Acid for Blood

GDC 2008: Two Sessions Highlighted

There were a couple of sessions that I really enjoyed at the Game Developers Conference this year.

The first was "Game Studies Download 3.0". The Game Studies Download first appeared at GDC 2006, which was the first GDC I attended. I'm quite interested in the various fields of game studies, having dabbled in it (read: dissertation research) during my Master's degree. Bogost, Consalvo, and McGonigal delivered a fast-paced, information-rich and very interesting presentation. One of the interesting bits of research they highlighted were findings that showed that breaking immersion can actually make games more engaging. An example of this that I thought of is in Metal Gear Solid, when you're fighting Psycho Mantis and he tells you he can read your past. The game reads your memory card and if you have certain Konami games, Psycho Mantis comments on it. I personally found this bit of the game really entertaining, and though it does break the fourth wall, it was memorable and cool. If you're interested in the rest of the research top ten, check the link above.

The other session I especially enjoyed was "The BioWare Live Team: Building Community Through Technology". French gave an overview of the development of the Live Team and what technical decisions they made to support their fan community. I gleaned a lot of great insights from it, particularly since I don't work at a company that makes games. It was interesting to hear the rational behind decisions as well as what went right and wrong in the Live Team's work with Neverwinter Nights.

The rest of GDC was pretty good, though I'm not as wide-eyed and excitable as I was at GDC 2006. Could it be that I've become a jaded games industry professional? I definitely was not as keen on collecting swag as I was two years ago. In fact, I don't even know why I bothered to get the few free pens and assorted nonsense that I did come away with. Why the fuck do I need a yellow rubber duckie stamped with a company logo? I don't know, but it's a rubber duckie and I didn't have one until now!

Games Media Award Nominees for Best Non-Commercial Site All Contain Ads

The MCV Games Media Award winners are set to be revealed this October, and the finalists have just been announced. The judging panel will consist of games industry professionals. When the Game Media Awards were announced, some games journalists criticised the judging process.

Kyle Orland stated:

Journalists themselves are in a much better position to judge their peers than are the game makers and publishers that we're supposed to be covering somewhat objectively. Even if there's no chance of explicit coverage-for-votes trading, the danger of industry-picked awards is that they'll end up going only to outlets that give unquestioningly good coverage to everything. Hard hitting critiques and investigative journalism are unlikely to be rewarded by the companies that work so hard to generate positive coverage and keep secrets until they're ready to be announced.

Kotaku's Brian Crecente, a former writer for the Rocky Mountain News, believes, "The last thing game journalism needs is a closer relationship with the industry. It's already far, far too cozy."

Kieron Gillen, who has been nominated for Best Writer on a Specialist Magazine stated:

The games industry are the last people who should be voting for awards in games journalism. It's a bit like the prisoners voting for who's their favourite prison guard." Gillen said he worries that the industry voting will make the award one "you wouldn't want to win.... because it's basically shorthand for 'Lapdog of the year award.'

Anonymous game journalist blogger, RAM Raider, was equally critical of the awards, calling it "Yet another opportunity for everyone in the industry to firmly grasp the penis of the person next to them, and wank firmly" (LOL). Recently, RAM Raider pointed out another small problem: the nominations in the Specialist Media Category (Online) for Best Non-Commercial Website or Blog all contain advertising in text and/or graphical form. Displaying advertising means that you are making money or you intend to make money from displaying those adverts, right? The nominees may not necessarily be making a profit from advertising, but having advertising on a blog certainly seems to convey commercial intent.

Destructoid is one of the nominees in this category. It is one of the biggest group gaming blogs on the internet. Most of the content is written by its random community members, with varying quality, and they have a bunch of staff bloggers whose posts are highlighted on the main Destructoid page. Destructoid reports that the site receives 2.5 million visitors per month. They pride themselves on being "an independently-owned community site dedicated to gaming, written by people who love love love love love love video games and like to write about them" and criticise game journalists as "people that feel they need to hide behind their journalism degree to justify their lives". The site makes money off of its community members, without paying a cent to them, while the "company employs 36 freelancers" who likely do get a cut of advertising revenue. So Destructoid may be independent, but that doesn't mean they're non-commercial. Destructoid actively solicits advertising on their site and have a company that manages and sells their "premium" ad space inventory. Sounds commercial, right?

