I realize I'm a bit LTTP but I just finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's article in the October 16th New Yorker. "The Formula" relates the story of a man obsessed with films who turned his passion into a company called Epagogix which will predict, by amassing variables and analyzing patterns, how much a script can make at the box office.

What's crazy to me is not that it works, but that, near the end of the article, it comes out that the analysis still depends on real people reading and grading scripts (based, I assume, on their own metrics) - that essentially, it still depends in some ways on their taste, before it gets fed into the neural network computer. Hence it's important that one founder prefers Alien while another likes Yojimbo. I'm not saying taste should be unimportant - I guess I'm saying that after all, it is still important.

But let's leave that aside for a moment and think about what it would take to build a hit predictor machine for videogames. What factors would you start including? Can the Epagogix model - whatever it is, since we don't know for sure - be applied to interactive entertainment?

I was talking to Alan Yu the other day - he used to run the GDC, now he's an A&R rep at EA - and we were talkng about the challenges facing the games industry today. He responded by describing his after work routine: picks up food on the way home, turns on the TV but mutes it to watch the ball game, plays music through his stereo, has a laptop nearby for communication and entertainment, and may also be talking on the cell phone to friends at the same time. What he was describing sounded like a multimedia nest, a coherent sensory and informational experience made up of modular and disparate pieces that coccoon him. Where does gaming fit into this?

Well, for people like Alan, it really doesn't. Why? Games require far too much attention - they demand input from our hands, processing from our brain, decision-making from the cerebral cortex. These days many games are so complex you can't even turn off their sound for fear of missing critical cues and clues. I admit that I am an inveterate multi-tasker - I play World of Warcraft while on AIM and sometimes as a TV show or film plays in the background. But it's hard to do and my friends lose me for bouts as I get pulled into combat. The set up is not ideal for a multimedia nester.

Of course, part of the appeal of games is that they are so profoundly immersive. We love to lose ourselves in other worlds like that - they are the ultimate engagement. And it sounds counter-intuitive, at first, to think that highly media-savvy and centered people want less engagement from their consumables. And yet - with no research to back up my claim - I think it might be true. Something important happens when one plays a game, something that can't be shared in the same space as other forms of entertainment. Games are like a black hole - you fall in and lose contact with the rest of the world. Sometimes, that's the exact feeling we seek; most often, though, we avoid it as a "time sink" precisely because we can't reasonably do other things at the same time.

Some applications have started to address this problem. Xbox Live does a pretty good job of allowing you to feel that you're still connected to the world. You can stream your own music while you play. When your friends come online, you know; if they leave you a message, you see it; and you can talk to them, even - with the advent of the Live camera - video chat, and still remain in the game. PS3 promises to deliver a similar integration of media and communications. In essence, what's really next-generation about these consoles is that they try to become your nest.

Another tactic is to turn this around - to allow consumers to take their media with them. That's the concept behind ubiquitous computing, the third wave of computing forecasted in 1988 by Mark Weiser. That's where mobiles and handhelds and DS Lites come in. But if we once again think of these experiences as layered on top of eachother, talking on the phone can be done safely while walking, while looking at other things, while eating, while reading the paper; playing a mobile game or texting is less easily layered on top of other experiences. Once again the depth of attention required gets in the way.

We're increasingly moving to a mode of media consumption that is layered; consumers dip into several media forms at once to concoct the perfect blend, to manage their own experience to be a balance of stimulus and reward and the attention required to recieve the reward. If games are going to survive, we need to figure out how they can contribute to the multimedia nest.

Liz is a designer who sells her stuff through Zellestyle, and on fractalspin, which she also runs. Lots of cool, cute stuff for geek boys and girls here!

But that's not all - she also makes music! And fractalspin has music for sale, too, including her tracks.

I love it when geek and fashion collide.

Serious games - games that seek to do more than entertain - are something I've been interested in since I met Ben Sawyer many years ago at a GDC and he introduced the concept to me. I've been too distracted by commercial and mainstream games to pay it the attention it deserves, but I agree with the philosophy of serious games - that the medium can be used to make the world a better place.

And now may be a time to jump in. Games for Health is sponsoring a contest for a variety of categories, all related to making an interactive experience that will further the cause of health and medical education.

Can Trauma Center be considered? :D.

So what have I been working on in my new job as Conference Manager? I'll tell you - the Game Career Seminar, happening next weekend October 28th and 29th at the VGXPO.

If you were like me two months ago, you'll say, what is the VGXPO? It's a new consumer videogame event - this is the second one - in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. You know, where George Washington's men froze their feet off in the winter of 1777.

The event is aimed at high school and pre-major college students, and it's full of practical information and advice - not just about choosing a school and trying the get a job, but also about how to think long-term about a career in the game biz. It's rewarding as hell, but it ain't easy.

