[Growing Pains]

"Today, videogames are for everyone. I mean this in an almost destructive way. Videogames, to read the other side of the same statement, are not for you. You do not get to own videogames. No one gets to own videogames when they are for everyone."

About damn time, too. These recent fiascoes simply being the last gasps of a sick culture is the best we can hope for.

When I started this blog 8 years ago, this crap still happened on the regular but there was barely ever a ripple of kickback when it did (or else outright denial that it was even happening). The fact that in the past few years it seems there is more controversy erupting amid the gaming world whenever a high profile example of misogyny crops up and more guys willing to stand up against the loud pockets of anxious dudebros still running amok, has to be some sign of progress.

Related Reading:
The Extinction Burst of Gaming Culture
Why Are Gamers So Angry?
GamerGate's Original Sin
We Cannot Allow This to Become Gamer Culture
GamerGate is Running Out of Heroes

[In Defense of Escapism]

I recently came across an essay by Katherine Addison, defending the value of fantasy as a genre and escapism in general, and I think it's relevant to MMORPGs (and RPGs in general) as well:

"The denigration of 'escapism' comes from an implicit belief that it is brave and necessary and heroic to face 'reality,' where 'reality' is grim and dark and nihilistic ('solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,' as that tremendous pessimist Thomas Hobbes puts it), and that if you turn away from that 'reality,' you are a deserter and therefore a coward. 

There are a number of fallacies here. One is the claim to the exclusive right to define 'reality.' Second, if this is an accurate definition of 'reality,' it is a fallacy to believe that it is even possible to desert from the front lines by anything short of suicide. Even if your consumption of fiction takes you away from 'reality' for an hour or two, you’re always going to have to come back. Clearly, if we accept this definition of 'reality,' 'escapism' can only be the most tremendous blessing fiction has to offer."

Read the rest here.

[Consumption vs Naturalism in Animal Crossing]

via Gamasutra

"Animal Crossing deploys a procedural rhetoric about the repetition of mundane work as a consequence of contemporary material property ideals. When my (then) five-year-old began playing the game seriously, he quickly recognized the dilemma he faced. On the one hand, he wanted to spend the money he had earned from collecting fruit and bugs on new furniture, carpets, and shirts. On the other hand, he wanted to pay off his house so he could get a bigger one like mine. Then, once he did amass enough savings to pay off his mortgage, the local shopkeeper and real estate tycoon Tom Nook offered to expand his house. While it is possible to refrain from upgrading, Nook, an unassuming raccoon, continues to offer renovations as frequently as the player visits his store. My son began to realize the trap he was in: the more material possessions he took on, the more space he needed, and the more debt he had to take on to provide that space. And the additional space just fueled more material acquisitions, continuing the cycle."

  One thing that I have never seen anyone else notice or remark on about Animal Crossing, is the fact that all the housing items in the game are represented by a leaf icon whenever dropped  on the ground outside a building. The significance of that may be lost on most Westerners who aren't familiar with the Japanese mythology that surrounds the animal that Tom Nook is -- which is to say he's actually a tanuki, and not a raccoon.

  Tanuki are known for casting enchantments on things like leaves to make them look like treasure, and tricking stupid humans with it. When the tanuki magic wears off, the objects are revealed to actually be worthless. In other words, signs may be pointing to Tom Nook's entire business being more of a scam than Crazy Redd's black market. =P

  The fact that this tanuki trickery seems to be alluded to in Animal Crossing is very interesting, and even more so in the context of the above article, in my opinion.

[Some RPGMaker Game Recommendations]

  Here's an interesting post at Border House about the culture of preemptive judgment surrounding RPGMaker games (and other 'accessible' dev toolsets), with a list of examples of the quality results that are possible from it.

  I personally think being able to affordably build smaller games is a great way for developers to perfect new ideas and try innovative concepts on a smaller scale, particularly when compared to the stifling risk-aversion you'll see from AAA side of things. I think with the rise of the indie scene in recent years, there may be less stigma surrounding these kinds of games than there was in the past.

 The only RPGMaker game I've played is Embric of Wulfhammer's Castle, which I thought was rather good, so any recommendations as to other gems out there is appreciated, as well. :)

[Are There Just Fewer Stories to Tell?]

