy we were to be "recession-proof?" Unfortunately, that's all coming back to bite us now.

See, for NPD numbers to show continual growth, we always have to do better in any given month than we did in the same month last year; a really strong 2008 just sets the bar much higher for 2009. You may see the phrase "tough comparisons" all over the place -- that's what analysts and game execs alike have fallen back on to explain the declines. There's nothing wrong with the games biz, they've asserted: it's just we did too well last year. Well, you sure don't hear anyone saying "recession-proof" anymore.

Ahead Into The Unknown

Even Nintendo, basically the most successful company of the current generation, is taking a beating from analysts in the U.S. and Japan over a Wii that appears to be "tanking" -- only in a world where comparisons mean everything can a console that's sold over 56 million units be under the microscope. No wonder Nintendo's Satoru Iwata and NOA's Reggie Fils-Aime come across so defensive in current interviews.

To be fair, Nintendo brought this on itself -- by boasting that it carried the entire industry's growth on its shoulders last year (largely, it did), it set itself up to have everyone point fingers at it when Nintendo's declines drag down the rest of the biz.

It's true that part of what looks like a weakening games business is due to tough comparisons; some people also think the poor consumer economy has finally begun to catch up with Wall Street's golden sector. Maybe it's also that this year's games aren't as good as last year's -- while we're on the Nintendo example, the company admits that it hasn't had the same powerhouse software lineup this year that whipped up Wii sales throughout last year.

Analysts are currently divided on whether the game industry has a shot of ultimately posting annual growth this year -- most are pessimistic, actually, but it's all down to how things go this holiday season, the proving ground that'll demonstrate whether it's weakened software lineups or cash-strapped consumers that are slowing the biz down.

What You Guys Said

This is why I polled you guys recently on how your belts and wallets feel going into the holidays; 289 of you replied, and unfortunately, the largest share of you, at 35 percent, said you feel cash-strapped and plan to spend less money on games this year.

But the next-largest segment of you, at a healthy 28 percent, say you don't plan on doing anything differently, and will spend about the same; 14 percent of you might reduce your wish list by, say, one game, and 13 percent of you are so psyched by the bounty of holiday wishes on offer that you plan to spend more. The remainder, or 7 percent, say you don't usually spend on games for yourself and are hoping for gifts.

So if 28 percent of you will spend just as much as you did last year, and 13 percent of you will spend more, and let's say even a few of you gift-hopers get a game or two from Santa, the picture actually looks pretty good for a healthy holiday, don't you think? The ESA also did a poll that was a bit bigger than mine, and found 42 percent of 1,001 U.S. consumers it surveyed either plan to give or hope to get a video game this holiday. Who's up for some cautious optimism?

Have I gotten you all psyched about INDUSTRY NUMBERS yet? If you're into that kind of thing, you should know that we run a monthly feature by the excellent Gamasutra analyst Matt Matthews, who looks at the major trends and facts to emerge from the NPD numbers. Here's October, for example, and you'll find one on our site every month, usually the Monday after the numbers come out (which is most often the second Thursday of the month).

Plus, the shrewd crew at NeoGAF makes a monthly thread to dissect Matthews' work, so if you enjoy number crunching and chatting stats, you can always find one like this to get in on. C'mon, everybody's doin' the numbers dance, you know you wanna!

*Bonus Info 1: For more on dealing with the "what do you do" question, pseudonymous designer Spitfire once commiserated with me at length on trying to talk about working in video games with average folks.

Bonus Info 2: I stole this picture of a Pac-Man Christmas tree from here, where you can also see video of it!

**Bonus Info 3: You can also follow me on Twitter, join the SVGL Facebook group, or check out the "latest stuff of note" in SVGL's sidebar, or leave me a hello-note in the ShoutMix chat box, also in the sidebar. I miss you guys when I'm unable to keep up the blog ;_;

Asking Why

A couple months ago, I annoyed a bunch of gamers by telling them they need to get a life. I intended to be provocative, of course; the issue I hoped we'd all examine and discuss is the same-ness of many games on offer commercially, and what has always felt to me like a very shallow creative well.

The theory is that creativity and emotional richness comes from life experience; as the earliest adopters of what we hope will be the predominant entertainment medium of the 21st century, I've always felt it's on us, as audiences, to do more, demand more. Of course, if we're saying that "games are art," then that means they reflect the life experience of their "artists" -- and many game developers can be as narrow-minded as their audience is, with few creative influences to speak of other than, say, tabletop RPGs and Star Wars.

