Jesus, but you can spend a lot of time on Facebook these days. It's the incredible exploding social network. On Facebook now I can attack friends with my zombie army or my pirate army or my hero, Penny Century; I can leave a scribble on a friend's Fun Wall. I can add to my list of books read, films watched, and cities visited around the world. I can join groups with fanciful names like "I judge you when you use poor grammar." I can poke and superpoke and pwn. I can send cocktails and gifts with secret messages. Dear lord! I'm embarrassed to say that I even *bought* a gift, for $1, to send someone. One REAL dollar, people! USD! Why did I do this?

Who says micro-transactions don't work?

In any case, the brilliance of Facebook is that unlike Friendster, Orkut (ugh, remember that one? Overrun by Brazilians?), Myspace, et al., it is both clean-designed and chock full of optional applications that add extreme stickiness to the application. There are games here, and not just the game of who has the most friends - it's, how can you upgrade your account and what novel ways can you find every day to interact with your friends?

Is there anything here that Xbox Live or Playstation Home can gracefully co-opt? Would they be well-served by doing so? Would increased social interaction enhance gaming experiences? I believe so.

The number one problem with online gaming is the LFG (Looking for Group) problem. It's not just a logistic problem - that is slowly starting to be solved, with ways to match people up by experience, for example; but for me the far more important problem is the Trust issue.

(Yes, I have trust issues, so what?)

My problem is this: I want to play a game to have fun; therefore I want to play with people who are fun, and whose notions of fun align with mine. What's not fun to me: sore losers, angry players, stupid players, homophobic, racist, or misogynistic players, players who overindulge in smacktalk of the bordering-on-cruel variety, players who have no sense of manners. This holds pretty much true for me across all multiplayer games, from chess to Halo to WoW to online Scrabble.

So what's the solution? Well, play only with people you actually know in RL - that's pretty much been my solution so far. But that can really decrease the available pool of players and add to the logistics problem, creating situations in WoW, for example, when we are waiting for a friend to log out and log in as his mage and come meet us at Scarlet Monastery all the way from Darnassus. Or something. And surely there are other players out there who are like me, or with whom I would have fun playing. So how do I find them using the criteria that are important *to me*?

Friends of friends is one interesting way to go, I think. So maybe your usual buddies aren't online, but what if you could take a look at their friends' lists and invite some of them? Even better, what if they had profiles online so that you could check out a little more detail and get a sense of what this person's play style was like? Beyond just the rough monikers "Family" "Recreation" and "Underground" that currently exist on Xbox Live. Furthermore, what if you could actively be working to create friends and strengthen bonds out of game, by using a web app like Facebook to continually re-inforce, through relatively simple and low-level interactions, social connections? You'd be building up a trust network, and increasing the amount of trust you have between yourselves. Also, if you are connected in that sort of network, you are less likely to want to break the bonds of it by acting like an utter ass. These effects would then enhance the play experience the next time you played with people in your network.

Hm. I need to think more about this. I'd welcome your thoughts, too.

These are AWESOME. If only I knew how to knit anything other than scarves! :(

This is really interesting - my friend Ben reports back from GenCon that this indie tabletop game, Steal Away Jordan, by Stone Baby Games and designed by Julia B. Ellingboe, got a lot of buzz, and you can see why: it's an RPG set in the antebellum American South. Here's a blurb:

This is not simply a game about slavery. Steal Away Jordan is a vehicle for players to tell a collective story of the lives of people who live inthe shadow of slavery. The emphasis here is on the people, not the place or time. The institution affects everyone, from the child born into bondage to the man who owns him. Steal Away Jordan is a role playing game written in the spirit of neo slave narratives like Margaret Walker’s Jubilee, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and Octavia Butler’s Kindred. Like these fictional accounts of slave life, players explore the social and psychological implications of life in a society where people can be property. Ultimately, players consider slavery’s long-term impact on a society and on the descendants of slaves and slave owners.

The game designer Julia notes on her blog that at GenCon, the demoing of the game produced mixed reactions:

I'll start with the commerce aspect. I demoed my ass off at the Forge/IPR booth, which paid off. Steal Away Jordan made people uncomfortable, sometimes pleasantly so, sometimes unpleasantly so, sometimes somewhere in between. I had one couple pretend to get a cell phone call that they had to take. I had another guy tell me that he couldn't relate because, "there never was slavery in Canada." What-evah.... But lots more people stayed on the ride, and came out the other side.

