Vacation

I am taking this week off to recoup from GDC, yay! I'm pretty sure that all I'll do all week is sleep and play Lumines. See you soon!

Hideo Kojima's Amazing GDC Keynote

You knew I wasn't gonna miss this one.

Just wanted to point you guys to my full coverage of Kojima's fun-fascinating talk at GDC -- he went on at his signature length, full of his usual metaphors and humor, but the result was a really comprehensive history of the design philosophy behind the Metal Gear series, how Kojima realized his visions by creatively working around obstacles in the way (kind of like what it's like to play Metal Gear) and how it's evolved throughout the franchise's 20-year (!!) history.

I don't mind bragging that I've covered the talk the most thoroughly of anyone else online, so if you're interested in his lecture, read my coverage, will you please?

Highlights: The stealth action gameplay was born out of the tech limitations of the MSX2. Says the NES Metal Gear and Snake's Revenge are "crap." He jokes about his cut scenes and illustrates his points with clever Snake animations. He defines what he thinks is the best takeaway from Western design and how he hopes it will appear in "the next Metal Gear series."

When I see the evolution of Metal Gear discussed from the perspective of design philosophy, it makes me appreciate, in concept at least, MGS4 all the more, because it's really a transparent illustration of his journey as a game designer (I dithered about with this idea, and badly, at Kotaku around the time MGS4 launched, so check it out if you're not sure what I'm trying to say here).

I know I'm a bit rabid as Metal Gear fans go. But I hope that getting to read him talking in this way about this stuff at least helps people understand why I think he's so incredibly impressive as a director, designer and auteur, even if his work ain't your cup of tea.

What Can Nintendo Say That Will Impress You?

Around E3, I wrote a bit about how I felt kind of sorry for Nintendo. No matter what the company achieves, traditional gamers always seem to be disappointed with any announcement it makes. I dubbed Nintendo as bearing "The Curse of the Gifted Child," if you recall -- overachievers never make their parents happy.

Anyway, at Satoru Iwata's GDC keynote yesterday, (if you follow me on Twitter you caught my N'Gai-inspired liveTweet) his primary objective seemed to be to challenge the most common criticisms of the company: That Nintendo's success only benefits Nintendo; that no one can be successful on its platforms except Nintendo, and that Nintendo has forgotten about its hardcore audience.

Check out the link and see if you think Iwata made a compelling argument to any of those points. What I'm most interested in is that he made a couple major announcements that fans have been waiting for for a long time -- essentially, the things I think people were hoping to hear out of E3. For one, he finally announced an available-immediately storage solution for Wii Ware. Too long in coming, perhaps, but it's finally here.

Second, the longing for Nintendo to announce a new Zelda any time anyone from the company steps foot behind a podium has become so commonplace that it's practically a meme. If I worked at Nintendo, I'd probably want to bean the next person who said "announce a new Zelda" across the face.

Anyway. Iwata actually announced a new Zelda, as I'm sure you've heard by now. They fixed the storage solution! They announced a flippin' Zelda! They're adding hardcore arcade to the Virtual Console! All well, right?

Nope. Everyone I spoke to at those evening festivities was still ho-hum underwhelmed.

I'm not sayin' anyone needs to take to the streets and start flipping cars over with glee, but it does prompt the question: Really, what do you guys want? What were you hoping for? I find it more than a bit annoying that many people I know continually demand "more" from Nintendo without defining exactly what that "more" is.

"A Wii Zelda," someone told me last night.

Seriously? Yeah, because the last one was so groundbreaking. Come on, you guys. Help me out here. What does Nintendo need to do to impress you? What announcements would it need to make for you to consider it significant or pleasing?

Here's a challenge for the especially creative-minded among SVGL readers: In the comments, post your own description of the ideal Nintendo keynote, serious or satirical. You can even write it as a "script," if you want, whether from Iwata, Reggie (oh! I bumped into Reggie this morning while chatting to analyst extraordinaire Michael Pachter), Cammie, or anyone else. If you guys pull it out, I'll post the best ones in a "Best of SVGL" next week.

