The Soap Opera Of Midway

About this time last year, Electronic Arts' (ultimately unsuccessful) bid for Take-Two was splashed all over our news headlines, and we here at SVGL had fun imagining a melodramatic soap opera conflict going on behind the scenes -- even though EA boss Riccitiello told me that the entire head-to-head was less dramatic than most people think.

Still, drama is fun. And this year, one of the current major news items is the tangled, ugly fall of oldschool scion Midway, whose goose is all but cooked these days.

You guys know Gamasutra has former Edge writer Kris Graft on staff now, right? That means that we get cool stuff like this -- Graft's in-depth analysis of the company's complicated course toward millions of dollars in the red. If you're bored reading things about delistings, bondholders, buybacks and burdens, I highly recommend you check out his work here. This is a real soap opera, no imagination required!

Six Days

Sorry blogging has been light, Sexy Videogamelanders. We've been pretty busy at Gamasutra -- and to tell the truth, I haven't had much to say, since I haven't even gotten much game time in over the past few weeks. On the to-do list is Flock (which I loved when I saw at E3 last year), Ys I & II on DS (a remake of what's probably on one of my all-time fave lists), Rhythm Heaven (which I haven't messed with nearly enough) and Major Minor's Majestic March (on which I interviewed Matsuura, but I have yet to play).

I have been playing The Path. It takes a lot of time to be thorough with it, so expect some thoughts on it soon.

What have you guys been playing? Any recommendations for me?

Following our convo last week, you've probably noticed that Konami backed off of Six Days In Fallujah. It's interesting; even in early previews, the game was drawing criticism for not treating the subject of the real-world war with enough gravity -- consensus, I suppose, is that having a few Marines consult on a project cannot authenticity make.

I don't know very many soldiers, but I've met a few, and the thing that's always struck me about them is that their attitude toward war is quite a bit different than we civilians. I worry constantly when I watch the nightly news; there are times when I've got to quit watching the news altogether because it's overwhelming when you really stop to think about all the lives at risk, parents and kids waiting at home for a Mom or Dad on the front lines.

But most soldiers I've met seem to approach their work with a certain matter-of-fact attitude; some even with enthusiasm. That's not to say that they take it lightly, but there's probably a certain spiritual fortitude required in going to war that leaves them no choice but to have what I'd describe as a positive attitude. They're not hand-wringing and speaking in hushed tones, like I am -- they're all in, they're proud when they're successful, and they enjoy supporting their friends out in the field. At least, that's been my observation; I certainly don't claim any kind of in-depth experience.

The whole Six Days snafu has made me wonder if the armed forces out there feel the same way about the game as civilians do; if they see a controversy the way we do. If you serve or have served, please write me and let me know what you think about the idea of someone making a hell-yeah traditional shooter about Fallujah, and if you think Konami did the right thing, and indicate whether it's okay to quote you.

Atomic says it's going to try to keep making the game, but I wonder who'd pick it up after all this?

The Authorship Conflict

Should a designer's objective be to build an environment where players can drive events and experiences, or should the game determine the objective, with responsibility for leading player behavior in meaningful ways?

This philosophy conflict between user-created experiences and designed authorship is one of the most interesting issues emerging in next-gen games. I first started getting my head around it when I recently heard Warren Spector giving a lecture on his approach to design at NYU. His talk was followed by an informal but fascinating Q&A with Area/Code's Frank Lantz -- if you're familiar with both these guys, you can imagine how interesting the discussion was!

In case you're unfamiliar, Lantz and Area/Code are very well worth reading up on -- Lantz is, last I checked, a professor in the Tisch School’s Interactive Telecommunications Program and heads up NYU's Game Center. But if you're a Facebook user, you probably know Area/Code best for Parking Wars, which played a major if not defining role in turning the spotlight on FB as an emerging platform for social play. (Also, if you're a Facebook user, become a fan of Sexy Videogameland. Y'know, if you want.)

