"What Are You Afraid Of?"

So a lot of really reprehensible things have happened in the space of video game fan-ness over the last couple weeks.  I'm not gonna summarize, mostly because I don't have the stomach to research it all in the detail that would be required for a summary.  Suffice to say a lot of women, particularly in the space of video game journalism and critique, have been the targets of systematic harassment over the last two weeks because...Wait, why again?

No, really, that's what I want to talk about.  As so many of us sit back and just watch in befuddled horror as this all unfolds before us, the question I see on everyone's lips is "Why?"  Why the hell are people doing this?  What do they want?  What's their endgame?  I see a lot of people say "sexism" or "misogyny," and these are decent enough shorthand for how these things are allowed to continue, but those aren't really explanation of what motivates the harassers into the blind fury they seem to be displaying.

So what drives these people?  I don't think it's anger or prejudice or a fear of change.  Instead, I think it's a fear of the unknown.

"Unknown?  What the hell's there not to know?"

Let's face it, video games need to change.  That's a big part of what Tropes vs. Women has been about.  They're mired in regressive ways of thinking, outdated ways of telling stories and they're killing themselves by alienating so many possible players by sticking to stupid traditions.  Every critique I see of gender, race or whatever in video games focuses on the fact that games need to change...but not always how they need to change.

So this is where I admit I haven't actually watched Tropes vs. Women yet.  I mean...what can I say?  It's Feminism 101.  I see the summary when each episode comes out and I'm like "Yep, already made aware of that one years ago." So, I can't actually comment on that show specifically, but I can comment on a lot of the criticism of representation I do see on Twitter and Gamasutra and wherever people are belching out opinions.  A lot of the things I see fall into the category of "raising awareness" and "signal boosting."  Basically, making sure as many people are aware of a bad thing as possible.  Often these things are presented without much comment, other than the person confirming "Yes, this is fucked up.  Look at it."  Now, while I think it's very important that stuff like this be made public and absolutely feel we need to talk about it...I honestly don't think this signal-boosting model is very effective at inspiring change.

I call it "Drop-the-Mic Criticism."  You point at a problem, say "This is a problem," drop the mic and walk away.

If you follow me on Twitter, you'll notice that every time I critique something, it's always through the lens of how that thing could be improved.  "This character would be better if they expanded her backstory," "Having more female protagonists would increase the range of stories that could be told," etc etc.  This is deliberate, because I want to stress to people that I'm trying to make the thing better for everyone.  I always focus on the ways that better representation improves the experience for everyone that plays games and makes video games better than they are today.  I do this to head-off the vitrolic response that criticizing games and game storytelling usually generates.

"Okay, hang on.  You're saying that people need to be able to suggest improvements before they can criticize something?"

No, I don't think criticism is something that needs to be "formalized."  The rantiest, most profanity-laden YouTube comment might still have a decent point to it.  It's just...not making its point effectively, and is more likely to provoke a knee-jerk negative response than inspire the change the poster is looking for.  There's no "right" or "wrong" way to make a point, but it's important to consider how effective your tactics really are vs. the people you're ostensibly trying to convince.

My main point here is that drop-the-mic criticism is terrifying if you're a person who happened to like the thing being criticized as it is.  It's terrifying because it makes it 100% clear change needs to happen, but 0% clear what that change will be or what that thing you like will look like when that change is over.  Progress is always a two-step process of identifying problems and then solving them, but when all you do is identify problems, you give the subconscious impression that you don't care what the solution is.

Lemme put it this way: A lot of people accuse feminist critics of video games of calling for "censorship."  This is ridiculous.  No one wants censorship.  No one wants games to be pulled from the shelves.  Censorship is the absolute worst-case solution to the issue of sexism in games...but it is a solution.  And if you, as the critic, give the indication that you don't care what the solution is so long as the problem goes away, a non-zero number of people are going to leap to the worst-case scenario, be it out of anxiety, a lack of creativity or both.

I hate to do call-outs, but if you want an egregious example...I get really frustrated by Fuck No Video Games.  It's basically an entire feed of drop-the-mic tweets, just stamping a big red "X" on every problematic bit of every video game (and fanbase thereof) out there.  I get the point and I get the value of it, but this is a really ineffective model of criticism.  No matter who you are, reading through that feed is just a frustrating experience.  It doesn't inspire you to want change or improve the space.  It just makes you want it to fucking stop!  But like...you can't do anything, because it's not suggesting any solutions.  It's just showing you problems with things you likely have little to no control over.  Spend any amount of time binging on that feed and you won't be able to see any solutions beyond setting the entire planet on fire and starting again...and that's not very useful for anybody.

"Look, not everyone's a storyteller or a game designer.  You can't expect everyone to be able to imagine solutions to these problems."

Well, maybe you don't need to imagine!