GDC 2009, Day Three

Okay, so this post is a day late -- forgive, because I've been running around the convention center like a maniac all day, and running around the party circuit all night. My voice is going, and I hope it still exists by the time I have to give my rant tomorrow on the IGDA-organized game critics' panel. If you're at GDC and you're reading this, it's tomorrow at 10:30 in the North Hall, so make sure you go -- and say hello to me afterward!

So many of you have come up to tell me you love Sexy Videogameland, and I just can't even put into words how much that means to me. As a writer I just kind of shout out into the universe and hope it's reaching someone, so it's been surreal and lovely to get to talk to people who've been listening. Thank you.

Yesterday for me was all about three huge things: Indies, digital distribution and portable platforms. I attended and covered the IGF Mobile awards, where iPhone was crushingly dominant, and it really opened my eyes to how fast the mobile gaming space is growing and how much potential there is there.

I never thought too highly about mobile games up until last year -- until the iPhone era, really. And even thereafter, although I'm an iPhone user, I still was highly doubtful that I'd ever use it as a gaming platform. When it's not being a phone, it rocks my tunes, primarily (speaking of, hell to the yes right here), it lets me be way more attached to my email than I should be, it texts my friends and it gives me maps so that I don't get lost in San Francisco (New York, I miss you!)

For everything else, I've always said, I've got my DS and I need nothing else. But seeing just what a strong showing these brilliant indies are making on the iPhone was enormously inspiring. I even got a little misty seeing these teams win (hey, I'm emotional, okay?).

We already know that design innovation is going to come out of the independent space -- now add in the low barrier to entry for iPhone apps compared to even XBLA/PSN or Wii Ware development, and that means even more indies are going to be proliferating on that platform. Plus, with the new SDK Apple's going to release at some point in the near future, there's going to be more multiplayer functionality, in-game DLC, and just about everything we're used to on the platforms we already use.

Check out the IGF Mobile coverage to find out which games you need to watch for in the unfortunately intransible morass that is Apple's app store. The audience award was given to a DS game, though -- the lone winner not on iPhone -- that I really think has got to be headed for great things.

It's by a USC team called Team Reflection, and the game is called Reflection. It's a platformer-puzzler that uses the dual screen such that the touch screen literally reflects, like a mirror, the top screen, making for interesting action puzzles. There's also a "shadow" mode. My jaw kind of dropped when I saw it, and I really hope someone grabs on that concept and gets it made so that I can buy it.

With the iPhone accelerating so fast, Nintendo actually seems a little bit late to the party with DSi -- because a camera-equipped touch-input gameplay device with access to a downloadable store already exists in iPhone. It should be very interesting going forward! I did get my hands on a DSi for the first time yesterday when I went to visit mobile developer Gameloft, who's been rushing in just four months to make launch titles for the DSi's digital store.

Asked them all about what it's like to work on the platform, and they told me a lot about how it compares to other downloadable platforms, what the size constraints are, and how Nintendo works with developers (hint: not nearly as restrictive as XBLA/PSN, from what I understand). Check it out!

Later that night, the IGF awards were held. Top prize goes to Blueberry Garden -- more details on the winners here. I can't really put into words how inspiring it was to watch these guys. Following the IGF were the Game Developer Choice awards, and LittleBigPlanet crushed out the competition in just about every category. If you follow me on Twitter, you'll know how annoying I find this. I do think it's quite an innovation, adorable, impressive, et cetera. The Media Molecule guys are quite talented. But without going on a rant, suffice to say that I'm not so sure that other games deserved to have been so roundly snubbed in its favor.

However, I was pleased to see Fallout 3 take its due as Game of the Year, and it also won the award for best writing -- I'm so happy for those guys, whom I believe demonstrate the merit of having writers who are also designers, as Emil Pagliarulo discussed on the panel I attended featuring him, Suda51 and Fumito Ueda (AWESOME).

