How To Be A Game Journalist

Do you like video games? If so, you may already qualify for your dream job. That’s right: Games journalism, the art of writing about games in order to gain fame, prestige, and free copies of things. It can also be quite lucrative, so if you’re reading this, feel free to send your boss the kiss-off email you’ve been composing in your head for years. The rest of your life is about to begin now.

Not only will games journalism give you a career, it’ll give you the social network and peer recognition you’ve always longed for. Lonely? Not anymore! Get ready to meet your 200 new internet friends and thousands of Twitter followers!

This sounds great, you’re saying. But how do I do games journalism?

You need a lot of feelings and opinions. This part is essential. Unlike other people, when you play a video game you have experiences and responses and thoughts, and probably most people have never had those before. You should write them down. If you don’t have particularly strong opinions, fear not: Just be very emotional, and you will get a lot of attention. Attention is, of course, the measure of quality.

You need a lot of passion and faith. Nobody believes in the games industry like you do, and you need to show those jaded assholes how much you care. That you have a heart in your chest that beats sets you apart from so many others who don’t have feelings or who don’t believe in anything. You are more honest than everyone else, and that’s admirable. That’s all that counts.

You need the nobility to pour your heart out for free on a daily basis if gaming is ever to be saved. Oh, yeah. It needs saving, which is why you must write that blog post. Spend three weeks on it. Tweet about it many times; it is tough but you are making progress. It’s important work.

You must keep in mind that everyone who is more experienced than you are is always wrong. Doing games journalism is not a want, it is a need. You have suffered in silence too long, praying quietly at the altar of your living room console while all of these boring jerks do all this work in the industry. How have you let them ruin everything for so long? Why have you deprived them of the change engine fueling your single voice? Rise now, tell them what’s broken and how to fix it. You can make, like, two bucks a word telling people how to fix things. Didn’t you know that?

Wait. No. You don’t care about money. This isn’t about money. You and your friends have run a fansite for years because you care, and your caring about video games must continue to supersede your self respect or your interest in craft or boring things like that. You don’t want to be a professional, you just want to live your dream, do what you love and save the games industry, and those are the most important activities.

Like, you’re just a games journalist, not some, like, journalist. Anyone who asks to be taken seriously or paid well is the enemy. Don’t forget it. Scrutinize everything they do. It’s a thankless job, but at least you’ll get to be the first person to see some trailer someday. You will get a bobblehead that none of your friends have. Tell them that they can’t even buy it in a store. It’s a press gift. You’re press. Oh my god, your badge says press and you can walk to the front of the line.

You might even get an email from a developer you’ve heard of telling you that you did a good job writing about their game. The day you see that name in your inbox will make up for all of your suffering. You can tell your colleagues you were 'just talking to' so and so. 

You must root out corruption wherever you find it. Don’t stand for it. Everyone but you accepts junkets, bribes and freebies. This is just how the games industry is, and you don’t even have to work in it to know that. You’re just that special. And if you’ve been at this for a long time, like a year or something, that’s when you get really good at calling people out on their shit. Think about it: One day they’re names on your most favorite website, the next they’ve got a lot of explaining to do. They’re accountable to you. That’s part of your job.

Wait, yeah. This is your job. You’re not some fan writer. You’re going to get an award for this someday. People who say there’s no journalism in games have never read your interview with the guy who made that thing, and they’ve never read it because they don’t get it so you have nothing to explain, not to that sort. You can laugh quietly to yourself; they’ll learn.

You should be a contrarian. You get together with your coworkers in the bar and have a beer and laugh about how you’re going to do this, like, crazy thing. You’re going to give Halo 4 a score of 2. Wait, how, why? Oh my god, you guys. You’ll see. Spread yourself out in the booth. Stick your chest out. You’re a breath of fresh air, you’re a rebel. Fuck professionalism, there’s no name for what you do.

This is your work. This is your identity. You are above reproach, except for when you’re not, and then while you seethe in secret about having your incredibly hard work and your precious integrity undermined, you know how to blog the perfect apology. You are so deferential. You call your readers “folks.” You tell them how hard you’ve been working to build something or other and how they’ve been helping. You all love games. Isn’t that what it’s all about, the games?

Yeah. It’s all about the games. That’s why you do this.

With Friends

I'm just back from delivering a keynote at the Boston Festival of Indie Games' first annual event! Hey look it's me (thanks for the picture, Elliott)! While I was there, I did some lite recon on the Boston dev culture and community to find out how the locals feel about working there these days. Read my newest article: 'In Boston, strong community means resilience in the face of change.'

I've been thinking a lot about community events lately; in my latest Creators' Project column I write about some things designers I like are doing to foster public gaming and participatory events. One of the guys I wrote about is Hokra creator Ramiro Corbetta, who I just interviewed in some depth at Gamasutra about ways to encourage design that brings people together: Check out 'Why indie games make meaningful spectator sports'.

People have played with simple, timeless things forever -- find me someone who doesn't know how to play tic-tac-toe, and even if you can do that, bet you they can learn it in under five minutes. Minesweeper is one of those games I'd say has reached, or nearly reached, modern folk status as far as being (along with Solitaire) a continuous feature of the PC experience. Read my new piece, Reinventing Minesweeper: It was almost purple, about how Microsoft has tapped a NY-based company to bring those classics up to date. Like, where do you even begin? How has the "casual"  audience changed?