The other nominations in this category are relatively smaller than Destructoid, though fellow nominees UK: Resistance and Wonderland have vast numbers of readers in their own right. These blogs also prominently display advertising, though they probably manage the ads themselves . I enjoy reading both blogs, and I don't mind adverts because I can ignore them, but I do question their categorisation as "non-commercial" blogs when you've got those Google ads staring you in the face.

"Best Independently-Owned Website or Blog" may have been a better name for the category.

Ex-ArenaNet Employee Claims That Company Works with Gold Farmers

I meant to post about the PAX Guild Wars party last night, but I ended up being too tired from work (and still tired from the weekend) to concentrate on writing. Instead I just played Guild Wars and relaxed in Pre-Searing Ascalon. I'll try to write about the party tonight after work, but first...

I've been keeping an eye on this story. He (she?) chooses to remain anonymous, and there are questions as to this person's credibility in the comments to their blog post. There are some things that just don't add up, but enough content of interest to at least take a second look. This person makes some very serious accusations about ArenaNet and their ties with gold farming companies, what the person calls "GFCs":

Know that every MMO company that has a large GFC presence in their games will use this to their advantage and form an unofficial partnership to boost income. This income may not be recorded properly, or at all in financial statements. Obviously the large GFCs are much more protected than the small. Some of these connections may not even be known to higherups and seniors. We are the latter. Even if the seniors do know, they will most likely do nothing about it. It generates revenue and keeps the gold buying population happy. In all regards, it is a good thing.

The ex-employee alleges that there was an exploit used to "dupe" (create) gold and items via the automatic re-connect feature. This person states that ArenaNet intentionally left the bug in the game with the knowledge that eventually gold farmers and players would figure it out and use it to create gold and items. Furthermore, this person says that when the amount of new gold and items entering the market devalued gold and certain rare items, and the population of dupers became too large, the auto re-connect feature was disabled and thousands of accounts were banned. The informant further states that ArenaNet communicated with the gold farmers prior to banning accounts:

We initiated several "ban floods", much like the publicly announced 26th May 2006 affair. Obviously this was just PR material. These were waves which bot accounts would be banned. The GFCs knew the accounts that were being banned. We provided them a list of accounts that would be banned. Some GFCs were told to remake the accounts under different character names to thwart the PvE community, or remain inactive on those accounts until later periods. A majority of the accounts were shutdown.

Mmobux has an interview with the former ArenaNet employee:

In your work, do you have to work directly with the gold farmers? What is the company's policy on gold farming business and how were you told to handle the issue? What was your perception and experience with the gold farmers?

I'd like to take a moment and go a little off topic here. A common misconception from the responses to my first article is that working with GFCs is a bad thing. It is quite the opposite. More co-operation means both parties are happier, and more money flowing into ArenaNet's pockets means they can afford larger investments into the game. Apart from a slight degradation in the game environment, it does not negatively impact upon the game's overall health at all. Like I said in my article, I am not trying to hurt anyone, only tell the truth as it is."

As I have stated, an unofficial partnership usually prefers indirect approaches. Another common misconception is that the whole of ArenaNet knew about these "under-the-table" deals. If this was in fact the case, the whole company would be in an uproar. This knowledge is confined to only a small circle of members.

Worlds in Motion has a nice summary of the issues raised by these accusations, though they also note that there is no way to be sure that this person is credible.

Kohler Talks Wii and Gamer Types, CliffyB’s Bro QQs

Chris Kohler has an excellent article explaining his understanding of types of gamers and what this means for the 'console war':

Before blue oceans and innovators' dilemmas, the "casual gamer" was the guy who played Xbox but wasn't a game nerd. He'll play Halo with his buddies for hours. But the new definition of "casual gamer" is your grandma. She loves "Cooking Mama." Tyler B thinks she is ruining gaming.

These are two very distinct groups. Add them to the other two types of game console buyer and you've got four groups who are all affected very differently by fluctuations in price and hardware power.

