Reflections on a Gaming Semester

I'm a Video Game Production major at NYU. I'm sure that confuses some people, since NYU just announced they will have video game majors starting NEXT year. At my school in Gallatin we get to create our own concentrations, and mine is in Video Game Production. I guess that means I'm slightly ahead of the curve? What's nice though is that NYU is starting a masters program in gaming in Fall 2010, which is the semester right after I graduate. If I pull the right strings I might have a way into that, unless, of course, I find an good-paying job out of undergrad. Eh, whatevs.


Being that I'm a junior, my academic career is flying full throttle. I took four classes this semester. Digital New Media, Game Production, Culture as Communication and Hackers: Culture and Politics. All four of these classes blended together extremely well, and I felt that each discussion in these classes were extensions of a previous conversation I had in different class but with a different spin on it.

The first example of this happening was when I talked about Jorge Luis Borges and the Garden of Forking Paths. I had to read that short story for both my Digital New Media class and my Game Production class. In game production we looked specifically at the labyrinth the main character walks through in order to find the person he needed to kill. We took that winding labyrinth idea and made our own 3D models of of a labyrinth. Hence the Lego Labyrinth post I made earlier.


In Digital New Media, we took Borges' story and analyzed it terms of hypertext. By killing a prominent person who was also the name of a city, Borges showed a hidden meaning embedded with his the actions of his character. The idea of hypertext also blended into other topics in Digital New Media, the obvious one being how we use hyperlinks to continue a line of thought or a narrative.

I thought it was neat that my classes complimented each other in little bits early in the semester. By the end of the semester though, everything I was doing was becoming part of one big wheel, and content was getting recycled with different lenses in different classes. I remember watching McLuhan's Wake in Digital New Media while reading McLuhan's Understanding Media in my Culture as Communication class. McLuhan's Wake was a film produced by Marshall McLuhan's son that took McLuhan's ideas of the "medium is the message" and "hot and cold media," along with many others and used them in a film format.

For those who don't know, McLuhan is one of the pioneers of new media studies. I recently wrote a paper on how McLuhan would probably look at the interpersonal relationships between people while they play video games. You can read that paper through this link.


I also read Henry Jenkins' Convergence Culture and I took one his ideas--Trans-Media Storytelling--and decided to do a final project for my Digital New Media class with Jenkins in mind. The concept behind Trans-Media Storytelling is that current media have the ability to take one storyline and extend it over different mediums. For example, The Matrix is a three part movie series. However, the story is also extended in the Animatrix anime series and in the Matrix Online game.

For my take on his theory I made a Little Big Planet level that focused more on a narrative, while still having quite a bit of gameplay. I recorded the level with voice acting and made it into a video on YouTube. The video is also posted on this site, right before this post. The Little Big Planet level is just one step in a trans-media storytelling format. By making a video, I move the game into another medium, and since I made the level copyable, someone could take my design, improve upon it, or even continue the story.


The Little Big Planet level isn't the only project I was working on this semester as well. For my Game Production class, I had to create a game using programs such as Autodesk Maya and Virtools, which both focus on making 3D environments. After much deliberation and tons of time spent learning the software, I was able to create (fairly) working demo and a level design document that lays out the goals of the game, the inspiration and a timeline of various models. I have a screenshot of what the game looks like below (called Clockwork), and you may notice that the level design was inspired by the Lego Labyrinth.


I do plan on finishing the game, at least just the first level. I plan on having it out before the end of December and it will posted on this site first. Shawn was awesome enough to record some music for the game, and he linked to you it in his most recent, and first, post on this blog.

The story for Clockwork is pretty straight forward. You're a worker inside of a gigantic clock constantly being watched over by what looks to be drones. Your character decides that he can't take it anymore and decides to leave his post working on the gears. In order to escape from the clock, you need to solve a series of puzzles to unlock the path to the exit. And being that you're in a place filled with gears, many of the walls and floors turn, which add to the puzzle frenzy.

This whole story is explained without words, mostly because gamers playing a puzzle-action game probably don't want to read story. Instead, the above passage is explained just through animation. A video game narrative doesn't need words to be effective, at least, in my opinion. Why is this the case? Sherry Turkle, a writer I mentioned in a previous post gives her view on the subject. Turkle suggests that gamers care less about narrative in games because the interactivity of a game already allows them to create their own story, even if they are trapped in a highly rule-based world.Even though Turkle made those observations in the 1980's, some of her perceptions still hold true today.

I actually learned a lot about video game history this semester, though that knowledge surprisingly came from my Hackers: Culture and Politics course. I didn't know that the makers of the Atari 2600 were a bunch of hackers, and I also found out where the 2600 came from. I wrote a whole history about the 2600 on Will and Beyond, so check it out if you want to find out more.


I think the most important thing I learned this semester relating to video game production is that in order to create something successful, you have to look at it from an interdisciplinary point of view. Gameplay isn't the most important thing, as I always have said in the past. The look and feel of a game, the story, the music, the entire development team; they all need to work together.