Whether or not Parking Wars is a "video game" is open for debate, of course -- but it is interactive multi-user play imagined by traditional game designers, and it's significant because it reached users where they were already interacting, rather than demanding they enter the designer's world in a traditional way. You also may or may not know that it was created as a cross-media extension of an A&E reality show -- I sure didn't, at first -- which provokes some interesting thoughts on how game design can help IP be media-independent.

These kinds of ideas about games are less-known to the core video game audience, of course, but at Austin GDC last year, Lantz said Parking Wars pulled 400,000 users in its first two months -- close enough to twice what EVE Online has got now, if I'm not mistaken.

Hopefully you can see why it was so interesting to see someone like Lantz talk with someone from Spector's world -- Origin, Looking Glass, Ultima, System Shock, Deus Ex, Thief -- about the role designers play in the kind of experiences players have.

I've always tended to fall on Spector's side of the fence -- I've never been a fan of multiplayer games, because really, I want to interact with a guided vision, not my pals from the internet. Spector would rather have you talk around the water cooler about the moments you discovered in his game that he didn't plan for, and discuss amongst yourselves the way you all experienced the same thing differently, rather than hear a recounting of what was essentially your group social outing (involving headshots).

I get it. Say what you will about the BioShock "choice," for example, but we're all learning from the differences in one another's experiences of the same event. Meanwhile, the story of your WoW raid is solely personal, and interesting only to you and your guild.

[there is nothing anyone could say that would make me want to know the story of this picture]

One thing Spector said during the NYU discussion was that he feels multiplayer games are "lazy." This is the designer in him talking, of course -- his theory that in letting players build stories via Left 4 Dead-style happy accidents in open worlds, the designer doesn't have to tackle complex challenges like making choices meaningful, or making characters believable.

Spector wants to take on those challenges, and he doesn't like the idea that user-driven play, from his standpoint, effectively allows game design to bypass them. It's actually an idea I relate to a lot as a writer -- I was raised in an era of authoritative media, when individual voices drove culture, opinion and information. The internet's changed everything, of course; the authoritative voice has evolved into a conversation between writer and audience, and the writer now leads the community discussion rather than acting as a single determiner, a unilateral judge.

And it doesn't take a professional writer to lead a community -- many feel that the rise of citizen journalism and the core concept of crowd wisdom means that individual authority in media will eventually disappear altogether.

Naturally, as someone who makes her living as a journalist, I reflexively dislike this idea -- is this why I am a Spector-sympathizer? If the game designer insists on authorial authority (hee hee), is that his self-interest in the way?

Lantz actually called Spector out -- politely, of course, as it was obvious that both gentlemen respected their differences -- because one of the advice items Spector had offered the primarily-student audience was that the design process shouldn't be ego-driven, and that designers shouldn't try to impose their will on players. Why then, should Spector want to fight the apparent trend toward user-governed gameplay in order to build the experience from the game design power seat?

As with most divergent perspectives, it's unlikely that reality will skew solely to one side or another; the rise of social games and user-generated content doesn't mean the author-driven video game will just poof away. But questions of control are still fun to think about -- do you want to drive the community yourself, or do you want to interact in an environment that's been created for you?

Are all of us together as good at game design as one Warren Spector? And what might we see taking place in the games industry if in fact the answer is yes?

The Kills

Why am I blogging twice on a Sunday? I almost never do that. Well, because there's just so much awesome stuff out there today, and I don't want you guys to miss any of it.

I just spent way too many words linking you to Tom Cross' Resident Evil 5 article. Now I guess it's touchy topics time, because I'd like you to read Nick Breckon's thoughts on Konami's Six Days In Fallujah over at Shacknews. He visited Konami's Gamer's Night to see the game, and apparently Konami is having genuine Marines speak to the project:

"The unique, controversial nature of the project was apparent in Ergo's speech. In the middle of a night headlined by cheap, exploitative fare like Saw: The Videogame, to suddenly be listening to someone's first-hand account of combat in Iraq was quite the about-face. At that point, I wasn't sure whether this was an indication of the inappropriateness of the stunt, or how unusual it was to be faced with a real person's dramatic struggle in the midst of a pre-planned marketing campaign for silly videogames. Maybe Six Days really would be a serious, mature take on war. Maybe we're just not used to this kind of thing."