Kohler then details the characteristics of each type of gamer: the Hardcore Gamer, the Casual Gamer, the Expanded Audience, and Kids. It's well worth a read.

Meanwhile, there was a hilarious rant/whinge by Tyler Bleszinski, who is only important in this context because he's Cliffy "Gears of War" Bleszinski's brother, last week on Newsweek's Level Up blog. In this article, CliffyB's brother whines about how the Wii will present a "direct threat" to his hobby if grandmothers and other people who are traditionally non-gamers keep buying Wiis:

If Nintendo has its way, young males will no longer be the dominant segment of the console audience--and this transition appears to be happening faster than I expected.

Oh noes! Sound the alarm bells! A young male is threatened by the prospect of developers no longer creating games just for him! I would like to think that this would be some sort of epiphany for CliffyB's brother, a moment realisation of what the non-target segements of the market experience as a reality today, but he seems to be too interested in his 'dominant' gaming needs to pay attention.

So while the business of the Wii has great for Nintendo--surprise, surprise--and a handful of risk-takers like Ubisoft, it's thus far been ugly when it comes to the experiences beloved by core gamers like myself.

CliffyB's brother is displaying a rather arrogant sense of entitlement. Would you like some cheese with your whine, oh brother of CliffyB?

And should the product portfolios of major publishers become a zero-sum game, her tastes will represent a direct threat to my longtime hobby. ... I sincerely believe that bringing new people to video games is a good thing... But ultimately, going more mainstream can have unintended consequences--ones that could negatively impact the breadth and depth of the kinds of games that I love, as do millions of others.

Translation: "New gamers are only a 'good thing' if they like don't encroach on my territory by demanding that game developers make games other than what I, as part of the 'dominant', 'hardcore' gaming demographic, enjoy".

I believe games are already mainstream. Games started to become mainstream ever since Sony cracked that segment with the PlayStation, and it's been widening ever since. If one looks at the definition of 'hardcore' and 'casual' in terms of the way Kohler outlined, we can see that CliffyB's brother probably falls into the Hardcore Gamer category. The gamers that CliffyB's brother is so afraid of are the Expanded Audience. The Casual Gamers are the frat boys and average Joes who don't read industry news or blogs religiously, but they buy all the Grand Theft Auto games when they come out -- these are the guys that CliffyB's brother would probably lump into the Hardcore Gamer category. This Casual Gamer segment won't go away, and I don't think that the Wii and the Expanded Audience is as much of a threat as TylerB thinks it is. It may be too soon to say, anyway, as Kohler concludes.

Good Effort, Capcom

I now know why I received half a dozen emails from Capcom's Lost Planet marketing team during the lead up to the launch on 12th January. They spent $20 million on developing the game and "$20 million was spent on the advertising, marketing, parties and promotions" (Joystiq). My inbox typically does not see that kind of action. Usually I get the odd bit of spam in my inbox, which Google Mail's spam filter has failed to catch.

As much as I love attention from big publishers who send me spam emails asking me to promote write about their game on my blog, or who invite me (and thousands of other people) to their launch parties in California, I only write about stuff that I'm interested in.

Honestly, the first time I'd heard about Lost Planet was when I got an email from Capcom's marketing people. It was nowhere near being a blip on my radar. I then read a little bit about it, but the game didn't pique my interest, so I didn't write about it.

I appreciate the effort, though. GG, Capcom.

What is more interesting is getting random instant messages from people in China after they have visited my blog. At least I can have a conversation.

I love getting instant messages and speaking to whomever. I got an IM a few months ago from a nice Guild Wars player from Singapore. We had a nice little chat about this and that. Fair warning, though: my pointer may stray over the "block" button if you become irritating or disrespectful or if you keep asking me to advertise your gold selling site on my blog. :P

Flagship Undecided on Payment Scheme for Ongoing Hellgate Content

I have been following the development progress of Hellgate: London since summer 2005. The game's setting, a post-apocalyptic London infested with demons from Hell, seemed really cool. I enjoy science fiction, and the whole post-apocalypse concept was intriguing. No, I haven't played Fallout. :P The development team include some ex-Blizzard staff. I haven't played Diablo, but apparently it was good. The Diablo style of gameplay is an influence on Hellgate: London's design. The screenshots look amazing, and naturally the cinematics are even more amazing.

