Lather, Rinse, Repeat
Posted by: richardwillis on: March 2, 2010
The creative process is an intangible beast at the best of times but when millions of dollars are riding on it, every foible, permutation and segment are considered. Focus groups are ground into a paste.
AAA Games in 2010 require large teams, large budgets and a Metacritic rating over 80%. Then and only then is there a good chance of return on investment. These are boxed products, overburdened by the weight of distribution, PR and marketing. These are the blockbusters … The ‘entertainment events’. These are the games that are threatening Hollywood and the ones that even Goldie Hawn is concerned about. These discs have picked up the baton of the multi-million selling albums and blockbuster movies. These games are bigger that books and bigger that Jesus. Who creates them though? and how successful are these ‘imagineers’?
The scale, depth and complexity of AAA games means that the creative spark and flare is both fuelled and extinguished dependent upon the needs of those bringing it to market. The creation of AAA titles is the sum of a cumulative effort in terms of resource and creativity. Groupthink drags original ideas into the mire.
Within music there is a phenomena known as the ‘diffcult second album syndrome’ or the ‘Sophomore’ slump. The rationale runs like this. Debut albums are often the most thrilling in an artist’s career, a whirlwind of creative brilliance that is difficult to achieve. The reason being that the creative process is untempered by influence, or rules. Artists have a whole lifetime of experience to draw upon and this results in fresh and innovative ideas driven by a desire to create, stand out and achieve. If you want to understand pure brilliance in a debut album, I suggest you listen to ‘illmatic’ by Nas. The album was born from need and struggle. Straight up street music.
Illmatic was born from hunger and desperation to escape circumstance. I cannot think or a single AAA title born from adversity. Quite simply it doesn’t happen. MW2 wasn’t developed to benefit war veterans.
The problem here comes when the artist tries to replicate the visceral thrill of that stunning debut. It’s hard to rhyme with sincerity about the struggle on the streets with fat pockets and a million dollar home.
AAA games conversely seem to benefit from focus testing, PR feedback and sales figures. Assassins Creed 2, Uncharted 2 and Mass Effect 2 have both illustrated that the refining of the original idea can lead to a much more engaging and rewarding experience. This is the point where games become a ‘franchise’ burdened by an even heavier weight of expectation. Some among you, will extol the virtues of games like Braid, and hold up the idea that a single man can make a difference. I agree. However Braid is a breakthrough indie title and not a mainstream AAA franchise.
Ideas in games often originate from a single point but their execution within the AAA framework is a burden that falls upon many. This is the reason for creative paralysis and the road often travelled.
MW2: An Inconvenient Truth
Posted by: richardwillis on: February 16, 2010
Modern Warfare 2 is the video game title that has come to symbolise video gaming at the end of the noughties, since its release on November 10th 2009 it has sold 8.4 million copies on Xbox 360 alone. Modern Warfare 2 had sold approximately 4.7 million units in both the United States and the UK in the first 24 hours of its release. The total revenue from these first day sales in the U.S. and the UK was $310 million. This made MW2 the biggest entertainment launch in history, surpassing (in revenue) Grand Theft Auto 4.
By any standards the launch was a moment when video gaming once again touched the global mainstream consciousness. The best of 2009 polls fawned over MW2 and the metacritic rating on Xbox 360 is 94. As the site points out ‘Universal Acclaim’. It is the 8th highest score of all time on Metacritic, sharing the same score as Halo 3, Gears of War and COD4: Modern Warfare. It also has a higher score than Braid at 93%.
So MW2 is a high water mark for the games industry, both critically and commercially … right? … Surely.
No. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is an abject failure. The plaudits and consumer dollars, pounds and yen hide the inconvenient truth that the game is shallow, stunted and destructive for the games industry as a whole.
This Game Contains Advertising
Posted by: richardwillis on: September 24, 2009
In the 1950s and 1960s it was all so easy. Mad Men placed cigarette adverts on TV and nationwide the populous soaked it up. The hypodermic syringe model of advertising was working. Keep pumping the message into the audience, and eventually their response to your product with be akin to a pavlovian dog. Great empires were built around the creation, direction and execution of advertising.
Then somewhere between the 1950s and today it all went wrong. The glut of ads got so great that they went from being a novelty to an annoyance and people started to stop listening. TV remote controls were a milestone in ad avoidance, as channel surfing provided a temporary opt out. As single channels became less effective the agencies started to integrate and plan and create multi-channel campaigns. They integrated press, radio, TV and any other channel that it could lay their hands on.
The leakage of the audience continued unabated and the advertising industries hit a wall around 2000. That wall was the internet and like so many industries the hugely disruptive force of the net, splintered the advertising industry. This was the classic flip from push to pull and suddenly a silicon valleys based start up was leading the audience to the brands rather than the advertising agencies leading the brands to the audience. Google still has a frosty relationship with many global media and advertising agencies. The reason? Google represent a threat to the core of their businesses. Google was a symptom and not the cause of disruptive power of the internet, the evolution of Google was born out of a necessity to search the web effectively. Conversely for the agencies, the better the search the better the ad avoidance. They needed to find another new channel.
