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E3 2013 – AAA games and consoles are here to stay

June 16, 2013 By zegerman1942 Leave a Comment

There have been several high profile reports over the last 18 months or so predicting the demise of the games console, the death of AAA development. Nobody is probably more outspoken about this than Ben Cousins.

If you listen to the talk by Ben Cousins linked above, which is very well presented and definitely worth checking out, you find the main argument of those who predict the decline and even death of the console market: disruptive technology. New, innovative tech catches large companies off guard and those companies fail due to their inability to adapt.

This, combined with a change in gaming habit by the consumer, people like Ben Cousins believe, will herald the doom of the console market. Or at least shrink it considerably.

On one hand I have to agree with this theory for large parts. My own gaming habits have changed drastically over the last 15 years. Until the 360 came out I never owned a console. I was a hardcore PC gamer. The 360 taught me that gaming from the sofa, or my beloved beanbag, is much more comfortable and much more agreeable with my love for drinking beer and having a snack while gaming. These days I rarely play anything on the PC – Blizzard games being the exception, and even those are coming to console soon.

Additionally to that in the last few years I have really gotten into mobile gaming on the go. Whether its Candy Crush or Bejeweled Blitz on my mobile or Hunters and Warhammer Quest on my tablet – I love my bite size chunks of entertainment wherever I go.

So yes mobile gaming is on the rise, there is no doubt about that. It is also easy to see why the numbers have grown so much over the last decade. Phones are getting smarter, able to run more apps and games and more people are in possession of a smart phone or even tablet. People, who never had a gaming platform in their hands before, suddenly do. And because the games industry creates a vast variety of titles, there literally is a game for everyone. So it is no wonder that titles like Angry Birds download 500 million times.

Considering there are around 180 million smart phones and close to 50 million tablets in the US alone these huge download numbers for some apps and games are not surprising at all.

But does this truly mean that gaming consoles will go the way of the horse carriage, as Ben Cousins and others seem to predict?

My humble opinion: no, I don’t think so. At least not in the foreseeable future, the next gen cycle, and possibly not even after that. I don’t even think that sales numbers will decrease compared to the last generation of consoles. A recent dip, something featured as a big argument by many doomsayers, is down to a market saturation i believe and not to a waning interest.

I have just been to E3 where both new consoles were properly revealed to the world and the biggest releases as well as first year titles were announced. And while this is just one show, to me it really signifies the force that console gaming and AAA gaming really is. E3 had an arcade and indie section, E3 had several PSN and XBLA titles on show, but 95% of the coverage, media as well as consumer interest were focused on the Xbox One as well as the PS4 and a handful of high profile AAA titles.

In 3 days I never really saw any lines in the indie segment, few journalists did interviews or write-ups on them, yet every day at 10am, when the show opened, massive lines formed within minutes outside games such as Assassins Creed, Watchdogs, Titanfall, Battlefield, The Division, Call of Duty, Mad Max, Wolfenstein, Forza, Halo and others.

For an entire week now, and likely to continue for some time, the entire games media has been awash with news about the new consoles and the new high profile titles.

The official Titanfall E3 announce trailer has gotten 160.000 views in 4 days (not counted are several different links showing the same trailer, so the total number of people having seen this since the 10^th of June is significantly higher). The same is true for the Forza 5 trailer – the official link is sitting at 215.000 and counting.

Very few, if any, mobile games reach those numbers, that kind of exposure and that kind of excitement. Arguable one of the best recent iOS games, Warhammer Quest (sitting at 80 metacritic), has had around 37.000 views on the gameplay trailer since end of May. And this despite the fact that the potential audience (as established above) is several times that of the console market.

So why is there such a big difference in hype, marketing and user excitement between mobile and console games?

I believe the reason here is 2 fold: glamour and experience.

High profile games titles, developed for consoles, are the movie stars of our industry (as are some of the people who make those games). Looking at the spectacle that is E3, the media buzz, the people queuing to the see the latest gadgets, hardware and games, it feels like our industry’s version of Cannes or the Oscars. The big names show up and show their latest creations, high profile, high budget productions that simply blow the fans away. And people want to be part of that. E3 shows that – thousands upon thousands of gamers from across the world fly in to mingle with their stars, to get a first glimpse of the next big thing. People from across the globe stay up until the wee hours of the morning to watch the conferences on the Monday night, the social media outlets are awash with updates, comments, taunts and sneers. People want to be part of this spectacle, this glamorous experience – they want to be able to say I WAS THERE!

But E3 aside, I believe people want to buy consoles and console games for the experience. They want to put in that disc for the latest game, sit back and watch it play out on the big screen. Take “The Last of Us” – if you use twitter or Facebook, have a look at how many of the people in your social networks tweeted about that game in the last few days (keeping in mind it’s only been out since the 11th of June). Gamers WANT these amazing games in their hands on day one, preferably before. They want the experience these games give them and then they want to talk about it, to tell everyone that THEY WERE THERE!

Just like attending a movie premiere or a concert, people want to be associated with cool events, big moments in entertainment history – simple for the experience and for the bragging rights.

This is not a knock at all on mobile games. As mentioned above I play a fair few of them, I also play a fair few F2P or Cheap to Play titles. Some of them are amazing experiences and more than one has kept me entertained on long flights, train journeys or when a visit to my parents became a bit dull. In the vast sea of mobile, social, casual and F2P games there are quite a few real gems, offering fantastic entertainment, innovative gameplay and high production value on several platforms.

But to me, and many others, nothing beats getting a brand new copy of a console title, tearing off the wrapping, putting the disc in and letting the experience wash over me.

Disruptive innovation is a sound theory, and I believe it’s more than that – it’s a proven fact. However I believe there will always be anomalies and I believe consoles as well as large AAA titles will prove to be such an anomaly.

Youtube and other media outlets provide bite size chunks of video entertainment, and nobody can argue their popularity, yet the cinema is still around and blockbuster movies cash in hundreds of millions of dollars. There is something special about going to the cinema, seeing it on the big screen while eating popcorn.

Spotify and other music outlets have changed how we consume music on a day to day basis. Yet big bands will always have sold out concerts. Audio quality can often be worse than a digital recording, but being close to your idols, to a band you have been following for years and being in a sea of people dancing, singing, sweating and spilling beer everywhere is an experience Spotify will never be able to provide.

Not everyone can afford, or wants to afford, cinema tickets, gig tickets, consoles or AAA titles. The reach of the new, innovative media and technology is far greater and these new systems are far more affordable. However there will always be plenty of people who will be more than happy to spend a bit more to get the big experience and to take part in the glamour of high profile entertainment.

E3 2013 has shown that once again.

Filed Under: GAMES INDUSTRY Tagged With: AAA Games, Ben Cousins, disruptive innovation, E3, F2P, Forza 5, games industry, Hunters, iOS games, mobile games, PS4, social games, Titanfall, Warhammer Quest, Xbox One

A small update

June 5, 2013 By zegerman1942 Leave a Comment

As some of you might have noticed, the presentation of this site has changed – hopefully for the better (feel free to comment and give feedback).

I have also updated the “About” section of the site, to reflect the recent change in content, and hopefully clarify some questions.

I would also like to take this time to encourage industry people to get in touch if they want to use this site to write guest contributions. These can range from a lecture/instructional format to general opinion posts (and of course can include reviews of games and movies you have not played or seen!). Feel like you have a completely different view than someone posting an entry on here? Write about it and publish it on here.

This is an experiment of sorts. This is not my personal, private, opinion board. I would like to make this a semi-public board of opinion and discourse. Where issues can be debated, everyone’s voice can be heard and different opinions can be expressed.

If you are interested in posting a blog about a topic, share knowledge, or simply get something of your chest, then get in touch. There is only 1 condition: you need to work in the industry or related field. If that is the case, i will gladly give you contributor rights.

You don’t have to worry about costs of maintaining your own blog and domain, you can simply contribute here.

In the meantime, i am off to E3 next week, so there will be a bit of a break in the weekly contributions, but expect publications to resume shortly after!

Filed Under: GAMES INDUSTRY

Should we stop making big blockbuster titles?

June 3, 2013 By zegerman1942 Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago I blogged about designers in the industry, before that I posted about being paid to create entertainment and last week notplayed.com featured an open letter to Anita Sarkeesian. All 3 articles have some link to it and reading the comments brought me back to the question: Why DO we design games the way we do, why do we still make those big action based blockbusters?

So I thought about this for some time, particularly because I enjoy working on action based games, I enjoy working on what is commonly called a “AAA” project. And I know I am not the only one, I know entire studios are dedicated to making these types of games.

So this then is my view as to why some of the designs we currently use are tried and tested, to say the least. And also explain why that can be ok, at least in my view.

The demographics conundrum

The above is a breakdown of “likes” on a Facebook page. I have seen similar (or the same) charts before, so I can vouch for its authenticity (more can be found here). It is not the actual breakdown of Call of Duty players (though one can assume it is very similar), since Activision has not, to my knowledge, released the actual figures. The bar goes from age 13 on the top to age 65+ at the bottom. This graph is probably also the reason why Activision does not publish numbers, since the graph begins to spike in the 15 to 17 age range. For an 18 rated game that’s not so good, though hardly surprising.

Call of Duty 4 (Modern Warfare) went on to sell 16 million copies. Subsequent releases in the franchise have broken through the 20 million barrier and Modern Warfare 3 is, currently, sitting at over 26 million sold.

This seems like a huge number, and it certainly is a massive financial success, but considering that in total we are looking at about 150 million consoles of the current generation on the market and the fact that Call of Duty additionally releases on PC, this represents a fraction of the potential market.

The biggest success in the games industry is reaching (according to my estimates, factoring in PC gamers) about 10% of the total gaming force out there.

Call of Duty is a very specialized game. Iteration after iteration delivers exactly the same, with little to no actual innovation (I know people will have their own thoughts on this). The “movie” moments might get bigger, the cut scenes flashier, but when broken down into its components, the core game mechanics, it is exactly the same game. Not only that, it is squarely aimed at the 14 to 22 year old male crowd. And it sells more than any other video game; it sells more than many other video games combined.

And this is the conundrum: Why should Activision change what they deliver and who they aim to, when the market clearly wants what they deliver? And also if that is what Infinity Ward want to create?

There are 2 lines of thinking:

Developers need to make different games in order to show customers what games can and should do, and customers will come around and demand different products.
Customers should stop buying games like Call of Duty and start buying games like Journey to signal to developers that they are tired of the same old FPS deluge.

In my opinion neither line of thinking works. Both have been tried.