Speaking of playing together in person, I went to Nintendo's Wii U event. I'm still getting used to saying "Wii U." Don't like to say it, so I keep saying "Nintendo's new thing." Can't help but think of how much we laughed at how the word Wii would never take off, right before the word Wii proceeded to be something that everyone understands to mean a Nintendo game console.

It looks like a fun thing you can play on your couch. With your girlfriend, because girls are shit at video games. Obviously I'm messing with you, but you can read my new article on "Girlfriend Mode" -- a firm did a study that suggests controversial name conventions can actually be extremely useful in selling people totally reasonable and cool features.

Nostalgia culture

Coincidentally, two pieces I've done relating to nostalgia and childhood memory have come online at about the same time. You might know I do a column in Edge magazine, and then a couple months after those hit newsstands the columns come online. Wasn't that long ago that my last one, about how the way we cover and examine games needs to grow up, was generating some discussion on Twitter, which, by the way, I very much appreciated following!

I guess it makes sense to follow a discussion on looking ahead with one about looking back. Here, I discuss the important role nostalgia plays in both writing about and creating games. At the same time, today's column at Gamasutra takes the idea a step further: While ultimately languishing in terminal adolescence and obsessing on the memory of what little boys used to like is one of the greatest forces holding games back, there exist some clear examples of how a selective and insightful relationship with our childhood memories can actually create more timeless and universal games.

It's the idea of "intelligent nostalgia" -- what to keep from our valuable past and what to let go of.

Okay, okay

Despite the degree to which Formspring once exhausted me, I've experienced a temporary leave of my senses and opened my page up again. Fielding questions on there has let me know how much some of you miss having regular posts here at this blog, an occupation I've let lie since May of this year.

I stopped blogging here for a couple obvious reasons: I've been short on time, and now that I'm full-time freelance (editor-at-large at Gamasutra, and making contributions to other sites in the rest of my time) I need every last idea spark I can get to develop work across the platforms I serve. If it's worth pestering you about here, it's probably worth formalizing into something I can actually sell.

That never stopped me from blogging before, since I always thought it was important to have a one-stop repository that connects me to the people that read my work. But I've gotten so active on social media platforms that there's always a home for people who want to follow me: I promote links and discussion on Twitter, have a Facebook page for people who prefer to get links and to comment there, and I even have a Google+ page if you hate Twitter and Facebook.

But a lot of people have been telling me they wish I still updated here, and if that's what you want I'm gonna try to do that, at least until I get a proper website, an ambition I've kind of fruitlessly cultivated for a couple years now.

It was also nice of you guys to ask on Formspring about memep00l, sort of my first actual experiment into writing any kind of fiction in public. I'm into the social media format and am very pleased that some people care about the narrative so far. I'll be catching up on that soon.

I've also been spending time with another first-for-me -- I've always wanted to learn to do interactive fiction, since I'm such a big fan of it. I'm very slowly teaching myself Inform 7 using Aaron Reed's excellent book, and in the meantime I thought I'd explore interactive writing using a simpler tool that lets me experiment with how to structure story and choices.

I have been enjoying playing with Inklewriter (thought I'd give it a try after writing about it here) -- incidentally, it has a Future Voices competition closing in just a few days if anyone wants to try and slip an entry in under the wire. I seem to struggle with finishing large projects, but hopefully I will have a little "game" to show one of these days soon.

More recently, I've done an editorial on whether there's a conflict between telling complex stories -- that might not have neat or nice endings -- and the player's desire to win. Would love to know what you think. I also went in-depth with FarmVille 2's head designer on whether the game addresses some of the chronic and fricative design problems I've seen with Zynga games in the past.

Aside from that, I attended an art exhibit about cats with money, which sent me musing at Boing Boing on internet cat culture and classism.

I have loads going on in the coming weeks, as per usual, I guess, but I'll give blogging more a shot. Thanks for everything, everyone!

Yes, This

 "There was no evil executive coming in from on high telling us to make the game more lowbrow. The team was not a bunch of sniveling adolescent boys (a couple were, to be honest, but most were of the aforementioned good type). I think instead that the problem was structural— deeply structural to the product itself, at a level where no amount of “smart” versus “dumb” choices can really change things. One of those games centered around shooting aliens with guns and lasers. Another was about navigating an environment and punching people until they died.

The very second you try to wrap actions like those in a “good story” that does not somehow address what happens during the mechanical part of the experience is the second you fail to write a good story."

-- M. Wasteland, "Dumbness in Games, or the Animal as a System" 

Catch-Up Catch-Up

Agh, well! I've done that thing again where I don't update my blog, and now so much has happened that I keep putting off the doubless-endless update until the ghostly thing gets larger and larger. Unfortunately, the cure for this is for me to just give you a list of links in case you missed anything I've written in the whirlwind that my last few weeks have been.

Thank you for everything! In not any particular order:

I just got back from Copenhagen, where I had a fascinating studio tour thanks to Reto-Moto. I don't usually get to go this in-depth with developers at work.

The Atlantic profile of Jon Blow caused a big stir, and here's my response to why focusing on personalities and creators in games seems to compel "outsiders" so much.

I appear on the Just Talking podcast, where I'm interviewed about my career, including how I've handled some things I've not really been asked about before.

I review Silent Hill: Downpour for Paste, James illustrates. The juxtaposition is... funny.

