I cannot tell: the world is grown so bad,
That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch …
--”Richard III”, Act I, Scene iii
By now, everybody on the planet who has access to a radio, a TV, or an Internet connection has heard of the Newtown shootings. It’s arguably one of the most heinous events this year, and likely will be in American history for many years to come. If Euripides, Aristophanes, and Sophocles sat down together and tried to create the ultimate tragedy storyline, they probably couldn’t have bettered Newtown if they had a hundred years to work on it. And once again, in the face of incomprehensible horror, we’re hearing the same chorus of voices.
“It’s the guns! Ban ALL the guns!”
“It’s the violent media! It’s Hollywood movies and video games! Burn them all!”
“It’s the press! It’s all their fault! Make them stop reporting tragedies!”
“It’s the lunatics! Lock them all up for our own good!”
There is the understandable desire to Do Something, or failing that to
be Seen As Doing Something. There are going to be blue ribbon panels.
There are going to be Congressional hearings. There will be more drama
and agony in the next year or so then there was during the actual event
that sparked the whole thing. And it will not end well for anybody.
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Thursday, November 4, 2010
May It Please The Court
Much like my late Uncle David, I'm most likely never going to be a lawyer, though he at least finished law school before deciding he couldn't stand the law profession. Because of my future non-status as a lawyer, I will never likely get the chance to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The closest I may ever come is filing an amicus brief at some point, and even that's dubious. That being said, I would like to weigh in on the matter of Schwarzenegger vs. Entertainment Merchants Assn. currently under review.
May it please the court...
Peter Ustinov once said that in a free society, one must put up with a great deal of nonsense. As a gamer myself, I will not deny that when you get right down to the core of them, video games are nonsense. They are expensive electronic fripperies, many of them poorly designed, many of them poorly executed, and many of them incapable of producing anything of inherent value beyond a minimal sense of enjoyment built up through the few hours needed to progress from start to finish, a sense of enjoyment that fades as soon as the game is put away or erased off a hard drive. As a reviewer, I see a lot of games whose aesthetic and artistic content ranges from non-existent to superlative, with the bulk of them falling into the range of mediocre to average. The ratio of good games to bad ones is badly lopsided in favor of the bad ones it seems. And while I believe that there are games out there who attempt to paper over a basically weak concept with excessive and possibly even gratuitous amounts of violence, I cannot see there being a compelling reason for the law in question to stand.
So far, the law in question has been struck down by the California Supreme Court and by the Ninth Circuit. Nothing unusual about that. Laws get struck down, appeals are made further up the ladder until one day, they arrive at the Supreme Court for the final ruling. It's not even particularly notable that the California Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit are both based in California. What is notable is that laws similar to the law in question, across the entire country, have gone up to the appropriate federal circuit court judges and not a single one has survived. For a nation as expansive and as diverse in ideas, creeds, and mentalities as ours, the fact that these laws keep getting struck down suggests that there is at least one constant in American jurisprudence insofar as video games are concerned. That constant is that the State's interest in controlling the sales of these games does not outweigh the First Amendment's protection regarding the content of the games. While a particular game might have objectionable amounts of violent content, the State cannot have a blanket ban on all games with violent content. As much as it might irritate or outrage certain personages, the price of living in a free society means having to put up with the nonsense of violent video games. A person may be outraged about the amount of violent content in a game, but since they live in a free society, they are blessedly under no obligation to purchase that game. Just as a violent video game essentially ignores an individual's personal offense at its subject matter, the offended individual can ignore the violent video game by simply not buying it. It is less a moral issue than a market issue.
"But think of the children!" Ah, yes. The cry for preserving the moral rectitude of the next generation of citizens. A cry which has been uttered over the years with the advent of television, motion pictures, rock music, radio, comic books, rap music, and even the printing press. Given this universal human propensity to view with alarm any media which potentially could expose children to images and concepts which an adult would find objectionable, it's not much of a stretch to picture an ancient Egyptian worrying about the potential harm of hieroglyphics on young and impressionable minds. Fundamentally, it is difficult to disagree with the basic idea of controlling the exposure of young minds to content for which they are not yet mentally or emotionally capable of processing. The disagreement stems not from the desired ends, but from the desired means. The administration and education of moral and ethical propriety is properly the function of parents, not the State. Mother and Father know best, not Big Brother. If it were any other issue besides video games, the suggestion that the State somehow has not only a superior interest but a superior ability to properly raise children into morally and ethically functional adults would cause a full blown rebellion among the populace. The law in question presumes that superior interest and ability while failing to provide any sort of proof to support the presumption. And while society has produced and will always produce exceptional individuals who are morally and or ethically bankrupt, the failure to instill those exceptional individuals with the proper background generally rests with the parents, barring extreme cases of genuine physiological defect or subsequent physical injury.
A noted game designer named Sid Meier once described the general concept of video games as "a series of interesting choices." I would expand upon that definition to read "a series of interesting choices within a specifically arranged set of circumstances." A player makes choices within a game which their electronic alter ego performs. However, there are choices which a player might like to make but which are essentially impossible within the circumstances of the game. The freedom of choice within the confines of a video game are sometimes arbitrarily narrow, either because of mechanical limitations or the intent of the developers to explore a specific set of storylines and thematic issues, but they also have the potential to be quite expansive. Because of this, some of the "visual aids" with which the Court has thus far seen and reacted to with distaste are inherently dishonest. The fact that you can act like a complete and utter psychopath in Postal 2 does not mean that you are obligated to do so, and in fact it's possible to beat the game by reacting in a purely defensive fashion to immediate threats to your alter ego's safety. As the development company, Running With Scissors, pointed out during their original marketing campaign, "It's only as violent as you are!" The scandalous "Hot Coffee" content in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which could only be accessed on the PC version of the game and even then requiring a bit of hacking to get at, is a minor element in a series which has routinely mocked the nihilism and self-destructive behavior of the romanticized "life of crime" which some people still believe to be a viable lifestyle. As with Postal 2, the fact that you can act like a thug, a hoodlum, or a wiseguy in-between the chapters of the game's storyline doesn't mean that you are in any way obligated to do so. And while developers cannot account for every possible permutation of choice within their games, they can keep the effects of those choices within the confines of the game, perhaps upsetting or disturbing a player's actual state of mind, perhaps enlightening it, perhaps generating nothing at all. The final impact of the choices made within the confines of a game is that the game ends. If a person has dreams with content influenced by the game and the choices they made within the game, it's little more than coincidence. There is no reason to believe that violent video games are brainwashing American youth into psychopathic killing machines.
"But what about Columbine?! They customized a video game to practice killing people!" While I will not deny the Columbine shootings in particular, and school shootings in general, were tragic and deeply disturbing, I am not going to take the easy road and blame an inanimate object for the actions of psychologically disturbed individuals. When a person modifies an automobile and gets into a wreck which kills somebody, do we blame the car manufacturer? Do we blame the company who made the customized parts for the car? No, we blame the driver, because the driver was in control of the vehicle at the time of the collision. By the same token, blaming violent video games for a school shooting just because the perpetrators played the games or even modified the games to further their depraved fantasies and psychoses is equally spurious. A more apt analogy would be the federal government charging Martin Scorcese as an accomplice before the fact in the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. John Hinckley, Jr. had attempted the assassination in an effort to impress Jodie Foster, whom he'd become obsessed with having watched the movie Taxi Driver an inordinate number of times. Yet Scorcese was never charged, nor was there even a hint of charging him, and rightly so. Had any lawyer tried to proceed with such a prosecution, they'd have been laughed out of court. Put simply, crazy people don't need violent video games to help them be crazy.
"What about that guy that killed himself over EverQuest?" Same basic premise, slightly different circumstances. The end result was the same. The game did not tell him to kill himself, and efforts to hold the game company liable are laughable. The man clearly needed, and clearly wasn't receiving, some very rigorous psychiatric assistance. The game did not prevent him from getting the help he needed.
"What about the woman who shook her child to death because she was playing FarmVille?" Having played FarmVille myself, I can tell you that it's probably one of the least violent video games ever made. You plant flowers and vegetables, you pick them, you sell them, you plant more. The fact that this woman shook her child to death while playing a non-violent video game seems to lend credence to the idea that it's not the games that are at fault for violent behavior.