Another thing I take care to do consistently on my Twitter feed is consistently praise good examples of representation in video games.  For my part, I will sing the praises of Saints Row 3 and 4 forever.  They don't get everything right, but those games have some of the most level-headed and progressive handling of race, gender and sexuality I've ever seen in a video game and I encourage everyone reading this to play both of them if they haven't so far.  And the best part?  Saints Row 3 and 4 kick...ass!  They're incredible video games.  They're a go-to example of how a truly feminist game can appeal to absolutely everyone.

And has the games media given those games their due for their incredibly deft writing and handling of character?

...

...

"...That's the game with the dickbats, right?"

Sigh.  Anyone mind if I have a little tangent, here?

TANGENT

So when Nintendo showed Splatoon at E3, feminist-type-people like me got absolutely hype.  Here was shooter with a focus on the female cast!  And the squidgirls were (immediate fanart notwithstanding) totally awesome-looking and non-sexualized.  Talk about something different and new!  What a bold direction for Nintendo.  This could easily signal a shift in the industry, if a major player like Nintendo is able to make a move like this as though it were nothing.  Game changer!

Then, after E3, this little infographic surfaced...

Guess what game is most conspicuously absent from that list!  If you said "Project Giant Robot," you're right, but also where the hell is Splatoon!? Anyone feel like writing an article about the most progressive surprise of the entire show?  Anyone have anything to say about that?  No, instead ~2,300 articles were written about some dumb thing some dumb guy making a dumb assassin game said about how modeling a female character would be too hard even though I'm pretty sure he actually meant making a second animation set would be too hard which was the reason Crackdown didn't have a female playable agent because all the male agents were basically palette-swaps and AAAAARGH!!!

Look, if you only ever promote bad examples of things, that means people only ever see bad examples of things, and that means they can only ever imitate or draw from bad examples of things because creativity is a myth and everyone just remixes stuff they've already seen in new ways whether they're conscious of it or not.  I would argue that it is infinitely more useful to promote good examples of things than to condemn bad versions of things.  Good versions give people a roadmap.  They tell the world what it is you want to see more of.  You don't need to imagine it!  It's right there!

I could get into a tangent-tangent about why ~2,300 people decided it was a better use of their time to all independently confirm some dude was being dumb than to bring something progressive to light, but I think that truly does deserve its own post so I'm going to wrap up the tangent here.

END TANGENT

So this has been long and rambly, but I hope I'm getting my point across.  The reason the pending changes coming to the game-space are so terrifying to many gamers is that there's a real lack of clarity as to what that future will look like.  The focus of the conversation hasn't been about how this future will be better for everyone, and lead to more kick-ass games like Saints Row 3 that everyone can enjoy and get something out of.  Even if there is no call for censorship (and there isn't), when the call is for "(fill in the blank)," I find it hard to blame people for filling in the worst-case scenario.

So I hope this gives people a new way of thinking about this controversy.

"Yeah, great going, jackass."

Huh?

"You spent this entire post criticizing the VICTIMS in this conflict.  You're blaming THEM for arguing incorrectly or not talking about sunshine and rainbows or whatever.  Don't you have anything to say to the AGGRESSORS?  Y'know, the people sending the death threats and the harassing messages?"

Um, yes.   All of the above, actually.  Everything I've said is actually directed more at them than anyone else.

"...Go on."

Look, I said above that I don't think criticism is something that should be formalized, and I mean it.  There's no "right" or "wrong" way to argue something, and just because a mode of criticism is less effective doesn't make the points its raising any less important or valid.  What Anna Sarkeesian is going, what Fuck No Video Games is doing and what drop-the-mic feminist gaming advocates all over the world are doing is not the problem and it never was.  It's good and important work, and acknowledging these problems is a vital step towards making games better.

What I'm saying is that I understand why this...vile response happens, and why this kind of criticism stirs up such visceral feelings of fear and anger in some people.  Yes there are ways to mitigate it, (and as someone with an aversion to conflict, I chose to walk that path as closely as possible,) but in the end I think it falls on the people who experience those feelings to come to grips with them.  It's not always easy to understand why your emotions drive you to do the things you do.  If it was, we'd have no need for psychology as a science.  I don't think most dudes who get viscerally upset whenever a new Tropes vs. Women makes the news actually understand where that gut-punch is coming from.  That's why all the arguments surrounding it devolve into goalpost-moving and silencing techniques.  People don't know why they're mad, just that they're mad, and fuck you for saying they shouldn't be!

I hope that, no matter who you are or where you fall on these issues, I've said something that makes you think.  I'm just one person, and I don't claim to be an expert on any of this.  What I want more than anything is for there to be an honest discussion, without malice or hesitation, where we show our true feelings and realize we ultimately all want the same thing, which is more awesome video games.

