The Future of Videogames

Sid at the office sent this video around. It's an absolutely amazing demonstration of reality augmentation technologies. Sure beats wearing a stupid helmet in a cage.

Calling Women in Games!

What are you doing this weekend? Helping the cause by answering a few simple questions, my friend! A researcher in Austria is writing a dissertation on gender stereotyping in games and how it may affect attitudes. She needs your data!

If you are a woman and you play videogames, please fill out Survey Number One. It's available as a downloadable Word doc:

GirlGamer Survey.

If you are a woman and you work on developing games, we have another survey just for you:

Gamemaker Survey.

When you're done, please email them to Barbara Lippe: babsi at lippe.at. If you have any questions, you can email her, too. And in return, she's promised to share her thesis with us when it's done. Good luck, Babsi! See you at GDC.

Shopping for the national pastime.

My local home opener is April 11th this year. It’s a day game at one of these recently erected but old-styled urban ballparks – for some reason the park is in a distant suburb, but we can overlook that. You’d think I already have my tickets, that I’ve anxiously awaited the event since sometime late last year. But I haven’t paid much attention to baseball in more than twenty years.

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Rez Trance Vibrator: Redux

The cleverly named Slashdong.org has a poster who has come up with a way to mod an Xbox controller with a vibrator, essentially by tapping the power supply for the controller vibrator and shunting it into the battery pack of an actual vibrator. Perhaps not quite as sleek as the authentic Rez Trance Vibrator, but if you don't have a PS2, and you feel comfortable with a soldering iron, hey why not?

The hardcore vs. the girls of the game industry

Saralah's excellent Athena's Legacy blog has a post discussing hardcore gamer forums' reactions to a Killer Betties interview with Scott Brown, project lead for upcoming MMO Auto Assault.

Discouting for a moment the fact that opinions expressed in any internet forum count for shite, it's saddening to read some of the blatant hostility these posters feel for women gamers and developers.

Even More Animal Crossing Magic

Star-crossed Animal Crossing lovers unite! A quirky article over at IGN explains how one clever guy asked his girlfriend to marry him on Valentine's Day using everyone's favorite collecting game.

Dear Friends...

Tonight I witnessed what I hope will be considered a pivotal night in the annals of orchestral music and video game history.

Tonight marked the beginning of the U.S. tour (in Chicago, IL) for Nobuo Uematsu's Dear Friends: Music from Final Fantasy concert series.

The funny thing is that I'm what you could consider a "casual" Final Fantasy fan. I don't play them; I watch them being played by other people, namely my wife. I had purchased the concert tickets as a surprise Christmas gift, after she had been raving about how amazing it must have been to be at the original concert in May of 2004 in Los Angeles, before they had the idea to make it a tour. But make no mistake, the Final Fantasy series and Uematsu's music has affected me the same it has for anyone who's witnessed the phenomenon first-hand with the controller.

At first I thought that too many people were underdressed for a concert performance. Some were even overdressed. There were people in what would be considered "black tie" attire, and others in jeans and t-shirts. I would later come to learn when Uematsu took the stage and quizzed the audience that people had driven not only from greater Chicagoland, but the majority (or at least the loudest) of the audience came from out of state. Some as far away as New York, and on the drive out of the parking lot I was behind a car with Ontario plates. A few people even hollered when Uematsu asked if there was anyone in the audience who had come from overseas.

It's safe to say that this man's music has a power to draw people together. Dads had driven their children to see this show, girlfriends brought their boyfriends, other friends just all piled into a car and road-tripped to see what is one of the first video-game only music concerts in the United States.

A game did this. A series of games, anyway. Hell, the music from a series of games. MORE...

Think You're Indie? Think You're Sexy?

And finally, are you a gamer? Are you willing to pose in three photos for the world to see? Are you over 18?

Then this contest is for you. A cheeky way to promote independent games! (Thanks, Carol.)

Women are not Girls

Let's get that cleared up right away. While we may refer to ourselves playfully as "girls" and "gamergirls", we're not girls. We don't play girl games. Girl games are for children.

