Inside the IGF Student Competition: Puzzle Wars

Cool story from Gamasutra covering student developer Guillaume Patrux, whose entry in the Independent Games Festival Student Competition sounds intriguing. You can check out PuzzleWars here.
Everyone who laments the team size, engineering complexity and massive costs needed to develop AAA console games is encouraged to check out the student competition. Imagination abounds! At my own workplace we just finished DreamWeek, in which very small teams each created a game in a week. The results were *astounding* with not a stinker in the bunch.

To clarify: don't steal. really.
I've been getting emails about my post regarding Spore's drm issues and feel a need to be explicit. I am completely against stealing games or any other content. I am also against onerous use restrictions placed on legit users. Those two views are not mutually exclusive.

It takes a boatload of money to make a AAA game title, and it's completely unreasonable to expect the people who work on it or finance to do it for free. I understand the ease of downloading, but it's also easy to walk out of Walgreen's with a pocket full of lipstick but that don't make it right. I likewise understand the desire to get games electronically instead of schlepping to a game store to buy a physical copy of the game (or ordering a disk from Amazon), and we're getting there. But c'mon, you know you are taking something that isn't yours. Don't send me an email justifying your behavior. I've heard it all and am not moved.

On the other hand... when I pay for something I expect recognition of that salient fact and do not appreciate restrictions that clearly tell me I am an untrustworthy potential thief. This goes for itunes and spore and any other product that I can't use on all my gadgets and computers. And I have a LOT of them, like most of us in the 21st century. I want to be able to use my centro, ipod, eepc, workstation, notebook, ps3, etc. as one integrated system and it makes me nuts to have to jump through hoops to do so. And you can't convince me I should pay for multiple copies of something because I use lots of gizmos.

Okay, bring it on. Let the heated debate begin.

OMG, I gotta have it!
'It' of course being Little Big Planet. I just watched the intro credits and tutorial and was completely captivated.

Good stuff for students
From Game Career Guide, '5 ways game designers communicate'

spore drm makes us cranky
As many of you know, I wear the crankypants whenever discussing either piracy or drm (or, usually, both in the same conversation). As much as I sympathize with content creators of all kinds-- music, art, software, books-- I really hate being treated like a thief when I do the right thing and pay for the works I want. Spore has infuriated so many people with the 3-computer limits that Amazon removed reviews and re-set the star counter. Here's Gamasutra's story on EA's response to criticism: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20218

consider mind blown
I tend to get deep but not wide in many areas of my life, especially work. So it was a real treat to meet up with friends last night and have my mind blown by what's going on in the bigger world of gaming, toys, robots, articifial life, the law and more. There's a growing recognition that we will inevitably create sentient artificial life forms, with the caveat "briefly." It's intriguing to consider how we will handle this. Ethical questions abound. And of course Star Trek entered the conversation (see episode The Measure of a Man).

still standing...
I'm still on the job at LucasArts. My thanks to everyone who emailed to ask, with a gentle reminder not to believe everything you read on the interwebs. And please understand I am not going to write about the layoffs here.

facebook addict
There are a LOT of gamefolk on Facebook. Some of their pages are like little works of art. I am fascinated.
When I first started whywhywhy I hoped to encourage creative collaboration on the web, and learned to hand code html and design sites so I could host projects like the blond experiment and the self-portraitproject.
Some of us were seriously concerned that all the money swirling around the dot-coms was going to consume the web until it was used exclusively to sell crap. It's thrilling to see the explosion of user-created content. As I write here less and less, I realize there's almost no need for it anymore. And that is a good thing, like seeing your kid grow up and surpass you.

big fun wow sendup
check this out! http://www.aoedipus.net/
I promise to write more when I recover from the TFU experience.

addiction or immersion?
In Gamasutra, Neils Clark talks about moving beyond 'Game Addiction' : is gaming pathological, he wondered, and really causing a problem, or are players just having fun?

gta feedback?
I hear the character is more fully realized this time out, and that has ramifications on player choices in the story. As soon as I'm out of crunch I'll be playing. But meanwhile, what do you think? Masterpiece? Same old stuff made shiny & new?