Thinking Inside the Box

The word "innovation" gets thrown around a lot in the gaming community. "We want innovation," people will cry, "We want new experiences and fresh gameplay concepts!" And, contrasted with this, people will lament the procession of samey first-person shooters and motion-controlled minigame extravaganzas which flood today's marketplace. The assertion that innovation in dead in big-budget game development is, if hyperbolic, increasingly common even by industry analysts.

So what's the problem? Are the cries for innovation really falling on deaf ears? Is there really no way to get high-profile game developers out of this rut they're in? I say "No!" on both counts. The real problem here is that, for all the ranting and raving done on the subject, a lot of people don't seem to put much thought into what innovation actually is or, more importantly, how it comes about. If you ask me, the sameness of modern video games comes from the fact that modern game designers have too much freedom to do what they want as opposed to too little. Innovation comes about when you have restrictions to work around and sacrifices to make.

Imagine for a second that you had a magical pantry. (Just...just go with me, here.) In this pantry, you could get any kind of ingredient you wanted and thus make any kind of food imaginable. On the surface, you might believe that this would allow you to create new and innovative dishes every night, but think about it for a second. If you had access to every ingredient on Earth, why would you ever choose low-quality goods? Why would you ever bother with ingredients you don't like? If you hate eggplant, why would you use eggplant when you have so many other options you do like?

Now imagine a second magical pantry. This pantry also contains any ingredient imaginable, but only a few of them at a time. Every night the contents are randomized, so you might have a bunch of ingredients you like or you might not. And that, my friends, is when innovation really kicks in. One night you might have eggplant as your only available vegetable, so you'd have to really think about how to make it work. Maybe you could try cooking it a different way than normal or maybe you try covering it in a really rich sauce, but the fact that you're restricted in what you can use is forcing you to be creative.

Modern, big budget game designers are a lot like the first scenario. Between the massiveness of their budgets and the beefiness of modern hardware, they have all the resources they could possibly want when designing a game. And, as such, they just continue to make the same "comfort food" they like the best almost every time. Oh sure, some days they may feel a little adventurous and cook up something new, but they've no real reason to.

However, things weren't always like this. Going back to the NES, Super Nintendo and even Playstation eras, game design was more like the second scenario. Game designers had to fight against the upper limits of the hardware every time they created a game, and this forced them to think of innovative ways to do more with less. If you think back on all the old "classic" games, there wasn't a whole lot to them. In Super Mario Bros. you run, you jump, you duck and you occasionally find one of three power-ups. It's a simple but very elegant core of gameplay which the designers could iterate outward into a million different challenges, all pulling from the same relatively small set of tiles and enemies. The developers surmounted the limitations of the hardware by focusing on making core mechanics that were fun and versatile enough to stand the test of time.

Another example of innovation through limitations would be the first Silent Hill game. In many games of the Playstation and Nintendo 64 era, the problem of "draw distance" was tricky. The hardware being what it was, the system just couldn't render that big an area at once, so the player always had to deal with a sort of "fog" blocking their view of far-away objects. When faced with this, Silent Hill's developers made a brilliant move and turned a hardware limitation into a core of the game's atmosphere. In the haunted town of Silent Hill, the ever-present fog became a big part of gameplay, and the concern that a mutilated beast could come charging out of it at any moment kept the player on edge.

This process of "innovation through limitation" is also the reason you see so much creativity in small, independently-produced games. In the case of these indies, the limiting factor isn't the hardware, but rather the money. Indie start-ups only have so much money and time they can pour into a game, so they need to put a lot of thought into how to get the most bang for their meager buck. Just like in the old days, this means building an engaging (and usually unique) core to your gameplay which you can iterate out any number of ways. This is why you see indies taking advantage of things like procedurally-generated content and abstract or retro-stylization in their games. These elements which may be considered too strange or bland for big-budget studios are, like the eggplant, the ingredients with which indies are forced to work to get results.

"So that's a nice theory and all," you might be saying, "but I thought you said innovation isn't dead in big-budget studios. If just yelling at them to innovate won't work, what should we yell at them to do?" I'll admit it does sound pessimistic to say that the very freedoms game developers have is stifling their creativity, but I think that innovation through limitation can still drive the industry forward. It's all about following one simple rule...

DEMAND QUALITY!

Just think for a second how much the gaming community lets developers get away with. We have games that are glitched, to the point of unplayability, at launch and are only fixed by patches down the line. We have games where human character models get loaded onto birds, ragdoll physics bug out for no reason and...I don't even know....yet we don't seem to care. We don't complain about getting obviously-unfinished and untested games. We just let developers kinda do...whatever, and this is exactly the problem. As it is, a lot of modern games (particularly "open world" ones) feature a crushing amount of seemingly half-done content which feels like they just took every single idea the brainstorming room threw out and tried to cram it in there. The result tends to be a gigantic, schizophrenic mess that really illustrates the "Less is more" concept. Once upon a time, it was a lot easier to accept a game being buggy or feeling unfinished. The hardware was newer and the developers were smaller, some of them working with budgets no higher than the indies of today. But now, with the sheer amount of money and manpower going into AAA titles, there's no longer an excuse, and developers need to start being held more accountable for what they sell.

