.covert.c.reative

Update your links!

2006-08-17T13:00:00.000-07:00

Please kindly update your links, bookmarks, feeds, blogrolls and point them to the new site :

My sinerest apologies to those that made comments in the last day or so - those did not get included in the migration. Please come to the new site and comment again! :)

Ironic that Blogger chooses to test a new layout on the day my new site goes live. Someone tell me if it's any good or not.

Microsoft Goes Indie!

2006-08-14T05:47:00.000-07:00

Gamasutra reports that Microsoft is getting into the independant game biz. As of August 30th, anyone with a Windows XP can download Microsoft's XNA "Game Studio Express" and start making various games for the Xbox 360.

For an additional fee of US100$, indie developers will then be able to access the Xbox Live Arcade service, both to list their titles and to possibly download content for their game dev needs.

The engine itself will be a "XNA version" of GarageGames' Torque engine, plus some upporting tools. This engine has been a popular choice among indie developers, although I'm somewhat ashamed to say I've never played anything from there.

Putting aside my typical cynicism of Microsoft, I have to admit this is cool. Yes, they have an agenda - to sell more Xboxes. Yes, they'd love to envelope indie development. Sure it's to their advantage to reel in fresh programmers and designers to get them accustomed to using their products.

But there's a plus side too :

it's the first time anyone's been able to create content for a major console without hacking into it.
Also by creating a "community of interest" surrounding indie gamedev, it elevates it, bringing it closer to the mainstream.
You have extensive Microsoft resources teaching you how to make games.

Not bad, for evil Microsoft.

I wonder what Greg thinks of this...

Links:

Microsoft XNA Dev Center
Coding4Fun

Why I hate my PSP

2006-07-26T02:17:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I talked about technology's promise. More specifically, how the PSP is proof in my hands of a very likely future. I shared a quick thought about the supposed "ubiquitous connector" - a theoretical device through which I can interact with my world. A system by which I freely overlay a "meta-world" atop the real one, either through interesting games and media, or via information. I'd love to talk more about what this fictional device could do, but I'm sure you can easily imagine your own specifics. Your ideas about it are just as valid is mine. Oh, and it will be a part of our future.

I also held that the Sony PSP is a great little system, one that reminded me of my earliest encounter with technology as a whole. As a promise for my future, a digitally integrated world. Not a bad feat for a commercial product, and kudos to Sony for a nicely designed multimedia machine.

Note : One thing I didn't mention, is that you could have taken my post, search/replace on "Sony" and "PSP" with the words "Nintendo" and "DS", and it all still applies. I like both these systems for their respective innovations, and for what they bring to the world of gaming and mobile entertainment.

Politics and Proprietorship

It's unfortunate that neither of these systems fulfill even my most conservative leaps of inductive speculation. Yet, they could have. Remember, I briefly mentioned politics and the Internet. I'm not well qualified to go in-depth about it, but there are obviously countless reasons for this situation. For simplicity again lets restrict this to social impacts. That is, the way that internetworked applications have the potential to adjust our very social realm. Email is the first "killer app" that comes to mind, turning traditional means of communicating on its ear.

So politics comes into play as a controlling measure, to protect ourselves and reliant entities from disaster in the face of new, sweeping technologies. Take the music industry as an example, and I'll oversimplify even further. On one side is the business of music. Royalties and other income for the employees, from radio stations to merchants. On the other side, it's about free speech and devices that are immune from inefficient (and grossly unfair) control mechanisms. Ideally, a free and democratic society would attempt to strike a balance between the sides, to the betterment of all. Magic happens, and we get "pay-for" mechanisms that seamlessly allow us to obtain the music we want, whenever we want. So politicking is the necessary evil by which we obtain such a lovely and peaceful outcome.

Supposedly.

Not so, in the case of Sony and their PSP. Not even close. To protect itself, the PSP system is a closed one. The minidisc format, that Sony pretty much invented, is not copyable. For example, I cannot buy a writer for these discs. I have to buy them, pre-written, directly from a Sony-approved vendor. The "Universal Media Disc" (UMD), is great. Small form-factor, reliable read stats, smooth ejection and insertion, all engineered very slickly and sweetly. Yet, UMDs suck. They suck because they are closed and unwritable. They suck because they are extremely expensive. They suck because they come from a tech company that is also a huge music company, selling them to you at grossly inflated prices. They suck because they inherit the sensibilities of a hardware company that wants not only to sell them, but control the mechanism by which information contained within them is PUBLISHED.

Their agenda was not to create a ubiquitous wireless media experience. They clearly set out to construct, publish and sell UMDs.

Please tell me we aren't back to Gutenburg versus the Church? This type of measure is regressive and backward, and the realisation of a sick corporate fantasy. Lock down the thing, control the product from publisher to consumer, and punish anyone who tries to circumvent any of it. Yes, hack your PSP and go to jail. Its a meaningless threat since its happened and will continue to do so. But again, why even bother creating a system that does not meet the desires of its users?

Remember Aibo?

A Footnote in History

Happily, all of these ridiculous corporate tactics won't work, which is why the PSP will be sadly nothing more than a historical footnote. I promise you, one day you will say : "Oh yeah, I remember THOSE!"

The next problem, and why I hate my PSP, is where Sony has stumbled again.

I paid $79.00AU for "Tomb Raider : Legend" on UMD. I went physically into a store, took the item off of a shelf, paid for it with a stack of paper-based currency, and took it home and unwrapped the layers of plastic off its cover. Tell me how this is the future of mobile entertainment in the Internet age? Why can I not use the device itself to securely purchase additional content?

Well, here's a hint. They didn't even try to do this. Using the builtin 802.11b security with WPA and TKIP would be YOUR responsibility if you transmitted your credit card number over the airwaves. Talk to me sometime about the headaches of wireless infrastructure security. :-)

Esther Dyson, famous tech futurist and investor (whom, through chance and the magic of a mutual colleague, I've had the sincere pleasure of meeting some time ago), said of the future of big-media,

"Well they're going to lose worse. All the gate keepers who were controlling access to things. Many distribution channels for content , which are dependent on putting content in inefficient containers, putting it somewhere where it sat on a shelves, only half of it was used. The other half had to be destroyed. So all these things that create inefficiencies and benefit from them are going to lose..."