Ad-funding is not a new idea, it has been around for decades but away from straight ahead advertising it was almost invisible, with product placement being covert not overt. The net provided a new transparency, a highly targeted route to the consumer. When online you are being watched, and this means that your tastes and habits can be observed and used for geo location, gender, age and numerous other analytic variables. Music was the first to try and employ the model of give away the product, and offset with advertising revenue. To date none of the primary ad-funded music services like We7 or Spotify have started to turn a profit so it seems that even when the audience is given the bait and switch proposition of free music in exchange for ears and eyeballs, that the reluctance to absorb ads is apparent to both audience and advertiser. Online game services like Pogo work on a similar model, where browser based games provide a platform for ad-serving and the games bring in the audience.
In game advertising represents quite a different proposition. Here, the audience have already paid the entrance fee, in most cases £40 (in the UK). In terms of entertainment media games represent the higher end of the cost scale. In addition to that (in the case of Xbox at least) there is a monthly fee to be able to play games online. There are two primary methods of in game advertising, those included in the on disc game (that can often be static) that approximates to traditional advertising/product placement and those games that have ads served into them once they enter the online environment (Dynamic). The first advertising hoardings within games with real world ads started to appear in 1994 in the EA title FIFA international soccer.
The challenge for these static ads was that they were not measurable like online ad serving. Like any other connected platform ads are piped into the environment. Thus far this has met with varying degrees of apathy and outrage. Some gamers have been outraged and have decreed the ads to be invasive. In the case of Wipeout HD, the ad-serving proved to be disastrous, with load times greatly increased and an incensed audience. Sony backed down and the ad serving was cancelled. A similar furore broke out around the EA title Battlefield 2142, these ads were served by IGA worldwide.
This was a short term victory for the audience as the introduction of ads is inevitable. Massive have predicted that in game advertising will reach $1.8 Billion in 2010, and it is seen as a way for games developers to offset the increasing costs of game development. Some publishers see this as a way to make an additional $1 to $2 for each unit sold. The inevitable wave of analytics measure are already being put in place by traditional firms such as Nielsen, through Nielsen Media Research. Nielsen call it Gameplay Metrics and it has been created to serve in-game advertisers.
Visit the Massive website and you will see a very convincing argument for the dynamic in game advertising case. Impressions are counted by actual instances of the ad in clear line of sight of the player, and they are counted by the second. As an advertiser I can be assured that my audience is looking, or at least looking in the general direction of the ad. This varies greatly from online ad serving as impressions do not indicate any accurate level of engagement. Connected consoles provide exceptional analytic feedback about the level of interaction with the ad including viewing angle. These are metrics that outdoor, online or TV simply cannot provide.
If the serving of the ad can be accurately defined the question therefore is are the audience looking and listening? The suitability of in-game ads has to be based upon context. If they add to the experience and are not intrusive, then it seems counterintuitive as a gamer to register a complaint.
Prototype made it explicit on the back of the box, but when you play the game the presence of the ads is far from intrusive. The game is set in New York so the inclusion of ads makes perfect sense. Indeed they add to the experience. The content of the ads is secondary to context, as from memory I am finding it difficult to recall the actual ads within the game. There has been a long standing tradition of the inclusion of marques of car which represents another more oblique form of in-game advertising. Perhaps the most pervasive and least perceived form of in-game branding is the use of real-world gun names such as AK47, M16 and MAC-11. These are all products and whilst not consumer brands, I am sure that most ardent FPS gamers would be able to recall these with almost total clarity. In both of these cases the use of brand name would wholeheartedly be defended in the name of realism.
Advertisers are drawn to in-game advertising as it presents a new channel to reach the 18-34 year old males who had drifted away from traditional TV advertising. The other benefit is that these games are played on the TV, so are not a huge leap away from the communication methods of the past. The fundamental difference is that the TV represents that delivery method and not the platform itself.
Kurdt Lives
Posted by: richardwillis on: September 18, 2009
“I wish I was like you … easily amused”
Courtney Love has always been a figure that has attracted derision and attention from legions of the rock fraternity. Love had carved a niche in the band Hole but it was her marriage to Kurt Cobain that embedded her place in history. Kurt had formed Nirvana in 1987 after a long standing fascination with Pixies, the Melvins and Flipper which had encouraged him to try and make his mark on the world. In 1991 Nirvana released ‘Nevermind’, this was the record that would simultaneously make and break Nirvana. Whilst it catapulted Nirvana into the rock stratosphere, it also marked the start of the collapse for a fragile and vulnerable Cobain. In April 1994 Cobain decided that he couldn’t go on.
I met Cobain, very very briefly when I had congratulated him on performance at the gig in Leeds in 1989. I was near breathless with excitement having been exposed to arguably the most visceral and exciting band I had ever seen. He was in the corner of the venue, and was already surrounded by ‘fans’. The gig was tiny and they had enraptured the whole room. Looking at Cobain it was clear that he was already under pressure when talking to strangers. Some can naturally handle attention and adulation, but Kurt was not one of those people. Having said that, beneath his fragility there was clearly something, it was ephemeral and fleeting but ‘it’ was there. On stage this was amplified. The fragility was always there, no matter how loud Kurt screamed.
