I’m back from GDC and slowly climbing back onto the writing horse.  I’d apologize for taking forever between posts again but hey let’s be honest, I’ve been doing a ton of that lately so let’s just move on.

I saw some great talks, but one that kinda bothered me in a way and yet at the same time invigorated some of my old opinions was the Rant Panel.  This year’s was five (actually more) of some of the most esteemed game critics in the industry.  While I get that this was a podium for opinions to be thrown out there, I couldn’t help but wonder about a few of the positions, and rant back a little bit of my own on the matter.

One of the biggest talking points was how Game Journos (for lack of a better word) could do their jobs better.  N’Gai (who incidentally I’ve found myself disagreeing with more and more lately) had some of the most salient points of the whole talk, asking writers to eschew the terms “hardcore” and “casual.”  I’m paraphrasing, but his example of “Who’s more hardcore:  the person who plays Peggle five hours a night 7 days a week or the guy who plays Gears two hours a night Monday through Thursday?”  Who’s the casual player there?  Who’s hardcore?  N’Gai asked for better descriptors to be used, like “competitor” or “completionist” or “tourist.”  These terms don’t just benefit writers, they benefit developers and publishers alike, because we’ve been working on a binary system that doesn’t really identify anyone properly.  N’Gai’s proposed terms helps us figure out who we’re making the product for, and who to write about.

But some of the rants I just found…lacking.  Stephen Totilo (of MTV’s Multiplayer), while being critical in general said “Our reporting is fine. There’s no lack of good journalism, though there may be a lack of effort in finding it…There is a lack of good writing.”

Stephen, I expected more from a guy who started his speech with “I’m going to lose some friends over this.”  Look, fuck the writing.  I don’t care if you use the word “compelling” or adverbs or adjectives or two hundred words that end in LY.  I seriously don’t.  Besides the fact that most of America’s readers only read at a 4th grade level, Game Journalism isn’t at the point where the only thing left to hone is your craft.  My god man, I’ve seen stories, especially lately in this economy with bankruptcies and studio closings which concern corporate law, and there’s no mention of a corporate lawyer weighting in on the piece.  Are you a lawyer?  Did you pass a bar in corporate law?  Why then are you or your contemporaries writing about it?  Why are there one-sided opinion pieces where the writers don’t even attempt to contact the company they’re writing about for comment?  Do you guys realize that when you get the facts wrong in one piece, it brings into question everything you’ve ever written?  I get that you can’t get everything right 100% of the time, and that sometimes you just have to go to print with what you’ve got, but could we please actually try to make sure that you’re getting the facts straight before you go to print?  If you think this isn’t a big deal, then you’re not taking your job seriously enough.

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While at the Kindergarten meet-and-greet for my daughter’s upcoming indoctrination into our public schools system, I noticed that not many (in fact really none) of the other parents there seemed to be a “gamer.”  Well, really, even a true “nerd” or “geek” or “dork.”  They were all…normal.  I imagine they’d buy games for their kids, or even play games with their kids, but none of them struck me as the type who buy and play games on their own, at least those beyond the Madden/Haloz crowd.

And yes, I know I’m just looking at stereotypes when I look out at a crowd of “normals.”  Maybe there was a PC gaming enthusiast.  Maybe that balding Dad over there in the boring dockers and the plain coat is really into RTS or likes ranked CoD servers.  It’s entirely possible that Mom not only enjoys Cooking Mama but is actually in a TF2 clan.  But really, I doubt it.  They’d only discuss playdates for their kids or getting their hair done at the salon (not joking here) or shopping.  The guys all mostly just smiled and looked like they’d rather be at home.

I was wondering what they felt about our world, about our games.  What would they say if you asked them about this lifestyle we’ve crafted for ourselves?  I imagine you’d have to start by getting them to actually play some of the games with you first.

