Lest You Think Covering E3 Is All Glitz And Glamour

This is the weather in Los Angeles right now.

This is about how much money I have with me.

This is the view out my hotel room window.

...And, this is the view of my hotel room floor.

[make your reservations early, kids!]

Games, Communities, Change

Why am I spending my last business day before E3 offsite? Either I'm crazy or at an event I really care about. Well, the first one's certainly up for discussion, but the latter is quite true -- it's time for the 2009 Games For Change event held annually here in New York.

If you've never heard about Games For Change, it's an event that brings together game designers and researchers with educators, non-profits, activists and all kinds of groups with a common interest: Exploring how games can be used to educate, inspire and motivate players toward social change and community activism.

G4C was actually the very first full event I ever covered as a journalist -- I think back in 2006 was my first time attending? It was my first freelance assignment for Gamasutra before I ultimately came to be employed there, and I was very excited and very proud.

When socializing around the lecture rooms, I'd begin the sort of "hey, what do you do and why are you here" conversations that are common at these kinds of things. I met a good deal of people who said they wanted to make video games for some cause or other -- and yet I met very few people who knew what Gamasutra was. Or Game Developer Magazine, or GDC, or any other publication, event, community that people who make video games consider to be must-see-and-do.

In other words, there were a lot of very well-intentioned folk looking to enter the video game space while knowing nothing at all about it. Over the past few years this has changed -- last year, for example, while covering for Kotaku, I met a designer who'd left the Halo team at Bungie in order to pursue socially-minded game design.

This year, I'm seeing two major trends: firstly, a lack of compartmentalization between these formerly disparate communities all interested in the common goal of using games for social good. Everyone's much more on the same page, I'd say. Secondly, there's a lot more interest -- finally! -- in the things mainstream, existing games have already nailed down.

On that second item, I used to notice a tendency to sort of throw the baby out with the bathwater and reinvent the wheel -- or any fairly dated metaphor I could use to explain how the activist community used to dismiss existing lessons from commercial games as fairly negative or useless.

Now, they're paying much more attention to things like the way BioShock encouraged an entire community of gamers to discuss Rand-ian Objectivism; the way the Resident Evil 5 controversy encouraged plenty of debate, much of it healthy, on race and games; the way the Six Days In Fallujah controversy really caused many people to discuss and examine what the role of games could and should be in relation to "the real world."

On an "Ethics in Game Design" panel, they talked about how games should confront, rather than avoid, moments of making the player unhappy or uncomfortable -- these kinds of experiences are essential to teaching players empathy. Getting "screwed over" on loot distribution in World of Warcraft, for example, can help players relate to others who've been treated unfairly, if the parallels are presented in the right context.

There's also been a lot of talk here about The Sims and the profound effect open worlds and communities can have on their players -- that was a focal point of a really interesting conversation I covered between Henry Jenkins and Jim Gee, who basically agreed that by creating community, a game can be a gateway to action and inspiration, rather than a be-all and end-all on its own.

UPDATE: Speaking of The Sims, I had a really awesome talk with Maxis boss Lucy Bradshaw about how the design philosophy in The Sims and Spore, by providing an open environment in which players collaborate and learn by doing, helps drive engagement in two ways: by creating community, and by letting players fail a little bit.

By the way, these ideas about how essential it is to let players be frustrated, let them mess up, let them fail and let them learn from it, have really set my gears turning about why I've struggled lately to tap into the same passion and motivation around games as I had when I was younger.

I'm flying out to Los Angeles on Sunday morning, ready to hit the ground running for E3 next week with my excellent crew of colleagues. I'm kind of excited, and I hope to be blogging a little here and there from E3 and keep you all updated on what we're up to out there!

Hacking The Music Scene With Anamanaguchi

If you have the fortitude to follow me on Twitter, you might know I'm big into music, particularly stuff local to me here in New York. That's why it was particularly fun for me to write this month's Kotaku feature about Anamanaguchi, a great band and all around good bunch of guys who play 8-bit music. I'm a big fan of theirs.

