Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming

Adam Creighton

Other Blogs:
American McGee
Beautiful Pixels
Hideo Kojima
Hitachi Wasabe's Xbox 360

Xbox 360 Marketplace Updates: (MajorNelson.com)

Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming (Subscribe)

Friday, October 09, 2009

Get your act together

OK, this needs to be a bit ranty / rambly.

I was at a great game industry networking gig last night. It was a big turnout, representing a bunch of companies, disciplines, and skill levels. And it's nice to hang out with good folks and enjoy their company.

A bunch of folks there last night are between gigs. The current economy is getting everyone -- That's not the issue.

So, now the Ranty McRanty part.

I've griped before about how the game industry doesn't network to help big things happen for each other like I've seen in other vertical (specifically, technical) markets.

But when you're looking for a job, you need to be even more on your A-game.

Most of these people in transition didn't have business cards. Or resumes (I don't mean "with them", I mean "at all").

WTF?

Seriously, am I missing something? If you're trying to connect with someone to get a job, don't you want them to have your contact information? An easy way to see your portfolio? Maybe having a way for them to know who you are and how to get a hold of you might, I dunno, be helpful?

Ergh.

Always have business cards with you. Always.

For me, I have three -- whatever card from my current employer, my acting card, and a generic, title-less card for my next potential gig (like below).

And I have my resume on my phone (so I can Email it instantly, with a queued up Email template along the lines of "It was nice to meet you tonight! Here's a copy of the generalized version of my resume for your reference."). And it's available from my Website.

I'm not saying this is the way to do all of this, but I am saying it's a way. And it's far better than tripping all over yourself and shooting yourself in the professional foot.

Now, there were some people who were prepared last night. One guy even had hard copies of his resume with him (which was kind of cute).

OK, enough of the rant. Go get business cards.

(Hey, does the logo on my generic card look to much like a tramp stamp?)

Labels: rants

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

The Game industry needs to step up

I'm writing this post, knowing it's going to piss people off.

I'm writing it for at least a couple of reasons.

The first is to generate discussion -- about what I think are pretty important topics.

The second is because I've written (here and here, and plan to write) several topics that have needed to point back to a post like this; by writing this post, in the future I can link to here from "the game industry could learn from" type statements, and not derail future discussions.

To be fair, I'm relatively new to the game industry -- six months after a 3-year directed effort to get into this market (I'll write about that some other time), and since I'm on the middleware side, I'm a bit distanced from "core" game development and publishing. I'm also arguably not yet Part of the Club -- but I think that puts me in a unique space to comment on these topics.

And I'm a fan. I'm a consumer, I fought to get into this space, and I recognize the huge potential for this market.

Also, I'm wicked impressed with the creativity, innovation, and intelligence in the games industry. I just think the industry needs to recognize its relatively small size, vertical market maturity, and learn lessons from other vertical markets.

These are generalities, of course -- it doesn't apply to everyone, and companies like Microsoft, for example -- who have enterprise, consumer, and brand maturity -- are arguably going to be more mature in the games space.

Relative size:

The game industry is pretty small. Numbers put it between 6-8,000. Dell, as one company, has more than that. Now, think Cisco, IBM, Boeing, 3M, etc.

That makes for a very small talent and experience pool. On the upside, that should make for a more accessible group of folks -- if you're in the club (see above); but on the downside, it can make for an insular, elitist culture, too. I'm not saying it is; saying it could be. On second thought, I've experienced it quite a bit, so let's say it is.

Relative accomplishment:

I've talked about what film accomplished in its first 20 years, versus what video games accomplished in nearly twice that -- and video games had a more mature technology base from which to start. Not pretty.

There's a lifetime video game vet in Austin I keep encouraging to publish his verbal rant about the elevation of film versus his frustration with his industry's "myopic, uninformed braggadocio". It is a brilliant, informed, very articulate call to arms (and call to accountability) for the games industry.

And, because he's a respected lifetime vet, he could say say the same things I'm saying, but people might actually listen. Maybe.

Relative Professionalism:

OK, maybe. Because brass tacks, the downside of a very small, insular professional pool can be a lack of professionalism.

(This may sting; I hope it does.)

This exhibits itself in different ways. On the upside, I think the games industry is less constrained and more gutsy than a lot of other technical markets. Because of the nature of the deliverables, political correctness and "appropriateness" (as a generality) don't have the same gating powers as they would for say, Cisco or IBM. That leads to some hilarious, open fare (a la Battlefield: Bad Company or Red v. Blue).

But I have been treated with less regard in the games industry than any other part of the technology sector.

I've mentioned I spent a focused 3-year effort to get into the games industry. That's because I got great, focused advice from vets in the industry located with me in Austin who told me because of "the arrogance of the industry", I would need to take longer and additional steps to get closer to a parity title in the games industry.

I was an enterprise technical director in the financial services market. When I went to leave, I turned down executive-level positions in that market and other tech markets.

For video game companies, I was literally offered unpaid internships and associate producer positions at a fifth of my salary -- from people who knew my background and then-current compensation.

As I was getting coached by some top-tier folks to get into the industry, they had concerns about how I would get in and how I would do -- not about me, but about the industry "not acknowledging the skills and process maturity you bring that we so desperately need."

I had one interviewer tell me, "I'm not worried about you being able to do the job -- I'm concerned you'll run screaming when you see how f***ed up we are as an industry" (verbatim, I still have it written down from the interview).

