Esquire: Future of Video Game Design – Jason Rohrer’s Programming Online Games

Screen of Passage

Esquire has a great story on The Video-Game Programmer Saving Our 21st-Century Souls by Jason Fagone (Nov. 20, 2008) which features “Jason Rohrer’s solitary and stubborn quest for a future in which pixels and code and computers will make you cry and feel and love”. Rohrer created the game Passage about which Clint Hocking of Ubisoft said:

Why can’t we make a game that fucking means something? A game that matters? You know? We wonder all the time if games are art, if computers can make you cry, and all that. Stop wondering. The answer is yes to both. Here’s a game that made me cry. It did. It really did.

I balk at the idea that a game to mean something has to have “lesson.” This reminds of the tedious pedagogical dialogues of the 18th century which really would have been better presented as lessons. The meaning of works that don’t present explicit opinions lies in the reflection provoked. Thus they are more like questions than answers. Or, to be more accurate, they are like a path of questioning since a game has the time to move questioning.

Thanks to Peter O for this.

Edmonton Sun: More fam-Wii fun despite downturn

So I got another minute of fame being interviewed for a story in the Edmonton Sun, More fam-Wii fun despite downturn. The interesting thing is how games seem to be recession-proof and how well the Wii is doing.

Despite a flagging economy, $1.31 billion US was spent on video games in October in the U.S. alone – a gain of 18% from September.

The spike is being led by Nintendo’s Wii interactive console, which according to figures from market research company NPD Group outpaced its competitors by selling 803,000 consoles in October.

I wonder how high definition screens will do this Christmas? I would have thought this is the time for people to switch, but the news suggests otherwise.

State of Science & Technology in Canada

Stan pointed me to the 2006 Council of Canadian Academies | Conseil des académies canadiennes report on The State of Science & Technology in Canada (Summary and Main Findings, PDF 2.6 mb). The report tries to identify Canada’s strengths and weaknesses in the Science & Technology field, though they have a broad understanding of S&T. There is good news for arts and technology.

The ICT field demonstrating the most promise in the view of respondents – i.e., with the highest net upward trend rating – is New Media, Multimedia, Animation and Gaming, where Canada is internationally recognized as a leader, with a number of successful companies as well as a reputation for superb skills training. (p. 9)

They also identify Humanities Computing as a transdisciplinary field of strength,

Survey respondents perceived significant strength in some emerging fields such as nanoscale materials and biotechnologies, quantum informatics and humanities computing. These latter transdisciplinary fields are specialities for which future prospects are seen to be more significant than currently established strength. (p. 10)

Here is a chart from page 39 showing the Humanities and the Arts:

Chart

ESAC: Girl Gamers

Cover of ESA 2008 Fast FactsThe Edmonton Journal has a story today titled “It took a while, but Ms. Pacman has her audience: Girl gamers take up controllers” by David Wylie for the Canwest News Service (A10, November 12, 2008.) The story reports that a Entertainment Software Association of Canada study “found that half of Canadian gamers are women”. (The study isn’t available on the ESA Canada web site, which, for that matter, doesn’t have any press releases after 2007. Time for an update, Eh!) The story also reports that the Entertainment Software Association (of the USA?) 2008 Essential Facts about the Computer and Video Game Industry (PDF) puts the percentage of female game players at 40%. The Edmonton Journal story has some cute quotes from the woman they interviewed for the story:

“I think womean and gaming are a perfect match,” she (McIndoe) says. “It is incredibly social.” … “There is always something to talk about. And the ladies love to talk.”

“Things really took off once I met my husband; we didn’t have a lot of money, so we would stay up and play video games together. To be honest, it was him working the congroller and me shouting instructions — truly th beginning of a happy marriage.”

The story goes on to make the usual points about how games are marketed to me, how there are female-focused tournaments like Fight like a Girl (think Halo 3 for charity), and how there are all-girl clans.

I’m not sure I trust the ESA or ESAC facts, but I suspect there is a trend towards more women playing games, especially social games. What would computer game culture look like if it was dominated by older women? How would they design games?