Games aren't all about the content either. McLuhan taught me to look at the interactions outside of the content and Jenkins showed me that video games aren't a closed medium; they seep into almost all of the other media that we have. And while games should be focused on making gamers happy, games are so integrated into our culture that they affect the growth of business, music, film, and ourselves. To ignore the appeal of games to any person would be taking a very narrow mindset.

Next semester will be interesting as well. I'm taking a class on game art, another in advanced photoshop, a class about evil characters in stories, a class on reading and theorizing film and my internship with Illclan, an animation company that produces Machinima.

Video Gaming with McLuhan

I wrote this paper for my Culture as Communication class. The essay looks at McLuhan's theories on media, and sees how well his theories would apply to video games. Since McLuhan always pushed the "medium is the message" idea, I analyze the interactions between people as they play video games, while under a McLuhan lens. Being that the paper is academic, read only if you're looking for something fairly intelligent sounding.
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Video Gaming with McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan introduced a revolutionary idea to media studies. Instead of examining the new content in the media, McLuhan looked at the interpersonal relationships forming because of the new medium. He was more concerned with the human interaction than with the subject itself. I only wish that McLuhan would have been alive to study and remark on the environments that current video games create. There have been hundreds of studies that look at the effects of violent video games, but few have looked at the interpersonal relationships that form around this new medium.

A common misconception of video gamers is that they become glued to the action on the screen and do not interact with the players around them. Yet, whenever I host a video game club event in NYU, the room is loud not because of the television, but because of the people interacting (more like yelling) with one another. As play occurs, the people become more in tune with their characters or avatars and as their characters win or lose, they mimic the feeling of joy or despair in the real world.

Mocking, cheering, gloating, cursing and anger are just some of the emotions expressed in the multiplayer experience that exists out of the gaming world. For “play,” whether in life or in a wheel, implies interplay. There must be give and take, or dialogue, as between two or more persons or groups” (McLuhan, 240-241). The discussions outside of the game are particularly odd because a game allows the parties involved to be cruder. Calling someone a loser or a n00b is mean but, a gamer has no choice but to accept the insult, and retort with an even better insult. In addition, the better your rhetoric is, the more you will impress your opponent and you will bond closer together both inside and outside the gaming environment.

Why does this happen? Multiplayer gaming is a forced competitive environment and since you are battling in a virtual world, it only seems natural to extrapolate the virtual competition into the real world, and have a competition in rhetoric. And when you eventually win a battle—especially in something like a fighting game where there is a clear cut winner—the jubilation of the character animation and the player may often times be one of the same. “Games, like institutions, are extensions of social man” (McLuhan, 235). Though we may not be battling with swords in the real world unlike our virtual counterparts, we find other ways to compete.


The need for competition in both the virtual and real world may be brought further to light by McLuhan’s theories about hot and cold media. Simply put, hot media is any medium that is high in data but low in participation, while cold media is low in the amount of information but high in participation (McLuhan, 23). Video games seem to break from this mold as they are both high in participation and in data. The user playing a video game is being inundated with visuals and sound while inputting commands on a controller and potentially conversing with his or her neighbor. Participation, in this case is both mental and physical.

The visual and sound power of a movie, on the other hand, is such an overload of data that the watcher is forced to be quiet and process all that is happening within the screen, making it clearly a hot medium. Video games have a similar level of focus since each player looks closely at how the character is interacting with the environment when he or she inputs commands. However, since the inputting of commands forces us to participate in order to enjoy the medium, we naturally participate in the real world as well.

Another reason why we might be more prone to talking in real life while playing video games is that we have a closer tie with the character than that of movie characters. We control the movements and actions of the avatar but the technology is not advanced enough yet that we can control their speech and make it our own. It is possible that since we control the character in some elements, we feel the urge to speak so that we can further complete our connection to the avatar and make the gaming experience a closer match for the extensions of ourselves.


Video games force the user to multitask since there is interaction with a visual object. Since we have the senses of sight and touch covered, the hot media environment we live in may force us to connect with the gaming experience orally as well. Instead of cutting our minds off from an oral interaction, we may feel compelled to discuss while gaming so that we do not overload one of our stimuli. This idea slightly differs from McLuhan who suggests that our bodies self-amputate in hot media situations. “The function of the body, as a group of sustaining and protective organs for the central nervous system, is to act as buffers against sudden variations of stimulus in the physical and social environment” (McLuhan, 43).

It’s hard to argue that we, living in New York City, do not live a hot media society. The internet is loaded with information that we can access at any time now, thanks to the availability of cell phones and laptops. However, instead of blocking ourselves off from the stimulus, we engage with it. The want to know information is very much a gaming quality since it is akin to exploration. The fact that we can handle all the information and play with it might show that we are attempting to cool down our environment in order to make use of all of our senses.


