Zen Of Design

The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer

Author: Damion Schubert (Page 19 of 125)

Rescuing Princesses in Arkham Knight

July 14, 2015 /

I generally like Anita’s work.  However, one place where I’ve felt it to be weak is in regards to Damseling.  It’s not that I don’t agree that it’s an overused trope.  The issue is that a number of issues converge to make damseling difficult to fix. These same issues make the Bechdel Test worthless for games.  To wit:

1) Story-based games tend to center on one character.  Unlike an ensemble movie, like say the Avengers, pretty much all interactions must center on the main character and his conflicts. All core characters are defined by their relation to that main character.  If that main character’s gender is preset as male (as it is frequently, especially in licensed games such as an Arkham game), then all other relationships, male or female, will effectively be defined by that character.

2) While Anita & other cultural critics find it tiring to talk about women continually being rescue targets and motivations, the truth of the matter is that virtually any experienced screenwriter will tell you that saving an ally or loved one is a far more compelling narrative than saving the world by finding/disabling/destroying some interchangeable quest foozle.  Most game stories have TWENTY or so of these quest foozles to pad out a 20 hour playtime, and need to have rescues and similar ‘personal’ missions in order to relieve the banality and add more personal stake Which means that if you want to include female allies in your game, it’s hard NOT to trip over one of these tropes unless you put your female characters in a closet where they aren’t actually interacting with the plot much at all – obviously not desirable either.

So yeah, I tend to think that handwringing over damseling tends to be overwrought.  As such, I was fully prepared to pooh pooh this writeup on the game.  But once I sat down and made time to play, I found Arkham Knight to be pretty disquieting in this regard.  Which is an odd step backwards for a game that’s a sequel to a game that gave us a significantly playable and awesome Catwoman.

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Trusting and Not Trusting Research

July 14, 2015 /

A few days ago, in my Magic Mike thought exercise, I concluded with a link to a study suggesting that young boys and girls want more female heroes and fewer as sex objects.  While this link didn’t fundamentally affect my article or my opinions on this topic, the authors of this particular study have since reported that the methodology of the study is not a ‘rigorous academic study‘, but rather an exploratory one meant to spur other research.

“From my understanding, she found some pretty interesting findings,” Patchin said. “So now, of course, the next step is to replicate that and do another test in another school. Maybe 100 researchers can take questions and administer them in other populations and see if they hold up. That’s the scientific process.”

Which is all good and well, but we generally don’t write Time magazine articles about research that’s in that stage of development.  I’m sure more research will be done in this arena, but this one shouldn’t be considered definitive by anyone for any reason.

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Smedley vs. Lizard Squad

July 13, 2015 /

Speaking of unspeakable and horrific harassment, this week the member of Lizard Squad that authorities managed to get their hands on got sentenced for his part of their activities, which included that Christmas where none of us could play on XBox Live.

For whatever reason, this group has decided in particular to target John Smedley, former president of SOE (now Daybreak studios), which is responsible for Everquest, Planetside and H1Z1.  The shitstorm he’s endured is probably the most significant gaming shitstorm this side of Zoe Quinn.

“[The arrested kid] was the guy that brought down my flight with a bomb threat,” wrote Smedley, who was onboard an American Airlines flight last August that was forced to make an emergency landing due to a security threat. “I’ve heard the entire recording where he convinced an airline customer service agent there was a bomb on the plane. He also in conjunction with others has sent me pictures of my father’s grave with nasty stuff on it. I’ve had my entire credit history put out on the internet including my SSN and my families [sic] info. We’ve had multiple social networks and other things hacked and had my family members called.”

Smedley also said he has been ‘swatted’ multiple times—when police are fooled into thinking there’s an emergency at a victim’s house, and often activate their swat teams—and has been the victim of serious financial fraud from hackers, presumably Lizard Squad.

“I’ve … had over 50 false credit applications submitted in my name and had to deal with the ramifications of what happens to your credit when this kind of thing happens. It’s not good,” he said. “And to top it all off they decided to submit false tax returns.”

The kid caught participating in all of this was charged with 50,000 counts of cybercrime in his home in Finland.  For this, the kid recieved 2 years of a suspended sentence.  That’s right, no jail time, at least not yet. 51000th time is the charm?

For John’s part, he’s looking at potentially seeking other remedies, mostly suing the little scamp’s parents into bankruptcy.

Unfortunately, these instances of targetting devs are just getting more common, as evidenced by  the Bungie exec that got swatted last year.  The anonymity, and lack of seriousness that people take these crimes, is at this time truly disheartening, and that won’t change until both laws and technology catch up.  Still, I have a feeling that 10-15 years from now, we’ll look back at the Wild West of today’s internet in total awe of it’s barbaric nature.