The difference between these guys and the chiptunes you might already be familiar with is that they've got much more of a rock sound -- their focus is equally on guitar, bass, drums and overall rocking out as it is on the sound chip music (they use an NES soundchip). There's some cool overlap, then, between the local rock scene and the chiptune scene -- which overlaps in places, if not totally, with the video game scene. Cross-culture, yay!

Anyway, check out the article and give some of their music a listen. You'll see that I think they're kind of breakthrough artists for a number of reasons, and I'm not the only one who thinks so.

SEfojesfishrgfiu9rg8902rtghhhheeeeeeeeeeeee

I have a terrible cough inhibiting me from sleep, so I checked my computerland on the way to take some NyQuil. It was fate I woke up, because oh, man, all they have to do is show Big Boss and I get excited.

You know, I've been covering games a while now, and have even just recently lamented how, now that games are work, I just don't get as personally psyched about things or immersed in 'em the way that I used to. I worry sometimes that I feel more like an objective business writer than a real heartfelt gamer these days, and there's not much that can change that.

Except Big Boss. Even more than Snake, I love Big Boss. Commence fit.*

Kotaku is the one who took this screencap. Thank you, Kotaku.

PS: I will give massive swaths of joy and affection to whoever can make me a banner of the Big Boss image from this site with "Sexy Videogameland" in white digital lettering where the numbers ought to be. Yeah, that's a dare. [thank you a. whitney for rapidly fulfilling, and special thanks also to @kidkoexist on Twitter and to Bongo in comments for the sharp runners-up, I had no idea you guys were so flippin' fast!]

*please don't make it be some raiden v big boss fighting game or something not like metal gear

While You Wait For The Others

Yesterday, I asked you guys what you were looking forward to at E3. Today at Gamasutra, I've written an editorial about what I'm not looking forward to -- the scripted conversations.

Grilling some of my developer pals and acquaintances recently, I've been surprised to learn the extent to which the conversations we have with them during demos and previews are carefully pre-scripted and re-rehearsed, right down to the catch phrases and buzz words they hope we'll associate with their games, e.g "ultimate" "AAA" "blockbuster" "open-world experience" "high-intensity" "explosive" et al.

Look, marketing, I understand. Before I was a writer I worked doing low-level PR support in both product-oriented boutiques and in larger companies, and I get the necessity of trying to impose your language. But today, I've argued for why this isn't such a good thing for games, given the nature of the community.

It's an expansion, or rather, a specification of the rant I gave at GDC -- since my nervous-rambling presentation (during which I "ranted" and was promptly embarrassed by the tidy, well-constructed presentations my peers gave), I've been hoping to revisit the topic in a clearer, more specific way, so in a way, this is that.

The fact is, when you cut the BS, the press respects you, and respect goes a long way toward fair -- and often favorable -- coverage. Check it out, huh?


(header image is from Osamu Tezuka's "MW," which kind of blew my mind when I read it for the first time over this past weekend. post title is the name of a fab track from Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest, which anyone with ears should listen to and enjoy.)

Maybe Sometimes Make It Easy Take Your Time

How are you all this peaceful long weekend? Summer's funny -- one minute it seems ages away, and then suddenly, there it is. At least, that's the case here in New York and in surrounding New England where the seasons tend to be abrupt and schizophrenic.

I'm continuing to catch up on some of the things I would've linked, asked, discussed and shared with everyone here at SVGL had I had more time over the past couple weeks -- in that spirit, I should've linked this like ages ago, but I was invited to be on a podcast earlier in the month by the nice dudes of First Wall Rebate.