Other highlights of the past few days: Satoru Iwata's keynote (more on that later) at which we all received a free DS Rhythm Heaven two weeks early; spending time with Cactus, Petri Purho, Kyle Gabler, Phil Fish, Derek Yu and other jawdropping indie superstars along with friend (and Offworld chieftain) Brandon Boyer at the apartment of the lovely Jenn Frank; meeting Suda (I don't know how to say "let me bear your children" in Japanese, so we couldn't talk much); watching Mega64's hilarious videos at the awards (I hope these are online soon); rocking out with the brilliant Susan O'Connor (she curled her hair, I straightened mine); being really drunk in front of Cliff Blezinski (I'm sure he thinks I'm lunatic); getting to chat with Tim Schafer (!!!) at the hawt suite party of GDC bosslady and friend Meggan Scavio; viewing a battle tank made of ice at EA's Battlefield 1943 party; getting to personally congratulate N'Gai and hang with Crecente at same party -- and lots more.

Finally, one more funny story. Braid artist David Hellman is a friend of mine, and following the choice awards, we were drinking at the W Hotel bar with many other folks. I'd had a few, and got on my soapbox about how LBP is overrated and blah blah blah, and how I can't believe Braid was snubbed. Guy sitting near us turns to us and declares: "What?! Braid is overrated -- that's bullshit, it sucks." He has no idea who it is sitting next to me, of course, and class act that David is, he didn't say a word.

If you can't tell, I'm having a ton of fun here, working hard and generally loving the week. More to come!

GDC 2009, Day Two

Today's day two here at GDC. Everyone I've met so far says they expected me to be taller. SURPRISE, I AM SHORT! Crucially!

So let's catch up on yesterday -- do you guys remember last year at GDC I chaired and ran the Worlds in Motion Summit? At that time I was editor of Gamasutra's sister online worlds site, WorldsinMotion.biz. I don't run the summit or edit the site anymore -- site edit duties now fall to my pal the wonderful Scotsman Mathew Kumar, who contrary to what Gillen said on our drunk podcast does not smell.

Anyway. You might remember that around that time, when I was working in that space a lot, I used to blab on about how I liked the idea of user-driven, open-ended social worlds -- because I really lamented the lack of genuine socialization in strictly-game MMOs. That MMOs have their own cultural lexicon, albeit an odd one, is a topic for another time, but the point is that one of my personal soapboxes became the idea that social worlds could learn from game mechanics, and vice versa.

Yesterday I saw a talk by lead designer Sulka Haro from Sulake. They make Habbo, that avatar-driven social world for tweens/teens. Probably it's not the kind of thing that the audience that reads this blog would be into, but Habbo users just love it -- Haro dropped some numbers and let us know the site sees 11.5 million unique users a month in over 30 territories. Amazing!

I was glad to hear him talk about how socialization alone isn't enough to compel people to stick with an online world, no matter how compelling it seems at first. Let's say you take several weeks off from playing, for example -- when you get back, you've got a steep hill ahead of you in terms of getting re-oriented, getting to know how the climate has changed, and stuff like that. In effect, it could even be like being a new user all over again, and that's a barrier. (Incidentally, this is why I don't like Animal Crossing -- that it can all go to shit if you stop playing seems like too much of a penalty to me.)

The free-to-play space is so competitive that user retention becomes a major issue. He talked about how implementing what essentially amounts to game mechanics -- encouraging goal-oriented behavior, implementing Achievements-type rewards -- helps users stick to a world like Habbo.

I covered his talk, so check it out here if it's your thing. My favorite part was when he shared all the user feedback they initially received to the new mechanics. Basically, everybody absolutely hated it at first, but once they had just a few months to adjust and get comfortable with it, not only did most of the users report that they loved using some of the new game systems, but they'd even personalized them in ways the designers hadn't expected.