Developers do make different games. They are critically acclaimed. They cater to a much higher base demographic (i.e. not just 14 to 22 year old males), yet fail to reach numbers anywhere near the Call of Duties. In a lot of cases they fail to break even.

Journey was as critically acclaimed as it gets, securing several awards and breaking sales on the PSN. Yet despite there being 77 million PS3s out there, being exclusive to one console almost bankrupted the company that made it. There are no official sales numbers released, but the game cost a few million dollars to make and Chen speculated that it might not return a profit.

Now some might argue that Journey is not for everyone, not everyone likes the style, art direction or game-play. But that’s precisely my point. It is one of many games catering to a more diverse crowd, giving customers variety.

Call of Duty is VERY narrow with their demographic. Male, 14 to 22 – that is their core. Journey arguably covers that and then some.

A similar example would be Mirror’s Edge. A truly innovative game from DICE a few years back. Female protagonist, 1^st person parkour game with a refreshing art style. A complete break of form from DICE at the time, well received internationally.

Again, it was aimed at a much wider demographic and, being multiplatform, a title like this should be able to compete with the numbers of a Call of Duty, Battlefield or Grand Theft Auto. Yet it barely shifted 2 million units and a sequel has been on hold ever since.

Developers and Publishers try to bring out new IPs, they try to be innovative and they try to hit larger demographics. But the truth is: consumers rarely, if ever, respond to it. New, and different games might well bring new people into the gamer fold (as did the Wii and as do mobile platforms), but the bulk of the console and PC market sticks with what they know and like.

I believe that consumers, the majority of consumers, do not ask for new and innovative games, pushing narrative into a new direction, creating a larger variety of characters. The majority of consumers are happy with the same kind of games being delivered to them – as long as they have bigger explosions and better graphics.

Developers and Publishers do sometimes try to introduce new stuff, in the hopes the can change the consumers mind and also in the hopes to broaden their customer base, but they can do that only so long, before money becomes an issue.

Money

So money is really what it all comes down to. Games are art. I firmly believe in that. I can’t think of a single games designer (not even the bad ones) that does not want to push the boundary, do something new, try something different and tell a story their own way. We all have a creative drive to bring our vision to life.

But then there is also reality. And reality is that (with a few exceptions) it takes more than one person to make a game. And, with the exception of those working at home in a basement or in their parents’ house, companies form and companies cost money. Individuals have bills to pay, families to support.

It is easy to sit on the high horse and talk about change we need to make as an industry, complain about how games are made or how old fashioned and narrow minded we are when creating narrative. But consider all those people employed to make games. If they don’t make games people want to buy, we end up on the street (and nobody can argue the horrendous rate of studio closures and waves of redundancies, usually a few weeks or months after a game launches). This is something that can’t be forgotten. At the end of the day everyone working in the industry wants to make great games, entertain people and be creative – but in most cases this requires a company environment, someone to keep the lights on, the computers humming and someone to sign the pay slips. Without that no continued game development is possible.

This does not mean we are all selling our souls away to create games we don’t want to make, not all of us anyway. Many of us actually enjoy creating AAA titles, as they are now. Pushing the boundary one character, one VO line, one art asset and one story element at a time. Additionally, thanks to great initiatives like kickstarter, a resurging of indie games and the wonderful thing of Facebook and mobile gaming, companies and projects of all sizes, content and target demographic can emerge and open new avenues for those people who don’t like AAA action titles – developers and gamers alike.

One thing remains true though: the larger the team needed to realize a certain project, the more copies need to be sold and thus a game will be geared at the right demographic to achieve that. Remember the chart is showed at the top? Not only Call of Duty is a hit with that demographic. Generally action (violence) driven games work well and sell well with the 14 to 22 year old male crowd. If you followed the link you will see other games (and movies) directed at entirely different demographics.

The biggest titles and productions will always aim to hit that sweet spot, because that is where the money is. And in almost all cases this will inevitably mean a certain restriction to creative and narrative innovation. It is not ideal, and it can be frustrating, but with productions like that, you don’t want to rock the boat. You want to stand out from the crowd, but you don’t necessarily want to stand apart.

Personally, I am not yet ready to join the growing indie crowd, start my own company and/or do a kickstarter to make a game that is truly innovative and different. Partly this might have to do with the fact that I don’t have enough experience yet, I am still learning every day, but it also has to do with the fact that I am in a good place right now, working on games I like to play myself and I get paid enough to do it. I am comfortable and I enjoy it.

And to me indie is a big risk. People like to use some of the few success stories as example. Minecraft, Angry Birds and others are often listed. But when a fantastic game like Journey struggles, what do you think happens to many, many indie developers that are not nearly as high profile as ThatGameCompany or have games which don’t have as high a critical acclaim? For every Minecraft there are literally dozens of games that don’t succeed. For every Mojang there are dozens of studios that fail. Should they not even try – no not at all, trying, pushing and being different is important!

This should not mean that people should not try to go their own way and do their own thing. Indeed it is needed to push the industry and our medium of art forward (and this is even possible to a degree within the large AAA productions). And if we push enough, if we try often enough, consumers might well eventually change their buying behavior. However I believe it will be a while before the average consumer will change their preference sufficiently so that current style of large blockbuster titles would go away.

But then again, I don’t think they need to go away. A diversity of games, content and narrative is needed, and it is already present. Right now, anyone can find a game to satisfy their needs. It’s not even that hard to find them. The important thing is that people working on games work on those games that they want to make and consumers have a choice of games that they want to play. It is also important to be tolerant of people’s desires and gaming preferences.

For any company making enough money to create a profit ALWAYS has to come first, regardless of the type of game that’s made, at least if they want to make more than 1 game. Every games company I ever worked for strived to be the best in their field, make the best game in their genre – that is natural for ambitious, creative people. But to not think about financial stability, and this means creating a profit, is reckless and unfair to those employed. Large companies and teams need multiple million copy sales. Smaller teams can go for a smaller market share. What we don’t want is artists sitting on the street with a cup asking for change.

As an industry we need to look at our costs. We need to work more efficiently, produce less throw-away work, have a clearer vision of what we want to make earlier and trust in good project management. If we bring down costs, we don’t need to sell quite as many copies and it might well be easier for us to create more “risky” titles. But cost and workflow is something for another post.

In the meantime, lets wait for E3 and see which games get voted to be winners. Lets see which games the crowds will go wild for.

Filed Under: GAMES INDUSTRY Tagged With: AAA, blockbuster, call of duty, E3, gamer demographic, games design, games industry, indie, journey, kickstarter, PSN

An Open Letter to Anita Sarkeesian

May 29, 2013 By zegerman1942 18 Comments

Ms. Sarkeesian,

This open letter is in response to your latest video, Damsel in Distress: Part 2.

As many others working in the games industry, I have watched your first video and was interested to see where you take your line of thought, addressing more recent games.

It was interesting to see which games, or rather which particular scenes from certain games, you used as examples to showcase your views, and I have to admit I was a bit shocked to see some familiar titles appear in your video.

First of all let me state that I have no doubt in my mind that sexism and violence towards women is a reality in our times. There are people in the world who do not understand that women are equal and should be treated equally in every way. I would also agree that some games can contain sexist scenes as well as violence towards women (your example of the Grand Theft Auto 3 ending was well chosen).

However as a gamer, as a developer and as a man I would like to take the time to contest some of your examples and arguments.

Violence towards women in games:

I think it is important to look at violence in video games in general, as a developer and gamer I feel we are creating too much content that relies on violence. You made a similar statement in your video and I felt that was a good point to make. We do rely on violent gameplay activities to progress the player through our narrative and our game worlds. I share your hope of things changing and broadening up and I feel the (current) indie development industry is a driving force behind this. With the recent success of some non-violent indie (and also mainstream) games, I think it will only be a matter of time before we see more of those games, catering to an ever broadening demographic.

By your own statement though, that violence is a game mechanic, I think it is worth noting that it is, for the most part, indiscriminate. Violence to women is the same as violence to men in these games. The important criterion, which I think you fail to apply, is to see if women are subjected to violence BECAUSE they are women. In my opinion the vast majority of examples you use to further your argument in this case, shows violence to a character. The antagonist does not subject the character to violence because she happens to be female, but rather because it is the role of that character, in that story, to be subjected to violence.

To me, as someone that has created characters and that is telling stories in games, the test here should be simple: can the gender of the protagonist and the person being subjected to violence be swapped. If the answer is yes, if the scene would still work with the protagonist being female and the “victim” being male, then this is not what I would consider “violence towards women”.

The difference might well be subtle to some, but it is the intent that matters. Yes there will probably be some people who interpret the scene incorrectly, but the average gamer (consumer) will not. The average consumer will see the victim as genderless, as an element in storytelling. Few people will play a videogame in which a woman is subjected to violence and walk away thinking that the intended message was “it’s ok to hurt women”.

There are plenty of games in which male characters are tortured and killed. Again, the message here is not that it’s ok to do this in real life. But it is a story telling element.

As I said previously, you are correct that violence is overused in general in games, but I contest your insinuation that depicted violence on women in games relates to gender hatred and that it is specifically constructed in such a way because the character is a woman. The link towards violence to women you make at the end of your video, is a stretch to say the least.

Damsel in distress:

The Damsel in Distress element of stories to me is quite interesting, and I can see why you picked this as your primary headline for your work. It is easy to spot in many games and so there are plenty of examples which you can use for your arguments.

However I think you do not sufficiently explain to your audience exactly why the games industry uses this particular story arc, nor do you make any concession to business model or core demographic of games, which I think is a crucial omission.

Please let me expand a little and give a, brief, explanation as to why I think games have not evolved further.

Many games in our times, in particular big blockbuster AAA games, still try to emulate and follow classic movie story telling elements. As an industry we have not evolved sufficiently to tell stories our own way, make use of our medium to the full extent (interactivity) or go our own way. There are, as you also rightly pointed out, some excellent exceptions. But as of yet, they are still exceptions. Over time, many of us in the industry hope, we will evolve and our story telling will evolve. Some companies lead the way, not only through narrative, but also through environmental story telling.

But right now, many games still suffer from being chained to traditional story telling. Many games stories, particular those of a violent nature (see my thoughts on this above), feature a protagonist and an antagonist. The protagonist needs some kind of incentive to progress through the story, to eventually face his antagonist in some shape or form.

It is a classic, tried and tested (and yes overused) method to take something the protagonist holds dear and use that as an incentive to start him or her on their journey.