With video games the environment seems to protect its users from self-amputation. You are aware that the player sitting next to you is engaged in the same competition experiencing similar emotions to you while participating in the content. The urge to share your feelings is strong, just as it is when watching a movie with a friend. However, the difference is that since you are changing the content, you feel more ownership to the experience and have no qualms discussing the experience mid-gameplay.

Gamers are a social bunch when partaking in a multiplayer experience. The interactions may be a product of the “warm” medium that it is, since video games are filled with data and participation. Regardless, McLuhan may have made some changes to his theories based on the relationships that form with video gaming. Hot and cold media might have to be re-evaluated and the self-amputation concept might have to be entirely remodeled since video gamers seem to counteract that belief. Since McLuhan never witnessed digital play on something of this magnitude, I am sure our society would influence the development of his theories.
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The book referenced in this essay is McLuhan's Understanding Media.

Feel free to debate my ideas expressed in this paper. I'm sure there are some holes in my argument that people can address.

Play Money, Virtual Worlds and Ludocapitalism

Don't run away just cause you saw the word "capitalism" in the blog post title. This post is about gold farming in online games like World of Warcraft, Ultima Online, Second Life, etc. I recently read this book called Play Money by Julian Dibbell and went to a lecture he had at NYU. Dibbell has an interesting story to tell: he was a gold farmer who made made thousands selling virtual gold and items on eBay. If he had gold farmed full-time and quit his writing job, he would have made more than enough money to support himself and his family; all while working at home playing games.

Below is a response paper I just finished writing for my "Hacker Culture and Politics" course relating to Dibbell's book, ludocapitalism (don't worry, I explain it), and the pleasures of work as play. It's definitely academic, but you should enjoy it.
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Julian Dibbell’s brief venture to gold farming in virtual worlds may have caused him to discover what may be the driving force of capitalist economies in the 21st century: Play. Ludocapitalism, as Dibbell puts it, is a belief that looks at the labor experience as a game and it could drive economies both virtual and real. This concept works because some theorists, as writer Martha C. Nussbaum highlights, believe that play and pleasures are the never-ending goals of human existence.


By the second half of Dibbell’s book, Play Money, Dibbell is deep into adventuring in Ultima Online (UO), a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), and he is raking hundreds of dollars each week buying and selling virtual goods. Instead of killing enemies and participating in traditional quests, Dibbell has decided to play game within the game world of UO, becoming a trader who sells items and gold within the game and on auctioning sites like eBay.

The goal of the Play Money project was to make more money gold farming than Dibbell has even made in a year as writer. Though he just barely failed in that goal in the end, Dibbell does admit that selling virtual goods is a viable form of living; “a $47,000 income wouldn’t have topped my best year writing, no—but on the other hand, to be honest, it would have topped all the other years” (Dibbell, 292). Since gold farming is productive then, virtual world trading is one of the first steps in actively pursuing a ludocapitalist economy.

At the lecture Dibbell gave at NYU, Dibbell makes a strong argument as to how work as play can be productive, and fun. Dibbell said that he visited a “Chinese gold farming sweatshop” in which tens of workers played World of Warcraft (WoW, another MMORPG) for 12 hours a day, seven days a week as their regular job. Despite constantly doing the same tasks over and over again, even when these workers received their break, they played their personal accounts on World of Warcraft and discussed how they could improve on their characters. The physical social environment of the sweatshop still made the game fun—despite the tedious tasks—since they were playing a game.


While working, many of these gold farmers stare at trading markets all day, buying low and selling high. Some of them run around in virtual cave, mining ore and creating swords with some simple keystrokes and clicks. The monotony seems similar to that of a cubicle job, checking for typos on documents and creating cover sheets for business plans. Yet, online players feel a sense of pleasure in their work; why is this?

One answer may be because games like World of Warcraft are encouraging in their nature. When you successfully mine, you may get a message saying your mining skill increased, which is rewarding and self-encouraging. The game is constantly telling you how you are improving, while most desk jobs do not. The social environment is also satisfying. Julian Dibbell made tons of friends in his UO community, from Bob to Rich and the 17-year-old Radny. He didn’t even want to be social but the game and his trading business pushed him in that direction and he seemed to enjoy the interaction throughout his book.

Since the game (and the in-game community) in constantly being supportive, there is a sense of pleasure and satisfaction even when doing work. Ludocapitalism then, works even from a production perspective. “The goal of right action is to maximize pleasure, understood as a sensation. That is the only good thing there is in the world” (Nussbaum). The bonus with gold farming is that the maximization of pleasure is also useful to the economy.

However, the birth of virtual world economies raises some troublesome questions. Since gold can be exchanged for physical dollars, virtual gold has become its own currency. And since every item in virtual world games then have a real cost, do online game players have to report their earnings to the IRS, even for something as simple as skinning in-game leather and selling it? If I were to find a rare sword and sell it, either in-game or on eBay, should I be taxed by the IRS for my trade?


