Earlier today, however, a couple of friends basically asked “why does the dialogue in video games so often suck?  Don’t they have good writers?  Don’t the review the scripts/recordings before they go into the game?”  Having several friends who are professional video game writers, and I daresay, very good at it, I felt compelled to answer their question.  Here is what I said: think about it this way: haven’t you seen plenty of movies that have bad dialogue? Not being a movie person, I’m speculating here, but I suspect that this is often a product of the fact that the dialogue looks good “on paper” or seems good when it’s being recorded, but really doesn’t work when you cut the whole film together. At that point, it’s often prohibitive (for either logistical or financial reasons) to go back and reshoot those scenes.

In games, there are similar production realities. For any high-quality, narrative-focused, game today you can assume that a good writer has written a script that has been reviewed and revised based on feedback from several parties. The days of a designer just banging something out at their workstation at the last minute are largely behind us (correct me if you disagree, Cliff). After that script is written and approved it has to be cast, recorded, cut, implemented, and synched to animation before you really know what the finished product looks/sounds like. During that process, again, there are even worse bits that have been cut, re-written, and re-recorded. Now, realize that a game like Skyrim (which sparked the original question) probably has about 100x more dialogue content in it than your standard film; AND you don’t always have control over the order in which it’s going to be experienced, sometimes even down the line-by-line level. So, who is going to review all of that? On a film, there isn’t a single frame that makes it onto the screen that hasn’t been viewed and approved by the Director. That allows for a remarkable level of consistency of tone and authorship in the finished project. If that happened on Skyrim, I’d be very pleasantly surprised, considering the sheer quantity of content and the huge number of other tasks that a Lead Designer, or Producer is responsible for; not to mention the inherently more collaborative nature of game development when compared to filmmaking.

Oh, by the way, did I mention that when most of the dialogue was recorded it was probably done by individual voice performers working in isolated sound boxes, asynchronously from their counterparts in the same scene? Of course, there are exceptions, for games such as Call of Duty, Uncharted, etc., where the actors are able to rehearse and perform alongside each other in the same location. But this is generally a luxury reserved for the highest-budget projects and even then, generally only those that have relatively short, linear campaigns (see above examples). Admittedly, I’m highlighting issues with performances, not simply with dialogue writing, but look at how much of a film script gets tweaked and re-written during shooting when the director and actors are all in the same place and able to iterate multiple times on individual lines/scenes collaboratively and then think about trying to do that for 100x as many lines of dialogue.

Hopefully you’re starting to see the challenges that game performances face. I guess what I’m saying is that I’ve seen plenty of movie people acknowledge that a great script does not a great film make, and vice versa. In the case of games, this is at least equally true. So, just blaming the writers for bad dialogue in a specific video game is, in my opinion, a bit of unfair scapegoating without really understanding the production realities that project faced. While it MAY be fair and accurate, there are a number of other factors could, at a minimum, have contributed./rant

I have to say that I am REALLY impressed with the Halo Reach Legendary Ed.  The Halsey Journal is easily the most interesting, involved, and well thought-out piece of collector’s edition material that I’ve seen in any game so far and the production value is excellent.   They could have charged $20-$30 for it alone and I think it would have sold.  If you’re at all familiar with and/or interested in the Halo universe and back story (believe it or not, they are very well developed), I highly recommend it.  The way that the journal ties-in other characters and events from the previous Halo games and lore is also very impressive.

I’d love to meet whoever was responsible for putting this thing together.  I’m not kidding when I say that my first 2 hours after opening the box were spent reading the journal.  For that matter, I also recommend watching the Halo Legacy animated shorts (think of the Animatrix, for Halo).  All of this is making me seriously consider reading the Halo novels, which I’m told are actually pretty good.  Talk about Transmedia…

(This  review should be pretty spoiler-free.)  I picked up my copy of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty Collector’s Edition on Tuesday, at Target and have spent a pretty considerable amount of time with it since then. 

