What's Our Mandate?

All hail Nintendo, for bringing video games to morning mainstream television, for lining up the all-ages gamers outside of its stores, for bringing in the girls, the senior citizens, the rehabbing soldiers, the fitness junkies. Yes, yes, thanks to Nintendo for fostering a more friendly attitude toward gaming among the uninitiated, for opening minds with a clean, soothing and bright white Wii ray.

Seriously, thank you, Nintendo. The broadening of gaming is something I write about a lot, and as much as I express concern about over-commercialization, cultural dilution and big-big business risk aversion as a potential threat to the things we've loved about video games since our childhood, nothing would be more fatal to gaming than if it failed to gain large-scale social relevance, leaving us to chew our own tails and curl in on ourselves in the dark.

If I had to guess why people come to Sexy Videogameland, aside from illogical and perverted Google misfires, I'd say it's because you believe in this larger relevance for gaming. Readers of SVGL and the sites I consider its siblings in spirit, the ones in my blogroll to the right, want to read about, think about and discuss games because they've meant more to you than the latest summer blockbuster film that you pick up for the explosions, bang through and discard.

And to the extent that I can play some role in supporting you in doing so - while expressing my desire for the same, of course - I'm constantly evaluating my work as a journalist, evaluating the best way to support these objectives we share, these hopes and desires for what games can be and what they can mean to us and to everyone else.

If games mean more to us than simple toys, it's because we've found a personal, emotional connection point, and that's no small deal. We hope that games will contain many of these touchstones, and I think a heartening percentage of them do. I think, though, the key to gaming becoming really meaningful and important to society at large is for them to develop touchstones that aren't necessarily personal to us, but relevant to the world on a whole.

I'm thinking about this as I watch on television the footage of the absolutely mind-blowing destruction in China in the wake of an unprecedented earthquake, devastation in Myanmar. I'm watching stories about a lifetime public servant's terminal brain cancer, publicity photos of his family smiling through it all. I'm watching America re-evaluate its national identity after what's arguably a misstep of a war, gamely accepting that the next leader might be a black man or a woman, something impossible perhaps even a decade ago. I'm watching an energy crisis, an environmental crisis.

Then I go to work and write about video games. Our industry burgeons and swells with money against the backdrop of larger social issues, and on forums everywhere, the majority of the vocal audience wants to know, "does it have multiplayer?" We want to know if the graphics suck or if there will be a sequel.

There is a crisis of conscience here.

Now, in love and war, in sin and grace, humanity's always loved its entertainment, and to place the burdens of the world even in that arena would never be my objective. But I just don't think the schism between our world and the real world needs always be so wide.

A dear friend of mine has a cousin - more like a brother to him, really - who's a career soldier, and my friend had been corresponding regularly with his cousin while he was stationed in Iraq. His cousin, devoted to his job, wrote almost cheerfully about the dangers he and his team faced, painting a lifelike picture of a world we'd previously only seen in horrific evening television footage. Then, not long after their correspondence began, my friend's cousin was seriously, seriously, grievously wounded by an IED.

While waiting over a weekend to find out if his cousin would live or die, my friend picked up Call of Duty 4, seemingly inexplicably and all of a sudden, and played it all through the weekend while he waited for news from his family. It was a way of processing it for him, I think. And I thought, how much more important could this game have been if it hadn't avoided timeliness, specificity, so averse to controversy or the spectre of offense?

My friend is sadly not the only one who's suffered a loss in these times. Fortunately, his cousin will make it, but there are painful thousands people I've never met who don't have such a relieving result. Solely retreating into the simple exit of play, pretending games are toys, misses an opportunity, I think.

I would like games, and the work of people like me who write about games, to be able to keep a foot in reality, a thread that runs through the stories of the real world into the stories of the game world. Sometimes. A Final Fantasy Tactics fan at Japanator's blogs used his feelings about War of the Lions to parallel and organize his own opinion on the war. He's not even a professional writer, and he's trying; I respect that. Infamous tipster SurferGirl has said that she hoped to use the buzz around her industry-insider blog to encourage gamers to broaden their views and take an interest in activism. She's since retired the mysterious blog; perhaps she felt she wasn't finding success at that.

I'm not implying that all gamers should feel some sort of moral obligation that they wouldn't otherwise. And god knows that not all games need to carry social weight - let's let Pokemon be Pokemon, for example. But at the very least, we should be able to write and talk about games in a way that isn't insular, that doesn't exclude the stories of the real world. I say "at least," even though I know what I'm asking is no easy feat, demanding a lexicon that'll take time and broad effort to evolve. But to me, that's really the only way to help gaming become truly relevant and inclusive - Miis, waggle and Wii Fit can only go so far.

The Wii Fit Question

Lots of colleagues and pals have asked me a question all of you have probably heard continually lately. "Are you getting Wii Fit?"

This might not be remarkable; you guys know what my job is, and so do all my friends, and so it's common for people to ask me what games I'm getting and which I'm passing on. The difference with Wii Fit, though, is that this sort of video game -- are we calling it a video game? -- is new to everyone.

Maybe I'm reaching a little. We had Power Pads in the '80s, then DDR machines and all of that. I mean, the early days of Nintendo were filled with all kinds of weird peripherals, and maybe this is just the latest perennial gimmick.

But the reason I hate advertisers (while simultaneously maintaining terrified, Old Testament awe at their power) is because I'm a total hype sucker. I read somewhere, and I cannot recall where, that Nintendo spent more money on Wii Fit's marketing campaign than they've ever spent on anything. It seems to be working. It makes me excited, like when I call my Mom and tell her she ought to finally buy a Wii because she'll really like this game and she tells me, actually, she was thinking about it.