If we, as consumers, demanded games with actual polish to them it would once-again force developers to seriously consider what to put in and what to leave out. Developers would need to concentrate on having a core set of fun and engaging features (which are easier to playtest) rather than a zillion conflicting, stupid features which no testing team in the world could do justice.

Now that hardware has reached a point where just about anything is possible, it's up to us the audience to set the limitations which will drive the industry forward. Simply put, it's time for developers to once-again start thinking inside the box.

Someone Make This: Minion Madness

No matter how many iterations my blogging may take, I will never get tired of having gimmick segments. To that end, welcome to the newest segment of my newly game-focused blog, "Someone Make This," in which I come up with game ideas for people to steal. Specifically, I come up with game ideas in order to illustrate an idea I'd have trouble getting across otherwise.

Today's game is inspired by this article on The Escapist, about "crossplay." The idea of crossplay is to merge single and multiplayer experiences, and isn't strictly a new idea. People have been playing with the idea of "single player games in which other players control the enemies" for years, and to an extent it's been done. Left 4 Dead, for example, allows people to play as the zombies and harass the protagonists. There have even been variations on Pac-Man which allow other players to be the ghosts. Still, this got me to thinking about other ways you could pit players against each other in ostensibly "single player" situations.

I want you to picture a game called "Minion Madness."

Minion Madness is played online. A bunch of people join a game, and their roles are then randomly selected. Specifically, one person will be chosen as the "Hero," the other as the "Overlord" and everyone else as "Minions."

From the perspective of the "Hero" the game is a sidescrolling platformer, akin to the Mario series. The goal is to get from one end of the level to the other, avoiding or defeating enemies and collecting powerups along the way. Maps are procedurally generated, but the platforming itself is always fairly simple. The main challenge comes from the enemies who will stand in your way.

This is where the "Overlord" comes in. From the Overlord's perspective, the game is more like a tower-defense strategy game. When the game begins, the Overlord is given two minutes to set down the enemies in the level. The Overlord has limited funds with which to do this, and more powerful enemies cost more coins to place. The Overlord's goal is to prevent the Hero from completing the level. Once all his minions are placed, the Overlord must sit back and watch the Hero run his gauntlet.

When the actual platforming starts, the rest of the players, the "Minions" take control of the enemies which have been placed. The gameplay of a minion is very limited, and many enemies have one-button controls. An enemy which can only walk back and forth for example, uses only one button with which to change direction. Other, more powerful enemies will have more advanced controls to allow the minion to hinder the hero more effectively. The goal of a minion is, of course, to kill the Hero as the Hero comes charging through. What's in it for them? Well, this is where the overall structure of the game comes into play.

Again taking a cue from Mario, each "game" of Minion Madness consists of four levels, or "rounds" if you prefer. If the hero runs out of lives during any of these rounds, the Overlord's team wins. If the Hero makes it through all four levels, the Hero wins. In addition, each person's performance in a level can help them out in a later level. The Hero, for instance, can collect coins in order to earn more extra lives. The Overlord, by contrast, receives all the coins the Hero didn't collect in the level to bolster his funds for the next. (The Overlord also gets a hefty bonus of coins whenever the Hero loses a life.) The Minions don't care about coins, and instead are fighting for "ranks." If a Minion kills the hero, he or she will become a "Gold-Rank" Minion. The next time that Minion is placed, they will be more powerful than before (faster, more resilient, etc). As a result, gameplay in each level is very much about powering up for the next level, hopefully raising the stakes each time the Hero makes it through.

The fourth and final level of the game is unique in that it has a Boss Chamber at the end. Once the Overlord has distributed his minions, he himself takes control of the boss creature at the end. Depending on how many coins the Overlord has when all is said and done, his boss form will be more or less powerful. Minions don't have much to do with the fight, though their job is obviously to prevent the Hero from ever reaching it. Whoever wins, the game will ultimately start over, with roles being re-assigned.

What I like about this game is that it's a fusion of many largely single-player experiences into a meta-multiplayer game. From the perspective of the Hero, this plays just like a standard platformer, yet it makes the experience much more personal. Most platformers have a "one man against the world" element to them, but this time you're really being pitted against an army of other players, including a living, breathing Mastermind behind it all.

From the perspective of the Overlord this plays very much like a Tower Defense game, but what I like about it is how much it simulates the "evil overlord" experience. You're the one with all the plans, but in the end you must sit back and watch your clumsy and perhaps foolhardy henchmen carry them out. You get to really see what it's like to be a video game supervillain.