Is this an obvious point? Apparently not to many folks to write to me about what women and girls want in games. Well, they want different things.

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Power Fantasy

The other day, a good friend of mine had her bag stolen while we were hanging out in a bar we visit regularly. It was completely random, and nobody saw who did it, but it still made me seethe for not being more observant of my surroundings. I was sitting right next to her, facing the exit even. I should have seen something, but I didn't.

Something like this happens, you feel so stupid and helpless. In my mind I turn back the clock. Reload my last save. Restart my current mission. I watch her chair out of the corner of my eye, and when the thief slips by, grab the offending wrist and say something rugged and melodramatic like, "I don't think that goes with your jacket." Possibly follow through with a punch in the nose. Not sure.

In any case, beating the crap out of purse-snatchers in Spider-Man 2 has never been so fulfilling.

Traces of Past Crossings

We're playing Animal Crossing. The little town is sadly overgrown with weeds, and most animals have moved away. He logs on and explores, it's all new to him. He talks to an animal, who chirps about a resident named "justy". Oh. My ex-boyfriend. We used to play the game together, of course.

Strange how his presence remains here, on this little memory card, in the the memories of my neighbors who rhapsodize about his letter-writing skills or the fact that they used to play and play and play all day.

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Katamari Hats

Curtesy of Robin, always on the forefront of gamer fashion: a custom-made Katamari hat.

I gotta get on that Pac-man scarf idea Bowler had a while back when we were talking about how singularly well-adapted knitting is to 8-bit or 16-bit art.

Wish They had This When I was a Kid

GameCamp is a summer camp for teenagers interested in pursuing careers in game development. If that's not cool enough, they also offer two full scholarships. Sure, you'll have to suffer through the humid heat of an Austin summer, but that is a small price to pay for playing videoagames - legitimately - for two solid weeks.

Xbox Power Cord Recall

Posted purely as a public service for the safety of GGA readers worldwide. New, safer cords for the asking. Get 'em while they're... um... not hot.

Money Magazine Online story.

Xbox power cord recall procedure from Microsoft.

A Place for Games in Geopolitics

"Fascism is always at the gates. And for some reason, I keep moving towards my research, even if I intended to just post a rant caused by some smart-ass propaganda banners. I wonder if simulation can help us further understand the big picture. Long term solutions versus short term ones. It works in Sim City, it should work with fascism. There must be a way to model the plague. The must be a way we can learn to manage this disease. There must be a way to prevent us into falling into the same easy thoughts again and again."

- Gonzalo Frasca on Ludology.org.

Games as a tool for civilization-building in real life? Powerful thought.

Summing up Game Journalism

Amit sums it all up to tell you why your game magazine sucks. He acknowledges that a lot of people have said this all before, and we've been saying it since, oh, 1999? At least? The real question is, why do we still have to say it?

I think though that more than just pointing out what's wrong and spiraling us into a pit of despair, some of his bullets are constructive. Take number three, for example. "You've lost the hardcore gamer. This is a good thing." Yes, that's right. You'll never be hardcore enough for the hardcore, anyway. They need too much information, too fast - and as Amit points out, the best delivery system for that is online. But that's fine. Your mainstream gamers what more than tips, tricks, cheat codes, standard reviews (ah, see also, number five: "Your reviews are boring.") We read books, we see movies, we think about games. We could use at least one RES of games.

And what about aesthetics? Amit forgot to mention that most game magazines look the same - terrifically noisy, with a cartoon character on the cover drowning under neon-colored bubble text. Is this going to make the average 28-year-old gamer, male or female, feel smart for buying it? Is this going to be the irresistable candy that lures the subscribers?

But we all know this, already. So many of you readers and my colleagues have complained about these very issues. I tried last year to start a new games magazine - it didn't get far, as we foundered on getting funding and our total inexperience, and got seriously tangled in priorities. It was a crushing experience. But I've recovered now, and the engine's warming up, and I've got new ideas and new strategies. Who's with me? Damn it, when are we going to stop talking and make it happen?