In a media sea of "Girls Shows" and increasingly vocal empowerment rally cries, I write about how I still feel bad sometimes. Was very comforted by the tide of empathy from others who feel the same.

I attempt to identify the precise design philosophies that make Zynga games evil struggle to retain their long-term user numbers.

Many designers (an artists of all kinds) know that constraint is good for all kinds of creativity, but there's a new wave of game makers demonstrating a new take on this idea.

In our monthly "Ask Gamasutra" feature, the Gamasutra staff and I share what we do and don't like about the press releases we get from PR folks.

Another one of my monthly Edge columns has come up online; this one's about my frustration with the binary perception gulf between "game writers" and "game designers."

I spoke to Kellee Santiago when she left thatgamecompany. I also spoke to Robin Hunicke on her own exit, as she joins her friend Keita Takahashi at Glitch maker Tiny Speck. Wish great luck to them both.

I also talked to Suda51 about Lollipop Chainsaw and the things he wants to do in the new media landscape. Big fan of his.

Here's Anna Anthropy on her new book, Rise of the Videogame Zinesters, and her new game, dys4ia.

I think that's it, probably, maybe? Lord, I dunno. Sorry. Lots going on.

"Angry Birds, it seems, is our Tetris: the string of digital prayer beads that our entire culture can twiddle in moments of rapture or anxiety — economic, political or existential."

-- Sam Anderson, "Angry Birds, Farmville and Other Hyperaddictive ‘Stupid Games’"

True Enough

"There is value, though, in the notion of the geek role model. Though many of us have enjoyed uplift to a higher plane of living there are still millions stuck in podunk towns, surrounded by bullies and morons. The Internet is great at letting people know that they’re not alone, but it doesn’t magically transport you to San Francisco or Brooklyn or wherever else all of your people congregate. In cultural wastelands, it is still possible for a geek to feel alone. That’s why geek heritage is important."

-- Gus Mastrapa, "On Being A Geek"

Desperation

"Users hide comfortably behind their computer screens and type the most obnoxiously offensive things they can think of and thirstily WAIT for an angry response; a validation of their modest efforts."

-- Issa, "People On The Internet Can Be Hella Racist"

(PS: Check out "The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl", even if your only reason for doing so is to see how charming, bright and non-awkward people are still liable to feel 'awkward')

About That 'Fake Geek Girls' Article

I'm not really into being called a "geek" or a "nerd." Everyone tells me, "of course you are: you're in video games for a living." They roll out checklists, even, a litany of things I like, things I did in high school; skills I've got, things I know, or even measures of how much I know about those things or how much I like them, as if to make sure I know how nerdy I am.

I wouldn't say it bothers me, exactly, but I don't think the label really applies, either. First, I'm not a stereotype. I'm defined by the things I like and the things I do, sure -- but I'm not labeled by them, I'm not consigned or obligated to some group because of them.

Second, being someone who'd be passionate about a few things to the exclusion of all else, who prizes some list of entertainment media over social skills and the human experience, is not something I'd be proud of. I'm proud that I know a lot about a lot of offbeat things. I'm proud that I've grown up on the internet. But I never thought I had to choose between that and feeling included among people in the world.

I know that "geekdom" was something a lot of us did in high school because we felt marginalized, we didn't blend in, we needed safe havens. But dude, I'm not in high school anymore. I spend all my working days talking about how games and fantasy worlds can be something adults can still enjoy. I'm not concerned with the labeling and judgment that teenagers do.

Most importantly, "geek" doesn't even really mean anything anymore. Someone on Twitter said that the fact I Tweet about Game of Thrones makes me a nerd. Uh, it's on HBO. That's mainstream entertainment. Even Lana del Rey can figure out how to use Twitter. None of this stuff is exclusive anymore.

Traditional ideas about geekiness are dying a slow death in the social media age. The socially-awkward computer nerd is not society's embarrassing chaff, but rather an admired hero driving connectivity and innovation. Steve Jobs has been practically canonized. Video games are, thank god, becoming something that anyone can enjoy and understand on whatever level they choose.

Some say that geekiness or nerddom or whatever isn't defined by your interests, but how obsessed you are with those things: Like say, it isn't the fact you have a weekly D&D session or belong to a WoW guild or like Robert Jordan books; it's the fact you spend hours writing your own campaigns or would rather play WoW than go out or that you own every Robert Jordan book and have read each one at least three times and you submit to a fanfiction forum.

But if geekiness is about degree rather than subject, then the girl who has practically made a part-time job out of knitting animals for her Etsy store is a "geek". You're a geek if you go to law or medical school, which require obsessive focus and attention to detail. If you are a banker who plays fantasy football and memorizes player stats, and then routinely meets your league-mates for beer on Sunday, you're a geek.

It's just not A Thing anymore, in this world where we have access to endless volumes of information and access to a wider swath of insight into the diversity in other people's lives than we ever had. You'd think we'd all be happy about it, people like us who grew up putting grocery bags around our books so no one would know we were reading shojo manga in 8th grade health class and laugh at us.

When it comes to video games, I'm psyched -- now people from all walks of life will be contributing their talents and experiences to the medium, people who might have gone off and just did movies or something instead, and it'll be richer and there'll be more people to have fun with and it'll just be better.

But for some reason, the normalization of "geekdom", the fact we now have the freedom and ability for everyone to get obsessed with whatever they want whenever and share it with whomever or not, is super threatening to a lot of people.