As of now, the IRS is reluctant to get involved in taxing virtual worlds since they don’t know exactly how to handle it. It would be difficult for game companies to release a quarterly report of all barters within their game and then expect its players, which may include 4-year olds, to be taxed. However, what is stopping companies from converting all their assets into Linden (the currency in Second Life, another online virtual world) and then avoiding taxation on their company? The SEC, IRS and the game companies are all going to affect how virtual loot is treated from a socio-economic standpoint and if taken care of correctly, ludocapitalism can become a breakthrough for economic theory.
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I also wrote an entry in Will's blog about gold-farming about how one study suggests that gold farming could be used to help provoke development in third-world countries. You can check that out if you want to add another layer to the discussion of virtual world trading for real economic gain.

If you have any interest in virtual worlds or online games I highly suggest reading Play Money. It's a super-quick read, very informative, and it's genuinely hilarious. That's saying a lot also, since people who know me know I don't like reading. However, I do have questions for you, if you've read this far. Do you think ludocapitalism can work as an economic model? Can games be a viable future for production?

Can a computer think?

As far as I know, computers can only be as smart as humans make them. We can program them to "think," as we have when creating a super computer that can beat the best of chess players. However, if you ask a chess playing programmed computer to do math, it will be unable to compute it if it does not have the right software.

Even computer AI characters don't think in the common sense. They are programmed to do certain actions under certain situations. By no means is this reason; it's all in the code. The code however can mimic thinking so that from the user's perspective, it looks as though the AI character is thinking.


Why is this important? Well, considering that I'm making a game (based off the lego labyrinth), I will eventually have to create AI characters. Luckily, I'm using a program called Virtools that allows me to use various scripts to create characters, so I don't need to code from scratch (I only know basic Java, HTML, and a little bit of C++).

Simulating human thinking can be tricky though since no human is ever completely correct. Sometimes, even the best thinkers make mistakes. However, what level of mistakes is considered human-like? Make a computer character do too many mistakes and the player will think the AI is flawed. Make a character be too smart and the game will become impossible. I guess the only way I'll be able to find the balance is by simple trial and error, which is also time consuming.

Gah, too much thinking, I'm only human.

Microcosmos and Borges

I saw this AMAZING movie in class the other day called Microcosmos. This French film is unlike anything I have seen before. All of the video taken for this film was done by a tiny robotic camera that watched the lives of insects for two years. The camera is all cracked out with HD equipment too; every movement looks so crisp and beautiful. Check out the trailer first.



Upon seeing this movie, I realized that bugs lead such interesting lives on the ground and that they feature a surprising number of human characteristics. The bugs fight, work together, and even lust each other from time to time. They have their own little world that we just never see.

I immediately thought how awesome of a video game this setting would make. Imagine taking the first-person view of a bug interacting in an insect world filled with creatures all doing various things. There would be no need for verbal communication between the bugs, just expressions and actions. Exploring the micro-world as a walking insect and flying insect would be an amazing game to play and watch.

I also found this clip on YouTube that I just had to share. Be warned though, this particular insect will make you think he is cute.



I don't know how this camera didn't disturb the insects but, I'm glad it didn't, because the images in this film are beautiful.
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The second movie I saw in class was a documentary on Jorge Luis Borges. I talked about Borges briefly in a previous post. Borges is a famous novella writer who helped define what makes a "hypertext" novel which, simply put, is a novel that can be read multiple ways and be connected to multiple tangents.

The video below isn't from the documentary I saw but you can get a sense of what "hypertext" means by watching how this animator combined images to convey connectivity. The music is also deeply tied with the video.



Borges himself is a very strange man. He was strange not only because of his writing style but because he thought like a video gamer before there were video games. (The Garden of Forking Paths, his most famous labyrinth story, was written in 1941). Borges said in the documentary that when he's writing a story, he knows the starting point and the goal; the rest, he said, you have to invent. Gamers are often presented with the same scenario. You're introduced a character and you're told that you have to save the princess. The rest is made up by jumping over goombas (possibly in a big green shoe) or by going into pipes.

Borges also didn't enjoy writing long passages. He liked short stories so that he could get to the point. Borges liked the constant action in his pieces, much like video gamers expect when playing games.

If Borges were still alive today, I'd bet you he have some awesome ideas for labyrinth design.

New Media, Web Serials, and the Internet

Being that it's the beginning of the school year, almost every class has proposed the same question: What is x? How can we define x? Replace x with either hacking, game production, digital new media, or communication and you have all of the classes I'm currently taking at NYU.

For one class, Digital New Media, the reader proposes not one but, eight propositions as to how new media can be defined. One of them was "new media as the mix between existing cultural conventions and the conventions of software." It's a very convoluted definition but I guess it works, kind of. My immediate thought upon seeing this definition was that video games and computer games don't fall into this category. However, the reader covered his tracks on that one.


"Computer games are one of the few cultural forms "native" to computers; they began as singular computer programs (before turning into a complex multimedia producitons which they are today)--rather than being already established medium (such as cinema) which is now slowly undergoing computerization."