Research: 'Absolutely No Evidence' Violent Games Lead Kids to Real-Life Violence
This is huge news. From Game Daily: "In fact, according to new research from Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson, kids who don't play video games at all are at greater risk to get into trouble."
See Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olsen discuss their research on G4TV.

steven king is on our side
Check out Steven King's column in EW.com. I couldn't have said it better myself:
"The most effective bar against what was called ''the seduction of the innocent'' when this hot-button issue centered on violent comic books 60 years ago is still parents who know and care not just about what their kids are watching and reading, but what they're doing and who they're hanging with. Parents need to have the guts to forbid material they find objectionable...and then explain why it's being forbidden. They also need to monitor their children's lives in the pop culture — which means a lot more than seeing what games they're renting down the street."

crunchy obsession
One unfortunate side effect of being in this business that I don't play other games till mine has shipped. This year I've missed out on two games that took noteworthy new approaches to narrative in games, a subject I think about constantly. I swear I'll play Bioshock as soon as the game I'm working on goes into submission, and I'm going to try to get to Portal even before then (short gameplay might be a plus right now).
Speaking of Portal, Gamasutra published an interesting conversation with Kim Swift and Eric Wolplaw. Surprising comments on gameplay testing, character development and -- oh yeah -- narrative. I loved this comment: "There's the "story story" which is the cutscenes and the dialogue, and the "gameplay story" which is the story that's described by the actions you take in the game world. The theory was that the closer you could bring those two stories together, the more satisfying the game would be." That's what we're all aiming for, and it's harder than it sounds.

cheating, competition, punishment & shame
Microsoft announced it is taking steps to crack down on cheaters, including stripping accounts of their achievements and slapping on an "I'm a dirty cheat" label on the account for all to see. You can read about it on their Major Nelson blog or in the Gamerscore Corrections FAQ.

Cheating goes hand in hand with competition. We like to think that we compete with one another to test ourselves against others, to push ourselves to achieve tangible and intangible rewards, and to experience the excitement of winning when losing is a real possibility. But feeding that competitive impulse also unleashes a less attractive drive to get that top score, to be recognized as the best, sometimes without regard for how that impulse is satisfied.

Cheating is everywhere, from using steroids in the quest to set baseball records to palming an extra $500 bill when acting as the banker in Monopoly to yes, tampering with Gamerscores. We create and use cheats all the time in gaming, with purists preferring to play unaided but many or most of us using cheats both to enhance our enjoyment and to obtain a victory without as much struggle. It's hard to understand how one could derive satisfaction from a bogus victory, but humans are remarkably adept at self-deception as well as the deception of others. Sometimes we regard the willingness to do anything to win as an admirable trait.

"Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing."
"Rules are made to be broken."
"It's only cheating if you get caught."

Good luck with that, Microsoft. We salute your efforts to keep the game clean, but we think it's a losing proposition.

one of the most interesting guys in gaming...
I'm a longtime admirer of Denis Dyack and Silicon Knights (and you should be too). Check out this great interview from Gamasutra. com titled what games need. More fascinating ideas about narrative and writing, two of my favorite topics, but also ranging through the need for directors, quality vs schedule, and more.

and while we're at it, shame on you eliot spitzer
According to the NY Times, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, a vocal critic of violent and sexual content in games, was caught on a wiretap arranging to transport a prostitute across state lines to meet him in DC. This is the same man who expressed shock that children can simulate sex with a prostitute in Grand Theft Auto (an M-rated game not intended for children). Gov. Spitzer was more than just an anti-gamer who liked to pick up prostitutes, he also busted protitution rings and made sure the media took note. "In one such case in 2004, Mr. Spitzer spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island." Check out the FBI document outlining the case. And as usual, Gamepolitics.com has nicely biting commentary on the incident.