Not that there's anything wrong with tabletop RPGs or Star Wars (down, comic book fans, down!), but if game developers make games based on their own interests, and if game consumers buy games based on their own interests, it's better for everyone if those interests are diverse -- or else what we think of as gaming remains an insular niche.

You've heard this from me before, of course. Now, veteran developer and former Maxis guy Chris Hecker is adding a new dimension to the conversation with some thoughts he shared in an address at the IGDA Leadership Forum, which my colleague Chris Remo recently covered at Gamasutra.

Hecker also fears games ending up in (or remaining in?) a "cultural ghetto," and summarily suggests that generally, those who make games don't ever seem to consider it an act of self-expression:

"I had to write this book when my girlfriend dumped me," a novelist might say.

"That doesn't show up often in game development bios," Hecker pointed out. Developers rarely discuss what they were trying to convey or express with a particular game, outside the confines of the game's own entertainment value.

"Should we care about 'why'? I think the answer is yes. We should care," said Hecker.

Of course, when looking at any other entertainment medium, there exist plenty of soulless products made simply in accordance with the algorithm of the market's current tastes -- they have no higher aim but to provide basic entertainment. Well, maybe one higher aim: to sell copies.

But that paradigm is dominant in games; even our designers who qualify as deep thinkers and masters of the craft earn their stripes by interpreting ideas like accessibility, engagement and the nebulous "fun" through design. They are refining the art of hooking us players with mechanics -- they are not at all thinking about expressing themselves or telling a story, the way creators of anything else that qualifies as art would.

I actually touched on this early last year, in an Aberrant Gamer column about what makes a good actor: honest performance that draws on the individual's life experience with the goal of self-expression, as opposed to the manipulative act of simply imitating emotions with the goal of affecting audience members.

The game industry is full of brilliant designers -- when I see how Blizzard's gotten millions and millions of people around the world to spend hours and hours running around and grinding in World of Warcraft (even people who recognize that they're bored!), or when I see how Ubisoft is making necessary communication with the player an artistic part of the environment in Splinter Cell Conviction, my jaw drops. Whoever came up with that subtle red-crescent health system that dominates in first-person shooters should get some kind of award.

But in terms of expressive ability, it's still lacking, don't you think? I recommend reading Remo's whole writeup on Hecker's talk -- I think it's an important addition to a topic that always interests me.

This week, the tireless Remo is at the Montreal International Games Summit, and while we're talking about the goal of "fun," I might as well point you to his writeup of Tiger Style's Randy Smith, who says "games don't need to be fun; they need to be engaging." Randy Smith worked on System Shock 2 and Thief and now makes stuff like Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor instead, and the perspective of folks that make leaps like that is always interesting.

Does The Music That I Make Play On My Awkward Face

In my free time, when not working or gaming, I go to music shows with my friends. I like bands. Like, a lot, and I love to see live shows. Mostly I like the local stuff here in Brooklyn, but once in a while I'll pay a little more for a ticket to see a better-known touring band in a bigger venue (the sort I normally avoid because of the $10 beer or whatever!) .

One of my favorite bands is Animal Collective (yeah, yeah, you and every other d-bag in Brooklyn, Leigh). They're probably in my top five, at least for these days, and the music blogosphere is full of all kinds of cynical snark and eye-rolling about how they're about to "cross over" to the mainstream and blah blah. So seeing them live would be a pretty big deal, even if the ticket's going to be a bit pricier. And yet, every time the opportunity's arisen, I decline.

Hang in, I swear I'm going someplace video game-related with this.

It's not just because I prefer more intimate shows to huge affairs. It's because I don't think Animal Collective would be too much fun to watch, or at least not relative to how much it'd cost. This is because they're three dudes who make their music with major contribution from electronics and effects -- seeing them would be less "watching a band play" and more "watching some guys fiddle around with equipment."

As much as I love the band, "watching some guys fiddle around with equipment" is just not the same to me as "watching some guys rock out on stage."

Okay, and now I'm getting to the video game part. It's the energy of a rock show that makes plastic guitar games so successful -- that, and the aspirational rockstar fantasy. This is something I really don't think translates into hunching over a turntable in DJ Hero. In other words, I think DJ Hero is by its very nature less broadly-appealing than Guitar Hero, and yesterday at Gamasutra, I wrote about why, expanding so that my position hopefully makes a bit more sense to you.

Of course, I'm more intense of a music consumer than average, and I'm also more intense of a video game "consumer" than average, so the collision of two major interest spheres for me is bound to color my perspective differently from that of some dude wandering into GameStop. Nonetheless, I feel pretty strongly on this point -- check it out and tell me what you think.