The First Amendment covers not only the written word, but visual representations, audio recordings, and various other artistic media through which individuals or groups of individuals can express themselves with the promise that their work will not be subject to punitive sanctions from the State. Video games, as a medium for artistic expression, are still very much in their infancy, despite having been around in one form or another for the past quarter century. If one looks back, one would find a very strong historical parallel between video games and comic books. Prior to 1954, comic books were not just for children. Comic book stories were not simply about superheroes, but covered a broad range genres and topics. You had detective stories right up there with the best film noir. You had horror themed comics with gruesome monsters and hapless victims. The potential for storylines and characterizations on par with great literature fused with cutting edge artwork by some of the most talented artists of the generation was almost palpable. And then, one child psychologist by the name of Fredric Wertham went and published a book by the title Seduction of The Innocent, which was nothing more than a screed blaming comic books for every sort of social ill present at the time. It whipped up sufficient furor that the U.S. Senate was contemplating regulation of the comic book industry. Instead of regulation, the Comics Code was established. A more benighted and patently offensive edifice of censorship likely has not been created in the entire history of the country. A "code of conduct" that forbid not only depictions of violence and overt sexual content, but also forbid the depiction of concealed weapons (for reasons I can't fathom), any mention of supernatural creatures such as vampires or zombies (most likely aimed deliberately at publisher William Gaines, famous for Tales From The Crypt and MAD), any hint or suggestion that the police or courts couldn't be trusted, and enforced endings where the good guy always won and the criminal always punished. Today, history looks at Seduction of The Innocent and the Comics Code, and the conclusion drawn invariably is that it crippled the comic book industry. That a new and exciting form of artistic media was smothered and almost killed in the name of a moralistic fantasy more divorced from reality than any superhero or horror comic ever could be. Surely, the esteemed justices of the Court know that sometimes the cops really are the bad guys, that convicted criminals really are innocent victims, and that the good guys can in fact lose. I find it an overwhelming irony that the author of the law in question is a child psychologist.
A final point of consideration for the Court. The law in question is supposed to affect retailers who knowingly sell what is to be determined (by mechanisms yet undefined and regulatory entities yet unformed) to be an excessively violent video game to minors. Yet the law does not appear to make any provisions for or mention of companies who are using digital distribution methods for video games. Will Sony or Microsoft be slapped with a fine each time a game that doesn't meet the law's standards gets sold through their respective online marketplaces? Will people who purchase a game through Valve's Steam service or Stardock's Impulse service unwittingly open those companies up to fines if their title is played by a child within the household? Or worse, by a neighbor's child? The potential for spurious civil suits cropping up based off these scenarios makes my skin crawl.
I leave you honored jurists with a quote from Justice Louis Brandeis. "Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
May it please the court...
Peter Ustinov once said that in a free society, one must put up with a great deal of nonsense. As a gamer myself, I will not deny that when you get right down to the core of them, video games are nonsense. They are expensive electronic fripperies, many of them poorly designed, many of them poorly executed, and many of them incapable of producing anything of inherent value beyond a minimal sense of enjoyment built up through the few hours needed to progress from start to finish, a sense of enjoyment that fades as soon as the game is put away or erased off a hard drive. As a reviewer, I see a lot of games whose aesthetic and artistic content ranges from non-existent to superlative, with the bulk of them falling into the range of mediocre to average. The ratio of good games to bad ones is badly lopsided in favor of the bad ones it seems. And while I believe that there are games out there who attempt to paper over a basically weak concept with excessive and possibly even gratuitous amounts of violence, I cannot see there being a compelling reason for the law in question to stand.
So far, the law in question has been struck down by the California Supreme Court and by the Ninth Circuit. Nothing unusual about that. Laws get struck down, appeals are made further up the ladder until one day, they arrive at the Supreme Court for the final ruling. It's not even particularly notable that the California Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit are both based in California. What is notable is that laws similar to the law in question, across the entire country, have gone up to the appropriate federal circuit court judges and not a single one has survived. For a nation as expansive and as diverse in ideas, creeds, and mentalities as ours, the fact that these laws keep getting struck down suggests that there is at least one constant in American jurisprudence insofar as video games are concerned. That constant is that the State's interest in controlling the sales of these games does not outweigh the First Amendment's protection regarding the content of the games. While a particular game might have objectionable amounts of violent content, the State cannot have a blanket ban on all games with violent content. As much as it might irritate or outrage certain personages, the price of living in a free society means having to put up with the nonsense of violent video games. A person may be outraged about the amount of violent content in a game, but since they live in a free society, they are blessedly under no obligation to purchase that game. Just as a violent video game essentially ignores an individual's personal offense at its subject matter, the offended individual can ignore the violent video game by simply not buying it. It is less a moral issue than a market issue.
"But think of the children!" Ah, yes. The cry for preserving the moral rectitude of the next generation of citizens. A cry which has been uttered over the years with the advent of television, motion pictures, rock music, radio, comic books, rap music, and even the printing press. Given this universal human propensity to view with alarm any media which potentially could expose children to images and concepts which an adult would find objectionable, it's not much of a stretch to picture an ancient Egyptian worrying about the potential harm of hieroglyphics on young and impressionable minds. Fundamentally, it is difficult to disagree with the basic idea of controlling the exposure of young minds to content for which they are not yet mentally or emotionally capable of processing. The disagreement stems not from the desired ends, but from the desired means. The administration and education of moral and ethical propriety is properly the function of parents, not the State. Mother and Father know best, not Big Brother. If it were any other issue besides video games, the suggestion that the State somehow has not only a superior interest but a superior ability to properly raise children into morally and ethically functional adults would cause a full blown rebellion among the populace. The law in question presumes that superior interest and ability while failing to provide any sort of proof to support the presumption. And while society has produced and will always produce exceptional individuals who are morally and or ethically bankrupt, the failure to instill those exceptional individuals with the proper background generally rests with the parents, barring extreme cases of genuine physiological defect or subsequent physical injury.
A noted game designer named Sid Meier once described the general concept of video games as "a series of interesting choices." I would expand upon that definition to read "a series of interesting choices within a specifically arranged set of circumstances." A player makes choices within a game which their electronic alter ego performs. However, there are choices which a player might like to make but which are essentially impossible within the circumstances of the game. The freedom of choice within the confines of a video game are sometimes arbitrarily narrow, either because of mechanical limitations or the intent of the developers to explore a specific set of storylines and thematic issues, but they also have the potential to be quite expansive. Because of this, some of the "visual aids" with which the Court has thus far seen and reacted to with distaste are inherently dishonest. The fact that you can act like a complete and utter psychopath in Postal 2 does not mean that you are obligated to do so, and in fact it's possible to beat the game by reacting in a purely defensive fashion to immediate threats to your alter ego's safety. As the development company, Running With Scissors, pointed out during their original marketing campaign, "It's only as violent as you are!" The scandalous "Hot Coffee" content in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which could only be accessed on the PC version of the game and even then requiring a bit of hacking to get at, is a minor element in a series which has routinely mocked the nihilism and self-destructive behavior of the romanticized "life of crime" which some people still believe to be a viable lifestyle. As with Postal 2, the fact that you can act like a thug, a hoodlum, or a wiseguy in-between the chapters of the game's storyline doesn't mean that you are in any way obligated to do so. And while developers cannot account for every possible permutation of choice within their games, they can keep the effects of those choices within the confines of the game, perhaps upsetting or disturbing a player's actual state of mind, perhaps enlightening it, perhaps generating nothing at all. The final impact of the choices made within the confines of a game is that the game ends. If a person has dreams with content influenced by the game and the choices they made within the game, it's little more than coincidence. There is no reason to believe that violent video games are brainwashing American youth into psychopathic killing machines.
"But what about Columbine?! They customized a video game to practice killing people!" While I will not deny the Columbine shootings in particular, and school shootings in general, were tragic and deeply disturbing, I am not going to take the easy road and blame an inanimate object for the actions of psychologically disturbed individuals. When a person modifies an automobile and gets into a wreck which kills somebody, do we blame the car manufacturer? Do we blame the company who made the customized parts for the car? No, we blame the driver, because the driver was in control of the vehicle at the time of the collision. By the same token, blaming violent video games for a school shooting just because the perpetrators played the games or even modified the games to further their depraved fantasies and psychoses is equally spurious. A more apt analogy would be the federal government charging Martin Scorcese as an accomplice before the fact in the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. John Hinckley, Jr. had attempted the assassination in an effort to impress Jodie Foster, whom he'd become obsessed with having watched the movie Taxi Driver an inordinate number of times. Yet Scorcese was never charged, nor was there even a hint of charging him, and rightly so. Had any lawyer tried to proceed with such a prosecution, they'd have been laughed out of court. Put simply, crazy people don't need violent video games to help them be crazy.
"What about that guy that killed himself over EverQuest?" Same basic premise, slightly different circumstances. The end result was the same. The game did not tell him to kill himself, and efforts to hold the game company liable are laughable. The man clearly needed, and clearly wasn't receiving, some very rigorous psychiatric assistance. The game did not prevent him from getting the help he needed.
"What about the woman who shook her child to death because she was playing FarmVille?" Having played FarmVille myself, I can tell you that it's probably one of the least violent video games ever made. You plant flowers and vegetables, you pick them, you sell them, you plant more. The fact that this woman shook her child to death while playing a non-violent video game seems to lend credence to the idea that it's not the games that are at fault for violent behavior.