shame on you, alex jones
Alex Jones's Infowars piece “ICED: an Illegal Immigration Training Video Game” is a massively wrong-headed take on ICED, the serious game about immigration policy published by human rights organization Breakthrough. Think I'm overreacting? Notice that he starts the article with "An Indian woman, Mallika Dutt, has released a video game that essentially trains illegal aliens how to sneak across the border and avoid border patrol agents and cops." Would he be less concerned if an American man had written the game?
And how about this outrageous statement: "Of course, as the average Mexican or Latin American does not have access to a video game console, let alone a television, the game is more practically geared toward an effort to inculcate middle class Americans into the belief that illegal immigration is a human rights issue, never mind open borders and the influx of third world people is a globalist plot to turn the United States, soon to become part of a North American Union, into a feudal slave labor gulag based on the China model."
Hey fool -- it's a PC game. It's not a border-crossing training sim. Take some time to learn about the game before you shriek about it.

art... eternally debatable
More coolness from Gamasutra: the debate about games and art between Jim Preston and E. Daniel Arey. Both opinions are well worth reading. Completely unrelated to games (or maybe not?), the Met in New York has three massively interesting exhibits of some of my favorite artists: Jasper Johns, Nicolas Poussin and Gustave Courbet. If I can get time off, I'm NY bound.

comments off
Sadly, the strange off-topic comments have gotten a little out of control, so comments are off for the time being. Please feel free to email me and I'll share interesting on-topic messages.

indies! check this out!
You know I love you guys. Here's a great feature from Gamasutra: 9 paths to indie greatness. Do it. Do it.

more on story in games
I hear the GDC panel on the future of story in game design got very heated. Bottom-line question: does story serve gameplay, or the other way around? I am completely torn on this question. As a writer I want to believe story is critical, but what I loved about Jak II was how it felt to play.

making games that matter
One of the best things about GDC is the rant, and this year's designer rant offers up some interesting ideas about making games that matter, a subject near and dear to my heart. Clint Hocking said we have to use "proven techniques for building compelling emotional investment in things real human beings give a shit about." Amen, brother.

guns don't kill people, games do
Another campus massacre, this time at Northern Illinois University, and games are already being blamed (Counter-strike in this case). What we do know is that the shooter was a 27 year old graduate student with an excellent academic record who had stopped taking medication for an unnamed condition. How exactly would banning sale of violent games to minors have had any impact on a disturbed, homicidal adult? How about controlling the sale of actual guns?

Of the many cycnical attempts to exploit such tragic incidents that we have seen over the years, Illinois state Rep. Robert Pritchard's especially craven sop to gun nuts takes the cake: gun control won't help stop gun violence. No, it's violent games and movies that are the problem. In fact, Rep. Pritchard says if more people were packing pistols we'd have less gun violence. Check it out in the Chicago Herald and gamepolitics.com.

Massacre-chaser Jack Thompson has (predictably) shown up on Fox news to blame violent games and promote himself in his fight against the Florida court system. In an email to gamepolitics.com he actually compares himself to Paul Revere. Wow.

Here's a really interesting bit about scientists using consoles for massive computing tasks. It probably won't do much to convince people that gaming is more useful and less dangerous than they imagine, but at least the hardware itself can be seen as more than a toy.

comment...
At 7:37 PM , Anonymous said...
There's another PS3 cluster at North Carolina State Univeristy, I think it was the first. You can install Linux on the console, and for 5 grand you get a supercomputer. I hear the RAM is the biggest constraint but they're working on it.

narrative in games. yes, again.
We've been telling stories as long as we've had language, and storytelling has been both evolving and remaining remarkably consistent ever since. Each new art form introduces new ways to tell a story, from Beowulf to La Belle et la Bête to BioShock. From Gamasutra's coverage of the DICE summit, BioWare CEO Ray Muzyka, BioShock's Ken Levine and Harmonix VP Greg LoPiccolo talk about narrative in the context of their games. Check it out.