For the Minions, it's a somewhat more unique experience, but one I've always kind of wanted to see captured in a game. What's it like to be the little dude on level 1 whose only means of attack is to waddle back and forth, waiting in rapt anticipation for the two or three seconds which will determine your victory or defeat? Maybe I'm alone in wanting to step into that guy's shoes for a moment, but I think it's something that would be interesting to explore. So many multiplayer games, particularly MMORPGs, try to make every player feel like the hero of the story to the point where no one really is. It would be kinda cool for a game to have the balls to say "You're not special. You're a grunt just like 95% of the people here. If you want to be special, you're going to have to earn it."

This is why I think "crossplay" is so interesting. It allows players to step into the shoes of characters who have largely existed as abstractions in video games past. It turns every moment into a real, person vs. person narrative. I don't know if video gamers as a whole would relish the idea of being a Buzzy Beetle for a day, but as far as my personal tastes go, I want someone to make this.

You Mean You Have to Use Your Body? That's Like a Baby's Toy!

So, there's been a lot of confusion lately about who the Kinect is "for." So much confusion, in fact, that even Microsoft can't get their story straight. However, the general consensus seems to be that the Kinect will be focused on making games for "casual" players, which is generally code for simpler, more accessible games suitable for families. More specifically, it means MINIGAMES MINIGAMES MINIGAMES and very little depth.



The thing I don't understand about it is that there seems to be a sense that the Kinect's full-body motion controls couldn't be put into a more "hardcore" context. It seems to me that a game in which your every motion can be used as a command would be an excellent way to make games much more deep than the one's we're playing today.

Let's think about it this way. In the average game, discounting something like an RTS, you are controlling a person. The buttons and joysticks on your controller almost all serve as commands for this person. As a result, you could think of the controller as a kind of abstracted way of controlling your game protagonist's body. Now consider the Kinect. The Kinect, at least in theory, has been touted as having the ability to locate your "skeleton" and determine exactly how you're moving. It stands to reason, then, that this "skeleton" could be used as the "skeleton" of a game character. Imagine a game in which your motions correspond 1:1 with the motions of your game hero. You punch, they punch. You duck, they duck. No canned animations, no fudging hitboxes, it's all you.

Think of the possibilities of making a fighting game out of this. I'm picturing a game structured very much like your standard 2D fighting game, only the character you play is using your skeleton, so your movements translate directly to theirs. The designers would have to be clever about it, particularly in determining how the game recognizes things like "blocking" or whether there would be ways to implement super moves like fireballs. See? That's something that would be an actual game, and the depth is...kinda infinite in a way, because your options are limited only by your ability to move.

The potential for the Kinect to create things gamers would actually recognize as video games and not just diversions seems obvious to me, just with the skeleton mapping alone. So why do developers continue to limit themselves in exploring the hardware's capabilities. I think it could be one of three things.

The first possibility is that developers don't trust themselves. Taking full advantage of dropping a player's skeleton into a game would no doubt be hard. It's a completely different animal than canned animations and would require inventing not only new engines, but new languages in which to give feedback to the player. It would require, y'know, creativity. And of course, with creativity, comes the risk of screwing up and failing, and we all know how well that goes over at shareholder meetings.

The second possibility is that the developers don't trust the Kinect. It's been a point of concern just how "ready for primetime" the Kinect technology actually is. It's possible this "skeleton-mapping" I've been going on about doesn't work as well as Microsoft's marketing team would like you to believe. It's possible there are too many issues and hiccups with the technology to make anything deeper than light fluff. If that's the case it's particularly sad, because at least to my eyes the skeleton mapping abilities of the Kinect were all that was elevating it above being a glorified EyeToy.

The third possibility is that the developers don't trust gamers. Specifically, they worry that if they make a game that actually requires standing up and moving, they run the risk of alienating the 300-pound shut-ins whom they view as the ones buying "hardcore games." If this is what's going on, I think it's missing a key point. Hardcore gamers aren't the only people who can appreciate deep, "hardcore" game mechanics. A game can be deep while also being accessible, something that's always seemed to be at the core of Nintendo's design philosophy. Motion controls offer a fantastic opportunity to create a game that's deep but accessible, because the hurdles of memorizing buttons and getting used to joystick controls are put aside. Controls don't get much easier to grasp or deeper to master than "punch to punch."

Since apparently Microsoft hopes the Kinect will last for a good five years, at the very least developers are looking at a good long time to unlock the hardware's true potential. I just hope they take the time to investigate it, because I really want to play that skeleton-mapped fighting game I was talking about. I am not kidding, here. That's a day-one purchase.