I'm still confused about this definition though. Does this mean that video games are a type of media? Sure headsets and online communities have created a method of communication for gamers but are old games like Spacewar a form of media? I always thought media involved some sort of communication sharing, which doesn't happen in video games unless you count the interaction with the software or the interaction between players. I think maybe the term "media" has been broadened a little too much. I like it though, gives me an excuse to talk about video games in class.


Not everything in Digital New Media can be related to games though. Which, I GUESS is ok. Another piece I had to read was on Web Serials. Web Serials are essentially online television shows that aren't restricted to the standards of television. The Guild, Ask a Ninja and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog all count as Web Serials. I never find out about these things until months afterwards they were popular mostly because I don't care enough to be committed to them. I love the Indie nature of these shows but honestly, I'd much rather play video games or watch Sportscenter.

Their popularity online is uncanny though. An article I had to read for class kept mentioning a web serial called lonelygirl15, which was essentially a pretty girl with a webcam. Seriously, I don't understand how such boring things get to become so viral. Lonelygirl15 had a massively long life too, spanning episodes for over two years. I understand that the quick-hit nature is part of the draw but over 2,500,000 hits for a girl with a webcam? Come on. At least The Guild had good writing.

Speaking of Web Serials, there's a new one coming out via MTV called The Engine Room. Did you hear about it? Probably not since it's ANOTHER Reality TV show from MTV. I only heard of it because of my professor. This shows pits college students broken up into four teams to see who can produce the best digital art. It's an interesting concept but I have a sneaking suspecion that MTV will somehow ruin it, possibly by trying to turn it into another Real World.

Thankfully, the episodes will only be about five to seven minutes in length, meaning MTV won't have much time to get into the personalities of the students, which will hopefully cause them to focus on the digital work. The prize is pretty neat too. The winning team gets $400,000 and they get to control the big MTV screen in Times Square for one night. I can't think of a better way to show off your digital art talent. I don't plan on watching the show; I would like to see the final project and what they do at Times Square though.


Lastly, we watched a video in class that showed the history of the internet up to about 1999. I didn't retain a lot of the information but it was interesting to see how many people genuinely worked together just to make a fast-moving communication system.

What I found especially funny was that, for the most part, telephone companies didn't see the birth of computers and the internet as helpful or threatening. If I was a business owner and I heard someone is making a product that could potentially be faster and better than mine, I'd be pretty concerned, even if I didn't understand it. Anyone in the field of tehcnology has to both fear and embrace new technologies. Who knows what will be the next standard? Something will eventually eclipse the internet; we just need to keep our eyes open.

Bingo and Ryan

I saw two computer animations in my Digital New Media class that really blew my mind the other day. The first I saw was a animated short called Bingo. The animation was actually based off a skit that the Neo-Futurists did in Chicago, which I thought was very odd since the Neo-futurists are very um... off-beat. I've seen them both in Chicago and New York and if you're ever in one of those cities you REALLY should check them out; they are a lot of fun. They attempt to do 30 original plays (more like skits) in 60 minutes. It's awesome.

Bingo, an animation made by Chris Landreth, takes the skit and beautifully animates it, really capturing the strangeness of Bingo the clown, and the Neo-futurist attitude of being deep and whacky at the same time. I'm not an animator but, one has to marvel at the level of detail in the character's faces. The characters look and act so real (even though it's clearly fantasy). One look at this video and there can be no doubt that digital animation can be art.



If you thought the above video was crazy, wait until you see the next one called Ryan, also made by Chris Landreth. Ryan is another off-center animation piece that looks back on the life of a famous digital new media artist named Ryan Larkin. Ryan Larkin was most known for making an animated short called Walking, which is briefly shown in Ryan. Ryan Larkin was influential in making digital art an accepted art form, and once you see the video biography, you'll see why.

Ryan isn't a straight up documentry however. Landreth himself is a fantastic animator and he animates his conversations with Ryan, which if heard alone without the animation, would be pretty intense. The deterioration of their faces though, covered with other digital animation is not only creative, it's trippy. Ryan's story admittedly is sad since he fell to drug and alcohol abuse and passed away pretty recently in 2007. However, the success of Ryan has kept his legacy alive and now tons of people are aware of his outstanding work. Ryan is shown below.



Most of the poeple who read this blog are gamers. And as a gamer, I have a question for you. Would you like to see this style of animation in your video games? Graphically, it may be hard to render but one has to consider how beautiful an adventure game would be in a Landreth style.

Eliza, Computer Therapist

Remember that post I made about The Guild? That post was actually a requirement for my Digital New Media class in NYU. I will be making more posts for that class on my blog and since my focus is on gaming (both in the class and for this blog), most of the posts relating to Digital New Media will at least touch upon gaming.

I just finished reading what I was required to read in the New Media Reader and I found something found interesting early on in the reading. Programmer Joseph Weisenbaum made a computer program that would act as a computer therapist named Eliza. Eliza is purely a text-orientated conversation but, for a program that was made in 1960, the responses are pretty involved.


