published works

Randy Smith Doesn’t Save the Day

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

Though on the one hand it is comforting to be able to save and load at will, continually loading – thereby undoing events, and making consequences irrelevant – tends to diminish a player’s belief in the game world, making it all the harder for the game to affect the player in a meaningful capacity.

The situation is kind of damned if you do, damned if you don’t, in that allowing free saving tends to lead to abuse yet disallowing it leads to player complaints.

EALA game designer Randy Smith gave a brief speech on the psychological factors that tend to result in save abuse, and how potentially to avoid or undermine those triggers, such that players are tempted to save and load far less often, thereby allowed to take their in-game experiences at face value.

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

Ubisoft’s Hocking Talks The Power Of Self-Exploration

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

Video games are all about exploration – about living in someone else’s world for a while, learning the rules, learning the territory, and maybe taking something home with you. Ubisoft’s Clint Hocking has his ideas about what that means for the medium and anyone who might set out to explore it.

Although the virtual space of a game world is perhaps most obvious, the most fundamental aspect of a game is its underlying systems – the physical laws and properties that govern that space. Exploring those systems is in a sense the scientific method in fast forward, a series of experiments in cause and effect that forms the substance of game play.

The more immediate and tangible the results to the player’s experiments, the more readily the player feels progress, so the more rewarding the system feels. “It’s supposed to be beautiful,” Hocking said. “If you get this part wrong, the rest doesn’t even matter.”

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

Industry Vets Never Metagame They Didn’t Like

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

Two teams, split up amongst Eric Zimmerman of Gamelab, Warren Spector, Mark Leblanc of Mind Control, video game theorist Jesper Juul, Ubisoft’s Clint Hocking, Jonathan Blow, and USC Professor Tracey Fullerton, moved their virtual quarters around the board to make thematic comparisons between often highly-contrasting games.

Has World of Warcraft created a more intense subculture than Asteroids? Is Guitar Hero more culturally sophisticated than Parappa the Rapper? Is Wipeout more realistic than Nethack? Is Oregon Trail more emotionally rich than Virtua Fighter? (See below for answers.)

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

Sound and Perspective in Experimental Games

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

Whereas last year’s Experimental Gameplay Sessions were crammed into a standing-room-only meeting room, resulting in a nightmare for the fire marshal yet a powerful experience for the audience, this year’s sessions were moved to a huge, dark presentation hall.

Although the audience turnout was larger than ever, and host Jon Blow had more participants to introduce, the meeting somehow felt less intimate and more low-key than last year’s.

As before, the event sprawled over two and a half hours with a short break in the middle. Where last year’s sessions had a general theme of interpreting complex emotions and ideas through familiar game models – evidenced in games like flOw, Cloud, Braid, and Everyday Shooter – this year’s entries tended toward novel uses of sound and perspective. Perhaps half of the event was devoted to various game festivals, while several of the remaining presentations were of high-profile commercial games.

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

Fable is Love; Love is Puppies

  • Reading time:8 mins read

by [name redacted]

This article had a strict deadline; I rushed to finish it so it could go live before the whole Internet had reported on the demonstration. And then… I guess it slipped through the cracks. Oh well! Here it is.

As another note, I think this was the meeting where Molyneux creepily offered his audience cookies. I was the only one to perk up. Hey, cookies.

Peter Molyneux was in loopy spirits, discussing his new game. Who knows how many times he had been over the same territory that day, though he seemed to enjoy spinning his tale, finding the right notes to highlight, the right places to pause for dramatic tension.

“Sequels are tricky things,” Molyneux started off. “Not my specialty. The sensible approach is to give you more things you like, better.” More weapons, new monsters, twenty times the land, guns! When Molyneux was asked to provide a sequel, he set off doing demographical research to see just what people wanted of him anyway. Then he opened “the doors of hell” – the online communities – only to quickly, in his words, slam them shut again. There were so many demands, so shrilly phrased – “so many people mortally offended by the design choices in Fable 1” – that the best Molyneux could do was sift out the most common complaints.

Mobile Session Itself Goes Massively Multiplayer

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

Going by the online schedule, Gamevil, Inc. general manager Kyu C. Lee was to spend an hour chatting about mobile MMO games and communities, by way of his mobile MMO game, Path of a Warrior – in North Hall room 124, at 2:00.