I had a recruiter (one of the people on that side of the house I respect most in the game industry) who was beyond frustrated with the lack of response he would get on my behalf: "Don't they get that if they don't get people like you, they will fail?" (not me -- "people like" me -- I'm confident in my abilities, but I'm no Neo for the games industry; there is no Neo for the industry).

Another example would be on the biz dev front. While that's not part of my current job, per se, it is a part of how I'm wired as a person. I get far fewer responses from within the games industry when I tickle people about potential, exciting unthought-of business opps than I did before joining the games industry (as a matter of fact, I just realized the responsiveness I've had has been from companies outside of the game industry).

Hell, I'm also a professional actor, and I find that market more open, accessible, and collaborative (even on the stereotypical LA in-club side) than the games industry.

Learning from Other Industries:

I have not arrived. Neither has any industry. But the games industry could learn a lot from other industries -- and even more if it would acknowledge it could.

Going back to that guy's "run screaming" concern -- if I hear "enterprise" in the context of gaming any more, I am going to run rampant with NERF weaponry, shattering monitors left and right (as an aside, I want this when it launches this year).

I lived, breathed, and managed enterprise (where "n-tier" is not "2") for years: with its defined business and development processes and certifications; data wharehousing; business intelligence software; solutions that have thin and thick clients--> load balancing --> Web server --> application server --> database server --> distributed across 4 data centers on 4 continents.

Think you know clients and servers? Are you able to get mainframe / assembly-level responsiveness equivalent to an authentication check assess available funds do a business rules decision tree do fraud detection tolerance in a worldwide round trip in under 2 seconds? With 6,000 round trips running concurrently each second?

Think you know .NET and MS-SQL? Does Microsoft come to you to figure out how you got that kind of performance from their products? I'm pretty sure that's at least a bar -- and it's being met in other markets.

Think the games industry knows how to eke the most out of a license? No, but the toy industry does (think Hasbro, and their brilliance of growing addressable market through increased IP "expressions".)

Think you know how to be niche vertical player, come back from the business dead, and become a brand powerhouse to rival a media conglomerate like Warner Bros.? No, but Marvel does (they also know how to genuinely do community implementations).

Conclusion:

Obviously, I haven't arrived (and this post may set me back a bit), there's a lot of growth to be had, and I'm looking forward to working with folks who get that.

It sounds high-horse, but I genuinely want to enable creative brilliance to see the light of day, and block the stupid stuff -- from every direction -- that gets in the way of that.

Mheh. I expect tomorrow to be interesting for me.

Labels: rants

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

WGA out of the game (UPDATED)

So, the Writer's Guild of America (WGA) is currently striking.

So, besides early re-runs and some other, more serious impacts about which I'll probably write on my acting blog, there's a video game impact.

The WGA is trying to a full-on push to get into video games. They put forth big presences and PR as to why it's better to use professional, union writers, at conferences like the Austin Game Developers Conference, even chairing sessions entitled, "Taking Your Videogame [sic] to the Next Level with WGA Talent".

And why wouldn't they want to push into the roughly $26B video game industry?

And why wouldn't we want them too, since we want quality writing?

But there's a problem. Problems. But let's keep it simple.

Problems, like, it's tough to get the majority of the game industry to pay for professional actors, let alone professional writers. (There are some great exceptions, but I'm talking generally.)

And then the writers go and strike.

Why, again, should game companies look at hiring potentially more expensive professional WGA writers, with the risk factor union reps have just introduced into the risk profile for companies assessing whether or not to pay for WGA writers to write games?

UPDATED: Over at IGN.com, it says "A Writer's Guild representative told IGN today that only a handful of game writers are currently represented by the union, and that they fall out of the jurisdiction of the current strike."

Though I still stand by my statements above for possible future impacts.

Labels: ramblings, rants

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Contradicting fall game sales predictions debunked

OK, it's not that I don't like the guy, but I when he does video gaming analysis, this guy at CNet falls flatter than me.

Below is a version of the comments I left on his blog. Last time I did this, he wrote a defensive response post, aimed at "people", and never referencing my comments. Let's see if we get a repeat infraction.

Like I said, I don't have an issue with him. He's got a good gig (more power to him). But folks like him (and I) need to recognize (and acknowledge) where we're stepping out of "analysis" and into "opinion".

Anyway, read his whole post for context, but he basically says this is his projection for each of the consoles this holiday:

Overall Xbox 360 outlook for the holiday season: mediocre.
Overall Nintendo Wii outlook for the holiday season: strong
Overall Sony Playstation 3 outlook: moderate to strong

And he says parents not able to find a $250 Wii will buy a $400 Ps3. Why they would do that rather than a $280 or $350 Xbox 360 feels a bit off to me. Maybe he's thinking parents will recognize the Sony brand over the Microsoft brand?

It's an interesting analysis, but it is lacking (and not accurate) in so many areas.

Many of the comments in response to his post point out the major misses in the article.

In addition, I'd say his analysis neglects basic market factors, and doesn't even address things like the recently released NPD numbers, which paint a very different picture than he does. And while every company is going to have their spin on these numbers, Sony's "forward-looking" take is pretty telling.

He's also inconsistent in pointing to bundles as being factors (or non-factors) in holiday sales, but doesn't mention things like the recently released Xbox 360 bundles (the Arcade bundle and the Forza 2 / Marvel Ultimate Alliance bundle).

On the PS3 side, you doesn't go into any detail about the brief history of (and differences between) the price-dropped 80GB, 20 GB, phased-out 60 GB, and recently-released (but feature reduced) 40 GB models.