The First Amendment covers not only the written word, but visual representations, audio recordings, and various other artistic media through which individuals or groups of individuals can express themselves with the promise that their work will not be subject to punitive sanctions from the State. Video games, as a medium for artistic expression, are still very much in their infancy, despite having been around in one form or another for the past quarter century. If one looks back, one would find a very strong historical parallel between video games and comic books. Prior to 1954, comic books were not just for children. Comic book stories were not simply about superheroes, but covered a broad range genres and topics. You had detective stories right up there with the best film noir. You had horror themed comics with gruesome monsters and hapless victims. The potential for storylines and characterizations on par with great literature fused with cutting edge artwork by some of the most talented artists of the generation was almost palpable. And then, one child psychologist by the name of Fredric Wertham went and published a book by the title Seduction of The Innocent, which was nothing more than a screed blaming comic books for every sort of social ill present at the time. It whipped up sufficient furor that the U.S. Senate was contemplating regulation of the comic book industry. Instead of regulation, the Comics Code was established. A more benighted and patently offensive edifice of censorship likely has not been created in the entire history of the country. A "code of conduct" that forbid not only depictions of violence and overt sexual content, but also forbid the depiction of concealed weapons (for reasons I can't fathom), any mention of supernatural creatures such as vampires or zombies (most likely aimed deliberately at publisher William Gaines, famous for Tales From The Crypt and MAD), any hint or suggestion that the police or courts couldn't be trusted, and enforced endings where the good guy always won and the criminal always punished. Today, history looks at Seduction of The Innocent and the Comics Code, and the conclusion drawn invariably is that it crippled the comic book industry. That a new and exciting form of artistic media was smothered and almost killed in the name of a moralistic fantasy more divorced from reality than any superhero or horror comic ever could be. Surely, the esteemed justices of the Court know that sometimes the cops really are the bad guys, that convicted criminals really are innocent victims, and that the good guys can in fact lose. I find it an overwhelming irony that the author of the law in question is a child psychologist.
A final point of consideration for the Court. The law in question is supposed to affect retailers who knowingly sell what is to be determined (by mechanisms yet undefined and regulatory entities yet unformed) to be an excessively violent video game to minors. Yet the law does not appear to make any provisions for or mention of companies who are using digital distribution methods for video games. Will Sony or Microsoft be slapped with a fine each time a game that doesn't meet the law's standards gets sold through their respective online marketplaces? Will people who purchase a game through Valve's Steam service or Stardock's Impulse service unwittingly open those companies up to fines if their title is played by a child within the household? Or worse, by a neighbor's child? The potential for spurious civil suits cropping up based off these scenarios makes my skin crawl.
I leave you honored jurists with a quote from Justice Louis Brandeis. "Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Honor At Stake
I've tried not to rant about this.
I've made a great deal of effort since this whole fracas with Medal of Honor started up to not say anything. To bite my tongue and hope that something resembling sanity and good sense prevailed at EA. Looking for the triumph of hope over experience when it came down to the tough call between sticking to one's guns and caving in to popular (if misguided) pressure.
And how I hate to have been disappointed.
The fracas started a couple months back. A British Member of Parliament went berserk when word got out that players would have the option of taking on the role of Taliban fighters in multiplayer matches. There was, as former SEAL Dick Marcinko might say, an F3 (Full Fucking Faulkner; lots of sound and fury) in the House of Commons as the MP decried the impending ability of gamers to commit atrocities on innocent women and children and kill honorable British soldiers in the name of electronic sport. From there, it just got worse. Canada's Minister of Defence also decried the news. Fox News, not exactly known for it's sense of gravity or restraint when it comes to U.S. armed forces, paraded about the mother of a soldier who died in Afghanistan to denounce what a horrible and callous company EA was for allowing this sort of thing to go through and belittling the sacrifice of soldiers who had died in Afghanistan and Iraq. The U.S. Army went on record as saying they were "disappointed" with the decision. Eventually, EA caved in and changed the name from "Taliban" to "Opposing Force."
Bearing in mind for a moment that I despise pretty much everything EA stands for, it perhaps sounds strange that I might be defending EA's original position, or more specifically DICE's original position, regarding the designation of one multiplayer faction as the Taliban in Medal of Honor. The aim of this particular iteration of Medal of Honor was to cover a different sort of conflict, a new theatre of warfare, one that might have lacked the headlines and press coverage of battles fought in previous eras, but one that undeniably has heroes worthy of the nation's highest award for courage and valor above and beyond the call of duty. I can understand why DICE and EA didn't use the swastika and other iconography of Nazi Germany in previous MoH games, but the part of me that demands historical accuracy has never agreed with that decision. Over sixty-five years after the end of WWII, there's still a taboo about those symbols outside of very carefully delimited fields, and they're still flat out illegal in Germany. But in a way, that earlier decision is very much a double-edged sword when applied to the current controversy. Some will argue that the fact DICE didn't put in swastikas in earlier iterations of the title means that it's perfectly fine for them not to use the name of the Taliban for the bad guys in the new game. Others will argue that they're letting themselves be used as a subtle means of propaganda against the Taliban, by refusing to "dignify" them with the proper designation. If one were to reduce the matter down to a pissing contest between who's worse as a bad guy, then I would unequivocally say that however morally and ethically reprehensible the Taliban have behaved over the past twenty years or so, they're lightweight amateurs when stacked up against the industrialized atrocities of the Third Reich. And however much the multiplayer screen might say "Axis" or "German" in earlier MoH games, if you weren't fighting in the jungle, you were fighting Nazis, you knew you were fighting Nazis, even the guys on the other side during a multiplayer match knew that they were playing the role of the Nazis for that round. None of the gamers who played the bad guys legitimized the Third Reich, nor did they diminish or belittle the pall it casts upon history. By the same token, labeling bad guys in turbans with AKs in Afghanistan as Taliban in the game is not giving any sort of blessing to the actual Taliban. It's not paying them a compliment. It's merely acknowledging an existing fact.
An interview between Industry Gamers and three U.S. Special Forces members is particularly telling about this whole situation as far as the reaction from the guys who are actually in the suck. For the most part, they seem rather pragmatic fellows, which isn't entirely surprising. I will say (spoiler alert!) that the JTAC they interviewed seems to have a rather skewed sense of reality. He decries the game as "war profiteering," but he states that he's perfectly willing to give the game a try. He openly states that the Taliban will make use of Medal of Honor as a recruiting tool, though it seems difficult to picture Taliban fighters or those sympathetic to them to somehow start smuggling in Xbox 360s and PS3s into South Waziristan. Perhaps the statement that really irritated me was the one at the end where he states that adding the Taliban into the game made them "recognized as a legitimate fighting force." Clearly, years of military aid to the Taliban and others like them during the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan didn't rise to the level of recognizing the legitimacy of the Taliban as a fighting force, insofar as the JTAC is concerned. It bothers me when people spout off about how such-and-such a group or so-and-so's army isn't a "legitimate" fighting force. It sounds far too reminiscent of the Vietnam War, when the higher ups in the Pentagon derided the Viet Cong and the NVA even as they were chewing up American troops with gusto. If they're willing to tangle with you more than once, I'd say that pretty much gives them "legitimacy." As for the other two operators interviewed, both of them applauded EA's refusal (at the time of the interview) to cave in under pressure. Part of me would like to get their opinions now that EA has caved in. They both spoke to the inherent inability of any game, even one as detailed as Medal of Honor, to truly capture the essence of modern combat. They both saw no reason not to label the Taliban as Taliban in the game. If guys at the sharp end don't seem to mind, it says a lot about the brass in Washington who are "disappointed" about the situation, and none of what it says is particularly flattering.
I would like to take a moment to defend what has been stated by some as the intellectually lazy position that Medal of Honor is "just a game." Strip it off all the specifically identifying labels, remove all the fancy mechanics and graphics, and what do you have? You have "cowboys and Indians." You have "cops and robbers." You have good guys vs. bad guys, running around a predefined field, attempting to achieve an objective in order to claim victory over their opponents. Folks, that right there is a game. Does it trivialize the ongoing conflict in the region? I would say not. If anything, it's giving people a different perspective on the conflict, admittedly a very narrow one, but different all the same. Is it, as the JTAC stated, war profiteering? If so, then every news agency, wire service, broadcast network, website, and blog that even thinks to discuss the conflict is just as guilty, including this one. I will not deny that the perspective provided by Medal of Honor is narrow, even shallow to a degree. For a truly deep representation that goes into the larger issues and the smaller day-to-day perspectives of Afghanistan, I'd point to Armed Assault II and it's scenario building tools as having the best ability to model the conflict for the average person. As far as I know, nobody has attempted to make such a model, but that title would be the best suggestion I would make to somebody looking to create such a model.