By the way, if you're among the large swath of my gaming readers who couldn't give a hell about my nerdy music, you wouldn't know that the header image is the cover of Animal Collective's critical-darling Merriweather Post Pavilion, which you might like to listen to. I tried making a giant version of this image my desktop wallpaper once, and I lasted all of thirty seconds before my eyes started gushing founts of blood. Trippy, right?

[PS: As you can see, I survived both my move to a great new apartment as well as the most crippling flu I can recall ever having -- thanks to everyone who sent kind wishes and comments through my travails!]

Cough Cough

This is the worst day ever. All week I've had a serious flu, have fallen behind on work, will miss the weekend's Halloween parties and to make matters worse, I've got to MOVE TO A NEW APARTMENT this Sunday, which means instead of resting I have to get my house packed up.

Life is hard. It's only a little bit harder than Demon's Souls, praise for which forms the spine of my latest Kotaku feature. If you want to make me feel better you can a. pray and b. read the article. It includes a really fun anecdote from the game's producer about how getting stranded in the snow with a lot of other drivers inspired the idea for the game's multiplayer.

So read it, and send me healing thoughts! I'm totally a Black Phantom over here and I need to be resurrected!

Hopefully when I'm well I can explain a little better why I'm so interested in meaningful challenges in games right now. Or maybe you can discuss in the comments and arrive at a definition of "meaningful challenge" on your own.

Assume The Party Escort Submission Position

It's my birthday!

Since none of you have any control over whether or not the Yankees get to the World Series, what you can give me is to keep yourselves entertained and talk amongst yourselves until after the weekend, because between the anniversary of my existence and CMJ, I -- now let's be honest here -- am not likely to be sober for even a New York minute until then.

Thanks for making my life great, SVGL readers.

Small Bites

When making yesterday's "I'm so busy" excuses rationalizations for not posting frequently, I forgot to mention something else cool: I'll also be contributing some reviews to AV Club's Sawbuck Gamer section, where we look at smaller titles, many of them indie or off-the-beaten-path, that can be had for less than $10. I recently wrote for the section about Tyler Glaliel's IndieCade Gameplay Award winner Closure, which pretty much blew my mind. The agility of bite-sized, brilliantly-simple approaches to game design even as megabucks and mega-values continue marching on in the traditional console space never ceases to amaze. I'm glad we have both approaches.

On the same topic, Gamasutra had an interview yesterday with the co-founders of Odd Gentlemen, creators of upcoming, buzzworthy XBLA title The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom. Cool dudes -- you should read the whole thing, but this bit stands out to me when I think of Closure:

"It's like they get really impactful in 10 seconds, whereas you might play a Final Fantasy game, and you don't give a shit until the eighth hour mark. That's when it really connects to you. Who needs that? Exactly like you said, you can make a poignant, small experience that gets to the core of what you want to feel and experience it. It's wonderful."

True that. Oh, we also had an interview I did yesterday with a guy from the Need For Speed games. The only "car game" I like is Midnight Club Los Angeles, but I didn't realize that the guys who do the physics in the Need For Speed series -- recent ones, at least -- get to go try the cars out all day on a closed circuit track with help from pro racers, so they know how it's supposed to look, sound and feel for players. Now that's gotta be a fun job.

In other news, some of you who follow me on Twitter may have seen me mention Kill Screen, the swank new gaming mag being assembled by some of the writers I respect most, in gaming or anywhere. Some of you might have even helped donate for Kill Screen's fundraising (thank you!) and secured yourself a copy.

Now, you can read a little more about the folks behind the project. I'm kicking in a small piece for the magazine too, which is probably news to my editor. Hey, Chris? When I said "this morning" I meant, like, Australia time or something. It's coming, cross my heart! I'm almost done!

Reviving For The Fight

Thanks for being so patient with the somewhat sparse posting schedule lately. Been so busy -- but hopefully with stuff you'll like.

First up: I have fallen into a black hole, my friends -- my waking free time (ha ha) has been devoured lately by Atlus and From Software's Demon's Souls. This surprises me, since I'd never expect, given my usual tastes, to fall in love with a hardcore dungeon slog.

Of course, that's not all it is. Demon's Souls confronts an issue on which I've staunchly whined for about a year now -- the obsessive design focus on accessible games gradually eating away at opportunities for engagement by removing the kinds of challenges that help us grow. No, a game like this is not for everyone, but as I said only recently, it doesn't need to be. What it offers is a polished, brilliantly-plotted and precise experience for a player whose brain likes to be itched in that way.