Profit from inefficiency and die, that's the message. Is this not the very definition of the UMD?

That ubiquitous wireless Internet dream, is exactly that. Politics (especially in North America) have slowed the wheels of progress in order to exact a measure of control on this promise. Its funny, I could have sworn Casey and I were discussing this... back in 1996. We should have bought stock in something, preferably a lobbying organization.

The Meat of the PSP

So if you've skimmed this terribly lengthy post, I hope you get to this part. If all that political or techie stuff is not relevant to you, then how about the games?

Well, to this, I can unashamedly admit that many of them are totally excellent - balancing gameplay with its natural form factor, designed perfectly for console-style interaction, and solid integration with the other features of the system (i.e. networked multiplay). Yet, if I were to complain about the third-person interaction of MANY of the titles (Tomb Raider, Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Acid, Grand Theft Auto, and so on) - the camera view absolutely sucks in all of them. In some cases, it is so frustrating to control as to make the games virtually unplayable. I'm not the first person to say this. And these games were the "big titles" that attracted me to the system in the first place. What a disappointment.

So. The Sony PSP, for what it is, is totally fantastic. The Sony PSP, for what it could have been, miserably fails. In fact, I'm somewhat despondent about the platform as a whole. It's not going to last.

That promise of my ubiquitous connector? Sigh. Such long way to go.

Or maybe I'm just pissed off that my girlfriend kicks my ass at Lumines.

Why I love my PSP

2006-07-24T22:59:00.000-07:00

In the beginning, it was digital watches. I found them simply riveting. My father's friend had one, and I'd climb up onto his lap and press the steel divets that activated the display. I'd stare at the ":" between the digits, transfixed as it blinked reliably back at me. This was my first breath of technology, or at least my very own concept of it. And it was good. It was so new!

"Dad, why can't I watch TV on it?" The room breaks into laughter. Dick Tracy grimaces; Douglas Adams snickers.

Growing up, the idea of new technology became somewhat of a faith itself, served by my imagination, and yielding an occasional, gratifying example of the truly new. There was less satisfaction in things I could easily conceive : bigger hard drives, faster processors, better graphics... those were merely products of my inductive instinct, realised time and again in my thoughts long before before they actually appeared. I don't claim that's anything special - anyone who's professed intimacy with the faith shares this mindset. Those are the rules of the game.

Once I learned the fundamentals, digital technology was relegated in my mind to tooldom, a fascination recalibrated into a study of its promise. My imagination tended to span a vast problem space, the gaps hopefully filled in by the clockwork machinery of vapourous technological solutions. This was the fun stuff.

Gadgets rarely impress me, really. "Technological wonders"... rarely are. The love of gadgetry, though hardly a new affliction in the scope of human interest, actually draws my ire. I wonder if disciples of ancient inventors loved products like some of my past acquaintances, who'd adoringly recite a menu of their innards like baseball stats. I always felt that this was like loving a hammer or a screwdriver. Sure, I was smitten at one time, when I was six, but show me something that I didn't think of, show me a lifestyle change, a problem solved...show me fulfillment. That's excitement!

The Internet came along, turned into a shopping mall, and was promptly booted into a political sandtrap. Think about that, how political it became in its first decade of mainstream existence. Yet, there exists a huge gleaming promise there. Problem spaces filled, new ones created. I remember that promise, springing into life, as I ran up the stairs and into my university's graduate comp sci lab, gaping open-mouthed at the world's very first graphical internet browser. All of those thoughts and possibilities gushed into my brain in an instant...then disappointment as I watched the pace of progress deliberately stunted by the ponderous inefficiencies of well established non-digital industries, all scared, shaken, uncertain. It was a collision on all levels, inevitable, as our capability slowly matched imagination; as technology met lifestyle. To business, this was either promising or threatening, depending on its orientation.

So now, in my 34-year-old hands, I hold both a promise fulfilled and one newly born. A Sony PSP.

It's well engineered and pretty stylish. A place to which I can retreat. Full of sound and colour and brainiac distraction, enough to ease the tedium of commuter strain. Though well beyond my old Gameboy (which never became anything more than a Tetris machine no matter how hard I tried), it represents the exact same essence.

If I really wanted to, I could ride the train with my old handheld LED Pacman, circa 1981. Yes, the PSP is exactly like these, simply mobile entertainment. But mobile entertainment on serious steroids.

Has it come a little late? Well, it has paced the advance of low-powered LCDs properly and appropriately. So logically, no, the device is right on time. Yet, it seems a happy evolution at best. In itself, it changes nothing. We all know what portable fun is already. We imagined it when we were kids. It is well and truly a mere gadget; an iPod with a bigger screen and a 802.11b transceiver. In the unending tide of techno playthings, it will be a historical footnote. An small inflection point, not a turning point.

Yet I, in spite of myself, love it.

Why? Because of nostalgia. It's fulfillment of a promise made thirty years ago, while I nestled in the lap of a digital watch. Finally here.

It's a brand new promise. To me, it shows me a ubiquitous connector. A piece of internetworked fun. Wireless, mobile, graphical, auditory. It may not be exactly so, but it represents the Internet in my hands, an exciting multiplayer game, a movie, my favourite song, a chat with my friends, a videocall with my mother, a meeting place, a map, a social gateway, and a million things that I can't even imagine. Right now, it does only some of these things. But it, or something like it, most definitely will.

It's a new verse in the vows of my faith, that yes there is indeed such thing as sooner or later when imagining technology. Even if it's later, I'll never doubt again.

Boutique d'Electronique

2006-07-15T00:48:00.000-07:00

Its official. I'm sick of shopping malls. Since moving to Sydney, I have been marched into the cavernous maw of capitalist frenzy almost daily. Suffice to say, its been a challenge to my usual intrepidity. And each time, in a fit of sheer exhaustion and a stark, penetrating need to maintain some semblance of sanity...

...I find myself in EB.

