Following in Jane's footsteps, I feel compelled to pimp out my incredibly nerdy appearance on tonight's Mtv's Making the Game: Behind NBA Ballers. I'm going to be honest with you, I'm not as pretty as her, and I don't talk about game design (but I do talk about video game mocap)! However, I do have some fun moments.

I normally wasn't going to mention it, as I didn't know if I was going to be in the final edit or not, but we just watched the rough cut of it today, and it's actually pretty funny/informative as far as what went into making Ballers.

If you want to see my pasty-white face (and my whiny nasal poindexter voice) talk about video game motion capture, tune in. Check your local listings, etc.

You might not know who Stan Winston is, but you certainly know some of his characters. Winston is the visual designer who brought to life two models of terminator, 800 and 1000, the Aliens, and the Predator among many others. Getting his start in a made-for-TV movie called Gargoyles, which also won him an Emmy, Winston has been using makeup puppeteering, animatronics, and (more recently) digital wizardry to make the fantastic real.

I was lucky enough to attend a recent talk Winston gave at Electronic Arts’ Redwood Shores studio. Winston comes across as refreshingly self-depreciating, considering the stereotypes of movie industry personalities we’re all familiar with. He’s quick to confess that these days he really doesn’t do a lot of the hands-on work at his studio, nor does he really understand exactly how every effect at his studio works, but he’s plenty happy to plaster his name in giant letters over it. He’s also well versed in many geek fetishes, from comic books to toys to videogames. With respects to the latter, Winston surprised me by actually being familiar with current generation titles. I can only hope to be so with it when I, too, have grandkids.

Towards the end of the talk, one of the developers in the audience posed a problem to Stan: How do you create a strong character when you don’t have much, if any, story? Winston conceded that this was a very difficult problem, but it was one that he also had faced in the film industry. When Winston was brought on board the Predator movie, it had already been shot. The monster they had wasn’t working, so they needed Winston to build a replacement. In the movie, the Predator’s character is never really discussed, but he’s the title character, so he still had to be very compelling. Winston started by looking for existing images that told the kind of story he wanted to tell about the Predator, and eventually wound up basing the designs off a statue of a Rastafarian warrior, and working outward from there.

Anyone who has ever studied improvisational theatre will quickly grok this idea. A character’s backstory is told by how a character stands and moves, the pitch of her voice, and her general attitude. Even with heavy narrative elements, backstory has to be told in those ways first, because if the words about the character don’t keep with her actions, the audience sees through the illusion. When asked if there was any particular game that he felt exemplified how strong character can be done in games, Winston named Devil May Cry without skipping a beat (with the quick caveat that he felt the story needed work).

The talk ended much too soon for my tastes, but Stan had a plane to catch. Promises to keep, and so on.

I was chilling at home one evening when I got a phone call from a friend, which I didn't answer because my phone was in my bag and the ringer was too low. Later I listened to his message: "Dude, I just saw you on TV!"

It was the documentary I was interviewed for that aired on the Game Show Network. It's a bit intimidating - or something - to go to the program schedule and see SEVEN HOURS of Jeopardy!. But the network isn't just about gameshows, in spite of the name; because they aired "Video Game Invasion" last week.

I haven't seen it yet. I'm scared to watch myself. This is the third time I've been interviewed for television about games, on three different continents. One was for GamerTV in Japan, the other for a documentary on the Arte network in Europe, and then this one. I don't think I've ever watched my taped self talking about games.

Well, let me know how it is if you come across it.

P.S. GDC rocks. More later.

Once again I’m doing another study on video games for class (albeit a different one than before). This time, I’m trying to investigate the phenomena of people using video games to exercise, especially, but not limited to, Dance Dance Revolution. And once again, I extend the hand of “I need help” to you folk.

I’m currently conducting interviews with fitness experts, doctors, and people who have used video games specifically to exercise. If any of you are within this range of expertise, and wouldn’t mind a five-minute phone interview (at my expense), please e-mail me at msd248@nyu.edu with times when a phone call would be welcome and not ruin your dinner.

While I’m relatively sure from my research that DDR and games like it are a legitimate form of exercise, I’m trying to also weigh in issues such as possible injury as well as effectiveness when compared to more traditional fitness programs.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and for more information, please e-mail me.

I can't remember exactly where I heard it the first time, but Monday, March 22nd, The Playstation Store at the Metreon in San Francisco was going to have a party to celebrate the release of Final Fantasy XI (the MMO one) for Playstation 2 from 8 PM until 2 AM the next day, with the PS2 Harddrive with FFXI preloaded going on sale at precisely 12:01 AM. And there was going to be a costume contest. Thus it was that I went straight from work to spend approximately forever sitting on trains to get to the Metreon, camera in hand, to see (and record) what there was to see.