How, you ask? Well, onto item two: I've started reviewing for the Onion's AV Club, and for my first full-length review, I aimed to isolate what's so pleasurable about this title. Give it a read, and if you're a Demon's Souls fan (or non-fan), have at the comments to share your feelings on it.

If you think my experience with the pleasantly-unkind Demon's Souls vindicates what I suppose you could interpret as Nintendo fatigue on my part in recent months, however, you'd be wrong.

Last week I went to a hotel in Manhattan with some other journos to talk to Miyamoto about New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and I came

away impressed -- both with the game, which I didn't want to put down, and with the company's stubborn adherence to its philosophies even when they seem bafflingly out-of-step with current trends.

As you know, I'm not a big multiplayer gamer. I've historically disliked even local multiple-player free-for-alls, even Smash Bros. and Mario Kart. But lately, when I have non-gamer friends over, guess what we do? We play Super Mario World together, and that's more fun for us than any online multiplayer experience, any cutting edge anything -- we had an okay time with Beatles Rock Band, and then we went back to Virtual Console.

(Speaking of, Beatles Rock Band is only having an okay time itself, but MTV seems happy as long as it beats Activision).

Succinctly put, New Super Mario Bros. Wii is an update on what we loved about the SNES era, while its multiplayer focus adds an entirely new angle on things. Read how Miyamoto explained it -- his consistent ability to understand what's fun about video games even when it's tough to isolate in succinct design logic is why he's where he is today, and why Nintendo keeps surprising us. For yet more Miyamoto, read his interview with Popular Mechanics, wherein he explains why Mario is a plumber with a big nose (something I always wanted to ask).

I'm even sold on the "Super Guide" in practice, which I found a terrible idea in concept. Nintendo has found ways to make even playthrough-guide movies tickle the hardcore in us, and somehow manages to make a strong case for its oft-questioned position on things like user friendliness, online multiplayer, downloadable content and more. Read that one, too!

Funny, but when I visited Nintendo in the same week I'd been obsessing on Demon's Souls, I expected almost comical diametric opposites, and instead I found common threads. Hopefully I'll get to write more on this stuff very soon.

Except I'm not budging on Bowser's Inside Story. I do not want to know the story of Bowser's insides; it's a matter of principle, now.

Digital Days

At Gamasutra today, I talked to Direct2Drive guy Jamie Berger for a really fascinating look at just how quickly digital distribution has grown up. It's amazing how fast it's happening; when you think about it, it was really only yesterday that full-size downloadable games were just a way publishers could try to put some extra legs on their catalog titles. It's affected the casual space, too -- it's hard to even recall now that PopCap used to be just a portal.

Of course, how far we are off from that mythical day when no one buys games at retail anymore is still an unanswered question (assuming we'll ever even get there!), and cloud computing and streaming services on the horizon put an extra smudge on our crystal ball.

But much of the response to my article from Gamasutra commenters is aimed at GameStop, and how so many people hope it'll just disappear.

Do you have any GameStop horror stories? Everyone does, but I mean... I go there anyway. 'Cause I'm lazy. If you're a hater, do you have experiential reasons for disliking the retailer, or is it just a Big Evil Corporation, which is Mean?

And how do you buy your games? I've started a new sidebar poll to gauge how prevalent certain distro methods are for you all, because my attempt to stage a massively-attended Metroid-versus-Vania supremacy poll fell pretty flat. Not even 300 votes? Y'all have let me down.

The final result was 176 votes for Super Metroid, 119 for SotN, but you don't care, do you. You don't care at all! Excuse me, I've got a pillow to sob into for a while.

Okay, I'm all right now. Bonus digital distro material from our network: GamerBytes' Ryan Langley shrewdly points out ten things PlayStation Network needs to clean up before it can compete with XBLA from a storefront perspective. My usage of both services, personally, is pretty equal, but I've still gotta agree with him.

If You're Not Having Fun, Play Something Else

"If a player's not having fun, that might mean there's something wrong with the game. But it also might mean the player's simply playing the wrong game. Let's use design innovation to make them the right games, instead of trying to fix what ain't broke.

As we look to the future, let's refine the traditions of our past, not regret them as design flaws just because they're frustrating to more moderate audiences. Those big babies should just go play Wii Fit or something."

Yeah. Yeah!! Go read my new Gamasutra editorial today, ya big babies. Because I'm kidding. Kinda.

Agree? See also Can Nintendo Take 'Accessibility' Too Far? and In Defense Of The Classic Controller.