I'm tired of waiting. What about you?

Gaming Moms and Kids

Halley Suitt of Halley's Comment has a new blog about gaming with her son. She's of course a techie lady (and a contributing writer to Misbehaving.net), and a gamer, but she also discusses non-gamerly and more momlike issues, like setting time limits on videogame play. Many of her posts ask for advice on which games might be fun or appropriate for the kid. I wonder if Parenting has videogame reviews. They should. (Thanks, Robert).

Speaking of games for kids, Playskool is releasing a console for 3-7 year olds, equipped with an Eyetoy-like motion capture camera that will let kids play games by jumping around. Looks pretty cool, although at $100+ the console isn't exactly a bargain toy. (Thanks, David!)

Bubble Bubble Toil & Trouble

More trouble than bubble right now, from the looks of it, but you never know where the next great leap in elegance will come from. If you're on the verge of launching the ultimate gaming blog -- or yet another Halo 2 fansite -- you have another entrant to consider in the more-crowded-by-the-day blog hosting field. From a company called Five Across -- rotfl -- comes Bubbler, designed by a former Apple engineer. Bubbler is both a client application and a hosting service.

Besides the somewhat novel first-party client software (Windows 2000/XP and Mac OS X versions), Bubbler doesn't sport any features that would keep it from being an excellent intro-to-blogging tool for grade schoolers. Granted it's only in public beta, and I'm sure far from finished, but it still lacks a lot of the things I've come to expect in blogware, even in the early stages. There's presently no mechanism for leaving comments; the templates are mostly fixed with minimal editing support; post organization seems rudimentary at best. I can't even figure out how to keep the thing from publishing my email address next to the personal profile section that I don't want on there either.

Still, Bubbler does have a few things to show off. Like the Reporter feature, a posting mode that does near-real-time blogging, publishing each phrase as you finish it. Sort of like Republican blogging -- you know, line-item posting. The included templates aren't bad; at least two of them are attractive. The Mac version of the client software is clean, simple and does the few things it does well. You can tell the guy behind Bubbler got his feet wet in Apple's consumer software.

Bubbler is free for 30 days. After that, Five Across -- choke, cough, guffaw -- is charging five bucks a month. Five years ago this would have been a neat idea and an ultra-accessible starter kit. But these days even brand new bloggers have learned to expect more. Until the product is made quite a bit more robust, I can't imagine paying for it or choosing it over the combination of ecto2 and TypePad.

[Thanks MacMinute.]

Ubisoft: Fullsail ahead!

Gamespot is reporting that Ubisoft has teamed up with the Canadian government to launch a training school, known as the Ubisoft Campus, where the future developers will go to learn the skills of the trade. After 3 fifteen-week terms, students will be granted a degree accredited by the Quebec Ministry of Education. This appears to be mostly undergrad-level work, although there is mention of masters-level software engineering classes that will also be available.

As technological progress demands larger development teams just to keep pace, many large game companies will face problems down the road if they remain unable to find freshly graduated people with the proper training required to jump in to the game industry with no previous work experience. EA's involvement with the University of Southern California last year, and Ubisoft's latest announcement seem to be saying, "If you want it done right, gotta do it yourself."

Will students with specialized training in game development instead of a traditional degree make better game developers? Will these programs simply stamp out the future rank & file? Stay tuned...

NES Controller Necklace

For the gamer girl in your life. Nothing says Happy Valentines Day better than something from a company called White Trash Charms.

New York University Videogames Explorations Floor

One of the many hats I wear is working as a Resident Assistant at New York University. In the past few months, I’ve been pushing the university to accept a videogames floor to their Explorations program. The Explorations program gives students a wide variety of themed living options based on their interest. The programs, which encompass entire themed floors, range from movies to leadership to bohemian lifestyles. It’s a very good program, especially when students get involved.

The good news is that most indications point towards a videogame floor happening. The bad news is that there has been some concern expressed over a lack of “female interest” in the program. I want to prove them wrong.