There’s a lot of value in that big $99 box, particularly from the exclusive Battle.net assets, the inclusion of Starcraft and Brood War on a 2GB USB replica dog tag, a gorgeous and large art book, and an exclusive WoW pet. The game soundtrack, Episode 0 comic book, and behind-the scenes DVD are nice but not as important to me.  My biggest complaint is that there wasn’t a way to get the Collector’s Edition (or some sort of equivalent Digital Collector’s Edition) directly from Blizzard via Battle. Net.  I looked for this option and would have taken it, had it been available. Instead, I spent about an hour calling all over LA to find a Target that had a spare copy.

With regards to the game itself, I’m very impressed and would say that  Blizzard’s perfect record of creating top-quality video games remains untarnished.  So far, I have spent most of my time (about 15 hours) playing the single-player campaign and  am really enjoying it.  From a gameplay perspective, Blizzard made the wise decision to make the single-player experience very different from the multiplayer experience.  By this, I mean that one does not play the single-player missions as one would a multiplayer match.  The missions are much more scripted and frequently catered to a specific unit.  Similarly, many missions have unique circumstances, such as time limits, shifting day/night sequences, optional objectives, unique units, and more.  I also really appreciate that there are so many more units available in the single-player campaign.  This makes sense, considering that these missions don’t really have to be balanced like they would for multiplayer.  I particularly liked that units from the original game (such as Vultures, Goliath’s, and Firebats) that have been dropped from multiplayer are still playable here. 

Perhaps the biggest difference between Starcraft II and previous Blizzard RTS games is the inclusion of “RPG-Lite” mechanics in between missions.  In particular, the ability to contract various mercenary units, spend credits on upgrades for basic units, and use research points to unlock new bonuses and units are all very cool.  While these are not fundamentally revolutionary concepts (having clearly been borrowed from Relic’s Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II), as usual, Blizzard has taken a good idea and refined it to near-perfection. 

Blizzard has also given the player a greater sense of control and agency in between missions.  In addition to the standard (and gorgeous) Blizzard cut-scenes, the player can now explore 4 different sections of the main character (Jim Raynor)’s flagship, they Hyperion.  These four areas are the Armory, Bridge, Cantina, and Laboratory.  In these places the player can watch News broadcasts, initiate conversations with other characters, spend credits/research points, and explore the ship.  Finally, in another apparent nod to Relic’s RTS games, the player is given a limited set of choices with regards to the order in which they choose to pursue the various missions.  Admittedly, these implementations are rather “lightweight,” but they certainly offer more depth and sense of immersion than was available in previous Blizzard RTS games.

The single-player campaign, of course, centers around a story that picks up where the Brood War expansion left off. The story is quite solid, but presumes a pretty significant amount of knowledge of the earlier events.  The included manual does a decent job of summarizing these, but a replay of the original games (which can be easily accomplished considering that they are included on a USB flash drive with the Collector’s Edition of the game) is not a bad idea.

My primary narrative-related complaint has to do with the Raynor character.  At times there is a disconnect between his performance and the way that the other characters in the game treat and speak about him. He seems to be a reasonably upbeat guy with a wry sense of humor most of the time, but he’s also supposed to be this pathologically depressed alcoholic who is pining away for his lost love.  Unfortunately, the game struggles to make these two personalities feel natural for the character, leaving him seeming somewhat schizophrenic. However, to even be having this conversation in the context of a video game is pretty unusual/impressive, and it is definitely a story that has kept me engaged.

I have a love-hate relationship with the moments in the campaign where I’m forced to make big decisions (Tosh vs. Nova; Hansen vs. Protoss).  Similarly, with regards to making the research decisions as you progress up the research tree.  On the one hand, I hate having to worry about whether or not I’m making the “wrong” decision, but I also respect that the game acknowledges that you can’t always have your cake and eat it too.  I have really agonized over some of these and am considering replaying the game to see what happens if i make different choices.  This added replay value is nice.