Brandon Crisp and Game Addiction

The sad story of Brandon Crisp and his parents is over. The Globe and Mail reports that an Autopsy shows Brandon Crisp died from fall. Brandon had run away from home after his parents revoked his Xbox privileges after he had skipped school to play Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Microsoft got involved when they doubled the reward for information about Brandon’s whereabouts and shared information about his online team. His parents were afraid he was addicted to the game though the truth may be that he was caught in a network of obligations to team members with whom he played. As an article in Maclean’s puts it:

What they didn’t know at the time, his parents say, was just how much the game meant to their son and how troublesome that connection had become. Since his disappearance, the true extent of his involvement has become clear. While he had few friends in Barrie, his Xbox had a list of 200 people whom he played Call of Duty with online. Judged too small to keep up in hockey, the shy but competitive teenager found respect and success in the video game world, where he played on “clans,” or online teams. It wasn’t just a game, it was Brandon’s life — something he might even make money playing in professional tournaments one day, he once told a friend. “These are the things I didn’t realize,” says Steve, standing in a police command centre near where Brandon vanished, his hands wrapped around a bottle of water. “When I took his Xbox away, I took away his identity.” (What happened to Brandon? by Colin Campbell and Jonathon Gatehouse, Oct. 30, 2008)

The article mainly talks about the possibility that computer games are addictive and includes a response from the ESA that the media is “addicted” to such stories. The Escapist in response to Maclean’s has an editorial by Andy Chalk (sent to me by Calen) titled The Stigma of Normal which argues that the evidence of a connection between games and Brandon’s running away is scant.

Playing videogames in this day and age is no more remarkable than watching television or listening to music. Did he overindulge? Maybe, although we have only his parents’ word to that effect, and if he did, it would hardly be beyond the pale for teenage behavior anyway. Yet even though the only videogame connection to the case is the fact that he played them, it’s virtually impossible to see or read anything about his disappearance without the gaming angle being thrust in your face like the armored crotch of a victorious deathmatch opponent. (The Stigma of Normal, Andy Chalk, Nov. 5, 2008)

It seems to be both sides, the media and … the (gaming) media are addicted to each other and this issue. They both have their audience and play to them. How could the discussion around gaming mature?

Pushing Play

Logo A student of mine from last year, Jacob, who was one of the two who did the innovative Half-Life Havoc project, has started a gaming blog and company, Pushing Play. His company is developing game conference,

The Pushing Play Conference is all about bringing hardcore, casual, midcore gamers together, as well as Ludologists, game designers, and even non-gamers. By bringing these people together and giving them a forum to interact we can get a better understanding of the gaming community as a whole, rather than supporting the over-used image of gamers strictly being teenage boys.

Krazy: Vancouver Art Gallery

Cover to Catalogue

While in Vancouver for the Congress, I went to the Vancouver Art Gallery to see the show Krazy! The Delirious World Of Anime + Comics + Video Games + Art which brought together in one exhibit significant works from Anime, Comics, Graphic Novels, Manga, Video Games, Animation and Art. The show was better than I had expected reading the article in the Globe and Mail. For each section they got curators with a background in the field. For example, Will Wright (of SIMs fame) did the video game section.

The challenge of such an exhibit is how to show stuff like comics that are meant to be consumed in another form. The video game section was particularly problematic – they had inkjet printouts of Spore (upcoming game by Wright) screens and characters (that weren’t much better than a good screen), but it wasn’t like the comic section where they had original art and sketches. To exhibit in an art gallery the types of work that are consumed in other contexts was more an exercise in legitimation – telling us these should be thought of as art. The selection of what was important was what was really being exhibited – a “best of” list of lists with commentary on the walls.

Kriegspiel: Debord Game

Image from Game

The New Yorker (May 5, 2008, pages 25-6) has a nice short story “War Games” in Talk of the Town about a computer game Kriegspiel based on a game that Guy Debord designed in 1977. The game, “Le Jeu De La Guerre” was published first in a limited edition with metal pieces and then in 1987 it was mass produced. The game has a board of 25 X 20 squares and each side has basic military pieces that can be played according to rules designed to simulate war. The computer implementation, which can be downloaded for free, is by Radical Software Group (RSG) which is associated with NYU.