If you're a young whippersnapper (or know someone who is) and you want to know more about the game industry and where you might find a place for your talents, I encourage you to check it out.

But, bring an extra pair of boots. Just in case.

The View from the Top or, how I lost my life to World of Warcraft.

"In my mind, Nintendo is like a wonderful old friend who has a drinking problem. You like the friend, you like to spend time with the friend, but every so often bad behaviors come up and remind you that this friend has problems."

-Steven Kent, on why Microsoft will win this holiday season.

Hey big thinkers and wranglers of ideas, the MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning has a series of discussions planned for the next month, all centered around interactive entertainment and its impact on our world.

The discussion is happening online: http://community.macfound.org/openforum

So, take a look and chime in with your ideas! I'm already in there - but I feel I didn't say enough!

On IM yesterday with Eric: he asks if I'm going to play WoW later, I reply I'm not sure... "We're doing BWL" he mentions - Black Wing Lair, a notoriously difficult instance, and the one I watched last week whle the team wiped out again and again. I am obviously too lowly (level 10) to participate, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to, anyway. But I am curious about how it's going, I want to see how their new strategies are working out, especially now that I'm a member of the guild and feel personal attachment to the team.

I wish WoW had a spectator mode!

This is rad.

(Thanks, Derek!)

I was reading my news this morning when I came across Pink Magazine off the Forbes site.

What. the. fuck.

First of all, the generic name "Pink" says absolutely nothing about the content of the magazine except that it's targetted oh-so-subtly at women. But what sort of women? Girls? Is it fashion? Is it about the many shades of our gender's favorite color? Carly Fiorina is so fucking happy right now - finally, something that she can relate to. If only Patricia Dunn had this before she made her little boo boo!

Secondly, it irritates me that Forbes is now implicitly saying that women have a "special" place to go to that is not Forbes.com. Forbes.com publishes sexist articles describing what terrible spouses educated "career women" make for the executive male. Forbes.com is clearly not for women.

Except that it was, once. I used to enjoy all the career features, particularly, which could appeal both to men and women. We all have issues with finding fulfullment in work, with dealing with difficult bosses. Once in a while there was a feature like "100 Most Powerful Women" or a feature that described more specifically the challenges of being female in the workplace, which I imagine was just as valuable for men to read as for women. After all, we're all in this together, right? We all need to learn how to get along.

Look at this random article I picked up off Pink: When and Why to Sell Your Company. A good idea for a feature, I thought - I would like to have my own company one day, and this is something I will need to consider. Reading the one-page article I learned that I would want to sell my company if 1) I wanted to spend more time with my kids 2) If I wanted to spend time traveling with my kids and 3) If I'm really not cut out for the harsh business of running a company and I want to move into a more nurturing role serving clients and making them happy. How much more fulfilling all of these are for a woman! There's nothing in here about moving on to start a new company, about when the market is ripe to sell a company; it's a pure fluff piece that celebrates the ultra-feminine.

Now look at the "Art of the Business Lunch." Apparently women are naturally good at this - we're born hostesses! And we love to serve! I love number 8: When dining with a male, avoid misunderstandings by taking a colleague. What the fuck - now we need chaperones for business lunches? If an exec you arrange a business lunch with thinks "something else" is going on, then either you failed to communicate, he's a pig, or your skirt is too short.

I'm not saying that there isn't a place for a publication that serves women in business; and I think something that did that seriously would be successful. But I also think Forbes could have done that ably, if they wanted to. "Pink" is a joke and frankly, it makes me wonder if Forbes isn't deliberately trying to sabotage women in the workplace. "Pink" is the ghetto Forbes thinks women belong in.

Wow, everyone suddenly wants to know about women who game. It's interesting that every few months there is a flurry of press about women who game. Last week's burst of interest was stimulated in part by the upcoming release of the Desperate Housewives game, a title aimed primarily at women, and the BBC article, All women gamers please stand up. This past week I've answered a lot of questions over email, in person, and over the phone about women, games, and the "casual" game market.

Of course, we women gamers do play year round. Here are some places I recently discovered where women talk about videogames:

New Game Plus is a thoughtful, and unabashedly feminist, blog about games, although Ariel discusses other issues and passions too. It's a breath of fresh air.

The Feminist Gamers Livejournal is lively and their topics range far and wide. Lots of interesting stuff to read here.

Guilded Lilies mixes mods and mags, how can you resist that?

Wonderland is funny, brash, and lately, a bit WoW-obsessed. I can relate.

Shrub.com blog is Andrea Rubenstein's home on the net, where she has been mixing her personality with politics and entertainment for - oh, almost since the internet started I think! Never a dull read.

Acid for Blood is a personal gaming blog that mostly chronicles experiences (recently, Guild Wars and WoW), but she often uses the anecdote as a lens to examine larger issues.

There are so many more - which ones do you like to read?