The bitter irony of the whole situation is that EA released a game centered around men who refused to quit fighting even at the expense of their own lives, but gave up fighting when popular pressure over one small detail grew too loud for their liking. Had they continued to persevere, I might not have liked EA much more than I did, but I would have respected them a little more.
I've made a great deal of effort since this whole fracas with Medal of Honor started up to not say anything. To bite my tongue and hope that something resembling sanity and good sense prevailed at EA. Looking for the triumph of hope over experience when it came down to the tough call between sticking to one's guns and caving in to popular (if misguided) pressure.
And how I hate to have been disappointed.
The fracas started a couple months back. A British Member of Parliament went berserk when word got out that players would have the option of taking on the role of Taliban fighters in multiplayer matches. There was, as former SEAL Dick Marcinko might say, an F3 (Full Fucking Faulkner; lots of sound and fury) in the House of Commons as the MP decried the impending ability of gamers to commit atrocities on innocent women and children and kill honorable British soldiers in the name of electronic sport. From there, it just got worse. Canada's Minister of Defence also decried the news. Fox News, not exactly known for it's sense of gravity or restraint when it comes to U.S. armed forces, paraded about the mother of a soldier who died in Afghanistan to denounce what a horrible and callous company EA was for allowing this sort of thing to go through and belittling the sacrifice of soldiers who had died in Afghanistan and Iraq. The U.S. Army went on record as saying they were "disappointed" with the decision. Eventually, EA caved in and changed the name from "Taliban" to "Opposing Force."
Bearing in mind for a moment that I despise pretty much everything EA stands for, it perhaps sounds strange that I might be defending EA's original position, or more specifically DICE's original position, regarding the designation of one multiplayer faction as the Taliban in Medal of Honor. The aim of this particular iteration of Medal of Honor was to cover a different sort of conflict, a new theatre of warfare, one that might have lacked the headlines and press coverage of battles fought in previous eras, but one that undeniably has heroes worthy of the nation's highest award for courage and valor above and beyond the call of duty. I can understand why DICE and EA didn't use the swastika and other iconography of Nazi Germany in previous MoH games, but the part of me that demands historical accuracy has never agreed with that decision. Over sixty-five years after the end of WWII, there's still a taboo about those symbols outside of very carefully delimited fields, and they're still flat out illegal in Germany. But in a way, that earlier decision is very much a double-edged sword when applied to the current controversy. Some will argue that the fact DICE didn't put in swastikas in earlier iterations of the title means that it's perfectly fine for them not to use the name of the Taliban for the bad guys in the new game. Others will argue that they're letting themselves be used as a subtle means of propaganda against the Taliban, by refusing to "dignify" them with the proper designation. If one were to reduce the matter down to a pissing contest between who's worse as a bad guy, then I would unequivocally say that however morally and ethically reprehensible the Taliban have behaved over the past twenty years or so, they're lightweight amateurs when stacked up against the industrialized atrocities of the Third Reich. And however much the multiplayer screen might say "Axis" or "German" in earlier MoH games, if you weren't fighting in the jungle, you were fighting Nazis, you knew you were fighting Nazis, even the guys on the other side during a multiplayer match knew that they were playing the role of the Nazis for that round. None of the gamers who played the bad guys legitimized the Third Reich, nor did they diminish or belittle the pall it casts upon history. By the same token, labeling bad guys in turbans with AKs in Afghanistan as Taliban in the game is not giving any sort of blessing to the actual Taliban. It's not paying them a compliment. It's merely acknowledging an existing fact.
An interview between Industry Gamers and three U.S. Special Forces members is particularly telling about this whole situation as far as the reaction from the guys who are actually in the suck. For the most part, they seem rather pragmatic fellows, which isn't entirely surprising. I will say (spoiler alert!) that the JTAC they interviewed seems to have a rather skewed sense of reality. He decries the game as "war profiteering," but he states that he's perfectly willing to give the game a try. He openly states that the Taliban will make use of Medal of Honor as a recruiting tool, though it seems difficult to picture Taliban fighters or those sympathetic to them to somehow start smuggling in Xbox 360s and PS3s into South Waziristan. Perhaps the statement that really irritated me was the one at the end where he states that adding the Taliban into the game made them "recognized as a legitimate fighting force." Clearly, years of military aid to the Taliban and others like them during the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan didn't rise to the level of recognizing the legitimacy of the Taliban as a fighting force, insofar as the JTAC is concerned. It bothers me when people spout off about how such-and-such a group or so-and-so's army isn't a "legitimate" fighting force. It sounds far too reminiscent of the Vietnam War, when the higher ups in the Pentagon derided the Viet Cong and the NVA even as they were chewing up American troops with gusto. If they're willing to tangle with you more than once, I'd say that pretty much gives them "legitimacy." As for the other two operators interviewed, both of them applauded EA's refusal (at the time of the interview) to cave in under pressure. Part of me would like to get their opinions now that EA has caved in. They both spoke to the inherent inability of any game, even one as detailed as Medal of Honor, to truly capture the essence of modern combat. They both saw no reason not to label the Taliban as Taliban in the game. If guys at the sharp end don't seem to mind, it says a lot about the brass in Washington who are "disappointed" about the situation, and none of what it says is particularly flattering.
I would like to take a moment to defend what has been stated by some as the intellectually lazy position that Medal of Honor is "just a game." Strip it off all the specifically identifying labels, remove all the fancy mechanics and graphics, and what do you have? You have "cowboys and Indians." You have "cops and robbers." You have good guys vs. bad guys, running around a predefined field, attempting to achieve an objective in order to claim victory over their opponents. Folks, that right there is a game. Does it trivialize the ongoing conflict in the region? I would say not. If anything, it's giving people a different perspective on the conflict, admittedly a very narrow one, but different all the same. Is it, as the JTAC stated, war profiteering? If so, then every news agency, wire service, broadcast network, website, and blog that even thinks to discuss the conflict is just as guilty, including this one. I will not deny that the perspective provided by Medal of Honor is narrow, even shallow to a degree. For a truly deep representation that goes into the larger issues and the smaller day-to-day perspectives of Afghanistan, I'd point to Armed Assault II and it's scenario building tools as having the best ability to model the conflict for the average person. As far as I know, nobody has attempted to make such a model, but that title would be the best suggestion I would make to somebody looking to create such a model.
The bitter irony of the whole situation is that EA released a game centered around men who refused to quit fighting even at the expense of their own lives, but gave up fighting when popular pressure over one small detail grew too loud for their liking. Had they continued to persevere, I might not have liked EA much more than I did, but I would have respected them a little more.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
You Don't Know Me And That's How I Like It
Recently, Bitmob put out an article postulating what would have happened if Blizzard had pounded RealID through above the objections of its customers. I like the fact that they called shenanigans on the weak arguments most people were bandying about against RealID, but I dislike the fact that they didn't commit an equal amount of effort to the weaknesses of Blizzard's arguments for RealID. Allow me to make the arguments that Bitmob neglected to mention.
First, there is the implied argument that Blizzard is doing a mitzvah to their customer base with RealID by exposing the trolls, ostensibly shaming them into good behavior by revealing their real names. As the webcomic Ctl-Alt-Delete so eloquently demonstrated in this strip, revealing the identity of a troll is no deterrent against the behavior of a troll. The flaw in Blizzard's theory is that trolls are capable of feeling shame when it is amply demonstrated, time and again, that they are incapable of that. There is not a single iota of evidence to suggest even the slightest hint of remorse, regret, or shame in the behavior of a troll. They're petty, small souled, simple minded, and cretinous, which means that they go for the simple pleasures, the easy hit. They don't care who gets offended or what they get offended about so long as somebody gets offended and knows that it was what the troll put up that caused it. They feed off the recognition that they punched somebody's buttons. They're bullies, and they're a particularly obnoxious form of bully because they can't be smacked down like the Neanderthals that shake down kids for their lunch money. They're confident because they feel safe in the knowledge that they cannot be touched, and so they cannot properly suffer the consequences of their actions. Being simple minded, when somebody does manage to somehow verbally slap a troll down, the troll will not just stop. They're incapable of learning more than one lesson at a time. They might fade back for a bit, then they'll be back punching buttons again. Eleven million plus subscribers to World of WarCraft would have had their names exposed, the vast majority needlessly associated with their alter egos, in order to pursue a futile attempt to punish a tiny majority in a way that will completely fail to deter them. There would have been no happy ending with that course of action, nor will there ever be a happy ending with that course of action. Until the population of trolls genuinely outnumbers the population of decent folks on the boards, whatever monetary cost savings are made will be lost in terms of customer backlash, cancelled accounts, and future sales losses. As strange as it may sound, not even Blizzard or WoW is immune to the masses. All it will take is one issue, one position stated too strongly, one policy adoption that offends the common core of a large enough percentage of the subscriber base, and it will trigger an avalanche of defections that the company might not survive. Consider the example of Facebook. They've been pissing off a lot of people over the last year or so. One too many changes, one extra little line, or one unclear clause buried the boilerplate of the TOS, and Facebook stands to lose not only subscribers but substantial revenue. The same situation applies to Blizzard. Making people believe your hype is a perfectly acceptable business move. Believing your own hype is a recipe for disaster. Despite what Blizzard and the rabid core of Blizzard's fan base might believe, WoW is not the only game in town, even if it currently is the biggest.
