Those Icky Nasty Game Things

A friend of mine (who happens to be an avid reader of The New Yorker) shared this article with me today: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/09/100809fa_fact_baker

I found this section particularly funny:

Here’s what it’s about. It’s about killing and it’s about dying. Also it’s about collecting firearms. And it’s modern warfare, which means it’s set in places like Afghanistan. Assassin’s Creed II is set in Renaissance Florence and Venice. The game has moments of real loveliness. But mostly, it’s death, death, death—and fistfights, and the accumulation of wealth by acts of thuggery.

I mostly found it funny because I imagined it being exclaimed to me by a young, very upscale New Yorker in increasingly desperate and exasperated tones. (I also imagined his next words would be along the lines of “It was so *icky*!”)

But now to the point I’d like to make: While I’m very glad to see that video games are now being considered legitimate fodder for “traditional” editorial media, it greatly upsets me that they’re still being brought up in the context of their violent content. True, many mainstream games contain an elevated level of violent content, but they all utilize that violence as a way to propel a story. Many of them even use violence to drive home a point or an idea.

This is all pretty much old news for the majority of game enthusiasts I know, but not for everyone else. Thus, my frustration isn’t in that these “traditional” publications only discuss the violence in video games. It is in the fact that they do not discuss how video games use violence as a means to promote a concept or story. I wish that would change, and I hope it does soon. After all, it’s not like video games are not the only entertainment media in which violence plays a key role.

1 year ago  /  0 notes

While doing research for a big presentation that I have to give in the middle of August, I made the mistake of Googling “science of fun”.  I was looking for a word that describes the science of creating play, similar to how ludology is the study of play’s impact on society.  What I got was a little disappointing.

Let me put this out there for everyone: Putting a flashy skin on a boring activity does not make it fun.

I’m sick of websites that claim to make studying fun.  The vast majority of these sites merely wrap rote repetition in bright colors and snappy animations.

If you want to make something fun, you can’t just call it fun.  You can’t stick it into a fun context and call it fun, either.  Fun comes from actions, not environments.

1 year ago  /  0 notes

I know a few people are going to like this post…

I used to be staunchly anti-Apple. I refused to buy Apple products, vocally opposed their design aesthetics, and actually harbored a certain amount of contempt for individuals I felt were “Apple fanboys”.

And then, one day, out of sheer necessity, I bought an iPod Touch.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I still disagree with certain design decisions Apple makes, and I still have a problem with fanboys of all varieties. I’m still too poor to buy a MacBook, which is something I still take issue with.

But I’ve got to admit, the tiny little device that I’m writing this on has a lot of potential.

1 year ago  /  0 notes

With all the news of closings and firings this week in the game industry, I’m starting to wonder if “trying to get into the game industry” should be added to The List of Things I Do That May Kill Me.

I’m not even going to try to say that my situation’s even as bad as the people who’ve recently lost their jobs, but I do need to get one thing out there: this is fucking scary for me.  I’ve wanted to make games since I was 13 years old, and I’ve been doing everything I can to make sure I could do that since then.  I’ve spent the past three and a half years working toward a degree that would give me the job I wanted.  I’ve probably pulled about a month’s worth of all-nighters just to finish the projects that I thought could get me into the industry.  I can’t even begin to imagine the number of social situations I’ve passed up in pursuit of my goal.

And now that I’m finally applying to the jobs that I’ve dreamed about for so long, I find myself questioning my own convictions.

Don’t get me wrong: I haven’t fallen out with games.  I still love them, and I still love making them.  I feel like I’m falling out with the games industry.  This trend of layoffs and “restructuring” tells me that game companies no longer value talent and experience.  To me, companies like EA have said “Work as hard as you want.  We’ll take the credit, and when we’re done with you, you can be on your merry way.”  Personally, I’m not interested in working this hard just so I can be thrown away in a few years.  Perhaps I’m over-exaggerating a little, but I really do feel that an industry where my job security is solely based on my company’s bottom line, and not the merits of my effort, is not an industry I want to be in.

There are still a few months left before I have to make my final decision as to what’s going to happen next year.  But if things go the way they’ve been going until then… Screw big games.  I’m going indie.

2 years ago  /  0 notes

One of these days, I’m actually going to start documenting how much sleep I get on a typical night.  I’ve got a pretty good estimate (i.e. not enough), but I really would love to know a more precise amount.  I’ve just got to remember to record the data.

Unfortunately, sleep deprivation screws with your memory, so that project will probably have some pretty skewed data.

2 years ago  /  0 notes