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What the Video Game Industry Needs to Learn from the Comics Industry of the 1950s

January 18th, 2013 | Posted by Josh in Comics | Politics | Work - (1 Comments)

This is long. I’d normally apologize, but I feel like it’s all very important to say. While it takes quite a while, I promise it gets around to video games eventually.

Crime SuspenStories

“I can see how you might get confused and think this is for kids.”

In the early 1950s, comics were a HUUUUGE business. More than 600 titles were published each month and annual sales topped a BILLION issues, industry-wide. It’s fair to say that comic books at that time were roughly analogous to video games today, both in terms of popularity and in terms of market scale. And that market was growing in size AND scope every year.

By the end of the 1940s, interest in superheroes had faded as the audience that first grew up on comics moved into adulthood. As a result, while there were still plenty of books aimed directly at children, many of the best-selling titles featured stories aimed at young adult and adult audiences. Comics featuring crime capers, detective stories and gruesome horror tales routinely topped the sales charts.

The content of these books was presented quite explicitly. The audience wasn’t being tricked into buying something with an innocuous cover or title only to discover an unexpected trove of horror within. It’s hard to imagine kids were routinely able to buy these books WITHOUT the local vendor’s awareness and no parent was going to mistake “Tales from the Crypt” for a kid-friendly “funny animal” book.

At the same time, the United States was in the midst of a panic related to the perceived scourge of “juvenile delinquency” and the public demanded action!

In 1953, the bipartisan “United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency” was convened to start the kind of “dialog” about the causes of delinquency that are now routinely being called for in relation to gun violence. This was no simple task, since vague ideas like “juvenile delinquency” tend to have extremely fluid definitions and rarely have overt – much less singular – causes. And, of course, there were the added issues of not wanting to target any group or cause that had significant political influence. What Congress needed was a scapegoat without any serious defenders. And it needed it FAST. (more…)

Concerning Hobbits

December 17th, 2012 | Posted by Josh in Misc. - (0 Comments)

So… this is going to get deep into the weeds of geekdom pretty quickly, so here’s a brief, spoiler-free review of the first installment of Peter Jackson’s “Hobbit” trilogy for folks who don’t want to wade through minutia and plot-points:

Overall, I thought it was good. There were some bits I disliked, but far more often than not, I enjoyed how the story was handled. It’s true that some of the whimsy of the source material is lost in an effort to make it jibe properly with the “epic” scale of LotR, but I didn’t mind the tonal nudging that much.

The Crazy Frame Rate tech was… curious. In places, it really shone and the results were pretty amazing. It worked best in chaotic action sequences where things normally get muddled and hard to follow. But when things slowed down, it was distracting and tended to make things feel less believable. In particular, things like dwarf axes looked blunt and fake – like all the weight was missing from them. Still, it’s PROBABLY worth seeing it in Crazy Frame Rate mode, just so you can see what the fuss is about.

Compared to the LotR films, I would say it’s not as good as any one of those, but it falls short of them by a relatively slim margin and is definitely worth seeing.

From here on out, it’s all spoilers and super-geek stuff, so be warned.

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The Games Industry In a 6 Minute Nutshell

January 31st, 2012 | Posted by Josh in Blog | This is Your World | Work - (0 Comments)

So go ahead and watch this:

Now, go ahead and work through your rage.  I implore you, resist the urge to track this guy down and stab him.  I know he SEEMS evil, but he’s actually totally spot-on – and not JUST about Zynga and “social” games.

A Simple Fact About Games:

If you’ve played nearly ANY “popular” game, you’ve played a derivative game.

World of Warcraft is just DikuMUD with a decade of somebody else (actually, NUMEROUS “somebody elses”) footing the bill to work out the kinks, expand, revise, polish and improve it.  All Blizzard did was come in and (to lift   Bailey’s phrasing) “add a +1″.  Ditto for every popular shooter, RTS, DOTA-clone, etc.  Even “jackpot” indie hits like Minecraft are built upon the shoulders of earlier, less-polished efforts.