And now we come to my second argument that Bitmob should have thought to make. While many would argue that even in an MMO, customers have a right to privacy, I will argue that one has a right to anonymity. The distinction might seem lost on some folks, so allow me to elucidate. As I've said before, MMOs are very much like amusement parks. There are a lot of activities that you can do within the park, but you as a player are coming into an environment where you have no direct control over anything except your avatar. You influence nothing within the game. You can make changes to yourself which ultimately have no practical effect outside of how you look and what kind of rides you can go on. Yet when you're at the park, other people know you're there because they can see you. Other players are aware of, or can be made aware of, your presence. Whether you're grinding mobs in The Barrens, spamming in trade chat in Ironforge, or simulating some Night Elf-on-Gnome action in the tunnels of the Deeprun Tram, awareness of your presence in the game simply cannot be completely hidden. Proximity to other players, even in the shady corners of the Deeprun Tram, constitutes most players' awareness of each other. Global chat channels, friend lists, and guild rosters further add to the sign every MMO player wears around their neck saying "Here I am!" Privacy in MMOs, at best, is a relative sort of thing, and it's fleeting.
Anonymity on the other hand is a little different, and something that should not be in the hands of any company, not even Blizzard. Anonymity is the choice we make to acknowledge our presence to other people within the MMO. Consider Mila Kunis or Curt Schilling, very famous people who are avowed WoW players. If they want to advertise the names of every toon they run, that's perfectly fine. If they don't want to, also fine. The critical component is that they choose if and when to connect their toons to their real identities. Yeah, it's fun talking about Family Guy or the place of free agents in baseball while you're doing a ten man raid on Icecrown Citadel, but it's not why we fork over $15 a month. The fact that we want that level of remove, that layer of insulation, between our virtual names and our real names isn't a reason for suspicion, nor does it indicate nefarious intent, nor does it even suggest we're trolls in player's clothing. Of all the choices one can make in an MMO, the only one with any true significance is whether or not we give somebody our real name. If somebody wants to put their real name in for their toon, whether for vanity or lack of imagination, fine and well. If somebody wants to come up with a completely different nom de guerre, also fine and well. Once you make that connection public, however, you're going to have to rely on the imperfect fleshy memory of people to forget that connection. It for damn sure won't fade away on the Internet. The ability to control our identities, for good or ill, is perhaps the fundamental right of the 21st Century. The ability to moderate, granulate, and compartmentalize who we are goes right to the very heart of our concepts of self and identity, whether it's physically or virtually. And Blizzard has no business trying to usurp that ability, nor do they have any basis to demand their customers surrender that ability just to play games they develop. To an extent, they can and do refine that identity just a bit, but they do not have any commercial or financial justification for breaching the divisions we make between our real world selves and our virtual alter egos.
Thus ends my arguments. Good job otherwise, Bitmob.
First, there is the implied argument that Blizzard is doing a mitzvah to their customer base with RealID by exposing the trolls, ostensibly shaming them into good behavior by revealing their real names. As the webcomic Ctl-Alt-Delete so eloquently demonstrated in this strip, revealing the identity of a troll is no deterrent against the behavior of a troll. The flaw in Blizzard's theory is that trolls are capable of feeling shame when it is amply demonstrated, time and again, that they are incapable of that. There is not a single iota of evidence to suggest even the slightest hint of remorse, regret, or shame in the behavior of a troll. They're petty, small souled, simple minded, and cretinous, which means that they go for the simple pleasures, the easy hit. They don't care who gets offended or what they get offended about so long as somebody gets offended and knows that it was what the troll put up that caused it. They feed off the recognition that they punched somebody's buttons. They're bullies, and they're a particularly obnoxious form of bully because they can't be smacked down like the Neanderthals that shake down kids for their lunch money. They're confident because they feel safe in the knowledge that they cannot be touched, and so they cannot properly suffer the consequences of their actions. Being simple minded, when somebody does manage to somehow verbally slap a troll down, the troll will not just stop. They're incapable of learning more than one lesson at a time. They might fade back for a bit, then they'll be back punching buttons again. Eleven million plus subscribers to World of WarCraft would have had their names exposed, the vast majority needlessly associated with their alter egos, in order to pursue a futile attempt to punish a tiny majority in a way that will completely fail to deter them. There would have been no happy ending with that course of action, nor will there ever be a happy ending with that course of action. Until the population of trolls genuinely outnumbers the population of decent folks on the boards, whatever monetary cost savings are made will be lost in terms of customer backlash, cancelled accounts, and future sales losses. As strange as it may sound, not even Blizzard or WoW is immune to the masses. All it will take is one issue, one position stated too strongly, one policy adoption that offends the common core of a large enough percentage of the subscriber base, and it will trigger an avalanche of defections that the company might not survive. Consider the example of Facebook. They've been pissing off a lot of people over the last year or so. One too many changes, one extra little line, or one unclear clause buried the boilerplate of the TOS, and Facebook stands to lose not only subscribers but substantial revenue. The same situation applies to Blizzard. Making people believe your hype is a perfectly acceptable business move. Believing your own hype is a recipe for disaster. Despite what Blizzard and the rabid core of Blizzard's fan base might believe, WoW is not the only game in town, even if it currently is the biggest.
And now we come to my second argument that Bitmob should have thought to make. While many would argue that even in an MMO, customers have a right to privacy, I will argue that one has a right to anonymity. The distinction might seem lost on some folks, so allow me to elucidate. As I've said before, MMOs are very much like amusement parks. There are a lot of activities that you can do within the park, but you as a player are coming into an environment where you have no direct control over anything except your avatar. You influence nothing within the game. You can make changes to yourself which ultimately have no practical effect outside of how you look and what kind of rides you can go on. Yet when you're at the park, other people know you're there because they can see you. Other players are aware of, or can be made aware of, your presence. Whether you're grinding mobs in The Barrens, spamming in trade chat in Ironforge, or simulating some Night Elf-on-Gnome action in the tunnels of the Deeprun Tram, awareness of your presence in the game simply cannot be completely hidden. Proximity to other players, even in the shady corners of the Deeprun Tram, constitutes most players' awareness of each other. Global chat channels, friend lists, and guild rosters further add to the sign every MMO player wears around their neck saying "Here I am!" Privacy in MMOs, at best, is a relative sort of thing, and it's fleeting.
Anonymity on the other hand is a little different, and something that should not be in the hands of any company, not even Blizzard. Anonymity is the choice we make to acknowledge our presence to other people within the MMO. Consider Mila Kunis or Curt Schilling, very famous people who are avowed WoW players. If they want to advertise the names of every toon they run, that's perfectly fine. If they don't want to, also fine. The critical component is that they choose if and when to connect their toons to their real identities. Yeah, it's fun talking about Family Guy or the place of free agents in baseball while you're doing a ten man raid on Icecrown Citadel, but it's not why we fork over $15 a month. The fact that we want that level of remove, that layer of insulation, between our virtual names and our real names isn't a reason for suspicion, nor does it indicate nefarious intent, nor does it even suggest we're trolls in player's clothing. Of all the choices one can make in an MMO, the only one with any true significance is whether or not we give somebody our real name. If somebody wants to put their real name in for their toon, whether for vanity or lack of imagination, fine and well. If somebody wants to come up with a completely different nom de guerre, also fine and well. Once you make that connection public, however, you're going to have to rely on the imperfect fleshy memory of people to forget that connection. It for damn sure won't fade away on the Internet. The ability to control our identities, for good or ill, is perhaps the fundamental right of the 21st Century. The ability to moderate, granulate, and compartmentalize who we are goes right to the very heart of our concepts of self and identity, whether it's physically or virtually. And Blizzard has no business trying to usurp that ability, nor do they have any basis to demand their customers surrender that ability just to play games they develop. To an extent, they can and do refine that identity just a bit, but they do not have any commercial or financial justification for breaching the divisions we make between our real world selves and our virtual alter egos.
Thus ends my arguments. Good job otherwise, Bitmob.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Stute Developers
When I was a kid, my folks picked up a copy of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. It was not the complete collection, and as I found out later it was a somewhat sanitized version of it, but a lot of the well known stories were there like "The Elephant's Child" and "How The Leopard Changed It's Spots." After reading an interview with Jamil Moledina on Ars Technica, another of those stories comes to mind, "How The Whale Got His Throat." In the story, the Whale gobbled up virtually every fish in the oceans except for one, a "Stute Fish," who suggested that the Whale try having Man for dinner, though he did warn the Whale that Man was "nice, but nubbly." The Man which gets eaten by the Whale turns out to be a Scot and something of an engineer, and manages to not only get out of the Whale's belly but also manages to keep the Whale from ever eating any fish again by rigging up a grating in the Whale's throat made from a pair of suspenders and a rubber dinghy that the Scot was floating around on in the middle of the ocean (because his mom told him he could). The Stute Fish goes and buries himself in the mud somewhere along the equator to hide from the Whale.