I found Eliza online and decided I would try having a converstaion with her. Here's a brief part of how our conversation went down:

> Say, do you have any psychological problems?
* yeah. i'm angry at you
> Do you believe it is normal to be angry at me?
* no, because you're a computer program
> Why no?
* because you're not a real person!
> Perhaps you would like to be not a real person?
* woah, now that's deep, I didn't know you were a philosopher too.

Eliza actually doesn't have any AI. She works off substituted strings and giving set responses to key words. Oddly enough though, in the 60's, some people mistook her for a real person. Chat windows like we know them today did not exist in the 60's, so the possibility of a computer talking to you was still far-fetched.

If you try talking to Eliza, it becomes clear within the first few minutes of dialogue that she is not real. We only know this though because most of us have experienced bots on AIM. WillandBeyond blogged about one of them recently. Our brains have become "wired" to catch formulaic speaking patterns online, so much so that almost no one in our generation would believe that Eliza is real. This doesn't mean we're necessarily a "smarter" generation; our brains just function and think differently because of the digital world.

Eliza is a little bit of a game in a sense that she creates an environment in which humans can interact with the software. The program isn't simply doing a service for you, like a calculator; it's reacting to human input in order to create engagement. Other text games like Colossal Cave Adventure may have been more fun, but Eliza too is a game.

Click here if you want to talk to the therapist Eliza as well. She's nice, don't worry.

Photo: [1]

Sharing Video Game Manuals

A site called Replacementdocs.com offers an interesting service related to video games. People can upload images of their video game manuals and then anyone can download them. Apparently, a lot of people have submitted to this site as they have a wide variety of game manuals, including ones from recent games or manuals for the Atari 2600.

Old video game manuals are often a lot of fun as you get to see artist’s renderings of 8-bit characters. Some of them even provide useful information, maybe providing maps or point values for certain enemies. A lot of people, including myself, just throw out the manual and pop in the game as soon as they get it. Hence, replacementdocs seems like a really wonderful and helpful service.

Photo Source

However, this site is far from being legal, as it’s allowing access to copyrighted material. What replacementdocs does is no different from any average Joe scanning a novel in its entirety and then placing it on the internet for people to download. The person who has copyright on that material loses out on possible revenue they could gain from selling that book.

The majority of manuals on replacementdocs are out-of-print and even if you have an old game, I highly doubt you can call Nintendo (or Atari) and ask for a replacement manual, which makes replacementdocs helpful. However, copyright law as I know it (hell, I don’t know much about law) covers the author of the work up to seventy years past their death, which means that all video games and all products made with the video game (i.e. manuals) are still covered for a long time. Therefore, all of the manuals on replacementdocs are going against copyright law.

Sure, this is illegal, but I doubt many companies will do anything about it. Just because replacementdocs is performing an illegal act does not mean that the publishers of the video game will sue. Actually, this illegal act may be beneficial for the company as it will put there name out there to the public more easily. This, in turn, could lead to people being interested in the game (or other games in the series) just by seeing the manual. Video game publishers are always looking to put their names out there so that they can gain more revenue. Upon seeing a site like replacementdocs, these companies probably did a cost-benefit analysis and thought that this service is beneficial, especially since it didn’t cost them any money to host the site or upload the manuals.

This same logic could probably be applied to sites that host illegal ROMs to download. Older games are not being produced anymore, so putting them out free to download might actually help the company keep interest among new consumers. This being said, Table Salt does not condone downloading questionable content. If you have interest in a game (or manual), rent it or buy it. Developers and publishers need the money in order to make more great games, so every bit helps. Also, while you can go to replacementdocs, download the manuals at your own risk.

Playing with Yourself

My dad sent me an article in which former Sony executive and current boss of Infogrames, Phil Harrison, was quoted as saying the following about single-player games:

“I don't think the industry is going to make many more of those. I just don't think consumers want to be playing games that don't have some kind of network connectivity to them, or some kind of community embedded in them, or some kind of extension available through downloadable content.

Now, that's not to criticize Alone in the Dark [Infogrames’ upcoming single-player title] - it's just to recognize the industry is changing, and the role we play as creators and publishers has to reflect those changes. I don't think I'm alone in having those views, either.”

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Harrison is hinting that he believes that single-player games are dying out as more people want multiplayer and online connectivity. I think Harrison could not be farther from the truth.

Multiplayer games, both competitive and co-op are gaining a ton of revenue right now and have been for quite awhile. Tons of people play shooters online from Halo 3, Call of Duty 4 and Team Fortress 2. World of Warcraft has over ten million players and aside from adding an expansion every couple of years, all Blizzard has to do is maintain and balance the game. Guitar Hero and Rock Band are hot commodities as well. Multiplayer gaming has really expanded out from the 4-player excitement that was the Nintendo 64.