I'm sort of scared of Wii Fit. I mean, it'll know how much I weigh, and it'll make me look really stupid, like that lady in the picture up there. But everyone seems kinda scared of it, and kinda excited about it, and as much as I roll my eyes, hard, whenever I see news anchors "discovering" the latest game stuff on the morning news, it kinda, just a little, makes me happy.

So, are you getting it?

Getting Rich Off Hyphens

I like to read Kyle Orland's "PressSpotting" column at GameSpot (journalists are vain Narcissi on the edge of a shallow pool), and I particularly like what MTV Multiplayer's Stephen Totilo had to say in the latest column. However - and I swear to god I'm not ripping off Mitch Krpata here - the best part of the column were the comments. In response to a very thoughtful interview, here's what user "illkillyou" had to say:

sorry, but i cant help but feel like the 'videogame style guide and reference manual" is both a gigantic ripoff and a huge mistake. Yes, I would like to see more hard-hitting, investigative journalism coming from game journalists, but there's not a single gamer in the whole world who is going to question a writer's credibility any more than they already do because the author put a hyphen between X and Box.And you don't need to read any kind of book to know that videogame is one word to gamers. The New York times and their likes need style books for good reason: it cleans up the text and boosts the author's percieved credibility. but come on... seriously... videogame-journalism-specific stylebook? This is just one more link in the long chain of people in the game industry trying to rip off their consumers.

You heard it here first! Journalistic style is a ploy by the video game industr-- oops, the videogame industry, to nickel and dime you for everything you've got. In fact, I just got off some calls with Microsoft, and they tell me they're going to charge every single one of you every time I hyphenate "X-Box." Take that, Kyle Orland and his expensive PressSpotting column! Take that, Stephen Totilo, and your foolish, pricey ideas about "doing things that people are going to find compelling and interesting." Haven't we wrung "illkillyou" enough?

Winds and Women

I'm stressed out a lot, but I do really like my work. Even when I'm having a bad day, there are days like the one earlier this week, when I have to call up a Playboy model and talk to her about RPGs for a while and I realize, 'dude, I'm at work.'

That really did happen, and in case you didn't see it yet, my interview with "2008 Cyber Girl of the Year" Jo Garcia is up at Kotaku. I have to say, I was skeptical about whether she'd really know anything about games -- so many girls out there put an XBL headset on and say "Hey boys! I like Halo! Give me web hits!"

She's for real, though, and I also got her feedback on how she feels about female sexuality being used to manipulate game consumers (thereby creating further skepticism and misogyny towards the idea of "girl gamers"). Check it out.

Just today, I got to talk to the developers of LostWinds, which you guys know I like. I asked them where they got the idea for the visual aesthetic and how they think WiiWare might change the game as far as getting more interesting game concepts out there. It's here.

Here's a "tough" question; between these two stories, which one do you think is more relevant, really? Now, which one is going to get more pageviews?

The Magical Internet Sea

Having a site called "Sexy Videogameland" means that a terrifying percentage of my web hits come from people around the world typing the word "sexy," all by itself, into Google. Why would anyone do that? You'd think they could be a little more specific.

I often keep an eye on my search terms, because if people are coming here repeatedly looking for something that might possibly fall in my purview, I try to make sure they find it. "odin sphere art book"? I can do that. "persona 3 hentai?" You know it. "pokemon dawn hentai?" ...I could, but I won't, because that makes me feel really icky.

Then, there are some people that I just can't, or don't want to help, not now, not ever. Let's all laugh at them:

sexy blood elf fap - You do that.
sexy fuck game at the period time of girl - I tried to think of a hentai game involving "the period time of girl," but I actually can't recall any. I'm sure there are some.
look how he do sexy vedio - Yes, look at that.
big graphics porn game - As opposed to small, unsatisfying graphics, surely.
leigh alexander fuck - Excuse me?
sexy grunty hentai - Grunty from Banjo? Are you fricking kidding me?
miss bimbo hentai version - Isn't the real version enough of an obscenity?
sexy baseball game - Have 2K Sports get right on that.
shiki hentai - I have already posted that I possess no such thing. If someone sends it to me, I'll put it in the gallery.

Like an ocean, the undertow welcomes in the strange and filthy, but still the clean waves wash life-giving water onto the shores, or something. I wanted to recognize a few of my favorite comments over the last week-ish; I no longer have any time to keep on top of the "Best of SVGL" competitions I used to run, but I still constantly appreciate everything you all bring to my site.

Robert said...

Oh and lets' be honest Leigh, you're just burying yourself in work to try to deny the fact that the Yankees are in last place. [--SHUT UP SHUT UP LALALALALALA]

Phil Villarreal said...

The reason video games are being made into movies is because Hollywood has just about run out of comic books. They're planning an Ant Man movie.

That last sentence was both a joke and true. [...Ant Man? I didn't even know there was an Ant Man.]

N'Gai said...

Leigh,

If Pauline Kael or her editors had decided that her mandate was "more about sharing movie culture with the curious or the casual," movie criticism would be all the poorer for it. The same would have been true of music criticism if Lester Bangs or his editors had decided that his mandate was "more about sharing music culture with the curious or the casual." I believe that if my peers in the mainstream media and I do our jobs correctly; if we write clearly and lucidly, general interest readers are capable of absorbing far more genuine and truthful portrayals of what it's like to experience an individual game than we are currently giving them. To do otherwise is a form of condescension--well-intentioned, perhaps, but it's condescension nonetheless. [I learned I'm a little more cynical than N'Gai, or at least have a different timeline in mind, but I sure can love a "don't settle" mandate.]