Writing About Games Does Not Make You A Games Journalist

"I know the line behind us is long. There is an army of bloggers and tweeters ready to step into our roles. No one is questioning their enthusiasm or passion for the medium. But these people still need experience; they need seasoning; they need to grow up. We need adults filling these roles, not inchoate 20-somethings anxious to declare that Modern Warfare 2 has 'the best graphics ever.'

At a time when games are growing up, when the medium is getting more sophisticated and adult, we are losing our most sophisticated and adult critics. We are losing our most articulate voices."

-- Scott Jones, 'It's Hard Out There for a Game Journalist'

[This is also why I correct people when they try to call me a 'veteran.' Doing something long enough to earn a full-time job does not a veteran make.]

Don't Even Play

[lookin' good, hottie]

Sometimes I wish "people in the real world" were more interested in video games, so that I could talk about 'em with them. Other times, I wish they'd never talk about them ever-ever.

I've developed a case-in-point: It seems people are more impressed or excited to hear what I do for a living than they were two or three years ago. The checkout girl at the drugstore next door, for example, gleefully revealed she is a Sims fanatic, on seeing me wear the MySims hoodie I practically live in. This kind of thing makes me feel good.

A lot of times, though, for some reason people (mostly dudes) decide to react to learning about my work by threatening, good-naturedly if enviously, to beat me at video games, or by asserting they play more video games than I do ("you actually play them?" is the stupidest question you could probably ask someone who tells you "I write about video games," but I get it a lot).

And I'm all, pssh, Kid. Don't even.

And he'll be all, "okay, fine, what's your favorite video game, like, ever?" (yes, there is a script, because this happens fairly often)

So I'll go, like, "Symphony of the Night or Metal Gear Solid 3."

And the dude will never know what Symphony of the Night is, and so I'll be all, "c'mon, kiddo, you're trying to step up to me and you've never heard of one of the greatest games ever made?" Because, like, y'know, me and MGS 3, we could have a debate about that (or you could, and I'll plug my ears or ignore you, but it could be done, let's say) but SotN's pretty quintessential.

So who's more obnoxious: The random bartender who says he can P\X/n me at every video game because he (slow, polite applause) beat Halo 2? (P.S., is he being sexist, or does competitive testosterone crop up when "regular people" discuss video games, no matter who with?)

Or me, for my tch, puh-lease, you never heard of Katamari Damacy response?

What're your experiences with the weird line between "us" and "them?" Are you annoyed that I keep calling them "people in the real world?" What're we, then?

By the way, that bartender probably could kick my ass at Halo. I play a lot of video games, but am not, to be quite honest, notably good at too many of 'em. But let's not tell him that, huh?

The New Evil Empire

I've always been fascinated by the gamer community's tendency (need?) to personify games companies, its quickness to vilify what it sees as the "bad" guy (those who prioritize profits, natch), and its preoccupation with the personas of various individuals in our field (even journos)!

Of course, it's understandable -- in an entertainment technology biz, the focus is on the products and rarely on the folks behind them. I'm always interested in those folks, and anyone who enjoys team sports knows what happens when a passionate, focused audience plays favorites. It's impassioned, polarizing and just plain fun.

As his public profile has increased at a rate congruent to Activision's coffers, the publisher's chairman, Bobby Kotick, has fast taken his spot dead center of the gamer community's crosshairs. The frequency with which he throws around words like "exploit," "pessimism" and "raise prices" don't earn him any fans, nor do his aggressive biz tactics. So has he earned all the hatred, or is the man just doing his job for his investors -- and a great one at that?

I took a look at the issue for my column this month in Kotaku, hitting up industry insiders, analysts and his own employees to analyze the anti-ATVI sentiment from all sides. Give it a read! And if you dig it, kindly Digg it?

Bonus material: Another excellent parody song from our friends at IdleThumbs, "inspired by the teachings of Kotick." Brought to you by the mind of Chris Remo, who you might recall also brightened our lives with the "Senior Super Douche"-inspired "Stop Doing Interviews," also Activision-oriented.

PS: Big ups to Twitter follower Vahn16 for the Kurtz comparison -- "Love @leighalexander's Kotick article, but is anyone else having flashbacks to Heart of Darkness? 'He's a great man!' but few have met him."

PPS: Also big ups to The_Game_Boy for making reference to division-winning Yankees and their ol' figurehead -- "@leighalexander @pkollar It isn't a bad thing that gaming now has its George Steinbrenner."

(Follow me on Twitter so I can quote you one day, too!)

Conflict, Resolution

"For a story to occur, it has to keep proceeding... challenge is about preventing you from continuing in the game... Story and challenge work against each other. No matter how hard you work on a game, if you've got a story in the traditional way, and you've got challenge elements like we traditionally use them, they work against each other."