After his death Courtney Love was appointed to safeguard the estate of Kurt Cobain. This gave Courtney the right to exploit or commercialise the music and image of Kurt Cobain. In 2006 Love sold 25% of the publishing rights to the Nirvana back catalogue to Primary Wave Music for an estimated $50 Million. This was essentially to try and generate revenues from Kurt’s songs, through their use on TV, Soundtracks and other avenues.
“We are going to remain very tasteful and true to the spirit of Nirvana while taking the music to places it has never been before.” Courtney Love
Whilst legions of fans gritted their teeth, in anticipation of a global marketing campaign for deodorant sound-tracked by “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (this of course would have been entirely apt as it was the original inspiration for the song), it never came. For the time being at least it seemed like Courtney was managing to hold onto the legacy of Cobain with dignity and grace.
On September 10th 2009 a story broke that opened a new chapter in the posthumous commericalisation of Cobain. A video appeared of a digital Cobain singing “You Give Love A Bad Name” by Bon Jovi. The video had been grabbed from Guitar Hero 5. The predictable furore broke out and all eyes turned to Love. She was quick to respond with a series of tirades on Twitter. Love pointed the finger at Activision, and they were quick to respond, citing the fact that Love had given them the necessary permission. The lawyers started to square up, chests were puffed out, litigious bravado abounded.
The point that fascinates me is the implications for digital replicas of real people in games moving forward. The use of ‘celebrity’ likeness had long been employed in games, indeed for Vin Diesel it is a pre-requisite for getting involved with a project through his Tigon studio. The inclusion of a likeness serves to give the synthetic a credibility and tangibility that is transferred from the real world. We know it’s not Kurt Cobain, but the likeness triggers emotions and memories within us that we subconsciously attribute to the game. In the case of Guitar Hero, a game built around the act of mimicking a rock star, the inclusion of Cobain is both logical and immersive. I cannot identify with an identikit avatar like Axel Steel as it creates distance. Playing as Cobain, in theory would give me a way to slip into the persona of someone I greatly admire. But I would never do it, its unthinkable.
Kurt feels like a puppet, this digital marionette can be used to perform songs that Kurt would have hated. The music of Nirvana was ranged against these very artists and songs. The breakthrough and the global impact they made were a reaction to the rock pomposity that the Guitar Hero franchise has been built upon. Even Jon Bon Jovi understands the reaction. Guitar Hero was built upon a semi-ironic appreciation of the merits of rock. The track selection, the avatars and the styling were all built around rock as a ‘guilty pleasure’, where the foot was firmly on the monitor and the hair was back combed. Nirvana were a head down rock band. No bullshit.
Of course, none of this matters for the members of the Guitar Hero audience who see Cobain as another dead guy on a t-shirt, a poster on a dorm room wall, or a sing-a-long anthem on the radio. In fact these are the very reasons for Cobain’s inclusion in the game. Enough time has passed for him to have evolved from reactionary to commodity. In this case, Guitar Hero is an introductory route to the band a new generation, the widening of appeal and a new channel for the rights holder.
When faced with commerce and revenue streams the adulation and admiration of the fans is secondary. They have already bought the content, perhaps they can be coaxed into buying it again, if they cant then look toward to a new market. Just because Kurt is dead doesn’t mean that he cannot be commercialised. The music industry has a long-standing tradition of recycling bands for new generations. The music industry are fascinated by expanded and remastered editions. The reasons for this seem to be that the platform has remained pretty stable since the widespread adoption of the CD in 1985. Music has resold the same product in a different package, whereas the games industry has reformatted the same idea across a variety of platforms. In that respect, the games industry has a unique value proposition as each new iteration of a title effectively renders the last obsolete. The continual evolution of technology has always offered the consumer a new and improved experience. Perhaps this evolution validates the use of Cobain as a digital likeness as the music industry has found a way to enhance his legacy, to bring him into a 3D interactive form.
In Guitar Hero 5 Cobain will never age, therefore continuing and perpetuating his legacy. The problem however is that Cobain has been unwittingly sold out, and its his lack of consent that is the most sickening. Cobain is now a brand and it makes you wonder what the future holds as new digital opportunities unfold. Guitar Hero 5 is no way to remember and celebrate Kurt Cobain and those plastic wielding puppeteers should be aware of that.
“He’s the one who likes all our pretty songs
And he likes to sing along and he likes to shoot his gun
But he knows not what it means
Knows not what it means and I say, yeah”
The Beatles Killed The Dreamcast
Posted by: richardwillis on: September 10, 2009
The 9th of September 2009 marked the 10th anniversary of the North American launch of the Dreamcast. A decade later it was the release date for The Beatles: Rock Band. These two events are both symbolic as they bookmark what has been one of the most turbulent periods in the history of entertainment media. Time feels like its accelerating with an exponential nature, the speed of progress. 1999 was a world away from today, the key evolutions in the online space were yet to come. Napster was launched in 1999 and closed down in 2001. Google came into being in 1996 and grew to its pre-eminent position throughout this period. Facebook wasn’t launched until 2004, with Twitter bringing up the rear in 2006. Throughout this period the music industry faced its biggest struggle as it wrestled with the colossus of peer to peer, and the digital tsunami it faced. The music industry emerged bloodied and bruised, and has never fully recovered. This context is relevant as in 1999 the Beatles back catalogue was considered to be so valuable that its inclusion in a video game, ‘a child’s toy’, would have been unthinkable. Therefore, something must have changed. Did video-games grow up or did the music industry wake up to its potential? Or was it somewhere in the middle?