In itself, this way of storytelling is not bad. Overused, sure, but not necessarily bad, and it is (or can be) gender neutral.

So why is it, we developers use a female character so often to function as the “incentive”? The answer to this is simple: core demographic.

Creating a “Damsel in Distress” has nothing to do at all with looking down on women, diminishing their worth, their role or their prowess. It has nothing to do with degrading women or sexism. It simply has to do with the fact that young men between the age of 12 and 22 are the core demographic of many games (in particular violent ones). And a young man between the age of 12 and 22 will emotionally react stronger to a female character being in “distress” than if the roles were reversed.

Now, an argument can be made towards particular character modeling and appearance of female characters, and in some cases that does suggest catering towards more erotic male fantasies, however I would also argue that this in itself is not done with a view of degrading women or open sexism. There are many games where the woman in “distress” has a normal, everyday appearance, just as her male counterpart. It all depends on setting, story and all the characters in the game.

Interpretation – a different view

As I mentioned at the start of my letter, I recognized some of the games in your video and I have played a fair few of them myself. As stated I was a bit shocked, because I failed to see sexism or stereotypes were you seem to imply they are present.

I looked at one game again in particular, Dishonored, and I compared your statement with my own experience and how I saw the scene.

Your video shows a few choice cuts and audio snippets from the game, all seemingly supporting your point of view. However I strongly feel that these were taken out of context and, combined with your comments, present a vastly different experience of what is actually intended and indeed presented in the game.

Without going into too much detail (though I would be happyto, see end of letter), I would just like to point out that the Empress to me was not a powerless woman, a victim. She was the head of a large empire, a powerful and yet benign leader. She cared deeply for her subjects and risked much to try and find a cure for the plague. At the same time she was a single mother, raising a daughter and potential heir to the throne. It took 3 powerful men and a large conspiracy to dethrone her. And the male protagonist was powerless, unable to prevent it.

This goes to show, in my opinion, that it depends on who is playing the game, how the approach a game and how they interpret a scene. It is obviously hard for me to determine just what your frame of mind was when you played Dishonored, but if you played it as part of your research, it is no stretch to imagine you were looking for scenes to support your point of view.

I believe it is easy to find sexism and mistreatment of women in games, if that is what you aim to find. But it is a different thing entirely to claim that this is intentional or desired. I would argue that a lot of thought has been put in by the developers of Dishonored to create a strong female character, yet a 5 second video clip in your presentation degenerated her to a damsel in distress begging for help.

The exact same thing is true for many of the examples you listed where a female character is sacrificed at the end of a game, or killed by the player. I have played some of these games, and again my experience was different. Rather than seeing a weak female character, I saw a strong woman who was willing to sacrifice herself to save others (sometimes the world, depending on the game). This story arc was used very successfully in 2 Star Trek movies. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Both scenes were incredibly emotional. And I would neither call Spock (Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan) or Kirk (Star Trek: Into Darkness) weak characters.

Out of context, without looking at the entire story, the development of a character and the outcome of a game, it is easy to pick scenes and claim foul play. But when experienced as a whole, the interpretation can look vastly different.

Japanese (Asian) games:

The last major point of contention I would like to address in this letter is your mixed use of Japanese (Asian) games in the same space as western games. I feel this does neither culture any service. It has long been established that Japanese (Asian) pop culture has distinct differences to western pop culture. Game content as well as actual game play often are vastly different, as is characterization.

There is no doubt that, from a western standard point of view, many Japanese (Asian) games can be seen as sexist and that they contain female stereotypes. Female characters often wear skimpy outfits and are definitely portrayed as damsels in distress or objects of desire (lust).

I would caution in using them as examples however, because of the difference in culture. What we might well find to be questionable content is perfectly acceptable by their cultural standards (for example I don’t think you would find a “used panties” vending machine in the streets of London).

I don’t think anyone should be the judge of an entire culture, nor necessarily does anyone have a right to call for a change, other than someone coming from and living in that particular culture.

What would be good, I feel, would be one part (or several) of your series dedicated to Japanese (Asian) games to highlight the difference. Although, this might well reduce the overall material you can draw examples from, and highlight that western games development has moved on substantially since the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Summary:

Ms. Sarkeesian, while I very much appreciate the time and effort you have put into drawing attention to storytelling and characterization in games, as well as sparking a much needed debate on the subject, I feel the examples and arguments you have produced in the first 2 videos is far from ideal. The games industry needs to mature, no doubt. We need to broaden our horizon, address important issues and use our medium to the fullest extent possible. But I feel your portrayal of games is very one sided and highly inaccurate.

It is my opinion that you take too much content out of context and present the material in such a way to support your arguments and views. In my opinion your agenda dictates your approach to games and your interpretation of a character or scene. You leave no room for an alternate view, and (one or 2 comments made in passing aside), you do not give the developers the benefit of the doubt, nor do you give them time or space to express their views and arguments.

While watching your videos it feels like you made your mind up before you even picked up a controller. Obviously, this is an assumption on my part, but this is substantiated by a distinct lack of positive examples. In your last video you named 3 indie games as positive examples vs. dozens of titles in the negative. Considering the vast amount of games coming out each year on a lot of different platforms, I would think that giving equal time to positive and negative examples would be easy enough. I feel this would also give your arguments more weight and actually facilitate the change in game development you obviously want to see.

The current videos do little to sway minds I think. They cater and speak for those whose opinion and views are already aligned with your own. They vindicate those who feel the same way you do. But, again in my opinion, do not present arguments well enough to sway the minds of those who sit on the fence and are undecided.

Your videos certainly spark debate, and that is never a bad thing. It is a shame though that you yourself do not participate in that debate. I would be delighted to discuss the points I made above and elaborate. I would also be happy to expand on the Dishonored example I gave above, discussing with you other games we both have played and find out what we saw differently, and (most importantly) why we saw things differently.

This is an open invitation to you, Ms Sarkeesian, feel free to contact me via this site, leave comments or even organize a public debate at a games conference.

In my opinion games are entertainment, and while they do represent a reflection of society to a degree, i do not think that games should be seen to form society. Games and other media can not be held accountable for people’s actions. If this was the case we would to look at more than “just” sexism. We would need to look at how violent games could, after all, be responsible for the actions of some individuals going on killing sprees. In my opinion it is the responsibility of parents, education and society as a whole to educate young people in treating everyone equal. Games should be seen as an entertainment, a diversion, they should not be linked to real world behavior or used as an excuse for anti-social behavior. This does not mean the industry should have no standards, or has no reason to change and mature, but at the same time the industry should not be held accountable if someone thinks it’s ok to punch a woman, just because he/she saw that in a game.

In the meantime, let me wish you all the best with your future videos. I will most certainly be watching them and I am looking forward to future lively discussions and debates with my colleagues and friends.

Respectfully,

ZeGerman1942

NOTE: as mentioned in the letter I welcome debate and discussion. Feel free to comment below with your views and replies. I will “approve” every comment, however I will not tolerate any hateful comments or threats directed at Ms. Sarkeesian (those directed at me are fine of course)

Filed Under: GAMES INDUSTRY Tagged With: anita sarkeesian, damsel in distress, feminist frequency, game development, games industry, sexism, tropes vs. women

Sexism in the media

May 20, 2013 By zegerman1942 Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago I blogged about women in the games industry. The article was mostly about the number of women in the industry, hiring and sexual harassment.

It’s been a hot topic recently and I wanted to share my thoughts on the subject. Another hot topic in the last months has been sexism depicted in the media we work with. How women are portrayed in games but not only that, I have also noticed a rise in articles, blogs, Facebook campaigns and similar on sexism in the media in general. Films, TV shows and in particular in advertisement.

I was thinking a bit about writing about this topic, because stating an opinion, which might go against the current outcry for feminism and the crusade against what I think, is, in many cases, perceived sexism, means sticking my head above the sand. The opinion I have is shared by quite a few people I know (I think I stated before that most men are actually not chauvinist pigs). Few however will actually voice their opinion. Either because they simply can’t be bothered, or they have feminist friends and co-workers who they rather not antagonize.

But then I saw 2 things today, which prompted me to share my thoughts anyway. That’s the great thing about the internet and about living in western society – freedom to have an opinion and to express it. And if the radical feminists can do it, then I think many of us “moderate” men should do the same.

Sexism in Advertisement

This is what I saw when walking through my town today:

These are 2 adverts for Subways. One reads, roughly translated, “Go your own way”, the other slogan reads “it’s the details that make the difference”.

The spray painting over the ads read “No sexist shit, thanks”, the second one just reads “No thanks”.

This really made me think. Both people depicted on the ads are actual athletes. They are just fit people, and I had to look twice and actually tried to analyze the pictures, but I simply fail to see the sexist undertone in either of them. The ad is about a low calorie sandwich, suggesting that eating it will help you stay fit and provide enough energy to be sporty. Subways are sponsoring athletes (and probably spend a lot of money on that), so in return the athletes provide Subway with advertisement material. They don’t pose in a sexy way; they pose in their natural sports environment.

It might well be that I am desensitized after seeing advertisement for over 30 years featuring attractive people, often from the opposite sex. I don’t see this as sexism. Yes I am sure there are some advertisements which can be seen as sexist, but I think we have come a long way since the 50s and 60s. I think the aim of advertisement these days, with a few odd balls aside, is to portrait “attractive” people. And this goes for both sexes and across a wide range of goods. And is there any question as to why that is?

Who does not like to look at attractive people in an advertisement? Why would we, as human beings (generally gravitating to things that we find attractive and beautiful), not want to see beautiful human beings in ads?

Personally I am probably not more likely to buy a Ford B-Max because a fit guy in swim trunks features in the ad, and I’d guess not many women would purchase the car based on that fact. But I certainly prefer to see a fit man do a dive from the 10m board than a guy who is not attractive.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, different people find different things attractive. But there is no denying that there are certain standard features which men and women alike are attracted to in the opposite sex.

In 9 out of 10 cases it is physical attraction (and this can be eyes, a smile, a gesture) that gets us interested in another person in the first place. Intelligence, sense of humor, personality – those come in once we get to know someone. Beauty draws the eye, and that is exactly what advertisement is meant to do. I am sorry if this offends people, but yes, a good looking woman, eating a magnum will turn my head and make me aware of the fact that there is 5 new delicious flavors of magnum icecream available. If it was an unattractive person on the ad, I probably not would pay attention. Keep in mind that different people find different things attractive!