It was really interesting! Say what you want about kids' virtual worlds -- Lord knows I sure do -- but Habbo is really paving a road here. You don't have to play it, but you should keep up on what's going on with it.

Yesterday I also went to see Masaya Matsuura showing his new Major Minor's Majestic March, which launches on Wii today. Getting to talk to him was kind of a big deal, and I really hope I didn't embarrass myself too much with my exciteable, super-long questions. He talked about the game, the example he wants to set for the rhythm genre, and since everyone on Twitter told me to ask him if there'll ever be more Parappa, I did that. He's probably heard that question a million times, so I blamed you all for making me ask. Yay! Here's the interview.

Other stuff that happened yesterday: I pounced Raph Koster, got lipstick on Ian Bogost, met the very cool dudes from Capybara who make one of my favorite iPhone games Critter Crunch, saw fellow journo-friends Stephen Totilo and Evan Narcisse plus pals and former coworkers Brian Crecente and Mike McWhertor, I enthused semi-drunkenly to Metanet's Raigan and Mare, and lots of other fun.

Wish you were here, and stuff! This city's streets are freakishly clean, by the way. Like, Stepford Wives or something. And because I am so short I am close enough to the sidewalk to tell. Can you tell I'm running on tons of coffee? Next up: The Independent Games Festival Mobile, to start. More throughout the day on my Twitter, if that's your bag. More GDC madness than you can shake a stick at!

Coming To You Live

Hello everyone! I'm up bright and early (ugh) at the Moscone Convention Center for GDC. Going to be really busy this week and won't be able to blog much, but I hope to bring you quick updates, at least. Recommend you follow me on Twitter for the instafeed, though.

Things I've learned so far: Lots of people brought their plastic guitars. "I follow you on Twitter" is the new "I read your blog." This convention center reminds me how much I hate/am petrified of escalators.

Even being three hours behind New York time kills me in the mornings. I'd better hit the pavement running!

Speaking Of Maturity

Those of you with the steel stomach to listen to my drunk Rock Paper Shotgun appearance with Kieron Gillen heard me blabber on at some length about adult games and mature content. Coincidentally, my Kotaku feature for this month is also up today, wherein I treat a similar topic with hopefully at least slightly more clarity.

Talked to Dangerous High School Girls' Keith Nemitz and Bethesda's Erik Caponi for the story, both of whom were amazingly insightful on the key question: What will it take for "mature" to be more than a rating?

Also, vaguely related, I said I was finished talking about RapeLay, but when I was invited to write for an audience of parents at What They Play, I thought it was an important thing to do. Information's our best weapon, you know?

So yeah, I've been super busy in the past week, hence SVGL updates getting a little slower -- Team Gamasutra is ramping up for GDC next week, probably the busiest time of year for us as trade journos. I also have to give a presentation, which kind of terrifies me -- so if you'll be at GDC and see me, say hi, but please don't heckle me!

I'll try to post brief updates on GDC during the week, but don't be surprised if I'm too busy!

This Is Why I Shouldn't Drink

Over Comic Con, I volunteered the use of my apartment as crash pad for UK games journo, Rock Paper Shotgun magnate, comic book author and occasional trailer-fetishizing buddy Kieron Gillen. It was pretty awesome, since he was one of my heroes and now we're friends and blah blah.

We went out to drinks. A lot of drinks. And we got the brilliant idea to record a podcast together while in the sauce. Don't ask me whose idea this was. Don't ask me why I encouraged him to put it On The Internet. Man, don't even ask me what I talk about in this thing -- I can't remember. I should probably listen to it before I recommend that other people do, but I'm kinda too scared.

Wait, why am I recommending it? I'm not. I say nothing of substance and make an ass of myself, most likely. All hate mail can be sent to the email address on the right-hand sidebar.

And here goes my integrity and "reputation"! Go!