Saturday, I had a leisurely lunch with Eric, got to talking about things, including the only game that he plays seriously these days, World of Warcraft. Then suddenly, the afternoon sun was slanting down and Eric said, "I gotta get ready, I have a raid at 5 PM." "Can I watch?"

I'd been avoiding the game as if it were heroin because I knew, I knew what would happen if I let myself install and play. I knew that I didn't leave the house for a week during Dark Age of Camelot. I can't go back to that.

So, I watched Eric log in, meet up with teammates. They were doing a really tough raid that day, the same instance they hadn't been able to finish the week before. There were some new people, too, players who hadn't ever done the raid before, who needed to be walked through the details of the rather complicated strategy. There was tension. There was a lot of planning. Team leaders were in place, and positions assigned. No one was allowed to countermand orders in the instance. Once the battle began, it was over with everyone dead in about ten minutes.

"Hm," I said, and drew my chair up closer. Then it happened again, and again - the third time, the team lasted longer. They were learning from their mistakes, that was sure. It was incredibly compelling. After two hours I was desperately rooting for the team, watching all the life bars on screen ge chipped away little by little. "Come on, come on," I muttered to myself while Eric tried to outrun the dragon-things.

That night I installed my copy of the game and spent a few hours getting to level 8. I told Derek about it today and he said, "It seems like a random time to start." It does, and it is - but that's the way so many things happen to start, don't you think?

Wired has an absorbing read on Gizmondo's Flameout. Working as a news editor at 1UP, I tried so many times to investigate these people - it was so clear to all of us that they were dirty as can be. But I never found anything conclusive, just a lot of things to be suspicious about.

And gamers knew it too - I mean, the product didn't make any sense, none of their press releases made any sense, and they threw these outrageous parties that cost them millions of dollars. And yet, there were so many positive reports in the mainstream media. They raised a bunch of money in stocks - and then, apparently, they stole it!

Anyway, read the article - it's an entertaining story.

Last night I went for the first time in a long while to the monthly IGDA meeting of the San Francisco chapter. The lecture was about the latest CSI Game, which doesn't sound that exciting until you see the demo data: the CSI games' biggest group of consumers is women beween 35-50. The audience that no one else can get to play games is the one that is crazy about this particular game.

Robin and I noticed that a lot of the talk was about "casual gamers", as in, "Casual gamers want an authetic experience," "casual gamers want accessibility." It struck us both, I think, that the core audience for the game exhibits anything but "casual" behavior. They are crazy for the game. Over 80 percent finish the games, and 76 percent (I think - I don't remember the exact number) are repeat customers. They probably don't play any other game but this. Isn't that sort of focused attention the definition of "hardcore"?

There's a big semantic problem here. The tendency these days is to almost ghettoize the games that don't appeal to the standard male 18-34 demo as "casual games." Hence, everything from mobile games to kid's DS games to free flash games to CSI The Game are lumped into "casual." Robin suggests on her post about this that perhaps there is a subset of adventure gamers who just aren't being serviced by the industry currently, or maybe that there is a burgeoning audience for these types of games.

I think it's important to understand that "game", in this context, stretches far, and includes a wide variety of experiences. Some game reviewers slam adventure games precisely because the play element is so trimmed that it is virtually nonexistent - even some of the puzzles are obscure and illogical. But we call them games because they are interactive and still feel like a game experience.

I happen to be a fan of adventure games. But I also will admit that I play them often with a walkthrough or a guide handy, because it's not as rewarding to me to solve the puzzle than it is to see where the story goes next. So I can understand wanting to lose oneself in the narrative and get swept away by something like The Longest Journey, which I truly loved. And that's also why I have a high tolerance for games like Final Fantasy VIII, that really rely on story to overcome broken game mechanics.

Even though I think I'd be classified as a hadcore gamer, I am very open to the kinds of experiences described by the panelists on behalf of their customers: cinematic pleasure, immersion in a beloved IP, the continuation, in essence, of a franchise and a show.

But to call it "casual" seems odd. We need a new definition of "casual" games, and a new way to define games that are, like adventure games, driven more by story and character than by agency of the player.

My favorite internet star of the moment, GameJew (AKA Jonathan Mann), takes on education in the latest episode: GameJew Episode 7. He visits a videogame class at a technical college, then talks to a professor of interface design at an arts school, and finally ends by driving around a videogame bus to teach kids how to play co-operatively.

There's a wealth of interesting insights here - like the fact that the kids value winning over challenge, something that a lot of hardcore gamers may not understant, since one common critique that can lower a review score is that the game is "too easy."

The 3D interfaces designed by the teacher Jonathan interviews are also beautiful and inspire new possibilities for videogame controls.

GameJew is one of the smartest, funniest, most creative commentators on the culture of videogames today, and I urge anyone interested in that to check out his work. It's not always perfect, but I would argue that it never fails to engage.