quality of life
Anyone who works in this industry knows the issue. Papers have been written, lawsuits filed, relationships ended (and started), yet we are still in the position where we spend months on end giving everything we've got to the game. I have to be honest and admit that there is a part of me that loves the chance to go all the way for something. The commitment, the shared sense of purpose-- these are heady feelings, rewarding in ways that a "normal" job's compensation can never be. I love to be part of something bigger than me, and I genuinely like the work. The best people I know have been people I worked with. But the downside is steep. Many of us don't sleep well or much. Sticking to a healthy diet is sometimes harder than hitting a milestone. And marriage to an "outsider" is very very difficult. Many people end up resenting both the spouse for not understanding what the situation really demands, and the job for demanding it. I recently learned a friend is hanging it up and leaving the business, probably the last person I would have imagined. Best of luck to you, amigo. You've earned it in spades.

I'm back...
Thanks to everyone who emailed to ask where I have been. I'm still in crunch but much less intensely than on past projects, and our beloved troll is at least temporarily offline. I'm turning comments back on, though I am still disappointed that so much interesting conversation had to be done privately for so long. Comment away.
Grammarians will undoubtedly email about the three-dot ellipsis above. An interesting man made a good point, and I believe I was wrong.

It's GDC time again! Update the resume, pop a breath mint, put on a clean shirt, jam into a sweaty noisy room full of other ubergeeks and grab some free shwag. Yeah, I'm still spelling it with the 'h.'
For those of you who missed LucasArts 'Next Generation GamePlay in Service of Story and Characters' you can read Slashdot's excellent coverage. Previz of the game is on YouTube.
While you're there, definitely go to the Nordic Pavillion to check out the Dreamlords game-related tattoo challenge. Now I'm wishing I got that true fire rune tat when we wrapped up Suikoden III.

Interesting reading in Gamasutra about gaming and addiction. It includes the best headline so far in 2007: "Where can I learn more about ignorance?"
New technologies and new forms of entertainment both tend to provoke reactionary fear. Videogames have been especially demonized as dangerous to both the gamer and society at large. Don't get me wrong. Like most of you I too know a person who became a greasy-haired, hollow-eyed WOW zombie, and I know first-hand how much time can be spent on an engrossing game. But I also know people consumed by such pursuits as ballroom dancing and gardening, both of which can cause injuries and deadly dull monologues full of weird lingo. Let's see some good science applied to the question.

Check out http://www.wiihaveaproblem.com
And be careful with that Wiimote!

Interesting web site for anyone interested in games and politics: http://www.gamepolitics.com/
And a new Strange Bedfellows award goes to the Sex Workers Outreach Project for calling for a boycott of GTA, placing them snugly in bed with the likes of Utah Republican David Hogue and his "games as porn" law.

Take part in video game salaries survey!
If you are one of we odd folk who toil in the game biz, it's time once again to participate in the annual Game Group Salary Survey, courtesy of the editors of Game Developer Magazine and my favorite web site, gamasutra.com. (No cash, gifts, expo passes or anything else of great, little or no value was given in exchange for that plug. I'm such a dork that gamasutra.com really is my favorite website.) And while you're there, check out Franck Cifaldi's wrap-up on the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show.

Knights of the hugo awards?
I was going to say that these two stories are evidence that games and gaming are emerging from the fringes of society, but it's probably more accurate to say we're becoming a part of other fringes. The Hugo awards added a videogame category to their sci fi awards. And Ian Livingstone was awarded the OBE, the first step on the path to knighthood. Gamers can already call one of our own "Sir," and now we've got four OBEs. I smile at the thought of a future populated with peculiar old men. As if the present isn't?

