I tend to drift from this blog, my little anchor point, but this can be rationalized: When your livelihood entails upwards of 2,000 words a day, there’s not much left in the tank when it’s over. You can see that now. This is not my best prose.

But in what seems to me like a tradition now, I take great pride in coming back around to show off my occasional writing for The Escapist. The latest revisits Manifesto Games, an indie distribution site I wrote about for Wired two years ago. Coincidentally, for the current feature I caught Manifesto in the midst of shutting the site down, which is horrible, but makes for a great story. That’s journalism, I guess.

Writing for The Escapist is always a pleasure, but as a full-time blogger, whose writing rarely exceeds 400 words at a time and rarer still includes any significant reporting, in the traditional sense, this particular article was a blast to produce. My thanks goes to the Escapist editorial team, who really know how to polish up a story. It was nice to go through that process and come out with a shiny clip. Overall, the reaction was good, with thoughtful comments from readers and no hard feelings from the Manifesto crew — I tried to be fair in criticizing the site’s faults while recounting what went down.

Meanwhile, I’ve started writing for Today @ PC World, along with my existing gigs, and VentureBeat is giving me a shot at a few articles on digital media. If you believe the best stories involve conflict and sadness, I’ve got nothing for you right now.

Newman | No Comments »

It’s been said that video games need a Lester Bangs, but what we really need is a Chuck Norris. Michael Pachter, known far and wide for his game industry analysis, is that equivalent.

Earlier today, Alex Navarro suggested on Twitter that Michael Pachter should have folk status in gaming. Joystiq writer Alexander Sliwinski followed with a “Chuck Norris Facts”-style anecdote, and I took it from there, with help from some fellow Twitterers. Here are 22 Michael Pachter Facts that, like his analysis, cannot be disputed:

-Michael Pachter does not predict, forecast, foretell or foreshadow. He just knows.

-One time, Michael Pachter and Colin Sebastian disagreed in their analyses. That was the last we heard from Colin Sebastian.

-When Michael Pachter gets the Red Ring of Death, he sends Microsoft a coffin.

-Motion control is meaningless to Michael Pachter, because he can control video games with his mind.

-The fighting game “Killer Instinct” was named after Michael Pachter.

-The Metal Gear Solid series does not amuse Michael Pachter, because he already knows how it ends.

-Mike Gallagher misspoke when he called piracy “the single greatest threat” to the games industry. He was actually talking about Michael Pachter.

-Publications often misrepresent Michael Pachter as a “Wedbush Morgan Analyst.” No company can contain Michael Pachter.

-Michael Pachter pronounces “Natal” like the birth term. You got a problem with that?

-Michael Pachter once apologized to Sony for calling the PSP Go a “rip-off.” He meant to say he’d rip off Jack Tretton’s arms if Sony doesn’t begin cutting prices.

-Michael Pachter does not need to blow on his NES cartridges. You’ve got it backwards.

-When Reggie Fils-Aime said he was about kicking ass and taking names, he first had to ask Michael Pachter for permission.

-Nintendo had to call its latest console the Wii because only Michael Pachter can launch a Revolution.

-Michael Pachter does not get his predictions from God. God gets his plans from Michael Pachter. (from 8bithack)

-The real reason Steve Jobs needed a new liver is that Michael Pachter called iPhone gaming a “fad.” (with 8bitjoystick)

-The real reason for the 1983 Videogame crash is Michael Pachter’s Atari 5200 kept crapping out. (from 8bitjoystick)

-Michael Pachter has learned to suppress the pon farr. He’s that logical. (from XanderSliwinski)

-Michael Pachter’s PS3 is backwards compatible. It can also play PS4 games. (from XanderSliwinski)

-Skynet finally succeeded in its mission by sending back Michael Pachter. (from XanderSliwinski)

-Michael Pachter news does not get submitted to N4G, N4G submits to Michael Pachter’s news. (PacoDG)

-Michael Pachter willed the Dreamcast to its destruction. No one can cast dreams except Michael Pachter. (SlamVanderhuge)

-No matter what word Michael Pachter writes in Scribblenauts, it turns to gold. (XboxExaminer)

–

Surely, there is more to know about Michael Pachter. Throw some facts in the comments, hit me up on Twitter or tweet your own with the hash #PachterFACTS. Soon, the world will know just how important video games, and Michael Pachter, have become.

Newman | 3 Comments »

-12 year-old boy, approaching the Gamestop clerk with Call of Duty 4 in hand, mother in tow. Your parental controls at work!

Newman | No Comments »

Last time I checked, there’s no metric by which people can constantly measure their moral worth. Judging the goodness in one’s self is not as simple as reading your fuel gauge.

So why do video games make it that easy?

Mass Effect, Fallout 3 and InFamous — all of which inject morality into a medium that deals primarily in wins and losses — present the player with a kindness meter, accessible at any time, like the entire game is played in the presence of St. Peter. They even take it a step further by alerting players to their “right” and “wrong” decisions. Karma meter goes up, karma meter goes down.