Maybe. Maybe not:

But whereas Ridley Scott could get away with a movie that mostly glossed over the political and moral questions of that comparatively small conflict in favor of telling the on-the-ground storyline, pulling off that same trick with Fallujah--a battle from a war with an incomparable level of public awareness and charged political debate--will be far more difficult, and require a certain degree of dignity that was not demonstrated on Thursday.

Konami and Atomic have already contradicted themselves more than once, which isn't helping.

Read the whole post. I'm really happy we're having so many chances to discuss how games should treat difficult, ugly things, and with Six Days In Fallujah, we're dealing with the real world. I'm really interested in what we can learn from how it's executed, whether or not it's successful.

Is it possible for games to provide genuine and dignified portrayals of real war? Should they try? On a related topic, a friend of mine once explained why playing CoD4 helped him cope with his cousin's serious injury at war in Iraq.

Next up: remember when we were talking about RapeLay, and many commenters asked why mowing down endless humans in a hail of gunfire in video games is "OK" while rape isn't? At Resolution, Lewis Denby explores whether mowing down humans in games is so OK after all:

The issue here isn’t really the age-old debate about whether videogames desensitise us towards violence, but that they perhaps fail to acknowledge the seriousness of their common subject matter. And if the medium is going to be considered mature, something it so desperately wants to be, is this not something that’s going to severely hinder its claim?

Great, thought provoking discussion, and Denby collects input from others, too. Michaël Samyn of the Tale of Tales pair, who're making a name for themselves by being unafraid to confront these questions, weighs in, and so do Rock Paper Shotgun elite Kieron Gillen and John Walker. I tend to fall on Gillen's side of the argument:

“It supposes an aesthetic purpose for the developer - that death should be treated like it is when your gran dies or whatever. A serious treatment of death can be powerful and moving, but it’s certainly not the only way to view it, and never has been throughout the history of human art and expression across all media. It’s like saying that being bankrupted in Monopoly trivialises the world’s financial downturn.”

But I also like that Denby asks whether we're ignoring a wider issue. Two years ago (wow, time flies!) I asked the same question in an Aberrant Gamer column that you might find worth revisiting in light of this discussion:

Haven’t you ever deliberately executed the most gratuitous combo to finish an enemy? Because you were frustrated, maybe? Furious? Or because dismemberment, skull crushing and mutilation killings are just fun?

Either way, I'm a hundred percent with Denby when he says we ought to at least be able to explain ourselves on these questions, whatever the answers are.

Savage Kingdom

I've not written very much about the Resident Evil 5 racism thing because, frankly, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I decided that I'd need to play the game with my own two hands and gain some context before I could construct a discussion of any kind around the issue. I mean, let's wait until the game's out before we sincerely talk about what it is and isn't, right?

Now that I've played it a bit, I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

When Capcom first started showing trailers, I was one of those who felt a little bit uncomfortable about it, honestly. N'Gai Croal took a ton of flack for what was actually a pretty reasoned position on the issue -- I perhaps didn't take offense as wholly or as easily as he did back then, but I still do feel a little uncomfortable. And when I get that pang, whether or not I agree with everything he said, I remember the one line: "This imagery has a history." It's true. It doesn't feel good.

Still, I've always stopped short of pegging my discomfort on racism per se. Society's evolved into being so defensive and protective on issues of race that I think there's a tendency to see any specific illustration of race as prejudiced, especially if it's unkind. I'm not sure I think that relying on ideas of cultural "otherness" to create fear is discriminatory or wrong. In fact, it may be archetypal.

A lot of times, when I'm trying to decide if themes or imagery are "okay" with me, I ask, "will this hurt anyone?" And I don't think any of the content or imagery in RE5 encourages or promotes real-world fear of others.