And he says with Halo 3 out and Mass Effect the only exclusive this holiday, the 360 won't see enough of an upswing from those titles.

Seriously? Does he think the Halo 3 tailing occurred that fast?

I would argue that console exclusives (like Halo 3 or Gears of War) are console sellers, Mass Effect will likely do far better than for which he credits it (the Electronic Arts acquisition by itself is arguably indicative of this market confidence). And I don't think the "BioShock boost" is over yet, either.

And I would argue the non-exclusives are huge console draws (they are for me; I'm looking for a console's total gaming portfolio which is why Microsoft is first for me for its retail offerings; Nintendo is second because of its great Virtual Console offerings, and Sony is last).

For example, "Oh, I can also play Call of Duty 4 on Xbox 360, which is a better FPS platform? Oh, Madden '08 looks and plays ridiculously better on the 360 than the PS3? I don't need to buy a PS3 to get Devil May Cry 4? I can play Orange Box (definitely) and Assassin's Creed (probably) earlier on the 360 than the PS3? Etc.

Again, the guy has some interesting commentary, but it's super lightweight, and way behind (both in terms of time and depth) industry analyst professionals like Michael Pachter or Colin Sebastian.

He also trumpets a previous forward-looking post he did as pseudo credentials for his analysis. Avoiding a rebuttal to the idea of "Why 'Halo 3' will decide the Xbox 360's fate", I'm not sure I'd recommend trumpeting a September Halo 3 post written the day before the game was released -- when industry analysts like Pachter and Sebastian had posted deeper, more accurate predictions weeks (in some cases, months) before. And those guys, as storied as they are in their dedicated vertical market, are only "right" around 60% of the time (in a non-representative, but random, and repeated, an non-overlapping personal sampling).

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Looking at comments written in response to his post while I was writing this one, though, looks like I'm not alone in my grousing.

Hey, for those of you who have been writing to complain about me not having done a "Crotchety Gamer" post in a while ... you're welcome.

Labels: Gears of War, Halo, Microsoft, Nintendo, PlayStation3, ramblings, rants, Sony, Wii, Xbox 360

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Another place consoles are missing the boat

So, The Orange Box has flagged for me a couple of big missed opportunities for developers / publishers wanting to capitalize on things setting consoles apart from PCs.

The big one is multiplayer. I'm not talking about Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network -- I'm talking same-box, four-player mutliplayer.

I have FOUR freaking controllers! Not being able to play local Crackdown at all, only being able to do two-player local co-op for Gears of War, and having to go online to play any multiplayer Team Fortress 2 sucks. Why buy it for $60 for the Xbox 360 or PS3 (eventually?) when I can have the same same box experience (with an arguably better control set) for up to $25 less?

I can see a company mistakenly not wanting to implement local multiplayer, because of the mistaken perception they can sell more games if everybody has to buy them in order to play.

Ridiculous. I have so many friends and acquaintances who have bought games and systems because of my twice weekly open game nights. You limit the local play, you limit those sales.

I'm glad to see Halo 3 continues the 4-player same-box support, both offline and online (other than offline co-op campaign, which only supports 2, and which I maintain is likewise poor; but not as bad as all of the other games I mention).

I'd have more sympathy, but (A) I really think console multiplayer games need to support local multiplayer as a standard feature to compete in the current market, and (B) After pinging multiple game devs about this, they were pretty harsh about local multiplayer not being included because of "developer laziness" -- ouch! And those are their words, not mine).

So, get with it, kids. I would have bought The Orange Box day one if TF2 supported local 4-way play. As it is, I'll hold off until it hits a promo discount price, and if that doesn't happen well before or well after the holiday game glut, I may end up passing on the title altogether.

Oh, and Area #2 where consolers are falling short? User content. Halo 3 has the Forge level editing feature. Build from that (give us the level, map, and skin creation options we've had on the PC mod side for years).

(Oh, and don't get mad at me for mentioning Halo 3 so much. Though they do a lot of things right, their botched non-drop-in-drop-out online co-op sucks. Feel better?)

Labels: game design, ramblings, rants, Xbox 360

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Sunday, September 09, 2007

The importance of corporate solidarity

As a enterprise technical director, I recognize the importance -- and challenge -- of keeping everyone on the same page. Some recent video game happenings have prompted me to write about it.

So, I'm gonna talk about my version of what I call "corporate solidarity", why it's important, why it's hard, and why it sucks (and what costs) when it's broken. And I'm going to use two recent examples that aren't big by themselves, but give me a launch pad for discussing this in a games industry context -- BioShock and Crackdown.

"Corporate Solidarity":

From a functional perspective, if the various development, QA, project management, support, operations, and other parties are not marching to the beat of (largely) the same drum, I can't get the products and services for which I'm responsible out the door. And once I get them out the door, if people don't have a "one team, one brand" perspective, a lot of folks' ridiculously hard work can be thrown out the window in a heartbeat.

Maintaining this is hard for a bunch of reasons. Actually, we could say, "The reasons corporate solidarity falls apart is Legion" (both due to the connotative sense of the word, and because when all of these things stack up against you, they can feel vaguely demonic; I kid; maybe).

I manage international, multi-million dollar projects and services. People fall off the same page because of time zone and cultural differences, varying departmental goals, the "silo effect" of different internal functional groups prioritizing their goals over the success of projects or services they're supporting, Customers' (or developers') changing needs being put ahead of agreed-upon schedules, miss-prioritization of cost / scope / schedule to the negative detriment of the other factors, personality conflicts, greed, hubris, embarrassment about admitting a technical or business mistake or lack of skills or experience, the planets not being aligned, tectonic shifts, and Web 2.0. To name a few.