My friend Ben was impressed and intrigued, but refrained from buying it because he wasn't sure how he would feel comfortable gamemastering it. He describes:

You've got the designer, a nice black lady named Julia, sitting down with you to run a game about being a slave and you are almost certainly white, probably male. And you probably didn't know what the game was before you sat down to play. Now in this demo, you're playing a precreated character. So you have a little background - one player was a rice farmer before he was kidnapped and sold into slavery. As it happens, his master has decided he wants to grow rice, but hasn't had a lot of luck. Now, the player's character has a name but he isn't allowed to write it on his sheet. Instead, when you're bought, the GM assigns your character a name and that goes on the sheet.

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Posted by jane at 05:13 PM | TrackBack (0) | Comments (2) last by: Parthenia

Super interesting article by Clive Thompson on Bungie's testing of the design process used in Halo 3.

The ideal in gameplay, the goal every developer aims for, is an experience that keeps players in a "flow" state — constantly surfing the edges of their abilities without bogging down. Modern videogames are often compared to Hollywood movies, but the comparison, many Bungie designers will tell you, is inaccurate. A movie is static. "You sit there and absorb it all in a single two-hour shot, and it's perfectly linear," says Frank O'Connor, one of the writers tasked with scripting the story line in Halo 3.

Creating a game, in contrast, is like a combination of architecture — constructing environments that influence the behavior of people inside them — and designing a new sport. Gamemakers have to devise a system of rules and equipment that gives players a few basic goals and then allows them to find their own ways of achieving those goals. The flow comes from constantly discovering innovative ways to solve these open-ended problems.

Back to what Clint was talking about, that is where the art lies. This article reveals much more about how Bungie thinks of fun (30 second bursts of action, the "golden tripod", etc) than Raph Koster's intellectually insipid book, A Theory of Fun for Game Design, which is a vague and meandering rumination.

I'd like to find out more about research on what humans find "fun" and how we should go about quantifying and qualifying "fun".

...to create a game for entry into Kokoromi's Gamma 256, the game/art festival the collective throws during the Montreal International Game Summit. I went last year and it was a blast. I wish I could program so I can make something for this year. But I can't!

I know some of you, however, can - so get to it!

I'm pretty psyched to see this movie. I wish Bang the Machine had actually been more widely released (they got held up because they couldn't finish clearing the rights to the music used in the film, is what I heard). It comes out this week. Maybe I'll watch it in Seattle. Maybe it'll be one of the surprise movies they show Saturday night!

Brandon pointed out the humor in this article title: GCDC Panel Tackles Women In Games.

Ouch!

This actually happened last year when I was at 1UP, because I remember the 1UP side of it - the publisher wanted to know what scores would be given, we refused to tell, they threaten to yank the exclusive, etc. The usual nonsense.

And since I have many friends who used to work at IGN, I can also say I heard the story independently from them, as well.

It's stinky! And I'm glad that stories like this are coming out in the open. I wish my friends who knew about it could speak more openly and less anonymously about it, but there is still such an old boys' network, and an informal blacklist too. That's something else that has to change about game journalism.

In any case although I believe this story to be true it still only counts as hearsay, word against word, etc, and unless there were more evidence it's not really "newsworthy." Nevertheless the anecdote gives us a glimpse into how some people work the system.

And... for hilarity's sake, since we are speaking of untrustworthy reviews: Worst Review Ever?

I just can't get excited about Bioshock. Yes, I've seen the screenshots, I've talked to my friends who loooooove it, and they make compelling, smart arguments about it. Yes, I liked System Shock, of course. But after all it's still a game in which you run around and shoot stuff, whether the stuff happens to be zombies or aliens or Nazis or other baddies. And there may be great physics or whatever but you know, what good is excellent physics if it's only used to demonstrate how thoroughly you can destroy the environment?

I feel FPS fatigue.

So you've heard of mileage running - booking multi-city marathon trips on an airline or airline partner to take advantage of fare sales and pricing in order to get the most number of mileage points per cent. It's something that I have toyed with trying - it's basically a game, a puzzle.

But then there's mattress running. That sounds a lot more fun, to me - sleeping in some featherbed at a Starwood hotel rather than crammed on an airplane for 18 hours. And potentially sexier, if done with a special friend.

