RSS Feeds
|
US Edition
Babblebaby
|
Defamer
|
Gizmodo
|
Kotaku
|
Lifehacker
On the assumption that President-elect Obama is indeed interested enough in these issues -- and with Detroit and Wall Street cratering, that's a Hulk-sized leap -- an editorialist at Kombo has appealed for aggressive, White House-led regulation of the games industry once the new administration takes over.
John Keefer has a nice piece up on Crispy Gamer regarding the issue of embargoes — are they really necessary, or do they simply encourage lazy journalism and sometimes inappropriate relationships with publishers? The issue at stake here isn't so much embargoes, which are a symptom of the problem, as much as journalistic integrity (or lack thereof) and moving from an 'enthusiast press' to 'real journalism':
I'm posting this because it's been something that's been bugging me for a while, particularly when I'm talking about my job to people who aren't that big on games. People who just presume that because I play a lot of games, I love all games, and cock an eyebrow when I respond "eh, 3D fighters, I hate that shit". Writing on Edge, Steve Poole asks:
Do you know anyone who likes books and likes all kinds of books, from popular exegeses of quantum mechanics to Mills & Boon romances? Do many people like all genres of film, or all genres of music? It's very rare. We ought to consider it a tribute to the increasing breadth and maturity of the videogame medium that there are people who only play hyper-realistic FPSes, or games featuring talking fluffy animals.
Well put. Chances are, you're no more a "gamer" than you are a "reader". Time for a change in your self-labelling, "gamers"! Suggestions for amendments below, right after you read the entirety of Poole's great piece.
Loving, Hating Videogames [Edge]
Every year I vote on a number of different game of the year, best of E3, best of whatever awards and every year I run into the same problem: The categories never really work for me. Often it ends up feeling like you're trying to squeeze a round peg into a square hole and hope for the best.
Thing is, I don't really have a solution. Take for instance today's news of the Game Critics' Best of E3 finalists. Check out those categories.
Best Social/Casual/Puzzle Game
Best Online Multiplayer Game
Best Action Game
Best Action/Adventure Game
Heck this year there were even a few that didn't get enough votes to make the cut.
Best Simulation Game, for instance, didn't get enough nominations to make the finalists list, but what would you include in there. Spore? Why not. HAWX, Sure, I suppose. Left 4 Dead? Maybe.
That's the problem, a lot of these categories are very easy to redefine and justify. What if you were making a Best of list for gaming, which categories would you include? Me? I think you need to include one category for each console, because often gamers only own one or two and they want to know which game is best on "their" system. But what about those collection of genres? I find them baffling, but it certainly looks like a lot of people use them. Maybe they just need new names. So what are you waiting for? Get to it.
Several feet to my left in the MTV Newsroom the camera crew is setting up for a shoot. One guy is trying to describe Spore to another guy. "You start as a little thing and then become a bigger thing...." He's struggling. The other guy wants to know if you can be a planet. Clearly they need to read my blog more.
Ah, the confusions of non-hardcore gamers. I'm reminded that a few weeks ago a friend approaches me asking about another game. He wants to buy it. He can't remember the name and calls it "that game with the walking man and the shapes and stuff". It took me a while to figure out which game he was talking about.
People just can't remember the names of games, it seems. Not if they're regular folks who don't eat and drink this stuff. I know someone who calls the Burnout games Crash 'Em Up and refers to Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney as Ace Wright: Phoenix Attorney — which I think sounds better.
Isolated phenomenon? Or is this re-naming and mis-describing of games something you've encountered too?
I'm on the road again today with my wife, son and two dogs. Trish is driving us back from El Paso, Texas to Denver. I spent a longish weekend visiting my mum and step-dad and since I'm going to be reviewing Wii Fit soon for Kotaku, I decided to bring along my Wii and a copy of the game.
Shortly after setting it up my step-dad wandered into the room to see what was going on. My son was hammering away at the Ski Jump mini game and it wasn't long until he wanted to give it a try. My step-dad, you may recall, is the one who fell asleep watching me play Grand Theft Auto IV. It's an understatement to say that gaming isn't his thing. But after about 15 minutes with the game he went to go get my mum. I think she'd really like this, he said.
Michael Abbott of The Brainy Gamer and Angela of Lesbian Gamers recently collaborated on a short essay aiming to address what they define as "the hostile climate that frequently arises within the gaming community." They tried isolating specific concerns about some gamer behaviour and raising questions about how to handle them, and just published what they've come up with.
Here's an excerpt:
Ironically, the medium we love that provides us with so much joy has also developed a fanbase with a reputation for anti-social, intolerant behaviour in both Australia and the United States where we live. We know it's a gross and unfair mischaracterization, but the broad set of cultural assumptions about games and gamers is largely negative, and we too often affirm those assumptions by our own behavior.
We talk about innovation in a number of ways in the game industry, some of which are very far off in the grand scheme of things: erudite discussions of game play, biomechanics, tailoring an experience to each individual. We have the less esoteric, more realistic discussions of what can be done with games now, and that sort of 'innovation,' I think, is really more a discussion of games 'growing up' and heading into more mature territory. Perhaps some of these debates are being cast in the wrong terms, or at least, there are multiple avenues of discussion to be explored.
What defines 'maturity'? I think the entertainment industry is somewhat hampered by defining works that include sex or violence or rough language as having 'mature themes': clearly there is an age component ('Should 10 year olds be watching this stuff?'), but it's overly simplistic at best. In my media collections, I have works I consider thematically "mature" in the ratings game sort of way, and the works that are mature in a different way. The ones that play with preconceived notions of the way things are or should be; the ones that deconstruct the traditional, reconstitute it as something new; most importantly, the ones that can be read on a number of levels.
I'm by no means an E3 or CES (Consumer Electronics Show) veteran, having attended both shows only twice (and the "classic" E3 only once). But compared to foreign events like Leipzig's Games Convention, Berlin's IFA (tech show that rivals CES) or Tokyo's TGS, the two American shows had/have a distinct identity from their overseas counterparts. Maybe it's the attendance of people with similar values to my own (aka sucking both gasoline and fast food with no abandon), but this similarity, however trivial it may be, has made me wonder why CES isn't filling in the gaps of E3. While I'd never expect developers to attend in mass (and frankly, there isn't room), why don't Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo use the CES stage as a launching ground for their next year of products?
Like Babe Ruth, I'm raising my controller in the air, calling the shot. (Granted, Babe Ruth called the homerun before it happened, but let's not sweat the details). I'm going to go on record and say what we're all thinking, but way too afraid to admit:
The Xbox 360 won 2007. The console might not have sold the most units or captured the attention of the mass media, but as a platform, it's provided the most complete experience of the year while executing titles with the most successful track record.
The Most Games You Want To Play
Let me make a little list for you: Bioshock, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, Crackdown, Guitar Hero II & III, The Orange Box, Halo 3, Forza 2, Skate, Rock Band, COD4. Are all these Xbox 360 exclusive? No. But you can play them all on the Xbox 360 (along with a 2006 catalog that had some decent titles as well). And in the case of quite a few of these games, they are running better on Xbox 360 than other consoles. There's simply more good stuff to play on the 360 than any other modern console and, for the most part, that content is running better on the 360.
