Very Political Day in US Today November 2, 2010

Today is Election Day in the US, which is decreed in our Constitution as the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November.  I don’t know why the guys who wrote it didn’t want it to be convenient, like on a weekend or something, but it is what it is and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be changed.

Today is also the day that the Supreme Court is going to be hearing arguments from both sides about California’s unconstitutional violent video games law, which despite being struck down by every court is now headed to the highest court in the land.  By the time I write this the hearing has already passed and has definitely made for some great reading.  It seems Justice Scalia has quite a wit about him saying such things like, “Would you Censor Grimm’s Fairy Tales?” (a fair question that has been asked more than once historically) and the other Justices seem to be on the ball asking questions about their clerks who play a lot of Mortal Kombat and what would happen to them if the law would be allowed.

Logic be damned there are no studies to equate violence in games to equally violent behavior in reality, it seems California’s sole evidence on their side is to equate games to porn and their whipping boy seems to be the game Postal 2, which has been referenced a lot by California’s side.  I’m sure the free-speech minded makers of Postal 2 are upset that their single game is being used to demean such a diverse and comprehensively succesful industry.

I seriously hope that the citizens of California, a state on the verge of bankruptcy, who make their games, record their music, produce their movies are appalled by the complete waste of money this has been for the state not just because of today’s proceedings but for the five years they have tried unsuccessfully to force passage of this illegal law.

Please note nothing is going to be resolved today this is just the beginning.  A ruling in this case will probably not be given for many months (It does take time).  Also note that just because the law has been struck down as unconstitutional in every other court below it the Supreme Court can vote differently and even some times in defiance of the Constitution (just ask the late great George Carlin).  However there have been cases where free speech has prevailed (ask Larry Flint).

G4 Dropped by DirecTV, No One Cares November 1, 2010

Satellite provider DirecTV has announced starting today they will no longer carry the G4TV station.  Because of this, starting today their subscribers will no longer be able to watch 24 hour reruns of Cops and Cheaters, much to the contrary position of G4’s wishes.

I’ve been playing very close attention to the comments section of most of the news articles being posted up about the decision DirecTV made to drop G4TV from their lineup, and they do not agree at all with what most of the articles proclaim or what G4 wishes to be known.

The internet has pegged G4 as getting a bad rap because of these proceedings and have been slamming DirecTV for what they claim are unfair business practices probably due to the fact that G4 is currently owned by Comcast, one of their competitors.

I myself have written about the downfall of G4, and it looks like I was right on the money.  DirecTV claims it’s the lowest rated station they provide and the cost to continue to carry it that G4 wanted was not justified given the low viewership.  I couldn’t agree more with this logic.

G4 used to be a good station.  I can’t stress that enough, and all the feedback I’ve read about this event seems to agree with that statement.  It has not been a good station since after the merge with TechTV.  Both stations had a perfectly unique lineup of shows which had a very dedicated viewership.  Once new management took control of the stations in the interest of changing the viewership to a much broader base, the station was completely wrecked and never recovered because they did this by either cancelling, shifting, or restaffing all of the well received shows leading to a viewership exodus which never recovered (and based upon the fact G4 hasn’t brought back any of the shows they produced that their former viewership watched it never will).

Without a strong lineup of unique well made shows (like what they used to provide) there is no incentive for someone to watch your station.  If no one watches your station then no provider will offer it.

Bring back your shows G4 or you might as well shut down.

The Making of Doom 3 October 31, 2010

Happy Halloween everyone!  In honor of the holiday I dusted off something I promised for all of you, the entire research paper I wrote six years ago on the development of id Software’s Doom 3.  The article itself is far too long to just simply post here so I created its own page on this website.  To view it, you can click on the tab marked “The Making of Doom 3” on the top of this webpage or just click the link right here. 

If you’re a historian of gaming news, a fan of id Software, or just curious what goes into development of a video game, feel free to check it out.  Enjoy!