  I've been musing over the recent wave of posts from some of the more established MMO bloggers decrying the death of the 'MMO blog', but after reading various bloggers' takes on the issue and watching this (rather brilliant) presentation on the culture of narrative and player/content dialogue in games, I think I understand a large part of the issue (and it's the culmination of something I started feeling dissatisfied about years ago back when the only MMORPG I had ever played was WoW).

  It's not that the MMORPG genre in particular is dying per se (the term 'MMO' has expanded to include so many variations of games precisely because it's grown so much). I think part of it is that nowadays there are fewer stories you can tell within it. Why blog about your experience doing heavily scripted/cut scene'd content that will be experienced in the exact same way by everyone else who's ever done it (or watched a Let's Play)? That doesn't lead to interesting or compelling player stories. Aside from navel-gazing and pontificating on one's personal taste in gameplay or following the latest dev studio drama, perhaps the recent field of MMORPGs just doesn't lend itself to much in the way of compelling personal material of the sort that inspires people to want to write much about it.

  This is not an issue unique to MMORPGs. Modern games have been struggling with this issue of how to engage players and bring more meaningful experiences for years now. So far, the idea has been to 'AAA' up the game and make it as cinematic as possible (apeing movies) and completely overlooking that the procedural aspect of 'worldy' MMORPGs is what makes them so compelling to people in the first place. The result is a heavily homogenized experience that may be fun enough for the individual, but without those unique, unpredictable flashes that make recounting the experience to others interesting.

  It's only natural that as most games have moved toward a painstakingly streamlined, heavily-guided game experience, that bloggers would find less incentive to talk about it. Generic gameplay info and reviews are better presented via YouTube videos and fan forums. Individual dialogues on a specific game or essays about one's adventures in it are harder to present in a unique or interesting way. The fact seems to be that there are now thousands of perfectly adequate MMOGs out there lately, but few that are worth regularly blogging about.

Related Reading:  
The Blogs Reflect the Genre
Retro Servers and the Light at the End of the Tunnel
I Don't Care What You're Doing In Your MMO

[Some Recommended Reading]

Too busy playing games (or being under NDA) to write about them lately, so here's some other worthwhile reads in the meantime:

Why Online Games are Tanking [Gamasutra]
Systems of Control in F2P [Gamasutra]
Exploitative Game Design: Beyond the F2P Debate [Gamasutra]
The Increasingly Twisted World of Promotional Screenshots [Edge]
Writer of SystemShock & Dishonored: 'Videogames Taught Me How to Write' [Polygon]
Why Your Games are Made by Childless 31-Year-Old White Men  [PA Report]

[The Corruption of AAA and What it Means for 'Games as Art']

A harsh excoriation on the decadence of the videogame industry (and why it means 'games as an artform' and respect for the medium is actually undermined by it), via Medium Difficulty. 

   Really sums up how I've been feeling lately (particularly on the issue of lack of accountability). Between the above article and John Teti's takedown of the PS4 reveal, there's not much else I can add to the generally-unimpressed feelings I've been getting from a lot of industry news lately. Though it was reassuring reading these pieces with feelings so similar to mine and realizing that it's not just me becoming an insufferable gaming hipster (though that could be part of it too, I suppose). =P

  Regardless, the problems of budget bloat, overhype, creative stagnation, technology-fetishism and fear of straying too far out of the box are all things that have plagued most post-WoW MMORPGs as well, so I feel this topic is worth bringing up in a context beyond just console games.


Related Reading:
What's Wrong With the AAA MMO Industry?
The Folly of David Cage
Dev warns Against Economically Unviable Next Gen

[The Folly of CRPGs in the West and Japan]

  Via the Insomnia blog: an interesting article dissecting the chronic design failures of the CRPG genre, and why the result is that people have a hard time pinning down just what exactly a 'RPG' even is anymore.

  As someone whose first experiences with 'RPG's were of the Japanese variety (on the SNES) their criticisms of the genre are hard to hear but I have to admit they make a lot of sense (particularly in explaining why as a genre JRPGs have have been in decline for years now).