The launch of the Dreamcast, represents a high water mark. The Dreamcast was a seminal moment in the history of both Sega and Video Game consoles themselves. So much was right with the Dreamcast, the device itself has an understated elegance, its dimensions were balanced, and it is arguably the best looking console in history. It had the might of Sega behind it, who had an unprecedented history of innovation and success. The previous generations of consoles had divided the video game nation and created a loyal and unflinching following. Whilst the winds of change were evident, namely the spectre of the Playstation, each and every Dreamcast owner was proud and excited about the potential of the system and the future for Sega. As history has proven this was to unravel over the next two years. The potential reasons for the Dreamcast’s demise have been eloquently and exhaustively discussed. At this point I can only contribute my own perspective. The Playstation represented the start of the erosion of the pursuit of video games as an innovative artform. The wildy inventive Chu Chu Rocket! came out soon after launch and Rez came out in 2001 on both Dreamcast and Playstation 2, although it’s natural home was the Dreamcast. Sega had a vision and purity derived from the gameplay lessons learnt through the evolution from arcade to home console.
The Dreamcast redefined what a console meant by a single inclusion of the 33.6 kbps modem (in Europe), and the accompanying Dreamarena online service. Dreamarena was a dial up service created through a partnership between ICL, BT and various ISPs. Dreamarena closed in March 2003. Dreamarena was free and provided the blueprint for services like Xbox LIVE and PSN. The lessons learnt provided an insight to Microsoft and Sony at the expense of Sega. The online capabilities of the Dreamcast were at odds with the times where online PC gaming was nascent and seemed unthinkable on a console. Sega were aware of the risk and the inclusion of the modem in each Dreamcast cost them dearly:
“I forced [Sega] to put in modem functions. At that time, I had a lot of opposition that said it was ridiculous to stick in a modem that cost several thousand yen. But, I managed to get it my way” Isao Okawa, President of Sega
After Sega bowed out of the console arms race, it was left to Sony and Nintendo to slug it out, until the arrival of the Xbox in 2001. Sega had occupied a unique market space, as it had attributes of Nintendo and Sony, a unique combination of genre defining IP (Sonic) and hardcore gaming appeal. The video game industry owes a huge debt to Sega. As Sega moved across to become a developer/publisher the devotees rubbed their eyes in disbelief …“How could this have happened?”
In the years that followed the Games Industry grew, and fractured into a myriad of subdivisions, built around genre and target audience. In 2005 Red Octane released Guitar Hero. In 2007 EA/Harmonix/MTV Games released Rock Band. The material differences between the two, in 2009, are essentially irrelevant. To date Rock Band has sold 13 million copies with a billion $ in total sales and in excess of 50 million track downloads. From the outside looking in, it appeared there had been a perfect synergy of games and music. This was far from the case.
The games and music industry were bumping heads as the music industry was still trying to attach the material values of a physical world to a digital landscape. Well documented digital hold outs began to emerge, AC/DC, Metallica and most famously the Beatles. The exact reasons for this are varied, be it a consideration that digital was devaluing music, a natural suspicion or blind fear and panic. In the realm of music games the music of the Beatles represented the ultimate goal. The digital hold outs began to fall … lured by a new audience and inevitable revenues as they were coaxed onto the gaming platforms. As the games hit the mainstream the pressure from band managers, record labels and publishers became so ferocious that no-one could resist. The Beatles were literally for sale.
For the games industry a band like the Beatles represents a gift. A huge and dedicated fan-base with a history of repeatedly buying the countless re-issues that have been force-fed to the audience over the years. Stereo? Mono? Limited edition Miniature album packaging? Box sets?. The fan-base devoured them like a gluttonous beast, seemingly insatiable and ever thankful. George Lucas faces criticism for endlessly profiting from his audience, whereas the Beatles strangely have avoided this fate.
The Beatles also represent a route to the non-traditional gamer, or indeed for that matter the non-traditional music purchaser. Whether Beatles Rock Band is a good game or not is wholly irrelevant. It will sell, this is a given as the stars are aligned in such a way that the plaudits and sales figures are inevitable. Who is going to kill the goose that lays the golden egg? Not the games press, and certainly not the worldwide media who enjoy huge sales spikes everytime they put the Beatles on the cover.
You may think this churlish, of me as a killjoy who is standing in the way of the enjoyment of others. For me these events, separate by a turbulent decade illustrate the limitless potential of video games as a medium, ranged against the calculated creation of a product that is intended to break new markets, recycle IP, and perhaps even make enough money to soften the blow once the Beatles music falls out of copyright. Everything about Beatles Rock Band is recycled, The concept for the game, the music therein and perhaps even the plastic in the instruments. The Dreamcast represented a visionary company making and brave, ambitious and ultimately disastrous strategic move. However, without the Dreamcast the ecosystem that has allowed Rock Band to sell 50 million downloads would not exist.