Incidentally, Gillen was at Comic Con with artist Jamie McKelvie because they do a comic book series together called Phonogram. It's about British people with musical magic powers. No, seriously, though, it's really awesome, and I got him to sign my copy! If you like comics, music, British people, Gillen (duh) or any one of the above, you should buy it.

By the way, I would like to disclaim that all persons consuming alcohol should be of legal age according to their national laws, should drink responsibly, should not drive while intoxicated and should not record podcasts.

Video Game Hipsters

I recently heard about a 48-hour game jam for lo-fi RPGs over here at RPGDX, but unfortunately I haven't heard much about the projects that resulted -- with the exception of this one, Sophie Houlden's Linear RPG.

It's kind of cool in terms of concept -- since it's tough to explain, I'll recommend you just learn by doing, which will only take you a few minutes -- but since the primary game mechanics come down to running back and forth while trying to read tiny text, I'm not sure it's all that much to see. Which is fine, of course -- no one's ever going to make a mindblowingly perfect finished product in a 48-hour jam, and the primary takeaway of game jams tends to be new concepts more than new games, per se.

Similarly, the reason I'm into the idea of a lo-fi RPG jam is less because of the specifics and more because of the concept. Last time on SVGL, we were talking about similarities between the games biz and the music biz, and when I think about the lo-fi scene enjoyed in each arena, I discover yet another cool connection!

Whether games or music, the term "lo-fi" has come to encapsulate something of an independent movement that rejects big budgets and high production values. It originates as a financial necessity for indies with few resources -- and then it becomes an art form in and of itself, as audiences develop a taste for not only the rough and simple, but for the integrity behind it.

Without fancy development tools -- or, in the case of music, fancy recording tech and studio time -- artists of both disciplines adapt by getting fascinatingly creative with the way they produce. The results can be so much fun that fans of some bands often reject the music once it stops sounding like it's been recorded into a tape deck.

Similarly, video game fans often have a hard time dealing with the way technology's onward march affects their favorite franchises, preferring pixelated originals to the flashy remakes. I like how Capcom got wise to this and made Mega Man 9 with scanlines and all.

Of course, neither Capcom nor the Mega Man mega-franchise are indie, nor were they ever -- in the days of early Mega Man, that was high-fidelity. But it's that particular aesthetic that seems to inspire the stylish popularity of today's Cave Story and Spelunky, to name just a couple.

Like Capcom, you can bet more than a few music acts with the bucks to burn deliberately fake the DIY vibe. When it comes to "true" lo-fi music acts, I'm actually vaguely nervous about listing the ones I like for fear the music nerds will descend on me and peck out my eyes (little help here, Dahlen?). It's safe to say The Kills and Vivian Girls, right?

But just a quick glance around Google shows that even music connoisseurs have the same kind of "what is true lo-fi" arguments that mirror the heated "what is true indie?" discussions that we often have in the games biz (I am looking forward to GDC. Really, I am).

People are passionate about it -- because on both counts, it's a "scene." Consumers are connotating a morality to it, a hipster sensibility that only serves to make both lo-fi indie games and music alike painfully cool.

We've even got our own Pitchfork of sorts in clever-cute-cool Offworld, now. Which if you're not reading, you seriously totally should. Don't wanna be left out, now, do you? All the cool kids are doing it.

What are your favorite lo-fi games? And can anyone point me to some other games to have come out of this RPG jam?

Tunes For Thought

[Lumines, which I've begun to play lately despite embarrassing level of suckage]

I continue to believe that games have far more in common with music than with any other media, in terms of how the biz is experienced and discussed -- regardless of how useful the film and game connection can sometimes be.

I started to realize this when I began, for the first time, to really take stock of how broad the audience for games really is, and what the culture is like far beyond the audience that reads video game websites. In particular, learning how opaque and generally useless most people find game reviews was the catalyst -- because the attitudes I observed for them eerily mirrored my own feelings about music reviews.