Games here are extremely expensive, but still I have oft-visited this dayglow nest of the ultra-nerd. It's irresistable. And recently, I chanced upon the 'once a year', mega-super-clearance sale.

PS2 for 186$ Aus? That's not too bad. It was tantalizing to think, actually. Finally able to play Guitar Hero (and perhaps, just perhaps, beat my friend, Headcrash). Finally able to play Wipeout. Metal Gear. Shadow of the Collosus. Mmmmm....

The list goes on and on. And I might have had one nestled sweetly under my arm had they not been out of stock. But something in me also twigged. Was I selling out, resistance waning into vapour? So I didn't buy one. Yes, I just finished saying they were out of stock, but I wanted you to think that I had victoriously resisted the evil wiles of Sony. And Microsoft. And Nintendo.

Um, did you guys hear me? I almost bought a console. Can you imagine my state of mind, now?

So yeah, I've now got a PSP.

And the clearance sale beckoned. 2 movies (PSP) for 15$. PSP Tomb Raider. A couple of 10$ PC clearance games based on the faintest wisp of memory that they were actually worth playing. Riddick. Dungeon Lords. BF2 Special Forces. It would have continued, this massive geek orgy, had Mel not dragged me out of the store.

I went home, installed the lot. It was all a close call. I think the PSP is as close to console-dom as I've come in a long time. I never even owned an Atari. I've since returned to the same store in Bondi three more times... resisting the temptation again, each time. Or was I just checking their stock? :-)

Is it only a matter of time?

Yearly Meta-Post

2006-07-10T19:10:00.000-07:00

I hate blogs that spout personal drivel, cats, dating and/or general ranting. But one meta-post per year is an acceptable indulgence for a generally well-disciplined effort on my part. I prefer talking about games than talking about myself.

So here goes...sorry for the extended absence (and sorry for this meta-post), as Real Life (tm) intervened and dragged me forcibly from things bloggish. Since I've recently moved to Sydney, Australia, I've had to experience all sorts of unpleasantness just to get here (and more unpleasantness once I arrived). I hope its worth it... what a hassle!

What I've learned in Australia, so far :

1. If you hear someone use a colloquial phrase, that does not mean that you should immediately start using it. In my case, it was a nasty ethnic term. Yeah, that could have been bad, and I had no idea!

2. Setting up mobile phones and internet is the biggest hassle on the planet. What a bunch of scheming idiots. We settled on "Wild Internet", since it actually allows P2P and has uncapped bandwidth. Gawd I think Vancouver spoiled me for this.

3. Do not painfully scoff at stupid dialogue in a movie theatre. I hate to generalize, but Australian audiences seem to be way more forgiving than us towards cheese.

4. Internet cafes suck. Like, really suck. I mean, I enjoy Counterstrike, some people might say that I really enjoy Counterstrike. But being stuck in a room with a dozen 15 yearolds screaming epithets and taunts makes me yearn for the magic pleasure of my mute button. Then, there are the WoW players...LOL!

5. Buses suck. We were stuck in Chatswood, which is pretty much like "Metrotown" in Vancouver. Lets just say we paid too much for a used car to get one as quick as possible. Don't let anyone ever tell you that you don't need a car in Sydney. You do.

Anyhow, those are my thoughts as of this moment.

For those of you that are more interested in my non-game related ramblings, here is my new Sydney blog and my old and rarely updated Security Blog.

We now return to game and media related pleasures.

Episodic..bi-annually?

2006-07-06T21:06:00.000-07:00

So the whole world has presumably played (and perhaps even completed) the latest incarnation in the Half Life 2 universe. My experience with it was quite enjoyable. I downloaded it, played it, and completed the entire enterprise in about three hours. Great! So what do I have to complain about?

Well, its the new entry in the market sloganeering that's been tossed out into the world of gaming. Episodic Content. Supposedly, this is the "wave of the future", solving all sorts of nasty little problems in both developing, producing, marketing, selling, buying and playing games. And to some degree, I believe this to be true.

Reasoning it out, bite-size bits of our games get made and sold, freeing us from waiting a year for a "full expansion" to get cooked up pig-on-a-spit style, and forced down our throats in one gulp. Makes sense. Smaller price, smaller timeframe, smaller gameplay. I like it.

I just wish they called it something else.

To me, the notion of "episodic" invokes a somewhat nostalgiac image a small boy... tuning in to the radio each week for the next installment of his favourite serial superhero drama. Or in a more modern sense, scrambling to mininova to download the next episode of "Lost" (present company included).

With the ridiculously named "Half Life 2 Episode One", its essentially a contradiction. It was half a year late, reduced in scope, and didn't advance the story in any significant manner. OK, you say, its a game, games don't tell stories. Then where is the "new gameplay"?

Give me episodic. I'll pay for it. But give it to me fast. If you're telling a story, then tell it. If you're giving us more "game", then finetune the gameplay. HL2E1 does none of this.

I say lets rename it. How about, Half Life 2 Nano-expansion 1?

Hardboiled Teens

2006-04-29T00:42:00.000-07:00

In the age-old world of gumshoe stories, the battered detective lends an unwavering determination to solving the crime. If you're not a big fan of noir, I will chance on a prediction : you will be. At least, once you see the movie "Brick".

The backdrop of a suburban highschool provides ample substance for the heated story, and not without plenty of irony. Teens talking as if they've stepped out of the forties, spewing a delicious torrent of tough-guy vernacular unheard since Miller's Crossing. Every archetype is present, but literally translated into a smaller world of highschool seniors. The "heat" is the highschool vice-principal, the snitch with heart of gold is the school nerd, the femme fatale... on and on.

It totally works. The irony of modern young actors curling their lips around these lines is totally hysterical :

Brendon : Throw one at me if you want, hash head. I've got all five senses and I slept last night, that puts me six up on the lot of you.

Or when he's confronted by the school heat :

Assistant VP Gary Trueman: You've helped this office out before.
Brendan : No, I gave you Jerr to see him eaten, not to see you fed.

...

Brendan : No more of these informal chats! If you have a disciplinary issue with me, write me up or suspend me and I'll see you at the Parent-Teacher conference.

