Reality Panic

So frustrating. So overwhelming. There’s just too many states/countries gunning for the game industry. How can so many people be so clueless about an industry, a form of culture/entertainment?

The inclusion of drugs in NARC has gotten some extra attention from the politicos. What they don’t bother to realize is that NARC kinda sucks (nevermind the fact that it actually includes a strong anti-drug message). In the end, the market and consumers’ dollars are the ultimate censors. I doubt many studios will be pursuing NARC-like games in the near-future.

Further, providing parents with actual tools to assist in monitoring/controlling their kids’ game playing habits seems like a better approach than outright government intervention and legislation (where they decide what’s good and bad). Like, since when are politicians the golden standard of good morals ;)

Finally, it boggles my mind to see Sony cave in to threats from Bangladesh. We are fighting so hard to protect the creative freedoms of developers and then they go and agree to remove references that the Bangladesh gov “doesn’t like”. That was an odd/surprising move, and I suspect Sony’s just using it as a good excuse to the delay the release of the game…

Would be nice if publishers didn’t so readily squander developers’ creative rights so quickly.

Humorous aside: Here’s a quote from a recent episode of King of the Hill:

“The boy’s got no fight in him. I don’t get it. He spends five hours a day playing violent video games. What’s the point if they don’t have any effect on him?”

CMP just sent around the session/speaker scores for GDC. The QoL Summit got an overall score of 4.5 (on 5), which is very good for a day-long session.

They also provide a big, unedited chunk of text from transcribing any notes made on the review sheets. I’ve pasted the notes text chunk below - overall good stuff.

(On a personal note, I was pretty happy until I read the last line. Sigh :(

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Jason did a fantastic job coordinating this exceeded hopes and expectations. McConnell - Missed the Talk Room was too light to see slides clearly It’s about time that this tpic was addressed in the game software industry. Even in the software (non-game) industry, it is very new, but surely neded. So, it is even more relevant to the game industry, where quality of life / overrated issuse are greatly effected by the creative aspects (visual arts, game design, audio, etc.), as well, and where crunch & ovetime are the norm. Great ideas! pls. give us more!!! This was an awesome tutorial!! caseblasts were to big, self-serving, unfocused & unstructured. should have stuck to emplate, even though there was only a few takers -> Q&A would have filled up the extra time Steave McConnell’s talle seemed like a bit of a cut & paste - shoehorned into the QoL topic, without many solid connections made. Panelists should really have been present for the whole summit, so issues raised could have been discussed. Union presentation seemed more like a union recruitment than an infomrative presentation. Panel was an excellent closing component. Jason did a good job of organising and moderating the session. The panelists, though long-winded, provided a lot of good information. David Perry rocks! Good discussion of an under-respresented issue. Good job!! The case beasts were excellent! The three case blasts were the most useful. Have this summit again next year! Gina Geoff was too prounion for someone saying unions wouldnt be the best for us. Jason spent too much time interjecting his own opinions or seemingly scowling when he wasnt talking or didnt agree with what the speaker was saying, even though he was often in the lisght in front of everyone. Jason needs to SHUT UP when he’s a moderator about his opinions especially when he’s not even an actual developer!
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Hmmm, I wonder if one of the panelists snuck that in there. They were out of control ;)

OK, so I’ve made the commitment to play Jade Empire. Despite my long time passion for RPGs, work/family life has just not allowed for the usual time and dedication to play the genre. But, given the fact that I was able to “sneak in” almost 50 hours to finish Burnout, I figured I could do the same for BioWare’s masterpiece.