Advertisements play on this fact, and in my opinion this is not sexism. Again, the whole sparsely clad model to promote a product? It goes both ways! There are just as many fit men modeling than fit women. On a personal level, when I see ads like this, I always promise myself to get back to the gym more often. I might well feel a pang of guilt above my body shape, about how I look and how I appear. But I don’t think they are sexist. Could it be that some people, who feel a pang of guilt when they compare themselves with a model on an ad, interpret that pang wrong, turn it around into a negative thing and call it sexism?

Yes, I feel a pang of guilt from time to time, but overall I am happy with who I am. I know I probably won’t be on an ad anytime soon, so fit men on posters don’t get me depressed, and that’s probably why I don’t think they are sexist. I see it for what it is: advertisement, trying to draw attention to a product. I don’t interpret it any other way. (remember this point for later)

Beautiful people in advertisement are either used to inspire us to become that person or to inspire us to desire that person, and thus the product. There are definite sexual undertones in many ads, no doubt about that, but what really is wrong with that? There is nothing wrong with sexuality, regardless of gender. There is nothing wrong using sexuality in advertisement (as long as it adheres to local laws and also does not expose children to things they should not see). Sexuality and Sensuality do not mean sexism.

Here is a definition of sexism:

Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on a person’s sex.^[1] Sexist attitudes may stem from traditional stereotypes of gender roles,^[2]^[^{full citation needed}^] and may include the belief that a person of one sex is intrinsically superior to a person of the other.^[3] A job applicant may face discriminatory hiring practices, or (if hired) receive unequal compensation or treatment compared to that of their opposite-sex peers.^[4] Extreme sexism may foster sexual harassment, rape and other forms of sexual violence.^[

I have looked at a lot of advertisement before writing this blog post and I have not just applied my own perception of it, but also tried to apply the above book definition. There probably were 1 or 2 borderline cases, but I have a hard time seeing sexism in advertisement, regardless of gender. However I can see how someone who wants to find sexism will be able to do so. The question then is: does it make it real or is it just perceived sexism?

Sexism in Games

Sexism in games follows the same principles as in advertisement I feel.

This has been a very hot topic recently, primarily thanks to Anita Sarkeesian, who got to internet fame by running a successful kickstarter project, creating a video blog about gender tropes in video games. I am not going to spend much time talking about her kickstarter campaign and personally I don’t care much about how much money she raised or how some think she is skimming people. Whatever she delivers is between her and her sponsors, and since I am not one of them, I have no right to complain about quality or content.

The topic was raised on a lot of industry websites and prompted a flurry of articles, blogs and talks at trade shows and similar, IMO all riding the current “high” of the topic, all saying the same thing. People jumped on it, hoping to get exposure, of feel vindicated in their own views.

Are there stereotypes in games and movies? Yeah sure, I don’t think anyone can really argue that. But what can be argued is that women are always stereotyped badly, or that stereotyping women badly (when it does happen) is intentional.

Games (as well as movies and tv shows) are a form of entertainment, designed to allow those that consume it to let go of the everyday world, slip into a different world and be someone they can’t be or do something they can’t do in the real world.

Male characters are just as much stereotyped in games as female characters. One just has to look at Gears of War or similar games. Bulky, gun wielding, bad ass characters (note in the screenshot of GoW 3 I linked there, you will see Stroud – an equivalent female character, wearing identical outfits as her male companions).

Stereotypes help here, they help me (as a gamer) slip into the role, understand why I can curb stomp aliens or carry weaponry that no ordinary human being could lift. That’s why stereotypes are used in the first place: to create avatars for gamers, which they can quickly understand.

Games and movies are not like books, where 100 pages can be spent defining a character or a TV show, where a character is defined over several episodes or even seasons.

The main argument of the tropes stories seems to be that women are often portrayed as the damsel in distress. I have 2 lines of thought on this.

Firstly, looking back at a lot of games over the last 15 years or so I can see why this argument seems so appealing. But then again, looking at it from a commercial point of view, I see why studios and publishers would have chosen stories that feature this “trope”.

It cannot be denied that for the most part of the last 20 years the primary market for computer games was a demographic heavily centered in the 14 to 25 year old male group. If you deliver a game to that demographic and you use a story featuring the “person in distress needs rescue” element, you are better off using a female (often attractive) character in that position. Because the core demographic you aim the game at, will respond more to that than if the role was reversed.

It is interesting to see female gamers comment on male characters in games they like, because many of them react the same way to male characters as male gamers react to female characters. Men and women are not different at all. The only difference is that up until recently more games were made to cater to a male market, because that market slice was simply bigger.

But this is not necessarily sexism, deliberate or otherwise. It’s catering to the need and want of a paying customer. It is the same as advertisement. Why portrait something that finds little to no traction, that does not ring true with the audience you try to reach.

And there are also plenty of games which do not feature this story mechanic, a fact that must not be forgotten.

Secondly, gaming demographics are changing. More women than ever play games, and a wider variety of games. Thus games slowly, but surely, are changing. Game characters are changing – again games usually firmly rooted in the strong men section have introduced strong female characters. Gears of War, Bulletstorm and if the first trailer is any indication Battlefield 4 will follow suit. I believe we will see more female characters in games going forward, I also think we will see less of the “damsel in distress”.

Regardless of all this though, one thing MUST remain true. The same principle which applies to hiring in the industry I talked about a few weeks ago: the best CHARACTER needs to be chosen for a game. Gender is irrelevant. If a story or game works well with a female character, use a female character. But don’t ever force a female character into a game just to meet a quota or to placate a few people who see gender inequality and sexism everywhere, in every conversation or in any media product.

The question really, same as in advertisement, is how the consumer interprets it. I can find sexism everywhere, if that is my mind set and my agenda. I can take any comment, email, image, video clip, music lyrics and twist what I WANT to hear from it. Religions have done this for centuries. If I want to find sexism, I can. But if one is truly objective, and looks at things how they are meant to be seen, then I would question just how much sexism truly is present. It’s about attitude. People project things all the time. People who are generally happy with their life, are positive and open minded are less likely to be fanatics, are less likely to find flaws and faults everywhere.

And those fanatics need to understand that not everyone sees things the way they do. And just like religious people I think they need to learn not to constantly try to force their view on others. Because were you see a damsel in distress, I might see a strong woman. Media and art can be interpreted in many ways and the mind is an amazing tool, allowing us to weave our own stories on top of what we see, hear and feel. I look at Zelda or Mario and I never saw it as a Damsel in Distress trope. I had my own stories about that. So please don’t assume that your interpretation of something is more right than my interpretation.

Another question then: is the media to blame if people interpret stories or stereotypes as sexist? If it is truly the fault of the industry that people who play our games develop sexist attitude and discriminate women then we can’t stop there. Then we need to also take responsibility for killing sprees by people who play shooters. We need to take responsibility for people crashing cars after playing racing games. We need to take responsibility for people become plumbers after playing Mario.

If we truly believe that games, advertisement, film and TV have that influence, on a wide range of people, then we need to step back, moderate and censor everything. There is no middle ground. Either we admit we have that much influence, and people are such sheep that they change their personal view based on media they consume, or we continue to make art the way we want and trust that people can see it as that and have are clever enough not to let them be influenced in their world view.

I will be looking forward to Anita Sarkeesian’s next video. Some images at the end of the last hinted that Dante’s Inferno might be on her list, and it will be interesting to hear what her thoughts are on this. I am curious if she lays the blame for this classic damsel in distress trope at the foot of the game developer, or if she acknowledges the fact that the game merely uses a poem written in the 14^th century as a basis.

For me the last few weeks and months, it has been interesting to read some of these articles and comments. But it is getting slightly tiring to hear the same things over and over again. The common consensus seems to be that the games industry is (for the most part) run by chauvinist pigs, making games for chauvinist pigs. And personally I feel this can’t be further from the truth. I think many of the more vocal people celebrating the message Sarkeesian is sending out are simply people who feel vindicated in their view, celebrating that someone else on the planet see the same slights that they themselves perceive.

Personally I think there are issues; there are stereotypes, not all of them good. But we are a young industry and we still lean heavily on traditional storytelling, we borrow from film and TV to try and hit a certain demographic. I feel that as we evolve as an industry, as we grow and learn to develop our own way of telling stories, create our own stories and as the gamer demographic changes, it will become more apparent that the games industry is not full of sexist men. And we simply cannot let the opinion of a few change entirely what we do and how we do it. As I said above, if we want to do this, we need to look at a lot more things than potential sexism. If we start taking responsibility for that, there are other things we need to censor as well.

In closing let me make one thing absolutely clear though: if there is a case of sexism, if there is a case of sexual harassment if there is case of inequality, then it needs to be exposed, addressed and stamped out. I fully believe in equality. I fully believe that men and women are capable of the same things, and should be treated the same way. But i also believe that a lot of people at the moment see sexism around every corner. And that just creates a very bad atmosphere, where people have to watch what they say, how they say and who they say it to, because people are worried it might be interpreted the wrong way. And that is just as bad as actual sexism.

Filed Under: GAMES INDUSTRY Tagged With: advertisement, games industry, media, sexism, tropes, video games

Do most game designers really suck?

May 12, 2013 By zegerman1942 4 Comments

There was a brilliant blog earlier this week by Adrian Chmielarz, the creative head of The Astronauts and former creative lead of People Can Fly. Reading it almost made writing my own blog about it redundant, as he covers a lot of points I wanted to cover. Adrian focuses mostly on those people out there who feel they are the next big name in game design, those who feel they have a sure winner on their hands with their idea. But i’d like to expand a little on that train of thought, because Adrian mainly talks about the armchair designers out there. People who play games and think because they play games, and love games, they know how to design a game and make one. (On a side note: god knows how i ever passed an interview with Adrian.)

But, to follow Adrian’s path here, those are not the only insane people out there. There are actually a lot more insane people who think that they are god’s gift to the gaming world, who actively pursue a career in games or are already working in the industry.

A little over a month ago Richard Garriot caused a stir by making the bold claim “Most game designers really just suck!”. At the time I was obviously up in arms as well when reading that statement (because i somehow felt he might be talking to me – talk about ego) but since then I thought about this a little more and to be quite honest: the man has a point.

Since then Garriot clarified some of his words a little better, and put out a statement of his own. And he makes some interesting points there as well.

Essentially what all these blogs and interviews seem to say is that designing a game, or aspects of a game, is not as easy as it might seem. And no, not everyone can do it.

Armchair designers

Anyone who has ever worked in the MMO space, or participated in in an open beta, will know this type. Usually the armchair designer is an avid fan of the game, the franchise or the genre, and that person will know better than everyone else what the game needs. They want the game to be tailored to their needs and wants, but what they often lack is any kind of clue as to how all the components fit together.