What Happened to Pre-Order Cards? September 29, 2010

I picked up Dead Rising 2’s Zombrex Edition the other day and recieved it along with my pre-order incentive code and noticed for the second time what could be a distrubing trend.  The code was given to me on my reciept.  This is the second time this month I noticed this.  The first was when I got my GameStop Multi-Threat Armor when I picked up Halo Reach.

Normally when I preorder a game, if there is any preorder DLC included, usually you’re given along with your game a glossy index card with a scratch off code on it.  The card usually contains art from the game (or from the DLC itself) and instructions on how to redeem the code.

Does this mean the death of the Pre-Order card?  There are several good reasons why the cards should be discontinued.  They use extra paper which could be saved by just including them on a reciept.  They also ensure you don’t run out of codes, espessially if they’re tied directly into the Microsoft service so a new code can be generated every time one is requested, just like in a casino with paper money vouchers.

The problem is It’s not like it’s preventing code theft.  A guy online was still selling multi-threat armor codes on EBay for 60 dollars a pop (somehow).  Could he have gotten the codes by hacking the system, or did he just generate a bunch of codes and write them down?  Or was he just a plain fraud and the codes didn’t work?

I have to say I’m not really sad to see these things go.  I mean, I’m sad now but it’ll pass.  I’m glad that it allows some companies to save on some paper, that’s definatly enviromental thinking.

Death of a Consumer September 28, 2010

The following article was originally written on November 9^th, 2004, just after I had attended the midnight launch of Halo 2.  It was submitted to my freshman college English class that following day where it drew a cult following among the students and the Professor.  What follows is a slightly updated version of the article, mostly just minor tweaks.  The article is about advertising, and how it differs gender to gender.

A lone figure walks down a dark shadowed hallway.  The hallway is made entirely of metal and looks like the corridors you’d see in a futuristic spacecraft.  The figure is clad in space armor and walks down the hallway with purpose.  The light shines upon him and the viewer recognizes the figure.  It is none other than the Master Chief, the hero of Halo.  Reaching into a weapons locker, he grabs a rifle from the cabinet and enters an elevator.  Over the speakers play distress signals from across the galaxy, military forces in dire straits with need of help.  Finally the Master Chief makes it to the bottom of the elevator and steps outside of it.  Then the following two voices are heard.

“Admiral, tell your men to hold their positions, re-enforcements are on the spoke.”

“The entire fleet is engaged, Cortana.  With respect, what the hell sort of re-enforcement have you got?!”

The Master Chief looks out a window in the spacecraft.  In the darkness of space a familiar object is seen.  Earth is under attack.

At the end of the trailer appeared the subtitle:  “Stop Destruction of Human Race…In Progress”. 

The Master Chief readies himself to be blown out the airlock and opens the airlock doors, sucking himself into space and on top of the closest alien ship he can hit.

Sounds like a scene in a movie doesn’t it?  It’s not from a movie at all.  It’s from a commercial.  This one advertisement for a game that would be two years away started a new generation of gamers.

“Lose inches off your waist with no money down”, “More absorbent then the leading pad”, and “Have a very happy misses at home” are just a few examples of this strangle hold the advertising media has on the country.  It stays subliminally in our consciousness showing in between breaks of our favorite and not so favorite television programs.  It takes time away from our lives to corrupt us to feed money into the capitalist machine that is the world.  Yet advertising is all around us.  By integrating itself into our everyday lives it has us working jobs we hate to buy stuff that we don’t need.

You can see the trends in advertising marketing with the major difference in style of the first Halo 2 trailer and the Halo 2 commercials that aired on television.  The internet is seen as a different type of medium than the television.  The first trailer was intended for the people who loved the first Halo game and would use up their internet bandwidth to retrieve it to watch it.  Even though it didn’t show much except some new footage of the Chief going down an elevator and then later blowing himself out of an airlock hangar to hopefully land himself on board an alien ship’s hull while subtitles played, the intent was more to jar the memories of the first game with the players of Halo 2 using extremely simple methods while making a simple nod to where the second one will go.  It also showed off an early version of the new graphics engine to whet the appetite of what would be possible for the second game visually.