And it's not that I don't understand: You made a secret fort to hide your heart in when you were a child who was hurting, and now you feel like people are trying to take your fort away.

But part of becoming a damn adult is understanding that shit can't hurt you anymore. You can keep yourself safe.

You don't need to judge, label and fight with people because of your stupid video games and fantasy books. I mean, it's crazy that I even have to say this, even to some people that are presumably adults. But maybe, if "geek" does mean anything, if I had to pick a definition for it, it'd be "person who's afraid to grow up", or "person who can't adjust."

That's sure what it looks like to me when I read this article. Sidenote: Forbes has really been batting a thousand lately when it comes to "geek interest" writing; my guess is they've hired new writers that they don't have to pay very much, and relying on the guaranteed forum and Reddit hits that come from telling superfans of "geek culture" what they want to hear.

Kinda gross; first, there was this piece about how the writer's inexperienced outsider status somehow made him more qualified to tell BioWare fans they deserved a new ending for Mass Effect than we industry-bought jaded game journo types; actually, there were multiple different blog-style stories from multiple authors that seemed pretty transparently geared to exploit the environment of fan ire toward BioWare and toward game reviewers.

Now this gem. Here's an author tired of what she views as an epidemic of "fake geek girls" who are, in her view, emulating "geek culture" in order to gain male attention. I'm not really sure where this supposed phenomenon is centralized; she says "girls", so maybe she means "in high school," but then she says she is married, so presumably she is an adult woman who is here to ... police young women?

If you believe that your interests define your identity, then our present-day environment, where it's suddenly easy to access obsessive reams of information on anything and to connect with the like-minded, means it's easier than ever to be anyone you want. Anyone can own a popular Tumblr or flirt with YouTube stardom or have hundreds of followers and plenty of people try. People are fascinated with building identity through participatory online media.

That's probably why the wider Western culture seems obsessed with authenticity right now: A word as prevalent as "geek" is "hipster", an equally overblown term that refers to someone deeply concerned with appearing cool in an authentic way -- even if it means inauthentically borrowing superficial signifiers, like fashion or music, from other cultures or eras.

The author of the article takes great pains to establish her own authenticity and attack the authenticity of others, for... why again? Presumably she feels threatened, like her "geeky" pastimes should remain secret forts that everyone needs to know the password to get into. It's a weird, sad way for an adult to behave.

It's true we're fascinated with authenticity and the lack thereof these days. But here's a little news flash to the author: Curiosity about other societies and people, and a desire to be included, is a perfectly valid reason to adopt or espouse a new hobby. If the acne-clad pungence of the basement stereotype around certain hobbies has now been dissipated, it's totally logical that new faces would be attracted to our culture, hoping to get involved.

Yes, probably they want to be liked. Probably they will try hard. This does not make them "fake." It makes them human. It's normal. Everyone, whether they will admit it or not, secretly wants to be liked.

And didn't you hide inside your computer games and fantasy books because when you were young you tried to be liked and you failed? And now even though that was years ago you're going to make sure you get your revenge? Seriously, how old are you?

Also, to the author: Girls have always pretended to like things in order to get boys to like them. In ninth grade I paid a dollar for an older girl's cigarette so that I could be seen holding it (unlit) by this kid I liked so that he wouldn't think I was too goody-goody for him. I did not even smoke. Was I being fake? Yes. Was I being normal? Duh. (The gentleman involved was not fooled, incidentally.)

Boys often pretend to be a little cooler or smarter about this or that than they are because they want girls to like them, too. That the author genders her argument against "fake girls" makes it really, really weird to me. Does she think her male friends are so stupid they will be misled by truly false people? Does she have a deep-seated insecurity that makes her feel the need to be the most authentic girl in the room?

When we were kids being a geek girl made us feel sort of rare and special. It was all boys and then us, and for some of those nerdy boys, we were the only girl they really talked to. We were the center of attention. Maybe this girl is still acting on the subconscious need to keep other women away so that she can still feel special. Clearly she has some misdirected anger, and a paucity of self-awareness.

This is the worst kind of thing to me, because not only is it sad for her, but it sucks for all of us. Women in our space, having once been something of a scarcity, face particular challenges. We lack for companions and mentors. We regularly experience sexism. We are constantly having our authenticity undermined by people who assume we can't possibly be competent, knowledgeable or genuine. We don't need other women to actually try to make it harder.

Whoa, wait. Does the author's bio really say that she works with a mentorship org and runs a tech group for women? That's scary.

The article even presents a Venn diagram that shows that "geekdom" lies at the intersection of intelligence with social ineptitude and obsession. I think it leaves out "arrested development," because again, when I look at the argument from this girl -- and from any "geek" with an unsettling refusal to accept growth and diversity -- all I see is people who think they are still in high school, who are afraid of losing their safety fort to girls who go shopping, because going shopping is something something only fake girls blah blah.

I mean, really?

Tara "Tiger" Brown is worried about fake geek girls. Tara, you are a woman now, okay?

And incidentally, if you're going to start articles with aggressive lists of proof of your authenticity, I wouldn't brag about the Sierra Quest games. That's kinda entry-level stuff. And Transformers? Didn't Michael Bay make a movie about those?

Yeah. If being a geek is just about competing to see who can be the most obsessed and unpleasant, fuck it, I'm not that.