Anskiere said...

I started realizing that I was getting too accustomed to "being able to save almost anywhere and not worry about losing tons of play time" back in my PS1 days.

It happened with Blaster Master: Blasting Again. I went through almost an entire level without having a save, and died. I got so frustrated that I quit the game for a while. A few days later I had the realization that part of the reason I was such a huge fan of the original Blaster Master was that there was no saving... and it was a hard game.
I also then realized that we were getting more and more spoiled with games getting "easier" in that you almost never lose hours of work anymore. [I wonder if I'm fed up with The World Ends With You because I just can't handle not being awesome at it immediately.]

Noc said...

I'm pretty sure that "necessary grinding" in a single-player game equals "bad level design." [A lot of designers probably agree with you.]

Don Pachi said...

As you said, people get into game development expecting to do one thing and likely wind up doing something different and probably less glamorous, memorable, or good.

Along the way, one can either give in to feelings of negativity in the face of adversity, or soldier on with the original dreams and ambitions in mind. It's by all means easier to feel cynical, and by all means harder to soldier on. The reality that friends in this industry are also, in a sense, competing for a limited number of jobs is also difficult to accept.

I've worked on the periphery of the game industry for more than a decade and finally got into development more recently. What drives me (and what I expect will always drive me) is that every year, without fail, a number of games come out that amaze and inspire me. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears tend to go into making these games from what I understand, but from my perspective, the effort is worth it. My chances of working on something like that one day may be slim, but if I don't work in this business, those chances are zero. And I'll take those chances. [I like that attitude. Am I terrible for wanting to say something like, 'see how you feel in ten years?' I tend to believe I'm an optimistic person, but many of you have been peeling the lid off of my secret cynicism lately. I think I need an attitude adjustment.]

It was as hard just to pick a few, as it always is, but I thought these people's thoughts stood alone nicely even separate from the post context. In the case of long comments, these are just sections edited for length, okay?

[UPDATE: I should have anticipated this, but a peek at my referrers today shows that several of you are googling rather hilarious things to do with my name. Nice.]

Please Hold The Line

Just wanted to note that I've been busier than usual recently and have gotten more emails than I'm used to; If you've written me an email and I'm slow to respond, please bear with me.

Lately I've gotten a lot of career-minded emails from people who want to know how I got into game journalism, my advice on breaking in or if I can evaluate their work. I feel a karmic obligation to answer each and every one of these -- I used to be on the other side of things, writing to lots of bloggers and editors for help and feedback before I was doing very much professional writing about games. And I firmly believe I would have never had the courage to start out if one such editor hadn't taken lots of time to write back to me.

Maybe one of these days I'll make some kind of FAQ post with my answers to the common questions people have about becoming a writer. I hesitate though, because I don't really feel comfortable with the idea that I'm someone who should be advising others, necessarily, as I'm always focused on progress I want to make and things I need to learn.

Until then, I'll try to answer all of the questions that I can -- but please don't be insulted if I don't have time for a long ongoing correspondence, or if I don't return IMs. These days, if I'm on the computer it's usually because I'm working, so if I don't answer something, just assume I'm busy and I've done my best.

That's not to discourage anyone from writing me, though -- I love getting feedback, I love when people are motivated to share their opinions with me and I like to feel like I know my readership. Just be a bit patient if it takes a while!

I've barely had time to update my sidebar's "Recent stuff of note" section, but I just did, finally, so if you're interested, you can see my favorites of the longer-form stuff I've been doing at Kotaku lately.

And, for whatever reason, it seems you can expect my occasional anime-related post headers to feature increasingly obscure references.

Pins And Needles

I'm on Day 3 in The World Ends With You. Still early, I know, but I'm not so sure whether I'd stick with it if not for so many comments, emails and reviews from peers with whom I ordinarily agree that all indicate I'm supposed to like it.

Can you guys actually play both screens at one time? Does it become easier to do that with lots of practice? And yes, I know you can set the partner to auto-play, but then I feel like I'm missing the whole point, with all of the options for syncing and fusion and whatnot. I get the idea it should feel like I'm playing a rhythm game, something I ordinarily do well - and since I can't coordinate this, I just end up feeling frustrated.

I love the style, I love the music, and I find the story interesting, but I have no idea how I'm going to wrangle this battle system. I feel like there's some awesome party going on and I'm totally not invited. Advice?

Also, no, I don't have any Shiki hentai. If I find some, you'll know, so stop asking.

New, New, New

Nintendo's WiiWare launch yesterday is a bit easy to overlook, isn't it? I see it as a potentially significant thing, though. One of the things I find really exciting is that companies like Square Enix can think outside their usual parameters and develop ways to do more with smaller file sizes. If others can follow suit, my hope is that WiiWare becomes a new breeding ground for experimentation and innovation, like its siblings on XBLA and PSN have been (to some extent).

Speaking of innovation, please don't miss Lost Winds. Seriously.

It reminds me more of Knytt and Braid than anything I've ever played on a home console, the way that both of those feel like a natural evolution (and a subtle revolution) on the platformer, while incorporating art and music in a really polished, elegant way. In particular, you'll see that Lost Winds has the same seamless progression from high, open skies above ground to mysterious, deep underground spaces as Knytt does. And the way the narrative leads the player gradually and fluidly into the gameplay is exactly the kind of thing I've heard Jon Blow give lectures about.