Related Reading:
R.I.P J-RPG

[Let the New Ones In!]

 via The Mary Sue:

"Gamers are so quick to lash out against those who don’t understand our hobby. We go non-linear when people claim that games aren’t art, or that games cause real-world violence, or that we all need to grow up and stop wasting our time. In a general sense, I don’t see any major difference between the art critic who says games don’t belong in museums, the family friend who immediately brought up Sandy Hook after I mentioned that I write about games, or the parents convinced that their kids won’t learn anything useful from digital play. We roll our eyes and complain about how such people just don’t get it, but that’s exactly it — they don’t get it, and so often, we fall short when trying to explain. When we make arguments about the cultural importance of games, are we making an effort to reach out to those who have no experience with the medium? Or are we just talking to each other? When we sneer at casual games or easy mode, are we remembering that all of us needed to start somewhere, too?"

   A great anecdote about reaching a non-gamer through gaming, and asking if the rest of us really have the patience and desire to connect with 'outsiders' and 'newbies' in order to share our love of games.


Related Reading:
Learning the Language

[When Fandom Turns Toxic]

  The lead writer for the Dragon Age series on why they avoid the forums for their own game:

"I imagine that can happen to any online community. Eventually the polite, reasonable folks stop feeling like it’s a group of people they want to hang around. So they leave, and those who remain start to see only those who agree with them— and, because that’s all they see, they think that’s all there is. Everyone feels as they do, according to them. Once the tipping point is passed, you’re left with the extremes… those who hate, and those who dislike the haters enough to endure the toxic atmosphere to try and combat them. Each clash between those groups drives more of the others away."

  It's been years since I've played WoW, but so far as I know their boards are also still highly toxic environments. The Battle.net community was famous for being awful even before WoW.
I know that even ArenaNet didn't want to host an official forum out of similar concerns that it would be too difficult to keep it from becoming an echo chamber of negativity and hostility. What is it about gaming communities that allow us to treat such awful communities where people dump inordinate amounts of vitriol on the devs and each other as normal and par for the course? It's been said that only a tiny percentage of a game's playerbase ever sets foot in a game's official forum (or any forum), so at least we can believe that it's just a minority responsible for the majority of this problem, but it still doesn't remove the bad taste.


Related Reading:
Taming the Forum Tiger

[Do MMOs Really Need to Be Saved?]

via Tadhg Kelly at What Games Are; a rebuttal to the idea that modern games need to be 'saved':

"It's a rite-of-passage thing. Also an age thing. You're probably around 25, have jumped, slaughtered and strategised your way through at least 1000 games, and found them amazing and entertaining. Then something happens.

  You start to get bothered by the sameness. You start to notice that games recycle the same ideas on a generational timeline, that every 5-7 years or so game developers repackage the same concepts for new platforms. And also keep making the same mistakes. Over time, you start to think that games need to be saved.

  Your attention span shortens. You struggle to remember the last time you had a gaming all-nighter and you look on Skyrim not as a challenge, but rather as a task. A drudge, even. You wonder just how long games can get away with that sort of thing. You also start to be much less tolerant of the first hour of a game: if it doesn't absorb you then you dump it."

  Sound familiar to anyone? =P

  I think the fact that many of the current MMO bloggers fit squarely into this description explains a lot about the tone many have towards the games today. For example the whole '3-monther' label being used by many as proof of the genre's failings rather than a hint that something has changed in the player.  I also agree with Tadhg that perhaps we 'old timers' may be able to get games more in line with our desires by focusing on indies rather than the mainstream gaming industry, since the mainstream studios don't really seem to be serving our demographic.


Related Reading:
The Dark Side of Happy Memories

[We Can't Have It Both Ways]

 via Real Talk: Videogames:

"The gaming community, or let’s say the ones with voices -popular developers, media, and maybe celebrities if we have those- have a cake eating problem. We want to be taken seriously as an artform but don’t often value critical analysis. Game criticism and academia are held in disdain and shoved in corners, dubbed inapplicable. Recycling the same themes, mechanics, and ideologies of game design passes through reviews and feature articles without scrutiny."