As it turns out, a gamer at LavaLevel already asked his girlfriend to play some of his games and comment on them in real time, and recorded them for posterity.  What follows is one of the most charmingly delightful outsider views into our universe I’ve ever seen.  She even brings up some great points, such as “How can a wrench run out of things.  There’s no bullets in a wrench.”

Watch them all, especially the TF2 and the CounterStrike ones.

I don’t know if it’s lack of sleep, but I’m especially cranky today.  I’m tired of seeing not-news and even less interesting posts about stuff that is barely even tangentially related to gaming flooding gaming (and non gaming!) sites.  Can we all agree that this shit can just die now and people can come up with some new ideas?

The List of Things that Can Die Now:

• Game Cakes.  No, seriously, you don’t have to stop making them.  JUST STOP POSTING ABOUT THEM.
• Lego mini-figs of gaming characters.
• For that matter, Lego video games, period.  Is it not obvious that it’s nothing but a cash cow at this point?
• Periodic Tables of anything that aren’t Elements.
• TF2 team mash/changeups.

Add your pet peeves to the comments.  Let’s vent.

I figured since it’s been awhile since I wrote something (enter excuses here) I’d take the easy route out and offer up a unique opinion on the whole DLC kerfluffle that’s going on right now in gaming news circles.

Hokay, so everyone is pretty much upset at Capcom for releasing multiplayer as DLC content, and then Capcom is indignant about it and claims that RE5 is priced correctly for the content at sixty dollars.  Everyone up to speed?  Good.

I was going to originally make this a piece laying out the ways that Capcom could be going about this.  It turns out this is a pretty simple thing to outline, and the end result is pretty much the same:

• Situation A:  Capcom screwed up, and dind’t get Multiplayer done in time for the original product submission.  They used their one free patch to fix all of the bugs that came up during the submission process, and decided to finish Multiplayer with a B team while the A team was finishing the submission buxfix requirements, and release it as paid DLC (since their one free launch day bug patch was used up) to recover the cost.
• Situation B:  Capcom is telling the god’s honest truth here, and decided based on cost-per-feature budgeting to release Multiplayer as paid DLC from the product’s launch/full production.

Invariably, we wind up in a situation that ends with “Capcom screwed up.”  Say what you will, Capcom, but the customer is always right (unless they call the cops because you’re out of McNuggets).  In your case, the customer is calling “shenanigans” on your selling what is commonly accepted as a featureset as DLC immediately following launch.

There’s a reason why they’re upset, and it’s not what you’re thinking.  People have a tendency, when angry, of not being very eloquent or rational.  Trust me, I’m an expert on being angry.  Here’s the thing:  they’re not mad you’re releasing Multiplayer as DLC.  They’re not mad you’re asking them to pay for it.  They’re mad you’re asking them to pay five dollars to get content that should have been on the disk if it’s landing one week after launch.  If you had waited three months before releasing it, or if you’d not charged money for it at launch, folks wouldn’t be complaining.

Your argument notwithstanding, you releasing it at launch tells us a few things.

1. You feel it is content worth paying for, and is compelling.
2. You feel that it will drive sales.
3. You feel that if you released it three months later you’d lose your customer base.

Ostensibly, you should have just put it on the disk and charged $65.  You’d get a lot less pushback.  By doing it the way you did it, you’re admitting that your content is not going to last three to six months, and you want to get your money up front.

DLC can be for anything, but the successful models typically are ones that add value to the original product in a way that rewards players for continuing to stay with the game and play it.  The unsuccessful models are the ones who attempt to fleece money from the userbase immediately after launch for things that should have been in the box in the first place.  Not to beat a dead horse, but horse armor is probably the easiest example that comes to mind.

But it is worth noting that you’re charging extra money for access to another feature in the game.  This is no different than if you had locked out Co-Op and put a five dollar bill slot next to it on the main menu.  What if your game had Create-a-Player?  Would you have decided that was worth an additional five dollars?  Do you see where I’m going here?  You can’t just decide that a featureset is worth an additional five bucks and attempt to tack it on, or with-hold it from the player.