Of course, Starcraft is probably more well-known as a multiplayer game than a single-player one.  I have not played very many multiplayer matches yet, but I spent a lot of time playing the multiplayer beta, and I’m assuming that it hasn’t changed much.  If that’s the case, I know that I’m going to spend a lot more time with it after I’m done with the campaign.  As always, Blizzard has done an amazing job of balancing the 3 factions.  I’m also really pleased with the improvements that have been made to Battle.net, including the RealID system, built-in voice chat, achievements, improved matchmaking, etc.  Again, nothing revolutionary here, but all very welcome and well-executed.

Visually, I think that the game is stunning.  The level of detail is incredible, the characters (particularly the faces) are remarkably well-exeucted, and even playing on “Medium” visual settings (for the most part) on my laptop, I’m struck by how great the game looks.  I just wish that I could play it on a machine that could handle all the Ultra settings. 

One of the chief complaints that i’ve heard leveled at the game (and I can understand why) is that it’s very similar to the original Starcraft.  I think that this is particularly true in multiplayer, where many of the games conventions actually seem a little bit out-of-date.  Still, for people like me (and most of Korea) who loved the first Starcraft game, this will not be a huge negative.  And I really think that the game has a much more ambitious single-player experience than I had expected, and certainly one that improves significantly on the original game. 

In summary, Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty is a blast.  As is to be expected from Blizzard, it is a highly-polished experience that pefects many of the genre’s best ideas, without taking any major risks.  If you’re a fan of RTS games in general, or this game’s predecessor in particular, you will not be disappointed.

Part 1

It is a pretty well-established axiom, that “movie games suck.”  Contrary to popular belief, however, the explanation for this phenomenon is not a mystery.  Until very recently, the relationship between game companies and movie studios could be defined as a classic one of licensor/licensee.  This should not be surprising, given that twenty-plus years ago, when movie games were first being made, gaming technology was extremely limited, audiences were predominantly young children, and movies took far longer to produce than video games did.  (Not to mention the fact that game development budgets were a fraction of their movie counterparts, as were their revenues).

Given these realities, the film companies waited until they greenlit a film project for production and then sold the rights to create a video game, based on that film, to a game publisher (in much the way that any other merchandising rights are sold).  In fact, it was usually the same consumer products group that was responsible managing classic toy and merchandising relationships who found themselves representing the film studio’s video game interests.

For the film industry, this means that the only individuals with direct exposure to the game companies have been licensing professionals, usually far-removed from the actual film-creation process, and experts in neither game nor film creation.  These individuals, thus, are poorly situated to represent the filmmakers’  interests.  Moreover, because the film studio has limited, if any, profit participation in the success of the game, these individuals are primarily concerned with ensuring that nothing related to the game could possibly disrupt anything related to the film.

Similarly, because they have no long-term vested interest in the success of the film franchise, the game publishers simply hand-off the game development responsibilities to a team of developers whose top priority is to ship something in time for the launch of the film.  The publishers reserve their most talented teams for the intellectual properties that they own, instead giving the licensed projects to the developers with the best blend of dependability and affordability.

Given this working dynamic, it should not be surprising that there are relatively few individuals in either industry who truly understand the other.  The result is a series of tragic myths and misunderstandings that have formed on both sides of the business and creative relationship.  In the next two parts of this series, I will outline some of the most significant of these misunderstandings and try to help shed a little light on their origins.  Stay tuned!

Hello dear readers.  It certainly has been a LONG time since I updated my blog.  Work was incredibly busy in April and May, with business trips to San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, London, and New York, as well as a vacation to St. Thomas for a friend’s wedding.