-- Jonathan Blow

"All right: so what if the player's challenge and the protagonist's challenge are not the same thing? Or what if the function of the challenge is something other than doling out quantities of story? Is there a way in which challenge can make a story more powerful or more significant rather than less?"

-- Emily Short, "Analysis: Challenge, Game Design Conflicts, Storytelling"

"Motion Controller"*

*Motion Controller, Sony says in its press release, is a tentative name for the orb-topped, glowy camera-sensing wand it just confirmed will release in Spring 2010. Yay, finally a release date! But no name?

Hey, let's be fair, though. Much of the time, new hardware has tentative or prototypical names -- remember the Nintendo "Revolution?" Remember the collective choke of horror, fascination and good old third grade jeering when we first heard the word "Wii"?

And is it truly likely Microsoft will introduce "Project Natal" to the mainstream consumer audience on retail shelves with a name like that? Yeah, no. I mean, it rhymes with a tennis player, even though it looks like it should be pronounced like something pertaining to gestating infants. Would it be so bad if we called it "Camera Solution" or something until it got its retail name?

Still, we in the press have been looking for something to call the glowy-wand-orb-thing besides "Motion Controller," and we wonder how Sony will name and market the thing when the time comes. Therefore, I decided to consult my friends on Twitter (become one of them!) to see if we couldn't give Sony some helpful suggestions -- and of course, some friendly teasing. Here are some. Leave more good/funny ideas in the comments!


BreenyMack@leighalexander wonder wand, shit sticks, red balls of fury, project fatal.. Just to name a few
39 minutes ago from UberTwitter in reply to leighalexander

dangermartian@leighalexander I think sony should call it the "Partytime Funwand," just to connect to the casual/vibrator market.
about 1 hour ago from web in reply to leighalexander

simmies@leighalexander Sony Expressence Dowel
about 2 hours ago from Echofon in reply to leighalexander

stocdred@leighalexander Sonomotion, MotionMe, AirPlay, SimuMotion, WaveWand, SpaceSphere, BallSack, Copernicus, Project Not-tal, Hullabaloo
about 2 hours ago from Twitterrific in reply to leighalexander

unangbangkay@leighalexander DualWand
about 2 hours ago from Echofon in reply to leighalexander

dfjones@leighalexander the P-mote? E-motion? Ps waggle? Project rushjob?
about 2 hours ago from Tweetie in reply to leighalexander

julio_cesar@leighalexander I think it´s called "Wand"
about 2 hours ago from Echofon in reply to leighalexander

WilloughbyJ@leighalexander Sony's Colorful Magic Wand
about 2 hours ago from web in reply to leighalexander

chrominance@leighalexander Singstar Twist n' Shout Microphone (but seriously, they should put a mic in that thing--take that, Lips!)
about 3 hours ago from Echofon in reply to leighalexander

tech_gaming@leighalexander Would PS3D be too cheesy?
about 3 hours ago from web in reply to leighalexander

nilcypher@leighalexander I desperately want Sony to call it something overwrought like 'omni-rod' or 'uni-scepter'
about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to leighalexander

Jensonb@leighalexander they ahould call it Six Axe Eyes
about 3 hours ago from Twittelator

MrWasteland@leighalexander The Unblue Ocean Strategy
about 3 hours ago from Twitterrific in reply to leighalexander

MrWasteland@leighalexander Audience Broadening Initiative #37B
about 3 hours ago from Twitterrific

tech_gaming@leighalexander Something to go with Playstation Eye. I'm thinking EyeMotion, EyeSee, or just Eye-Aye-I
about 3 hours ago from web in reply to leighalexander

LBJeffries@leighalexander The amazing WANDO!
about 3 hours ago from web

WarofArt@leighalexander Metoomote
about 3 hours ago from web in reply to leighalexander

MikeCK88@leighalexander The PS3mote?
about 3 hours ago from TwitterBerry

timseppala@leighalexander Playstation Pie in the Sky
about 3 hours ago from mobile web

8bithack@leighalexander Playstation Knob.
about 3 hours ago from Seesmic in reply to leighalexander

thetrin@leighalexander Sony Ocean Motion Commotion Lotion
about 3 hours ago from Twitterrific in reply to leighalexander

MrWasteland@leighalexander Sony Bone
about 3 hours ago from Twitterrific in reply to leighalexander

MrWasteland@leighalexander SCE Controller Type 9 "Rudolph's Nose"
about 3 hours ago from Twitterrific