Here's something you don't see every day. Ubisoft's CEO says Kong "unplayable" on the Xbox 360 because of the extremely dark picture. He went on to recommend playing on an Xbox or PS2, which he describes as "beautiful."
Expand your horizons and read this feature on game ratings around the world. Different strokes for different folks indeed. Good reading for anyone in localization.
The Alabama civil suit over GTA will go forward. Fayette County Circuit Judge James Moore (who recently revoked attorney Jack Thompson's temporary license to practice law in Alabama, o happy day that was) turned down a motion to dismiss the case.

psychology and crates for better video gaming
Interesting piece on GameSpot about game designer as psychologist trying to figure out how to influence player behavior. It bugs the crap out of me when this is done poorly. I either end up with my befuddled character not knowing what to try next, or my bored character seeing right through the obvious path of tidbits leading me to the obvious portal to the obvious next event. As games embrace more complex narratives and immersive experiences, these moments that pull us out of the game world become even more annoying. Which brings us to the hilarious crate review system, in which Old Man Murray posits "All games contain crates, therefore all games can be judged empirically on those crates." This is one of those gems that make the web worth surfing. (The usual warnings about gamer vocabulary apply.)

Ah, don't you know it would be another piracy issue that gets me back to the blog... it seems that PSP copy protection has been broken before the PSP even launched in Europe. Expect Sony to aggressively seek a solution and require it in future titles. And for all you home-brew game developers, Indie Games 2005 begins registration.

e3 2005
I'm back from E3 and still processing the overwhelming stimulation of the loud bright insane world that is gaming. I'll have notes on the big displays in a few days, feel free to email me if you want them. (I won't be posting them here) .
Today, a few random comments about Kentia Hall, without a doubt the least-reported-on venue of E3 but home to my favorite little slice of the industry, the small companies making all sorts of little products to support gaming (and the only hall with a full bar.) Down in the basement, I boxed, danced, played tennis, whacked some baseballs, and tried out a gadget that lets you play simulated golf with your own club -- very cool idea, still needs some work (pretty long delay before the onscreen image appears). I saw at least seven disk-cleaning gadgets that promise to buff away those annoying gouges and scratches that make your $50 game disk useless. Still none for the home gamer, these products are geared towards rental outlets. Rats. I await the price point that will bring one of these gizmos into my home and perhaps end the incessant "what the f*** did you do to my GAME?!" conversations that plague us.
Goofiest moment: after meeting with Europeans all day, I ran into one of our testers and gave him the kiss-kiss greeting. Always cool, he brushed away my embarassed attempt to explain. Thanks, Phil!

Interesting news: Oddworld Inhabitants is moving to Emeryville (also home to Pixar, for what it's worth). At GDC, no details on what the move might mean for future Oddworld jobs or projects.

gamasutra.com published some very interesting responses to the question "Do game designers have any moral responsibilities in teaching values to their audience?"

Study suggests gaming promotes lucid dreaming. Wow! From gamasutra.com: "Jayne Gackenbach, a professor of psychology and sociology at Grant MacEwan College, Canada has completed research which claims that video games alter the way the brain works.... frequent video game players have more 'lucid dreams' (in which the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming) than non-gamers. Often, the dreamer can even manipulate the action or observe it in third-person, much like a video game." I'm curious to know whether there is a backwards relationship between gaming and lucid dreaming-- are lucid dreamers more likely to be drawn to gaming?