I'm reminded of this story because despite Moledina's impressive resume and the generally concise interview he gave to Ars Technica, I'm not convinced that EA's "EA Partners" program is anything even remotely helpful to the average indie game development crew, possibly because I have the distinct feeling that EA's definition of a indie game developer is considerably different than what most people would use. How many truly indie developers are out there with dev kits from Sony, Microsoft, AND Nintendo? If we're talking about the hand-to-mouth garage developer, the one who's using whatever freeware and open-source tools he can legally obtain, and probably pirate copies of 3DS Max or Maya if they're not feeling real picky, chances are that even getting one dev kit constitutes a major coup on their part. For the small team still in college, pretty much the same story. Once you're big enough to be able to get those dev kits, you're not really operating on indie cred anymore, and you've probably managed to make enough coin to afford to pay people a little money. By EA's definition, "indie" seems to be synonymous with "not currently signed to or owned by a publisher." And with that definition in mind, the concept of EA Partners gets ominous, because it feels disturbingly like an offer from a Mafia don.
"Sure, we'll help you get your product on to the Big Three. But one day, we're gonna come to you with a favor, and that day, you're gonna owe us."
Moledina's evasion over the question of IP ownership with the EA Partners program sent up a great big red flag for me, and it should probably do the same thing for any developer who might be considering this. While the interview references a statement Moledina made at the Gamesauce conference, there is a gaping hole in the statement that sounds very strange coming from a guy who ostensibly knows as much about game development and the way the industry works. The quoted statement was this:
""It's an odd thing, because we continue to see and hear from developers ... that they're being forced to give up the IP. Publishers are not that good at taking advantage of the IP unless the original creative team is involved."
What's wrong with this picture? Could it possibly be there is a paradoxical, or at the very least dichotomous, nature to the statement? Or might it be the unspoken truth that whether or not publishers are good at taking advantage of IP, they'll still yank it away if it looks like it's making money? While Moledina goes on to state that developers shouldn't be afraid to "keep what [they] deserve," it's deeply troubling that he will not acknowledge even the possibility that the publisher will behave badly and take over the IP against the wishes of the developers. Without even a tacit admission of this reality, or even the potential for this reality to manifest within the EA Partners program, very serious doubt is cast upon Moledina's assurance that EA is "very developer friendly."
All of the arguments that Moledina puts forth seem to hinge entirely on the assumption that an indie developer has neither the resources, nor the ingenuity, nor the clout to get their game out onto the consoles. While it's entirely possible that some developers would fail on all of those criteria, it's also possible that such developers were never trying to meet any of those criteria to begin with. Some of those indie developers are quite happy to develop for the PC and not have anything to do with the consoles. Moreover, it occurs to me that if Sony and Microsoft and Nintendo really are getting serious about trying to bring high concept indie titles to their respective consoles, the devs are the ones who are going to be holding the whip hand in any sort of negotiations. While the Big Three might have a lot of potential sources for new titles, the fact that they're reaching out to a developer means the developer has what the Big Three are looking for, and the devs are the ones who have the ability to modify the terms to suit them. A shrewd indie will strive for a win-win situation, which will doubtlessly give them clout, which will make future negotiations easier. The fact that an indie developer doesn't necessarily have the marketing department EA has at it's disposal doesn't mean that they're doomed to the purgatory of bargain bins and penny ante PayPal sales. Any halfway competent marketer who knows exactly how to work social media can generate a lot of buzz for a game on a very shoestring marketing budget. While an indie developer might not be cranking out million copy blockbusters, they aren't relegated to single digit sales numbers either.
The Stute Fish in Rudyard Kipling's story avoided getting eaten by the Whale by swimming alongside the Whale's eye. The Stute developer can prosper by doing the same thing: staying by the eye of the big whales but staying well away from their maws.
I'm reminded of this story because despite Moledina's impressive resume and the generally concise interview he gave to Ars Technica, I'm not convinced that EA's "EA Partners" program is anything even remotely helpful to the average indie game development crew, possibly because I have the distinct feeling that EA's definition of a indie game developer is considerably different than what most people would use. How many truly indie developers are out there with dev kits from Sony, Microsoft, AND Nintendo? If we're talking about the hand-to-mouth garage developer, the one who's using whatever freeware and open-source tools he can legally obtain, and probably pirate copies of 3DS Max or Maya if they're not feeling real picky, chances are that even getting one dev kit constitutes a major coup on their part. For the small team still in college, pretty much the same story. Once you're big enough to be able to get those dev kits, you're not really operating on indie cred anymore, and you've probably managed to make enough coin to afford to pay people a little money. By EA's definition, "indie" seems to be synonymous with "not currently signed to or owned by a publisher." And with that definition in mind, the concept of EA Partners gets ominous, because it feels disturbingly like an offer from a Mafia don.
"Sure, we'll help you get your product on to the Big Three. But one day, we're gonna come to you with a favor, and that day, you're gonna owe us."
Moledina's evasion over the question of IP ownership with the EA Partners program sent up a great big red flag for me, and it should probably do the same thing for any developer who might be considering this. While the interview references a statement Moledina made at the Gamesauce conference, there is a gaping hole in the statement that sounds very strange coming from a guy who ostensibly knows as much about game development and the way the industry works. The quoted statement was this:
""It's an odd thing, because we continue to see and hear from developers ... that they're being forced to give up the IP. Publishers are not that good at taking advantage of the IP unless the original creative team is involved."
What's wrong with this picture? Could it possibly be there is a paradoxical, or at the very least dichotomous, nature to the statement? Or might it be the unspoken truth that whether or not publishers are good at taking advantage of IP, they'll still yank it away if it looks like it's making money? While Moledina goes on to state that developers shouldn't be afraid to "keep what [they] deserve," it's deeply troubling that he will not acknowledge even the possibility that the publisher will behave badly and take over the IP against the wishes of the developers. Without even a tacit admission of this reality, or even the potential for this reality to manifest within the EA Partners program, very serious doubt is cast upon Moledina's assurance that EA is "very developer friendly."
All of the arguments that Moledina puts forth seem to hinge entirely on the assumption that an indie developer has neither the resources, nor the ingenuity, nor the clout to get their game out onto the consoles. While it's entirely possible that some developers would fail on all of those criteria, it's also possible that such developers were never trying to meet any of those criteria to begin with. Some of those indie developers are quite happy to develop for the PC and not have anything to do with the consoles. Moreover, it occurs to me that if Sony and Microsoft and Nintendo really are getting serious about trying to bring high concept indie titles to their respective consoles, the devs are the ones who are going to be holding the whip hand in any sort of negotiations. While the Big Three might have a lot of potential sources for new titles, the fact that they're reaching out to a developer means the developer has what the Big Three are looking for, and the devs are the ones who have the ability to modify the terms to suit them. A shrewd indie will strive for a win-win situation, which will doubtlessly give them clout, which will make future negotiations easier. The fact that an indie developer doesn't necessarily have the marketing department EA has at it's disposal doesn't mean that they're doomed to the purgatory of bargain bins and penny ante PayPal sales. Any halfway competent marketer who knows exactly how to work social media can generate a lot of buzz for a game on a very shoestring marketing budget. While an indie developer might not be cranking out million copy blockbusters, they aren't relegated to single digit sales numbers either.
The Stute Fish in Rudyard Kipling's story avoided getting eaten by the Whale by swimming alongside the Whale's eye. The Stute developer can prosper by doing the same thing: staying by the eye of the big whales but staying well away from their maws.
Friday, April 16, 2010
O'er The LAN of The Free
Last Saturday, I went to a LAN party for the first time in ages. How long has it been, you ask? It's been too damn long. Particularly since this LAN promised all sort of good deathmatching action. An old and trusted friend of mine turned me on to a mod for Half-Life 2 titled Empires, which is a neat little mashup of class-based shooter and realtime strategy with a little bit of RPG customization thrown in for flavor. I downloaded and installed the mod, then fired it up a few days before the actual LAN party, joining a couple public servers and getting my feet wet.
