DITCHWALK – Page 67 – A Road Less Traveled

Space Cadet

March 12, 2003 By Mark Leave a Comment

Space Cadet
During a bit of down time on the road last week I opened my notebook to play a meaningless game of whatever had come with XP Pro. Not being much in a card-playing mood I was pleased to find a pinball game called Space Cadet on my machine, which I immediately launched.

After playing the game for a while I began to feel an odd kind of deja vu, as if I’d played that table before. I discounted the possibility for a while, until I noticed, down by the left flipper, the name of the developer: Cinematronics.

Cinematronics was the second company I worked for, and my first gig as a design consultant. Among the projects I reviewed for them was Full-Tilt Pinball, which contained three pinball games, one of which was – yes – Space Cadet. (Had I known how apropos that name would become years hence, I would have suggested they change it.)

No matter how slight my contribution, it was a really good feeling to see that old game still in literal play, and for a very real moment I felt good about my job in a way I rarely do. Had I been a lesser sort (you know who you are) I would have looked up the latest sales figures for WinXP, then relentlessly promoted myself as having been the design consultant on a title that shipped x million copies. Instead, I’m simply proud to report that I responded like a gamer. I set the high score as high as I could, then I kept going back to beat it.

Speaking of which…

— Mark Barrett

GDC 2003

March 6, 2003 By Mark Leave a Comment

GDC 2003
My annual pilgrimage to the West Coast begins in a few days, and as usual I’m ambivalent about leaving. Past experience, however, clearly shows that once I’ve arrived I’ll be glad I made the trip. The power-ups of camaraderie and intellectual discourse that one finds almost littering the convention floor always restore my interactive entertainment morale.

As for my objectives, each year I try to have an overarching goal in mind, and this year that objective is to move past teaching and involve myself even more in the process of making games. Between the explosion of interest in the games biz from academic circles – little of which is focused on, or will ultimately yield, anything of practical use – and a disheartening freelance experience I recently had with a division of Microsoft, I am wondering if we will ever truly move past old arguments about the tantalizing but unattainable possibilities that originally drew many of us to this business.

While it’s to be expected that newbies will need to be educated on the state of the art, many newbies who come to the games biz do so with their own intellectual stamps of approval, making them less inclined to pay their dues or learn the ropes. While I don’t begrudge people their bushy-tailed energy or their bright ideas, and I support anyone who has done their homework and truly believes in their vision, I just don’t have the energy to fight the tide of ignorance anymore.

If there’s a silver lining in all this it’s that I now know why I felt no desire to submit my roundtable abstract for the GDC this year. Whereas before I felt it important to evangelize as much as possible about the craft of interactive entertainment, I no longer believe that one voice – or even a hundred voices – can prevent people from wasting time and money on these naive pursuits each year.

None of which should dissuade you from contacting me if you have a question about the games biz, or about interactive entertainment design. I’m still committed to education: I’m just not trying to save anyone from themselves anymore.

— Mark Barrett

IGDA Nominations for Excellence in Writing

March 1, 2003 By Mark Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago nominations for the 2003 Game Developers Choice Awards were announced, including nominations in the new writing category. The writing nominees are:

My first thought on reading this list was that I was pleased the nominations were for games that many people currently consider the best of the best. I think it’s critically important that writing be seen as a vital component of successful interactive works, not as the antiquated skill it’s often made out to be by tech-biased members of the community. While excellent writing in otherwise failed products should certainly be recognized as well, from a purely political point of view this inaugural list convincingly makes the point that writing matters.

Oddly enough I also found myself pleased that I didn’t personally know any of the individuals who were nominated. The quickest way to demonstrate how important writing is, and how important writers and writing can be to successful design, is to make sure that recognition is distributed across the industry as a whole. My friends and peers already get it, and it’s reassuring to see that the same holds true in other development circles.

My only negative take involved the fact that although there is now a separate writing category, at least some of these nominations – for example that of the ‘GTA Team’ – could be due more to the game’s design than to specific knowledge of how writers or writing actually shaped the final product. (In an earlier post I noted that nominations and votes would be based on the final product, meaning no one would really know who actually did what on a given project.) While I think that’s a fair criticism, I also think it misses the big picture. From here on out, writing isn’t going to be assumed to be design: instead, it’s going to be discussed as a distinct part of product development. And that’s a sea change in this industry.

— Mark Barrett

Dodging Bullets

December 31, 2002 By Mark Leave a Comment

Regarding my previous concern about a public relations nightmare arising from the D.C. sniper killings (see previous posts here and here), while there has been little fallout against our industry so far, I’m still on the fence as to why that may be. It’s entirely possible that there is no evidence that the killers were fans of sniping simulations, which would mean that our industry’s insistence on ignoring all social concerns until cornered by Congress has been the right tack. On the other hand, the current silence may only be the calm before the courtroom storm, meaning our instinct to deny could be working against our own best interests. Because a comprehensive gag order was draped over this case shortly after the two suspects were apprehended, we don’t really know whether either of them were fans of violent entertainment of any kind.