But to think that single-player games will die out is simply ludicrous. Top-selling games are always mixed with multiplayer and single-player games. Final Fantasy, Mario, Zelda, and Metal Gear Solid are single-player games that have consistently shown, both over the past and present, that people buy and play games that focus on the single-player campaign.

There are thousands of gamers, including myself, that enjoy single-player experiences. Some in-game stories are so powerful that I feel as though I am playing in an interactive novel. To eliminate that experience and focus solely on multiplayer games would only cause the industry to negate the player expansion that they are having right now. The video game industry is expanding out to casual and multiplayer gamers from its base of core gamers; it’s building on top of itself, not changing completely.

Single-player games aren’t just solo experiences for the gamer. If you’ve ever played a Final Fantasy game or a Metal Gear Solid game, you become so invested in the story that you almost can’t help but talking about the game’s plot with another friend. Some people even enjoy watching single-player games. I love watching my roommate dominate Mega Man X and my girlfriend enjoys watching me play some RPGs especially if she can be a “techie” and look over a strategy guide while I play.

Games, whether multiplayer or not, invoke human contact and interaction and create their own community. A great single-player game doesn’t just stay with the gamer who played it. Great games are shared with a friend as the both of you go all giddy over some awesome cut scene, cool special attack or some plot twist.

Harrison is likely saying that single-player games are dying out because he would prefer it to be that way for his company. The article I linked before says it best: “Their job isn't to tell you how it ought to be in some pure philosophical space, it's to tell you how they'd prefer it to be, and it should come as no surprise that both are working like mad on major multiplayer initiatives. If multiplayer gaming were doomed, just to play devil's advocate, they'd each be out of a job, in other words.”

The video game industry needs more people who want to make great games, not just to make money. There are too many people like Harrison that just want to follow the trend and take the safe route because of what is popular. Harrison sounds as though he fears going against the grind because in this case, making a single-player game has too many risks right now. Maybe Harrison should follow the advice my political journalism professor, Kathy Engel, taught me: Creativity is the antidote for fear.

Simple Hardcore Appeasement for Nintendo

I still cannot believe how bad Nintendo’s E3 press conference was. Everyone’s conference was sub-par but, I think every gamer agrees that Nintendo was the worst of the three.

The Nintendo Wii is still coming out with great games, and I’m genuinely excited about most of the games they showed at their conference. Wii Music looks a little cheesy but the free form drums look amazing. Wii Sports Resort also looks like a lot of fun and the Wii Motion Plus looks as though it has a ton of potential.

This has been the problem with the Wii since it came out though. Everything with their system has great potential that game developers aren’t taking advantage of. Imagine the amount of fun a well-funded sword-fighting adventure game would be with the Wii Motion Plus. Or, imagine how cool it would be to have a futuristic racer *coughExtremeGcough* using both the Wii wheel and possibly the balance board to accelerate.

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But no, game developers don’t need to make games like that to appeal to the hardcore gamers. Like it or not, the casual games sell on the Wii, and they sell well. Wii Fit, Link’s Crossbow training and Big Brain Academy are just some of the examples. And since the developing costs are far less, they rake in more profit, even if the games aren’t the best-sellers of all-time. Nintendo has an excellent business strategy, as they reached an untapped market of casual gamers.

I understand that it is very hard to come out with big-budget games every year and make them successful. Luckily, Nintendo has an edge with their first-party games because if they put Mario, Link or Samus on the cover, it’s going to sell. These games don’t necessarily sell because of the characters but because they have consistently put out great products. When the next installments in those series come out, I expect to buy them as I have consistently enjoyed them.

But there’s even simpler, cheaper ways to appeal to hardcore gamers like myself.

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Make some Virtual Console games have online play. Why not make some the Virtual Console games playable online? Imagine being able to play Mario Kart 64 with anyone around the world. Or how about Street Fighter 2? Or maybe they could add a multiplayer mode to the original F-Zero and make it have online play. That would be so much fun and probably increase the amount of Virtual Console sales. The old SNES and N64 games were immensely enjoyable with my friends when I was younger and I can’t imagine that it would be that difficult to put them online. Sure, this idea is a little bit of a copout as it recycles old content, but as a hardcore gamer, I would love this.

Make downloadable characters for Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Making a balanced character might be a little bit difficult but they already made so many of them that are balanced. They would not need to fit them into the Subspace Emissary or into any events. Making a new downloadable character would not cost a lot of money and it might cause people who have stop playing the game to go back into it. First-party characters they could add with little trouble could include Isaac from Golden Sun or Samurai Goroh from F-Zero. Sure, they are already assist trophies but, does that really matter? Third-party characters like Geno or Mega Man would cost more but would also be nice.

Nintendo must have known months before E3 that they had nothing to show the hardcore gamers. These ideas could have been implemented that fast and would have been nice interludes to put in since they don’t have the next Mario, Zelda or Kid Icarus game ready to show. There are simple, cost-effective ways of appealing to the hardcore gamer. Hopefully, Nintendo didn’t forget that.