If we try and re-engineer history to infer an aetiology in reverse, it could be argued that the drive towards commercialisation, sequelism and fundamentally mainstreamism were the seeds that were apparent at the very point of the Dreamcast’s collapse. Therefore it would seem that the very thing that has advanced the video games industry as a whole was the exact thing that helped to eliminate the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast is a cautionary tale to the games industry, but in hindsight created the industry we have today.
The Dreamcast is dead. Long Live the Dreamcast.
The Loneliness Of A Long Distance Speedrunner
Posted by: richardwillis on: July 16, 2009
I am still not sure that I entirely understand the appeal of ’sandbox’ games.
Sure, I understand the concept, a living breathing world which provides a digital playground. A digital domain that you can control. However it always seems to be the polar opposite. You are instructed to go here and do that, perhaps with a side mission thrown in, ‘ … if you want, don’t deliver the drugs, go see your prostitute girlfriend instead’. In most instances I am being presented with two choices, both of which I don’t actually want. I am being offered freedom, but it is limited, scripted and non specific. Each and every game takes no account of its audience.
When will we have to complete a questionnaire during the first level that identifies what actually interests me? The Myers Briggs of gaming. Would gamers want that. I’d suggest not. Imagine if GTA had asked you your interests and passions and then offered you an experience based on that data, or perhaps more interestingly if it had created a story line that tapped into your real fears, emotions and passions. Then the game would truly engage as it wouldn’t be simply giving everyone the same experience. At this point in time games are simply ‘choose you own adventure books’ with better pictures, sound effects and a bit of rumble. Essentially nothing has changed. Parameters still exist, outcomes are all the same, and in those games where your actions shape the world, there is little to notice as a gamer.
Consider Bioshock. Did the moral choice make any impact on you as a gamer?. The plight of the little sisters, could have been more poignant by giving the game the ability to psycho metrically target the player. In my case I have a young daughter, who I treasure. If the game had managed to evoke the same emotions I have when I think about her, then my heart and soul would have been poured into the game to protect the little sisters, a passion and compassion would have been injected into the experience that would have had infinite more impact than an armful of ADAM. Perhaps that’s at odds with a creative art-form that uses continual slaughter as a primary game mechanic.
The limitation of sandbox games is that they can’t be twisted, not truly manipulated, not bent in the way that communities like those on TASVideos re-rub games. TAS centres around the video game dark art of Tool Assisted Speedrunning. John Teti can explain it more precisely than I can (his whole post is worth the read):
” While TAS authors use special techniques like software bots and memory-register searches to help them attack a game, all tool-assisted speedruns are made in the same basic way. The speedrunner loads a game into an emulator — a program that mimics a console like the NES — and then plays extremely slowly, advancing the action frame by frame. The emulator keeps a recording of the button presses, and whenever a mistake is made, the speedrunner just backs up the tape and tries again. That’s called a re-record, and making a TAS can easily require 50,000 or more re-records. The end product of the process — which can take years, from initial planning to execution — is a button-press file. That file, when played back at full speed, produces astounding gameplay that’s literally inhuman.” John Teti: As Fast as Impossible
Think about that. Think about the process of playing a game frame by frame, distilling the game to a super granular level of precision where glitches become wormholes through code, and for what? TAS advocates produce the video game equivalent of sampling or re-edit culture that has long existed in music. Is it the same as Machinima? No. Machinima is driven by narrative and a desire to create beauty. They have genres like action, comedy and drama. In comparison they are mainstream. The kind of content that would sit happily on Xbox LIVE.
Tool Assited Speedrunning is like death metal: dark, destructive and in-penetrable as a desire for most, but the more I see the more I understand. The reason why they do it? Simple: a search for perfection
“We attempt to perfect the games to a godly level of precision, which involves handling the game as if it were The Matrix ― observing every slightest detail to gain control over it in ways that the makers never imagined. We search for perfection. To reach that goal, using the features provided by an emulator is irrelevant, as long as the “world” – the game – is unmodified.” Taken from the TAS videos: Why and How
The point here is key: these games, whilst emulated, remain unmodified. They are not broken, they are remixed. But the language is telling, it’s a desire for perfection based on a need for control to god like levels, and there is the dilemma for game designers and players alike. With unlimited capability, how do you create a game mechanic. If it can be broken, how can it be played?. Sandbox games are nascent, the promise of the next gen under-delivered on the capacity to create a fully breathing world. Perhaps David Jones has it right again:
“The point (David) Jones really wanted to make about APB, though, is that the depth and detail of the game world is only possible due to the fact that it lives on a remote server. He talked about how games like GTA only fake a ‘living, breathing’ city – once the computer-controlled pedestrian or car turns a corner, they effectively disappear from your universe. But on the APB servers, they’re always there. The artifice is being stripped away.” Keith Stuart: Some amazing things I didn’t know about APB
Cloud computing therefore may be able to deliver on the emergent game promise in real time in a persistent world. So although capability can be enhanced by server based computing power this will never address the shortcomings of developers imagination or the outer limits of gamer desires.