So yeah. Don't back-shelf WiiWare just because you're not excited about FFCC: My Life As A King - which, by the way, I have not tried yet, but colleagues I trust tell me it's good, too. The way Lost Winds has shown up as a console downloadable with all of the simple elegance for which we usually turn to our indies feels like a really important event to me.

To put it plain, it's good. Buy it!

When The World Was New

When you write about games on a daily basis, I have to admit it can sap the magic around being a game fan. Most game announcements just mean more work, after a while. Doesn't mean I don't like them or enjoy playing, it just means that over time, I start to feel a little more pragmatic about things.

Except one thing. My god, I cannot wait for Metal Gear Solid 4. Like in the worst way. I haven't been looking at any of the trailers that came out over the past 24 hours, and I didn't read the first review, which came out in UK's official PlayStation mag. You know I don't trust super-early 10s. In fact, you know I don't care about scores. But I still got a little flutter. Can't help it.

I've a mammoth swath of faith in the ability of Kojima's mind-bending storytelling to blow my mind, and every little snippet I catch on the wind seems to promise it will be so. I'm loath to read that whole review lest it irrationally jack my hopes even higher, but if you want to, have at.

I'm past the point now where I can't get enough details; now, I just need to wait and be surprised. If you are unlike me and want to watch more new video than you can shake a stick at, my Kotaku overlords will provide. Also, I hope our local UNIQLO has these shirts. I want all six.

I do love the franchise that much, but a large part of it is that it's so good to feel good-old-fashioned excited about something, like when I was a kid and I got excited about a GamePro writeup of Ordyne because you could play as a girl named Kana with a little orange spaceship. Or when Sonic & Knuckles was coming out, or when Sega invented the Game Gear. Oh, time flies.

Maybe my de-facto attitude about the majority of new releases isn't due to my employment, but to (gasp) aging. Or maybe it's due to high, high expectations that the industry can't possibly meet on a regular basis, true of a good many of game fans, I think. What about you guys? Still get excited about new stuff? Anything you just absolutely toe-curlingly cannot wait for?

[Ordyne "Kana Mode" ending screencap made possible by vgmuseum.com.]

Blah Blah Blah

Some of my friends might be insulted to know that I don't ever listen to podcasts, even when I'm on them. I've got nothing against them, of course -- I just find it impossible to make time to sit and listen to them. When I'm out with my iPod or whatever, I need to have a steady stream of music just to make it on The Streets, yo, and talking voices just don't cut it. If I try to listen to a podcast while multitasking, I don't hear what's being said, and I cannot ever just sit still and listen for an hour. There's always something else I need to do, and getting far away from my computer is never the least of these.

Despite my pragmatic reasons, if it ever got out that I was anti-podcast, it might hurt people's feelings, so I try not to ever tell anyone.

Oops! Oh well. Anyway, I may not ever listen to podcasts, but I have no problem being on them. In fact, I usually like it, and enjoyed being part of the GTA IV chat on this week's Blazing Prattles at Crispy Gamer. It was pretty fun, with a couple of my pals on, so check it out if you like. Tell me how I did, 'cause I bet I won't end up listening to it!

(Header pic's super cute, isn't it? I wanted to post the entire image, but it's just a little bit risque, depending on your point of view. I uploaded it to SVGL Collection so you can check it out if you want, but be advised that while the NSFW-ness of this picture is pretty debatable, the NSFW-ness of the pop-up ads on the hosting site is quite clear.)

Here It Comes

Is it just me, or has gaming been suffering a little identity crisis lately?

First up, the pace at which we hear film adaptations announced is picking up. We've got Street Fighter, Prince of Persia, and in case you haven't checked your feeds this morning, guess what? BioShock, to be directed by Gore Verbinski.

I've written before about entertainment media convergence -- both the case in favor, and the case against, with each standpoint arguing why this sort of progress could be either good or bad for the industry. Just yesterday, Activision saw a mindblowing ratcheting-up of its profits, announcing a record fourth quarter without even releasing any games during that period. The lion's share of that windfall is entirely thanks to two franchises: Guitar Hero and Call of Duty. And you know what that means: get ready for more sequels and tie-ins than you can shake a controller at.

Why has this distinctive games-as-Hollywood vibe come flooding in all of a sudden? For one thing, gaming continues to thrive as a big-money industry, even in the face of high, high risk and what may or may not be an American economic recession. The industry was worth something like $9 billion in 2007 and is expected to keep growing.

Despite the stigma of ignorance that still surrounds a major release like GTA IV, resulting in advocacy groups lobbying congress for retailer-penalty legislation and slinging hyperbolic (not to mention inaccurate) language like "you get points for driving drunk in this game," we have heartening signs of increasing respect in the mainstream for games: a fine GTA IV writeup by the Times' Seth Scheisel, dignified GTA IV review in Slate by Wired editor Chris Baker, and increasingly thorough and relevant industry coverage by Variety's Ben Fritz (disclosure: I've written for Baker and regularly write for Fritz, and have a high opinion of them both).

Variety's news on Gore Verbinski's directorship of the BioShock flick is currently the magazine's top story online, and in searching the links for this post I also discovered another cool Slate piece on GTA IV's portrayal of illegal economies. Though Newsweek's N'Gai Croal believes "the mainstream" still has a ways to go in effectively writing about games, I don't necessarily agree - I was recently talking with an Entertainment Weekly writer who agreed that the mandate for mainstream outlets might be more about sharing game culture with the curious or the casual, at this point, than satisfying the needs of game consumers, who are more likely to turn to the trade publications for reviews. Different audiences have different needs.