Man, ever since that famous episode of Rock Paper Shotgun's podcast, everyone seems to want me to be drinking when I join them on podcasts. So I complied for these guys -- especially since they were so nice about me needing to reschedule on them about a billion times. However, the result was a super enjoyable chat on some surprisingly deep topics -- in their words, "the impact of social networking technologies on game development and coverage, authorial control and community involvement, as well as Twitter and N’Gai Croal’s WordFu score."

Definitely give it a listen if you're up for some mellow Sunday mulling, because those guys were sharp tacks and good people. Hopefully you're off work tomorrow, spending time close with family, possibly beer (if you are of legal age, of course) and ideally, meats of various types that have been cooked outdoors over charcoal.

By the way, I hear really good things about the Infamous (uh, inFAMOUS?) demo from some friends and I mean to check it out -- anyone tried it?

Catch-Catch Up-Up! E3 Is Coming!!

Phew! It's been tough to keep up on blogging, as E3 prep requires sifting through a mountain of emails. The spare time I usually use to peck merrily away at SVGL has been eaten up recently -- and so has my game time, since by the end of the day once I'm off work, I almost don't even feel like picking up a controller.

I figured I'd start the catch-up process by answering some of the most common questions I've gotten via email during my recent lull of sorts: Yes, I've seen the purported "Project Trico" vid. Am I excited? What do I think? Of course I'm excited, it's a video that sure as hell looks like it's for a new Ueda game. Other than that, what's there to say until we have some more details? Longtime SVGL-ers know that I loathe the hype cycle, so I'm not about to get lathered up prematurely. Yes, I am going to E3, yes, I am looking forward to it.

Do I have any E3 predictions? Actually, for once I'm tending to believe these early rumors surrounding this supposed PS3 Slim. I feel Sony knows it absolutely can't compete in the price wars with the PS3 at $399 -- but given Sony Corp's current stunning losses and plans for heavy restructuring, I wonder if it can yet afford to cut the price of the thing by $100, as the industry seems to agree that it must.

Microsoft was quite clever in introducing its Arcade SKU -- at $199, it's angled as a mainstream product, and thus can compete with Wii even while the boost in sales arms the company to really drive the nail into Sony, too. My guess would be that the PS3 Slim would be a reasonable way for Sony to follow suit with a lighter, smaller, cheaper and less-able PS3 for a broader audience. What will they take out of it, exactly? No idea.

Of course, a supposed slim PS3 could be an entirely new upgrade on the existing hardware that's smaller and less expensive to manufacture. That they'd be able to get the overpriced box off the shelf and replace it with one that's cheaper and equally capable is a miracle I'm not expecting, though -- my guess is that it's a simpler SKU that will sell alongside, not replace, the proper PS3. Of course, I'm only speculating -- I've got no info whatsoever to suggest either way.

Will Microsoft introduce gesture-based motion control? Unsure. I was with Kotaku last year where we actively did some reporting about a possible Wii Remote-ish wand expected at E3 -- I felt pretty sure that was going to happen, and yet it didn't, so despite all the motion rumors flying around the Xbox 360 this year, I'm bating my faith.

Reveals I'm looking forward to? Take a guess (and do you think it is an "S" or a "5" flashing in the clouds?).

I actually get a little antsy around E3 time. The hype is at an all-time high, and audiences are waiting in a frenzy of anticipation for announcements, reveals and impressions that can't possibly meet expectations. For example, I can tell you for certain that no matter what poor Nintendo says or does in a couple weeks, no one will be happy.

The bar is set very high for E3 this year, and I wonder how it can possibly meet the expectations of those who question whether it should even continue to exist after last year's lull. I'm not someone who's easily impressed, mind you -- but the collective shoulder-shrug that often follows E3 tends to make me feel a little sad, because I wonder what people were expecting, and whether those expectations were realistic.

So tell me -- what are you expecting out of E3, and what are you looking forward to?

Great Big Bites

Once, it was considered highly desirable for games to be dense, packed with cinematics and rife with hours upon hours of gameplay to lozenge at a snail's pace. Now, not so, of course.