I feel bad for indie developers who come up with wonderful new ideas, achieve moderate success and then see their ideas devoured by huge Mega-Studios, but that’s just LIFE in every form of industry.  Invent a new, magnificent widget in your garage that takes years of effort and every penny you have, then becomes the “darling” of gadget-heads everywhere?  A factory in China will be making a cheap-as-hell knock-off a week after it hits the market unless you have the kind of legal and financial muscle to influence the Chinese government.  And if you dodge that bullet, you can bet your ass major electronics companies will have lifted every significant aspect of your design within a year.

Yes, Zynga is a particularly soulless example of this behavior, but it’s foolish to pretend that there would actually BE a games industry without derivative “inspiration”.  What Zynga does is creepy, sad and (perhaps) ethically dubious, but it’s silly to pretend that it’s NEW.  So go ahead and be mad, but be realistic.

It is Fear, O Little Developer, it is Fear!

November 21st, 2011 | Posted by Josh in Blog | From the Home Office | Work - (0 Comments)

“Ere the Moon has climbed the mountain, ere the rocks are ribbed with light,

When the downward-dipping tails are dank and drear;

Comes a breathing hard behind thee, snuffle-snuffle through the night–

It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear!”

 

- Rudyard Kipling

Over the past week, lots of folks from around the industry have been linking and nodding approvingly in response to this article offering “7 Reasons You Don’t Want To Work in the Video Game Industry”.  Like most things that get people worked up, there’s some truth to what is written there, but I take issue with much of what’s on the list.  My main complaint is the suggestion that most of these problems are unique to game development somehow.  With one exception, they are not – and I don’t mean that in the sense of the problems being shared in a limited way with a small number of other jobs. 6 out of the 7 are problems that apply nearly universally to ALL jobs.  Specifically:

7. You Won’t Work On A Game You Like

(1/2 true) You won’t ALWAYS work on something you love, but you often will. When I was getting started doing testing and support work, I had to deal with some stinkers, but I also got to work with lots of stuff I really enjoyed. Once I was properly into development, I never worked on a game I didn’t love again.  But beyond that, how many OTHER industries allow you to work on “things you like”?  Almost none, by my reckoning.  The worst thing I’ve had to do as a game developer is more interesting to me than the best thing I can imagine doing as a lawyer.

6. You’ll Be Expected To Move Far, Far Away

(true) Maybe not right away, but if you stick around long enough, expect to be shuffled all over the planet in cattle class. The good news: This usually doesn’t happen until you’re fairly senior in the industry.  I find it odd, however, that the author focused on the issue of having to travel abroad to work with international teams (which, as I mentioned, tends to mostly impact Management).  The more widespread (and problematic) scenario is that you’ll have to move around domestically to find work, often once every few years.  Regular state-to-state relocation makes it hard to do things like buy a house or feel comfortable starting a family.

Oddly, this wound up protecting lots of developers (myself included) when the housing market tanked.  I never felt comfortable or confident enough to get the $350-500,000 mortgage that would have been necessary to “own” a reasonably-sized home in the DC area (where I lived when the Recession hit).  As a result, when the housing market collapsed, I felt like I’d dodged a MAJOR bullet.  When I was laid off couple years later, I felt the same way.

5. The Fans Will Attack You For Everything

(true) Fans will get mad at you, but it’s only because they love (or want to love) your work. There are far worse things than lots of people giving a damn about what you do.  In addition, the fans will ALSO be your strongest, most steadfast advocates.  Personally, I get something out of both strong criticism and vocal praise, so I don’t consider this to be a “problem”.  This is probably the ONLY thing on the list that is “unique” to game development (and its other creative brethren).

4. Nobody Will Understand Your Job

(false) People understand game development WAAAAY better than many jobs. Imagine being a cop or a lawyer or a doctor, where a huge chunk of the population watches 30 hours a week of procedural dramas that TOTALLY misrepresent their jobs. THOSE guys are misunderstood, not us. In addition, almost no job is really “understood” by people outside that field. Do YOU know what your tax preparer does when it’s not tax season? I assume mine fights crime in a magical kingdom filled with math wizards.