Is It Summer Yet

Well, I survived GDC, and we wrote unholy tons of great talk coverage from smart, exciting developers! I was on the One Life Left radio show with famous people one night!! I did a lot of work, but some of my fave experiences real quick: This Alone in the Dark postmortem, a touching talk from Double Fine's Nathan Martz on lessons in Once Upon A Monster's design, and the always-brilliant Richard Lemarchand on why designers should think more about the science of attention than about the unhelpfully-vague "immersion" concept.

We all want so much from games that it's sometimes easy to get frustrated, or misdirected (a recent Edge column I wrote about my frustration with the "games as storytelling medium" conversation is online today). But GDC always revitalizes my enthusiasm for games, the people that make them and the ideas that some of our best minds are always brewing. Incidentally, I weighed in pretty extensively on the "storytelling medium" thing in last month's "Ask Gamasutra" feature.

I returned back to New York from San Francisco with a terrible fever that took me out of commission for nearly a week, and I'm scrambling to get back to life now. Speaking of revitalizing my enthusiasm, play Journey. Play Journey. There is nothing in the world for me like games made by people who want to create and who are doing it because they care. If you don't have a PS3, sell a relative's organs and buy one (or borrow one from someone, at least).

I Hate Picking Headlines

I've talked to you guys a little about Chrono Cross' soundtrack before. For Kirk Hamilton's weekly music block over at Kotaku (Kotaku has "programming" now, if you hadn't heard), he asked me to kick in some thoughts, and I elaborated some on why it's absolutely my favorite soundtrack in games. I've been replaying Chrono Cross lately and it only serves to emphasize for me how massively overlooked and underrated the game is. Chrono Trigger was a tough act to follow. More on that soon -- promise.

For everyone asking me "should I buy a PlayStation Vita," I'm like, "well, do you want it? Are those games you want to play, and can you afford it?" I mean, if the answer to all three questions are yes, you should get it.

Me, I really like the thing. Of course, the great delusion of game journalists is that their likes and dislikes have anything to do with the market and what consumers will actually buy. I've written my impressions and thoughts on the device and its tough-to-call role in the complicated portable landscape over at Gamasutra, if you'd like to check it out and weigh in.

In other cool ideas that depend on complicated marketplaces, I've written an editorial about transmedia gaming and entertainment. Where's that glorious transmedia future we were promised?

Speaking of the future, I'm part of this classy quarterly futurist magazine called Arc. If you look at the other contributors you might see why I'm wondering if someone just put me in there by mistake. It's super awesome, and you can check it out on digital platforms or in print.

That's about it for now, aside from a very important music recommendation. For my birthday last year I threw an enormous loft party with many of our friends' bands, and Ava Luna, one of my favorite locals, was awesome enough to play. They continue to get bigger and more awesome, and now they have a new record out and the famously difficult-to-please Chris Weingarten likes them enough to put their record on Spin so that you can stream it, so you should. They're really good.

Meow

"Leigh Alexander has become a central figure in the debate, whether she likes it or not."

-- Smashing stereotypes around women and gaming, CBC News

I Guess I Got My Swagger Back

The following is a paraphrase of an email I got a couple of weeks ago, potentially containing a few direct quotes by accident.

Q: Dear Leigh Alexander, I greatly enjoy your Sexyvideo Gameland blog. But I miss when you used to write longer blog posts. Now it seems like you just link to your articles alot. I like your articles but I miss hearing your thoughts and opinions. Where is the thoughtful coverage?

A: Dear reader: In the articles. Please enjoy these links to the last couple weeks of my work. Thanks.

Road to the IGF: Die Gute Fabrik's J.S. Joust
Road to the IGF: Simogo's Beat Sneak Bandit
The Real Reason You Can't Stop Talking About Lana Del Rey
Activision commits to toy biz with new Skylanders: Giants
EA showcases 2012 lineup at New York showing
EA's faring well in the social race, but there's still a long way to go
'The world has changed': Team Ninja's Hayashi on more realistic, respectful games
Tecmo Koei: Japan's culture a 'huge treasure' in competitive market
The Dating Secrets of Your Favorite Video Game Characters
The Best Doctor's Visit You'll Never Have
The Future of Valentine's Day
Why the Chrono Cross Soundtrack is My Favorite

Broken Languages

I finally wrote an exhaustive review of Katawa Shoujo, the visual romance novel set in a facility for disabled teens (you may recall I first covered it back in 2010, exploring the cultural genesis of such an unusual idea). Over the past few weeks since the fan-made game's made its long awaited launch, tons of you have been mailing and tweeting to see if I'd played the final version, so now here you are.

Games about conversations, about dating, about things less tangible than action, are clearly overwhelming to develop (and also to interpret critically, come to think). But I like when people try. Boy, do I! Over at Gamasutra, we're doing those annual Road to the IGF interviews with the festival's finalists, and today I've done one with the folks behind Prom Week, a game that promises an unprecedentedly sophisticated conversation engine.

The team gives a pretty fascinating interview. Mattie Brice asked me on Twitter about why more people don't try to push social simulation technology (like, why was Facade so long ago, for example, with few comparable examples since?)

I think it's because not only is it an enormous technical challenge, there's also the perception that it's a niche, a thankless academic corner that will never reach beyond an "indie" audience. Good thing some people try, though. (Mattie, is it a coincidence you go by xGalatea online, where Galatea the game is among the most iconic examples of groundbreaking, conversation-oriented interactive fiction in history?)