And managing these stumbling blocks is hard. Wicked hard. And it requires just that -- management. Project management, financial management, people management, risk management, relationship management (in addition to people management), expectation management (separate from people and relationship management), communication management, and on and on.

Personal case study:

Let's take a small example of internal corporate solidarity falling apart, and the damage it does.

I managed a part of a service / product offering I'd actually brought into the company. A year-plus later, it'd become a decent revenue stream, had transitioned to another group, and was growing. I was brought in to shepherd some next steps for the service, and had been asked to attend a call with the current owners (within my company and division) and the Customer.

On the call, the point person from the new owning group within our company proceeded to insult the Customers and my team as not knowing anything about the service (I had actually been responsible for helping define the original business, user, and context flows the service). He was unresponsive to Customer questions and requirements statements and dismissive of my bringing up any history and lessons learned.

His content was worse due to his delivery, which was very aggressive, snippish, and what you could call "steamrolling".

The call went as well as it could, and I spent the time constantly navigating conversation back to the Customer to get what I could as far as enhancement requirements, desired time lines, service level expectations, concerns, and the like, not responding to our own company's barbs, and heading off my team members' and the Customers' responses to those barbs.

Immediately after the call ended, the Customer (who was also the business owner of the service, and who had a positive history with me), called me to ask what just happened, who this [unmentionable] person was, proceeded to tell me they may have made a mistake moving the service with this group, said he was thinking of stopping the enhancement project all together, and hinted that the mistake might impact our entire division.

That's a whole lotta cost for an employee forgetting he worked for the same company as folks on the phone, and forgot his Customer on the phone was providing his current position. The real-world cost in addition to that was the expense and time-cost of stopping and restarting the enhancement effort a number of times, weeks work of damage control, and the relationship building of re-establishing credibility for the entire division. The eventual solution is too long for (and outside) the scope of this post, but involved several of us outside of what I'll call that problem area of the company doing the work to keep the business, and being mature enough to swallow our own pride to keep the business, despite having to do it along with less mature people. Not fun, that.

Game Case Study 1 -- BioShock:

OK, biases out in the open first: I'm playing BioShock, and it's an amazingly well-done and entertaining game. On top of that, Ken Levine seems like a genuinely nice, hard-working and helpful guy.

But BioShock's had its share of PR bumps.

First, there was the hiccup around widescreen HDTV presentation. Which, arguably came down to an internal development miscommunication as to how 4:3 and 16:9 presentation is handled, versus ... what the rest of the HDTV world expects. But Levine was quick to offer (while on vacation) a mea culpa, explanation, and promise of further exploration to address it for gamers. (This is a actually a pro-solidarity example, sometimes called "constituent solidarity".)

But then there have been all sorts of problems with the PC version of the game -- largely around copy protection, and getting "charged" for multiple installations of the game, even if you're the only one playing it.

That's frustrating by itself, but exacerbated recently (and publicly) by a statement from a 2K Games forum moderator (who is not a a 2K Games employee; most news outlets have not updated with this critical bit of info).

Here's the thread from the forum (stereotypical crudishness included):

Quote:
Nemesisdesignz wrote:
I installed Bioshock on my laptop under one admin user, Everything works fine, but I then tried to switch users on my computer and whenever I launch Bioshock it is asking me to enter my serial again for the game.... IS THIS GONNA CHARGE ME TWO OF MY 5 Activations???? IF SO THAT IS GAY.... I need to know this ASAP before I attempt to play this on my pc under the other user... THis is a bug if the case be....so get yo stuff fixed!
Here's the response from moderator 2k Tech JT:
Quote:
2k Tech JT writes:
The other way to view this, is one USER has purchased the game. Not the whole family. So why should your brother play for free?

Obviously, the logic is a bit off (if you buy a movie, and the hero doth bleed, can not your family watch the hero bleed with you?). It's not like games follow a per-seat licensing structure akin to big-gun ETL or development software.

Since this is allegedly not a 2k employee, why do I include it?

Because this is still another extended example of a lack of corporate solidarity costing a good product that's already in the marketplace. The problem person in question "works for an outside tech support group" -- a vendor who is part of the larger matrixed BioShock team -- and who (obviously) impacts the positive and negative success of the product. You better believe if I was at 2K, I'd be factoring this instance into contract renegotiations with that vendor company. Of course, maybe this forum moderator is just effected by the penumbra of parent company Take-Two Interactive (what, you don't think there's something endemically wrong with that outfit?)

Game Case Study 2 -- Crackdown:

This one makes my heart hurt a little. Hang on ... OK.

Crackdown is a great little sandbox game from the original creator of Grand Theft Auto (before it got caliente café). It came bundled with a beta key for Halo 3. The game stands on its own without the Halo 3 beta. It sold 1.5 million copies in six months. It was published by Microsoft.

Realtime Worlds producer producer Phil Wilson said in a developer interview (among other things), despite the critical and popular success of Crackdown, there isn't going to be a sequel.

Why?

According to the Realtime Worlds (and pay attention to the language):
"Microsoft were a little late in stepping up to the plate to ask for Crackdown 2, and by then we had already started working on bigger, better things."
Ouch. So, "Our publisher who effectively banked us on that and our two next projects? That hand? This is me biting it."