Every game, MMO or otherwise, is an accumulation of various systems and components, that all have to work together to give an overall satisfying and fun experience. No game can or should be catered to a particular gameplay style. This is what armchair designers seem to forget. Something does not work for them, it does not cater to their style of playing the game, so they take to the forums, or write to developers with suggestions and ideas, often threatening boycott if things are not changed. Don’t believe me? Just head over to the World of Warcraft forums.

Often it is also those armchair designers who will be writing long emails with game design ideas and send them off to studios they like or designers they know. This is what Adrian was talking about. As he points out, these people have no clue about the cost and risk associated with making a game. They are naïve and fresh indeed.

But I personally don’t see much of a problem with these armchair designers. Because, annoying as they can be, they can be ignored. Working on an MMO, we ignored the majority of posts in the beta forum. Don’t get me wrong, there were some good ideas and feedback, but the majority of posts was rubbish and so we ignored it.

The Next Generation of Designers

What’s worse though, in my opinion, is the massive emergence of the next crop of game designers. Over the last 10 years or so university courses in “game design” seem the springing up everywhere. I had a look at some of these courses (like this one) and while I can see some points of merit here, others just leave me shaking my head. My question above all else: how can you teach someone creative thinking?

How can you honestly teach someone, from scratch, how to design a game?

Don’t get me wrong, I believe these courses can be great, for those that have a natural talent, or are naturally interested to be a designer. Exposure to some tools, expanding knowledge into art and modelling as well as 3D software, all that is great. But my biggest worry here is that these courses act as a sort of last resort for people who have no clue about what to study, what profession they want to work in. A bunch of young people thinking “oh yeah I like games, I’ll study this, why not”.

I have seen some of these people in the last few years. I have interviewed a few of them. They have stock answers for interview questions, and while they might well be taught “creative thinking”, they certainly don’t think creatively. They don’t think outside the box.

Because you can’t teach that, thinking outside the box is something you need to be able to do naturally, and develop that over time with experience. And I am sorry, but doing a project or 2, together with others, over the course of a 3 year university degree, does not count as experience.

University project teams have the same problem as any real work team. There are those that blend into the background, they do as little as possible, have no general clue, and let others do the heavy lifting, but at the end it is the team that takes the credit, and they pass their course and now they are ready to join the work force. Not only that, they demand a placement! There was a great article by Rob Fahey last year on this (just read some of the comments by students complaining about how people with actual games industry experience snap up the “junior” level positions).

I don’t know the actual number of course, but even if only 1 out of 10 design students turn out to be a decent designer then that’s probably a lot. And for those that do turn out to be alright, it’s not because of the course, it’s because they had it in them all along.

There are exceptions of course, some schools are very good and specialize in game development only. It takes effort to get in and the quality of education is much higher, but I would still argue that a large part of students simply attends because they don’t know what else to study and all they have is an interest in games.

When hiring someone with no actual industry experience, what I personally (and many of my colleagues I discussed this with) look for is work done at home. Portfolio work created in spare time, levels built, systems designed, concepts written outside of school, or while working in a different job. Work completed without any constraints or project specifications that a school might have provided. Through this work it’s easy to see the talent of an aspiring designer, and then ask questions based on that work, to find out what the thinking behind it was.

So really, if you want to work in the industry, if you want to be a designer, show some dedication, show enthusiasm, and be ready to explain your portfolio work. Don’t just talk about how you would make the last Call of Duty better. Don’t write a review of a game. If that’s all you can do, become a games journalist or a blogger – although there are plenty of those already as well…

Already in the industry but want to be a designer?

First of all let me ask you this: WHY? Games or Level design is pretty much the only discipline in the games industry that has little to no transferable skills. If you are an artist, a programmer or a producer, if you ever have enough of the industry (and trust me, that day will come), you have good chances to move into a different industry. As a games or level designer? Not so many options there…

But ok, so you are in the industry already and you want to be a designer now. My guess is you are either in QA or production, but then again I have seen artists and coders change to design (with mixed results).

QA generally is a good starting point I feel. Not just because that’s the route I took, but simply because it’s a great way to learn a lot about making games, what works and what does not and also to get a feel for restrictions and deadlines. I was lucky enough to be in a QA team that was encouraged to give feedback on features and not just find bugs, and that is vital. If you are working in QA and are aspiring to get into design there is one tip I’d like to give you: don’t be an armchair designer. Don’t think you know everything that can make a game better. Chances are, you don’t. Chances are you don’t understand (yet) how it all connects together. Chances are, you are totally into games and you have a desire to make them – but that alone is not enough.

Here is a good article about this, which shows some success stories, but also points out how people got success (usually hard work!).

But anyone thinking of making the switch: it does not matter how long you have worked in the industry, it does not matter how many games you play at home before you switch to design. Working in the industry and playing games does not mean you are a good designer. It does not even mean you might one day be a good designer. The industry is full of people who switched from being a producer or QA or other professions to being a designer and they are, as Lord British would say, sucky.

It’s a dangerous mix really, inexperience in design coupled with a certain arrogance due to actual games industry work experience. I can’t even count the number of times I have heard someone say “I have worked in games for X years, I know what I am doing” and then reading a design for a system or level that is either confusing or so old school that it makes Space Invaders look clever. It does not matter how long you worked in the industry. Years alone mean fuck all. For all I know you could have just been blending into the background, being a 9 to 5er with no drive, no enthusiasm and no skill. Years and titles released only mean you were a body in a chair in the office and you got paid.

If you are a new designer: be humble, learn from people who have done it for a while, keep your ears open and keep tinkering away at home to learn more. Above all – use your experience in the industry (technical limitations, time constraints etc.) to determine where you can have an impact and focus on that area. It is NOT about making a name for yourself, it’s about making sure the team has the best possible design to work with. Even if it turns out it’s not your design, but that of someone else. And in those early days, listen to feedback. From everyone. Don’t think just because you made the jump you are now the ultimate authority on something. If you switch into design: you still have everything to prove. And in fact, that NEVER stops. A good designer never stops learning, never stops being humble and never stops proving his skill to others by doing great work!

One last thing: if you design something, a story, a system, an interface, if it takes you more than 3 sentences to explain your design, it’s probably too complex and a potential gamer might well be confused.

And for the love of god, be a designer! Not a “copy games feature” kind of person. Just because some features work well in one game, does not mean they will work in the game you are working on. Just because you love the way Dead Space handles their UI (which i do btw – i love love love it), does not mean it works for the game you are working on.

There rarely is the need to re-invent the wheel, and some things are industry standard (for better or worse), but trying to find a solution for your game by playing 10 others is not always the best idea.

Still want to be a designer? Good stuff! I would like to echo the advice Adrian gave in the blog I linked to at the start: there are entire game development tools out there. With UDK for example you can make anything from levels, materials, effects, sounds and scripting. You can package it up into a game. You can tell stories, you can show gameplay, you can show scripting and art – and UDK is not the only tool out there. Go forth and build stuff! That’s how Minecraft started.

Filed Under: GAMES INDUSTRY Tagged With: design, game design courses, games designer, games industry, level designer, QA, UDK, video games

Let me entertain you! (and pay me)

May 5, 2013 By zegerman1942 6 Comments

25 US Dollars – the price of a cinema ticket in London.

30 US Dollars and up – the price of a theatre ticket in any major city in Europe.

20 US Dollars and up – the price of a new release DVD, CD or book.

50 US Dollars and up – the price of a concert ticket for a mid-range band.

35 to 90 US Dollars – the price for a ticket to a normal season sports event.

Most of the things I list above provide entertainment for around 2 to 3 hours. The exception being the CD or book (and perhaps the DVD if you really like a movie and watch it more than once). So that averages out to more than 10 USD per hour of entertainment.

I’ll get back to the cost of things above in a little bit. First I’d actually like to briefly talk about what entertainment is.

There is a long explanation on wiki about this (can be read here) but principally entertainment is something that provides us human beings with diversion, pleasure and delight. To give us a bit of a break from what can often be a tough work life, stressful times at school or any other kind of hardships we might like to forget for a little while. And, for us in the reasonably well off west, we like to pay for our entertainment. Instead of coming up with our own way of finding diversion and pleasure, we let others entertain us. Essentially we let others have a tough work life, so we can enjoy our time off.

But while we take some cost for granted, see the ones listed above, other cost seems to be just too much. Yeah we might grumble at the high cinema prices (hell I remember paying 7 USD for a ticket only 12 years ago), but in the end we just take them for granted.

Not so much with video games though. 60 USD for a game that, on average, provides more than 10 hours of entertainment, is seen as too much. Hell even 1200 MS points on XBLA are often seen as excessive. So people crack games, put them on torrent sites or buy them second hand. Without really thinking about what this means for those companies that are trying to provide the entertainment in the first place.

Yes, the movie and music industry has to deal with similar issues, but a much tighter release schedule, at least in the film industry, means illegal copies take longer to make it onto the net (at least decent quality – non-cam versions) and the second hand market only comes into play a lot later, after DVD release. Not to mention that going to the movies is a very social experience, something you do with friends or your better half, while (let’s face it) most video gaming is a solitary experience (or an online social experience at best).

So games companies are trying to adjust to this, utilizing various approaches to varying degrees of success. Ubisoft with a hard, always on DRM bowed to public pressure. Steam used to have an always online requirement, as did recent games like Diablo 3 and the new Sims game. Other companies are trying to diversify, creating some cheap or free to play titles as part of their portfolio. Because it seems people want entertainment for free or at least as cheap as humanly possible. Yes by all means: entertain me! But pay for it? Not if I can help it…

But of course this is bollocks. No company can just produce entertainment product without ever wanting to get some money back, preferably a lot, so that a profit is created (there are investors, share holders or bankers behind the capital after all).

Having entertainment completely free of charge would be like asking the NY Yankees to not charge for spectators for a year. But! (everyone will say) That’s impossible due to high player wage!

Well guess what, those people making games also have a salary! And while it is a fraction of a sports player, when you add up all the people who make a game, it is a pretty sum. That money has to come from somewhere.

The truth is, those of us working in the industry slave away, often working insane hours to try and get a high quality game into the hands of people who want to be whisked away from their day to day lives for a few hours and just be entertained. Should we then, who help others get pleasure, not get paid so we in turn can afford things that give us pleasure and diversity (or in many cases: just pay the bloody bills)?