Also, who CARES?  Honestly, unless you’re desperate to constantly be told how special and interesting you are, do you really give a damn about your spouse’s co-worker’s husband being intimately familiar with the ins and out of your daily routine during a chat at a dinner party?

3. You Can’t Complain – Literally

(1/2 true) You can complain about serious issues – forced overtime, hostile work environments, etc. just as much as any other person can. I know of NO cases where someone complained about a legit workplace problem and was then punished (much less fired) for raising it.  Most studios have well-trained, diligent HR departments who take that kind of thing VERY seriously.

Obviously, if you bad-mouth your employer or berate your coworkers or the product you’re working on publicly, you’ll get fired. But you’d get fired if you did that ANYWHERE.

2. You Will Work So Many Hours, You Will Essentially Stop Existing

(true) Yep. You’ll work long hours. Crunch exists and it sucks. Companies know this and (generally) try to make it suck as little as possible, but that doesn’t excuse it.   It’s worth noting that, as the Great Recession drags on, this type of “work more with less” approach is becoming the norm EVERYWHERE.  Leaving game development won’t magically help you “start existing” again (assuming you could find work at all).

1. You Will Get Fired

(1/2 true) You probably WON’T get fired. That would mean that you were removed with cause based on poor performance. If you do good work, you almost certainly won’t get fired. You probably WILL get laid off. If you HAVEN’T been laid off before, you’re probably very young. But that’s also true for nearly every OTHER industry in the world right now aside from repo men and undertakers.

So what’s it all mean?

To me, it means that the game industry has positive and negative features that you should consider before deciding to pursue it.  MANY of the negative features it has are shared with MOST professions, but very FEW of its positive features exist elsewhere. There are excellent reasons to think long and hard before diving into game development – even when times are good everywhere else, but there’s no reason to think about it as a “scary” industry that dooms all who enter to suffering and defeat.

We live in unsettling economic times, regardless of the industry we work in. This calls for caution and patience and long contemplation of our options. If you’ve done the leg work necessary to learn what game development would REALLY be like and the risks and labor seem “worth it” to you, then I say be not afraid – go forth and take your shot.

The Doug TenNapel “Situation”

May 31st, 2011 | Posted by Josh in Comics | Politics - (0 Comments)

Artist/writer/game designer Doug TenNapel has caused some controversy in recent days with some comments he made on the site that houses his “Ratfist” web-comic.  I’m not going to bother rehashing the specifics of what he posted other than to say – from the get-go – that I think they’re obviously offensive and small-minded.

They are also not at all surprising to people who have followed his work over the years.  Doug has never hidden his political/moral views from public view.  While he’s best known (apparently) as the creator of Earthworm Jim, he’s also put together an impressive and diverse array of graphic novels over the years, many of which have included (with varying degrees of nuance) ideas and concepts that are obviously drawn from his religious and political views.  And in case those were too subtle, his website has always been a clear and obvious vehicle for his specific opinions.  Even a cursory consideration of his regular posts there would make clear his positions in a way that should have rendered his recent comments unsurprising, if not necessarily acceptable.

In his comics, more often than not, I have found his communication of his religious/moral/political views to be deftly handled and his presentation – even of things I don’t happen to believe myself – to be pleasant and attractive.  On only one occasion have I found content in his professional work that was so offensive that I could not, in good conscience, recommend it to friends.  In that latter case, I disposed of my copy of the book and went back to enjoying the rest of his work.

Which brings me to my major point.  Can you enjoy the work – creative or otherwise – of a person who you know harbors views that dramatically conflict with your own?  Can you enjoy their work SELECTIVELY?

This is an issue I’ve struggled with over the years.  I have friends who are “moral absolutists” when it comes to this sort of thing and they will permanently cordon off anyone who they consider to have offensive political, religious or moral views.  In some ways, I appreciate the purity of that position.  Without question, supporting ANY of the work of a person who has an offensive philosophy winds up subsidizing the rest of their efforts, so completely cutting them off makes sense in that regard.