But then, I think about the Disney flick Song of the South. When I was a little girl, I innocently adored it, without realizing that the Uncle Remus character was controversial to anyone until I was a lot older. And in this case, it's not that anything in the film is in and of itself upsetting -- it's a nice cartoon about folk tales and my-oh-my wonderful days, and because it used actors, there was no snafu on how one may or may not draw a black cartoon character.

But the film is considered at least a little insulting, because of its facile naivete, rosy suggestions of slavery, and what the NAACP called the "impression it gives of an idyllic master-slave relationship." Even if the film's content is glossy and cheerful, its symbolism provokes reactions. It brings up bad memories, and so it's not okay -- even if those memories are just memories, even if they've got nothing to do with the way the world really works today, and so we can't condone the film just out of respect for history. Is it that way for RE5 too?

Frankly, I'm even a little bit scared to try and discuss it even to this extent. I'm perfectly willing to admit I'm ignorant; I'm no race scholar. Although I reject the idea that only black people are qualified to discuss racism, I think it's worth noting that while my father is half-black and thus my ethnicity's mixed, I have no firsthand concept of what it means to be black in America, I've very little point of personal reference.

So all you'll get from me is a blog post full of weak-wristed and meandering "I think," "I don't think," "I'm not sure," "a little bit," "somewhat," and "maybe" (Stephen Totilo would put the hammer down all over this post).

I'm ambivalent. I don't know if there's a right answer. I could construct strong arguments on either side (neither would contain the phrase "it's just a game," by the way, so let's just forget that one) and still feel like the truth is somewhere in between.

But the entire purpose of this impotent preamble was to point you to what I think is a well-constructed discussion on the issue; over at GameSetWatch, columnist Tom Cross does a decent job of isolating exactly what the problems are with RE5's imagery -- even though while reading it I alternately nodded, chewed my lip, invoked a few cautious counter-arguments, then nodded again.

And, actually, I did write about "the racism thing" a little bit here last year -- my response to the trailer was a lot more decisive, albeit still cautiously so, than my response to the game. Reading back over what I wrote then, I don't feel quite as comfortable.

Finally, I think it's worth noting that since the game's release, people've written more about the death of survival horror, the dubious partner AI and the $5 versus mode than they have about racism, which means either that audiences are more comfortable with the game now that they've seen it in full or they're sick of the discussion.

As usual, please keep comments respectful on this charged and often personal topic!

Let The Kane Thing Go

We live in a bit of an echo chamber. We start out with these rather well-intentioned wishes, and then the reverb around them builds until we're espousing ideals, stating demands, without even really knowing what it is we're asking for.

The whole "Citizen Kane of video games" thing spiraled out of control a little bit, I think, so I wrote an editorial over at Gamasutra (with thoughts from Ian Bogost!). Excerpt:

If more internet commentators did a quick Wikipedia check before leaping into the debate, they'd see that the Citizen Kane issue is moot, anyway. Although its cinema technique helped movies fully come into their own, films were generally considered "artistically legitimate" right off the bat, so there's really no translatable parallel for games.

"The world doesn't work that way anymore," says Bogost. So as for raising Kane: "We should stop it."

Anyway, if you're interested in the issue, have a look!

I have been a little bit occupied today covering the fact that Interplay is still promising Bethesda it can make a $75 million Fallout MMO when in fact it seems like it's hard for it to keep the lights on right now, unfortunately.

How To Address The $5 RE5 Vs. Mode Issue

Because I am a games journalist, I am often approached by my friends for feedback and instruction on various issues. In this episode, I politely and sophisticatedly assist my friend Sean in coping with Capcom's decision to offer a versus mode for Resident Evil 5 for five bucks, and support him in forming a constructive action plan.

Sean: am I supposed to be outraged over this RE5 Vs mode thing?