The second big story after GTA IV's bar-raising release and the sophisticated acclaim it's received is the advent of Wii Fit, which looks set to raise another bar -- the one set by Wii Sports when it changed the way society at large thinks about video games. I want Wii Fit, but not the way I normally want a new video game. I want it like I wanted my iPhone, or like people want a GPS for their car. I want it like it's the hot new "lifestyle product." And it is.

You know, though we always hoped this day would come, the games industry isn't really used to this -- we've begun questioning our own practices, since the value and context for gaming is so much broader. Weighing methodology for game criticism against that of music and film has become the norm, regardless of whether or not the comparisons are relevant. We're wondering how we can embrace and leverage this evolution; for my part, the only thing I'm wondering is: Can we please finally dump review scores?

With all of this broad and unexpectedly "sophisticated" attention shining on us, I'm reminded of that archetypal episode always seen in sitcoms of a bygone era, the one where a poor schlub's shoe-polished and wealthy boss makes a short-notice promise of a dinner visit to his coarse employee.

The unfortunate soon-to-be-host scrambles about his little castle, making sure his wife looks spectacular, dressing the kids in stiff little suits and instructing them how to behave, planning the perfect menu and making sure unpredictable variables, like the slovenly drunk uncle or the rude Grandma, are well under control.

It's worth noting that those TV episodes rarely go well for the hero -- hilarious disasters tend to ensue.

Zelda's Best Friend

Okay, okay. I know. Posting pictures of one's cat on a blog is a very "internet chick" thing to do, and should probably be avoided at all costs. But this was so cute I couldn't resist.

This is my cat Zelda sleeping with my stuffed Weighted Companion Cube. Awwww.

Bits And Pieces

Let it be said, in case you haven't heard it from me before, that I love Persona 3. I'm not usually one to make grand statements, but I'll say it's the last great RPG in the genre's current incarnation. If you have any appetite for RPGs at all, don't miss it, and even if you don't, give the FES edition a try. It might surprise you.

We'll still have RPGs, of course, but my guess is they'll look more like Lost Odyssey or or Mass Effect or even FFXII than the formats with which we were raised. Even now, Persona 3 feels neoclassical, in a way -- as innovative as it is, I can't help but get a "they don't make them like this anymore" kind of feeling from it.

Which is not working in its favor right now, actually. I have FES and can't wait to dig into the extra episode and additional content, but I'd like to finish the main game first -- after getting trounced in a partially luck-based battle with the October boss, I went back to an earlier save to try and gain a few levels in Tartarus before the full moon. I spent some 45 minutes grinding before taking a one-hit KO in another stroke of ill fortune -- and lost it all. Altogether I'd been playing for an hour and a half without making a tick of forward progress.

I've made the case in the past that new games have spoiled us against frustrations that were par for the course in a previous era. Part of me doesn't like the fact that if this were any other game but Persona 3, this type of frustration would make me ditch the game.

Is sparing us this type of frustration necessary progress in the evolution of game development? Or should I embrace occasional frustration and lament the loss of my attention span?

Anyway, I'm not giving up, even though my GTA IV progress is slowed and I've barely scratched The World Ends With You, which I hear nothing but good things about (hence the new banner).

In other news, I'm still following the EA-Take-Two saga over at Kotaku. Record launch numbers for GTA IV were announced this morning -- it soundly whupped the record's precedent in Halo 3 -- and the stock failed to budge even a tick. This morning I explored the impact -- or lack thereof -- on the ongoing acquisition bid. Stay tuned!

Finally, for Nifflas fans, some adorable tiny-size minigame goodness for those eagerly awaiting Night Game.

What've you all been up to, o smartest, coolest commenters on the entire internet?

The Blues

There's no empirical way to quantify the rates of depression among those who work in the game industry, but talking to some friends lately, I'd hazard a guess they're quite high.

The problem with actually researching this in any constructive way is largely the tight-lipped nature of the industry on a whole. We have a hard enough time getting through to game companies to talk to them on the record about things they've already publicly announced; I've shared my frustrations lately with the pre-scripted approach to interviews, generally a rule.

Besides, I doubt if you talked to the executives -- certain directorial boards who earn $208,333 a month, for example -- they'd be the ones feeling bummed. I'm talking the people who often fall through the cracks. Not the star designers whose names you always read about, but the individuals part of huge development teams working sixty hours a week on something they probably never would have elected to make.

Of course, not all execs have it easy -- imagine being Midway interim president and CEO Matt Booty, who after working his way through the company for some 15 years, has to get in front of investors and sound cheerful and upbeat in the face of a $34 million loss.

As with any industry, money has a fist around the games biz, and those companies' leadership have a primary responsibility to their investors, even before their employees and their customers. But as gaming fights for legitimacy in a broadening audience, battles big-studio stagnation, and struggles to defend its spirit in a world where the big must consolidate the small just to remain competitive with one another, a broad gulf seems to be opening between the leadership of the games industry and its numerous employees, its still more numerous consumers and devotees.

Sequels, licensing deals, kid-friendly and budget casual products, more sequels and more licenses -- this is what the companies that aren't the market leaders must do to stay afloat. Why? The almighty investor doesn't always understand games. They understand sales figures and the properties that garner them. They understand that Spider-Man makes money, ergo any game with Spider-Man is a good bet -- period.