Anyway, back on task; I also interviewed the creators of musical landscape game Proteus for the Road to the IGF series. Cannot believe it's only a handful of weeks til GDC!

This past weekend was the 2012 Global Game Jam. Good thing I have loads of friends who make video games for me to look at and talk about! As soon as I catch up with what all my favorite people have got done I'll let you know about it.

Baby's First Game Review

When I was a kid I didn't necessarily aspire to be a video game journalist; primarily I wanted to be an actress, and then occasionally I had designs on becoming a surgeon, until my third grade teacher told me I'd have to buckle down and get better at mathematics if I hoped to make it through medical school. Fuck math, man.

I wanted to become a surgeon because of a computer game, though. Sometimes I don't fully realize how omnipresent games were throughout my life until I look back on my childhood journals and papers and stuff from this sheaf of old junk rescued from my parents' house (where I found my classic Phantasy Star II 'novelization'!).

Anyway, last night I happened to find one of my earliest "game reviews". Judging by the rest of the content of the journal I found it in, I must have been about six when I wrote it:

Fun fact: Donald Duck's Playground for the Commodore 64 was made by Al Lowe, creator of the Leisure Suit Larry series. Believe it or not, I also played those games when young. My parents probably should not have let me. I got a real kick out of being able to interview Lowe a few years ago.

Don't believe the review, either. I wrote it while frustrated. Donald Duck's Playground wasn't weird, it flippin' rocked and I played the shit out of it.

It's Raining

Continuing with my commitment to revisit the Metal Gear Solid franchise alongside the HD re-release, I've finally written a fairly lavish tribute to what I consider to be overall the finest entry: MGS3, with particular attention to the fight against The End. That's just one of the elements I think make the game such a standout; I re-finished the game at the weekend for the first time in a few years, and I still got all teary at the end.

There's so much more I could say about it, too. The Boss as one of gaming's best female characters ever-ever, the strange palate cleanser of that "ladder scene", the impeccable use of Cold War anxiety elements, blah blah blah. Suffice to say I actually think MGS3 is a perfect video game, and I don't say "perfect" often if ever.

If you missed any bit of my past month's self-indulgent MGSism, here's a blog post on MGS1, and a Kotaku feature about the authorial intent of MGS4. I'm never satisfied that I've said exactly what I want to say about these games, but once in a while, I should probably try writing about other things, eh?

Oh, I have done, a bit. I caught up with 5th Cell to see what it's been like launching their first new IP since Scribblenauts (on iOS, no less!) -- and moving into self publishing. They're also working on an uncharacteristic 3D shooter for XBLA, and Jeremiah Slaczka tells me why it's so important for the studio to continually try new things.

I also talked to Sulake, which makes Habbo, about this intriguing strategy the company is attempting to increase user retention by adding iPhone apps that integrate achievements with what players do in the main game world. What's interesting is they aren't Habbo apps; they're stand-alone games that allow players to showcase their achievements and stuff in the Habbo world. Just about everyone is going multiple platforms in order to compete and engage users in the tricky online space, and it has interesting implications for the rest of gaming, I think.

GDC will be here before we know it, and with it, the most wonderful time of the year: The Independent Games Festival! I've got a bunch of interviews in the works with the finalists of the IGF that you'll be seeing in the coming weeks. If you've got a newsstand near you, check out the December/January issue of NYLON Guys for an in-depth interview with Phil Fish about Fez, and in February/March, I feature Alexander "Demruth" Bruce about Antichamber.

In other news, Indie Game: The Movie showed at Sundance, and I hear via the Twitter that HBO is considering doing some kind of series about the experience of indie game designers based on it. I'm excited that the wider world is starting to understand that these people are some of the modern age's most important artists.

I've been super busy; then again, aren't I always? For some reason lately a high volume of you have sent me articles, blog posts, etc. asking for editing, advice, feedback, thoughts and whatnot, and I just haven't been able to get to any of it. I'm really really sorry! I'll get back to you if I can, but please don't be too mad at me if I just don't have the bandwidth right now.

It continues raining/snowing here in New York. Via thisismyjam.com, here is Broken Water's Kamilche House, a good song for days indoors.

Scoring Sentimentality

When it comes to entertainment media, I generally think objectivity is a ridiculous notion. We can accept this in most kinds of art -- i.e, "I don't like this" is not thought to be analogous to "this isn't good." We can like things that are bad, and we can feel alienated or repelled by things that are well-crafted if they're not our taste.

It seems more difficult for gamers to accept this, and by "gamers" I mean the kind that are "hardcore" enough to be overly invested in what other people think of something they like. I maintain that probably the biggest reason people read reviews is not "to find out if a game is good," but to help them crystallize their own opinion -- or to make them feel validated in that opinion.

But there's still the assumption that a review can be generally correct or not, vs. something one agrees or disagrees with; certainly it doesn't help that as a technology product there are aspects of a game that are governed by quality rules, that have a right and a wrong way they can be executed.

I hate that. I think for the most part the most interesting work in gaming culture gets done when we let go of this distant idea of games as only product; they are so personal, so subjective, so experiential.

There are people out there who think that Ocarina of Time is the greatest video game ever made. It isn't[*], but I know why a lot of people think so. Read the latest of my Edge columns to come online and see what I mean.