Here’s what I need you to do: if you happen to know of any women entering New York University and are interested in videogames for the 2005-2006 school year, please tell them about the Explorations program. It’s fun. It’s well funded. And the more diversity you can bring to the floor, the better experience everyone will have. There will be museum trips, conversations with professors, and the works. Almost everyone in the other Explorations programs fall head over heels in love with it.

And the floors for Explorations in my residence hall are by gender, so don’t be concerned you’ll have your privacy violated by us seedy gamer guy types.

Harvard Psychology Professor on Gender Differences

The New Republic Online is carrying an article by Steven Pinker, a Harvard Psychology Professor, on the reality and myths of gender differences. Related very much to Harvard President Lawrence Summers' comments on the subject that he has appologized for since.

Mao and the New Games Journalism

You may remember early Christian game reviews. Endless rants against every game that came out for either being too violent, or having less Jesus than a Jack Chick comic. While this sub-community has matured in recent years to more coherent review methods, I invite you to revisit the glory days of weird-ass reviews. Stand and bear witness to Maoist game reviews.

Unfortunately, these guys haven't been keeping their reviews up to date, but they cover some of the classic PC games from 3-5 years ago. From the review of Fallout 1 & 2:

"...in the opinion of this reviewer, Fallout is more of a Maoist Role Playing Game than "linear" RPGs such as Myst. Just like there are many roads to socialism, where some are better than others and some are false turns, the player in Fallout will discover ways to do much better or play the game from an entirely different perspective the second, third, and further times through the game." MORE...

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Gear for the GamerGirl Valentine's Day is fast approaching (hint: it's february 14th, clueless one) and a geek girl's fancy turns to shiny pretty things... not diamonds, silly; DS! If you've got a special gamer girl in your life, or maybe if you're trying to woo one, we've got the sleek and the sexy, the silly and the sublime, to tickle her heart.

Some of these can be acquired through Amazon - if you choose to get them that way, we get a few cents! Happy shopping. MORE...

Women First! Children can be saved later.

Despite being two whole years older than I am (and I’m dating myself), one of my consistently favorite games of all times is Robotron. The hectic arcade shooter (which can be played for free here) features a scientist who must shoot wave after wave of killer robots while saving men, women, and children from almost certain doom. Just a regular game that I can play for a few minutes without using any brain cells.

At least, that’s what I thought it was until my friend noticed a curious pattern while watching me play a game.

After five waves, she said, "You realize you save all the women first before you save anyone else, right?"

Huh?

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Lessons from a Voyeur

I've watched a lot of porn in my day, enough so that it's gotten just a little boring. Maybe you have to be male to appreciate the super-genital close-up cam? Or just a fetishist? What I liked about porn was, and I know this makes me a stereotypical girl, the story. The situations the girls would get themselves into - oh my! The anticipation, the (sometimes) danger of seduction - but so few films focus on those aspects. In any case I admit I'd grown a bit disenchanted with the genre.

And then I discovered the Voyeur series. Needless to say continuing to read this will take you into very un-worksafe territory.

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Luminosity and Obscurity

Tokyopia has an interview with Mizuguchi up. Is it just me or is it difficult to get Japanese game designers to talk about their art? Of course part of it is the language barrier - the interview, it says, used both English and Japanese but most of Mizuguchi's answers sound like they were in English, rather than translated from Japanese. There are gems of ideas dropped in here, but not fleshed out the way I *think* many Western developers would have elaborated. I've noticed this also in lectures given by Japanese game designers, even in Japanese. They don't say much, and when they do, it tends to be almost naively simple, self-deprecating, or very, very practical.

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The Title Pretty Much Says it All

Whle doing a random google search for games and female-related stuff, I came across Women in Games a little while ago. They didn't have anything posted on it besides the tagline "A voice for women in games." BUT apparently they are going to have a conference this August, and they are still accepting papers.