...

Brendan : I don't want you to come kicking in my homeroom door because of something I didn't do.

I think thats enough. Hopefully enough to get all three of my readers out to see this wonderful indie film. Does this have anything to do with games? Only in the sense that the director has created an alternate little world in this movie. All of the filmic elements seem to breathe on their own despite being the product of two (or more) sources overlayed. From my point of view, doing this type of mashup smartly is creatively pure. The result stands on its own. In sum, just further proof that little people can do great things.

Nintendo Wii

2006-04-28T03:54:00.000-07:00

"WE".

Yup, thats what its called. Not, "revolution" as we've come to know it. But "Wii". Iconic, unique, and something pushed out and slightly to the left as Nintendo seems to want to do these days.

Do I like it? No! Do I get it? I think I do. Its Nintendo wanting to be totally Nintendo and nothing but. In some dusty city Walmart I bet people try to buy "PS 360s"... so maybe this is the way Nintendo asserts its shelfspace. Something that's impossible to confuse with anything else.

Prevent brand confusion. Make something unique thats Nintendo. If thats one of their goals, then I believe it's spot-on. It will serve that purpose justly and reliably. Will we be making fun of the name this time next year?

Doubtful... we'll all be playing Zelda. :-)

Its the Tools, Stupid

2006-04-13T18:07:00.000-07:00

Watch grass grow in this mod for Quake!

Sturgeon's Law says, "90% of user-created content is crap". And its true. If you've ever visited Myspace, you'll see it in action! But in games, its a disturbing fact. Where some people hail "user created content" as the answer to skyrocketing costs in content dev, the reality is countless maps and mods that play "hide the penis". Ugh. If you're creating a commercial enterprise out of user-content, you're going to spend a lot of time sifting through the detritus to find the jewels.

Unless, of course, the content-creation is the game.

Take Garry's Mod. The point of the game is, well, there is no point. Its a classic sandbox, conceived as a play area for Source engine physics. You don't so much as play Garry's Mod, you play with it. And thats sort of my point. User-created content blossoms when the tools to extend or modify the game experience are baked right into its very activity.

So you can expect the usual fruit of Sturgeon within Garry's, but again, thats the whole point of it. The goofier or more inane, the better!

Spore promises another example. In this game, you customize the behaviour and appearance of your very own species of creature. You play the game by yourself, but as you go, you will discover other players' creations in your copy of the game as they are silently propagated through a network of the players. Passing around your creation isn't the point - its totally invisible to you. Yet this demonstrates an effective solution to Sturgeon. The creature tools are in the game, and not as an outside activity.

The whole mod scene is still thriving, as any visit to ModDB will show. Yet, for every Dystopia and Garry's, there's a veritable tidal wave of crap. Is this an answer to skyrocketing dev costs? No.

As I've said before, the most significant barrier for smaller developers is content. Period. And so the geniuses in charge of Saga of Ryzom promise "user created content" in the form of the Ryzom Ring. Yeah, good luck with that! Turning to the community in hopes of getting a quality, balanced, and interesting game experience is suicide. This is not the answer for live competitive games (MMORPGs in particular) unless you change the activity to support it. The answer is to embed the tools into the game. Make them part of it.

There are more solutions to Sturgeon which I'll talk about later, yet I suspect more will emerge as the nature of all these games changes.

In the case of Garry's, well, he just got a deal with Valve to distribute it for-pay over Steam. What a huge win for modders in general. Proof that innovation can pay sometimes. Its a step. And in my opinion, a step in the right direction.

Sleep Therapy for Gamers

2006-03-15T02:03:00.000-08:00

I crouch. I run. I spin and shoot. Furiously tapping the mouse, I bask in the visceral surge of being in the zone, unstoppable. Finally, as I hurridly wipe the sweat off my hands, the round ends. I relax and exhale. Its over. Satisfied with my accomplishment, I wait until the next round starts.

And then I yawn and fall asleep.

Some gamers require neither adrenaline nor an obvious DING! at the end of an activity. They like to relax, and just barely pay attention. Their reward lies within a patient crawl. Their satisfaction more abstract. They never see "the zone", and they're defnitely not looking for it.

This supposed demographic depicts a busier person, perhaps with family and professional responsibilities. Less time and less energy. I realise that not every gamer can be so nichified. Anyone can cross into intense multiplayer sessions if the mood strikes. Yet, this situation is quite inevitable for most people, even the devoutly hardcore. Its gonna happen to you.

We're going to see more games that cater to this phenomenon, quite independant of time or focussed attention. I'm not talking about the "casual game market". Y'know...those grandma games that supply simple game forms within a cutesy and clicky web app. I'm really talking about asynchronicity. Games where I set an activity in motion...and then walk away. I'm not even sure if this gametype has a name, but I'll just call it detached gaming.

Some quick examples :

Hollywood Stock Exchange. Sort of an old example, but the bulk of it rested in returning to the game to check your results. The actual activity required no focus or time to participate.

EVE Online. As I'm told, it is plainly clever in this respect. Instead of following the pure timesink model glorified within other MMOs like WoW, they allow you to progress your skills while offline. Its a great example. Set your skill affinity, then log off. Why not? Waiting for a progress indicator or repetitively slaying a mob is just an empty activity.

Animal Crossing. Another detached game, if you want it to be. One of the interesting drivers in this game is indeed time, but not necessarily time spent actually playing it. Real time. As real days progress, you witness more events and happenings within the little virtual town.

There is a commonality at work here, and that is a form of offline persistence. The aforementioned examples require some aspect of it to allow the core activities to incubate within the game mechana. The game state requires preservation between invocations, whether its stored on a server somewhere or on your local console.

Just for fun, think about how this aspect could improve MMOs.

The unadulterated timesink (as found in WoW and the like) is a recognized flaw in the fun factor of that game. If the drive for greater subscription revenue had lessened, we might have seen a subtraction from this active playtime requirement. It would arguably improve WoW measurably. Why not play the AH from a webpage if I want to? Or set my character in a zone to grind and then leave her to it (perhaps at a greater risk from other players)?