While I am only a few hours in (just killed off Goa and got back to the school in ruins), I am enjoying the game very much. The combat system is a bit tricky to master, especially when there are a lot of enemies to fight at once. But, it does give you the feel of playing Soul Calibur in the middle of an RPG ;) My one gripe is all the talking/reading, standard for games of this scope, but tedious when you’re trying to sneak in an hour of play late at night…

Looking back, it is truly amazing how far BioWare has come. I’ve known Ray and Greg for nearly a decade and recall the day when I got news of their work on Baldur’s Gate. I was working at Matrox back then, and we helped fix some sprite transparency issues with the tiling engine: it was a little knoll with a bright pink background color-key… Ah, the good old days…

Midway techy Steve Anichini passed along a great book recommendation: Savage Pastimes - A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment.

I ran out to pick it up the same day and ripped through it. The first thing that struck me was that the author normally writes about serial killers. Hmm. But, in short, the book does an excellent job of dispelling the common myth that today’s media/entertainment is more violent or perverse than years past. In fact, many of the chapters are dedicated to giving out tons of examples (like how public hangings was considered good wholesome family entertainment until late 1800’s).

The book also covers the usual topics of desensitization, government censorship, theories of aggression, media effects, etc, etc. Overall a great book that is quick to read and informative. There’s much more in-depth coverage of Savage Pastimes at Salon.

On a related note, it is nice to see a more balanced/informed view on issues of violence and censorship showing up in mainstream media. Heck a piece in the Hollywood Reporter goes as far to say that games are held to a higher standard - what would fly in movies has to be cut/reworked in games. As noted in the article, we constantly hear from developers complaining about how the ESRB is so strict, etc.

What many fail to realize outside of the industry is that games are create by “real people”. We are good citizens, pay our taxes, have pets/kids and the like. On the whole, this is a topic many developers thoughtfully discuss. We’re not just coding drones driven by corporate puppet-masters.

Hmm, ok, well, we at least pay our taxes.

I’ve been going to E3 for almost the past decade. Like most folks in the industry, I have a love/hate relationship with the show… I hate the noise, the hype, the inability to really evaluate the games, the immature reliance on booth babes, the seemingly wastefulness of money that could have gone into game development, etc, etc. I love the concentration of it all, the schmoozing and networking, and seeing all the media attention (good and bad), the parties, etc, etc.

With this year’s E3 fast approaching, it was interesting to see the discussion of E3’s value and relevance over at GameDaily. While I tend to agree with most of what’s being said, the response by ESA president, Doug Lowenstein rings most true.

In defending E3, Doug pointed out two important aspects: 1) E3 brings a whole ton of media attention on games and the game business, and 2) Proceeds from E3 (and all of its extravagance) flow back into the industry via the work of the ESA (eg, anti-censorship, anti-piracy, etc). Taking that more holistic point of view, I’d say that E3 is extremely important to the industry.

Admittedly, as director of the IGDA, I am quite jealous: GDC is owned and operated by CMP (a multi-billion dollar for-profit media conglomerate) which counts ever penny toward its profit-margin. Don’t get me wrong, GDC is great and we work closely with CMP, it is just too bad that the same “funneling” doesn’t occur…

(Since we’re on the topic of E3, two related notes: the IGDA will be hosting its second annual members-only party on the eve of the expo, and I’ll be running an exciting “workshop” tackling the creation of original IP.)

Someone passed along a very interesting article on how France will likely change its regulated 35-hour workweek back up to 39 hours (wow, wouldn’t only being “allowed” to work 39 hours be nice ;)

First of all, the fact that they have a mandated workweek is special, but more significant is that the article notes that “French workers remain among the most productive in the world, ahead of Britain, Germany, the United States and Japan”! But, the perception is that the French are lazy and don’t want to work…

While I can appreciate that there is a lot to this issue, I am guessing that because folks are at work for such a limited amount of time (and they get plenty of time to have a life), that they work freaking hard while they are on the clock. Compared to a recent recounting of how most game developers putz around much of the day, it is a wonder why we have work/life balance issues.

To all the idiots out there: wake up to the fact that extended crunch doesn’t work and that you are missing out on HUGE financial/quality gains by running production poorly. And, stop deceiving yourself - admitting you have a problem is the first step.

Total hours worked is not a meaningful metric for success.