Having recently moved to Brooklyn, it's been tough to avoid becoming a music hobbyist, and I've taken much more notice of local music, independent bands and new acts than I did previously. And yet, is it really possible to be "content complete" in one's knowledge of music? No matter how much I listen to, I'll never hear everything, not even within a given niche that I prefer.

Some tunes are artful, others are formulaic -- and while to an extent there is a "right" way to play an instrument, there's such a thing as "bad" singing, it's ultimately a fully subjective experience, with such a broad spectrum of variety that it's hard to judge the quality or appeal of any given song or band on a consistent scale.

Further, any given song has such a complex balance of elements at work -- there's technique, and in many cases technology; there's innovation and creativity, there's melody, lyrics, to name just a few -- and all these elements must combine seamlessly.

The "Objectivity" Issue

So as with games, music's very hard to judge "objectively", because of that weird marriage of subjective elements with technical ones that can be said to "succeed" or "fail" -- and like games, the selection's so broad and so continuous that there is a need for a prevailing critical opinion to help audiences shape their listening habits.

I used to have trouble reading music reviews, actually, because they didn't really tell me anything. High-level music reviews of the Pitchfork ilk are incomprehensible to casual listeners, requiring readers to not only understand the finer points of the art of music, but to care. I used to scan through them frustratedly, and huff: "But this doesn't tell me if I'll like this band."

Sound familiar?

Reviews that compared artists to other artists were slightly more helpful -- but it reminds me of the conflict we as game reviewers often have as we're pressed to weigh each game solely on its own merits. It's considered weak to compare games to other games, isn't it?

My reaction in general to music reviews was so like to the complaints I usually hear about the inadequacy of game reviews -- a long-overdue revelation!

But Will I Like This?

Now that I have a slightly larger appetite for music and a somewhat further evolved interest in it than I did, say, a year ago, I find I'm reading music reviews more often -- even though they still can offer me only clues onto whether a band is worth investigating and can't tell me whether or not I'll like it.

Notably, in our internet age, I can scrounge up a couple tracks by the artist under consideration and have a listen before buying an album -- but there's not always a way to check out a $60 game without going all-in. Hopefully the rise of digital distro and the increasingly common pre-release demo offerings will help evolve this a little.

Most often, though, I read album reviews to validate my own opinion on things I already own and listen to. I read to find out from an expert if my taste is good, or to look for articulation on why I like this or that, to stash information, descriptive adjectives, that might help me choose another artist in the future. And I believe that's what the majority of people use video game reviews for, too.

That doesn't make them useless, though -- or inadequate. Perhaps, with games as with music, it's just a small percentage of the audience that reads them, the hardest-core adopters -- but the impact and influence of tastemakers on the music biz can't be denied, despite the democratic nature of music.

And again, the score comes into play -- a music review analyzes such a range of factors, some personal and subjective and others not, that the number feels necessary to unify the text into a single, understandable rating. The assignment of a number helps readers take what's essentially a stranger's opinion and distill it into a ranking they can weigh against the strength of their own sentiment.

It Totally Speaks To Me, Man

Speaking of sentiment, another point of comparison for music and games lies in just how strongly people personalize them. I think this happens for slightly different reasons -- music's such a primal part of culture, which leads lots of enthusiasts to adopt their musical taste as a form of self-expression, making it personal.

Games are very experiential too, and people seem to take game reviews just as personally -- I think this might be rooted in games' development as a misunderstood "niche" medium, where the audience responded by adopting a defense of gaming as part of their identity. Our unheard-of, unappreciated video game favorites become as important to us as the undiscovered indie band is to the passionate music fan.

The similarity between music and games extends far beyond the way we cover them and respond to them -- for one thing, consider the spectrum of huge-manufactured, precisely engineered formula hits versus independent cult favorite acts. Both games and music have venerated classics that have been knocked off again and again through the ages until they've become memetic. Music has a huge schism between its mainstream and its indie, where the latter's considered more sincere than the former, just as we've begun to see happening in games.