I like to imagine a MMO with the hardcore aspects ripped forcibly from its innards. Where I check in periodically to see how my little army is progressing as I make a few ticks and balances of resources or investments. And then log off. A game where time flows and things happen, and then surprises me with the results the next time I visit.

This doesn't stop at MMOs of course. More on this later, but in the meantime I must sleep. :)

As the World Turns

2006-03-09T21:12:00.000-08:00

Both online and off, I've found more and more people love to talk about games. Moment by moment seems to edge 'our realm' closer to the mainstream, and the perception of "the gamer" appears to gradually shed its awkward social heredity.

In some ways, the plight of videogames is echoed by the comic books that sprung into the hands of the masses over sixty years ago. Having to battle a mindset that viewed them as ludicrous, even dangerous, comics slowly ground down the resistance and became a cultural staple for storytelling. Like videogames, comic book makers even faced Senate hearings in the U.S. to answer for their depictions of violence and crime.

Nowadays, change has become an efficiency unto itself. It comes far more rapidly. In the space of a few years, games are becoming bastard rockstars of our culture. When the cool factor outpaces the nerd factor, true acceptance is within reach.

Why do I know that games are nudging mainstream? Forget about "game profits eclipsing Hollywood movies", as I suspect that statistic is probably so narrowed as to be meaningless. Really, I know mainstream when I can have a conversation about PS2's "Black" with someone I've bumped into on the street. Or when my sister phones me up and asks me about "story themes" in Halo for her highschool english class.

Can we call that progress? I'd say so, and finally! Ideas and interest in games has been viewed as the purview of nerdly distraction. I cannot count how many times articulating the merits of a particular game's value were met with cold dismissal. Games are fringe shows for nerds, I was told. But as I said, things are changing. As the audience widens and discerns, I can easily imagine the choices and varieties will deepen. Perhaps even to penetrate the barrier barring our idle distractions from forming into a semblance of cultural relevance.

Right now, every highschool classroom is full of kids whose daily lives are steeped in technological influences. Computers are no longer the fringe, they are practically central to their teenage experience. In the face of this, its obvious that gaming has finally busted through into the realm of cool. The face of gaming at this point is not only on a cell or a PDA, but on t-shirts and tatoos. Music inspired by 8-bit sound chips of yesterday feeds on a youth appetite for retro. All this isn't new at all, but now this stuff is clearly embedded into our culture. Not even comics enjoyed this level of interest.

As I roam online, or perk up in conversation at a party, one thing is for sure : everyone sure does have an opinion about games. Good, bad, ludicrous, insightful, artsy, musical, useless. Whatever. I've heard and engaged more on the topic in the last year than any other.

As someone who's been in it right from the beginning, its been fun to not only observe and participate, but also be an agent of that change. When clans were new, my friends here and around the world pioneered their definition. Shaped them! And as an observer in that time (and incidentally studying Communications and Media at SFU) I recalled wanting to study and record all of it.

As we form on the precipice of monumental change in gaming as I believe, things will quickly become more complex and fractured and both niche and mainstream, I believe recording today is even more important. There is real history here, and I'm hoping it can be captured and displayed for the future. In that vein, Wikipedia is trying to bolster its entries in their games section. If you have an opinion about a particular game or genre, they have a weekly contribution page on a random topic. Get over there, check it, and lend a hand... if you're so inclined.

Give me Gameplay or Give me Death!

2006-03-03T12:30:00.000-08:00

As a positively rabid fan of the new Battlestar Galactica series, I was picqued by a mod-team that's creating an arcade-style space sim based on the BSG universe. Its a natural fit for a space shooter, since the show itself pulls no punches in its attempt to create a truly visceral space opera.

The mod itself uses a very old engine, Freespace, to create the graphics and environments. Thats the thing about space shooters since the dawn of X-Wing and Wing Commander - space is easier to capture in a videogame because you need only create a static starfield for the backgrounds (and the odd nova, planet or other spacey kinda stuff).

I'm an example of an untapped market. I love BSG, so would love to hit a game that lets me experience it in a new way. I'm also an old fan of X-Wing and WC, so a new space shooter is long overdue. So when a new game comes along that promises to deliver on this demand, I'm ready to pay for it. And notice that nowhere do I mention that I'm looking for "hyper-realistic graphics" in this formula. In this way, I don't care what it looks like! As long as I get to hotdog my way to victory, I'm happy.

Check the video [13mb]. Proof that super-awesome-hyper-real grafix are simply not required. As long as whats there looks correct, its all good. Sometimes I wonder if anyone notices that, too.

James Cameron's Hollywood Reversal

2006-02-03T01:50:00.000-08:00

Like the Hollywood fare that inspires them, typical tie-in games for movies usually follow the same tired formula. A reskinned Quake clone where you follow the plot along as the protaganist (with suitable cut-scenes to prop up the story, ugh), and you uh, jump...and shoot stuff. Or possibly a themed RTS set in the movie's universe, where you... destroy stuff.

Games based on movie franchises are NEVER as successful (monetarily or aesthetically) ones based on original IP.

Enter James Cameron, finally resurfacing from being underwater for like the last 20 years. Cameron intends on taking the classic movie-game concept and turning it on its end. This ambition is currently called, Project 880, and he essentially wants to make a multiplayer game and movie simultaneously, and then release the game first. The idea is that players will explore the universe and become familiar with it (addicted?), then go watch the movie to experience one thread within the gameworld's narrative.

Hmmmmm. Is this a transparent marketing play, or a legitimate exploration in game-movie interactivity? Remember, the story I linked is in Business Week.

Cameron is not stupid, and this has never been done before. Lucky for him, this fact alone might make game and movie sell magnificently. Clever marketing, indeed. Risky, too! What if the game turns out like The Matrix Online? Yek.

Yet, as a seasoned optimist, I couldn't help but race the possibilities around in my mind. The project seems interesting, but only when you start to think about it.

Lets assume that Cameron doesn't care about marketing or money. Lets pretend, for a moment, that all he cares about are games.