This is quite different then where the current TV commercials for Halo 2 are targeted.  They are more action oriented with an attempt to appeal to a person who is unfamiliar with the Halo universe.   These ads are professionally done, more targeted around showing off what the game can do to appeal to people who have a casual interest in video games other then the demographic of Halo gamers who the advertising agencies probably figured were already set to buy the game regardless of advertising.   There certainly wasn’t any intent in the commercials to make the game appeal to women.

Men and women are hardly alike.  I must admit this is hardly a controversial statement to make.  Such books have been written to show this very statement, including the very popular book, Men are from Mars, Women are From Venus.  Personally I would’ve preferred to come from Jupiter, but that’s not the point.  Men and Women have different tastes and different interests.  It’s not true in every case.  Sometimes women share interests with men and men share interests with women.  For example, cooking is not a common practice for only women.  There could be a man who is an excellent skilled chef like Emeril or Wolfgang Puck.  However, if there was one gender demographic that would be stereotypically assumed would be done by males would be gaming.

Advertising only recognizes trends using either surveys or sometimes just relying on stereotypes to market their product.  In the end, to the advertisers we are nothing more than empty vessels, ready to consume regardless of gender.  If it’s not a stereotype and their surveys don’t show a need for something, they won’t bother with it, and they saw no need to market Halo to women.

Now because of the amount of time that advertising has been harassing people it would take forever for me to write a paper about all the different examples in advertising for targeting of gender.  Perhaps if I had a grant and no life I would find it interesting, but it’s hardly a requirement of this article.  So for that reason this paper will be focused on one particular advertising campaign which has recently gone into full effect, the Halo 2 launch.

In November 2001, Microsoft launched their home video game console, the Xbox.  The flagship video game that was launched with the console and became the must have game for the console was a game called Halo.  In the span of four years, the game has sold over four million copies in its existence and to this day is the number one game to play at parties for teenage males.  So much of a fan base was created by the game, it was inevitable for Microsoft to convince their developer, Bungie to create a sequel.

Their prayers would finally be answered in September 2002, when Bungie announced development of Halo 2.  With the announcement came the very first commercial for the game, which was the very same commercial that was described at the beginning of this article.

The only game to actually successfully appeal to women was Will Wright’s The Sims, which was never the original intention of the designers, but strangely upon release the designers saw women loved the game more than men.  Halo, when it was released, was considered the norm.  It was viewed as a game that only young men enjoyed.  Because the game industry usually doesn’t make games they feel would appeal to women, they don’t waste time trying to advertise to them.  The outcome was as expected.  When Halo 2 was finally released on November 9, 2004 at 12:01 AM across the country, lines formed out the door.  Stores who said they were expecting sales of over a thousand copies.  Each!

The people who waited in line were gamers by every definition.  There was such a difference among all of them in appearance and style the only thing that actually held them all together was the fact that they all loved Halo and wanted to be among the first to play the sequel.  In the crowd of a hundred people at the release party I attended there was roughly a ninety-six percent male population in the group.  Of the four girls that were actually in the line that night, about half of the girls looked like they were there just to hang out with their boyfriends and had no actual interest in the game, but the other half of the girls left in the crowd were actually there for the game.  It was a genuinely disheartening statistic, but not a surprising one.

It was kind of sad to see this enormous imbalance along the genders in the crowd.  Over the years gamers have accepted these trends but still profess to attend events like this out of love for the games.  With these numbers they must be, they’re certainly not doing it because they think they’re going to get laid.

The question remains, will these trends remain?  As time goes on, a casual trickle of female gamers are appearing in LAN events.  This is a very encouraging sign of the changes to come, and I welcome it, I just hope advertising joins me.