Sunshine Syndrome: Get Your Franchise Checked Today

Hello. I am Dr. Lex, and I'm here to talk to you about a very serious and very misunderstood illness. It's a disease which has claimed many a great game, taking franchises in their prime and leaving them with permanent, sometimes crippling black marks on their history. It's torn fanbases apart, ruined game careers, and for no good reason. I know it's a difficult subject to talk about, but the silence must be broken. Today we're going to talk...about Sunshine Syndrome.

The medical definition of Sunshine Syndrome goes thusly: "A condition in which a quality game is poorly received because it fails to live up to the expectations given by the franchise to which it is tied."

It is named for Super Mario Sunshine, an excellent game which was widely considered disappointing for not being the sequel to Super Mario 64 people wanted. Sunshine Syndrome is a condition which tends to strike more often in older game franchises, and the more beloved the more at risk they are. The higher fans' expectations of a franchise are, the more likely it will be hit with Sunshine Syndrome. To give you a better idea of this condition, let's review a few cases.



Super Mario Sunshine. The game for which the condition is named and one of the more famous cases. Super Mario Sunshine was a wonderful game, beloved by critics but still falling short of fans' high expectations. The game's water-spraying mechanics were fun, but felt out of place in a Mario game. After all, Mario games are about the jumping and platforming, and while this game had both of those, they didn't feel like the center of the game. The release of Super Mario Galaxy marked the last nail in this odd duck's coffin. One wonders how an original IP might have fared with this game's watery antics, but the world will never know.



Ah, Starfox Adventures. Now, while Super Mario Sunshine may be a more famous case, this one is particularly tragic. This game was, at the start of its development, never intended to be a Starfox game. It had the Starfox characters and mythos added very late in development in an effort to help the game sell, despite the fact that the game had nothing to do with flying around and shooting stuff like a normal Starfox title. Instead, the entire game centered around Fox going planetside and hitting dinosaurs with a stick. Understandably, this game left fans and critics alike absolutely mystified as to what Rare and Nintendo were getting at, and it was heavily panned. The fact that this was never intended to be a Starfox game in the first place makes this a somewhat more clear-cut instance of Sunshine Syndrome than most, and should be considered as a case study for academic analysis of the condition.

Before we move on, I warn you, this final example is an extreme sufferer and may be difficult to look at. Those of more squeamish constitutions may wish to look away.



Now this...this is just sad. In many cases, franchises suffering from Sunshine Syndrome are able to make a recovery, making a slow return to producing the type and quality of games their fans expect. Sonic Adventure however, should be viewed as a cautionary tale on how heavily Sunshine Syndrome can cripple a franchise. Sonic the Hedgehog, once a beloved video game icon, was never the same after his move to three-dimensions. The complaints about Adventure, his first 3D outing, were rampant. It "didn't feel like Sonic," it was either "too fast" or "not fast enough" and so on. But, unfortunately, it didn't end there. Sonic Adventure 2 came out, attempting to fix the problems but receiving roughly the same criticism. Then Sonic Heroes, then Shadow the Hedgehog, and for game after game after game after that Sonic Team attempted to recapture the magic of the franchise's glory days to no avail, and nostalgia only made the old games look better and the new games more inferior by comparison as the years wore on. It reached a point where no one even knew what they wanted out of the franchise anymore, gamer or developer alike. In the most severe stages...well...viewer discretion is advised. While the final chapter has yet to be written on the blue hedgehog, his will be remembered as one of the most protracted bouts of Sunshine Syndrome on record.

So now that you've seen the problem up-close, it is time to step back and look at the problem as a whole. Before we discuss prevention, let's first review the ways you can check a game for Sunshine Syndrome at home. Nothing invasive is required, just a few simple questions answered honestly. Here's a questionnaire:

1. If this game were an original IP with original characters, not tied to any sort of franchise, would this game have been better-received?
2. Do the majority of reviews from fans contain the words "It doesn't feel like (Franchise Name)"?
3. Name what you consider the core gameplay mechanic of this franchise. Do you feel this mechanic is poorly-represented in this game?
4. Did this game have a large discrepancy between review scores from professional game reviewers and reviews from fans? Specifically, were review scores from fans lower on the whole?

If you can answer yes to at least two of these questions with regards to a game you know, it may be a sufferer of Sunshine Syndrome. Do not panic. There is absolutely no need to despair. Many games with Sunshine Syndrome go on to lead happy, productive lives as part of peoples' game libraries in spite of their condition. Treat them as you would any other game and try not to let your preconceptions cloud your view. Remember that every game is some developer's pride and joy.

And speaking of developers, it is time to discuss ways to prevent Sunshine Syndrome before it starts. As always, prevention begins in the home, and a video game's home is the game studio. The most common cause of Sunshine Syndrome is a feeling by game developers (and their bosses) that games in a popular franchise will automatically garner more interest than new properties. This is often true. People will get excited for sequels to awesome games because they expect more awesomeness. This is, however, precisely the problem with heavy franchising and the reason Sunshine Syndrome exists.