Agree, disagree? What are some other ways you think the game industry might be like the music industry -- or some ways you think it's not?

HAPPY 1,000,000 !!~

SVGL passed its one millionth visit (lifetime) last night. Thank you guys so much for your support, your readership, your thoughts, comments, emails, Twitter discussions, smackdowns, recommendations, corrections, disagreements, linkage, jokes and internet-friendship.

And thanks to Elliot Trinidad, known in most places as Scypher, for the sweet new Onechanbara banner from this source image. Scypher also did the art for Global Game Jam title Let's Shooting Love, by the way, and he's looking for more indie projects to lend his design talents to, so do hit him up.

As you guys know, I used to do all my own banners LIKE CONSTANTLY but now that I don't have Photoshop anymore it's not so easy, and Scypher's been awesome enough to take care of it for me. This is the kind of community you guys are. See how awesome? Applaud yourselves.

Thanks also to the folks I consider my blog neighbors in spirit: Michael Abbott, Chris Dahlen, Mitch Krpata, Iroquois Pliskin, Corvus Elrod, L.B. Jeffries, Duncan Fyfe, to name just a few.

My Last Word On Rapelay

As you guys know, I decided to play through RapeLay and write about it. I did it on something of a broader scale, though, and went directly to my favorite web magazine, Slate. Here you go.

I've been keeping up with the discussion in the blogosphere around the game since I initially brought it up, and it's worth noting that I've yet to see feedback from anyone that's based on more than a description of the game, or a commentary on the themes they believe it espouses.

I won't accord too much more space to it here, but I thought I'd point out that the worst thing about RapeLay is not that it's a "rape simulator". It's that it's not a rape simulator, if that makes sense (not that I'd advocate for such a thing, either). It starts out with a creepy premise -- stalk and rape three women, two of them high school girls, and make them sex slaves -- but from there, the primary gameplay really revolves around simulating conventional sex, kissing and all. Even the initial interactive "rape scenes" look like little more than BDSM-lite. I think the problem here is actually this massive disconnect, the fantasy that a violent introduction can lead to unions that actually appear romantic or arousing.

I'll say it plain -- most of the gameplay in RapeLay is not directly upsetting (if you can stomach getting past the first part where you molest girls on the subway who like it, which is tough to do, not only because the game design is clunky). I was actually more unsettled by Yume Miru Kusuri, which is far less violent, because it has such a detailed narrative around the things I found disturbing -- in spite of the fact that overall, I think, it aimed to be positive and sincere.

This is the most surprising and, I think, dangerous thing about RapeLay -- especially as I was trawling around forums looking for responses to the game, I noticed that most of the people who discussed it online appear to be forum kids. Like, people who, judging by their posts, are young teen boys.

I won't make the leap and say that a single computer game is going to "teach" anyone anything, or decimate the sense of morality and real-world consequences that a healthy upbringing can provide, but to know that such a neutered and fetishized presentation of rape is so easily in the hands of young people is what I see as the main problem here.

And I mention this in the Slate piece, but the game has only two endings, and both of them result in the depressing death of the protagonist -- he either suicides or is murdered by one of his victims. If I had to guess at what RapeLay's about, I'd say that the people comprising its target audience know they're ill. They want to feel bad about it, and they want to be punished for it. Of course, that's no defense for a theme like this, but I do find it understandable, if depressing.

For me, the most important thing to do in an article where I had a larger audience was to make quite clear that RapeLay is not a product of what we know as "the video game industry." As Slate notes, people are going to make the Grand Theft Auto connection here, but there's no clear analogy. We here at SVGL definitely accorded some time to the "why is rape in a game worse than headshots in Fallout 3" question, but we're not talking about "rape in a game."