   On the one hand, we gamers want our games to be respected as 'art'. On the other hand, the minute any sort of critical lens is placed on themes or mechanics of a game, the cry from many corners is "It's just a game, why are you taking it so seriously? Get a life!"

  But you can't have it both ways. The more that games develop in complexity and scope of their content, the more they will be measured for cultural relevance and judged for their themes. And we'll have to accept that such a development means we gamers need to start seriously examining what and why we play and be prepared to offer better in reply to serious analysis of them other than "It's just a game."

[Torchlight II Impressions]

In simple list form, since I'm not feeling verbose:

MY LIKES:
- New Game+
- Randomized dungeons\sidequests
- Offline Singleplayer option
- Character/pet customization (this includes class builds/gear combinations)
- Fishing. If nothing else, because you can get permanent pet-transforming items from it.
- The Enchanting/Alchemy system... gambling for cool item buffs is a great gold sink
- Interesting item sets (the randomization of stats makes even two of the same item unique)
- The soundtrack
- The boss fights

DISAPPOINTMENTS:
- I wish Normal difficulty wasn't simply Easy mode with a different name. It's too easy, even for a newb to the genre like me.
- I wish there was appearance slots for gear, or the ability to pay a Transmuter to re-skin gear.
- I wish my Stash space was expandable.
- I wish you could get at least one full respec of stats/skills per character.
- I wish the story/setting was a bit better explained (How's anyone to know, for example, that the Zeraphi and Ezrohir are a race of ancient Ember-powered cyborgs unless you read the official wiki? The game sure doesn't bother to really explain who they are or why they're at war). I know that too much story exposition can bog down a game like this, but it could've used a bit more here and there... perhaps rolled into the short animated cutscenes between Acts.

Overall, I give the game 4/5 stars (for what my opinion's worth), and recommend it for anyone who likes the ARPG genre. It's a solid offering and very enjoyable.

What is it about fishing in RPGs that's so compelling?

[Should 'AAA' Game Studios Die?]

Robert Florence at EuroGamer wrote a piece recently about game piracy and why it happens, which also touched on what he sees as a plague on gaming and contribution to the problem: the 'AAA Game Studio':

"The publishers who make these bloated AAA BLOCKBUSTER games that get booted down our throats at every fake awards show argue that they need to charge a premium price to keep delivering a premium product. But who says we need a "premium product", whatever that is? Did we even ask for that? Is that what we want from games? Massive marketing spend and homogenisation?

'But these giant companies would have to close down. People will lose their jobs!' And yes, that's horrible. No one ever wants to see people lose their jobs. But if these companies can only stay in existence by charging their customers extortionate prices for bland, safe product, should they even be there in the first place?"

  I found the article very thought-provoking, especially in the light of recent financial flops in the MMOsphere and the current feeling by many questioning whether the 'AAA model' may be harming the genre more than it contributes. The issue of budget-bloat demanding 'safe' derivative gameplay over depth and innovation and hype being peddled over substance is not something restricted to MMOs-only, and is a worrying trend in games as a whole.


Related Reading:
Three Things at E3 That Need to Stop, Part 1
What's Wrong With the AAA MMO Industry

[The End of Zynga?]

  Medium Difficulty weighs in on the decline of Zynga and the FB game fad:

"Zynga stock is already down more than 45 percent since its December 2011 IPO. Maybe becoming publicly traded meant that Zynga finally exposed itself to some smart money, which meant its game design began to be scrutinized by people whose profits depended on it. In 2009, before the IPO, Forbes uncritically accepted Zynga’s claim that part of its strategy was to make games in a variety of different genres, while CNN called Zynga “more than a one-trick pony” because it had not only produced Farmville, but also Mafia Wars, YoVille, and Café World. But now that investors have wizened up, Zynga has learned that it can drive its share price down just by announcing a new slate of awful games, as analysts “questioned whether Zynga’s new offerings were diversified enough” and raised concerns about the quality of the games."

  It's good to know that people besides gamers have started to 'raise concerns' about the quality of Zynga's titles. The apologists for that type of 'social game' can't claim it's just hardcore sour grapes anymore (if they're even still around at this point).