People have been playing games a very long time. I wonder when people began arguing over the importance and impact of games? Like any human craft, there are brilliant artists creating masterpieces (Civiliation) and hacks creating games that fail in any of a seemingly endless and dreary variety of ways (let's not even put their names into the blogosphere). As we're seeing a lot of fear expressed about gaming, it's useful to remember that other forms of entertainment have been attacked for the bad influence they supposedly exerted on a vulnerable and malleable public: you know that rock & roll and rap have been accused of encouraging anti-social behavior. But did you know that the waltz provoked a huge outcry from parents? Seems nutty now, but at the time the waltz was introduced in England (around 1812), men simply did not hold a woman close and certainly didn't induce dizzy intoxication in their partners by spinning and twirling while hanging onto one another. All this rambling leads up to two new developments in the battle over videogame content. Leland Yee, Speaker of the California House of Representatives, has introduced assembly bill 450, an effort to beef up last year's AB1793 (passed and signed by the Governator). The new bill requires games be stickered and imposes a $1000 fine on retailers who rent or sell violent games to minors. Yee believes the current voluntary ratings and ID-checking practices are inadequate. Although I differ with Rep. Yee over the best way to keep adult-themed entertainment out of the hands of children, I do understand his perspective. And Jack Thompson has filed another game-related lawsuit, this one alleging that GTA caused a 17 year old boy to kill three police officers. More details on that in a few days.

4-year old drives to video store. This kid got up in the middle of the night, got the keys to the car, and drove to the video store to rent a game. He was stopped by the police while driving home, luckily uninjured but rather unhappy because the store was closed. What game did he want to rent, you ask? C'mon, you already know it....

Georgia Sen. Doug Stoner (honest, that's his name) proposed a pair of bills to regulate sales of videogames to minors in Georgia. The first of the bills uses the current ESRB ratings to determine appropriateness for kids, but the second bill is dangerously vague when describing which games should be restricted: those determined to be "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel." Note that nearly all retailers already refuse to sell M-rated games to minors. Is this an attempt to ban objectionable games for everyone?

I have emerged from crunch mode, squinting and blinking like an animal coming out of hibernation (but not nearly so rested). The reviews are great! Already the stress of the last six months is starting to fade into memory.

Omigawd! Warcraft go kart bonus maps!
Happy holidays to all you gamers out there.

EA is facing a class action about its labor practices, apparently triggered in part by this EA spouse blog. On the same subject, this week the IGDA issued an open letter on the "horrible working conditions" that it says are "crippling the industry." Blue Fang studios has written a white_paper on their efforts to manage crunch time.

Does Capcom really expect anyone to believe that Street Fighter is being recalled over a non-critical music bug? Much more likely reason for the recall - no region coding on the game disc. This means any disc will play on any Xbox system, anywhere in the world. Everyone I know is thinking "I am so glad I am not the person responsible for the game going out without region coding." We worry about a lot of little things like that in this business.

A new study shows that games have educational value. This is not news to those of us who have watched kids play videogames. I have seen kids who could never sit still in a classroom stick with a complex game, learning the rules and conditions, identifying problems, trying to solve the problems, taking new approaches when early efforts failed, and bringing those skills into other areas of their lives. It's nice to see this recognized, especially while there is such fearfulness surrounding videogames' effects on kids.

Parents worry about TV more than videogames, according to a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation. This raises interesting questions. Does this mean that parents have evaluated the content of both media and determined that television exposes their kids to more objectionable content than games do? Or is it that parents are more familiar with television than videogames, and they worry more about the influence they know than the influence they don't know? (I would have guessed it to be the other way around, with greater fear of the unfamiliar medium.) Or does this mean something else entirely? I still wonder about the different impacts the passive medium of television and the active medium of games have on our brains and psyches.

Some people find it strange that I am both a devoted parent and a hardcore gamer, although as gamers grow up this will be less of a freakish anomaly. My own baby is in college now, so I suppose I may soon be a hardcore gamer granny. (Ha!) Parenting and play are not mutually exclusive. Shared interests strengthen families, and knowledge of videogames helps a parent guide their kids' choices. I didn't find it difficult to monitor what my son was playing and impose age-appropriate restrictions, while at the same time enjoying more adult-themed games after he was tucked into bed and the living room (and controller) were mine. Just as I might watch a film that I would not want a young child to see, I can play a videogame I wouldn't let my child play (GTA3, for the record).