Picture a video game where an innocent body was put in front of you, and you then simply had to carve it up until it was dead. Then, it gives you another innocent body, and you carve that one up too. The more gruesome your kills, the more options you unlock. Not because you're a soldier, not because you're a criminal, just because you're some guy who likes to kill. This isn't "game violence," this is a non-contextual murder simulation. Now picture that there's an entire genre devoted to games like that. That isn't play. That's jerking off an antisocial urge.

I'm interested in hentai games still, and I'd like to see more mature themes be accepted in video games, too. Properly contextualized in a story, as Dangerous High School Girls In Trouble aimed to do, I think we shouldn't be afraid to confront the issue of rape in games. But the idea that "RapeLay is the sexual equivalent of headshots in Gears 2" absolutely does not gel, and let's not insult the games biz by having that discussion anymore.

Hentai games are more porn than they are video games. Does that make them safe, walled-garden fantasies, stuff for people to do in their basement where we should leave them alone? Do they instruct human behavior, or are they symptomatic of broader social ills -- as is the fact that games like this enjoy an audience not just in Japan, but in the U.S. -- among young men? If you believe that video games don't translate to real-world behavior, should we leave extreme-themed hentai games alone out of a desire to avoid legislating people's fantasies, no matter how we personally think of them?

You could wage your battle for freedom of expression on RapeLay's behalf if you like. But you can't wage a battle for mature uncensored content in video games on behalf of a game like this, and that's my final word.

Fresh, New, And An Abstract Percentage Better!

Have you seen the redesign rolled out at my stomping grounds of Gamasutra? Finally, we're out of the mid-nineties and have finally achieved "a little bit more millennial."

One awesome thing I wanted to make sure you guys saw was that we've got blogs over there now. What's especially exciting to me is that Gamasutra will now feature expert blogs written by developers, many of whose written work you've already read floating around little disparate nodes of the internet. I highly recommend keeping 'em on your radar as the section develops.

It's a great way for devs to chat amongst themselves and share ideas, but the bonus is we all get to read it, too. The reason I started Sexy Videogame Developerland a few months ago was to offer gamers an opportunity to get to know devs a little bit better as human beings, so I'm really happy that there's another, more detailed and visible way on offer at my other internet-home. I still hope to be adding little bios to SVGDL, and I have a handful on queue that I haven't been able to get to yet that I'm still looking forward to adding -- thanks to everyone who's submitted, and sorry for the delay!

We've also got a members section on Gamasutra where any user can share thoughts on design, development and the industry, so if you've got something to say, def check it out, yeah? Hope you all like.

Wishing N'Gai Luck

Have you heard today that my colleague N'Gai Croal is leaving Newsweek? He'll be moving on to pursue a role as an independent creative consultant to developers, hoping to bring them new perspectives on reaching audiences and helping games communicate better with players, informed by his game journalism work and his passion for social media.

I think this means HIS THRONE IS MINE NOW

I kid. This is actually super weird news for me, as it's not hard to see how influential N'Gai's work has been on me and other folks trying to find new ways to talk about games. He and I seem to "fight" every once in a while, but even though I've got a trigger finger over here, the debates we have had have ended up being some of my favorite moments in being part of this community.

His Level Up blog helped me think about options I had for approaching the subject of games as a writer before Sexy Videogameland existed, and before I'd ever really published much of anything. So it was pretty surreal to be interviewing him colleague to colleague and friend to friend for Gamasutra as he gets ready to tackle the next challenge.

One thing I didn't end up printing in the interview is that one of the things I credit most to him is helping delineate and cement the concept that there can exist game criticism as a discipline separate from traditional reviews, from pointed editorial and from news journalism -- writing that in part asks questions and shares experiences, something that's become a big part of the work I do.

So thanks, dude.

Also, here's N'Gai's official final post at Level Up.

Not Even Funny

How busy I am. I'll let you all know on what in a little while.

Meanwhile, this is funny -- did you guys know you all read my blog because I am a LADY?

Update: Please be nice to the Hardcasual guys. They are pals. The blog post I linked above is meant as satire. It is not real.