  Hopefully the fact that Zynga so openly pushed the entire Skinner Box-style game mechanic to the furthest level possible while maintaining only a veneer of 'gameplay' has encouraged future MMORPG developers to move past the tired grind and RNG-based carrot-on-stick standbys into creative, new (and less toxic) gameplay systems. Because I think one reason why Zynga games are so reviled by gamers is because they are, at their core, disturbingly familiar to many of us as exposing the type of mechanics at the core of many our own superior 'real' games, and on a certain level we resented having to acknowledge it.


Related Reading:
Zynga's Stock Fail Was Sadly Predictable
Zynga's Headaches -- Did We Not See This Coming?

[Planet Explorers Looks Interesting!]

"Pathea Games is proud to announce the studio's next game, Planet Explorers. Planet Explorers is an open world voxel-based adventure rpg game set on a distant planet. The game uses a new OpenCL system based on the Unity 3D engine to allow players to change the terrain in anyway, create new objects in any form, and do it anywhere.

In Planet Explorers, it is the year 2287, one of the first colony ships sent out by Earth arrives at the planet Maria, in the Epsilon Indi Star System. During its landing sequence, something appears in front of the massive ship that causes it to lose control and crash into the planet. Some of the colonists survive in lifeboats, but what they find is an unforgiving land filled with creatures ready to outlast the visitors from Earth. Now the survivors must explorer, gather, build, create, fight, and ultimately, conquer the land."

 Sounds like a non-cube story-based Minecraftish kind of thing; I'm going to have to keep an eye out for this one!

[The Real Texas]

"The Real Texas is an action adventure game that plays like a mashup of Zelda: Link to the Past and Ultima VI."

While on vacation in England, your character (a Texas rancher) stumbles into a bizarre purgatory dimension called 'Strange'. Various people across space and time have slipped through the cracks of Reality and have ended up trapped here, and it's up to a modern-day cowboy (you) to sort things out and be a Hero.

Sound interesting? Then be sure to check it out! =)

[Screenwriters Fail at Game Writing]

A great post from TJ Fixman's blog on writing stories for games:

"[G]ame development almost never starts with story. Every time I go to a convention, I meet fledgling writers who tell me they have an amazing game idea they’d love to pitch me. But the truth is, games aren’t pitched like movies or TV. What gets a game green lit is invariably tech or gameplay driven. A studio discovers they can do incredible realtime zero-g simulation with their engine? We’re doing a space adventure! Did the design team discover some super fun time-based game mechanic? Let’s do a time travel game! Games are built around two simple questions: 'Where does our tech shine?' and 'What is fun to play?'"

Read the rest here.


Related Reading:
Should games even bother trying to tell a meaningful story?

[Pay-to-Win: The Forums Do Not Speak For Your Playerbase]

via Tobold's Blog; a great presentation on one dev company's learning experience regarding Free-to-Play, 'Pay 2 Win', and discovering who their playerbase really is (hint: it's not the majority of people raging on their message boards), and their surprising discoveries about what their players really want.

It's an interesting look into the development of a successful Western F2P model, the lessons they've learned, and the surprising facts revealed by tracking their customers' actual behavior vs paying attention to player-drama on internet forums.

[Gaming 'Journalism'? Not So Much...]

Today, Jef Reahard over at Massively has written a great take down of the belief that most gaming bloggers are somehow 'journalists':

"Merriam-Webster defines journalism as "the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media." So far, so good, right? Well, look deeper. A more thoughtful, thorough, and instructional definition is provided by the folks at Journalism.org. Rather than quote the entire nine-point synopsis here on my front page, I'll highlight what I consider to be the second most important principle of journalism (the first obviously being truth). Not coincidentally, this principle is one that game "journalism" utterly fails to uphold on a daily basis: "[Journalism's] practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover."

Let's cut right to the chase, shall we? The vast majority of "game journalism" isn't journalism in the traditional sense. There are many reasons "game journalism" isn't journalism at all, but in the interests of paring a few thousand words off of this piece, I'll boil it down to the three most important."

 Read the rest here. 


 Related Reading: How Broken is Game Journalism?
                          How Game Journalism is It's Own Worst Enemy