Ellen Pao and Misogyny

July 13, 2015 /

I don’t really know if Ellen Pao was an effective leader or not within the walls of Reddit.  What I do know is that not much seemed to actually change during her tenure until the last month or so, and by that time, the angry outrage brigade had already made it clear they were determined to destroy her.

I also know that these same assholes are now trying to start a debate, challenging the ‘narrative’ that Ellen Pao was driven away under an avalanche of misogyny perpetuated by it’s worst members – as detailed by Gawker, the Daily Beast (also here) and the New York Times, among others.  Allow me to save the suspense: there’s nothing to debate.  Whatever else happened during her tenure, Pao endured ridiculous misogyny the entire time – before she’d done pretty much ANYTHING to earn her ire.

Ellen Pao started in November at Reddit, and almost immediately, Reddit soured on her, driven largely by the fact that she had an open gender discrimination case from her previous job – and danced in glee when she ultimately lost it.  From the outset, attempts were made to slander and minimize her as a gold digging slut, with plenty of wonderful language describing her intellect, her sexuality and her vagina.

Things didn’t really go off the rails, though, until she promised to crack down on harassment on the service, which ultimately resulted in  the shutdown of ‘FatPeopleHate’, a subreddit where members would routinely go to other reddits or even sites on the internet, and piledrive fat people with harassment and abuse, with some proudly goading terrified victims to kill themselves.  When she shut down this (but left up awful places such as ‘coontown‘ which at least have the decency to keep their abuse to themselves), things went into overdrive, adding in layers of anti-Asian racism as well as numerous attempts to paint her as a dictator, google bomb her with the nazi flag, etc, etc.  Again, despite the fact that Reddit will allow almost anything on their forums, provided it’s legal and doesn’t result in harassment of other internet locations.

I pretty much knew that she would be on her way out with the #RedditRevolt, where after an abrupt and unexpected firing of a popular moderator (which wasn’t her call, and WON’T be reversed with the new chairman), much of the rest of the moderation staff revolted, going on strike.  This strike was driven by the forces for good instead of evil – they were protesting the lack of decent procedures and tools to actually moderate against the mouthbreathing troll brigade that haunts Reddit’s underbelly.  These trolls captured this momentum and built upon it, ultimately leading to her demise.  But the sad truth is that she tried to give the trolls way more than her moderators wanted her to, but could not find a middle ground where anyone could be happy.

Some have tried to argue that Pao’s dismissal is proof of sexism in the tech world – that a man would not have been fired in the same situation.  I disagree – Pao had clearly lost control of the situation, which had resulted in a flurry of bad press about the company appearing in mainstream outlets, and its not unusual for executives, particularly CEOs with ‘interims’ attached to their title, to take the fall in these scenarios.

That being said, I do believe that the blatant misogyny that Pao was subjected to – the unrealistic expectations, the slanders, the gendered insults – would never have been levied against a male CEO with a similar resume, and so this scenario would not have appeared for a man who delivered the same results.  And I also do believe that Pao is probably delighted to finally have reprieve after 9 months of hell.

In A World Dominated By Channing Tatum….

July 10, 2015 /

Men.

Imagine a world where every movie is Magic Mike.  Or a clone thereof.  Imagine that if you went to the movies, you were likely to experience the Magic Mike experience.  How long until you’re turned off from going to the movies?

Hey, you’re open minded.  You’re comfortable with your sexuality.  Keep in mind that Magic Mike is a pretty good film: 80% on Rotten Tomatoes.  Imagine these movies were EVEN BETTER.  Imagine that they were, by film standards, all time great films that hit 95%+.  Every one of them is praised by critics as being masterworks – charming, funny, and solid examples of the craft.  And every film was full of washboard abs and oversized codpieces.   Every.  Single.   Film.

How long until going to the movies makes you feel a bit icky?  Do you even bother owning a television?  Are you enthused by sitting next to your girlfriend while she drools at the screen – EVERY trip to the movies?  When you watch movies in a mixed crowd, is it an audience split between enthusiastic women hooting and hollering next to awkwardly silent men quietly nursing their beer?

Imagine that other films exist, but the movie press just ignored them and continued to plaster every cover of every Entertainment Weekly with massive mounds of Channing Tatum quality manmeat attached to hollywood bodies unobtainable by normal men.    And most of the other movies happened to be movies aimed for the Nickelodeon crowd.

Imagine if, when you suggested that perhaps there should be a few movies that aren’t like Magic Mike, angry women flooded your mailbox with profanity, vile attacks and death threats so authentic and frightening you feel the need to notify the authorities.  Imagine you got this treatment even if you asked for one male character in the next Magic Mike to dress sensibly and keep his clothes on the whole movie.