Length and slowness are seen as negatives, detractors to engagement. Cut scenes didn't just suffer a backlash -- they are just not to be done any more. Do you remember when the quantity of total FMV hours in a game was a bullet point in its favor, and not a reason to hate Metal Gear Solid 4?

Loosely, one could associate the advent of the long, video-heavy video game with the rise of the PlayStation platforms; you could also possibly correlate it with Japanese-style game development, even if only because the traditionally Japanese approach to design has waned at the exact same rate as the popularity of this old-school, heavy sort of video game we're talking about here. Incidentally, the PlayStation platform is also decidedly declining, if we're just to look at the numbers.

Anyway, whether or not you want to lump together Japanese design, the PlayStation and the long, filmic video game as part of the same entity is up to you. It's more interesting to reflect on why we were once so attracted to that kind of game, when just about every tenet the development community holds as law these days rejects it.

RPG Stories

To explain it at least in part, let's add one more correlation: the RPG. It's a genre popular for its storytelling, and Back In The Day when we had less genre diversity, it was arguably the only genre on the console that was telling much of a story. The most important element in any story is the characters, of course, and up until the PlayStation era, our "characters" were too crude looking for us to relate to them in any detail. Part of the reason Final Fantasy VII was such a watershed is that it was the first time most of us had played an RPG story where we got to see dramatic visuals of the characters in three dimensions.

It's almost comical if you watch those FMVs today, to recall how emotional we found their glassy expressions, but by the standards of FFVII's day, it was nothing short of a miracle, and VIII was even lovelier. Anyone remember bringing friends home from school and oh my god, watch this, sitting them in front of your PlayStation just to gawk at opening movies of popular games?

This Is Sparta?

I'm taking a nostalgia trip here, back to the days of Roman excesses. 'Course, we know what happened to Rome. Since those days, game design has learned a few crucial things: First, all games benefit from story -- it's not just for RPGs anymore. Second, story needs to be interactive, and is theoretically more impactful and engaging when told through gameplay and not static visuals. The player must have equal, if not more, control than the game over the pace at which things unfold. Thirdly -- and most significantly to this discussion -- more doesn't equal better.

We've had so many good games that are quite short -- ICO, remarkably ahead of its time in an era of titles that would fast become slogging relics, and of course, Portal come to mind -- and today's design ideal is relatively Spartan, built on replayable mechanics that are simple but deep. If The Old Way Of Doing Things is attractive anymore, it's probably the gloss of our younger memories, and the fact that we loved the ancient Great Big Video Game for its newness back then.

Small Bites

Engagement is the Word Of The Day -- developers promoting new projects enthusiastically use phrases like "bite-sized chunks", "pick up and play". If a game doesn't demand any more than five minutes from you in any given session to be enjoyable, that's a plus. And when we pick-up-and-play these games in bite-sized chunks, we are meant to be immersed and to receive a narrative without ever needing to sit still, watch, read or listen. Oh, and the game is also supposed to teach us how to play it without us realizing we're being tutored, and we're never supposed to feel stumped or stuck.

Lofty goals, ain't they? Perhaps that's one of the reasons we're so easily and continually unsatisfied with much of what's coming out lately -- my general response to most of the "big" titles over the last several months has been, I see what you were after here, and it was a real good aim, but you didn't connect.

And this progress design has made toward the removal of absolutely any burden of paying attention from the player has been training us, I think, to be fundamentally passive players -- precisely the opposite of the increased immersion games have been aiming for. I fear that by habituating players to these design ideals, games are gradually eroding our motivation to take big bites out of the material we're given.

Indulge me in another nostalgia trip, and ask yourself when you loved video gaming the most. Maybe it was a time when a game surprised you -- recall the hairs on the back of your neck rising as you watched some opening FMV or other Back In The Day. More likely, though, you'll remember a time when you surprised yourself -- the satisfaction of completing 100 hours of something, the thrill of finally breaking through a point of punishing frustration, the time at your PC when you realized, all in a flash, that you needed to type "Put Rock On Anthill" instead of "Cover Anthill With Rock," and with that flung open a door to beating a title that had plagued you for months.

