Tag Archives: game development

The Next Generation Industry

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GDC is behind us now. We’ve all heard so much talk about the future of video games that it’s beginning to frazzle and run together. So many things, new developments and new ideas and new technology, all in the milieu of rapid political and social change. The idea of predicting the future seem hairy at best. There’s all these factors at work here, and somehow they’ll play off each other. So what are some of the issues and developing trends we’re facing?

We’ve heard many words about procedural game design, player-created content populating the massive environments. There’s that group of people off shouting about middleware and open source gaming cutting the costs that everyone says is gonna blow open with the next generation. Meanwhile, there’s real good reason to look at unionizing the big publishers, but that’s just gonna blow the costs up even more. At least unionization would create some real financial incentives for a growing independant games industry. Next thing you know you’re not a “real” gamer unless you eschew everything from EA “because it’s over-produced crap” and the “artistry” is entirely to be found in indie games. Indie gamers start thinking of GameSpot what indie rockers think of MTV– something for the uninformed masses. Maybe GameSpot is smart enough to capture the zeitgeist and they’ll have an “indie” subsite, maybe not. Regardless, the split between casual and hardcore gamers has already begun. A few years ago, you could reasonably purchase every truly fantastic game, and lots of us did. Yeah, myself included. That is no longer a possibility. You couldn’t play them all. You probably can’t afford to play them all. We’ve got a situation where people are increasingly having to decide where to put their money.

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My Bibliography for the Upcoming Semester

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  • Bartle, Richard. Designing Virtual Worlds. New Riders Games, 2003.
  • Bates, Bob. Game Design: The Art and Business of Creating Games. Muska & Lipman, 2002.
  • Crawford, Chris. Chris Crawford On Game Design. New Riders Games, 2003.
  • DeMaria, Rusel; Wilson, Johnny L. High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games McGraw-Hill Osborne Media, 2003.
  • Freeman, David. Creating Emotion in Games: The Craft and Art of Emotioneering. New Riders Publishing, 2003.
  • Friedl, Markus. Online Game Interactivity Theory. Charles River Media, 2002.
  • Glassner, Andrew. Interactive Storytelling: Techniques for 21st Century Fiction. AK Peters, Ltd., 2004.
  • Graham, Paul. Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age. O’Reilly, 2004.
  • Herz, J.C. Joystick Nation: How Videogames Ate Our Quarters, Won Our Hearts, and Rewired Our Minds. Little Brown & Co., 1997.
  • Koster, Raph. Theory of Fun for Game Design. Paraglyph, 2004.
  • Laramee, Francois Dominic. Game Design Perspectives. Charles River Media, 2002.
  • Miller, Carolyn Handler. Digital Storytelling: A Creator’s Guide to Interactive Entertainment. Focal Press, 2004.
  • Mulligan, Jessica; Patrovsky, Bridgette. Developing Online Games: An Insider’s Guide. New Riders Games, 2003.
  • Poole, Steven. Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution. Arcade Publishing, 2004.
  • Ray, Sheri Graner. Gender Inclusive Game Design: Expanding the Market. Charles River Media, 2003.
  • Rollings, Andrew; Adams, Ernest. Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams On Game Design. New Riders Publishing, 2003
  • Rollings, Andrew; Morris, Dave. Game Architecture and Design: A New Edition. New Riders Games, 2003.
  • Sheldon, Lee. Character Development and Storytelling for Games. Muska & Lipman, 2004.
  • Tufte, Edward R. Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative. Graphics Press, 1997.
  • Tufte, Edward R. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Graphics Press, 2001.
  • Zimmerman, Eric; Salen, Katie. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. The MIT Press, 2003.

I’m also planning to subscribe to The Journal of Game Development and Game Developer’s Magazine.
It’s going to be an awesome semester. Hard, but awesome. It’s an exciting time to be getting into games, as anyone who has been following the GDC proceedings will attest. I can’t wait.

The Cost of Enlightenment

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There is an adage that states, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” It is meant to remind monks that true enlightenment is not something that can be purchased or even given, but must come from within. It is somewhat ironic, then, that we consider our society enlightened. While it is true that we have made significant advances in human wellbeing in the past century, it has come at the cost of the only true freedom that exists: personal responsibility.

Rather than holding the individual accountable for their actions, we mitigate and deflect that responsibility by blaming those actions on the ideas and words of something or someone else. This offense is further compounded by efforts to use the actions of the individual to dictate the rights of everyone. The moment a book, song, movie, comic, or game is censored or banned, we have sacrificed an essential liberty, and hammered another nail in the coffin of personal responsibility.

The logic behind censorship is fundamentally flawed:

  1. Censorship protects no one; ideas are rooted in the culture that spawns them, they cannot simply be turned off like a faucet.
  2. The only truly free society is an informed society: if you’re worried about a new idea taking over, maybe you should re-examine your own beliefs.
  3. Personal beliefs do not equal law: the sacrilege of one person may be the gospel of another.

Despite these flaws, people continue to try and censor others, with increasing success rates. We have found our roadside Buddha, and he’s offering censorship wrapped in the pretense of enlightenment. We need to collectively realize that it’s a false promise; cultural enlightenment, like spiritual enlightenment, begins and ends with the self. The true cost of enlightenment is personal responsibility.

Where is Our Frank Zappa?

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Back in the early 80s, a conservative watchdog group lobbied for the ban or heavy regulation of music with explicit lyrics involving sex, drugs, or violence. There was a vocal outcry against this movement within the music industry, spearheaded by several prominent musicians, notably Frank Zappa and John Denver. It may seem like an odd pairing, but that served to help drive home just how unacceptable these restrictions were.

The Gaming Industry is now faced with a similar situation. Games, game developers, and even retailers are being targeted unfairly by lawyers and the media as the culprits for individual irresponsibility. Lawmakers are taking notice, but not in a positive manner: several states, Washington and California included, currently have bills in committee to ban the sale of violent games. Rather than finding other solutions, or viewing the larger problem that this is only a symptom of, legislators would prefer to restrict the rights of game makers.

There are several significant issues with the video game ban ideology, but from the reading I’ve done on the subject, most of their reasoning hinges around one fundamental flaw in their logic: games aren’t just for kids. The largest and fastest growing gaming demographic is the 18 to 34 year old age range; it is unreasonable to deny the ability to develop for that group. The game industry has voluntarily self-regulated by placing ratings on every game produced, indicating the content and suggested age range for view or play. This takes no more effort on the part of the parents (and retailers) than the movie rating system, and yet the industry as a whole is being blamed for violent games falling into the hands of children. Demanding that the game developers not make games with mature content is unreasonable on several levels, not the least of which is the violation of first amendment rights. What needs to happen is education. We need to educate parents about the systems that are in place to help them, as well as the need to pay attention to what their kids are doing. We need to educate retailers about sales ethics. We need to educate everyone about personal responsibility.

We need someone who can speak for the game industry as cogently as Frank Zappa and John Denver did for the music industry. The question is, who? Where is our Frank Zappa?