If you're going to release a game as part of a beloved franchise, you need to seriously consider the expectations that will result from such a move, and whether or not you can deliver on those expectations. If you can't, you're putting not only your game but, as we've seen, your entire franchise at risk. Just one instance of Sunshine Syndrome can drive away fans and you may be hurting yourself for games upon games down the line. If you want to make a more modest or experimental game, do the responsible thing and make it a new property.

I know it's frightening, and it will require your marketing team to do actual work outside of shutting down independent documentaries you don't consider "on message," but in reality the risks of disappointing the fanbase one has built around a franchise cannot be ignored or overstated. People will always, always be more open to new IPs than you think they are.

Sunshine Syndrome can strike any franchise at any time, and it's still a threat. The upcoming X-COM game, for example, looks like an especially at-risk case with its move away from turn-based strategy and towards first-person...and blob-fighting...and also the 1950s for some reason. Spread awareness of this condition however you can, for everyone's sake. Let's work together so that there will be no more grieving investors.

Thank you for your time. I'm sorry if this topic was troublesome, but it had to be addressed. I am Dr. Lex...and...yeah, I really didn't think I was going to keep this doctor gimmick up through the entire post.

Old Games and New Names

Two things to talk about, today! Yeah, I said I was gonna tackle "sequelitis" in this installment, but a couple things have come up which I want to address, so that will have to wait for next time.

First up, it's time for ACTION ON-THE-SPOT VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY NEWS! There's been a lot of ruckus recently regarding the business, ethics, and business ethics of selling pre-owned video games. Basically, game companies don't make money on used game sales, and are now doing everything in their power to dissuade people from buying used. As developers lock players out of more and more used-game content with one-time codes and the like, tensions are rising, and people are starting to wonder what the solution to the problem is. Is there a way to encourage people to buy new without coming off as a massive jackass?

I don't know the solution...because frankly, I don't think there is a solution. Game developers may not like the used game market, but I think they're fighting a battle they cannot win. Developers can not and will not stop used game sales. How do I know this? Because used game retailers have been doing their damndest to put people off of used games and it still hasn't worked!

Seriously, the used game business was incredibly repugnant even before this. Putting aside the issues I already covered with regards to the constant upselling one experiences in these establishments, buying used is always a huge gamble. There's no quality control in these places. Store clerks can't test EVERY GAME that comes in to see if it runs. The best that happens is that someone checks the back of the disc, confirms there are no obvious toothmarks, and slips it into a little paper cover to get jostled around a bazillion times before it actually reaches you. Then you get a disc with no instruction manual and (sometimes) no freaking box,instead getting a generic box with the words "HAYLOW THREE" scribbled in crayon on the front. You put it in your system and, assuming it boots at all, it plays decently or at the very least never fails in a repeatable way so you could get a refund bringing it in.

And despite all this, people...still...do it. Saving ten bucks is so important to some people that they will actually put up with that crap. Do you developers out there really think you can do anything to these people that Gamestop and God haven't already done ten times over? All this "project ten-dollar" nonsense is like putting a 5% tax on crystal meth. You're not going to put people off it by doing that.

If you want people to buy new, all you can do is make something worth buying new. Use the hype machine. Make me want your game on day one. You know when I'm going to consider buying a game used? If it was a game I wasn't excited for so I waited a month to see what the reviews were like before picking it up. If I'm super-hyped about a game, I will run out and buy it at launch (assuming you ship enough for me to do so, of course). Excluding the people for whom used games are an addiction (or economic necessity) I think a lot of gamers operate the same way. So, surprise I guess, the secret to selling games is...making and marketing good games.

I...I hope that helps?

So that's the first item on the agenda, and the second is with regards to my blog itself. As you may have noticed, my recent posts have all started centering around video games, and in light of that I'm considering biting the bullet and converting this into a video games news-and-theory blog. That said, as part of the change, I've decided my blog will need a new name in order to get peoples' attention. There are a few directions I could take this.

I could go the "nonsensical but catchy" route and call my blog something like Flaguzzle or Zimboing. Y'know, one of those titles that betrays absolutely nothing about the content, but is intriguing nonetheless, and is spelled exactly as it sounds so it's easy to enter into a websearch. This tends to be the naming convention used by newsblogs like Kotaku, Destructoid, and all those other places you keep hearing a news story originally broke even though you never actually visit them.

I could also just make the title some random phrase from video game pop culture. I mean it worked for 1up.com, or webcomics like PvP. I could call my blog something like Full Clear or Assisted Aim or...um...Crafting System. Something like that. There's tons of phrases out there, and they all sound about equally like titles. Why, I bet I could just randomly point to a phrase on the back of a video game box and it would work as a blog title. Let's try it...