So, I was all set to write a series of absolutely brilliant, thought-provoking, ground-breaking posts today but my hosting service went down this morning. Ack!

And then I forgot what I was going to say.

Clint posted his essay on authorship last Friday, but it's taken me until now to read it, because, boy, is he wordy! :)

Here's the essential nugget (for me anyway):

Taken as wholes, GTA: San Andreas is a more compelling, meaningful and important work of art than Crash.

Admittedly, not everyone will agree, and admittedly, I have a high level of literacy in reading systems. The point here is not to enter a subjective debate about what is a superior work of art, rather the point is to say that – yes – if a game is offering a smorgasbord of unrelated mechanics that are neither supporting each other nor driving toward a coherent theme, if they are not providing the player with a broad range of perspectives on a specific meaning that the creator is trying to express, then Ebert is right.

But if a game creator does have something specific he is trying to communicate, and he designs his game well, and the mechanics and dynamics are coherently supporting that aesthetic, and providing the player – more or less whatever he does (assuming it is not wilfully nonsensical) – with insight into that meaning, then yeah… it’s art.

I happen to agree (if Clint's referring not to Cronenberg's Crash - a creepy meditation on sex and dismemberment - but the other one, a rather insipid and predictable attempt to survey race relations in Los Angeles). Think of how much ink was spilled in dissecting the game, how much people were awed and, in some cases, frightened by it, how people passionately defended their interpretation of it.

But one little phrase of Clint's I'd like to point out - something he tossed out but which to me seems key here. He has a high level of literacy with systems of interaction. This is terribly important. Games speak in their own language, and when you are comfortable with that language, then games can make sense to you, you can process them and absorb them and react to them. It's not just a matter of dextrousness or fingering facility. It's a matter of understanding that the game is built of these blocks of systems.

Just as children are taught to read - narrative is built in blocks of meanings; visual arts, too, are not necessarily intuitively appreciated. The *reason* that so many of what I would have once called low-brow mid-culture consumers appreciate Monet's waterlilies and Handel's Water Music is because those cultural forms, the language of classicism, have been so embedded in the west that we can understand them intuitively. When the Impressionists were first painting plenty of people thought them crazy, or degenerate, or both. Now imitations of their work hang in second-rate hotel rooms everywhere. We've tamed the language of what was once radicalism so that now it seems safe and normal.

Ebert - and not just him, many many people - have yet to learn the language that games employ. Gamers know it instinctively, although few are as self-aware and as articulate about what they know than Clint. but my question now is, ok, we're raising a generation of gamers who understand interactivity and systems; how come we are running out of good programmers then? Shouldn't this generation be ideally suited to become natural programmers? And yet every industry that requires engineers, programmers, or other system-builders is having the toughest time finding talent. Is it just a matter of boom time economy and too much work to go around?

Or is something broken?

The first online reviews for Bioshock are trickling in, and it looks like perfect tens across the board so far. Anyone play the demo yet? I've been meaning to but haven't gotten around to it.

Interesting - I'm betting the print mags will follow suit. Now we'll see how correlated game review scores and game sales are!

Lost in Austen is, as far as I can tell, a choose-you-own-adventure book in which you "play" as Elizabeth Bennet, Austen's most beloved heroine. I bring this up because, well, Richard sent it to me - he knows that I am obsessed with the idea of creating a Jane Austen RPG. It would be so successful, I tell you! I just need money, and programmers, and artists, and...

Yeah. Well, maybe some day!

I finished Austin's book, Soon I Will Be Invincible, a little while ago and it is really, really, really good. It feels like a light read at first, but it's so skillfully plotted and the characters are so engaging that it becomes one of those books where, once you are in the world, you don't really ever want to leave it.

Anyway he's giving a talk this Saturday, August 11, in San Francisco at Writers with Drinks. And he's also giving a talk at the Austin GDC, provocatively titled, Literate Gaming: How We Can and Must Do Better at Writing for Games.

Austin's a good speaker - passionate and thoughtful in equal measure, inspiring and funny and needless to say, smart as all get-out. You should try to catch him at least once!

Other events associated with the book's release are noted on the official website, which is, by the way, beautifully designed (if a bit too flash-heavy for my taste.)