Well, I mean, you can, and you most certainly did, but the biggest mistake you can make here is take the high ground, defend your decision, and then wonder why you’re left holding your empty hand out while everyone else is running to the competitor’s product who gives their customers free updates, not to mention new features, maps,  and gametypes.

No time for a real post right now, but I found this just doing some old fashioned weblink surfing.

Is this some kind of Silent Hill art?

Found here.

How tough?  Look, if Ken Levine has to start moving real-estate to make a living, we might as well all just give up.

Saw this while visiting some friends.  Had to snap a pic and share with the class.

Awhile back at work we got into a water cooler balancing discussion, mostly regarding multiplayer and how elegantly a game such as Team Fortress 2 is balanced, even despite the regular updates to only a single specific class in the game.

The conversation started at a very high level, looking at how there’s a “fast” but “weak” guy (Scout), or a “slow” but “tough” guy (Heavy), and even the “stealthy” guy (Spy) and all sorts of classes in between.  Everyone pretty much gets how they work together to form a cohesive team, and how one class has strengths vs. other classes (such as how an Engineer is exceptional at Anti-Scout).  We certainly don’t need to go into that here.

But what got really interesting was when I threw out the suggestion about taking the discussion down a level.  Let’s examine not only how each class is balanced, but more importantly, if we can assume that each of his individual parts are balanced to make the whole of the class, can we remove them and re-distribute them without breaking the game?

While I’m pretty sure that (at least insofar as TF2 is concerned) this would break the game, let’s assume that since no character is overwhelmingly stronger than any other one character, that they are “evenly” balanced.  What this means is that while we can’t have true one-vs-one match-ups in TF2 (the Spy would be inherently weak in this situation, as would a Scout against a Heavy with nobody to distract the Heavy), in the team setting, they are all on equal ground.

So let’s say that they’re all worth an even 1000 points, and if you were to have a sort of Create-A-Team-Fortress-Class system, how could we go about it?

We could first break down the classes into their (default, not upgraded) components that make them tick.

For instance:

The Scout

• Small target volume
• Speed: +33% (100% = the default TF2 run speed)
• Double-Jump
• 2x Point Capture
• Health:  125 (default value)
• Scattergun:  6 shots, 32 ammo, 85-105 damage (180 crit)
• Pistol:  12 shots, 36 ammo, 20-22 (45 crit)
• Bat:  24-46 (105 crit) [about 2 hits per second]
• Can hit grenades back with bat

The Heavy

• Large target volume
• Speed: -23% (-73% when spinning barrels)
• Health: 300 (+175 over default)
• Sasha Minigun: 200 rounds, 50-54 damage per 1 ammo – 500/sec-540/sec (1080/sec crit)
• Default Shotgun: 6 rounds, 32 ammo, 80-90 damage (180 crit)
• Fists:  43-87 (195 crit uppercut) [a little more than 1 hit per second]

Just comparing these two classes (and peeking a bit more at the tf2wiki) we can start to see some default values spring up…

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I noticed this this afternoon at work while checking news sites briefly, and I had to do a double-take at the new F.E.A.R. 2 thumbnail of Alma.  At a glance, especially at that postage stamp size where only silhouettes are really recognizeable, it recognized in my feeble brain as someone else:

I blame Twitter for this (and N’Gai’s awesome but page murdering live tweets of quarterly earnings calls).

And yes, I photoshopped his avatar background to look more like the F.E.A.R. 2 one.  And added the text.

When I started game-ism.com, I decided that I wasn’t going to talk about “how to break into the industry,” because I’ve already gone on at length in other venues (i.e. not here) about the topic.  The information is out there if you know where to look (Google is your friend), and I’d just be repeating myself.  Plus, lately, I wonder how valid the information is now that thousands of people are losing their jobs on a weekly basis within the industry and fighting for what positions are left.