Flagship Studios have, from the very beginning, wanted Hellgate: London to have ongoing content. Last year (I would estimate maybe mid-2006, if not earlier), Flagship Studios staff had, on the Hellgate: London fansite message boards, indicated that it was possible that this ongoing content would be available to gamers on a pay-for-play basis. What form the payments would take (subscription, micro payments, expansions, etc.) was still up in the air at that time. The offline, single-player content would be available to all for the one-time price of the game. There was always the possibility that the additional content, particularly the online components, would require payment.

This information, though old news, seems to have become more widely distributed in a GameSpot article. Before, Flagship Studios were not sure whether they would be charging at all, but it seems pretty firm from the article that they will require payment for new Hellgate: London content.  Zen of Design makes a good point that Flagship Studios really need to get cracking on choosing and building a payment infrastructure if they plan on releasing it this summer. I don't check the Hellgate: London forums as often as I used to, so I was a little surprised that Flagship still need to make a decision on this.

“The Truth Behind the Lies of Game Developers”

There's a new game blog that will try to do for game development what The RAM Raider tries to do for game journalism. Game Truth is tired of the bullshit and feels compelled to:

...speak the truth, or at least the other side of the story, and it might as well be a blog like this. Even if this blog ends up ranting to absolutely no-one, it's important that someone say that this industry stinks because of the developers who prop it up rather than the companies who deal with them. Someone has to tell the story.

I found two posts particularly interesting, because they hold a nugget of insight somwhere. Also, they are entertainingly written.

The first one predicts doom for the CCP and White Wolf merger:

When two developers merge it's because one of them has no money and both have no ideas (but the money developer's CEO hasn't done his homework and doesn't realise). These mergers ALWAYS fail, resulting in one of the companies getting eaten by the other and a consequent large staff overhead that dwindles resources, brand values and all the rest of it.

The other one contends that Ernest Adams is "rubbish," but the fault lies with the industry:

It's not completely Earnest's fault that he's rubbish. It's the fault of the studios that hire him assuming that since he talks the talk he must walk the walk. It's basically because most studios don't know what a good game designer is or does, and so they just muddle along as best they can. The great open secret of game development is that nobody reads design documents, but that doesn't stop designers and design consultant writing them. Nobody can tell them what it is that they are supposed to be doing, so they might as well do that.

I hope we can expect regular posts from Game Truth.

PS3 or Wii: What Are Game Industry Professionals Buying?

Gamasutra asked industry professionals, academics, and game design students which next-generation console they would be buying this week (if any):

Q: As a video game professional, are you buying a Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo's Wii or both on their North American launch later next week? How are you securing your console (eBay, pre-order, queue?), and what underpinned your buying decision?

Interestingly, of the professionals we surveyed, the significant majority of them were more excited about Nintendo's Wii, and were intending to buy that console first. However, the PS3 wasn't left out entirely, and some curmudgeonly responders even insisted that they would buy nothing at all.

[Read]

World of Darkness MMORPG in the Works

From Gamasutra:

EVE OnlinePC MMO creator CCP, based in Iceland, has announced a merger with U.S. paper-gaming firm White Wolf, the world's second largest role-playing publisher, revealing intentions to build a World Of Darkness MMO.

As a former member of The Camarilla, this is exciting news. I could totally get into a Vampire MMORPG. Whee vampires! Let's all hope it's not shite.

[White Wolf press release]

Punished for Eagerness

Eleven days ago, I placed my order for the Collector's Edition of Guild Wars Nightfall on GameStop.com. This was two days after pre-orders for Nightfall became available. At the time, GameStop.com were offering the Pre-Release Bonus pack for an additional $4.99 with the purchase of the game. I checked the site just now, and they are offering the Pre-Release Bonus pack for free with the purchase of the Collector's Edition. GG, GameStop! Way to reward people for placing those orders early!