Not good. So with this publisher / developer solidarity breakdown, Shane Kim over at Microsoft Games is probably going to be thinking about that if Realtime Worlds comes and asks them to publish their "undisclosed project due in 2009."

Oh, and as a little freebie, notice how bad decisions beget bad decisions and impact tertiary groups. Developmag.com has changed the story (there was some other unflattering stuff in the original article), adding this disclaimer:

"NOTE: Details/facts in this story have been adjusted at the request of Realtime
Worlds."

I used to be a journalist (formally, not just this current labor-of-love column stuff), and there are things you want to do. Stuff like stand by your story, not blame your source, not be obligated to get your story approved -- or edited -- by your source, and so on.

The solidarity breakdown has hurt many.

Anyway, that's my little (little?) blurb about corporate solidarity, corporate partnerships,

Labels: ramblings, rants

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Incoming: Crotchety Gamer Comments

Over at CNET, Don Reisinger has a post for his "The Digital Home" blog basically saying movies are derivative, video games are innovative, and

"The movie industry needs to take some notes from the video game developers. Trust me, it's the only way to bring us back."

Ridiculous hasty generalization aside (but read the whole article, so you're not just taking my words), there are some problems with Reisinger's post.

Keep in mind he's a self-expoused video game proponent. Also keep in mind that though I am, too, I've smacked the video game industry around recently (and am getting ready to again). And while this is going to sound overly critical of him, it's not meant to. He's just espousing some "pro-game, anti-everything-else" rhetoric that seems to have become pretty popular lately. I feel like it needs a response. Again.

He's made some good points about the "mind-numbing" film offerings and the "far more innovative" games industry, but these are generalizations for both vertical markets. I think it romanticizes video game offerings, and unfairly slights film.

In essence, he's talking about the very real trap of commercialism, but that exists regardless of the distribution medium.

It's not like it's that easy to nail down. After all, film and video games are at the end of the day
commercial enterprises. It takes money to make creative projects, and financial backers may go with known quantities at the expense of original intellectual property. Sure, we want original IP, but if that doesn't sell, companies can't make more of it (look at how video gamers under-appreciated titles like Psychonauts, Beyond Good & Evil, and Breakdown, keeping us from those possible sequels).

Do you want challenging stuff in film? There is a fantastic independent film scene that pushes thematic and content boundaries. Sure, the downside is there are those that do it for the sake of pushing boundaries (to poor effect), but the same can be said of video games (the Virginia shootings "simulator" game, and it's too early to know whether Take-Two's Manhunt 2 will fall into the same category).

On the flip side, there are interesting and valuable films that attempt to make it through mainstream commercial distribution (Hayao Miyazaki's films, Timur Bekmambetov's Night Watch, Danny Boyle's/Alex Garland's Sunshine), and those that are wildly successful -- and arguably thematically important -- on the commercial front (Zack Snyder's 300, Robert Rodriguez's Sin City).

Reisinger maintains, "Movies have become boring and derivative", so I'm not sure he's compared and contrasted first-person shooters in general (and the number of World War II games in particular). Or the sports franchises. Or Massively Multiplayer Online games.

Sequels are often at the top of detractors' lists as a sign of a decreasing box office quality. But I'd argue there is commercial and popular anticipation for sequels like Sin City 2/3. And it's not to say there can't be innovation in sequels (in film or gaming). To me, Madden is a tired franchise -- but Madden 08 is an amazingly solid game. And while I would be satisfied with a break from WWII shooters, Gearbox Software's upcoming Brother's in Arms: Hell's Highway is the third in its series, is a WWII shooter, and is arguably one of the more innovative franchises out there.

And all of the "hot new video game releases" he lists are actually sequels (Halo 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Metal Gear Solid [4]).

And BioShock (which I consider a fantastic game), is, to honest, a bit derivative -- of its System Shock precursor and of the Deus Ex play mechanics and depth of story.

And video games are a different industry than film. A very young industry, with a lot of potential. Reisinger bemoans "only" getting his choice of a "'blood-pumping thriller', a 'laugh-out-loud comedy', or your run-of-the-mill family drama", but games don't even give us those three (surely not two of the three).

I'm also not sure I've ever seen anyone lament human beings' lofty emotions and struggles: "For too long, we've been subjected to the mind-numbing stories of love, action and drama."

To be honest, I believe good stories are good stories. Film sequels can be told well (The Empire Strikes Back, The Return of the Jedi), or not as well (in some folks' opinion, the new Star Wars trilogy). Same with games (I'm hoping Halo 3 has a better story than Halo 2; Hell's Highway is based on pretty hard-core, real account; I'm looking forward to Mass Effect's story; etc.).

So let's give different medium the grace afforded by the medium. And let's take each medium to task when it is being derivative. And let's laud the good stuff, loud and long.

No medium is more artistic than another.

Labels: ramblings, rants

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Games are NOT more artistic than film

OK, I've left the Manhunt 2 thing alone. I made a little request about the game when it was announced (which brought a lot of traffic to my site from Take-Two Interactive over the following weeks), and I left well enough alone, even amidst the initial Adults Only (AO) rating, and it being banned outright in the UK and Ireland.

But then Gordon Hall, head of Take Two's Rockstar Leeds studio, says this:

"I don’t think Rockstar specifically has been picked on, but I do think that the wider issue attacks our entire industry. We need to teach people that games are an art form – they are more artistic than film.
"I think the games industry should rally behind us, because there will come a time when we’ll all have an idea that’s a little edgy, and we need to have the freedoms to express it.
"We are an adult entertainment industry – we may have started out with child-like technology making games solely for a younger audience, but it’s just not like that anymore. It might take legislature a little while to catch up, but if the industry sticks together hopefully we can change people’s attitudes quicker."