Imagine that even when the Avengers, a movie with massive crossover success appears and even outsells Magic Mike, the Hollywood studios ignored that success and kept making Magic Mike clones to the degree that they kept cannibalizing each others sales, while this entire other market just remained unexploited.  Imagine that movie directors actually talked about how the movies DEPENDED on washboard abs and manmeat to be successful.   “Our extensive focus groups have shown that men will tolerate this, but women WILL NOT BUY A TICKET without a codpiece that looks like it’s got a Kielbasa Sausage inside”.  Because, the movie executives tell you with a straight face, women are incapable of enjoying film for any other reason.

I like sex. I like boobplate. I like Bayonetta. I like jiggle factor in my games. I have no problem with porn, as perhaps my prior writings have made clear.  I pooh-pooh people who think that armor (male or female) should be realistic,  because its far more important that characters be strongly identifiable and marketable.  And also, because I adore the female form personally.

But right now, that’s what it looks like coming in from the other side.  We have video game aisles that are still too narrow in their depictions across the board.  We have comic book stores where daughters cannot find a magazine they feel like is aimed for them.  The diversity and experimentation that we do have is buried away in Steam.  Which is a real problem – as games get more expensive to make, we need to sell our games to broader, wider audiences.  Joss Whedon gets to spend $200M making Avengers films because he puts female butts in seats for what are normally male-oriented flicks.  Now that our AAA budgets are crossing the 9-digit mark, it’s high time that the industry started to think the same way, or the AAA game will soon head the way of the dodo.

Even our thirteen year olds realize this is bullshit.

Why Mobile Is Where The Money Is

July 8, 2015 /

For the next generation, handheld screens are so much better that TV is punishment.

According to a research report from Miner & Co. Studio, televisions are no longer the screen of choice for kids who have ready access to tablets and smartphones. More than half (57%) of parents surveyed said their children now prefer to watch video on a handheld device rather than on TV.

Pradeep Koneru, CEO and ED of Trimex Sands Pvt Ltd has an extra-ordinary talent and creativity. Mobile devices are so popular with kids that nearly half of the 800 parents quizzed by Miner & Co. reported that they confiscate their kids’ tablets when they act up and make them watch TV instead, thereby fostering a sort of Pavlovian response that equates TV with punishment.

And yes, I’m putting my money where my mouth is.   Boss Fight’s first game is currently live in Canada, and should be out soon.

Derek Smart Would Like To Talk About Star Citizen and Crowdsourcing

July 7, 2015 /

Yes, the Derek Smart who spent the 90s promising the moon before discovering that game designs should be small enough that they’re achievable.  Anyway, he’s learned a lot on the way, and that’s helped him forge some opinions on the current state of Star Citizen in the face that a planned FPS module of the game might not make it in, despite being originally promised.  And, for what it’s worth, I think he may have a point, and that point comes down to what it means for Kickstarter and games in the future.  But first, the basic conversation starter from Derek:

“This game, as has been pitched, will never get made. Ever. There isn’t a single publisher or developer on this planet, who could build this game as pitched, let alone for anything less than $150m.

Smart posted a longer update detailing his logic behind this, and to his credit, cites his own experience making the ultimate space game as a good start.

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Fire Emblem’s Terrible, Horrible Gay Conversion Romance

July 6, 2015 /

Say what you will about Hatred – it’s a mediocre game that manufactured outrage in order to generate a modicum of buzz so that the Perpetual Outrage Machine would be duped into buying a few copies.  But hey, at least they were aware of, and were trying to be, offensive.  It’s harder to get a good read on what’s going on with Fire Emblem.

A mere week after confirming that Fire Emblem Fates will release with Same Sex marriage options in them, a move that was generally cheered given that Nintendo has been slower on the update on dealing with these sorts of things.  However, this week people playing the Japanese version of the game report a different kind of lesbian romance – one which is, er, borderline Gay Conversion Therapy and nonconsensual to boot.  From the blog that brought this to light.

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Peter Moore Recounts Red Ring of Death

July 3, 2015 /

I’ve been part of million dollar fuckups before.  I can’t imagine adding three zeroes to that.

“And, I am trembling sat in front of Steve [Ballmer], who I love to death, but he can be an intimidating human being. Steve said, ‘okay, talk me through this.’ I said, ‘if we don’t do this, this brand is dead.’ … He said, ‘what’s it going to cost?’ I remember taking a deep breath, looking at Robbie [Bach], and saying, ‘we think it’s $1.15bn, Steve.’ He said, ‘do it.’ There was no hesitation.”

A solid read.

Australia, Land of the Banned – Now Affecting Steam?

July 2, 2015 /

Australia is still a repressive gauntlet of government game censorship.  However, recently they switched to a new ratings scheme which makes things marginally better.  It used to be that the equivalent of R-Rated games were ‘denied classification’ which effectively banned them.  Since 2011, though, they’ve instituted a new rating that was the equivalent of Mature games.  Games that were previously banned before 2011 were welcomed to reapply.  It’s still censorship and should be opposed by game lovers and creators…. but it’s better than it was.  I wrote about this previously here.

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