Lets also believe that the game is so full of awesome, that you quit your job, your family and bowling club in order to fully experience everything it has to offer.

So what would a game-vie look like? Which compliments the other? In this perfect universe of gamedom, which entity benefits more? The movie? Or the game?

Consider that the fictional universe is fully realised and documented within peoples' heads before the movie starts. In this case, the movie gets the benefit here, as the setting has been established, allowing it to concentrate on other things... like plot!
The movie's subtext is readily understood. Here, the movie benefits again, as it inherits from a significant base of knowledge for the viewer. This provides Cameron an opportunity for more content within the film without having to explain its presence. That is, making nods and homages toward the game's setting and characters in an effort to make it more entertaining. (Moviegoer : "Wow, those characters got ganked in the exact same spot I did!")
The visual imagery and effects are incredible. This notion boosts the game, without question. With a Cameron budget, the game can only help to inherit the rigourous production calibur of a blockbuster film. In this, the game will most likely look fantastic, as the design and attention of an excellent production studio will be devoted to it.
Great performances and top-notch acting talent. The hype of a Cameron film, and the budget that he'll undoubtably command, will attract high quality talent. This will obviously benefit both, but here's a chance to make a game that actually has good voiceover work. :-)
Story. I'm having a hard time imagining how the game may help the movie's story, or vice versa. Perhaps when the player returns to the game after having seen the movie, they may discover another dimension to the game experience.

In the end, this isn't quite as exciting as I had thought, as this seems more of a vehicle for the movie. Its hard to see it for much more than that. Yes, the setting and the imagery will likely be incredibly compelling, but the game has to be innovative and fun in order to justify this unique and directed combination.

Now, what if the outcome of the gameworld influenced the outcome of the movie? Now that's exciting, and would make me want to play it (if only to witness the influencing elements firsthand). Sadly, with the extreme scheduling of the film business, this would probably never be possible.

How about you? If this mythical awesome-filled game were to appear tomorrow and offer you a chance to "direct" the plot of the movie, would you play it?

Carmack Pulls a 180

2006-02-02T17:33:00.000-08:00

photo from joystiq

"The Xbox360 will be id's primary development platform." - John Carmack.

All I can say is, "Did I read the article right??"

This is the man that popularized OpenGL and brought the opensource mindset into the hearts of the general public. Before the upstart iDSoftware, virtually no one had released the sourcecode for a hit commercial game before (to my knowledge).

PC Gaming would likely not be where it is today if it weren't for iD's efforts... I know its probably not true, but does it sound like to you that iD is abandoning the PC?

Slashdot Carnival Games

2006-02-02T15:55:00.000-08:00

The wide-roaming and mighty Slashdot Games guru, Zonk, has posted a monthly treasure of blogposts and articles on games. Read 'em on Slashdot's "Carnival of Games".

I wish I had known about this in advance or I would have at least tried to compose something of quality and submit it. Note that I said, "tried". Succeeding is a whole other story. :-)

In my opinion, Zonk's doing a good job on Slashdot Games, I say this because Slashdot's been getting a bit of a bum rap these days. From Diggers who say they're too slow, and whiners that can't filter out story dupes. Its good for what it is, a messageboard and meeting place. Like anything else, its what the community makes of it. I try to post regularly to games dot, and even submit a story once in a while. Nothing wrong with that.

Keep on' keepin' on, Zonk...

And so it begins...

2006-02-01T02:49:00.000-08:00

It was going to happen, sooner or later. Yet with the Pixar-Disney marriage, it was the first (and loudest) shot heard 'round the world.

Here comes the competition, spurred to action (for the click-lazy : Warner Brothers is starting its own pay-per-use P2P system)

Hyporreal Audio

2006-01-31T20:01:00.000-08:00

Another entry in the audio universe that I wanted to share. If you haven't heard the recently dugg "holophonic clip" yet, here it is (headphones are required for this). This may not have anything to do with computer games, but it damn well should!

This technology has been around a while, slightly analogous to how holographic images are created out of multiple images. If you're interested, Wikipedia has a nice article.

Pretty cool, yet I'm sort of surprised that this isn't used more often (Pink Floyd has the most famous example).

Music for the A.D.D. Generation

2006-01-27T22:41:00.000-08:00

If you are like me and enjoy blippy, boopy, synth-generated music inspired by videogames and sometimes (but not necessarily) sharks, FreezePop might be just for you! Check out their o.fi.cial Site and some samples. Their claim to fame is a few game soundtracks, so its nice to see them break out into the analog world.

My favourite of the moment is "I am not your Gameboy" but that may change in the next five minutes.

This is fun music for the distracted. Ooh, love the battery-powered sequencer! :-)

(Thank-you pandora.com)

Pixar Swims With the Sharks

2006-01-25T01:46:00.000-08:00

After two weeks in a media spin-cycle, the latest rumours finally circled around the truth. The Disney shark has gulped down Pixar for a cool 7.5 billion dollars. Wow.

I'm quite sure this has been tried many times in the past, but while a potential acquisition unquestionably benefits Grandfather Disney, its always been a dubious deal for Pixar. Thus, the answer from Jobs has always been a flat "no".

So whats changed? Well, there is one big reason that I can think of.

This new development would never have happened if it weren't for the iPod and its software sister, iTunes. Yes, one can talk about better Pixar relations that Disney has cultivated with new CEO Igor, or that Pixar should sell while they're still on top, etc. But the real deal is this : Jobs is changing his Disney song for iTunes.

This is huge. Big media is finally going to pay attention to online distribution in a big way. With Pixar, Disney, iTunes (and their subsidiaries which include ABC and ESPN) doing it, its now a competition. Thats the only thing that will move those guys into the 21st century. Competition is the ultimate wake-up call.

The specifics on how this will play is anyone's guess. I suspect that it will be somewhat organic; they'll see what works for them (and the video-ipod-downloading consumer) and go with it. Will iTunes become the primary mechanism for watching media? I have no idea. But this will open the sluices for online media purchases, and it won't just be television shows and movies. This will change what television essentially is.