Fox4649@leighalexander Ollivander's Hand-Held Sony Peripheral
about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to leighalexander

MrWasteland@leighalexander The PlayStation 3 Autogamic Gesticulizer
about 3 hours ago from Twitterrific

cptcarnage@leighalexander hmmm, StickAxis?
about 3 hours ago from UberTwitter in reply to leighalexander

Dlangar@leighalexander PS Wiggle #sonymotioncontroller
about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to leighalexander

Sean2D2@leighalexander Magic balls. Wonder sticks. Stick and Ball. The Eyes of Sauron. Sorcerer's balls. Magic Wands. 4-D Controller. PSmote.
about 3 hours ago from web in reply to leighalexander

S_McNair@leighalexander Latan
about 3 hours ago from Tweed in reply to leighalexander

pantscommander@leighalexander Sonymote, Swaggle, Contrabulous Fraptraption, The "Pleasebuyme"
about 4 hours ago from Echofon in reply to leighalexander

StupidDufus@leighalexander A name? How about "bandwagon" or "innovation." =P
about 4 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to leighalexander

regretlesspanda@leighalexander Single Schlock
about 4 hours ago from Echofon in reply to leighalexander

The_B@leighalexander PS3se Wii-lease Me?
about 4 hours ago from Seesmic in reply to leighalexander

galenblade@leighalexander The Sony Metoo.
about 4 hours ago from web

tyrone_hawk@leighalexander PSMotion?
about 4 hours ago from web in reply to leighalexander

tylerstyle@leighalexander "Bulbi", your new companion for magical worlds. For the more seasoned gamer, call 'em "Orb".
about 4 hours ago from Snowl

A Pricey Cup Of Joe

Starbucks Coffee is like, four bucks or something like that, insane considering how relatively cheap coffee itself is as a commodity (and considering how Starbucks tastes like crap -- Dunkin' Donuts for life).

But if we're talking expensive coffee, the priciest is the one served up with the now-infamous 'Hot Coffee' scandal with which Take-Two found itself saddled when a mod unlocked some hidden no-no content. Years of media hype, legal battles and other consequences of the incident's spectre followed.

It was expensive. Really expensive, and that's just adding up the costs we can materially quantify. I took a look at the cost of Hot Coffee in an editorial at Gamasutra today -- and found the real costs go way beyond the monetary.

And they go way beyond Take-Two. The entire industry paid for that one little mini-game, when you think about it. Agree?

Let's Wear Things

I've already pointed out how much I like Meat Bun's T-shirts. I've been loving their newer ones, the DX Line, and getting a lot of wear out of the ones I've got, so I thought I'd indulge in some long-overdue pimpage.

Honestly, being a "G4/X\3|2" isn't something I tend to like to advertise in the traditional sense. Yes, I do, in fact, still own the launch-day FFVII shirt I got as a preorder gift from some retailer or other, but I'm a little embarrassed wearing that out in public. My Assassin's Creed 2 shirt was a cozy wear for the long flight home from E3, but I'm not wearing it out to the bar either.

But I totally love this particular "Fight Night" shirt -- yeah, it's a Street Fighter shirt, but it's so subtle that only fellow geeks can tell you're not simply super-fashionable. It always gets a ton of compliments when I wear it out and about, and it actually looks good on me, unlike XXL Unreal Tournament tees. If you've never checked out the new line, you totally should.

Also, I am promoting two items of clothing here, actually -- I'm not really sure why I got in the mail these high-tech specs from Gunnar Optiks, but hey, here we are, and I'm telling you about them because I feel guilty not having paid for 'em. They are apparently worn by professional musicians and people with names like "DJ Rocky Rock"?

I don't even wear prescription lenses, but my eyes really suffer from spending so much time a day on the laptop working. These are supposed to help prevent eyestrain. I guess I'll have to wear them daily for a while to see if there's really an effect or not, but they are comfortable and I think they look kinda cool.

Done shilling for now, I swear. Seriously, though, there are plenty of geek clothes out there, but when are we going to see more labels and retailers getting on board with geek fashion? Let's just pretend I am starting a "not brushing hair" trend, while we're at it.

And Your Bird Can Sing

"So I ask: must we appreciate The Beatles? Must we reminisce with the newly aged about their privileged lives as naive youthful radicals, and then later as greedy yuppie centrists, and then finally as truculent conservative majority? Must we give them their final thrill in the medium we popularized, and which they spent decades not only failing to understand, but also deriding as useless and insolent? Must we allow them to celebrate not through change, not through novelty, but through utter sameness?"