The Problem with Online Distribution September 19, 2010

Right now it’s a hot topic so I figured I might as well talk about the elephant in the room that gamers are looking at right now, especially after the shutdown of Good Old Games, which as far as I know was the only DRM-free game distribution service online.  I want to talk a little bit about the history of online distribution and the DRM that has come along with it, and why unfortunately even while it’s creating record breaking money in sales, it is still based on a broken system which the customer will suffer for.

What follows is an original article created over two and a half years ago which has been updated to reflect the current times.

For the longest time online distribution and DRM have gone hand and hand with each other, because for some reason never made clear making something available for download online, even if the person is paying for it, was scary to publishers.  If they were going to do it, they were going to make it as restrictive as possible to the end user, both as a deterrent for them to use it, and for the “true owners” (IE the people with the millions of dollars who financed it, not the people who bought it) to have a minor sense of comfort over what they were doing.  Of course DRM can be broken as fast as most people can click a simple button, and just because people are downloading their games after paying for them, the same percentage of people who would unfortunately do illegal things with their data would be just as likely to share a physical copy of anything as they would a digital copy.  So already the whole system was started with a flawed argument, and unfortunately everything since then has been based on that flawed argument.

People have been burned pretty badly by DRM used by online distributers in the past, not just because of the game industry. Sony Connect was Sony’s failed attempt at competing with Apple’s iTunes at online distribution of music.  Their biggest promotional call was when they gave out codes to the soundtrack for the first God of War game for free to anyone who bought the game and registered their manual’s promo code on the service.  However, while people were fine with redeeming a simple code for some free DRM filled audio content, they had no interest in buying anything else through the Connect while better options like iTunes already existed.  It was a massive failure, and Sony eventually decided to shut it down.  Famously, when Sony’s Connect system was brought down around 2007, making any DRM protected files you purchased through the system no longer accessible, and making anything still protected by it forever locked after it was shut down. Sony famously sent an email telling all their customers to simply copy their files to mp3 after burning the files to CD-R while the service was still on, which is basically the way to remove all DRM from audio files that will allow you to burn them to CD.  If the customers didn’t do this while the service was still running (or hadn’t done it before already) they would not be able to listen to their music ever again, music they paid the same price for as they would for a CD.  So basically they openly advocated the procedure they didn’t want their customers doing just so their customers could keep listening to files they paid for. Will I complain? No, my only files were the God of War soundtrack and it was free and I had removed the DRM immediately anyway upon purchase. I still had the master files backed up just in case, but that turned out to be pointless.

On another side, I had purchased one of the initial download copies of Half-Life 2, downloaded through Steam, unlocked through Steam when released, requiring an internet connection to get to work. And you know what? It worked fine, and did not take my rights away from using the game. In fact it gave me more rights, I had the ability to download the game onto any computer at one given time and access it with a simple password and username like I would use AIM. No need for discs, no need for installation. It worked, and worked well, and all my impressions of Steam are positive.  But what if the time comes when the Steam service no longer exists?  Will I still have access to my games?

Something like that did happen, just ask any of the early digital downloaders of the game Prey. I saw no point to getting the downloadable version of the game through triton as what I wanted was the retail collector’s edition. I got it, and installed it just like any game. It functioned perfectly fine. Then in three weeks or so everyone who had Triton versions of the game were no longer able to play it because the company went out of business. Their money was wasted and they had no game to play. To save face 3D Realms gave free retail copies at their own expense to all triton purchasers, and made the Triton access codes compatible with Prey’s Steam release.   The damage was still done, people finally saw just how fragile digital distribution and rights management could become if the master the protection needed to phone home to no longer existed, they were screwed and completely out of money.

So now the Good Old Games owners are feeling the burn of online distribution, and from what I can tell online, they don’t like it.  Unlike the Prey users, they’re fortunate enough that their downloaded copies still work, if they were smart enough to back up their installers, but you know if DRM was included on those games it would be a whole lot worse.