So this is how the merger benefits Steve Jobs. How will it benefit a culturally sensitive Pixar? Well, I'll leave that question for the experts. :-)

Hoping for Utopia

2006-01-10T01:46:00.000-08:00

Dystopia, the best Source mod ever, gets to Update 4 this week. Signed, sealed and released! Cyberfans rejoice and a big congratulations out to Team Dystopia.

The update contains two new maps, with numerous gameplay tweaks overall. I am guiltily addicted to this slaverous mix of teamplay and action. Forget BF2! Dystopia features mixed team objectives and dual-sourced gameplay. Play as a decker and breach security systems in cyberspace... or join the fireteam and forage ahead as a heavy mechdroid in meatspace. Its fast. Its hard. But so much variety and choice are packed into this game that its virtually impossible to get bored. An extremely well conceived effort, and a visual treat.

Support the Source mod scene and go vote for Dystopia as Mod of the Year!

Valve and Dystopia

Team Dystopia's early intentions were to release this as a demonstation of their capabilities. First as a Half-Life2 Source Engine modification, and ultimately as a commercial venture. They've met with mixed success, partially due to Valve's (the maker of Half-Life2) resistance. Valve, rarely famous for kind shepherding of young game-makers, typically likes to completely own property invented within their engine. And with Dystopia, we can only guess that Valve is playing the same old game.

When Dystopia was released, Valve introduced a crashing bug into their game engine, which effectively killed Dystopia completely. Momentum lost. Its not likely intentional, but once that was fixed, we heard murmurings from Valve stating that "commercial-level releases in the mod community are discouraged", supposedly because quality is "never achieved by indies on the first go". Do it fast, do it iteratively, and build your fanbase. This was Valve's preference. Listen to us, they said : Be Like Counterstrike.

Ah Counterstrike. The mod that grew into the most popular online activity since pr0n.

And Valve owns it.

Now their reticence starts to make some sense. Don't make your mod perfect on the first go, they say. Perhaps they mean : Let us examine its potential, first. Its too bad we're a little smarter about this stuff now? The early mod days, including Counterstrike's debut, had very little engineering sense to them at all. This made quality releases almost impossible. But when you look at the detail and the testing that go into upper-echelon mods today, you'll find an entirely different animal. Some of them have pros on their teams. Others are funded. And many hope for a commercial payoff one day. The mod scene runs the spectrum, of course, with jokers and amateurs alike. But with Dystopia, it was a wholly different beast, and was professional right from conception to execution. Truly a model that should be rewarded. You can't really blame the publisher, since its in their interest to see a return on their investment - which was the very platform from which these games have sprung. Yet, arguably, it was precisely those initial successes that fed Valve's success today. They simply wouldn't be here if we didn't want to play the new Counterstrike (including yours truly - seven years running!). Valve wants to own the best of them, and its far easier to do that when they exhibit the merest seeds of success.

Rest assured, there are many people (some of whom I know personally) that are watching the outcome of the Dystopia venture with intense interest. Dystopia's success could serve as a model for indie gamedev in general. I sincerely hope that Valve does the "right thing" and gives them a Steam publishing deal (like they did with Darwinia, another indie developed game). With quality, with fanbase, with a dedicated team and a healthy product, what do they have to lose?

In the meantime, we'll have fun with Dystopia, and here's to one day seeing them take their game to the bank. This stuff is the power politics of business, and Dystopia may not win. Personally, it's Valve's loss if Dystopia chooses to go elsewhere. I mean, what if Counterstrike was made for Quake?

Reading 2005

2005-12-24T23:42:00.000-08:00

Looking back over my observations resultant from a consistent troll of gaming RSS feeds, e-zines, news and even irc chat. Things are happening so fast out there, its so much fun.

As this year is done, I thought it fun to share a sampling of reading of my last 12 months! Yes, yes, fun I know. But it serves as a decent record of my zealous absorptions. It is also a point of interest for me personally, as I look back over the last year with some shock. I not only read these, but traced through them as completely as possible. The list of meat books (as opposed to the online sources I've consumed), in no particular order...

1. Designing Virtual Worlds
Author : Dr. Richard Bartle

Truly a fantastic tome! As a game-player and hopeful designer I was impressed. Bartle, is an pioneer of online multiplayer dungeon games, and possesses a unique and academic interest in the issues of online gaming. His model of player archetypes is a useful tool across all genres, and I found the topics to be engaging and informative. And I found myself often leaping away from the text to formulate my own ideas about persistent worlds and gameplay. Good books will tend to do that.

2. Game Architecture and Design
Authors : Andrew Rollings,

Somewhat less fantastic than Bartle, this is a more technical approach to game development. I agree this is such a hard topic to write or educate others about, since every instance has its own challenges. But an entire chapter on Project Management didn't seem to educate or inspire. The basics are covered, especially within the models of gameplay atoms, so the text serves its purpose.

3. 3D Math Primer

If you're interested in 3D graphics and how they are conjured, this is a great book. If math scares you, then stay away. This book is entirely focussed on teaching you the mathematics behind 3D graphics and rendering. I learned a great, great deal from my study of this book and will heartily recommend it to anyone out there interested in this vast subject.

4. Learning UML
The UML is fast becoming an excellent tool for software designers to capture and communicate the intracies of complex systems. Although the book lives up to the fine O'Reilly tradition of documenting technical topics, I found the real-worldness of it to be somewhat lacking. I had a difficult time applying the concepts before finding my own CASE tool to make the job easier. Anyone know of UML plugins for OpenOffice or MS-Word??

5. Game Design
Authors : Andrew Rollings

Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. I loved this book so much I cannot recommend it enough. My highlight marking runs the entire text, front to back.

6. OpenGL Programming Guide

This is a reference book, and is essential for any graphics programmers. Several chapters go into significant detail on the rendering pipeline, and the writing is clear and thoughtful. I enjoyed reading most of this book. Space on your shelf should definitely be set aside for this and its companion, The OpenGL Reference Guide.

7. Role-Playing Games

I really liked the pretty graphics in this book. I'm not joking. After so many technical tomes, it was refreshing to just pore over a handy survey of "whats out there" from a RPG developer's point of view.