Moral gauges are a cheap way of coping with gaming’s inherent black-and-white nature. Instead of presenting the player with morally gray areas, the system is broken into 1’s and 0’s, accumulating one way or another until the game’s character is decidedly good or evil. (A third option, in some cases, is “Neutral,” which accomplishes nothing.) But the real problem is that the player knows about it.

Yahtzee says video game morals fail because players must either “sing the orphans to sleep or murder their dogs, with no middle ground.” He’s right, but I don’t agree with his argument that video game morals need to “drink some paint and retard themselves out of existence.” There’s room for improvement here, and it starts by abolishing the moral barometer.

Most players, I believe, are inclined to enter a moral choice game knowing which side is for them. That’s certainly how I do it (always the good guy, natch), and I hear comments from others to the effect of “I’m playing as evil this time around.”

That decision would be harder if the player couldn’t tell what’s wrong or right. Consider, for example, a segment in Mass Effect where the player must choose to kill off a potentially dangerous alien species or risk humanity by letting the aliens live. It’s a great dilemma, but in a system where players know to strive for good or evil the decision becomes a lot easier. The player no longer has to weigh the consequences (there aren’t any, but more on that in a moment) because the decision lies solely in whether there are Paragon or Renegade points to be gained.

A necessary ingredient for successfully removing moral gauges is gray area. The more ambiguous a dilemma is, the harder the choice will be for players — unless there’s a convenient meter that reads their decision back as data, undermining the choice’s unknowns.

So without moral gauges, how will players know the consequences of their actions? By putting actual consequences into the game, of course (and I’m not the first to argue this). Fallout 3 does change the world somewhat to fit the player character’s personality, which makes it all the more strange that a Karma meter still exists. Once this crutch is removed, decision-making in video games will be a Hell of a lot more interesting.

Newman | No Comments »

In most video games, death is inevitable. It’s often the penalty for failure, and on fewer occasions a plot device meant to pull your heart strings.

But, purely in terms of compelling narrative, does it work?

My former colleagues at The Game Reviews, Joe DeLia and Sinan Kubba, were kind enough to have me on their Big Red Potion podcast to discuss the matter. It was a free-wheeling, enjoyable conversation, and it’s up now for your listening pleasure. You can listen to our particular joint, download the MP3 version or subscribe to future episodes.

Be warned, though, the podcast is chock-full of spoilers — bound to happen when you’re talking about the climactic moments in Fallout 3, Final Fantasy VII, Madworld and so many others.

It was my first podcast, and I had a great time. Hopefully I’ll be back in the future to discuss something less morbid.

Newman | No Comments »

It’s been a while since I’ve done this, because my day-to-day writings on the big picture aspects of gaming don’t allow for it. But Windosill, Vectorpark’s dreamy indie Flash puzzler, begs for it.

If you haven’t, try the free version, then splurge on the $3 full edition, if only because its a cause worth supporting. Here’s your SPOILER warning, because I’m going to talk about the game in its entirety.

When I first reached the climax of the adventure, I mistakenly took it for the ending. Having successfully navigated every level — pulling, shaking and clicking on abstract creatures and fluid objects to coax out a small white cube, which acts as a key of sorts — the rolling cart that I’d pushed through each environment begins its journey up a spiraling coliseum. Eventually, the track runs out, and the cart stalls at the end of the path, yearning to drive further towards the night sky.

I took this to be a statement. Frustrated relationship, perhaps? Minutes ago, I was opening doors and enabling elaborate Rube Goldberg devices. Before that, I was manipulating the orbit of planets, and earlier still, fooling giant creatures into letting my cart pass by. Now, the path ends, and there are no more objects to manipulate. I tried to do handstands for you, so to speak, for nothing.

But that was incorrect. Faintly, a cluster of stars brighten in the sky. Click them, and the path extends on traces of white. Keep going, and the cart disappears into the background. A minute later, after clicking on a series of beautiful constellations, the cart reappears, but not as it was. Like the other shapes in the sky, this once grounded cart rolls freely in place, memorialized.

Ah yes, it’s the human life cycle. Let’s backtrack.

Windosill begins in a dark room, a faintly lit bulb the only hint of progress. Click on it, and the room lights up, revealing all the game’s major players. The cart is there, and so is the cube that’s needed to pass through to the next area. Objects of varying shapes and sizes also appear in this room, but in separate compartments. The player’s cart can’t interact with them because they’re walled off.

This changes over the course of the game. The objects witnessed in that first room reappear, but they also evolve. Their appearances change, but so do their interactions with the player. The goal of passing a cube through a slot in a door becomes more complicated, and requires the interactions of these supporting characters.

In other words, you’re growing up, and the world as you see it is not as simple as it once was.

The conclusion, of course, is death. The cart disappears into the unknown, but there’s an upshot: In the sky, you can still catch a glimpse of it. Memory lives on. The End.

To be frank, I liked the first reading better, and I wouldn’t have minded if Windosill ended in that perpetual state of trying to climb higher. But the opportunity for reflection is welcome. $3 well spent.

Theory, Indies | No Comments »

Here’s a great piece by The Cut Scene’s Ben Fritz on why The NPD Group should start keeping tabs on downloadable content.