I'm not sure I understand the commotion

Leigh: you are supposed to be yeah

but you aren't supposed to be able to say why

Sean: ah I see

Leigh: you are just supposed to post in every comment thread you see about it

it doesn't really matter what you say though

Sean: vague but righteous anger is my favorite

Leigh: yeah, that's what gamers do

Sean: Everyone keeps posting about it like I should care

and I find myself wondering why I don't

Leigh: ITS A STANDARD MODE

IT SHOULD COME WITH A GAME

THAT MEANS WE PAID FULL PRICE FOR AN INCOMPLETE GAME SO THAT THEY COULD CHARGE US LATER

IT'S LIKE RAISING THE PRICE WITHOUT RAISING THE PRICE

which i suppose is a valid argument but i just dont care that much

Sean: and it's not at all like buying a game and then having the option to pay more for more content

Leigh: right :P

Sean: I will make sure to be outraged from now on

Leigh: yes you should

and if anyone disagrees with you they're a bad person and you should blog about it

Sean: maybe I could ask them why they hate consumers, and ask why corporations need more money at our expense

Leigh: yeah

in this economy

the banks have already gotten a bailout

where's OUR bailout

now they want to take MORE from us

my great grandfather did not fight for civil rights so i would have to pay $5 for a vs. mode

Sean: (is vs mode standard in RE? is that one of those questions we don't ask?)

Leigh: it is SO fucking not standard

there's main gameplay and then mercenaries

there's never even been fucking 2 player in fucking resident evil

unless you count umbrella chronicles

Sean: I won't mention that on my blog then

Leigh: yeah just overlook it

you're entitled, period

Sean: right, absolutely

Leigh: time for an internet petition

to let them know you will not take this

let's see how many diggs we can get

Sean: you should totally start one..."We the undersigned demand our right to a lot of content on the disc that you didn't want to put there. We refuse the right to add additional content later at a minor fee."

Leigh: nah

i'm just going to write

CAPCOM WE WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS

FOR LIBERTY AND JUSTICE

Sean: AND THE PURSUIT OF ONLINE FRAGS FOR FREE

Leigh: BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH GAMES WHERE I CAN HEADSHOT MY FRIENDS
Sean: I'm glad you're around to put things in perspective for me

Another satisfied customer. And I didn't make him pay me, so there.

Hey! Listen!

Oh, hey! Remember around Christmastime, Michael Abbott's Brainy Gamer podcast had a whole lot of us on for just about the most epic podcast series ever? He's done it again, folks, with a new post-GDC series. I mean, you should know this already, because you should already be reading his blog, but just in case.

Two volumes. Two segments each. Everyone you like! Exciting and new! All the brainy podcasting you can shake a stick at! And oh, hey -- I'm on one of them! Go check it out!

Kicking The Dog

Now that GDC is behind us and I'm back from vacation, I wanted to respond in particular to the rant by fellow Game Critics Rant panelist and Smartbomb co-author Heather Chaplin, by far the most controversial and the most-discussed.

Chaplin asserted that our familiar argument that games themselves are an adolescent medium -- one I recently trotted out myself -- is a straw man. We frequently cite the young age of video games, she says, but when film was this age, it was about to birth Citizen Kane. When popular music was this age, Chaplin said, it had its Beatles already.

She argued that medium's age is not the correct source of blame for the often insultingly juvenile nature of games, the tiresome prevalence of space marines, bikini girls and typified young male power fantasies. Her point: Games aren't adolescent. Game developers are a bunch of, in her words, "fucking adolescents."

If you were at that panel, then you probably saw my jaw on the floor at that. My first reaction was that I was simply so impressed that she had the stones to get up and say that to a room full of male developers. And she'd structured her argument such that I didn't immediately feel that she was wrong.

After all, I'm sick of seeing Lord of the Rings and Star Wars treated as if they are the absolute only two extant cultural sources for non-realistic narratives. Things that we hold up as groundbreaking in terms of story, immersion, emotion here in the West, are what -- Oblivion? Mass Effect? Half-Life? Let me be enormously clear, here: Those are great games, and I have the highest genuine respect for the teams behind them and the way in which they try to further human interaction in their very high-quality work.