As the adage goes: ‘you have to see it to believe it’.
Playing Dead: Community And Video Games
Posted by: richardwillis on: June 10, 2009
Community is a word that is used continually when referring to the Internet. Almost as though it had not existed prior to 2000. Social Networks have proliferated and with it have dragged the reluctant and the misanthropic into a mire of engagement that leads to high expectations and failed attempts to connect. Community therefore has become a ‘grey area’, that is as fluid as those who make up each node jarring against the next. Personal cliques give way to a myriad of on-line niches, groups, forums and fan-sites. Wikipedia identifies a clique as being ” …an exclusive group of people who share interests, views, purposes, patterns of behavior, or ethnicity” whilst a community (in biological terms at least) is described as “…a group of interacting organisms sharing an environment”. This therefore leads to the question: Does a community of gamers exist? Or is it simply a clutch of cliques?
Being a gamer in 2009 is a highly complex, expensive and involved endeavour.
Let me caveat that comment. Being a dedicated gamer involves a lot of time and effort. Therefore it could be surmised that gamers, united through adversity would be unified in the enjoyment of a common goal. As Seth Godin might say a ‘tribe’. A community perhaps? Nothing could be further from the truth, gamers as an audience are highly stratified, competitive and parochial. Even the act of purchasing a video game is fraught with tension and, in some cases derision.
In the UK (bricks and mortar) game retail is split into a number of different experiences. Non Specialist high street retail is an odd and soulless experience, where games are towards the back of the store, whilst the front line releases shout at you from the front of store racking. It often feels like the endless piles of ‘Guitar Hero’ act as a barricade to deter intruders like barbed wire on the beach of a far flung war zone. If you can make it past the peripherals, you might be able to get to the game you want. As music continues to wane in importance for retailers and consumers alike, DVDs provide the cash cow, and set the tone for the rest of the store. Staff are often apathetic, uninformed and dispassionate. Rare enthusiasts are to be cherished. Specialist retailers are split into a couple of subdivisions: the larger chains and the indies. I have a strange and dichotomous relationship with Game. Again it seems oddly dispassionate and I often find it bewildering in their approach. Second hand games are clearly fundamental to their business like Game Stop in the US. Again the staff seem detached, as though they could be working in any store, but they simply happened to work in game retail. By far the most engaging and interesting experiences are to be found in stores like CEX on Rathbone Place, London. CEX has 86 stores in the UK, but has still, in the ones I visit at least still managed to distill the essence of what makes an interesting and alarming retail experience.
Upon entering the store there are a number of things you notice, firstly the corrugated Mad Max/generic Sci-Fi spacecraft style flooring reminiscent of an 80s nightclub that had been done out purely inspired by ‘Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome”. The walls are lined with an adhoc collection of games, all second hand, all of which are jumbled, erroneous and slightly tatty looking. Once this has assailed your visual senses, and you struggle to determine which part of the Thunderdome houses the staff, you are assaulted by one of two things: Dated sounding drum and bass circa ‘Super Sharp Shooter’ Era or ‘Extreme Metal’. These two are often placed together in an unwieldy (yet compelling) mixtape combination. The music is always too loud and is only broken by the theatrical stage laughter of the staff (who appear to be having the time of their lives). Their attitude towards you exemplifies the best tradition of ‘record shop culture’. The basic tenents of which are ‘always presume you know more than the customer’, ‘always try to be cleverer or cooler than your customers’ and ‘wherever possible look like you’d rather be somewhere else’. CEX, Rathbone Place has this down to a fine art and for that it should be applauded. Buying a game there is an odd, frustrating and exciting process. That said it is the perfect antidote to the anodyne experience of other retailers.
These experiences illustrate a key fact. Gamers are entirely lacking in empathy for others who share their passion. Instead of providing a fetile breeding ground for the gaming community, they simply serve to amplify the differences. The culture of video games seems to be created upon competition between platforms, franchises, genres and even regions. Fanboys proliferate flame wars at will, the net provides a breeding ground of sneering and name calling and print magazines appeal to niches separated by platform. Connected game-play environments such as Xbox LIVE provide a crucible for animosity to fester and be made flesh. Xbox LIVE is not community, despite the fact that each of it’s users shares a common interest. For that matter neither is Myspace or Faceboook as they are all simply collections of individuals connected by technology. The interactions that take place do not signify that it is a community, but a network. At worst Xbox LIVE is a place filled with venomous young men desperate to instill their values and vent their frustration in a digital form, the pre-eminence of games like COD4 reinforce this fact. At best it can provide an architecture that can house a persistent world like Paradise City. Xbox LIVE provides a connected game-play environment and a retail experience. Neither of these are indicators of a community. Xbox LIVE is a platform for an audience.