Granted, Hall's doing a corporate call to arms so people consider the import of what a rating can do. But there's no way in hell I'm letting this cast-off slide.

Games are "more artistic than film"?

Garbage. First, because you can't say something is more artistic than something else. It's art, so that whole, "I don't know if it's good, but I know what I like" thing gets in the way. It's subjective.

Second, let's compare the two. Let's arbitrarily say film "started" on April 23, 1896 (when Thomas Edison presented the first publicly-projected motion picture). That same year, we got The Kiss (The May Irwin Kiss) the first film ever made of a couple kissing in cinematic history. Six years later we have A Trip to the Moon (Georges Méliès' four-hundredth film). A year after that, The Great Train Robbery. And Chaplin did his first film by 1914.

In 1915, less than 20 years after the "start" of film, we had D. W. Griffith's 3-hour Civil War epic The Birth of a Nation.

Now, let's arbitrarily say video games started in 1972 with the patent for "A Television Gaming Apparatus and Method", the public display (if not availability) of Magnavox's Odyssey (the first home video game system), Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney founding Atari, and Pong.

So in 2007, 35 years after the "start" of video games, with more technology, a bigger production infrastructure, multiple tempate industries (film, TV, publishing, music, toy manufacturing), and incomparably fast technological advances, we've got (*drum roll*) ...

(*sound of crickets chirping*)

Jack sh** (comparatively).

You know I'm big into video games. I seriously enjoy them. I've enjoyed countless games, and been moved to a degree by a handful (things like Planetfall, King's Quest III, Dungeon Master, American McGee's Alice, Indigo Prophecy, Breakdown, Psychonauts).

But they're not The Birth of a Nation, Metropolis, Modern Times (or The Great Dictator), King Kong, Singin' in the Rain, From Here to Eternity, On the Waterfront, Seven Samurai, 2001, Schindler's List, or hundreds of other examples.

If you could even say one art form is "more artistic" than another, games have light years to go to even touch the grandeur and elevation of film.

Ooh, but let's give him a chance with "... we’ll all have an idea that’s a little edgy, and we need to have the freedoms to express it."

Yes, because we have games that touch Psycho or Se7en or Fight Club.

Wait, no we don't.

(Hell, there's a whole snuff film industry of which Manhunt is a poor man's shadow.)

"We are an adult entertainment industry."

Really, Mr. Hall? Is that why the Nintendo Wii is rocking the company coffers, and you guys are in all sorts of financial arrears? (I know, there are alleged financial ethical issues of Take Two's that make that an unfair comparison.)

Is that why someone brilliant like Warren Spector partners with Disney? Is that why a largely licensed-fare publisher like THQ is doing so well? Is that why the Madden and Guitar Hero franchises make Electronic Arts and Activision the top publishers?

Please, soften the "adult entertainment industry" hyperbole. Pornography is an adult entertainment industry against which games (thankfully) don't even rate on a comparable scale. But at least they don't market to kids.

Um ...

(We may nickname this post, "The One That Kept Adam Permanently Out of the Game Industry".)

Labels: rants

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Mainstream media video game coverage

Man, I'm feeling like a grumpy Gus lately.

First, there was my earlier sniping at the New York Times.

But now there's this article that just popped up BusinessWeek.com: "Console Makers: Move It or Lose It".

The story alleges companies are preparing for

"...what could be one of the bloodiest holiday seasons in video game history. The epic battles will play out on TV screens around the globe, but could do real-world damage to the bottom lines of console makers"

First, though a little hyperbolic, credit where credit is due. The story is pretty solid, and has a little more meat than the NY Times piece. And it was written by an intern, who in one article probably got more eyeballs than I've gotten on my column all month. (OK, that's probably not true; my numbers for this part of the site have been through the roof for a long time.)

But good for him anyway.

Now, to the issues.

First, there is no sense of history. Microsoft and the Xbox were never even supposed to be contenders in the console wars. But they took second last generation. They're currently first. That's huge, and I don't think they're getting business props for it.

Secondly, the holiday picture's not broad enough, as it's just about the Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3. Unless you factor in the Nintendo DS (and the Sony PSP, if for no other reason than fairness), and the PS2 (because it dominates the PS3, 360, and Wii), you're not telling the whole story.

And as far as omissions go, not including the previously Sony-exclusive Grand Theft Auto franchise, its move to the 360, and its slip to 2008 in the impact to holiday sales is pretty glaring.

But my biggest issue is in unattributed allegations and inaccuracies.

Going back to GTAIV, the article says,

"Microsoft recently spent $50 million on additional exclusive content for Grand Theft Auto IV, ..."

This is a rumor that came out of a Take-Two financial call, but hasn't been confirmed by Microsoft. Also, why some people have cried foul at Microsoft "buying" exclusivity (if they did, so what?), the truth is likely closer to traditional publisher / developer business dealings: Publishers pay a cash advance for development work up front, and that money (or a portion thereof) is given back to the publisher out of initial royalties. And it's not $50M up front -- it's $25M a piece for two separate, large episodic extensions of the GTAIV game.

But wait, let's look at part 2 of the quote:

"... five times as much money as was spent developing the Xbox 360's current best-selling game, Gears of War, according to statements made by Epic Games Vice-President Mark Rein."