And these companies that aren't Activision and EA don't have the latitude to do what we'd all like to see the game industry do: invest in independent designers, new game concepts, creativity and innovation. When their stock is suffering, investors don't want to hear, "we're trying something new." Investors want to hear, "You know that Grand Theft Auto IV game that's so popular? We're making something else that's just like it."

Doesn't matter that struggling studios might not have either the budget or the talent on staff to make something that could compete with the market leader. If copying the winner poorly could get them just a percentage of those sales, the suits are happy. And if the suits aren't happy, struggling studios have no development budget at all. Then they've got to lay lots of people off to prove they're fiscally responsible. That's the beginning of the end for a company.

Even the market leaders, who are often on record talking about how happy their studios are, can rarely afford to rattle investor nerves with a few risks; that's why innovation comes so slowly. Nobody's got any mobility.

If you were to go into game development, think of why you'd want to do it. You'd want to design interesting, beautiful experiences for gamers like yourself, perhaps. Maybe you've got a prodigious technical skill you're just itching to apply to raise the quality bar across the board. You want to be creative, proficient, you want to change the paradigm.

Probably, probably, though, you'll end up making budget DS titles for girls, poor knockoffs of television shows and corny movies, because someone is holding a balance sheet in front of of you that says that's what's guaranteed to sell. And your development schedule and budget is ultimately in the hands of the board, not the people at work on the floor. And then when your game comes out, a legion of bloggers make it the butt of flippant jokes for months. Three hundred commenters and forum posters mock the company you work for. Your company's stock drops, your friends get fired. Then you've got to hang in there and do it again.

The games press is surly, too, of course. They're tired of crap; they're tired of writing the same kinds of stories on the same kinds of games for years and years. And they're tired of the same flippant, angry audience -- whose anger is justified and forgivable, as devoted enthusiasts who've been let down too many times. In my opinion, a vocal minority of the audience correlates the games press with the games industry, as if we were its mouthpiece -- and for other tricky reasons, sometimes some of us end up feeling like we're forced to be exactly that.

The majority of the industry, I'd gather, either distrusts or outright resents the games press -- some of us have earned that distrust and resentment, it's true. But that standoff makes it hard for journalists to get the access they need to do work that goes beyond hyped previews and easy, traffic-earning sensationalism, the very stuff that the industry criticizes in us whenever there are "meet the press"-type panels at GDC. So the resentment, at times, definitely becomes mutual. I'm not of the opinion that journalism should "serve" the industry, but without us working together better, neither the industry nor us will wholly serve a broader audience. More limited mobility.

This is why that IGN video scandal infuriated me -- why embrace the worst aspects of that fundamental miscommunication? I wondered, how does Rockstar feel when they see something they worked on for some two years distilled in this way, for this purpose?

I often wonder why the gaming community is so reactive, so passionate, so alarmingly volatile, and often so pervasively negative, and why so few members of the press tend to be patient and positive. Now, the more I talk to people (none of whom will go on the record, of course, and risk violating terror-inducing nondisclosure agreements that only allow them to make pre-approved statements) the more I realize that the people who make games have the toughest pill to swallow.

As long as this massive gap, this fundamental disconnect between the industry's leadership and its audience continues to exist, the industry's creative talent, its backbone, its workers continue to be in danger of slipping into the crevasse.

Certainly I don't imply that everyone who works in games is miserable; as I said, it's something that's impossible to really quantify. But it's worth wondering at the immense challenges all involved are facing, in the context of the undertone of negativity and hostility we see everywhere online -- something I really, really wish there were something I could do about.

What I Did Today

So, today I spent the lion's share of my time haranguing people about E3, as a bunch of publishers drop out, most notably Activision and Vivendi. Some interesting revelations, perhaps? Who knows?

Here's where it started, and here's where it ended up. Thoughts?

Woman About Town

I dunno why, but I can't stop laughing at this picture.

So, on the heels of me spending a good portion of the week ranting about depressing shit, let's go a little lite today. I guess playing lots of GTA IV has brought out my hostile and aggressive tendencies (ha).

Couple fun things I did lately with my friends: Talked to Chris at Hardcasual. He's posted the second part of the interview we did, in which he asks me for my opinion on things like Big Corporate, money, and our high-risk industry. I'm a little bit embarrassed, as I've said, by how much I talked and I can't believe he wants to post it all, but hey, there it is.

I also helped my friends at Multiplayer pick out the best birds EVER in video games. I've been helping choose animals with them over the past several weeks, like dogs, horses and fish, and now it's bird time. I wonder what's left now? Reptiles? Amphibians?

Finally, I love when teachers are into games. Too often, the academic approach to gaming totally misses the point -- hippie-style, shoegazing educational seminars simulcast in Second Life are the norm, very style-over-substance and lacking in understanding about the core of the medium.

That's why I've been so psyched to see things like this: Most of you have probably already seen, since I'm getting to this much later than I'd like, but my friend Michael Abbott of The Brainy Gamer has been hard at work consulting the community for suggestions on a course he plans to teach on the history of RPGs. So many of his readers were enthusiastic about helping him out that I wanted to point out that I've also just heard from classics professor Roger Travis, who plans to teach Homer using Fable, LotRO and Halo as course material. C'mon, how awesome would that class be? Travis, too, is soliciting the community for feedback, so check out the course info at his blog, Living Epic, and meet him.