An excellent example of how much of a right people think they have for free entertainment is shown by an interesting experiment, where a studio modified a game they made before releasing it as a “hacked “ version. The game confronts pirates with the consequences of their own actions, and they don’t like it! (Surprise surprise)

While I personally don’t think that piracy is that much of an issue (I think the average gamer is too lazy or incompetent to get torrents or modify his console – and I really don’t care about PC that much), I strongly believe that second hand sales hurt the games industry tremendously.

Partially it is our own fault if the games we make end up in second hand shelves. I had a look at my local Game store yesterday and I found 8 copies of Bioshock: Infinite. By all accounts a good game, but effectively with zero replay value. Still, on average it should provide a gamer with around 8 to 10 hours of entertainment – and for 60 USD at full retail price that’s still well below the average I stated at the start of my blog. Yet Bioshock will struggle to run a profit, perhaps even struggle to break even, if rumors of it costing 100 million USD are true (again the consumer is not to blame for that one!).

So yes, we as an industry need to try hard to make games that players WANT to hang on to. To this day it will be hard to find a used copy of Skyrim and there is a reason games like Battlefield and Call of Duty stay in the sales charts for years. We also need to look at making games within certain budgets and not go excessively high on cost.

But then again, not every game will have huge replay value, or only be worth replaying after a few years. This has a striking resemblance to films really, where you hang on to a DVD of your favorite film and watch it again a few years later, but few people will buy every DVD out there.

So this is then is on us, as an industry! Make games that players want to keep. Games that retain their value. At least to the point where the revenue reaches break-even point or perhaps even generate a slight profit. I still have all my Mass Effect copies. I will play them again in a few years time.

But it’s not all on the games industry. A huge chunk of blame for the blossoming of the second hand market lies with retailers. Go into any Game shop today and ask for Bioshock: Infinite. I would bet you 10 to 1 that the shop guy will either give you a used copy or, if you bring up a new copy to the counter, will ask you if you want to save 10% by buying a used copy. If you have a copy of Bioshock, bring it back to the store and you will get 80% of the buying price back. This is how shops like Game up their margin, because any profit they make on the sale of used games is theirs to keep. Nothing to share with publishers or the studios.

Publishers in the past have tried to negotiate with these retailers, but nothing ever came from it – both sides were probably unreasonable in some ways. So other ways had and have to be found.

EA tried the online pass. If you are the owner of a used copy, you have to pay 10 USD to use online features of the title. You can still play offline and enjoy the game as is, but you can’t play multiplayer or get DLC. What was the result? Split opinions really, some people (the rational people) saw the reason behind it and also realized that it would not affect anyone buying the game brand new. Others however felt it was another money grab by EA and that consumer rights were infringed (like this brilliant chap here).

I think it was a great move, a bold move, and EA took a lot of flak for it, but it was a move that started to signal to the retail industry: NO MORE! And that was needed.

So now we are approaching the dawn of a new console area, and if there is one thing the console manufactures would love to get rid of, it’s the second hand market.

Sony has already announced and, in my opinion, caved to the vocal minority. Denouncing any plans for requiring the console to be always connected was high on their agenda.

Microsoft will announce in a few weeks and I personally have high hopes they will stick with the (rumored) plans of requiring always online.

No, I don’t like the thought of having to be online 24/7 when I play a game, but I don’t think that’s what “always-on” has to mean. I believe always-on can simply mean that your console has to be online when you first play a game. Put in a new disc and boot it up, be online so that the console can verify you are a legit (read: first time) user. I don’t think ANY console would ever boot you out of the game if your connection drops. My guess is the system would work similarly to the current XBL system – you get notified and you keep on playing.

Diablo 3 can get away with true always-on because they have dedicated servers for that particular game; most console titles won’t have that.

On top of such an online requirement games SHOULD allow some form of play from a used copy. The second hand buyer might be able to play the first few levels before being prompted to buy the rest through an initiative similar to EA’s online pass for example.

This way gamers will think twice before buying a used copy. They will consider how much value they get out of a used game for the price they pay. It would probably mean used prices drop significantly (and are not 90% of the new price) and from that it follows that people might actually buy MORE used games at cheap rates just to try them out (in an extended demo experience).

To me always-on would also pave the way for a true digital distribution network for games. Which hopefully would mean lower prices – and yes it would be up to publishers to action that price drop, something they currently are not doing for digital copies (something I can’t understand at all).

It would be a bold move by Microsoft to go into that direction, just as it was a bold move by EA to introduce the online pass. But it is these actions that are needed, I fell, to curb the second hand market (and piracy) and ensure people making the entertainment products get paid and get paid enough to continue making games.

I like making games and I like entertaining people with them, giving them joy and helping them escape for a few hours at a time. So let me entertain you!

Next time you think about buying a game, think twice before buying used. Compare the value you get from a game with what you spend on cinema tickets, gigs and sports events – you will find that USD value per hour of entertainment is actually quite good!

Filed Under: GAMES INDUSTRY Tagged With: always-on, DRM, entertainment, Game, games industry, second hand sales, used games, video games

Hating Electronic Arts – The entitled Gamer

April 28, 2013 By zegerman1942 Leave a Comment

So Electronic Arts is re-organizing. Reportedly they are making about 10% of their workforce redundant. That will be around 900 people without a job. Some studios will close entirely; others will be shrunk down considerably. This also means some franchises will be put on shelves, most likely never to be seen again.

This is really quite sad news for the industry, for the fans that are affected by this, and of course in particular by those who no longer have a job. As far as I can see, there is nothing good about this at all. The only light at the end of the tunnel is, if this works, that EA will emerge stronger and a solid company with some great franchises and trimmed down teams, and that they will return to profitability to be able to employ the remaining 8000 people or so.

So if there is not really anything positive about this at all, how come the internet is awash with people cheering the imminent demise of EA? And I am not talking about just random people commenting on a forum here or there. There are facebook pages dedicated to hating EA, and the company has recently been voted as the worst company in the US. Even people in the industry (who should know better and at least by sympathetic to fellow industry people losing their job) are out on the streets with champagne.

Why has EA become the poster boy for “all that’s bad with games publishers”? Is it because they bought some studios in the 90s and early 2000s and did not continue some beloved franchise, or because they turned them into something else or because they are trying to find new ways of generating revenue? All of the above?

Electronic Arts is a company with thousands of employees and shareholders to take care of. Their number one goal, as a company, has to be to generate revenue and profit. In the entertainment industry this usually means producing good games and/or games people want to buy, since those will sell more copies and bring in more money. It also means that sometimes it is necessary to drop a franchise, because too few people would buy it, or to turn an old franchise into something new, to adapt it to a new market. Making a profit is also about finding new ways of generating revenue, again adapting to a changing market.

I believe that this EA hatred dates back to the late 90s, when they bought the likes of Origin and Westwood. Back then both companies had franchises and games that were regarded among the best available. I personally loved Wing Commander and Command and Conquer. When EA bought them people got worried, and when almost all Origin franchises were shelved and the Command and Conquer series became stale, those worries seemed justified.

But there are other ways of looking at it. How many more Wing Commanders or Command and Conquers could Origin and Westwood have done before they became stale regardless? How about those talented people from both companies now working for EA and using their talents on other franchises? Maybe that’s all EA did: acquire talent. Franchises are of course great – you never know when they might pull an old one out and revive it.

Here is something people seem to forget. With all these acquisitions EA has broadened their skill set immensely. Their product catalogue is vast, from sports titles to RTS and MMOs. EA is the company that brings us Mass Effect (buying Bioware seems to have been ok), FIFA, Battlefield, Need for Speed, The Sims and many more. A large number of their games end up in the 80+ Meta critic range and are enjoyed by millions of people across the globe.

Here is another thought. Does anyone think that EA can just purchase a company without their consent? In any (legal) sale, it takes 2 sides to sign a contract. Origin, Westwood, Bioware – those “heroes” of the 90s gamer: they sold out. They took the money and those in charge are enjoying the benefits. For the people on the ground, the people actually making games, usually not much changed.

So I ask again: where does this hate come from?

I believe it’s due to a certain sense of entitlement gamers feel these days. And right from the start let me make one thing clear: gamers are not entitled to anything more than what is described on the box of a game they actually purchase (full price, not used).

If the game does not contain all the things it is advertised to contain, then gamers can claim an entitlement, they can claim that they have been cheated. Other than that: gamers have no right to demand anything.

It is the developer and the publisher who have full control over what games are made, how they are made, what they contain and how they monetize the player. Just because Real Racer 1 and 2 were fully priced titles with no micro transactions, does not mean the 3^rd one has to be as well. Just because Syndicate used to be a strategy game does not mean a reboot has to be as well.

And yes, sometimes companies get it wrong. The Sims showed that. The plan was fine, the execution flawed. But the hatred is not justified. When Toyota recalls a million cars because they fucked up an airbag, there might be frustration, but i don’t see them being voted the worst company in America. And airbags save fucking lives.

Developers are always happy to listen to fans. Developers know that true fans of a franchise or a game build an excellent core of customers and every company will aim to keep its customers happy. But this only goes so far, it can only go so far. If every studio would try to make everyone happy, no game would ever be made and creative freedom as well as the creative vision for a game would be lost. Believe it or not, but fewer unique games would be made, because trying to please everyone would mean that the game itself would be so watered down in an attempt to hit every market, that it would not be much of a game at all.

So once again it is the vocal minority, who leads the charge, because millions of people who enjoy EA games won’t bother taking to the internet every day to post about it. They will instead log into Battlefield or play a match of FIFA with their friends. No those who post are those who hate EA (and companies like EA) because the most recent game was not the game THEY liked. It did not have the characters THEY liked. It used micro transactions, which THEY hate. The game ended in a way THEY did not like. Or worst of all, the game was a different genre than THEY wanted, so they did not buy it all, but will still post every day about how shit it is.

Newsflash people: nobody gives a shit. Numbers speak for themselves. And THAT is what any publisher will react to. If a game does not sell, the next one will be different. If micro transactions don’t work, they won’t be used. If a story does not ring true with players, it will be changed for the next installment.

Developers do listen to fans and gamers. But at the end of the day, like with any creative process, all developers can do is try their best, to get their vision of a game to become reality. And then hope that enough people like that product so that the studio won’t go bust. And believe me; EA has saved more studios, franchises and developers livelihoods than they “destroyed” (as so many like to call it).

The truth of the matter is that many of the studios which joined EA at some point where making good games that sold an average amount of copies. In the long run they would not have been able to survive on their own, but under the EA umbrella they could continue making good games, and hope for that one breakthrough title.