I'm not advocating a return to the cut scene-laden, lugubrious hundred-hour video game, and nor am I saying "new stuff sucks." I'm constantly impressed with the ways in which the wisdom of game design continues to evolve.

But I do often wonder if we're not losing something as the PlayStation era gets smaller and smaller in our rearview, as old-school design principles ebb away, and as the "bite sized chunk" becomes the desired paradigm.

I'm always saying "Engagement is a choice." We used to willingly confront obstacles in games, willingly elect to dedicate our time. I hope that games keep asking us to.

Programming Note

If you serve in the armed forces, posted a comment on our Six Days In Fallujah discussion, and do not want your comments considered for an upcoming article, please email me at leighalexander1 at gmail dot com. If you're a serviceman or woman who wants to contribute, or if you commented and want to elaborate, please do mail me before Wednesday, May 13. Thanks!

Also, if you are nursing, pregnant or may become pregnant, you should not read or handle Sexy Videogameland. Common side effects include bruising, bleeding or paleness, loss of appetite and tinnitus. Sexy Videogameland has not been studied in children under the age of 18. Always ask your doctor before reading Sexy Videogameland, and tell your doctor about any other video game websites you are reading.

...Yeah.

Back On Their Feet

One of the things I covered closely when I was with Kotaku last year was the closure of Flagship Studios amid the crash-and-burn of Hellgate: London. It's difficult to see a long-running project with such high audience expectations fall on its face -- and it was made a little more difficult if you remember, by an uncommonly intimate look at how the team was struggling thanks to some honest thoughts from an employee.

That's why it was fun for me to talk recently with Runic Games' Max Schaefer, who's back in the fight at his new studio formed with the Mythos team (so visible were Hellgate's problems that it's easy to forget Flagship had another promising project in the pipeline that got crushed in the collapse).

Schaefer talks about what went wrong at Flagship, of course -- "trying to do too much, in every respect" -- but he also told me all about how he's taking a lot of those lessons to "try it again and do it better now" with Runic's new project, the Diablo-like MMO Torchlight (Schaefer's also one of the original co-creators of Diablo). Check out the stories!

Anyway, seeing a dedicated team come out of a bad situation with more wisdom and a second chance is always a nice story -- especially amid this awfully dismal weather we've been having here in New York lately.

Speaking of the end of a badly-executed MMO, this reminds me of something awesome my colleague Chris Remo did for us somewhat recently in writing up a firsthand account of the last days of Tabula Rasa. Love it -- do read it if you missed it!

GDC: The Game?!

See this over at GameSetWatch? You guys know I'm a big text adventure geek, and apparently Jim Munroe (he did Everybody Dies, if you've played that one) has gone and made one about being a coder at GDC and having to network with different people and build your game team. It has Raigan and Mare in it!

I'm just kind of mindblown there's a game about GDC. Awesome. Full details over at the boss' place.

The Path For Art Games

You may or may not yet have seen my Kotaku feature for this month -- it's about games as art. No, seriously! Actually, rather than kick around the "are they or aren't they" question, I decided to ask some folks doing unconventional things in games about the commercial and cultural viability of games like The Path.

There's a reason why you're so sick of the "art games" question -- we're still not sure where "that kinda thing" fits in. I agree with Ian Bogost, who when speaking to me on my "quit it with the Citizen Kane thing" column, said that what people really want is legitimacy for games, whether that comes via being accepted as "art", or through film-like "watershed" moments. Never mind that either of those seem especially likely in a broadly visible way anytime soon.

But I did my best to find out what course the people working on games that are decidedly art think their work might follow -- if you haven't yet seen it, read my feature for input from Tale of Tales, Jason Rohrer and more!