Speaking of products and reviews and stuff, I had a thought-provoking question posed to me the other day, and it spawned an entire editorial: Why doesn't the games press review Facebook games? Would having them on Metacritic or something offer a useful baseline for the space so that it can actually evolve?

All I'm doing right now is replaying MGS 3 in HD. Yep, still my favorite video game.

*"Ocarina of Time is the greatest ocarina-themed videogame of all time." -- Ian Bogost

Take Care Of Each Other

So given that there are still so many patently horrible people in the world, it continues to be important to emphasize what we all can do to contribute to a civilized, mature and inclusive culture around video games, which often seem to be a little slower to it than other entertainment industries and business segments.

How I feel about women in media -- and some of my personal experiences being one -- was the focus of the talk I gave last month in Toronto at TIFF Nexus, and the video of my keynote is finally online for you to watch! Bear with me: I was incredibly intimidated by the amazing honor of having been invited to speak, and I don't speak so fast nor drop so many 'um's during the talk as I do in the first ten minutes, ha.

During the talk I namecheck Harmonix's Matt Boch, since I was so struck by what he said at NYU's PRACTICE event about gender as performance in Dance Central. Although unfortunately I didn't get that quote down in my initial coverage of his lecture then, ultimately I followed up with him for a larger interview on what exactly that means, and that's now up at Gamasutra, too -- his perspective is fascinating and I highly urge you to read it.

UPDATE! Kirk Hamilton responds at Kotaku, with 'On Playing Dance Central 2 while male.'

Those Harmonix folks are seriously cool people, by the way, as I had the fortune to observe when I was invited in to do an in-depth studio profile that ran in OXM back in the summer. Check it out if you missed it the first go 'round.

Also, toward the end of the talk I paraphrase a Seth Killian quote from PRACTICE regarding misogyny in the Street Fighter community, and the actual quote plus context in Stephen Totilo's coverage over at Kotaku.

On the subject of cool people, my friend Denis Farr writes a follow-up at Kotaku about some of his thoughts since the time he first spoke out on the site as a gay gamer who has experienced homophobia (trigger warnings for such, natch), using this Blizzcon incident as a launching point. He is brave and honest and both of his articles are worth your time.

I have absolutely no time for nor interest in the kind of people to whom these voices and perspectives are somehow unwanted (I mean, I'll forgive you if you don't sit through my whole keynote, but you get what I mean). Games are for fun, we can play, etc., but as in all things we should all aim to be the kind of people who care about where one another are coming from and who are willing to listen.

That seems really, really basic to me.

[Today's Good Song (via thisismyjam.com, use it!): An unexpectedly awesome cover of Neil Young's 'Down By The River' by the Dutch Rhythm & Steel Show Band)]

Performance

"It's sad to me to think that we're the entertainment industry, and we're the most technologically advanced of all the entertainment industries, and yet we seem to be lacking in a social progressivism that matches our technological progressivism."

-- Harmonix's Matt Boch, Dance Central project director

Gone Baby Gone

I saved Skyward Sword for after the holidays, despite the fact new Zelda games are currently a sort of Christmas-to-New Year's kind of ritual for many people.

I'm really liking it so far, inasmuch as I can like a new Zelda. To a certain extent my enthusiasm for the brand has diminished with each installment; might just be some formula fatigue, like I got with Pokemon and Harvest Moon despite the fact that games in those series have probably collected hundreds of my hours over the years.

A Link To The Past has this distinctly alien, mysterious quality that I think the brand has lost over the years in favor of a prettier sort of magic. Zelda games are so ritualized now, so tautly Nintendo (not a negative adjective by any measure) that they start to feel like Disney rides or something.

Never stops me from finding things to love about almost every one, though. This time it's Zelda herself, and I think she's indirectly brought something new and special to Skyward Sword I've explained in my newest Gamasutra editorial, if you'd like to have a look.

Also new at Gamasutra: A look from inside Prototype 2's dev team, with its nifty design director -- even if you're not that into Prototype, he's uncommonly candid about some of the twists and turns these internal processes take. What's the value of a Masters of Fine Arts in game design? NYU's resident smart cookie Frank Lantz explains.

Finally, Microsoft has tapped Arkadium to explore cross-platform social gaming; Microsoft Games Studios, to be precise. If you don't really know what that means or you think it sounds irrelevant, you should probably read my new Kotaku column on the biggest new ideas in the games space that you should fully expect to start invading your familiar world in the months to come.

Lastly, I jump on the "Shit ____s Say" bandwagon (if you haven't seen Shit Girls Say, Shit Black Girls Say or Shit Girls Say to Gay Guys, to name a few, git yr azz up ons) by writing Stuff Gamers Say over at Thought Catalog. They are all composites, and one of them is me.

Yes, I know Katawa Shoujo is out, although I appreciate all nine thousand of your mails and tweets. If you don't know what I mean, please read this article I did at Kotaku on the development of this Japanese-style dating game about disabled girls, and the niche internet communities that birthed it.

Yes, I'm going to play and review the final game and you will be the first to know about it when it runs. Properly playing visual novels takes time.

How y'all doing? What're you playing? If I made you forums, would you use them?

Happy New Year!