*MY* problem is that I really, REALLY like some of the things that certain people (artists, mostly) have created who happen to have gone on to say or create fairly offensive things later.  The best example I can think of is Dave Sim.  The first hundred issues of his epic Cerebus series are astonishing, glorious and beautiful – filled with wit and humanity and great insight.  The fact that Sim went on to become a loopy, misogynistic, religiously fanatical hermit simply cannot undo the FACT that his earlier works were amazing, valuable achievements.  Even when the main narrative ran off the rails into strange, rambling metaphysical gibberish, I was able to enjoy the occasional oasis of sanity that popped up from time to time in the later volumes.

If I opt for the “absolutist” position, I can never watch a movie with Charlton Heston in it.  Or listen to Wagner’s operas.  Or ride in a Volkswagon.  Or ever watch a Mad Max film again (the horror!).  For me, that price is too high.  While there are obviously exceptions, I generally find it best to separate a creator’s WORK from a creator’s LIFE.

Now, I will admit that I have a dog in this particular race.  I make my living trying to get people to pay me for the things I help create.  I also have a fairly public persona and I don’t shy away from making my political views clear.  I hope and trust that the VAST majority of people judge my work on its own merits and judge my beliefs separately.

I know I have plenty of conservative fans who enjoy the games I make despite being aware of my rather Lefty tendencies.  I know I have religious fans who don’t use my lack of faith as an excuse to boycott my work.  I WOULD, however, expect them to refuse to purchase or support something I made if it was an explicit, ideological manifesto of some kind.

Which leads me to a final (admittedly fussy) point:

Some of Doug’s supporters are upset about calls for boycotting his work – going so far as to claim that it’s censorship or a violation of his rights.  This is silly and wrong.

While I don’t intend to do so, it is entirely right and proper to boycott someone’s work – for ANY REASON – if that seems like the best course of action to you.  It is not censorship.  It is not an abridgment of the target’s right to free speech and expression.  You have a RIGHT to speak your mind.  You do NOT have a right to do so unopposed and you DEFINITELY do not have a right to an audience.  If you bang offensive drums long and loud enough, people will eventually hear you and many of those people will decide they never, ever want to hear from you again.

For my part, I hope Doug keeps making excellent books for many years to come.  I am sure I will continue to disagree with him on nearly everything politically, morally and religiously, but I will always at least give his stuff a chance because his work has enriched my life greatly in the past.

Hail to the chief, he’s the chief, so let’s get… um… hailing.

May 18th, 2011 | Posted by Josh in From the Home Office | Politics | Work - (0 Comments)

So… what am I up to these days BESIDES working on [SECRET], which is a [SECRET]-style game about [SECRET] set in a [SECRET]?

Why, I’m running for President, that’s what!

I assure you, this is only PARTLY a shameless act of self-promotion. Stay tuned for more (but stay tuned on the other site, since… ya know… I’m lazy).

Oscar Predictions

February 27th, 2011 | Posted by Josh in Blog | Video - (0 Comments)

Just under the wire, here are my predictions for this year. I skip most technical categories and any category where I’ve seen less than 2/3 of the films (I was bad with foreign films this year and only saw two of the five nominees).

Actor in a leading role

Who should win: Colin Firth
Who will win: Colin Firth

Actor in a supporting role

Who should win: Geoffrey Rush
Who will win: Geoffrey Rush

A win for Bale would be great since he was equally excellent, but tie goes to the better film.

Actress in a leading role

Who should win: Natalie Portman
Who will win: Natalie Portman

To quote myself from elsewhere: She went down the “How to Win An Oscar” list and checked every box. Lost an unhealthy amount of weight for the role? Check. Straight actor doing same-sex love scenes? Check. Commenting on a comfortably damnable subject? Check.

Actress in a supporting role

Who should win: Hailee Steinfeld
Who will win: Hailee Steinfeld

There were some very weak contenders in this category. Steinfeld is the only sane choice.

Best motion picture of the year

Who should win: Black Swan, True Grit or The Social Network
Who will win: The King’s Speech

Anything but Inception will do, really.

Achievement in directing

Who should win: Tom Hooper or Darren Aronofsky
Who will win: Tom Hooper

Sometimes, precision and reserve can win the day. The lack of a nomination for Nolan seems to indicate that the Academy is feeling that way this year.