In practice, the session was held in a completely different building and Mr. Lee was absent. With the blessing of the sound and technical staff, however, the small turnout soon took command, converting the session into an informal comparison of notes.

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

Ubisoft’s Adam Thiery Talks Camera Theory

  • Reading time:2 mins read

by [name redacted]

Adam Thiery, a designer for Ubisoft Montreal, gave a short talk today on interactive cinematography. His basic point was that game cinematography is player-driven. Simple it may sound; real application is always trickier. One of the big sticking points is that camerawork, being player-driven, is limited by current understanding of game design and player psychology.

A modern camera knows when to change state, explained Thiery. In Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, when the player is pressed against a wall, the standard tracking camera shifts from a behind-the-character perspective to show the player character left-of-center, and focus the player’s attention to the right, around the given barrier.

Thiery said that a good game camera is a matter of functionality, rather than cinematography – yet given that, it pays to consider the visual composition within each camera state. The reason is that any action a player takes is generally guided by what he has been shown to do.

The original Half-Life takes places in a disorienting sci-fi setting; to drive the player forward, it uses huge stripes painted on the walls, like a trail of breadcrumbs or an arrow. Though this is an artificial and somewhat clumsy application, that same principle applies to any 2D screen composition.

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

Evan Skolnick Asks Game Writers To ‘Make It Snappier’

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

Writing is one of the less discussed bits of game development; Vicarious Visions producer Evan Skolnick has been doing his best to redress the balance. Whereas last year’s session dealt with dialogue, this year Skolnick chose to discuss general structure.

Skolnick’s background is in comic books, and indeed much of his game industry work has been on comic book movie licenses; his methods are generally simple, direct, and accessible to an entry-level audience.

Up front Skolnick cautioned that the session was not for professional writers, but neither was it a debate on the essence of video game narrative, or a tutorial on “how to make players cry”. Rather, it was a by-the-book overview was for game industry veterans – programmers, producers – with little experience in the mechanics of storytelling.

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

Audience Cheers And Jeers Mobile Innovation Hunt

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

Co-host Matthew Bellows apologized up-front for only selecting fifteen finalists, citing time concerns. After repeatedly assuring that everyone had enough beer to drink, Bellows explained the setup: in turn, each developer would explain to the audience what made his or her game so innovative; if he or she went on too long, the audience would razz him or her by flapping its noisemakers. The audience showed immediate enthusiasm for this plan.

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

Nokia’s Sauter Talks Next Generation N-Gage

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

Two years ago, at E3, Nokia announced a strategic withdrawal from the handheld arena; in place of a discrete handheld platform, future N*Gage hardware would be incorporated into Nokia’s full line of mobile devices. Today, Nokia director of publishing Gregg Sauter elaborated on the plans.

Sauter expressed concern that the mobile game industry, in its current form, is “immature”. As the largest manufacturer of mobile devices, in particular “convergent” ones, Nokia feels in a position to revolutionize the industry in this regard. “We really need to evolve this industry,” said Sauter, explaining that Nokia is in the middle of an essential transition from “a company that makes hardware to one that provides experiences.”

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

Setting the Standard

  • Reading time:5 mins read

by [name redacted]

Part thirteen of my ongoing culture column; originally published by Next Generation, under the title “The Road to a Universal Platform”. Now, despite my wittering most of these title and spin changes have a minor effect on the article. This one was… regrettable, though, as the article sort of makes the opposite point: though a universal format may be our inevitable destination, the notion is terribly premature. And yet because of the title and the spin, most people jerked their knees in response without actually reading the article. Oh well. Here it all is, as originally framed.

David Jaffe recently came under some criticism for a few statements to consumer website 1UP about his future visions of the game industry. The big headline, repeated across the Internet for a day or two, was “Ten years from now there will be one console”. It was an unguarded comment, following his own nostalgia for the days of rampant console exclusivity. Jaffe expressed annoyance at the current standard of cross-platform development, and wondered if it was coming to the point where the only distinguishing factor from one console to the next would be its first-party software. From there he made the leap that this small distinction might not be enough justification for multiple consoles – therefore, he figured, perhaps we’re on a road to a single universal platform.