Bonus material: Professor Travis compares Niko to Odysseus. Maybe if he'd been my teacher I wouldn't have spat on my copy of Ulysses and burned it.

Lowest Common Denominator

Regardless of what I think of their work, I try not to criticize other outlets, insult other journalists or anything tacky like that. After all, we're all on the same side here, everyone's fallible and I certainly don't claim to be Captain Queen Awesome or anything, to say the least.

But when IGN does something like this, I can't help it. What the fuck were you guys thinking? Do you really think so little of your audience? Worse, do you really think so little of the industry?

I don't care if people look down on me when I don't do well or if I sell myself short. I make plenty of mistakes and I can give you a laundry list of things I feel I should be doing better. But if people look down on my work and my field and my industry and the things I believe in because you do this kind of crap, then that's another issue.

Lots of us really, really care about treating games and gamers with respect, and it's like you just spit in our face. Are you really as stupid as this makes you look, or do you just totally not give a shit? Are you that desperate for traffic, or were you just angling to set up a new "horrors of GTA" story for your Fox parent? I completely cannot understand this.

And since I'm already on the soapbox, hey, what the hell: you guys should maybe write a little better, too. Like I said, I usually don't see it as my place to insult my peers, but the bad PR stuff like this gives game journalism is an insult to all of us.

Props to Totilo for actually asking them the all-important WTF, with much more polite composure than I.

[UPDATE: A friend has pointed out to me that IGN's "citizenmike" has a rather flippantly defensive response, including the statement: "It is exactly that kind of subversive, amoral behavior that GTA has been designed to celebrate." Really? I don't find the tone of the series celebratory, and if I had to guess, I'd say it's a statement of shock at the excesses of America. But given that the Housers so rarely discuss it (wonder why?) how on earth would you know?]

Hyper-Realistic Cop-Killing Crime Simulator With Prostitutes And Sex And Murder

Calling a game like GTA IV "hyper realistic" sounds incendiary -- in fact, that's how people like Jack Thompson refer to it. But the unfortunate thing about GTA IV is that it is.

No, I'm not referring to the gameplay or suggesting everyone loves to steal cars and beat whores. I'm not referring to the characters or the storyline either, though those have taken strides forward over previous installments. I don't even mean the atmospheric, highly detailed environments, nor the stunning-scale rendition of New York City, which is just "off" enough to be disorienting.

It's really a shame that GTA IV gets reduced in shorthand to the "crime sim," the "cop killer game," or the "game where you steal cars and beat whores." Because in many ways, it's really the most intelligent and forward-leaning thing we've got, the largest testimonial to the idea that all of that "potential of games as a medium" stuff we discuss is possible.

The best part of the GTA series is its periphery -- the TV, the radio, the background color, the locations, the vibe. At every turn, we encounter exaggerated parodies of paranoid parents, out-there religious types, oblivious hypocrites and people with raging entitlement complexes. It's easy to theorize that these are clever screw-yous to the very groups that deride the game and bemoan its existence. But an even handed look finds equal distaste for game-zombie children, weapons fanatics (so far, my fave part of the game is the knives commercial), escapists, and those obsessed with sex and libertine excesses.

I played through the game for my first couple hours without hurting a thing (except my car's headlights; I'm quite a bad driver). There's no reason to cause havok in the streets -- except that it's fun. Rockstar didn't so much make a violent game as it made a game that lets players be violent.

I'd say it's more a commentary on our society than on the video game industry that, given the opportunity, we have the urge to take things to that kind of extreme. And that principle in general seems to be what drives GTA IV.

As with San Andreas' LA ghetto sons, the story focuses on another demographic that might end up falling through the cracks in the real world, and lets an ambassador from that group live out an at-all-costs rise to fame and revenge story. It's always struck me as a painful, angry sort of game -- even as it laughs at the most terrible aspects of humanity -- and possessed of an emotional complexity that's taken to new levels in the latest installment.

People are mad that you can go to strip clubs and pick up prostitutes in GTA IV. But you can do that in real life; the Liberty City streets show us no more and no less than the worst of what exists in the real world. If people have a problem with the "realism" of GTA, then they've got a problem with society.

Yeah, lots of things in that game are really, really awful. But the sad part is it's not a fantasy - stuff like that goes on in real life. GTA as a series never shies away from the ugliest parts of humanity -- it mushes your face into 'em, and then laughs at you.

The weird thing is that playing it wrings me with a warm rush of affection, too -- you have to love something to satirize it this much, to lash it so brutally. Strange to say it, but it is, it's a really loving portrayal. For a game that's at times hilariously vulgar, it's dazzlingly intelligent.

Anyway, I've said a lot that playing the game means a little something extra to me because I'm a New York resident, and my latest at Kotaku has some surprising feedback from some real New Yorkers on what GTA IV means to them. I generally feel neutral about the articles I write, but I'm happy with how this one turned out, so I'd love to know what you guys think.

The Decision Was Made

Ta da.

Mushroom Cloud

So, I don't know whether you guys have heard that a game called Grand Theft Auto IV is out today. Know anything about this? There doesn't seem to be a lot of coverage out there on it.

...Riiight. I'm pretty excited about it, if for no other reason than it might end up being the biggest launch in our industry ever, possibly eclipsing TEH HALOEZ. I actually have a slim attention span for GTA IV; I don't like driving much, and I always found the shooting mechanics a little iffy. Of course it's all been buffed up this time around, but I tend to hand a controller over to a friend for the missions and spend the lion's share of my time soaking up all the little cultural parodies and creating fun cinema. I'm sure I'll do the same this time around, so I can't wait to see what the game lets me do.