I've been wanting to write a big article about this for some time, but here's the short version.

I don't know Mark Rein. He's the one guy at Epic who never writes back to me. But he's tough, ballsy, and could probably tear me a new a$$. That said, his "We spent less than $10 million to make Gears of War" Wired interview statement really pisses me off.

Why?

Epic makes the Unreal Engine 3 -- what was the Gears of War development cost for that portion of the engine (sure, it's amortized across titles and licensees, but Gears was the first, and so far only, from Epic). And since developers don't work only 40 hours a week, I'd like to know the "actual cost" if you take the Gears developers' hourly salaried rate, and the 20-80 hours more they worked per week (over 40), to find the "real" development cost.

And the biggest deal? That's development cost. That doesn't include the marketing and advertising costs. It does not include the cost for things like theatrical movie trailers or Monday Night Football TV ads or licensing "Mad World". I would like to know that budget for the game.

Anyway, details like that should be in the article. Or you can just look to this post as a cautionary tale for all of us to be critical readers. Or something.

(And they don't seem to be posting an abbreviated version of this post that I left on their comments page.)

Man, I'm grumpy. Gonna go write some happy crap or something now.

Labels: rants

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

"Replacement" Xbox 360

So, tonight I received my Xbox 360 today, just like I predicted -- as I'm leaving for Comic-Con.

And more accurately, I didn't get my 360 back -- I received a "replacement console". Doesn't tell me whether it's new or refurbished. It's just a "replacement".

3.5 weeks, from support call to "replacement".

When I get back, I'll have to see if my purchased content works on this new box. That's been a problem for 36os in the past.

And I'm nervous, though. All I've done is fire it up and download the Transformers G1 Decepticon theme -- and my 'box is so s-l-u-g-g-i-s-h ...

Nice ...

Previously:

UPDATED: Crud, I just noticed this replacement box has the Toshiba / Samsung TS-H943A DVD drive -- not the (allegedly) quieter BENQ VAD6038 drive.

Labels: rants, Xbox 360

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Friday, July 20, 2007

She's coming home!

Or he is. Not sure of the gender o' my Xbox 360. I guess I think of it as an androgynous, pissy version of HAL. With an eye problem.

Any way, I got an Email this evening saying my Xbox had shipped from the repair center, and I "can expect to receive it in 3-5 business days."

Awesome! So I can expect to get it ... JUST AS I'M LEAVING FOR FREAKIN' COMIC-CON!

Not that I'm blaming the repair center --it's not like I expect them to base their repair process on my calendar. I just feel like the Xbox old gods are conspiring against the 360 now gods, and winning.

Except they have to also have to compete with the Comic-Con gods, who are powerful, fickle, and sooo compelling.

Mheh. Maybe I'll play stuff on the show floor in San Diego, I guess....

Previously:

Labels: rants

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

My Xbox 360: MIA ...

I've taken a few days to cool down.

So I called the 1-800-4MyXbox last Wednesday to get the status on my dead Xbox 360. Because they told me to call them Wednesday, when I called previously. They told me to call and get my shipping confirmation. On Wednesday.

So I called them (on Wednesday) and got Carla (who was reticent to repeat her name when I asked her to), and she told me about an additional change in the process for the new, three-year extended warranty.

Mainly, that my Xbox was not shipping on Wednesday, but that it would be shipped -- in an additional 2-4 weeks.

So, according to Carla, they've got such a backlog of 360s from the new extended warranty, that I'm out my Xbox for possibly a month. So I missed the Bungie Day downloads. I'm missing all of the "Bringing it Home" content. I can't play The Darkness or Overlord. I can't do some XNA stuff I wanted to do. That sucks.

I think I'll spin the time playing Xbox and SNES stuff. And maybe do some XNA Stuff for Windows. And probably Dungeon Runners on the PC. Kinda digging that MMO ....

Previously:

Labels: rants

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

"We have received your Xbox at our service center."

I just received an Email saying my Xbox 360 was received this morning at (I'm assuming) the Texas repair center.

Not bad, considering it went out late day before yesterday.

Just please get it repaired and back to me before the E3 goodness stars ...

Previously:

Labels: rants, Xbox 360

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Monday, July 02, 2007

"Off we go ..."

Just got my shipping box for my dead Xbox 360.

I'm off now to drop it at a UPS pick up, and we'll see how fast this bad boy gets spun around.

Hopefully, in time for E3.

Previously:

My Xbox 360 is dead

Labels: rants, Xbox 360

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

The reality of outsourcing ...

Outsourcing.

Take a moment and evaluate your response to that word.

What does it mean? In practicality, how does it play out in your vertical market, and how does it impact you?

No disrespect meant, but the video game industry thinks it's very special. And I think it's relatively late to the party and behind parallel efforts from Hollywood and Corporate IT.

But it thinks it's doing things for the first time. (To be fair, any vertical market thinks they're special.)

Like with outsourcing. There are a lot of video game companies just now beginning to explore outsourcing, what that means, and how it benefits the company, the team, or the game.

There's some misunderstanding about what outsourcing is and isn't, its benefits, and what the video game industry is doing recently with it.

First, to level set, realize outsourcing does not mean, "Losing jobs to India."

Outsourcing, at its core, is "sourcing outside". That can mean outside of the local group, but still within the local office; or outside of the geographic office, but still in the company; or outside the company, from another company that may or may not be local, regional, or even domestic.