But what I do want to talk about for a minute is what often precedes that first job:  college.  My problem lately is that I don’t think that the vast majority of the educational systems available to people which promise “video game education” be it design, art, or programming, are living up to any kind of educational standard.  Let alone a video game education standard.

I’ve been courted more than once to teach at university programs, and even taught a class or two at one point, and what I’ve learned about the system is disgusting to me as a professional and as a college graduate (BFA, thanks for asking).  One school’s department director told me, point blank, that the point of their 4 year program was not to get a student a job after 4 years, but to make sure that they enroll in Graduate School.  This wasn’t Westwood; it was an accredited university program.  I politely told him I wasn’t interested in being part of a program that isn’t designed around placing 85% of their graduates or better in a job related to their degree.

The problem with this whole system and relationship between the school and the student is that it’s built off of assumptions, and conflicted interest.  Individuals (students) expect the University or College to provide them with something (training, a diploma, a portfolio, experience) that will get them a job when they graduate.  The vast majority of Universities or Colleges pretty much want your money, and they’re willing to provide you with a service in exchange for that money.

Did you see the disconnect there?  The student expects training that will get them a job or carreer.  The School expects money and will provide a service.  These two things often do not arrive at the same conclusion.  Nothing I can say here is going to change that.  And to be fair, there are a few schools whose programs are designed around getting you the experience they know will put you in position to be hired.  I’m not going to endorse or condemn any schools by name here.  But what I am going to do is attempt to outline what you need to look out for, at least insofar as art, animation, or design disciplines are concerned, if you’re thinking about giving a school your money in the hopes that you work in the gaming industry later.

First, Ask About Placement Rates.

Do this right off the bat.  Don’t be sheepishly polite.  Be blunt and to the point.  You’re about to give this school anywhere between $40,000-100,000 (or more) of yours or your parents’ money.  If you’re getting student loans you’re going to be paying them off for as long as you’d pay off a house.  Get your money’s worth.  Don’t just accept a number.  Ask to see names of the companies they work and place with.  Ask if you can contact any alumni they’ve recently placed regarding the program.  Ask about intern programs they have with local game companies.  This might seem like you’re out of line being a Freshman and all, but if you were buying a $100,000 house, you’d get a home inspection.  It’s time to do a school inspection, and it starts with how successful the school is.

Who Teaches There?

I’m not about to pull out the “Those who can, do, those who can’t…” bullshit mantra, but if the school doesn’t employ anyone in your program who’s currently working in the industry of your choice, you might want to look elsewhere.  Videogame technology (and therefore the techniques) advances at a redonkulous rate.  Normal Maps were unheard of 8 years ago.  The memory allocation in the total RAM footprint for things like textures for current gen systems exceeds the total RAM for an entire game system from just two generations ago.  If your professor is not steeped in what the industry is doing today, how can they hope to teach you what you need to know to get hired tomorrow?  If they haven’t worked in the industry for the past five years, they can’t possibly be able to tell you how the industry operates today.  It’s not enough to have someone who was an expert or dabbled in the industry awhile ago.  You need someone who’s an expert now.

101 Comes Before 201.

I didn’t even think I’d need to say this before writing up this piece, but there are actually schools out there who feel that prerequisites are for the student to decide.  This is patently absurd.  If the school allows you to take a 400 level class when you’re a Freshman (or even a Sophmore), there is no way they deserve your money.  Just walk away.  Imagine going to high school and having someone teach you Calculus before you learned Algebra.  How about taking French Literature classes before you even take your first French 101 lesson.  If it sounds rediculous, that’s because it is.  Now imagine being given the priveledge to throw away your money because you didn’t know better, and the School wasn’t willing to tell you otherwise.  Isn’t it their job to teach you?

Focused Disciplines and Portfolios.