20 Things to Do Until Halo Reach Comes Out September 13, 2010

It’s currently going to be about 21 hours until the release of Halo Reach on the Xbox 360 on the east coast.  A lot of Halo players out there are probably twiddling their thumbs looking for things to do until the midnight release of the game at their local game stores.  So here’ s a few things you can do until then.

1. Download Halo Waypoint, and try to get to the highest level you can.  If you make it to level 50 you get a special avatar helmet.  Heck, you can also easily spend 21 hours just watching all the videos on it.
2. Watch all episodes of Halo Legends on Blu-Ray, or download it in HD on the Zune Marketplace.  Really the only way to watch this series is in HD.
3. Watch my Top Ten Halo Cutscenes Video, and it’s Supplemental Video.
4. Go to bungie.net and link your site account to Xbox Live account, which people have been able to do since the release of Halo 2.  If your accounts are already linked, make sure to register your CD-Key of Halo 1 PC/Mac, link your copy of Marathon Durendal XBLA (just recently play it on your 360 before linking it on the site), and select your spiffy nameplate for Halo Reach multiplayer battles in your account options.
5. Download a countdown clock for your iPhone, the one I like the best the maker started charging .99 cents for, but there’s at least one countdown program that’s free.  Just search Halo Reach in the app store, you’ll find one.
6. Download all the content from the Xbox Live Countdown to Halo Reach Week.
7. Try to play through Halo 1 on Legendary and watch Johnson and an Elite make peace before the end (good luck on that one!)
8. Host a Halo 1 Xbox LAN for old time’s sake.  System Link between Xbox 360 and the original Xbox is still fully compatable.  If you do decide to hold one, make sure to invite me!
9. Watch The Making of Halo 2 Documentary on the Halo 2 Collector’s Edition DVD, still to this day the best making of documentary ever included in a collector’s edition.
10. Read the four graphic novels:  The Halo Graphic Novel, Halo Uprising, Halo Helljumpers and Halo Blood Line.
11. Get a set of special dog tags made with your chosen SPARTAN designation.
12. Write “My Other Vehicle is a Warthog” on the back of your car.
13. Read through the entire Halo Encyclopedia (good luck).
14. Salute the previous Nobel Six’s sacrifice whenever you see the live-action commerical air on tv.
15. Drive by 3D Realms’ and leave a flaming bag of shit on their doorstep.
16. Try to bring back Mountain Dew Game Fuel.
17. Watch Game Boys.
18. On the off chance you have a significant other, take them out tonight, because there’s going to be a good chance you’re not going to see them for a while.
19. Watch the Halofest episodes of Red vs Blue.
20. Support my website!

Where Have All The Gamers Gone? September 7, 2010

In the old days of gaming – and by old I mean 8 and 16 bit, multi-platform meant only one thing. It’s on the Oddyssey and the Atari, Master System and NES, SNES and Genesis.  Unfortunately back then, third parties had weird agreements whereby they couldn’t cross platforms, so sadly, if your sorry ass could not afford to have both systems, and trust me — most of us couldn’t, then your game library would be limited to what was available in the system you married (chose).  As a survivor of the first generation of console gaming, I can assure you, cross platform was a huge deal.

You are now able to game on your phone, consoles, on your computer, iPad, iPod Touch, PSP and/or DS.  In this reality – which is much, much different than the reality I grew up in – when you launch a game, you damn well better make it multi-platform or you will lose “subscribers” for no reason.  I use the term “subscribers” instead of the word “gamers” because the era of the gamer is over.

You’re probably asking, “What do you mean the era of the gamer is over?”

If you game on your mobile device – you are a subscriber.  Perhaps it happened unwittingly, because social pressure has convinced you that you have no choice but to own a cellphone – and well, since you must have a cellphone, why not have the most feature-laden phone around?  Naturally, you get a smartphone.  But owning a smartphone makes no sense unless you load it up with entertaining things, thereby increasing its marginal utility.  Come to think of it, if every available kilobit of your phone isn’t used up, you are in fact letting it go to waste.