Perhaps things are different now in the days of kickstarter. People can put their money where their mouth is and games can be funded without publishers. But as inXile has shown, they already needed a second kickstarter before finishing the first to make sure the studio can remain open long term. I wonder how many of the studios who successfully fund one project, but fail to reach a wider audience, will be in trouble. And wouldn’t they be glad then if a publisher like EA recognized their talent and acquired them.

So if you hate EA (or any large publisher for that matter), ask yourself why that is the case. Is there really a reason for that? Beyond the fact that you feel you are entitled to something? Beyond the fact that EA did not create what you wanted them to create? And if that is the case, then ask yourself: what have you done for EA that entitles you to get what you personally want? And no, purchasing a game they released does not count. Because for the purchase of a game you got entertainment in return and that is a fair trade.

So unless you have donated money to EA, invested in the company, brought food to those slaving away, working overtime, trying to deliver entertainment to your living room, then no, I am afraid you are only entitled to purchase the product, at full retail price, when it’s done.

And honestly – do you haters have nothing more important to do in your live than complain about how an entertainment product is not exactly how you want it to be? If games are so important to you, then be glad there are companies out there putting a tremendous amount of money on the line to make them for you, in the hopes that you are entertained! Sometimes we developers succeed. Sometimes we don’t.

Filed Under: GAMES INDUSTRY Tagged With: computer games, EA, electronic arts, entitled gamers, games industry, vocal minority, worst company in america

Women in the Games Industry

April 22, 2013 By zegerman1942 1 Comment

It’s been a good while since a post has appeared on this site, and to be fair notplayed.com in its original form could be considered a failure. It seemed like a great idea at the time, over a few beers in the office. But then few people contributed and at some point those that did spread across the globe working for different companies.

But that’s how this industry is sometimes. Fun and entertaining certainly, full of great people with often very similar interests; but also hard work, often under-paid, very unforgiving at times and unpredictable and volatile. At one moment a company can do extremely well, working on the next big thing, hiring many talented people, only to be shut down the next moment with people on the street, no thought given to the families and financial obligations of those that often slaved away to try and get the best possible game out the door.

So with this in mind I am re-purposing this blog. I am invoking my right as master of this here page to talk about the industry, games, people – anything really. And anything goes. This is also a call to those that want to talk about their experiences to step forward. Get in touch, or heck even post a blog here yourself (I will give you access once I verify you are who you say you are). Over the next weeks and hopefully months I will write about the games industry. I will write about issues that are not commonly talked about as much as those issues which have been a burning topic of late. Everyone is welcome to comment. I do not censor (unless you advertise for some crappy porn site or about some long lost fortune from a distant relative – i.e. spam). I totally believe in freedom of speech and openness. Even if I don’t agree with your stance, you can still be heard here.

So here goes. The first topic I want to write about today is:

Women in the Games Industry

Oh not that again, some of you might groan. Ah he is a chauvinist some others no doubt think right now. But no seriously, hear me out.

I have been working in this industry for around 13 years now, for a handful of companies and in a lot of different roles. Every company I have worked for has had a few women, but of course the majority of colleagues I had were men. In that time I have never personally witnessed any form of sexual harassment or otherwise bad behaviour towards a female member of staff, simply because she was a woman. There have been arguments, fights, backstabbing and politicking – but that really is the case quite frequently in the games industry, so nothing special there.

I have heard a few stories here and there about men treating women differently and unfairly because they were women though, and in 9 out of 10 cases I totally believe these stories (because I believe the women that tell them and I trust them). I have also personally witnessed how some “leading” men in the industry think of women while at last year’s Nordic Games (there is a post about this somewhere WAYYYYYY down the site). It was shocking, embarrassing and quite frankly vulgar.

So my stance is this: everyone is equal. I personally don’t give a fuck about your gender, race, religion or sexual preference. That’s how i was raised. That’s what i learned from my parents (who are pretty liberal for their age) and my brother. When it comes to the work place all I care about is your skill, dedication, passion, drive and attitude. Outside of work, in my personal life, personality comes into play – but that is purely to help me decide if I want to spend time with someone socially or not. At work even personality goes into the background – it’s all about being professional.

So if all the above is true, why write a blog post about this? Well… There are 2 issues I have seen raised again and again over the last few weeks and months in industry press and on various blogs and those 2 issues I would like to comment on.

Harassment

Firstly there is the issue of harassment. This goes from outright sexual harassment to the more subtle but no less cruel belittlement because of gender. I.e. the “you are not good at this because you are a woman” thing. Both are horrible, and while the first (in some weird way) could potentially be seen as flattery, the second is outright cruel and can crush an ego and any ambition and drive and long term do a lot more damage.

Should this sort of thing be exposed? Absolutely. 100%. No bloody argument. However I am not sure what we have seen recently is the right way to go about it. Writing angry articles, blog posts or news reports about the issue is, in my opinion, not helping. Quite the contrary. Firstly I feel that many of us gentlemen, those that actually are alright, those that don’t look at female colleagues any differently, actually can get put off by the constant tarring with one brush. Because many of those articles are written in such a way that describes the scenario as being Omni-present, making it sound as if every man was treating every woman in the industry like shit, some of us actually feel hard done by. I would go as far as to say attacked. Why? Well because most of these articles and blog posts don’t name names. And no I am not out for blood (though more to that in a bit: see “Solution”), I feel that by not naming the culprits an air of “who done it” is created and everyone looks at everyone else with suspicion. This goes as far as companies having the use equality counselling by outside groups. It also creates an atmosphere were many of us decent men have to often walk on egg shells, double checking every email, thinking about every statement we make, just to be sure it could not potentially be interpreted as an insult or belittlement.

So here is my “Solution” for this problem: ladies in the games industry! If you have some asshole treating you badly because you are a woman, or if some dick thinks he can sexually harass you, go to HR, go to a lawyer, go to your union rep. Make sure that Muppet gets fired. If the company does not do anything and protects the guy: take the company to court. That shit must not stand. The culprit has to be called out, his behaviour has to be acknowledged as being wrong and consequences have to follow. Otherwise others like that person won’t ever learn. Do not rest until that person responsible is held to account.

But then, and this is also important, MOVE ON! Dwelling on an injustice helps nobody. Being constantly reminded about it creates a very uncomfortable work environment, even for those that were never at fault and have not been part of the issue. All dwelling on the issue does is cast you in a victim role, and if you managed to get justice you are no longer the victim. You are the victor.

Working in the industry

And the above really leads me to the second issue which has been in the industry news as well as many games sites and blogs recently. The issue of how many women work in the games industry. Usually the same people complaining about harassment and in-equality the loudest are also the ones who complain about the fact that not enough women work in the industry. Am I the only one here who sees a possible connection?

I mean if I would read nothing but negative stuff about how women are treated in the industry and about how much of a boys club it is, I probably would not want to join that industry either. This is sort of why I would advocate women who are treated badly to deal with the culprit directly and not necessarily take to the ether to vent their anger and frustration. Yes, it might feel like the right thing to do and getting some issues exposed is probably a good thing, but I feel a generalisation (which many of these articles end up being) helps nobody and just puts the industry in a much worse light (at least in this regard – in other regards the industry can’t be painted black enough but more to that in future posts).

Any young woman who reads these things might well think twice about joining such an environment. And while there might be an interest in games and any discipline found in the industry, they might well choose a different profession based on the fear they might be harassed or not be taken seriously.

And ladies reading this: nothing could be further from the truth! The majority of men in the industry are decent, honest and fun people to work with and to know. Yep, some of us might be socially less adapt then others, yes many of us play games and could be considered geeky to a degree or other, but we are good people. We don’t generally grab asses, make rude comments towards you or tell you that you can’t do your job because you are a woman. There are those guys who do these things, but I’d argue they exist in any industry, any profession. These people are not unique to the industry. They need to be called out, they need to be shamed in public and they need to be fired. Over time, weeding them out like that will make sure cases of harassment will get fewer and fewer. I doubt they will ever disappear completely, but they WILL get fewer and fewer.

Hiring

Lastly I would just quickly like to give my view on the notion of “hiring more women” purely for the sake of ensuring a mixed workspace. This I feel is utter bollocks. Like ANY business you need to hire the best people you can get for any given position. Competition in the industry is fierce, with competitors often stealing employees with better contracts and luring them away with big franchises. Hiring anyone but the best you can get is commercial suicide. It does not matter if the candidate is a man or a woman. Black or white. Straight or gay. If that person can help you deliver the best possible product – get that person, put that person to work.

I am in a position where I am responsible for hiring and that is the philosophy I live by and hire by. Out of the last 5 people I hired personally, 2 have been women. In the last 8 years or so I have gone over hundreds of CVs and the fact is that 90% of the candidates are male. So the chances are higher that the best candidate is a man. But I will not, for “equality” sake, hire a woman that is less qualified. That is not in the best interest of the game I work on or the company I work for. Fortunately more women do seem to want to get in the industry, at least compared to 10 years ago, so hopefully in the future the split will be more even, but forcing the issue, again, is not helping. Hiring someone based purely on their gender, race, religion or sexual preference will never help create a good work atmosphere. It will, just like constant blanket lecturing about abuse and harassment, lead to a work environment that is negative and full of fear. Far from the fun and cooperation that is needed to create amazing games.

The Positive

I have worked with some truly amazing people in my career, and many of them have been women. One is a Lead Designer for an independent studio working with a major hardware manufacturer – she will always be the better designer than me. One is a project manager who stood up in the middle of a room full of egoistic Muppets and told everyone their project was in shit order (and promptly got fired for it – though not because she was a woman, but because she had the guts to say what nobody else dared to say). One runs an entire department for a global publisher. Another works in a high position for Sony. The list goes on: Head of Localization, Creative Writer, Lead Animator, and Lead Programmer – I wonder why we never hear their stories. The positive stories. I wish we would hear their stories, so that women across the globe could see that not only is it ok for women to work in games, but there is also a good career in it, with advancement possibilities and were women can and do lead multi-million dollar projects. I am sure they all had bad days at work, I am sure they all had, from time to time, had to deal with idiots. Some of them might even have had to deal with harassment. The difference is – they seemed to have gotten on with their lives and I am sure they are the ones laughing now.

But I guess since they are not angry, since they don’t have anything to complain about, there is no need for blog posts and their success stories are not news worthy, because they don’t generate comments, links and click-throughs. (What does that say about my blog now….)