The "losing jobs to India" is a perception, and only a facet of outsourcing. To be fair, some people have suffered that actual pain of that outsourcing. And then you have things like Bank of America laying off staff and making their severance dependent on training their overseas replacements. That PR doesn't help.

But I've managed outsourcing. At its core, outsourcing is figuring out how to reduce cost and still get acceptable quality.

So, for example, when I inherited a project that realized "cost savings" by off shoring day-to-day support, but that support wasn't quality? I had the vendor replace the support. Twice. Then, since they failed that, I moved to an on shore model, requiring the the same off shore rate to the vendor, because they were the ones who were not able to provide adequately trained or managed off shore resources.

Or when I worked for IBM somewhere when IBM was moving away from charging internal "Blue Dollars" for internal work, I would beat the bushes for resources who had extra cycles and relevant expertise, and have my management negotiate with their management about providing stuff we needed, and vice versa.

I've also manage the "RF[n]" process, ad nauseum -- Request for Proposal / Information / Quote -- to find adequate vendors for plug-in, one-time, or special use pieces that don't make sense for me to redirect my folks ("don't make sense", for me as a development manager, includes the effort wouldn't give my folks skills they can use in their careers, regardless of whether it's for me or the company).

So, what makes for good outsourcing candidates?

It's not simple, but good candidates include projects that can be broken into discreet modules or chunks that are not real-time dependent. So, libraries often make good candidates. Assets (art, 3D, animation, and others that have hook able templates) make good candidates. The candidacy pool for outsourcing efforts grows as you move from international to domestic, national to local, and local to in-house, different group. Inflexibility of a development methodology (RUP, Agile / Scrum, etc.) can severely reduce the pool of candidate items.

What makes for bad outsourcing candidates?

Again, not simple, but items that require real-time resolution need to be evaluated in terms of the Service Level Agreement (SLA) for acceptability nationally, and especially internationally. (Support a business application that requires next-day resolution for any issues? That's a high-risk candidate for overseas outsourcing.)

And some video companies get this, and are already practicing it.

In 2004, I attended an excellent session at that year's Austin Game Developers Conference, where rockstars The Animation Farm (still, animation, 3D, storyboard, mocap assets) and Critical Mass Interactive (turnkey development and management solutions) talked about what they were doing -- and what worked -- in the outsourcing arena (frankly, much of which involved overseas outsourcing and management).

And now, big companies are making concerted recent outsource management efforts.

Blizzard has announced the formation of an Austin customer support office, roughly 500 strong. This is fairly intelligent outsourcing, because it takes advantage of Austin's rich IT support infrastructure (and job pool), and may well react to California legislation reclassifying several IT roles as hourly, which can get very expensive for a corporation. And it creates some subset of 500 jobs in Austin (I have to think a portion of them are going to be willing or encouraged relocations from Irvine, CA, and I'm angling for a management job, so you have to remove that from the mix).

And then, a bit under the radar, in February "Midway Announces Creation of the Central Outsourcing Group (COG) to Streamline Outsourcing Efforts" (is Epic ticked?), which is geared toward ""consolidating all product development outsourcing initiatives into a centralized group" -- and managed (coincidentally?) out of Austin.

And off shoring of work is happening in the video game industry. You have a company like French-headquartered Ubisoft create Ubisoft Shanghai, responsible not just for pieces, but entire Ubisoft titles. And LucasFilms is rumored to have a massive LucasFilm Shanghai group working on a secret 3D Star Wars entertainment project. (When I worked with Peoples Bank of China, they were adamant their country's greatest natural resource "is our people", and were far more aggressive than any group with whom I've worked on parallelizing development efforts.)

All this is to say (in a rather rambling manner) that outsourcing is complex, has benefits, and the gaming industry could probably learn some lessons from their non-gaming IT counterparts who have been struggling with it for years (and should give themselves some grace because their counterparts are still struggling with it).

Labels: development process, rants

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Back online ...

OK, the blog is finally back online, after an outage since April 20th, when Blogger (Google) "force migrated" me (not as Star Wars as it sounds) from the old Blogger to the new Blogger, locked me out of the old Blogger, and didn't migrate this blog (my most trafficked / read blog). Thanks.

And, Blogger support didn't respond to my request for help, or tell me the issue was fixed. I've just been trying to migrate daily for the last 12 days, and today it worked.

So, I guess that's one way to do service support. But wait, since I manage that ... No, it's not.

And don't give me any crap about it being a "free" service.

Anywho, if you see wonkiness with my "migrated" blog, please let me know. Everything should look just the same to you.

By way of consequence, the new (non-video game) blog I'll be start on the creative front will likely not be hosted on Blogger. It might not be better, but given all of the pain I've had with Blogger.com since Google took over (admittedly, could be coincidental), and since I'm involved with a bunch of the community / social networking software out there, I owe it to myself to find out.

If you have opinions on WordPress, Community Server, TypePad, MoveableType, Habari, hosted SharePoint 2007, etc., (again) let me know.

Here are my high-level requirements:

Robust
Database-driven
Permissions-based (i.e., a single post will show sub-sets of data depending on the permissions for the site -- "premiere" (la tee da) members get more "making of" and "cutting room floor" content.
Seamless, safe, content-owner-protecting hosting and display of audio and video, integrated into the platform.

Labels: blogger.com, rants

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Hitachi Wasabe

This Site's Feed

(More from IGN.com ...)

(More from wii.ign.com/ ...)

(More from IGN.com ...)

(More from Kotaku.com ...)

(More from Joystiq.com ...)