But plainly: That's nerd stuff.

And hey. I'm a nerd. Just to be clear I'm not holier-than-thou here, I run a freaking video game blog in my spare time. But every time I hear a game designer talk about how they hope video games can be "sophisticated" and "reach broader audiences" the way that comic books can, I die a little inside. Comic books are cool and all, but if I thought video games would stay stuck in that niche, I'd quit writing. I agree with Chaplin: Tights-and-cape fantasies aimed at young men are not mature at all, and I want developers to do better.

Chaplin essentially maintained that this adolescent "guy culture" and the games it produces prevents development from diversifying -- it repels women who might bring alternate perspectives to the table, it repels, basically, everyone who isn't part of it, which means that games are in danger of staying stuck in this self-perpetuating rut.

The rut's real. She's right about that. And there may be some small holes in her argument: Music went through centuries of widespread cultural permeation before it could birth rock. By then, it was already a reflection of the human condition, a sign of the times. Film was much more widely respected as an entertainment medium right from its inception. And while on the timeline games should chronologically be ready to produce a Citizen Kane, the concept of game-as-art, as something other-than-toy, is much younger than the medium's overall age. Many of these possibilities are still new to us.

But where I take a sharp detour from her argument is where she accuses developers of arrested development. She says that true sophistication in games requires "responsibility, introspection, intimacy, and intellectual discovery," traits she says "frighten men."

She even raised (and educated me in) the biology concept of neoteny, whereby new species begin to resemble the embryos of the animals from whence they evolved -- chihuahuas, for example, look like fetal wolves. The takeaway: Game developers are men who are so backward they're more like babies than adults.

According to Chaplin, these baby-dog developers are so childish the only material they're capable of manifesting creatively is the "adolescent power fantasies" they can't actualize in reality. Translated plain, she's calling them impotent.

Hold up. Chaplin wants more emotional maturity, more sophistication, and less adolescence for games -- I do, too. Seriously, let's all maybe read a few more books, guys, let's maybe watch a few more films, let's try to gain some further cultural sophistication. Let's try for real sexuality instead of just half-dressed celluloid constructs. Let's try for conflict that goes beyond the splattering headshot. Let's look at some more advanced examples of maturity in art than, say Watchmen, which is fine and all, but it ain't literature. Sorry.

But a dearth of cultural maturity -- and the social maturity that tends to go with that -- is a long, long way away from a lack of manhood. Okay, many game developers may be culturally unsophisticated, but challenging their human adulthood and masculinity is a really low blow. And blaming men's fabled "fear of intimacy" for just about everything is a chestnut as old as, well, Lord of the Rings.

I get comments, emails and correspondence with innumerable designers, writers, programmers, artists, producers, marketing folks, whatever you can name -- and to tell you the honest truth, I do not know anyone like the beastly children she described. Certainly, not a one of them would ever look me in the face and call me a "little girl." I'd sock 'em for that.

Despite ever-increasing progressiveness, I'd never be so naive as to claim there's absolutely no "guy culture" in games. There's "guy culture" everywhere. And yes, we want diversity on game teams. We want the traditional development base to become more open to new perspectives. We want more women on board.

As a woman, though, I never felt that emasculating men was the right way to get them to accept me.

More and more women are showing up at GDC every year. More and more of them are speaking at GDC. I hope next year they bring better ideas than kicking the boys in the nuts. That's neither constructive, relevant, healthy nor necessary, and I'd hate for that to be the industry's introduction to "girl culture."

--

By the way, pseudonymous developer and friend of SVGL Spitfire has posted one of my favorite responses yet not only to Chaplin ("you can't blame us for chasing the market," et al), but to the rant panel overall -- and his is not just my favorite because he says mine was good. If you haven't seen any coverage, this is probably the best round-up I can point you to. I say 'probably,' because I tried not to read too much coverage -- sort of aware of the weaknesses in my own delivery. Not like my argument was anywhere near perfect, either.

UPDATE: I just found David Jaffe's response to the rant, too, if you're interested.