The shooter element was butter smooth, as you might well imagine for an HL2 mod. Picking a class was pretty easy. As long as you remembered to fall back to a barracks or armory if you wanted to change your class, it was a straightforward affair. Years of target shooting, I fear, have predisposed me towards a sniper's role. As an engineer, I felt kinda useless, even though I was racking up advancement points pretty quickly in that capacity. As a regular run of the mill soldier, I felt even more useless. As a rocket toting, mortar chucking, big explosion making grenadier, I was proven useless. While I wasn't too awful bad taking on the role of commander, it wasn't exactly awe inspiring, either. Robert Browning certainly had a point when he said "a man's reach must exceed his grasp, or else what's a Heaven for?", but I felt I was doing more good sitting out in the weeds, hunkered down, driving tacks at long range through enemy domes. Yeah, I got killed a lot, and I did miss out on some of the big tank battles, but I still did good. Somebody's got to go out, find the enemy, mark him, and cause a little havoc along the way. That was me. The lone gunman, putting steel on target, sneer and be damned.
Alas, the gaming goodness ended long before it had been scheduled to end. For one reason or another, over half the players bailed out unexpectedly. This left us with a population far below sustainable gaming levels, which meant that the party was over and the LAN had to be dismantled. It was kind of a shame, since there had been some other mods that folks wanted to play but we never got around to. As I'm still in pretty tight financial restrictions, the usual summer activities like camping and airsoft games up in the woods are not happening, which is why the LAN party is such an effective little get together and time waster, or avenue for entertainment if you prefer to get fancy about it. Most gamers I know have the games that can be played over and over again, whether through the original content or through third party mods. It's a no-brainer. Free mods beats out large amounts of burned gas, airsoft pellets, food, drink, and other camping paraphernalia. Mind you, it's a lot of fun going camping, and I have designs on introducing the joys of it to Otaku Girl here at some point. I just can't do it right now.
For now, I'll content myself with the abbreviated LAN party, the nice folks who I shot and killed (sometimes in particularly embarrassing fashion), and who returned the favor numerous times over. And I'll be looking forward to doing it again at some point in the near future.
The shooter element was butter smooth, as you might well imagine for an HL2 mod. Picking a class was pretty easy. As long as you remembered to fall back to a barracks or armory if you wanted to change your class, it was a straightforward affair. Years of target shooting, I fear, have predisposed me towards a sniper's role. As an engineer, I felt kinda useless, even though I was racking up advancement points pretty quickly in that capacity. As a regular run of the mill soldier, I felt even more useless. As a rocket toting, mortar chucking, big explosion making grenadier, I was proven useless. While I wasn't too awful bad taking on the role of commander, it wasn't exactly awe inspiring, either. Robert Browning certainly had a point when he said "a man's reach must exceed his grasp, or else what's a Heaven for?", but I felt I was doing more good sitting out in the weeds, hunkered down, driving tacks at long range through enemy domes. Yeah, I got killed a lot, and I did miss out on some of the big tank battles, but I still did good. Somebody's got to go out, find the enemy, mark him, and cause a little havoc along the way. That was me. The lone gunman, putting steel on target, sneer and be damned.
Alas, the gaming goodness ended long before it had been scheduled to end. For one reason or another, over half the players bailed out unexpectedly. This left us with a population far below sustainable gaming levels, which meant that the party was over and the LAN had to be dismantled. It was kind of a shame, since there had been some other mods that folks wanted to play but we never got around to. As I'm still in pretty tight financial restrictions, the usual summer activities like camping and airsoft games up in the woods are not happening, which is why the LAN party is such an effective little get together and time waster, or avenue for entertainment if you prefer to get fancy about it. Most gamers I know have the games that can be played over and over again, whether through the original content or through third party mods. It's a no-brainer. Free mods beats out large amounts of burned gas, airsoft pellets, food, drink, and other camping paraphernalia. Mind you, it's a lot of fun going camping, and I have designs on introducing the joys of it to Otaku Girl here at some point. I just can't do it right now.
For now, I'll content myself with the abbreviated LAN party, the nice folks who I shot and killed (sometimes in particularly embarrassing fashion), and who returned the favor numerous times over. And I'll be looking forward to doing it again at some point in the near future.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
"We Have A Turd In The Punch Bowl"
One of the many things that I missed out on while I was working graveyard shifts was getting a chance to see new episodes of South Park. Last week, I got the chance to catch a season premiere. Admittedly, I was more interested about catching the series premiere of Ugly Americans, but catching the premiere of South Park after missing the last few seasons of it was a pleasant little bonus. It didn't fail to disappoint. After all these years, Matt Stone and Trey Parker have kept their satirical edge wickedly sharp, and they pulled no punches to kick the season off. I suppose it wouldn't be a South Park episode if it didn't offend somebody. However, the offended party in this case is not who you would initially expect.
The premiere centered around Tiger Woods and his recent sex scandal. Hilarity ensued as Kyle, Kenny, and Butters were all diagnosed as future sex addicts and were stuck in a therapy group with other luminaries as Charlie Sheen, Bill Clinton, David Letterman, and Woods. As usual, the message was pretty straightforward: "Don't screw around! Be honest with your spouse! Take responsibility for your actions!" It never fails to amuse me that, as much howling and screaming as some people make about how offensive South Park is, the show consistently holds up the fundamental message that we need to be decent human beings to each other. However, the controversy concerning the premiere has nothing to do with the unflattering parody of Tiger Woods or his wife, or even the general cycle of "deny, confess, apologize" that has reached the level of cliche in the public consciousness. It appears that EA Sports has announced plans to sue Stone and Parker (or at least their studio), most likely making an argument for infringing on EA's copyright of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11.
According to a post on Daily Informer, a source inside EA Sports has said that shortly after the episode aired, the suits at EA sat down, discussed the episode, and apparently proceeded to discuss how best to proceed with a lawsuit. At the time of this writing, there does not appear to be any official word from Stone & Parker about getting sued. My prediction: there's not a hope in hell this suit will succeed, though it doubtlessly net the legal departments involved a tidy little bundle of billable hours between the time the first papers are filed and the moment the judge's gavel comes down after the words, "Case dismissed!" finish echoing in the courtroom. Come on, if Scientology can't squash these guys, EA Sports doesn't stand a chance.
Let's take a closer look, shall we? EA Sports' only possible angle is a flimsy argument that South Park somehow infringed upon Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, a fictitious version of which was used as a narrative device for the episode. Somehow, EA's lawyers would have to convince a judge and or jury that the scenes in the episode were representative of the actual game. Unless the developers are willing to create the kind of DLC needed to turn a high end golf simulator into a Street Fighter-esque fighting game with "Pre-Nup Power-ups" and scenes involving marital violence, Vicodin abuse, and press conferences, not even the most jaded or pop culture deprived jurist could avoid seeing quite clearly that the depiction of the game and the actual game have absolutely nothing in common. When a show regularly disclaims at the start of every episode that the presentation viewers are about to see is quite obviously a parody, and proceeds to demonstrate quite thoroughly that it is a parody, no amount of pettifogging legalistic sleight-of-hand is going to come even close to making the case reach trial. EA Sports would have no standing to bring a suit because of the depiction of Tiger Woods in the episode. Nor would they have any standing to bring a suit because of the licensed use of Tiger Woods' name or the mention of the Professional Golf Association in the title of the game. Even the mention of the title falls under the parody exceptions.
When South Park put World of WarCraft in it's crosshairs, the guys at Blizzard not only got the joke, but incorporated the title of the episode into the game as an achievement. Nintendo didn't summon the lawyers when South Park made fun of the wait involved for the first Wii systems. There wasn't a hue and a cry when Guitar Hero was spoofed. This is quite obviously the stupidest example of filing suit for no other reason than "the honor of the flag" that EA or its subsidiaries has come up with in recent memory. Somewhere, there has got to be somebody, hopefully in the legal department of EA or EA Sports, that will sit down with the suits and make it painfully clear to them that they're wasting a lot of time, money, and resources that don't need to be wasted. The only person who might possibly be offended enough to try a lawsuit would be Tiger Woods himself, and chances are his own legal advisers have made it clear to him that he's got no shot. The only thing this lawsuit will accomplish will be to add another notch, and a very high profile notch, on the belt of a show which has faced down bigger and meaner opponents than EA and won without breaking a sweat.
The premiere centered around Tiger Woods and his recent sex scandal. Hilarity ensued as Kyle, Kenny, and Butters were all diagnosed as future sex addicts and were stuck in a therapy group with other luminaries as Charlie Sheen, Bill Clinton, David Letterman, and Woods. As usual, the message was pretty straightforward: "Don't screw around! Be honest with your spouse! Take responsibility for your actions!" It never fails to amuse me that, as much howling and screaming as some people make about how offensive South Park is, the show consistently holds up the fundamental message that we need to be decent human beings to each other. However, the controversy concerning the premiere has nothing to do with the unflattering parody of Tiger Woods or his wife, or even the general cycle of "deny, confess, apologize" that has reached the level of cliche in the public consciousness. It appears that EA Sports has announced plans to sue Stone and Parker (or at least their studio), most likely making an argument for infringing on EA's copyright of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11.