It still seems to me that a savvy, cutting-edge industry would be proactive when threatened with scapegoating of this magnitude, but I’m going to let that go for the moment. For the sake of argument let’s say that no violent software turned up on any computers the suspects may have owned or used, and let’s say the suspects themselves aren’t claiming that GTA III made them do it. Aren’t we in the clear then, at least this time?

My answer is no, and here’s why. [ Read more ]

Terrorism and the 1st Amendment

December 21, 2002 By Mark Leave a Comment

If the events of 9/11 are destined to influence the gaming community beyond eliminating the World Trade Center from views of the Manhattan skyline, an article entitled Solider of Intifada in the January, 2003 issue of Computer Gaming World (p.36) may suggest how. The article contrasts the release of a Syrian shooter called Under Ash, in which the player adopts the role of a 19-year-old Palestinian refuge, with the recent release of America’s Army, a shooter distributed free by the U.S. Army as part of its recruitment efforts.

While the piece deals squarely and fairly with how point of view determines whether content is patriotic or propagandistic, the article also suggests a more pressing and practical problem for our industry. Specifically, could the federal government deny Americans the right to own or play Under Ash, and/or arrest or detain individuals who chose to do so? Currently a great deal of latitude is being given to law enforcement efforts to combat terrorism, and it seems a real possibility that a violent game produced by Islamic developers might easily fall under someone’s definition of ‘terrorist activity’.

That this could be the tip of a Constitutional iceberg is obvious, because if the federal government can suppress one title, there may be attempts to suppress others, even if those titles haven’t been produced by enemies of the state. And for politicians already on the record as opposed to violent games, what better way to proceed than by reframing their social agendas as patriotism?

Even if no legislation is ever passed prohibiting certain products in the United States, quasi-governmental accusations or the threat of litigation could still have a chilling effect on developers and publishers of controversial titles. Will we see publishers and developers self-censoring content for fear of being labeled un-American? (If this seems far-fetched, read up on McCarthyism, then watch some of the jingoistic movies produced during that period.) And how might such a politically-charged marketplace affect the growing trend of developers openly supporting mod communities? While Quake III isn’t a game about terrorism, is that distinction going to be apparent to the average citizen if Congress trots out a total conversion in which the goal is mowing down likenesses of real Senators and Representatives before dispatching a likeness of the current president?

I don’t know how this will all play out, but my guess is that someone will take a run at using 9/11 for political gain at our industry’s expense. Although I have criticized our industry’s timidity in confronting scapegoating (see the section above), the risks associated with defending free access to a title like Under Ash are considerable, and probably prohibitive for individuals or groups who want to market product in the U.S. Ironically, it may be the release of America’s Army, along with other violent patriotic and nationalistic titles, that prevents those bent on social engineering from getting completely out of hand.

— Mark Barrett

Accepting Responsibility

December 17, 2002 By Mark Leave a Comment

Earlier this year (see And the Winner Is), I argued that it was wrong for the Game Developers Choice Awards to lump writing into the Game Design category. A number of others must have made similar arguments, because a few months ago writers were indeed given their own award category. (Nominations will be taken for the 2003 awards beginning 1/03/03. See the Choice Awards page for details.) To those who voted for the new category, and to those taking on the workload of administering the award, belated sincere thanks.

I chose not to comment on the announcement of the new writing award previously because I felt that the inclusion of a writing category simply corrected an oversight. Now, however, I think something more needs to be said. While the importance of the award probably cannot be overstated, both because it raises visibility to the value of writing as a production craft, and gives credibility to the idea that writing can be an important component of the development process, this elevation in development status comes with a price.

Over the past decade or so, there have been several periods in which writers, critics and gurus from other storytelling mediums have forayed into the interactive entertainment market, often with the goal of showing us ‘how it’s done’. In a matter of a year or two these know-it-alls usually fell by the wayside, battered and bruised by the difficulties and complexities of our new form, but the residue of their visits remained.

Chief among the problems created by these people was the impression among industry professionals that storytellers were idiots, and that the gaming business didn’t need writers any more than it needed sleep, exercise or vegetables. As this new writing award attests, times have certainly changed, but the potential for unprepared writers to do damage is still with us, and will only increase as more developers turn to professional storytellers for help. Why? Because as demand increases more writers are going to enter the pipeline, with many (if not most) of them naive to the issues that separate our form from passive storytelling mediums.

If an award for writing is deserved, and I believe it is, such recognition is in large part due to the work of writers and storytellers who proved to be reliable, knowledgeable and professional in their dealings with the interactive industry. As a measure of thanks, and with the intent of improving the writer’s lot in this business over the long haul, I encourage writers to accept individual responsibility for learning the interactive form, and I intend to continue to support those interested in doing so.

— Mark Barrett

Taking a Deep Breath

December 8, 2002 By Mark 1 Comment

After four years in my current house it became clear that my kitchen was the weak link in what was otherwise a thoroughly enjoyable home. Not only was the decor too dark for a northern room (including burgundy carpet on the floor, if you can believe it), but there were three open doorways that couldn’t be closed to reduce noise, or to help zone heat in the winter.