Nonetheless, the real reason that I haven’t written in a while is simply that I haven’t had a topic come up that has compelled me to write.  Today, however, I was asked a question by a friend about game design/development-related degrees and university programs.  By the time that I finished responding to him, I realized that I had pretty much drafted something worth posting to my blog.  So, if the subject interests you, please read on…

When it comes to game development academic programs, I believe that the most well-respected (or at least the one’s that I’ve heard the most good things about) are, in no particular order:

• · USC’s Department of Interactive Media
• · Digipen
• · The Entertainment Technology Institute at Carnegie Mellon
• · Full Sail University
• · The Guildhall at SMU
• · Savannah College of Art and Design

I also did a quick search and found this site, which lists several more. Also, the Game Career Guide would probably be a useful resource for someone considering a game degree.

Personally, I think that the bigger question is whether or not a person should pursue a professional degree at all. If the individual is thinking about a graduate degree, then I would say “skip it,” and go get a job making games, unless they have tried and failed or are really interested in games on an academic level.

If we’re talking undergrad, I think that there are pros and cons. On the positive side, these degrees generally DO help improve someone’s chances of landing a job in the industry. They show potential employers that the candidate is serious about a career in games, they help the candidates create a portfolio of work (which is increasingly important these days), and they probably do actually impart some useful skills/knowledge about game development (though, precisely how much, is debatable).

As someone whose father spent their career as a university professor, I have the utmost respect for academics. That being said, I also believe that these types of (often) for-profit programs can be places where the adage that “those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach,” most applies. Of course, there are exceptions to this, as I know at least one very successful, respected, experienced game designer who is currently teaching at Savannah College of Art and Design (Brenda Brathwaite). Still, a person will learn more about actual game development in a year at a game company than they would in 2-4 years at a game college (IMHO).

The real downside to this sort of degree, however, has little to do with game design/development programs in specific and everything to do with undergraduate professional degrees in general. Again, this is just my opinion, but I believe that people are best-served as undergrads by a broad, liberal arts, type of education. Very few people at that age (18-21) really know what they want to do with their lives and what one ends up majoring in as an undergrad really has very little bearing on what their options are or what they will become. (This game producer has a BA in Economics).

Meanwhile, that same age range is a crucial one for “training the brain,” and learning about the world. In my opinion, college is not just about setting oneself up to get a job, but about learning how to be a productive and healthy member of an increasingly complicated and diverse global society. For this reason, I strongly believe that most people would benefit both personally and professionally (game designers in particular) from a broad cultural education that includes everything from math and science to history, politics, language, culture, and the arts.

So, I guess what I’m saying is this. If the person in question is just getting out of high school, I suggest that they go to the best traditional college that they can get into. By all means, they should still take relevant classes (computer science, digital art, etc.) and focus on learning about game development in their free time, as a hobby, but they should also try to get the best education that they can. This will be far more valuable in the long-run. If the person is older (particularly if they already have a BA) and has been trying to figure out what to do with their life for a while, then a professional degree might make much more sense. Finally, if the person is considering a graduate degree in games, I’d say that it should be because they want to pursue games as an academic subject or have already tried to get a job in games for some time without success.

Hope that this is more helpful than it is pedantic…

My good friend, Jason Fredrickson, forwarded this article to me earlier today.  It was with great bemusement that I learned that legendary game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, seems to have filed a patent on behalf of Nintendo that basically describes the “Movie Mode” game feature that I proposed all the way back in July, and again via GameDaily, in September.  Inexplicably, sites like Gamasutra and Kotaku seem to think that the idea is more noteworthy when it comes from him than from me. 

To be fair, according to the article, Miyamoto-san filed his patent 2 days before I published my blog post.  And, unsurprisingly, there are some differences in terms of the specific implementation of the feature.  Nonetheless, I will take this as a validation of the basic elements of the idea. (I’m rather proud of myself, in case you couldn’t tell…)

It’s been a while since my last blog post.  That fact is due, in no small part, to the significant amount of time that I spent in the frozen tundra of northern Alberta in the last few months (3 trips and a total of about 3 weeks in the last 3 months).  In specific, I was in a town called Grande Prairie: population approximately 50,000. 