8. Good to Great
Author : Jim Collins

If you're starting out a new business, this is the book to read above all others. Most companies aspire to this, but few actually achieve it. And it covers aspects that you can utilize in all aspects of your life and business. Its fun, and its the future. If you haven't read this, I would highly urge you to do it.

Pulpy Fiction

1. "The Scar"
Author : China Mieville

This is the most depressing piece of fiction that I've ever read. But if you've read my rants about innovation in gaming, you'd know that I'd appreciate innovation in writing. This is it. Its fresh and a pleasure to read the book from the writing style alone. Its no surprise that this author is winning numerous awards. I will definitely be reading more of Mieville.

2. "Marked for Death"
Author : Matt Forbeck

The Forgotten Realms has been a cash cow for WOTC for a great long time. And for good reason, since its the height of hero-dom for the D&D genre. So now comes Eberron, a new fantasy universe for WOTC, and also the result of the worldwide "setting search" contest (of which I participated). I enjoyed the writing of this novel on a surface level, and the pulpy aspect is easy to digest. This is a chill-down book, when your brain is too tired from the day, and a fun read.

Thank-you Amazon! :-)

Happy Holidays

2005-12-24T11:54:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

My wishlist this year included, Raph Koster's "Theory of Fun", the Half-Life2 development tribute, "Raising the Bar" and a Planetside giftcard. Have fun everyone, and enjoy your time with friends and family!

Probable Uncanniness

2005-12-14T02:20:00.000-08:00

Wow, this was a hot topic.

Literally, ten thousand people clicked through the source articles in various places as it spread across the 'net, and almost a thousand individuals read my journal entry from yesterday. Its not surprising, considering what a great piece of work that 3D image is.

Here is a nice backgrounder that Max Kor (the artist) prepared. Its a really interesting read, even if you just look at the pretty pictures. :-)

The big argument? Its this : how far away are we from seeing this in a game?

Although my knowledge of 3D graphics is somewhat limited to intermediate OpenGL coding, I have a very strong belief that this will not only be possible, but it will be done within five years! Other people, disagree strongly. 20 years, they say!

I ttotally understand the industry professionals who contend that such things are impossibly difficult on a games budget and timeline. I mean, they know what they're talking about, right?

Yet, I still cannot help but think where we were 12 years ago, in the literal 'genesis' of computer graphics. You think this stuff is expensive now? I don't recall the specifics, but I remember Lucasfilm saying that it took days or weeks to render that famous "Genesis flyby" scene in Star Trek II. Do you remember that?

ftp://ftp.luth.se/pub/misc/anim/tv/genesisp.mpg

It was awesome... at the time. :-)

I can only think of those early-eighties CG experts neighing in disbelief at Doom3 today. "Because of X Y & Z! It will never work! Neverrrrr!" The Incredibles? "Not in my lifetime!". And this proves how conventional thinking works. To think I had arguments in 1994 with a telecomms engineer about whether ADSL was possible. The engineers know their biz, they've done their homework, and life is good. Right?

Wrong.

Costs will drop. Hardware capabilities will increase. Software will get smarter. Libraries will expand. Refinement will increase. And everything will get cheaper and faster and all that. I mean, this is the tech business people!

I can't predict the future exactly, but I know the folly in shrieking "impossible!" when faced with musings on future tech. When will people learn.

What do you think? Sooner or later?

The uncanny future

2005-12-13T02:30:00.000-08:00

credit : max kor, cgtalk.com

If you close your eyes and peer into the possible future of gaming, you might glimpse an image such as this. Today this noble warrior was generated entirely in Maya3D, but its not difficult to guess that one day computer games will be peopled with characters of such depth and realism. Maybe not today, but one day.

Do graphics make the game? Hardly! Yet I would argue that characters are an equal contributor. Adding personae of such extreme levels will one day take games well beyond that of any Hollywood movie. Not just to watch, but to interact with, to fight against, to hate, to fear, to save, to love. If the gameplay is served by the story, then what a day when the story is served by characters like this! "Video game moments" of yesterday were as evocative for me as movies or novels (even when they werely merely games with text!), so its no surprise that I should greatly look forward to truly rich and interactive characters. It is one of the biggest challenges of this emerging artform. Storytelling without convincing characters is like a movie with bad actors.

This will be a critical aspect that brings the storytelling potential of videogames closer to the mainstream (and one day consume it). Maybe the publishers who relish rich graphics over gameplay have a point in this : they are attempting to expand the market with greater and greater eye-candy (while the rest of us real gamers get bored). Personally, knowing that I got excited in the days of text, I'm a shoe-in for great graphics done right. Give me a game that delivers on all levels of gameplay, narrative, interactivity and characters, and I will be happy. But we know this isn't true for everyone. Gaming fans are a rarity in my generation (yet less so, I've noticed, in the next one).

However, as realistic as computer-generated characters become, there is a well-known problem referred to as "the Uncanny Valley"; the psychological consequence of increased photorealism actually decreases the believability of characters. The argument is that one should avoid (or minimize) the realism of graphics in order to heighten believability.

Personally, I would not shy from realism in this fashion. I see this barrier as part of the cost of having highly realistic characters in an interactive 3d environment. We may have a twinge of a "this is not real" creepiness, yet perhaps this will serve as the best reminder that we are, in fact, only playing a videogame. Is it not a fair trade-off from what we're seeing these days? Compare the warrior above with the visage of a typical WoW character. I'd take the uncanny valley any day over that! Do non-human characters exhibit the same problem? Is it OK for them to move and appear realistic? Even if the valley rears itself, we'll instinctively know that they are not real.

One day, that warrior will call out your name as he ambles towards you at the fireside. His footsteps will crunch across leaves as he nudgers closer, and emerges into the flickering light of the fire. Later, he will reveal himself as the King in disguise... and asks you to undertake a secret mission to save his daughter, the princess.

A little corny, but it sounds fun, right? For me, it is truly just as much fun to imagine.

And now a question for you! When will we see graphics at this level in computer games? 2 years? 5 years? 10? Never?