The continued differences between casual and hardcore gamers, the elevation and continuation of the console wars and the race towards new input methods will all contribute to the stratifcation and alienation of the different segments of the collective gaming audience. As games strive towards mass media acceptance with increasing marketing budgets and development cycles, it seems like the audience is splintering into a universe of mass non-conformity lacking an overarching objective that can drive and unify the audience into a community. Is there any coincidence that there has not yet been a successful social network built upon a shared passion for games?
Gaming Community? The words themselves feel like an oxymoron.
What Project Natal actually means …
Posted by: richardwillis on: June 3, 2009
Ever since the emergence of the Wii, there has been a continual movement away from, and criticism of, the ‘traditional’ methods of game input/control. The tail end of 2006 was the point where console designers decided that the control pad were redundant and defunct. This was amplified by the desire to capture the casual/mass market that, many think are intimidated by the spectre of the control pad:
“It has everything to do with breaking down barriers and getting to the mass market, where controllers are barriers and they’re intimidating. It’s awkward for some people to learn to use a controller.” Shane Kim – Microsoft
This was writ large across the stage at the Microsoft E3 2009 press briefing with the announcement of Project Natal. Speculation has suggested it will be called ‘Xbox Fluid’ at launch and it is predicted to be released into the wild in Autumn 2010. A day later Sony showcased their take on motion control, that felt crude by comparison and all but had been revealed in their patent application. Sony, like Nintendo before them is reliant on a controller, albeit covered by rendered graphics in Sony’s demonstration. So whilst E3 2009 doesn’t bring a new home console platform to play on (PSP GO excepted), it seems to be focused upon ‘new ways to play’. That of course presumes that the previous iterations were failing us in some way …
Natal breaks down the line, but immersion can be achieved through a pad. The inherent problem is built around muscle memory and the belief that a ‘casual’ gamer needs immediate immersion, and without that they will walk away. I believe this may be a misconception and that the content of most games is the barrier not the input method. Natal like the Wii remote takes the fear out of the control method, thereby lowering these psycholgical barriers for entry. Paradoxically it could also alienate those familiar with the controllers we have now. I am quite sure that I could perfectly visualise the 360 controller in my mind. Indeed, thinking about it now I have a memory of its dimensions and its weight. The 360 controller is unique and I would argue is as close to perfect as any controller I have used. Case in point occurred when I used my PS3 for the first time, my exposure to the DualShock had been extremely limited, and at first I was wrestling with the dimensions and the button placement, even now it is by no means second nature. So, it would appear even for a core gamer that Shane Kim has a point. It seems that familiarity does not always breed contempt.
Watching the Natal demo reminded me of being in a drama class as a child and being asked to ‘be a tree’. Dismay and confusion broke out with the ubiquitous snickering and lack of attention. The basic point was that when the parameters of interaction were removed, the default setting was confusion. Natal was presented as being entirely intuitive, but games and their architecture are bound by rules and convention. One of the demos being shown behind closed doors at E3 is Burnout, and Natal is being used as the control mechanism, but the brake and accelerator are configured in a different way to those in an ‘actual’ car, so the method is not wholly intuitive (for now) and requires adaption. Such acceptance of game world norms would be a small step for gamers to take but belies the premise of purely intuitive interaction.
Natal’s greatest challenges are therefore:
- Can it create an experience so immersive that even the self conscious act of interaction is forgotten?
- Does Natal rely too heavily upon the users imagination, as it requires a leap of faith to ‘mime’ the action being depicted on screen? A controller gives the audience a prop. The staggering and continuing success of Guitar Hero et al is testament to the power of plastic.
- What does Natal actually mean for game design and the future of games as whole?
Peter Molyneux explained Natal with passion and enthusiasm. Even the most disintereste in games have connected with his brief eulogy to the merits of it’s potential. Molyneux, like Spielberg, is a modern day Gepetto who seems preoccupied with creating a digital being that is sentient, moral and autonomous. Milo is not this creation, but gives us a tantalising glimpse of what Natal could hold for the future. Natal’s current status as vapourware overshadows all other discussion about motion control methods, and ensures that the Xbox as a platform remains vibrant and relevant.
The name is, of course, not accidental. If we turn to the dictionary for a moment:
na⋅tal – adjective
1. of or pertaining to a person’s birth: celebrating one’s natal day.
2. presiding over or affecting a person at birth: natal influences.
3. (of places) native: nostalgia for one’s natal town.
Is Natal a flag in the sand for the generation that will follow the 360? Does this represent the future evolution of the Xbox? If Natal is due to arrive in Q4 2010, that would foreshadow the anticipated ‘When Gen’ that is predicted to follow in 2015 (this is the lifecycle as predicted my Microsoft). Natal seems more at home as a control system for an entirely new experience and it’s success on the 360 is entirely dependent on software. Lionhead and countless others are more than capable of delivering rich and powerful experiences using Natal but the question of whether Natal will make you cry is entirely erroneous. Games still need to make you smile, care and hope in the first instance. The time when they evoke real human emotion and not digital empathy is still some time away, irrespective of the complexity or apparent simplicity of the interface.