The Wall Street Journal has this article (link via Evil Avatar) reporting that Electronic Arts is donating $8M to the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television. This money will be used to create a 3-year master's degree in "videogame design," and fund an endowed faculty chair. The program is set to begin in August, accepting fewer than 15 students.

EA rarely hires more than one graduate of any school's graduating class per year, and thus probably has a vested interest generating more low-cost entry level employees who are better prepared for the sort of working environment found in the game industry. USC's proximity to the new EALA studio probably also factors in.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate any information on the content of the program, but I'd wager that EA would be looking to focus more on the ability to work long hours on hard deadlines for extended periods of time, and how to deal with group projects using many different skill sets, rather than ludology theory. EA's own private Digipen? My gut tells me otherwise, but we'll have to wait and see.

A quick peek over at the USC STC site shows that EA will be joining a very distinguished board of councilors, which includes George Lucas and Steven Spielberg among many other media bigwigs.

Maybe you've heard the story of the Merzbow Mercedes? Swedish record label Releasing Eskimo put out a special limited edition of Japanese Noise musician Merzbow's "Noise Embryo" album in an unusual format: a used Mercedes 230. When you turned the car on, the CD player started playing the album, and it was impossible to stop it or turn it off without turning off the car.

This got me thinking about all the weird game-related schwag we've seen over the years. Currently, I'd say Tecmo are the reigning schwag champions, with their Kasumi body pillow and their Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball swimwear, but let's not neglect the days of yore, when Infocom classics were accompanied by magazines, pens, sundials, and more. No fantasy game worth the plastic it was printed on came without a cloth "mapkin." Even some modern freeware has associated schwag available for purchase. And who could forget the seminal Rez Trance Vibrator?

Mere t-shirts are for uncreative Philistines! What are the best pieces of gaming schwag you've encountered? What schwag would you love to see (if only to marvel at the audacity of the marketing department who okayed it)?

I was on a panel at South by Southwest Interactive: The State of the Game Nation, with Sheri Graner Ray and Wagner James Au.

There are some notes from Joho the blog and from Molly Steenson.

The panel discussed three question, rather broadly. First, how do game designers shape communities and societies in online communities? Second, how do players or users respond to developer's programmatic guidance? And finally, what's in the future for virtual societies?

We only had a hour, so we glossed over these questions, but I think it went well and a surprising number of people were there for a Tuesday morning session!

Thanks again to James and Sheri for being so generous with their time and expertise.

Finally, people have started making business card-trading card games. Life resembles Pokemon - folks at conferences trading cards. Why not put attributes and points on business cards for people to use for games? These particular OK/Cancel cards celebrate contemporary usability wonks - interaction design experts. The designers, pictured below, took an open-ended approach to the gameplay - each of the cards has four attributes, different for each usability designer. But not specified within any ruleset! So people can make up their own game to go along with the scenario.

Kevin and Tom, from OK-Cancel, with the cards they designed.

This is a mostly personal, blog-style complaint so pass over if you're looking for substance (but, Clockwork my friend, it is game related).

Jason Rubin's call to arms at the DICE conference last weekend has gotten mention at several gaming sites, but I thought I'd open the discussion here. Rubin wants to see publishers market the developers behind a game, both the studios and the individuals, along with the game itself. This harkens back to the early days of third-party developers, when Activision and Electronic Arts would put developer bios, like you'd find on the back inside flap of a hardcover book, in their manuals or on their boxes. It also might remind some of us of the heady days when John Romero promised to "make you his bitch" with Daikatana. Most places around the internet look at Rubin's talk and ponder the place celebrity should play in the game industry. I, however, believe there is a deeper issue here.

We all get them: e-mails based on an original concept, the Nigerian 419 scam, formerly a post scheme called after the statute number of Nigerian law that makes them a crime. Typically, the contents have lots to do with you sending them a substantial chunk of change -- or the routing codes and numbers for your accounts -- to help them semi-licitly spirit a large sum of money out of their government's bank accounts and a rather small bit to do with the scads of money -- usually in the millions, US dollars -- they will send you after the money is safely tucked away in the Cayman Islands.

When do you retire a game, even one of your all-time favorites? With a narrative game, that's a relatively easy decision: at the end of the game. Or one of the several possible endings of the game. Or when you've played through the game on the highest difficulty setting. Or when you've loved, lost and just flat given up on ever "winning". Okay, perhaps it's not such an obvious decision; but worse yet is determining when to quit playing a "sandbox" or non-narrative game, or a game with an online gaming competitive feature.

Are you watching the new sitcom on UPN, Game Over? The little network that could is breaking into ever more niche territory. Well, I will let you know how it is.

I watch bad tv, friends, so you don't have to.