One of the things that I have to tell every student porfolio I see is that once they graduate, they need to throw away their student reel and re-package their material into a focused, job specific professional reel.  Universities seem to have this impression that students need to be well rounded in order to get a job.  On the surface, this seems somewhat logical:  use the shotgun approach so that the student has a broad range of abilities they can do competently, so that if any job pops up they can hopefully fill it.  Contrast that with what most game teams/companies need:  focused snipers who can hone their skillset like a laser on a designated task or series of tasks.  We don’t hire artists.  We hire character artists.  We hire texture artists.  We hire environment artists.  We don’t hire programmers.  We hire AI Programmers or Tools Programmers or System Programmers.  We don’t hire animators who work with sand or puppets.  We hire character animators who work with 3D aps and/or motion capture.  We don’t hire designers.  We hire level designers.  Technical designers.  Combat designers.

The idea when framed in a traditional university setting is downright comical.  Imagine if you decided to major in English, but they wanted to make sure you spoke some French, or some Japanese, y’know, just in case there was an opening somewhere you could apply for it!  Nevermind that they’d hire a French major or a Japanese major for those positions.  There isn’t a Pharma corp on the planet who would be willing to hire someone who majored in “Science” over a candidate who majored in Chemistry, specifically with a Biochemical emphasis.

Why, then, do these video-game schools have kids show up with demo reels that have animation, rotating character models, and environment models on them?  (Hint, they failed the second category above).  But it’s not just art; I see it in the design programs, too.  I have no doubt that programming sees its fair share of this “generalist” attitude as well.  To be fair, you do need to do some dabbling in a bunch of different areas of your program before settling down on the path you know you want (I changed my major twice when I was in school), but you need to make sure your program (and therefore your portfolio) is focused like a laser on the specific job position you seek when you graduate.

Sophomore Portfolio/Progress Reviews.

I recently attended a Senior Portfolio Review as an industry guest reviewer, and I was a bit appalled.  Out of 30 or so candidates who were going to be graduating that year, only two of them were hire-able based off of their current reels (and really, a projection of what their current reels would look like in a few months).  I got the overwhelming feeling that 28 people in that room had just wasted an inordinate amount of money and the last four years of their life.  As a professional, I can easily identify where their program is lacking, and what needs to be done to fix it, but as an incoming Freshman, chances are you can’t.  However, here’s how you tell if they’re serious about giving you a good education:  Ask if they do a Sophomore Portfolio Review.  My University did.  I had no idea at the time why this was important, but time and experience has shown me the light.  Schools that are willing to evaluate their students at the end of their 2nd year, and kick them out of the program if they’re not cutting it are more concerned about their reputation as a school than they are about taking your money.  And that is a school you want to go to, because they want you to be a successful representative of their program, or they want you out of their program before you waste anymore of their time (and reputation).  In the end, that is the most successful way they can attract more students; by being the school that doesn’t just hand out diplomas.  They release successful professionals into the wilds of the real world.

What you don’t want to do is wind up attending a school that is only interested in taking your money for the next four years, and won’t do anything to get in the way of that happening.  You want a school that’s going to care for your education as if you’re an ambassador for their product.  If you get the feeling like you’re just a cash cow, walk away.

The bottom line here is that if you’re not satisfied with any of these school criteria, please go somewhere else.  Even if it means going out of state and spending a bit more money.  The worst thing you can do is go into debt and get a worthless degree from a school because it’s conveniently located.  The gaming job market just got a lot more competitive in the past three months for entry and low level positions (and even the senior and top level positions).  The least you can do is make sure you’re attending the right school.  Ask about all of the criteria on this list, and then see how flabbergasted they are.

If they don’t rebuff your questions, give them a shot.

Gizmodo’s reporting a bunch of old Apple products that never saw the light of day, and, uh, this one in particular was kinda…familiar.

It even has what looks like a map on the face of it.  I wonder if it tells you what your weapon loadout is or how many stimpacks you’ve got left?  Or if it can get Enclave Radio.