Filed Under: GAMES INDUSTRY Tagged With: equality, games, games industry, harassment, women in games

Nordic Game – Review

May 27, 2012 By zegerman1942 Leave a Comment

First I have to apologize for hijacking this great outlet of outstanding games reviews to something as banal as a blog post about a games conference. The truth is, I can’t be bothered with setting up another blog and, additionally, I feel that it is time for notplayed.com to diversify!

Well then! Nordic Game, the biggest industry show in the region. You could have fooled me. Despite the show being in its 9^th year, this was the first time I managed to make it there and I had very high hopes.

The Nordic games industry is huge. As a region it’s second only to the UK in Europe in terms of game developers – and that’s despite only encompassing around 25 million people. You have your obvious big hitters such as DICE, IO, Avalanche and Ubisoft (in the form of Massive). On top of that there some other quite well known studios such as CCP, Remedy, Funcom (let’s ignore the fact that the majority of their development is in Montreal now) and Starbreeze. But above all there are a massive number of smaller studios, both established and new. And that number is growing.

So one would think this would be the best possible place for a games conference. A hotbed to network, show off products and share information, culture and technology. On the face of it, and judging by the program, that certainly was the intention.

There was certainly not shortage of talks. But having over 40 talk scheduled in 2 days across 5 rooms really meant that scheduling became a problem and most people were unable to see all they wanted to see. It also meant that time frames were extremely tight and often Q&A segments could only accommodate 2 or 3 questions.

So clearly, a 3^rd full day here would help. Why not add the Wednesday in full? The number of speakers is great and just about right really, but spreading them out over 3 days could mean slightly more time for each talk. It would also allow the organizers to reduce the number of rooms needed – which again means people don’t have to pick one out of 5 choices for every time slot.

This would also solve another problem. Horrible room allocation! 2 of the 5 allocated venues were so close to each other that we could hear the other speaker. It did solve the choice problem, but not in a good way.

Speaking of venue… Slagthuset in Malmö is a wicked building, a great venue, but it is tiny. It took less than 90 seconds to walk from one end of the exhibition section to the other. I timed it, and that was with a lot of people in there. This really meant that those (few) companies who actually bothered with booths, had little space and there really was not much to look at.

Some of the bigger companies had a booth, but where not showing much. Most seemed to be mainly concerned with recruitment (which is great), but it felt like a job fair more than a games conference. Hats off to all the indie and smaller scale developers there – a lot of them showed off their wares and there were some lovely new games on show!

Judging by comments made during the Gala Evening event, everyone hails Nordic Game as one of the best industry events of the year. Why then does the show, now in its 9th year feel like a start up? Poor timing and bad use of available space aside, the organization alone was simply shocking. There is no other way to say this. Arriving at the venue we had to find the way in. There were no signs, no posters, and no banners. Once inside the main auditorium entrance was a single door, hidden between 2 booths. The sign actually telling people which room it was, was completely obscured by the Remedy booth. Fortunately my colleagues either had the program on their pad or printed out. The official program was apparently somewhere between Hamburg and Malmö and I finally got one on my way home on Friday (surely as low quality as the program turned out to be, this could have been done locally, like in a Nordic country?).

But I think the thing that irritated me, and many of my colleagues, the most, was the behavior of 2 of the presenters of the event. The primary host appeared to be Jacob Riis, acting Communications Director of Nordic Game. Initially I watched him with amusement when he introduced the starting keynote speech on Thursday. Talking mainly about getting drunk on the Indie party the night before and declaring his love for his boss, he was more about flamboyancy than substance. A great keynote by Randy Pitchford later though and all is forgiven.

Once we got to the Gala Evening, things took a turn for the worse. I can’t say for sure, and I don’t want to slander him here, but Jacob certainly appeared to be heavily intoxicated. Slurred speech in parts, a couple of stumbles and a few embarrassing anecdotes; not really what I was expecting from the opening of the Nordic regions only award and grant ceremony.

The start of the evening was all about handing out grants for start-up companies and new projects. The Nordic game fund is really quite considerable and it’s a great way of enabling young teams to get off the ground. This year, over 6 million DK (roughly half a million GBP) was awarded to some outstanding new talent and studios. Little time was given to this though and grants winners were announced, got their framed grant letter and then ushered off the stage quickly. This all happened between the starter and the main course. People seemed unsure if it was socially acceptable to chew and applaud at the same time. Heck what am I saying; obviously people in the games industry don’t care what is socially acceptable.

At least that was the impression the presenter for the coveted Nordic game awards gave. Morten Skovgaard gave the following statement on the Nordic Game website:

“With the Nordic Game Awards typically being preceded by the consumption of considerable quantities of beer in the lobby bar, certain prize winners have been known to exhibit rather interesting stage behavior during past award shows. I do not expect otherwise this year, and I shall do my very best to keep everyone in line and make the show an entertaining one.”

Morten obviously has a very different view of what entertainment is. And if anyone needed to be kept in line it was him. In over 12 years in the industry I have seen some messed up people and heard some questionable remarks, but in all that time I have never once witnessed such a slew of sexist, derogatory and immature statements. Made during the highlight of the show no less.

I will spare the details here, but Morten gleefully recounted stories of games parties, booth babes and remarked positively on the size of breasts on female games characters. He turned heads alright, though for all the wrong reasons. Hats off to the female developers which were present, for not throwing beer bottle his way. Instead they kept calm, shook their heads and waited patiently until all awards were handed out.

It was, quite simply, shocking. Even more so, as in some of the keynotes we heard through the first day, the male to female ratio in the industry was commented on, with large studios actively trying to hire more women, and some of them stating it being very hard. I wonder why that might be….

I am taking a stab here, but my guess is that it has a lot to do with the fact that the industry as a whole is just completely immature and full of sexist men who start gawking and become awkward as soon as a woman enters the room. Unless of course there is alcohol involved, in which case awkwardness gives way to aggressive, loud and obnoxious behavior in an attempt to cover up immaturity and insecurity (yes I am exaggerating slightly, not every male developer is like this).

And if anything, this is where Nordic Games really succeeded. It clearly showed that aspect of the games industry. Focus seemed to be on getting wasted, being loud, being hung over and making sexist remarks.

We love to compare ourselves to the movie industry, we strive to find recognition for the art and entertainment we produce (and once again, what comes out of the Nordic region is among the best there is), but at the same time we fail to understand what holds us back. We are like kids, given the keys to the toy store. We, as an industry, have success. And we celebrate through excess. Put one of these kids in charge, in a position where they become a (semi) public figure and, with few exceptions, they revert back to primal instinct and quite literally go feral.

What should be a celebration of talent, a sharing of knowledge and insights, a place to meet people and swap ideas, turns into a contest of who can drink more and who can be louder and tell the wildest stories. It’s times like this where my own industry disgusts me.

Having said all this now though, I do want to point out a few highlights of the event. There were redeeming features after all. These came in the form of a few keynote speeches I had the pleasure to attend, and which were highly informative.

Interestingly enough the event started on a high for me (after actually finding my way there and getting registered).

Randy Pitchford gave the opening keynote on studio culture and image at Gearbox. This was a well rounded presentation highlighting the difficulties of raising a brand new studio, leverage skill and experience and the constant work to reach and maintain profitability. Randy made some great points and constantly re-iterated the fact that every studio is still a business and the only way to continue to live the dream is to make money in order to finance that dream. Gearbox manages this by sticking to a few core franchises (own IP), while trying something new from time to time to keep things fresh and expand experience.

Dorian Kieken from Bioware gave an interesting, if somewhat flat, talk on building a studio culture. It was interesting to see some statistics in terms of employees and rate of growth, but for my taste Dorian spent too much time on pointless examples and there was just not enough material in the chat.

Nathan Jurevicius on the other hand had a lot of material. And it was amazing. Nathan took us on a great journey of character development, from initial idea and concept to various commercial outlets, ranging from toys to film and game. He gave us detailed examples for both his major IPs (Scarygirl and Peleda) and highlighted how the characters transformed during their lifespan. Impact from commercial venues, new ideas, feedback and expanded knowledge all transformed his work to what it is today, and it is still evolving.

The last session for me on day 1 was with Andrea Philips on games and transmedia. This turned out to be probably the worst keynote of the week for me. It was not really that she did not have some valid points, obviously 2^nd and 3^rd screen transmedia (expanding your product through other media) is a hot topic and something many studios look at today. The reason it was just a bad talk was her actual presentation. Focusing more on her love for transmedia and certain types of games (in an attempt to win over the people in the auditorium), her arguments were shallow and she did not really present one relevant example. At the end of a talk like this, i would have liked to walk away and have some ideas on how to achieve transmedia success with my current project, not just know transmedia exists and is cool.

Day 2 also started extremely well. The horrible gala experience fresh in my mind and surrounded by hundreds of hung over people, many of them un-showered, sweaty and reeking of alcohol, did not really make me feel positive about sitting through another day of keynotes.

But Jonathan Jacques Belletete gave what was easily the best keynote of the week. Jonathan is the art director at Eidos Montreal and recently shipped the new Deus Ex. His talk was all about art direction and originality vs. remaking existing art. He was refreshingly open and presented great ways of how to achieve an original art style for games. I am not an artist, but after that talk I wanted to become one!

Tim Willits was up next and talked about Rage. He talked a lot. Everything he said was pretty much common sense stuff, and horribly presented. An hour wasted.

Carl Vikman was the second to last session for me and he gave a great keynote on how audio in battlefield came to be. In particular I loved the fact that for him, and the DICE audio crew, it seems to be more about people and ideas than tech. He was also very (VERY!) open about how the team created the awesome sounds of Battlefield. Nice to see not everyone holds their cards that close to the chest. As Vikman put it “make better sounding games, it’s good for the industry!” – And I could not agree more. Very lively talk and great Q&A session at the end.

The last talk I attended was with Phil Fish who had recently shipped Fez and also stirred up a bit of controversy. Admittedly I went in there expecting to meet an arrogant designer with little to share. The first 20 minutes, where he rattled through his presentation, reading the text of his iPhone appeared to confirm this. But the Q&A session that followed showed an entirely different person. He was open, insightful and had some great tips for start-ups and designers alike. He was also very honest about his personal issues towards the end of development and the following media outbursts. Hats off to the guy!

All in all then it was great to hear some of these industry people talk about their experiences and ideas. Most of the talks I went to, I got something out of. But overall, Nordic Games as the only show in the region, it was a major disappointment. It’s an event I will probably avoid next year and perhaps check in again in a few years’ time to see if it has matured slightly.

Filed Under: GAMES INDUSTRY Tagged With: awards, game grants, games industry, indie development, nordic, nordic game

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