Nintendo has introduced some short-range wireless technology for their handheld devices. In February they launced a proprietary (ie not 802.11b, not Bluetooth) adapter for the GameBoy Advance, for sale in Japan, with new copies of Pokemon FireRed, and Pokemon LeafGreen. As usual, Lik-Sang is selling it abroad, and there's a picture of the device on Pokemon.co.jp, and Motorola/Nintendo press release.

So is this a great sign that Nintendo is embracing wireless multiplayer gaming? I was inclined to scoff, for a few reasons: 1) the broadband adapter. Nintendo released a broadband adapter for the GameCube and there's still only Phantasy Star games that play on it. Two games. Over one year later. That's a waste of hardware. That's a tentative, unfulfilled release. 2) what use is short-range wireless? Most of my friends live far away. I want a Nintendo experiment in wide-area wireless! Plug the GBA into 802.11b networks for long-range play with friends.

But I reserved judgement as a matter of infinite hope. And I'm glad I did, because a recent post by David Jacobs on Craig's List NYC (via BoingBoing, via Kottke) shows the appeal of short range wireless Pokemon play:

Playing Pokémon on the N train
Reply to: dj@randomwalks
Date: 2004-03-09, 7:01PM EST

I've been playing Pokémon Sapphire on the N expréss each morning from 59th St. to Union Square. If anyone else is commuting from Sunset Park to Manhattan each morning let's coordinate our schedules so we can battle, make pokéblocks, trade rare pokémon and éxchange ideas for training harder and raising our pokémon to greater heights of pokéness.

it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
this is in or around Last car, N train, around 8:45 AM each morning

I was on Friendster tonight (that site is popular! whew!), editing my profile. Here were a few of media identification choices:

Favorite Music
Favorite Books
Favorite TV Shows
Favorite Movies

By typing in "The Survivors" or "Life Against Death" you create cultural links to the other people on the site who admire that movie or book.

I thought for a moment, why is there no "Favorite Games"? And immediately it was clear to me - for a site like Friendster, broadly populated by both genders and people from multiple walks of life, games are still likely to be a checkbox. Not "Favorite Games?" but "Games?" because anyone who plays any video games is likely to share cultural overlap.

"Video Games" are a cultural marker, like "Sex in the City." Astonishing to think that an entire medium can serve as a media affiliation badge, as much as a single television show!

Maybe some day you'll be able to find a mate or new friend by saying something more specific: "show me all the Fantasy RTS players" or the people with "Deus Ex" in their social network profile. Those are people I would get along with! For now, Sports versus non-Sports might probably about the only functional distinguisher. Games are still too provincial.

Maybe this is all my antiquated perception, and if only Friendster would add "Favorite Games" then online "Mall Tycoon 2" and "Counter-Strike" players could begin to find each other.

We've seen schools develop courses in gaming. Growing evidence that games are something to study, and something to teach.

Of course game designers have always known that. Within the industry there is a body of knowledge valued for game designers. Not simply a long list of historical recitations, what's valued is the ability to synthesize and solve problems based on your experience.

Brian Yeung has posted questions from a test he took for a position as a level designer:

1. Describe the relevant differences between a PC gaming experience and a console gaming experience. How do these differences, if any, affect how you would design a game?
2. What do most people mean when they mention or ask for non-linear missions, and what are the best ways to provide this?
3. Halo, GTA3, and Battlefield 1942 are all examples of games with multi-modal gameplay, whereas Quake, Project Gotham Racing, and MechWarrior are not. What does multi-modal gameplay mean? What design considerations do you need to make to incorporate multi-modal gameplay in your game or mission?
4. What are the design considerations between single-player and multiplayer levels/maps?
5. Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games and Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) are 2 very PC-centric game genres with extremely successful games. Describe how you would redesign the controls and interface for one of these popular games (Age of Empires, StarCraft, WarCraft, EverQuest, Asheron's Call, etc.) and make it usable and fun using the Xbox controller, and discuss the considerations that would have to be made to redesign the game.
6. What mission/level design considerations do you need to keep in mind when designing a 3-D flying game? What is unique about them from a design perspective (for example, as opposed to a First Person Shooter)?

Ahem - I don't think I remembered this in the excitement over Nintendo's upcoming DoubleScreen gaming device, but Nintendo has a history of making portable gaming devices with two screens for one game: MultiScreen Game & Watch.

The games are all simple arcade games, where the action flows vertically or horizontally across the device. Not a major shift in gaming architecture. Except this Zelda game appears to use the top screen for keeping track of your triforce and your inventory. Just the sort of innovation I would hope to see in the DoubleScreen - my curiosity is stoked by this legacy!

Quick note that may be of general interest: GameSpot are currently running a feature on this year's Independent Games Festival covering all the finalists who will be up for awards at the culmination of the IGF on March 24 at the Game Developer's Conference.

If any of y'all are interested in the state of indie gaming, it's worth a read. Then go check out Game Tunnel for some more IGF coverage, indie game reviews, and downloads.