According to a post on Daily Informer, a source inside EA Sports has said that shortly after the episode aired, the suits at EA sat down, discussed the episode, and apparently proceeded to discuss how best to proceed with a lawsuit. At the time of this writing, there does not appear to be any official word from Stone & Parker about getting sued. My prediction: there's not a hope in hell this suit will succeed, though it doubtlessly net the legal departments involved a tidy little bundle of billable hours between the time the first papers are filed and the moment the judge's gavel comes down after the words, "Case dismissed!" finish echoing in the courtroom. Come on, if Scientology can't squash these guys, EA Sports doesn't stand a chance.
Let's take a closer look, shall we? EA Sports' only possible angle is a flimsy argument that South Park somehow infringed upon Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, a fictitious version of which was used as a narrative device for the episode. Somehow, EA's lawyers would have to convince a judge and or jury that the scenes in the episode were representative of the actual game. Unless the developers are willing to create the kind of DLC needed to turn a high end golf simulator into a Street Fighter-esque fighting game with "Pre-Nup Power-ups" and scenes involving marital violence, Vicodin abuse, and press conferences, not even the most jaded or pop culture deprived jurist could avoid seeing quite clearly that the depiction of the game and the actual game have absolutely nothing in common. When a show regularly disclaims at the start of every episode that the presentation viewers are about to see is quite obviously a parody, and proceeds to demonstrate quite thoroughly that it is a parody, no amount of pettifogging legalistic sleight-of-hand is going to come even close to making the case reach trial. EA Sports would have no standing to bring a suit because of the depiction of Tiger Woods in the episode. Nor would they have any standing to bring a suit because of the licensed use of Tiger Woods' name or the mention of the Professional Golf Association in the title of the game. Even the mention of the title falls under the parody exceptions.
When South Park put World of WarCraft in it's crosshairs, the guys at Blizzard not only got the joke, but incorporated the title of the episode into the game as an achievement. Nintendo didn't summon the lawyers when South Park made fun of the wait involved for the first Wii systems. There wasn't a hue and a cry when Guitar Hero was spoofed. This is quite obviously the stupidest example of filing suit for no other reason than "the honor of the flag" that EA or its subsidiaries has come up with in recent memory. Somewhere, there has got to be somebody, hopefully in the legal department of EA or EA Sports, that will sit down with the suits and make it painfully clear to them that they're wasting a lot of time, money, and resources that don't need to be wasted. The only person who might possibly be offended enough to try a lawsuit would be Tiger Woods himself, and chances are his own legal advisers have made it clear to him that he's got no shot. The only thing this lawsuit will accomplish will be to add another notch, and a very high profile notch, on the belt of a show which has faced down bigger and meaner opponents than EA and won without breaking a sweat.
Monday, March 22, 2010
First Caracas, Then Zurich
Up until a few weeks ago, if you'd asked me offhand what Venezuela and Switzerland had in common, I'd have been hard pressed to come up with an answer beyond the fact that they both existed on Planet Earth. It now seems that, barring the restoration of sanity to the legislative process, Switzerland will be the second country inside of a month to issue a total ban on "violent" video games.
Switzerland's National Council (the equivalent of the U.S. House of Representatives, I believe) approved a bill that would ultimately lead to the total ban of any computer or console game that it deems unacceptably violent. The original draft of the legislation called for banning the production, sale, or distribution of any game which "requires cruel acts of violence against humans and humanlike creatures for in-game success" within Swiss borders. There is some question as to whether the upper chamber of the Swiss parliament will go along with this or if they'll exhibit some common sense and stop this bill dead. Even if the bill passes the upper house, it's apparently a lot easier for Swiss citizens to get a stupid law repealed than it is here in the States. One would hope that Swiss gamers would rally to get this idiocy overturned.
However little I might like the idea of a Swiss game ban, or any country enacting a game ban for that matter, I must extend a grudging degree of respect to the Swiss parliament for entertaining reasoned debate on the matter, however flawed the reasoning might be. In sharp contrast is the measure passed in Venezuela last summer which finally went into effect just under two weeks ago. For the crime of making, selling, renting, importing, or distributing "video games or programs that can be used on personal computers, arcade systems, consoles, portable devices or mobile telephones, or any other electronic or telephonic device, that contain information or images that promote or incite violence and the use of weapons," you're looking at a sentence of three to five years in a Venezuelan prison. If you're guilty of merely buying or promoting such a game, you just get hit with a fine. Somehow, I don't think you'd get a lot of sympathy by claiming you're a political prisoner because you sold a copy of Final Fantasy XIII on the streets of Caracas. President Hugo Chavez went on record earlier this year and denounced PlayStation games specifically (and presumably games on other platforms in general) as "poison" and a capitalist plot "to sow violence so they can later sell weapons."
Reasoned or insanely unreasoned, complete bans on video games will accomplish precisely nothing. They will not make street crime magically disappear. They will not cause teenage disaffection and alienation to become a thing of the past. They will not guarantee moral or ideological purity of the masses. They will not make people happier, more productive, or more content. The only thing they will do is turn an otherwise productive segment of a nation's population into criminals, whether it is on the supply side or the demand side of the market, while completely overtaxing law enforcement resources which could be better utilized for more serious crimes. And still, in every country that has even the rudiments of a parliamentary system, there's some nutjob who thinks that banning violent video games will cure all the ills that face their nation.
So far, at the state level in America, violent video game bans have been passed and overturned as unconstitutional. I suspect that a similar fate awaits the Swiss ban, though it's also possible a gamer sponsored referendum will remind Swiss parliamentarians that they work for the people. As for Venezuela, well, that one might have to wait until Hugo Chavez and his glorious socialist paradise die together. And what of other nations that have or are considering bans on violent video games? My advice: don't. Scrap the ones you've got. Forget about trying to pass them if they don't exist. Too many people have chased the chimera of "better living through banning video games" and have nothing to show for their efforts but disgruntled citizens and irritated cops. It is a fool's errand pursued to create a fool's paradise.
Wake up and smell the ashes.
Switzerland's National Council (the equivalent of the U.S. House of Representatives, I believe) approved a bill that would ultimately lead to the total ban of any computer or console game that it deems unacceptably violent. The original draft of the legislation called for banning the production, sale, or distribution of any game which "requires cruel acts of violence against humans and humanlike creatures for in-game success" within Swiss borders. There is some question as to whether the upper chamber of the Swiss parliament will go along with this or if they'll exhibit some common sense and stop this bill dead. Even if the bill passes the upper house, it's apparently a lot easier for Swiss citizens to get a stupid law repealed than it is here in the States. One would hope that Swiss gamers would rally to get this idiocy overturned.
However little I might like the idea of a Swiss game ban, or any country enacting a game ban for that matter, I must extend a grudging degree of respect to the Swiss parliament for entertaining reasoned debate on the matter, however flawed the reasoning might be. In sharp contrast is the measure passed in Venezuela last summer which finally went into effect just under two weeks ago. For the crime of making, selling, renting, importing, or distributing "video games or programs that can be used on personal computers, arcade systems, consoles, portable devices or mobile telephones, or any other electronic or telephonic device, that contain information or images that promote or incite violence and the use of weapons," you're looking at a sentence of three to five years in a Venezuelan prison. If you're guilty of merely buying or promoting such a game, you just get hit with a fine. Somehow, I don't think you'd get a lot of sympathy by claiming you're a political prisoner because you sold a copy of Final Fantasy XIII on the streets of Caracas. President Hugo Chavez went on record earlier this year and denounced PlayStation games specifically (and presumably games on other platforms in general) as "poison" and a capitalist plot "to sow violence so they can later sell weapons."
Reasoned or insanely unreasoned, complete bans on video games will accomplish precisely nothing. They will not make street crime magically disappear. They will not cause teenage disaffection and alienation to become a thing of the past. They will not guarantee moral or ideological purity of the masses. They will not make people happier, more productive, or more content. The only thing they will do is turn an otherwise productive segment of a nation's population into criminals, whether it is on the supply side or the demand side of the market, while completely overtaxing law enforcement resources which could be better utilized for more serious crimes. And still, in every country that has even the rudiments of a parliamentary system, there's some nutjob who thinks that banning violent video games will cure all the ills that face their nation.
So far, at the state level in America, violent video game bans have been passed and overturned as unconstitutional. I suspect that a similar fate awaits the Swiss ban, though it's also possible a gamer sponsored referendum will remind Swiss parliamentarians that they work for the people. As for Venezuela, well, that one might have to wait until Hugo Chavez and his glorious socialist paradise die together. And what of other nations that have or are considering bans on violent video games? My advice: don't. Scrap the ones you've got. Forget about trying to pass them if they don't exist. Too many people have chased the chimera of "better living through banning video games" and have nothing to show for their efforts but disgruntled citizens and irritated cops. It is a fool's errand pursued to create a fool's paradise.
Wake up and smell the ashes.
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