Fearing the Fat Princess

Two feminists (kinda) are speaking out against the obese portrayal of women in the upcoming PSN game, Fat Princess. In general the problem they have with the game is that part of the game mechanic is to stuff the princess you captured with cake, making her bigger and harder to bring back her original base. Fat Princess is essentially a game of capture the flag, with a fat princess being the flag.


No, I’m not kidding. Shakesville’s Melissa McEwan writes:
“I sure hope there's a clever dénouement like the Fat Princess magically becoming thin once she's rescued! 'Cuz that would rock, yo! Anyway, congrats on your awesome new game, Sony. I'm positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative assholes.”

It doesn’t stop there though. Feminist Gamers’ Mighty Ponygirl writes:
“Instead of running out into the forest to find cake to fatten up the princess with, why not go out and find gold (which is a lot heavier than cake) to stuff into a treasure chest. The more gold in the chest, the heavier it would be, and the harder it would be to carry. Oh, but that’s not as “cute” as cake and fat chicks. Right.”

Really? Why are these two people picking a fight over this game? I didn’t know that having a fat character in a video game will actually change people’s perceptions about how fat people act. Fat princess isn’t a cute game because the princess is fat. The game is cute because of the character design and because of how over the top it is. Sure, you could have gold coins go into a treasure chest and take the treasure chest, but that isn’t as crazy of an idea as stuffing a princess with cake. It’s a neat, harmless idea that shouldn’t affect anybody. Gamers won’t look down on the princess because she is fat and then look down at people in real life who are obese. It’s a game. It is over the top and the “plot” should not be taken seriously.

I highly doubt that these two writers are steadfast feminists. Good feminists fight for more righteous things like equal pay for men and women, women’s health issues and representation in governments. Good feminists know that this isn’t news. I understand that the portrayal of women as equals to men is important, but Fat Princess does not hurt perceptions. Honestly, it’s a non-issue. Everybody knows that overweight men and women exist and reasonable people know that obesity is a growing problem, especially in the United States.

In my opinion, these writers show a subtle fear of showing obese women on a television screen. The problem here is not that a game is showing a fat woman but that some people are actually upset about what a fat woman can do to the minds of the masses if seen on television. Yes, as a culture, we casually stereotype obese people as lazy and ugly. It isn’t fair or justified but we do have obesity in our culture; why should we hide it and have every video game character (male or female) be perfectly fit? The first step is not to get rid of this fat princess character but for us, as a collective populous, to be able to look at any fat person and not feel shame or pity. Don’t count on Fat Princess to be a muse for this paradigm shift in our psyches though; this game is not trying to make a political statement nor were they trying to offend anybody.

For the developers of Fat Princess; these pseudo-feminists (I hesitate putting them in the same group of women who have actually made a difference) have given the Fat Princess game more press then they could have expected. The overwhelming reaction to these bloggers’ responses to this game has been that the bloggers are taking this too far. People are defending this game and they haven’t even played it yet. For every time a writer knocks down these two female writers, they mention how cool the capture the flag style game will be.

This was probably an accident, but the developers of Fat Princess have made a game that was just controversial enough to offend some radical people, which caused people to disagree with those radical people and talk about how good Fat Princess is. Gamers, for the most part, have discredited the controversy, putting the game in the positive spotlight gaining a ton of press. I couldn’t think of a better marketing strategy myself.

Play! Write! Hurry!

An oddly honest article came out via Gamespot today. This article acknowledges that most reviewers don’t finish the games that they review. While not surprising to me, I found it satisfying that Gamespot would admit that this is an on-going practice among most reviewers. However, upon reading the article, I realize that most of the quotes were from "freelance" journalists saying that they didn’t finish games, NOT Gamespot journalists. To top it all off, there is a little disclaimer at the bottom of this article from the friendly editor.

“[Editor's Note: It is GameSpot's policy to not review a game unless the reviewer has completely finished its main storyline. For more on our review policies, practices, and experiences, check out Under Review, the GameSpot Reviews Blog.]”

Lolz. Yes, as readers were are to believe that Gamespot does no wrong, even though this article was written by a Gamespot employee. Well done Mr. Editor, well done.

For my personal take on this, I really do not care that the reviewer didn’t finish the game as long as they don’t say that they played through all of it and lied to me. I understand that making video game reviews is very competitive among different sites. However, I also understand a reviewer not admitting that he or she did not finish the game. If I consistently saw that Gamespot did not finish the games they review, I would not trust them and look elsewhere for reviews. It’s a business; I get it.

That being said, if I give a review, I’ll tell you where I am in the game if I have not beaten it yet. As a journalist, I rather be completely honest than hide the truth in order to gain more readership. I think my readers will have more trust in me as a result and respect my opinion more because of it. And just so you know, for my readers out there, I love you guys. It makes me happy to see comments.

*glee*

Fishing for comments? Me? No....