To rectify these and other problems, at the beginning of this year I undertook the design of a complete remodel to be implemented in late fall, and I began freeing up time from work to allow me to participate in several facets of the project. Now, as the year comes to a close and the project nears a successful completion, I find myself looking forward to a lot of good cooking, and back on a lesson learned. [ Read more ]

In the Cross Hairs

October 22, 2002 By Mark 1 Comment

A few days ago I suggested that we as an industry might do well to get ahead of attempts to blame our entertainment medium for the deranged sniper homicides near Washington, D.C. While I’ve only heard speculative mention of any possible association between those killings and the sniping simulations on the market (see partial list in previous post), I wasn’t at all surprised to open my Gannett-affiliated local newspaper yesterday and find an article entitled “Sniper deaths stir video-game violence debate.”

The game primarily targeted in the article was Konami’s PS2 title Silent Scope 3 (SS3), which carries a ‘Mature’ ESRB rating. The ‘Teen’ rated Silent Scope, “a less sophisticated version,” was also noted as being available for GBA. Leaving aside the question of what actually makes SS3 more “sophisticated,” the article clearly intended to establish that not only are there sniper simulations on the market, but that some of them are squarely aimed at kids, whom the non-gaming public assumes are the only consumers of interactive entertainment.

If there’s a wedge to get behind regarding concerns about violence and games, it seems to me that the point of that wedge might be raising the consciousness of the average consumer about the demographics of the game-playing public. While I have serious concerns about the ready availability of hardcore titles, and I’m not convinced that violent works in any medium are benign to children, I’m also concerned that the public and press don’t seem to differentiate between children and adults in their concerns.

For example, nowhere in the article is there any assertion that the sniper on the east coast is underage, yet the article only takes five sentences to get to a quote from a concerned “New York City mother of two” in a Yahoo chatroom: “These kinds of games are disgusting and shouldn’t be available to kids.” Well, I agree that some games are disgusting, and there are plenty that shouldn’t be available to children, but what does that have to do with the killings, or with the possibility that the sniper may be an adult?

Having joined the battle in predictable fashion, the article mentions a few more sniping titles, then brings in Douglas Lowenstein, president of the Interactive Digital Software Association (which may be the most redundant title I’ve ever heard in my life) for counterpoint. Dutifully championing the industry, Lowenstein scoffs at the idea that video games ever cause aggressive behavior, cites a few allies in his cause, then closes with the following: “…all repudiate claims that violent media and/or video games do not lead to aggressive behavior.”

Whether that’s a typo, or Lowenstein was misquoted or misspoke, if that’s as good as it gets then I suspect our industry is going to take a beating for the foreseeable future. If the sniper turns out to have been a devotee of one or more sniping games, I suspect there will be hell to pay.

— Mark Barrett

Sitting Ducks

October 14, 2002 By Mark 1 Comment

The recent spate of sniper killings in the northeast has unfortunately produced another line of thought on the subject of violence in computer games. Note that what follows concerns only adults and violent interactive entertainment, not children.

A few days ago I was watching one of the ubiquitous talking-head entertainment programs that passes for journalism these days, and a retired NYPD homicide detective was being asked for his take on the sniper killings. His opinion was that the sniper was different from the ‘normal’ spree or serial killer, primarily because the attacks, like the killings at Columbine, seemed to him to be part of “a game.” Before I had a chance to wonder whether he was using the term metaphorically or not, the detective asserted that the killers at Columbine had been acting out the fantasy of a computer game that they had played.

In a frozen moment I realized that while most people would be relieved when the sniper was caught, I, as a member of the interactive entertainment industry, would still be waiting apprehensively to find out if the killer’s software library included any computer games that featured sniping. Assuming for the sake of argument that I’m not the only person in the business who’s had this thought, why we aren’t getting ahead of the curve this time? [ Read more ]

To Speak or Not to Speak

August 2, 2002 By Mark Leave a Comment

For the first time since I began speaking at the GDC three years ago I let the deadline for abstracts pass without submitting my roundtable proposal. I am still not sure why I no longer have an interest in moderating roundtables on the subject of Creating Emotional Involvement in Interactive Entertainment, but I am certain that I do not. As the deadline passed a few days ago I felt nothing but relief, despite the fact that I still believe emotional involvement is the key to our industry’s long-term success.

While I hope the industry will take this objective seriously in the future, right now, in general, the status quo stills reigns. Having seen the current approach in action for the better part of a decade, I confess I do not have the conviction necessary to protest against yet another round of graphics adoration and feature masturbation. Until the money people actually demand design and storytelling competence from developers, I don’t think all the lectures and roundtables in the world are going to convince developers to improve their skills and products.

For the record the ratings I received from the attendees at my roundtables were always very high, and there were always a number of committed people who were very interested in the subject matter. Unfortunately, they weren’t the ones turning yet another five million dollar budget into a steaming pile of development waste.

— Mark Barrett