Just as all the chatter has died down about the pirated copy of Halo 2 appearing on the net, now GTA: San Andreas has been jacked (there's a certain irony there, eh?). This is a huge issue for the industry, not just because of the revenue lost when a gamer gets a pirated copy instead of buying a legit one. Publishers are considering the pervasiveness of piracy in certain international markets when deciding when and where a game will ship. And when a game is pirated, the copies don't just show up in shared files on the net or on disks in the local area. Large operations manufacture mass quantities and ship them all over the world, including the US. If you're interested in an in-depth look at this subject, Steven L. Kent wrote a good piece for gamespy.com.

Everyone is agog about the news that Halo 2 code was leaked and is all over the Internet, four weeks before its launch date. That is something everyone in this business dreads. Our fears used to be focused almost exclusively on PC titles, but now console games are at risk too. The pirated code was a French PAL build. (Man, I would not want to be caught with a copy of that code.) I work on internationalizing titles for overseas distribution, and we're always on our toes because even 'secure' methods of moving code around the world are susceptible.

Karaoke Revolution will finally have some great Motown tunes!
Now if only Keith Matejka will get the credit he deserves for these titles...

An interesting week in the ongoing saga of regulating videogame content. When I have a few minutes to spare, I'll post links to solid arguments on both sides of the question. For now, here are some interesting developments:

Jack Thompson has filed another lawsuit alleging that a videogame provoked a teenager to violence. Here's Gamasutra's story. I would respect Mr. Thompson more if he got his facts straight and applied the same standards to other forms of entertainment. But I suppose there is no money in trying to sue chess (the favorite game of several serial killers).

In the Strange Bedfellows category, both Manhunt and Leisure Suit Larry have been banned in Australia. Here's gamespot's story.

Here's a good short article on localizing games.

Check out the previous post and the comments. Join in if you have something to say.

Sorry I haven't been keeping up with the blog. Hands full.

The Governator signed the California videogame law. The good news is that it is much more reasonable than the original proposal by assemblyman Leland Yee. The bad news is that discussion of violence in videogames is still polarized between extremes. On one hand we have people who are shocked by the examples of videogame excess that have been presented to them, and thus feel strongly that “something should be done.” On the other hand we have people who fear the trend toward legislating restrictions on creative content, and thus oppose all attempts to criticize videogame content. Most of the gaming community falls somewhere in between, closer to the free speech side of the equation. As a mother and a videogame producer I understand both arguments. That said, I come down firmly on the side of free speech, even while I remain exasperated by the relative lack of variety in the content and style of today's games.

But this is a discussion I don’t have time to begin right now. More on this later. Please feel free to comment.

comments...
Tom Beek said...
The only issue that stands with regard to content of video games is the issue of accessibility by children. The US and state constitutions do not allow interfereing with freedom of expression, such as video game content.It is plainly obvious that many video games are as innappropriate for children as Guns and Amo and Hustler magazines. But that doesn't mean that they should be outlawed, just that there must be an effective method for keeping these types of games away from children. Our values and ideals are part of what our children should inherit. I don't believe that it is appropriate for anyone to play a game wherein they mercilessly shoot members of the general public. It's embarassing that such a game actually exists, what to speak of selling like hot-cakes. I find it creepy. But I also find hard liquor and cigarettes creepy, yet outlawing them is even creepier. Control is what is appropriate.Heck, if we do this right, we could even end up with a special tax on violent video games to pay for the publicly funded mental health services many children require after growing up shooting their peers in computer games.
At 2:27 PM , marianne said...
I wonder if we will keep pushing the boundaries until we do provoke outright censorship, or if we are in another of the regularly-occurring moments in history when new ideas shake things up before the offending material is co-opted by the larger culture. Led Zepplin sells Cadillacs. I can't quite imagine what strange product might result from Rockstar Games being integrated into the ravenous beast of commercialism. Limited edition Manhunt SUVs? When my son was growing up we had a strict non-violence rule about videogames and movies because I wanted him to understand that I am disturbed by the idea that we would choose to entertain ourselves by destroying things and hurting people. As he got a little older, the conversations grew more complex and the rules evolved somewhat to allow games I believed he could handle. But I kept an inviolable no-death in our home rule for a long time after I agreed that he could play more mature-themed (ha! what a euphemism) games. Just because I agreed to allow him to play something didn't mean I wanted it in my home.When I began working in the game industry, I got a chance to play games of all kinds. I was a little disturbed to find that I love shooters. I expected to love driving and racing games, since in real life I love to drive nice performance cars and I despise shooting guns. But my favorite parts of Jak II (for instance) are the areas where I have to clear out a lot of creatures, or better still the shooting range. Love it. Can't get enough. And driving in a game gives me anxiety. In real life, I'll still not pick up a gun and not turn down a chance to drive a fast car. And no amount of picking off virtual monsters with a hugely powerful virtual weapon will change that. At what point is an individual capable of differentiating between reality and game? At what point is the individual's value system robust enough to withstand simulated behaviors that run counter to core beliefs?Ultimately, I agree with you that many games are distasteful and even harmful to young children but not worthy of censorship. And now my job calls...