All your platform are belong to us
Posted by: richardwillis on: May 26, 2009
After five months of being away from the flat we finally moved back in. As ever the first thing I did was set up my ‘electronics’. This has slimmed down over the years as music has taken less prominence in my life. There used to be a bank of gaming equipment topped by a layer of audio: a pair of SL1210’s, a Rane mixer, Laptop, a CD player or two and a selection of speakers old, new and monitor standard. All of the audio layer is gone trimmed down to a Onkyo PR-SC886, an Onkyo dock, a Samsung TV, an Xbox 360, A PS3 and a Wii. For the first time I own all of the current generation at the same time. My love of Sega had meant that until the PS3 I had never owned a Playstation. In all honesty thus far it has been an underwhelming experience. The only game I had enjoyed had been LittleBigPlanet. I loved that game and simply couldnt find anything to compare. Until that point it seemed that the PS3 and 360 were comparable. In the case of those multi platform titles I have played/seen on both platforms they look pretty much the same to me. All apart from Fallout 3 which seemed to struggle on PS3. In these instances I will always play these games on the 360. Once simple reason, points.
After a week of being in the flat for a week I finally plugged in the power lead and the ethernet cable on the PS3. The Wii remains unconnected. There were two primary reasons: Killzone 2 and inFAMOUS. Both of which are flagship PS3 releases. Killzone had been out for a few weeks but my lack of PS3 access had meant I hadn’t picked it up. I played it for a few hours, but was left feeling strangely hollow. After trying to analyse it, I can’t agree that its based upon the poor storytelling. I see most game narratives as being derivative and shallow. Killzone 2 has been accused of lacking a gripping plot, but these criticisms are levelled by those who applaud Gears of War and Call Of Duty 4. I agree that the plot and character development in Killzone are trite and derivative, but for that matter so is the heart wrenching tale of Marcus Fenix’s quest for the truth about his father. These games, it has to be remembered, tell a story where the primary objectives involve systematically shooting people in the head. This is augmented in Killzone by the popping off of helmets. Which is comedic to say the least. I think the primary disappointment comes from the fact that Killzone 2 is not as ‘Next Gen’ as i’d hoped. I agree it looks stunning, but it isn’t the great leap forward I was hoping for. So this made me think, what do I need nowadays? Now ‘Next Gen’ is ‘Current Gen’, I need more.
Many of the promises of ‘Next Gen’ have been fulfilled, larger groups of assailants, better textures, more immersive environments. Microsoft undoubtedly delivered on the connected gameplay promise of the Xbox, with Sony and Nintendo limping behind. But the wider questions of: more emotion, better stories and more imagination are yet to be fulfilled. I hope that Heavy Rain will deliver, but I am worried in the way it is being marketed. At the end of last year I was at a briefing at Sony in London and the Heavy Rain product/brand manager explained how Heavy Rain is an entertainment release, not a game. It is aimed at tearing couples away from watching Lost on Blu-Ray. It is to games what Cloverfield was to film. A year away from release the premeditated pigeon holing made me shudder. Any art-form can be exploited. That’s a given.
So I turned to inFAMOUS. It is slick and the animation is phenomenal. But it is also a pure hybrid of GTA and Crackdown. Both of which were a product of David Jones. I hope Sucker Punch are paying him royalties. Ah … I forgot inFamous has electricity.
‘When Gen’ will make me reconsider where my allegiances lie.
Why lists are dead [but not buried]
Posted by: richardwillis on: May 18, 2009
At the end of 2007 I wrote a list of games that I had enjoyed throughout the year. Like everyone else I drew up a list and a top 10, without giving a thought to the reason why. Preconditioned by a culture of charts, I felt obliged to rank them and present them in the trite and familiar format that provides the template for a myriad of TV shows accompanied by talking heads. Looking back at that list I realised that most of those games were added to the list in an attempt to be comprehensive. This is impossible as most of my gaming takes place on single platform, Xbox 360. Whilst I own a Wii and PS3, they are turned on with much less regularity (Only 1 game has ever resulted in repeated struggles with the dualshock 3: LittleBigPlanet).
The 2007 list wasn’t necessarily compiled about games that I had fallen in love with. Just played.
At the end of 2008, I started to write my top 10 (again) and realised I was going to make the same mistake again. So I decided on simply having 1 game in the list. That game was LittleBigPlanet. However there were two other games that simply wouldn’t leave my head: Dead Space and Burnout Paradise. A long time has now passed since I started to write the 2008 list and I havent gone any further. In age where the avalanche of editorial in Q4 is dictated by the endless generation of lists I have now decided to stop adding to the ‘pile of broken dreams’.
Metacritic at once makes the need to compile a list of anything completely redundant and simultaneously propagates the belief they are essential.
In a recent Edge article, it considered the impact of Metacritic and lamented its effect on the game development community. All art will be judged. This is more true that ever, but the hubbub of the collective blog community, sounds like static on a radio. The white noise of information. Faced with such incoherence the indecisive will turn to a respected resource like Metacritic. After all it cant be wrong? … it’s impartial. It simply averages out what other people have written.
Therein lies the problem. Metacritic aggregates the beliefs of people who are paid to write about things. All kinds of things, but the common theme is that they are all courted, PR’d and cajoled into reaching their conclusions. Metacritic, therefore, is simply a meat grinder.