Even though it's D-Day, for Decision Day, I haven't 100 percent decided which SKU I'm buying. You know how I feel about multiplayer, so I'm leaning toward the commonly-held-as-slightly-more-technically-stable PS3 version, but I will probably flip-flop the entirety of the day.

Expect plenty of articles on the cultural phenomenon, and I'll be soliciting you all for your comments on your adventures in Liberty City, your favorite bits and moments, and your funniest "guess what I did in GTA" stories.

Meantime I'm busy gazing curiously at Take-Two's stock price and writing about it. The quick update is that though Take-Two is currently trading a bit higher than EA's offer, it doesn't seem poised for a big climb (we'll see when sales numbers come out). However, the two companies could resume talking as soon as tomorrow, and EA still has until May 19th to seal the deal, provided regulators are speedy about clearing compliance issues.

If GTA is really as good as they're saying, don't be too mad at me if I go single-track mind. Who, me? I never do that.

I am quite skeptical, though, as are others, of "exclusive reviews." I emailed IGN asking them if they'd like to clarify exactly what one has to do to obtain an exclusive review, but no one has answered me. So, in the absence of any comment, explanation or information, I'll just contentedly assume that it's very, very smarmy, probably involving lots of dirty money and ominously-featured men with secret devil tails shaking hands while the flames of hell curl quietly behind them.

Ain't No Holiday

Considering the very high standards to which gamers tend to hold the journalistic integrity of their press (not that they shouldn't), it's sometimes surprising to see the degree to which a portion of the audience is ignorant to the way we have to do things.

"Ignorant" is always a negatively-connotated word, but of course, all it means is that nobody's ever told them, so let me shed some light. Why, you might ask, am I suddenly prompted to be instructive? Well, one of my colleagues pointed out last night that some distinct commonalities between a quote I received from Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg and a quote that Next-Gen received from him had prompted some commenters on NeoGAF to suggest I had plagiarized.

That's an enormously heavy allegation, of course, but when you see two publications with a similar or identical quote, it's a fair presumption. These particular GAFers probably don't understand, though, the circumstances under which companies give comment -- especially large ones such as Microsoft, who have entire public relations staffs devoted to managing executive exposure to the press.

The quote in question in this case was a response to an inquiry I'd made to Greenberg about whether Microsoft feels threatened by the Wii's marketshare and whether they're interested in leeching some of it. I was interested in this because I was investigating the possibility that the company might be rolling out some motion controls on the Xbox 360 -- but of course, "how do you feel about the Wii's marketshare" is doubtless a question that Microsoft has been asked before and continues to be asked regularly by numerous journalists from both the games press and the larger business press.

All companies -- not just in the games industry, mind you -- need to decide on a consistent message to put out to the press. Their public relations teams are tasked with staying on top of the current issues in their given industry and preparing that consistent message on every issue under the sun. In other words, executives are largely scripted and have been prepped ahead of time when talking to the press.

When a journalist requests an interview with a large company executive, the public relations staff will often demand to know ahead of time what you plan to discuss or what you want to ask -- in part, that's so they can direct you to the correct person. You don't usually get to choose who you talk to unless you have significant clout, a previous "in" or you know how to contact that person directly. But they also want to eyeball your questions ahead of time so they can plan how they will answer. The majority of the time, we try to stick to our guns and avoid allowing them to "pre-screen" us -- sometimes, though, that means we don't get the interview.

A different commenter on the GAF thread suggested that rather than talking to Greenberg, I printed a text statement as if it were conversation. I did not, but the sad truth is I might as well have.

It's frustrating for journalists because we very rarely are given spontaneous access to anyone or anything; our discussions with the people we most want to hear from are very controlled.
Therefore, the value in what we writers do is not so much in printing the prefab quotes (though the PR people would like us to), but in putting them in context alongside other information, or extrapolating from them where applicable.

Nonetheless, it's not necessarily "wrong" on the part of Microsoft -- or any other company, as they all do it -- to repeat or recycle the quotes they give, either. In fact, repeating oneself is inevitable when you're asked the same thing by many people over and over again. Deciding on a consistent corporate message isn't dishonest, it's just good business sense.

I've also got sympathy for the executives -- it must be very stressful to always need to "know your lines" in case a media person manages to squeak past your wall of protection and confront you on difficult issues.

It's problematic on both sides, but that's just how it is. Now, I certainly do not claim that plagiarism never happens in my line of work. This can range from subtler offenses, like stealing a source or tip without credit, to much more overt ones -- just recently, my former boss Simon Carless came up with a brilliant plan to catch someone in the act, to hilarious results.

However, I'd say that the large majority of us -- at least, myself and everyone I know and work with -- intensely prize their ethics and would never do such things. I'd advise readers of all stripes to be aware of the circumstances under which we work before presuming that a quotation is stolen.

The other day at Magical Wasteland I chipped in some comments to a discussion that wondered why game journalists don't tend to stick around, or why most people appear to use journalism as a platform to game development or some other adjacent career, rather than committing to it as a career. The resulting question, of course, is why do we burn out so damn quickly?

The wary dance between writers and PR? Being constantly on the defensive against a demanding audience? Or facing a pure, widespread incomprehension of what it is we ought to be doing or what it is we're aiming to do? A little bit of each, perhaps.

I love my job, and I'm nowhere near burnt out yet. But I have empathy for those who are.

Waggle Fatigue

Weirdly, I have more Wii titles than I ha