-- The always-provocative Ian Bogost, on The Beatles: Rock Band

Music Sweet Music

I don't listen to game music anymore. I used to, years ago -- owning a soundtrack to a game I really loved was a must. Certainly, as I've grown up, my musical tastes have changed quite a lot. You could also blame my career. Spending my whole days immersed in the art, business and culture of video games, I'm understandably less interested in seeking out yet more ways to work games into my everyday life. I'm at saturation!

But most people I know who are fans and followers of game music often express that they feel soundtracks have "changed," or fail to be as memorable as they once were. The themes we really love, recognize and identify with are for the most part from a prior era. I mean, there's "Still Alive." And "Somewhere Beyond The Sea" in BioShock stands out to me, but of course that song didn't originate with the game.

Website Original Sound Version exists for hardcore devotees of game scores, and they recently asked me to contribute some thoughts on video game music in an interview. I did my best to explain where I believe the perception of a character loss in game music comes from:

"With a few exceptions, most of our most beloved themes and tunes evolved out of an era where music was essentially used as background accompaniment for gameplay that was either very basic or very repetitive (think of trying to time your jumps to the beat in some sidescroller or another).

And of course, these games were not only repetitive but grueling, so you’d have one cartridge last you months, maybe even years, before you ever completed it or got tired of it. You’d end up hearing some of the same songs billions and billions of times, which means they were more likely to score some kind of permanence in your consciousness.

Games just are not made that way anymore, really. Now, tech being what it is, I think there’s this holistic approach to world-building, where every element is combined to immerse the player. Music’s become something that perhaps influences the impression or emotion of a scene, but I don’t think it’s intended to be noticed per se. The emphasis on realism means that music’s become more ambient – it’s designed to give the player a mood, but the player mustn’t notice that it’s happening. That – combined with the fact that we blow through these massive AAA titles in much briefer time periods somehow these days – means that game music leaves less of an impression than it used to, I think."

I think this is something of a misstep on the part of game development, though. When it comes to memory and emotion, it's always seemed to me that the visual sense is the least acute -- a beloved song or familiar scent can bring emotion and memory rushing back with an intensity that can't be matched by what the eyes see. The goal of creating a player's emotional attachment to a game would be much better served through distinct, memorable music themes.

Just think of the role "Still Alive" played in Portal's success and the endurance of its appeal -- there wouldn't have been cake without icing. And what would that seminal Final Fantasy VII moment have been without Aeris' theme? Recognizable music doesn't just build immersion, it builds loyalty. I'd wager a publisher could sell more sequels if they used the shorthand of common musical themes to jog players' memories of how much they loved the first one.

There are some games we continue discussing and adoring long after we've put the controller down, and music is one element that can give a title a lasting place in our hearts. I'd like to see less auditory wallpaper and more really good game songs, wouldn't you?

Until then, check out the full Original Sound Version interview, in which I name my favorite game soundtracks of all time. What are yours?

Is The First-Person The Most-Person?

The first-person perspective has come to prominence over the years as the shooter genre has fully come into its own on consoles -- in no small part, I think, because developers realized it was far easier to work with than the third-person (remember all those tricky camera issues cropping up in the last-gen?)

There also seems to be an impression that it's the most immersive. You can look around a game world as if with your own eyes, you can see your own hands and sometimes even more (see the otherwise-lamentable Alone in the Dark's neato inventory system).

But there's something to be said for being able to see your character, right?

Japanese RPGs, which rely on rich visuals and groups of intricate characters, are almost exclusively third-person -- if there's such a thing as a first-person JRPG, please enlighten me. Western RPGs, on the other hand, are in the large majority first-person. How strange to see such a divergent approach in what is effectively a comparable genre.

Personally, I enjoy games that use the perspective in creative ways. EA told me that the reason for all the reflective surfaces in Mirror's Edge is to allow the player to see Faith, an interesting nod to the importance of self-visualizatoin. And remember how meticulously some of us arranged portals in order to get a glimpse of Chell? In BioShock, I think the first-person perspective is ideal -- your character lacks a sense of self as a narrative necessity, and is simply hands, weapons. Not to mention the fact that Jack might look like his dad, thereby spoiling some things.

Anyhow, I bring it up because my colleague, Game Developer editor Brandon Sheffield, wrote an editorial at Gamasutra pointing out why it's somewhat misleading to assume that first-person games are automatically more immersive, and he discusses some of the actual barriers to immersion he feels they can create.

Do you have a preference? If so, why? If it depends on the genre, which types of games do you think are more suited to one perspective versus another? Vote in the sidebar poll too, willya?