Adapted screenplay

Who should win: The Social Network
Who will win: The Social Network

Honestly… they made a movie about a website gripping and intense.

Original screenplay

Who should win: The Kids Are All Right
Who will win: Inception

I just have a bad feeling about this one. I hope I’m wrong.

Best documentary feature

Who should win: Exit Through the Giftshop
Who will win: Inside Job

EXtG was amazing. A Banksy acceptance speech would be potentially mind-blowing. But Inside Job lets Hollywood think it’s super-duper-important, so it’s got a leg up there.

Best animated feature film

Who should win: How to Train Your Dragon
Who will win: Toy Story 3

Not a great showing this year for this category. Toy Story 3 was deeply mediocre, especially by Pixar standards. HtTYD was at least wacky fun.

Achievement in art direction

Who should win: Inception
Who will win: Inception

I think Inception will pick up a lot of the more technical awards and get snubbed in all of the major categories.

Achievement in cinematography

Who should win: Black Swan of The King’s Speech
Who will win: Inception

People seem to think that CGI, slo-mo and practical gags Kubrick pioneered in the 70s are a revolutionary visual styling.

Achievement in costume design

Who should win: True Grit
Who will win: The Tempest

Not much thought going into this one. Alice in Wonderland shouldn’t win because it was pure CGI rubbish. The Tempest has Shakespeare on its side and sometimes that seems to help. True Grit had cowboys and I like cowboys. Meh.

Achievement in film editing

Who should win: Black Swan
Who will win: Black Swan

That movie scared the bejeezus out of me. Mostly due to its editing.

Community Manager Appreciation Day

January 26th, 2011 | Posted by Josh in From the Home Office | Work - (0 Comments)

So… I missed Community Manager Appreciation Day by a day this year. In my defense, I don’t currently HAVE a Community Manager keeping track of me (though I will soon enough!), but that doesn’t REALLY forgive the oversight.

With that mea culpa out of the way, three cheers for all of our Community Managers! That should be coming from developers and players alike. A good Community Manager is equal parts ombudsman (or ombudswoman) and canary in the coal mine. They represent both sides of the player/developer relationship and it’s too-often a thankless job.

So regardless of what side of that divide you’re on, take some time today (or tomorrow… it’s getting late – though your Community Manager is almost certainly still up and working) and say thanks.

For developers:

How many times have you been talked down from a ledge (or talked out of an ill-advised response to a troll or slanderous flame-war) by your Community Managers? How many late night tests, patch releases and player events were overseen for you by your Community Managers? How many public floggings have they taken on your behalf? Do your karma a favor and spring for lunch tomorrow. At least. AND NO CHEAPING OUT ON THE APPETIZERS.

For players:

I know it’s hard to tell sometimes, but Community Managers have your back. They’re your voice for a variety of reasons and while it might sometimes SEEM like that voice isn’t being heard as much as you’d like, trust me when I say that this ISN’T because the Community Managers aren’t going out – every day – and fighting on your behalf. Every Community Manager I’ve been lucky enough to work with is a passionate gamer, a reflexive “people person” and a tireless advocate for what they think is right – even when that doesn’t make them popular. So cut them a little slack today. Make a point to track them down and say something overtly positive.

So… yeah. To everyone whose ever been saddled with the burden of keeping an eye on me because I can’t be trusted to look after myself, thank you. I love you guys!

On health care and creativity.

January 4th, 2011 | Posted by Josh in Blog | Work - (0 Comments)

Here’s a fact:

Fans of video games aren’t getting the best, most creative work from our industry because the American health care system sucks.

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Lead Level Designer wanted.

October 20th, 2010 | Posted by Josh in From the Home Office | Work - (0 Comments)

Do you kick ass? Specifically, do you kick ass as a level designer/world builder? Even MORE specifically, do you kick ass as an MMO/RPG level designer? Then we’re looking for you!

Folks I know/who know me: Feel free to ping me with questions directly. Everyone else, leave comments here and I’ll answer what I can.

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