The New Yorker story talks about how the estate of Debord has been sending cease-and-desist letters to the RSG folk, which is ironic since debord objected to copyright. Debord is author of The Society of Spectacle.

The potted expert on CHCH

Image off video

I’ve just used up 5 of my 15 minutes of fame as a local computer games expert in Hamilton. CHCH, our local television channel has a segment on Grand Theft Auto IV yesterday and they interviewed me and Jacob. (See the video here.)

They should have interviewed Andrew Mactavish, but he is on leave and I’m teaching his games course. My sense from following the news is that the story is not playing out in the mainstream the way I expected – the mainstream news are more intrigued by GTA 4 and its reception in the gaming community. Of course, as Andrew pointed out in a conversation, Rockstar could have hidden some provocative parts to be discovered which will stir things up.

I note that the interview with me was taken in the Lyons Instructional Media Centre‘s game viewing room. How many libraries have one of those?

Grand Theft Auto IV: Panic Magnet or Cultural Criticism

Screen Capture
Well, Grand Theft Auto IV is on sale today and the news is predicting it “will break sales records.” More importantly the media are warming up for a juicy story about game violence while the gaming news is ready for the moral panic of the mainstream media. Take Kotaku:

One might also suspect that, when the game is finally release (sic), opportunistic, fear mongering elected officials, clueless mainstream media and glory seeking attorneys may find extra content not listed, including Virtual Rape, Cop Killing, Overt Racism, Gerbil Abuse, Being On Someone’s Lawn and Buggery. We’re looking forward to a fun ride.

I think the gaming community expects that GTA IV is going to be a magnet for media stories about violence and videogames. Remember that hard core gamers have been following GTA 4 for a while and thinking about its reception while the audience of the mainstream news (if there is such a thing left) are just waking up to it as the stories go mainstream. Rockstar may even have placed some content designed to spark controversy since nothing sells games like controversy, even when the game is rated Mature. In the case of gaming, the media have little credibility compared to the narrow gaming channels that gamers read, but gamers love to have their opinions of n00bs confirmed when the mainstream seems to parachute in the day before a game is released or when some kid goes postal. Thus we end up with two solitudes that feed off misunderstanding each other: parents who can panic after reading that they should and gamers frustrated that they aren’t understood when they knew they wouldn’t be. That’s the essence of commedia – the fun of watching groups creatively misunderstand each other in public. GTA IV promises to be another chapter in a comedy of misunderstanding that goes back to Socrates complaining about the poets teaching youth to practice disreputable characters (and Aristophanes making fun of him doing so.) I note that Rockstar has made a brilliant first move on the Information page of the web site for the game by stealing some cultural criticism high-ground:

What does the American Dream mean today?

For Niko Bellic, fresh off the boat from Europe, it is the hope he can escape his past.

For his cousin, Roman, it is the vision that together they can find fortune in Liberty City, gateway to the land of opportunity.

As they slip into debt and are dragged into a criminal underworld by a series of shysters, thieves and sociopaths, they discover that the reality is very different from the dream in a city that worships money and status, and is heaven for those who have them and a living nightmare for those who don’t.

Think about it – a Scottish game development company making a game that claims to critique the emptiness of the American dream in order to make lots of money the American way. But seriously, some interesting aspects of the story are:

  • How do companies manage blockbuster games? GTA 4 was delayed (possibly to avoid other big releases like Halo 3) and now seems to have been well timed (and built up) to take off. Given how much it cost to develop GTA 4, the launch probably has to be carefully staged to be perceived as the next “fastest-selling” so that they make a profit. How do they stage blockbusters? Should we care about them?
  • How do blockbuster games intersect with other forms of entertainment “properties”? Will GTA 4 really affect movie going among young men by taking them off the streets and out of the theatres (and into the gaming room) for a few weeks? Will it have a measurable effect on sales of other types of entertainment as some speculate?
  • A related question is how they manage the tie-in with Amazon for music? I think games like GTA 4 have real potential to sell other merchandise – especially music, given the way radio stations entertain in the game. They apparently have some deal for selling tunes through the game in the US. Will it have an effect on Amazon’s music sales?
  • How effective is the game engine (Euphoria) that they are using? GTA 4 is one of the first major games to use Euphoria – will it make a difference players respond to?