There was much tittering in the aisles; a few people made comparisons to Trip Hawkins’ dreams for the 3D0 – a console standard that, much like a VCR or other piece of home electronics, would be licensed out to any manufacturer with the initiative. In fact, that comparison is pretty appropriate in that both Trip and Mr. Jaffe have the same reasonable – and actually rather clever – idea, with the same understandable flaw.

A Slime for All Seasons: Videogames and Classism

  • Reading time:12 mins read

by [name redacted]

Part twelve of my ongoing culture column; originally published by Next Generation, under the title “OPINION: Yuji Horii was Right to Opt for DS”.

You’ve probably heard this Dragon Quest business; in a move surprising to professional analysts everywhere, producer Yuji Horii has decided to go with the most popular piece of dedicated gaming hardware in generations for the next installment of the most important videogame franchise in Japan. If people are bewildered, it’s not due to the apparent rejection of Sony (whose hardware was home to the previous two chapters). After the mediocre performance of the PSP and the bad press regarding the PS3 launch, Sony has become a bit of a punching bag for the industry’s frustrations. Fair or not, losing one more series – however important – hardly seems like news anymore.

So no, what’s confounding isn’t that Horii has changed faction; it’s that he appears to have changed class, abandoning home consoles – in particular, the sure and sanctified ground of the no-longer-next generation systems – for a handheld, commonly seen as the lowest caste of dedicated game hardware.

Gestures and Measures

  • Reading time:8 mins read

by [name redacted]

Part eleven of my ongoing culture column; originally published by Next Generation.

About a year ago NextGen published an article in which I groused about the early speculation about the Wii. The point, I said, wasn’t that we could now have real-time lightsaber duels; it was the extra layer of nuance that the Wiimote added on top of our familiar grammar – kind of the way analog control made 3D movement a hair less awkward. The point of motion control, I said, wasn’t to replace current control systems; it was to augment them, thereby to make them more flexible. A little more powerful, a little more intuitive.

Well, I was half right.

Defining the Next Generation

  • Reading time:28 mins read

by [name redacted]

This article was originally intended as a conclusion to NextGen’s 2006 TGS coverage. Then it got held back for two months as an event piece. By the time it saw publication its window had sort of expired, so a significantly edited version went up under the title “What The New Consoles Really Mean”.

So we’re practically there. TGS is well over, the pre-orders have begun; Microsoft’s system has already been out for a year (and is now graced with a few excellent or important games). The generation is right on the verge of turning, and all those expensive electronics you’ve been monitoring for the last few years, half dreading out of thriftiness and secret knowledge that there won’t be anything good on them for a year anyway, will become the new status quo. Immediately the needle will jump and point at a new horizon, set around 2011, and everyone will start twiddling his thumbs again. By the time the drama and dreams resume, I’ll be in my early thirties, another American president will have served nearly a full term – and for the first time in my life I really can’t predict what videogames will be like.

Work update

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Museum of Terror 3 is supposedly out now, though again I’ve not yet seen it. As good as are the earlier volumes, I far more enjoyed this than the first two. Furthermore, I think it should be a lot easier to get into than the Tomie stuff. If you pick up one English-language manga this year, choose this one! Dark Horse isn’t sure whether or not to continue the line, so sales of this book are critical.

Oh hey, remember that article I spent so long finishing? It’s going to go up soon, albeit in greatly condensed and at times summarized form. Colin has no objections to my putting the full version up shortly after its initial publication, so watch this space over the weekend for an excusive director’s cut.

I guess the issue was, I intended this to be published two months ago as sort of a conclusion to TGS. I finished it a few weeks ago, and it got held until now as an “event” piece. Then I guess Colin realized it didn’t quite address the new system launches the way he wanted it to, so it got paraphrased into something kind of different. Fair enough, I guess. He’s the editor.

Anyway, I’ll post the original version on Sunday or Monday, after NextGen has accumulated most of the hits it’ll get. It’s kind of different! I was actually pretty excited about some of the ideas in it; a shame they won’t get more air.

(Yes, Shaper, I’m still working on your article. I’ve got it sketched out, and almost two pages of finished text. Moving slowly! As usual! It’s coming, though — if not in exactly the way I expected.)