In case your Canadian geography is a little rusty, this is where Grande Prairie is located:

View Larger Map

(The states just off the bottom of the map would be Washington, the Northern tip of Idaho,  and Montana).  Here are a few interesting factoids about Grande Prairie:

• Upon my first arrival to Grande Prairie, my host described the city as “the Northernmost edge of civilization.”
• With a little luck, you can see the Northern Lights when standing outdoors at night. (I was not lucky).
• Grande Prairie can be quite pretty:



The building in this photo is the most prominent landmark in the area.  At 14 stories it towers above everything else in the city and is, as I’m told, the tallest building in Alberta north of Edmonton.

• Grande Prairie also has some extremely nice, albeit somewhat quirky, people:

(In defense of Grande Prairie, the chap on the right is from Newfoundland, I believe).

• Due to Grande Prairie’s latitude, the days are very short at this time of year.  This image was taken at about 10:30am, on my way into the office:

• At this point you’re probably asking, “so, why does one go to Grande Prairie?”

Well, the most common answer to that question is: “for money.”  Apparently, Northern Alberta is swimming in crude oil and Grande Prairie represents the staging-point for a tremendous amount of oil drilling activity in the area.  The province is booming, with a multi-billion dollar budget surplus and a staggering manpower shortage. Eighteen year-old high school graduates moving to the area regularly earn more than $100,000 a year working in the oil fields.  Workers are so hard to come by that service industry companies also pay astronomical wages (as much as $17/hour for a job at Starbucks, I’m told).  The unfortunate byproduct of this wealth in an otherwise inhospitable land is are depressingly high rates of methamphetamine addiction, prostitution, and gambling.

I, however, did not venture to Grande Prairie to seek my fortune as a leatherneck and while-away the cold nights with drugs and loose women.  I was drawn to this desolate land by the potent combination of classic 70’s disco music and modern technology, in the form of an iPhone game called:

Saturday Night Fever: Dance was developed by a small team based in Grande Prairie by the name of Evolv3r Inc. and published under my direction by Paramount Digital Entertainment.  I am very excited to announce that, as of today, this game is now available for download from the iTunes App store (for the bargain price of $4.99).  I’m very proud of this project.  While the core gameplay mechanic is pretty heavily “inspired” by Elite Beat Agents for the Nintendo DS, I think that we made some subtle but significant improvements and produced an extremely polished and full-featured iPhone application in a very short amount of time. 

The music lineup is fantastic, including Master recordings of YMCA (Village People), Shake Your Groove Thing (Peaches & Herb), Carwash (Rose Royce), and Love Machine (The Miracles).  I really didn’t have much of an appreciation for disco music before working on this project, but after seeing the film (which I highly recommend…it’s really not what you expect) and working on this game, I think I’m something of a fan.

So, if you’ve got an iPhone or an iPod Touch, or you know anyone who does, I definitely encourage you to give the game a try.  I have very high hopes for it.  If you enjoy it, please help spread the word. 

I was tremendously amused by Simon Parkin’s Gamasutra article “Fallout 3 – I Kill Children” and the ensuing discussion. In the article, Parkin asserted that the decision by the team at Bethesda to restrict the killing of children “admitted video games’ ineffectiveness in providing meaningful disincentives and negative repercussions for in-game atrocities.” Several others chimed-in with comments complaining that “allowing people to kill adults but not children implies that there is something more wrong about killing children.”

It is worth noting, for those unfamiliar with the game, that Fallout 3 is a Mature-rated game intended for adults that is graphically violent.  Recently released, it has been met with strong early sales and generally excellent reviews.  When characters are killed they are often shown up-close in high detail as limbs are severed and blood flies in slow motion.

Presumably, Mr. Parkin is advocating that players should have been allowed to kill children in the same way.