"A Persistent Internet Connection is Required to Play This Game"

Sounds like a winner to me!

And if I was feeling less creative I could go with one of those lame "informative" titles, like A Gamer's Thoughts or Game Story Discussions. Where's the fun in that, though? The point of a good blog title is to make your content seem more interesting and more important than it actually is. I may be some random nerd on the internet who thinks his outsider opinions on video games are valuable, but ideally my title should leave the impression that I'm a random nerd on the internet who knows his outsider opinions on video games are valuable. Going out there with a blog called "Hey Guys I'm A Gamer, Read This" is not going to get you the obsessive cult of personality which should come with amateur video game journalism. No one's gonna write a creepy Fandom!Secrets post about that mess.

Plus, I have the problem that my blog basically already has the best title ever. It's called "Atomic Chainsaw Apocalypse," a name specifically chosen because it was the most awesome title I could think of. How do you come up with a title cooler than that?

Clearly I will need to think on that. For now...man, I still need to buy Little King's Story. I wonder how much it goes for used.

Graphics Schmaphics

Hey, guess what time it is! It's time to spin another Gamasutra article into a vaguely-related tangent about game theory!

Today's article is this one here, in which some EA dude says a bunch of stuff about social gaming I don't care about. However, he does make the point that he thinks video game budgets have reached their peak, and that future games will be given more modest budgets. Now, the way he phrases this, he makes it sound like "more modest budget" means "games for more casual players," and this is the bit I wanted to talk about today.

You don't need a huge budget to make a game that appeals to hardcore video gamers!

This is something I'll never understand. Why do people continue to think that having the best production values ever equates to increased sales, when the opposite has proven true time and time again? I'm not trying to be one of those "APPRECIATE INDIE GAMES YOU PHILISTINES" bloggers, because I don't need to be. People already appreciate low-budget games so long as they have well-crafted gameplay. Case-in-point, Monday Night Combat, a game that came out this month as a low-budget, fifteen-dollar Xbox Live release. People are loving this game. And why not? It's an awesome (albeit very, very derivative) game with tons of personality. Then you compare it with something like Mafia II, which came out this month as well, which clearly poured a ton of money into creating a massive and fully-realized city...and manages to be the blandest thing ever if reviews are to be believed.

A video game only really needs a fun core of gameplay in order to be engaging. I've played games people have coded in their basements for free and had more fun with them than I ever had with Grand Theft Auto 4. As many gamers and critics as there are out there who praise graphical fidelity and count pixels and all that, I feel like game companies really overestimate how much anybody out there really cares about production values.

But the real proof comes from the numbers, and this is something I've never heard brought up before. Has anyone ever noticed that, when two video game consoles go head to head, the one with the better graphics almost always gets outsold by the lower-powered machine? Seriously, almost every time. I mean, let's ask Wikipedia.

Game Boy vs. Game Gear? Game Gear had better graphics, in color even, but was absolutely decimated sales-wise by the two-color Game Boy.

In the 16-bit era, you have the SNES outperforming the Sega Genesis, which seems like a victory for the graphical powerhouse...until you realize that both of these systems severely crushed the "Neo Geo" in sales even though it was a far more powerful system than either. During this console generation, the Jaguar also tried to break into the market, and ended up more or less dead-on-arrival despite being able to process goddamn polygons.

Then you have the Playstation vs. the Nintendo 64. While it's true the N64 wasn't capable of doing full-motion video (at least not very well) in actual in-game terms the N64 consistently had smoother, better-looking 3D graphics...and it was brutally, brutally outsold by the Playstation.

Playstation 2 vs. Xbox vs. Gamecube vs. Dreamcast! Playstation 2, despite generally having the weakest graphics of the four, sells more than the other three consoles combined, and by a significant margin, too!

And that brings us to today, with the Wii outselling all other consoles all around the world and the DS outselling the PSP despite considerably inferior processing power.

...

THAT...IS...A...GODDAMN...TREND!

I really can't think of a better indicator that gamers, all gamers, prefer games with solid and interesting gameplay over high-fidelity graphics. People don't by consoles, and they don't buy games, just because of how good they look. If reduced budgets on future high-profile titles lead to a shift away from polygon-boosting and towards an examination of what really matters in terms of making a quality game, I'm all for it.

I know I'm oversimplifying. I know that. But, at the very least, I feel like this is an important jumping-off-point when considering game design theory. Are developers actually shooting themselves in the foot by pumping so much money into these games? Is there really such a thing as a "safe" investment? The mentality of "sequels are safer," which is part of the core of this problem, is something I intend to tackle next time. For now...I think I'm gonna go buy Little King's Story and enjoy the hell out of it.