So what are you waiting for! Don't you want to go to Dundee this summer? Want to co-chair a panel with me? Come on, it'll be fun! And after the conference we can go to my boyfriend's parents' summer home in the south of France and kick it over a bottle of rosé. God I miss the summer.

Doesn't that sound good? Who's in?
[via my friend Ludology].

The Woman Track GDC 2005

This year there are a LOT of panels and roundtables that will be of interest to women in the industry. I've gone through the conference catalogue to pick out the ones that jumped out at me.

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GDC 2005 - Namedropping

Only geeks care that you stood next to WILL WRIGHT at an afterparty, but boy will they care. That's another way to see GDC - as GGA Guide to GDC continues - follow the big names! Smart people are just smart, and sometimes the topic of the panel doesn't even matter. Here are some of those speakers who have inspired me in the past.

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Game-Smart Women on Sex in Videogames

The women of Killer Betties had a discussion on the topic of sex in videogames recently. Lots of good stuff here, if you don't mind putting up with the fragmented chat log format. Note that a few of the links from that chat log are not entirely work-safe.

Tangential to the actual topic, but interesting to this Y-chromosomer was this exchange:

Lila: I hate to say this but some women who are already in the industry get territorial.
Sarah: Yeah I'm one of them!
Telka: Oh yeah...
Sarah: I just remind myself that it's for the good of the industry.
Telka: *laughs*
Sarah: I have always loved being the girl in the boys' club.
Lila: They simply refuse to hire other females because of the competition.
Staci: hehe
Staci: I’m the same way Sarah.
Staci: I took pride in the fact that I was the only person to write reviews consistently for IGN who was a female. When I got added to their editorial staff list (because I was promoted to run their vaults), I was the only female on those lists. If another female had come in, I would have felt odd about it. But I would have needed to check myself too.

City of Copies: Marvel vs. NC Soft

In the off chance that you’ve been asleep for the past month and haven’t wandered across the large expanse of the gaming internet, you might not know that Marvel is suing NC Soft over copyright infringement.

The gist of it is that basically, NC Soft is infringing on Marvel’s characters with its game City of Heroes. It’s not just that you can build heroes in CoH, it’s that you can build Marvel heroes, or at least close facsimiles to Marvel characters. I would imagine for this case to hold any weight, Marvel is going to have to prove somehow that NC Soft made some money off of Marvel characters, by allowing people to create or use said characters.

In the interest of trying to see what all of the fuss is about, I purchased a copy of the game, installed it (five hours, thanks for asking), and the next day began creating Marvel characters... MORE...

Why You Need to Go to GDC 2005

The Game Developer's Conference is coming up - March 7-11 in San Francisco, California. You still have a chance to register early for the special deal.

The GDC is one of my favorite events. It's an actual conference, unlike E3, which is more of a buzzbath and industry hoopla. The focus of GDC is, as the name suggests, game development - from design to production to marketing and selling. For the next week or so I and my cohorts will be writing about the highlights of this year's GDC and why you need to be there. Call it the GGA Guide to GDC 2005.

The most unpredictable - and thereby the most exciting - event is always the Experimental Gameplay demo, run by Jonathan Blow. It's a free-for-all of risky games, games that were developed with little commericalism in mind, all to test out a new mechanic or to make use of an interesting interface or just for the hell of it. It's open to everyone from game veterans to absolute beginners. It's exhilerating, fascinating, and totally impractical. I never miss it.

And, needless to say, I also never miss any time Will Wright speaks. He'll be talking this year about the Future of Content. It doesn't matter what he talks about, his lectures will always leave your mind spinning with about a billion ideas. You could write a book on every "talking point" he introduces.

And then there's Ernest Adams, iconoclast, rebel, free-wheeling intellectual. Some would add, crazy old coot (I mean that in the most affectionate possible sense, Ernest). He often relates videogame thematically to literary tropes or mytho-psychological undercurrents. You'll hate him or love him, but his remarks will always stimulate hours of relection or debate during the afterparties.

Tomorrow: Guide to GDC 2005 continues. Games, sex, and rock and roll!