Happy new year, everyone! Hope you've all had a good holiday. I spent several solid days being drunk and playing Skyward Sword, which I hadn't gotten to until now. I suppose I'll have some kind of formalized "thoughts" or whatnot on it soon, but for now I've gotta focus on catching up from some prolonged nightmare flu and an intense holiday period.

I wrote about the peculiar comfort in being ill over at Thought Catalog, plus the uncommonly silent limbo of spending a holiday in New York City if you're not particularly Christmas-oriented.

Okay, so one article about being sick, one article about a holiday, and here, one sort-of serious satire about my struggles to get my work done on time and well. Believe it or not, there were some people out there who thought this piece was real advice. I disclaim all liability for what will happen to you if you're that oblique!

Right, but somehow I still did get some stuff done: An editorial on Skyrim. All right, trolls: I think Skyrim is completely rubbish. I have no interest in playing it any more. I have no idea who designed the combat system, looked at that swordplay and went "HEY IT WORKS IT'S PERFECT." Like, really? The game also combines a lot of things I'm just not interested in: high fantasy setting, open world, and loads of lore.

However (who am I kidding, half of you will not read the 'however' and have already begun typing me nerd rage death threats) -- HOWEVER, I totally get why people love it. Totally get it; I wrote a bit about that at Gamasutra.

People like feeling like they're an influential part of something larger than themselves; they like games that give them things to explore and share together. That's the principle with which Jesse Schell is working with his company's new Puzzle Clubhouse, an intriguing new idea for crowdsourced game design. Check the interview.

And it wouldn't be a new year at Gamasutra without our usual exhaustive year-end roundups; I contributed Top 5 Controversies a bit ago, and now I add Top 5 Surprises.

As usual we round up all our year-end material -- including our overall top ten games -- into one big feature for your reading pleasure. This year, our individual contributions to the game of the year list were bylined, so you'll be able to see which titles I vouched the hardest for. Give it a read!

Lots of you have asked what I think of the big changes going down at Kotaku. I've worked with the staff there for some years, including both Brian and Joel, and I wish them tons of the best in their new endeavors, Brian in particular after years of service to -- come on, face it -- our space's most relevant consumer gaming site.

But I'm also incredibly thrilled to see what Stephen and the new guard (including my real good bro Kirk Hamilton) will accomplish over at the big K. Stephen in particular is a fantastic editor who's done a lot for me, and I think his role as Kotaku EIC spells amazing things.

For those that mailed/IMed/Tweeted whatever, as far as I know I'll continue my monthly column as normal, as I've done for I think nearly three years now!

Sucks

"One of the biggest failings of the videogame industry is that very few people are famous for making games."

-- Gus Mastrapa, Hating on the VGAs is Boring

It's The Most Wonderful Time

Things've been crazy since my trip to Toronto. I'd never been, and I absolutely loved it. What impressed me most was the fact that the art and tech community there seems to exist on a spectrum, with many people creating from multiple points of focus and collaboratively with other disciplines to interesting results -- I found the worlds of play study, child development, hardware hackers, academia and game design often merged.

TIFF Nexus' Women in Film, Games and New Media event was a huge success. The response to my keynote was overwhelmingly positive (I was TRENDING in Toronto on Twitter! Whoa!), and I hope to have some video or something online for you guys soon. If you're an Edge subscriber, a column distilling some of the key points on which I spoke will appear in an upcoming issue. Meanwhile, at Gamasutra I wrote about the results of the Difference Engine Initiative, the local Hand Eye Society's incubator which focuses on inviting and encouraging women to game development where they may not have considered it before. Amazing stuff I'd be pleased for you to check out.

As usual, I've been up to a whole bunch of other things; here's an editorial I've done on signs of life in the maturing social games space. You can make fun of Facebook games all you want, but you can't ignore them, because the lessons from the social space will start pollinating other platforms.

Across the Atlantic from me, veterans of the UK gaming space including Kuju's Ian Baverstock and Jonathan Newth have formed a brand-new consultancy aimed at assisting game developers in navigating this rapidly-changing cross-platform environment. PopCap, which is unequivocally one of the coolest and smartest game companies there is, is ahead of the curve as it takes another step toward seamless multiplatform play for Bejeweled with an interesting new iOS decision. So yeah, get used to this stuff.

I'm excited that once again Gamasutra is doing its year-end top lists, counting down to our games of the year by rounding up the year's most notable industry events; business trends, anticipated games of 2011, and top indie games of 2011.

I chip in with the year's top five biggest controversies, as I'd know from controversy, natch. Our Mike Rose was kind enough to find a pic of Cole Phelps standing nonchalantly while destruction occurs behind his back. There'll be more top lists, of course, so watch our space.

I wrote a tongue-in-cheek Thought Catalog piece about how Facebook is changing the way we talk about our romantic crush behavior. Sappy shit. I'm amazed at how many of the commenters are taking it seriously. Their relationships must be super unfun. Possibly they are replicants.

Is that it? Yeah, I think that's it for now. Man, I hate this time of year. It puts all our brains through a pulper. Of course, Skyrim does that to me too, and yet it doesn't seem to stop me playing it.

Oh yeah, I need to keep on top of recommending you guys music so that you stop asking me if I've ever heard of, I dunno, Wilco or something, and stop calling "indie" a genre. I'm just playin', ladies, you know I love you. Besides, we're all going to blow our brains out if we hear one more pop Christmas song cover right?

Today's Good Song: The People's Temple - Led as One (Si vis pacem, para bellum)