Thing is — everybody has a cell phone, not the case with consoles.  And here’s thing #2 – you, my dear subscriber, have no problem shelling out the extra $99 or whatever it is to upgrade your phone – whereas you would balk at wasting $250-$600 on a gaming console upgrade.  And because of the ever increasing popularity of gaming Apps, (like the hundreds of people that I know are addicted to Tap Tap Revenge, Bejeweled Blitz and Farmville) the cellphone industry has actually created a whole new breed of “gamers”.  But they’re not gamers are they? – That’s because they’re sub-scri-bers.

At this point you might ask, “What does this have to do with consoles?”

Look…when you sell a console – you are in fact establishing a relationship with your clientele.  They are able to access games only through you, and if you don’t carry the game that the other console carries, then you are making your subscribers unhappy.  Some of you might say, but dude – you don’t even own an XBOX 360, Wii or PS3, you don’t even have an up to spec machine that can run WOW or SC2!

Yes I know…fuck you very much for pointing that out.

I might not own the current gen consoles, but there’s a reason for that.  At some point, I had the option of buying a $400 console or a plane ticket, I chose to travel.  Then it was between a $350 console and a camera, I chose the camera.  Then it was a $99 phone, plus $79 protection plan or a console, I chose the phone.

It took me a while, but I eventually realized that gaming had finally lost its appeal for me, I didn’t want to be Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo’s fanboy–or simply put, their subscriber.

Back in the Console Wars of the 80s and 90s:

• I was like a muhfuckin’ field general, I knew release dates, highest possible scores, cheat codes, and the all important game ratings.
• I was an Atari child – I sampled the Oddyssey, but I didn’t like the platform, or its library.
• I was a Nintendo grunt – the Master System looked like duplo to me, and their library was much smaller than Nintendo’s.
• I was Sergeant SNES – though I owned a Sega+Sega CD at the tail end of that system’s life cycle.  I liked SNES because it had brighter colors, better music, Zelda, Metroid and Mario.
• I was a PS/N64 Special Agent – I personally cast the Voodoo curse that caused the Dreamcast and Saturn to die their horribly slow deaths.
• I was a PS2 Jedi – Nintendo could not convince me with their silly proprietary media format GameCube, and the satan company of Microsoft was getting none of my money.

And that was it – I had it.  Nobody was gonna charge me almost $500 to upgrade to the new system.  I couldn’t be convinced.  As much as I wanted to play Final Fantasy 13, Metal Gear Solid, the newer Metriods, Marios and Zeldas.  I just ceased to care.  Life got in the way, and I retired from active gaming.

So when you say multi-platform, Speaking as a highly decorated Veteran and Deserter from the Great Console Wars, I say, “Release on all platforms or suffer subscriber loss!”

Because the gamers baby, they’re either dead, dying or indifferent…or maybe they’re retired – just like me

What Defines Multiplatform? September 6, 2010

I could type out PC, Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii, but I’ve got stuff to do.  So whenever possible I like to use the all encompasing term “Multiplatform” when I say which platforms the games I report on will launch for if it is going to be released on many different platforms.

Unfortunatly multiplatform is a very general term.  In most cases, games these days seem to be coming for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC all at around the same time, occasionally a Wii game is thrown in there, but not so much anymore.  So can a game coming for three platforms be considered multiplatform or does it have to be released for all of the big four to count?  Can I get away with calling it multiplatform if it’s just three out of four?  Does PC even count as a platform? Ed. Note – Of course it does.

On another thought does multiplatform count on handhelds?  Currently the PSP, DS are the two major handheld devices, but what about cell phones for gaming devices?  iPhone or Android OS sure, but there are thousands of different phone platforms which can play games, does one game have to come out on all those too for multiplatform?

Eh screw it, I’ll just have to type it all out.  I think my hair is going to be very gray soon.