The gist of his argument is that because the game is set in a harsh, morally-ambiguous future, where such actions might actually happen, the decision to prevent the killing of children in this way represents self-censorship and compromises the game’s artistic integrity because it implies that the developers were unable to design appropriate consequences that would have disincentivized and “punished” this kind of behavior.  Ironically, there would likely have been little, if any, actual consequences for this type of behavior in the bleak future that the game envisions.

The reality is that society absolutely thinks that there is something more wrong about killing children than adults. This is so obvious that it I am surprised that people were even asking the question. Generally speaking, the younger the victim, the more horrific the crime seems; the more outraged the public reaction. The most surprising thing to me is that there are people who were surprised that killing children was restricted in the game, considering the countless other video games in which you can kill adults but not kill children. Even film, a medium that is allowed a much wider degree of artistic freedom than games, rarely tackles the subject of child murder and, when it does, it is universally done in a way that is less “in your face” than some of the people on this comment thread seem to be advocating.  Can anyone point to a commercially successful film that showed graphic, realistic, murder, including gushing blood and dismemberment, of a child? The fact that Mr. Parkin’s article, as well as some of the comments, actually seem to be advocating this for a video game in our current political climate borders on the comical to me.

We can argue all we want about the artistic compromise that this decision may have been for the game, but that conversation is ultimately irrelevant. I was not privy to the actual conversation on this topic, but I’d bet just about anything that Bethesda made this decision for very legitimate business/financial reasons. Had they allowed players to graphically execute innocent children, resulting in their dismemberment and enormous spouts of blood, the game would almost certainly have gotten them an Adults-Only (AO) rating, effectively killing the game’s retail potential. Even if it had not, it would probably have quickly become the biggest games industry PR nightmare since Hot Coffee, with unknown but very likely negative impacts on sales as conservative retailers such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart rushed to pull the game from store shelves in the face of a public outcry.

Video game development, at least the kind that Bethesda is engaged in, is a business. People should be neither surprised nor upset when companies such as Bethesda make decisions that are in the best interest of their business. Sure, they could have allowed the graphic killing of children, but in so doing they would have created a massive risk of seriously hurting their product’s sales. Games of the scope and ambition of Fallout 3 cost a lot of money ($20 million and more) to make. If games can’t recoup their costs (and then some) they don’t get made. Is that what Mr. Parkin and those who agree with him really want, just so that they can applaud the game’s “internal consistency” of allowing players to murder children in horrific and gory ways?

It is the failure to acknowledge the out-of-game consequences of what he suggests that I think most undermines Mr. Parkin’s argument. As he AND his “eloquent” detractors have pointed out, there were certainly ways Bethesda could have made the consequences for this atrocity severe enough to disincentivize most players. I seriously doubt, however, that being able to say “afterwards, you are haunted by the child’s ghost and your character has a hard time sleeping,” would have done much to quell the outcry of millions of disgusted and offended parents. Ultimately, the decision to omit child killing in the game is far less of a concession to Bethesda’s abilities as game designers than it is to society’s sensitiblities.  So, in other words, we have only ourselves to blame (or thank).

So, I was really very disappointed when I realized that the agreement that this article refers to seems to be in reference to a completely new game developed by Harmonix and will not make any Beatles songs playable in Rock Band.  This decision seems to me that it was probably dictacted by some business/financial factors, as Harmonix has done an excellent job of promoting the concept of Rock Band as a “platform,” and the Beatles seem like a perfect fit for that platform.

Obviously, I don’t know what the two companies have in mind that would make a stand-along Beatles game make more sense, but I’m willing to wait and find out before passing judgment.  I just hope that it doesn’t turn out to be some sort of shameless cash-in opportunity that would have been better if it were just part of Rock Band.

Neat!  GameDaily.com just decided to republish my previous post on “movie mode.”  Feel free to check it out in its slightly edited form here.