Journalists regard NPD as the ultimate authority on video game sales in the states, but right now the market research group doesn’t track the popularity of paid downloadable content. This is an aspect of the games industry that’s exploding this year — major releases like Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto IV and Call of Duty: World at War were all given fresh life with new missions and maps — but we only have a vague idea of how successful they are.

Publishers will sometimes boast of superior sales, but typically they guard the hard data. There’s no standard metric of how lucrative this trend is overall.

In a sense, this is just a matter of satisfying the curiosity of journalists, analysts and shareholders; if downloadable content isn’t doing well, we won’t see as much of it. But hey, the groups of people I just mentioned above isn’t insignificant. If publishers and console makers are willing to use NPD data for bragging rights, why stop at boxed content?

Business | No Comments »

I have seen my share of video game boobs, uncovered, and they are polygonal.

The last time I witnessed bare female flesh in a video game was during Afro Samurai, a game that’s saturated with enough “not for kids” content that I chalked it up as par for the course and continued dismembering near-helpless foes. Don Reisinger, on the other hand, came across a pair in his playthrough of The Godfather II, and he’s pissed.

Am I pissed that he’s pissed? No, because his concern is valid: Shouldn’t this game be rated Adults Only? After all, AO games are described as “prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity,” while the slightly more tolerable Mature games are marked by “intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language.” The addition of content descriptors on the back of the box, including one for nudity, did little to placate Reisinger.

So he took his questions to the ESRB. In short, they blew him off, something to the effect of “Get bent, our ratings are fine,” to paraphrase, of course. What Reisinger didn’t mention is the unspoken subtext: “We won’t rate anything short of Manhunt as Adults Only because console manufacturers won’t support it and retailers won’t sell it. Kind of like NC-17 films.” Why raise a stink over a pair of breasts, right?

I haven’t played Godfather II, so I don’t know if what Reisinger saw qualifies as prolonged nudity or the kind of brief encounter that would fly in a coarse R-rated flick. Trouble is, if the ESRB had a problem with the boobs, covering them up would be the only way out. Tone it down or the game dies.

Reisinger thinks the boobs didn’t belong in Godfather II to begin with, but that’s beside the point. The important thing is for naked humans to have a place in video games, safe from censorship. If it takes a notch up to Adults Only, so be it. Too bad the games industry won’t allow it.

Politics, Sex | No Comments »

Today’s newsletter from gamesindustry.biz is a scathing attack on game journalism, particularly as it exists on the Web. The so-called “specialist media” (what happened to “enthusiast press?”) stands accused of fueling rumors and speculation over the big reveals that may or may not happen at game conferences, in this case Game Developers Conference. Here’s the meat:

The reason for this constant cycle of rumour, expectation and disappointment - whose ultimate result is to create a large population of embittered, annoyed consumers, something which isn’t good for anyone in the business - lies in the continuing debasement of the games media itself. Blogs, podcasts and news sites can huff and puff as much as they want about GDC (or any other show) being “disappointing” - the reality is that it’s the writers themselves, through their credulity and unprofessionalism, who have created the false expectations which lead to such disappointment.

Even though the argument lacks the hard evidence that would really make for the best indictment, I’m on board with the sentiment. But what’s really troubling is how the essay charges full steam ahead at the games press for rumor mongering without assigning any of the blame elsewhere.

The article proceeds to argue that the problem goes far beyond GDC, blaming the media for creating a cycle of rumors without doing the proper legwork. “Instead, a culture where being first is vastly more important than being accurate has flourished, with writers desperate for “exclusives” converting wild rumours and speculations from forums like NeoGAF or GameFAQs into news stories in a matter of minutes,” it reads.

I’ve been at the low end of the totem pole, clawing at those kinds of stories, and it stinks, but it’s perpetuated by the feedback that comes with it, not by the press alone. Tasty rumors translate to more pageviews, which turn into more ad revenue, which result in higher bonuses for the writers, which starts the cycle anew. Certainly, journalists are to blame. So are the readers, who gobble up these stories, and the advertisers, who are often game publishers. Damaging as these thin journalistic fibers may be, the advertisers have no qualms shelling out the extra cash when the hits come rolling in. It’s a cycle that can’t be broken because it relies on all three sides to do their part. And let’s face it, that’s not happening.

So when I get to the article’s conclusion, where it laments the lack of “any real investigative, well-researched work,” it seems a bit like bitter finger-pointing instead of a constructive essay on how to end the rumor cycle for good.

Media, Rants | 1 Comment »

Yes, yes, I joined the Twitter trend, way late. Check out my page. At least I bought a netbook before everyone and their mother started doing it.

Though I can’t resist the occasional snarky remark, I’m trying to do some fun stuff there, like 140-character game reviews and the return of Random Game Idea in bite-size form.

In other news, it came to my attention that a cadre of real estate Web sites were using my blog as a sort of SEO backdoor. I don’t know how they did it, but after a little snooping I found a directory full of bogus blogs, hosted on my domain name, in my /blog directory. Now that they’re all vanquished, we’ll see how my traffic figures plummet. For good measure I changed my FTP password. You can’t game the gamer, pal!

Newman, Random Game Idea | 2 Comments »