Good daily reading for game industry watchers:
www.gamasutra.com
www.gamespot.com
www.gamesindustry.biz
biz.gamedaily.com

If you're a gamer and haven't seen it, I highly recommend PBS's Videogame Revolution.

Women's Game Conference keynote speakers announced
The Game Initiative, a leading producer of conferences and events for the computer and video game industry, announced today the keynote speakers for the first annual Women's Game Conference (WGC), taking place September 9-10, 2004 in Austin, Texas. The conference opens on Thursday, September 9th with a keynote from Kathy Schoback, Vice President, Content Strategy, Infinium Labs. Kathy is also the chairperson for the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) and the co-chair of the IGDA Business Committee. On September 10th conference attendees will hear from Friday keynoter Patricia Vance, President, Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB).

Independent Games Festival Deadline Extended To September 3
From gamasutra this morning:"The deadline for the 2005 Independent Games Festival (IGF) Competition has been extended by two days, to this Friday -- September 3. According to IGF Chairman Alex Dunne, the deadline extension comes in response to requests by a number of game developers who need extra time to get their entries finalized. The IGF Competition, which will be held next March at the Game Developers Conference, will give out $40,000 in cash to the most innovative games developed by independent teams. For more information and entry forms, go to igf.com.

Interesting story from GameSpot on games getting political.

Everyone needs a going away party from time to time.... Yesterday was my last day in Lxxxxxxx QA. It was a remarkable experience, starting with the completely unexpected and more-than-I-deserve gift from Jameel and Todd and Che (a GameCube!), continuing through the perfect choice of chocolates from Cassandra (dark, with a touch of bitterness), then the wine-fueled lunch followed by a stream of personal goodbyes & well-wishes as I packed up my things to leave for the last time. I was touched and humbled by all of it. Once in a while a workplace becomes more than just a workplace. In those rare and lucky situations, I find authentic friendships while we genuinely enjoy the hard work and companionship we share. This business of making games is incredibly stressful, but it's also full of opportunities to laugh and take delight in one another. I will miss these guys more than they know. I mean to stay in touch and not drift away just because I'm not in the same physical place any more. But I know that these realtionships grew over shared experiences and might naturally wane as new experiences with new people unfold. I must admit I loved hearing that I will be missed, yet I know that someone new will sit in my seat and make my neighors laugh at some new hilarious bug, and new relationships will grow. So I shall try to hold on to the friends who are most dear to me, but also be gracious and let go of the ones that don't make the leap to the no-longer-colleagues situation. Meanwhile, I have five days to finish packing, move to the new place and settle in before the new job starts.

The game that ate the last six months of my life finally went gold master. Next week I start the job that will eat the next six months of my life. In the 10 days in between I'm moving. I think I might be on the express train to insanity. But how often do you get a chance to be an international producer for a video game company?