I'll admit to a little healthy jealousy as a fellow writer who has two or three novels on blocks right now but that's just part of the admiration I feel for Austin. He's worked hard and he deserves the success! Plus you can't stay jealous at a guy who is so obviously talented - not to mention one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet!

I love Etsy, the DIY craft shop where creators sell their own stuff. It's really neat. Although you know what I wish they had? A little flash badge or something that could let a seller display goods on her own site - "here are the latest items I'm selling!" That sort of thing.

ANYway, this post isn't about that, it's about the enduring popularity of Mario! If you just do a simple search on the site for Mario you get some awesome items...

Some of my favorites:

She calls herself the Pink Samurai, and this crossstitch is a masterwork. It includes references to Space Invaders and Tetris as well as to Super Mario Brothers - pretty cool! 8-bit art is such perfectly natural fit for crossstitching. When I have a little more free time I've got some ideas I want to try too...

Look how adorable the star power necklace is! It's the perfect size, too, not too small so you can't tell what it is, not too big to be out of proportion. With the matching coin earrings it'll be extra cute. <3 this one!

I'm always so impressed by people who make things out of love. I've had ideas of crafts for a long time, but although I really enjoy knitting and painting and so on, I find I'm actually not that good at it, and inspiration strikes me more rarely. Still, stuff like this makes me want to try my hand at it again.

I received an email from a well-meaning and earnest student who wanted to collect expert responses about whether or not videogames are art, and so on. How tedious. This debate doesn't even *exist* except possibly in the mind of Roger Ebert and overeager students. No offense. But can we just move on already?

It seems to me that the whole notion of trying to define "art" is, first of all, utterly irrelevant in our age. When vulgar homes display those ubiquitous prints of Monet's waterlilies, when insipid pop songs can be desconstructed, when the face of the Mona Lisa is used on keychains sold to tourists, when collectors pay thousands of dollars for the scribblings of a madman who has "found art" - it's a circus. It's like trying to define what "food" is when we have everything from seaweed extract to Velveeta.

There's no "art" anymore. Just categories of creation. And you can either enjoy it, or not. Just as food is simply something you eat. And let's be clear, there is good food and bad, horrible, awful, nearly inedible food.

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A few months back I visited the Center for American History's inaugural launch reception for the UT Videogame Archive Project,

This is very exciting - we've been working with the University of Texas a little bit to help promote their fundraise for the UT Videogame Archive project. It's a party on Richard Garriott's fabled estate, Britannia Manor. Actually, not in the castle itself, but on the grounds, overlooking a lake, where there is also a reproduction of the Globe Theatre (as made famous by Shakespeare).

Platinum sponsors get to sit in the Royal Box at the theatre. Guests will bid on, among other things, a Zero G flight. Which I, of course, totally want to try. Although I've heard that most people throw up. A little puke is worth it, though, no?

This is neat! Music video of Bjork's single "Innocence" styled like a 2D platformer game, Super Mario Brothers style.

Just where on earth does Brandon find these? This is a real gem. You play, apparently, as a little octopus collecting panties - but the real beauty of the game is that the backgrounds are all classic Japanese erotic art, a genre known as Shunga (literally, spring art - because love strikes in the springtime!) - but featuring octopussy-love, which is a genre all its own. Check it out.

So a couple of days ago we got the news that one of the board members for the conference I'm working on, Austin GDC, has found a new job leading up ZeniMax Online Studios, a new outfit that will specialize in online games, presumably MMOs since that is Matt's experiece. Matt is responsible for a game that nearly made me starve to death, Dark Age of Camelot, and he was one of the founders of Mythic.

Put those tidbits of information next to the fact that ZeniMax Media is the parent company of Bethesda, and you have an interesting proposition - will there finally be an Elder Scrolls Online game? MORE...

Seriously. this game is so incredibly addictive, that even with all my game consoles at my disposal I am still playing a web-based casual game MORE than anything else.

Even WoW.

Help me.

No, really, help me, because I can't seem to crack level 42 or so. Everything's going great, all the creeps are dying, and then suddenly, BAM! three groups of creeps come at once and all my leveled up squirt towers and bash towers can't seem to stop them.

We all knew this was going to happen, right?

Congratulations, ladies and gentlemen, on a spectacular showing.

So, who's going to be in my band? We just need a kick-ass name.