Category: Games

Categories
Game Development Games

TIGRS: The Independent Games Rating System

The Entertainment Software Rating Board acts as the video game industry’s self-regulating body to enforce and apply ratings and marketing guidelines among other things. Unfortunately, if you aren’t a multmillion dollar publisher, you might find it difficult to contact the ESRB to get your games rated.

What do indie game developers do? They either continue to push, hoping to get heard eventually, or they sell their games without worrying about the ratings.

Enter TIGRS, The Independent Game Rating System. It’s simple, clear, and free. There is no need to go to some licensing board who will take their time to approve an expensive grant to claim that your game is kid-friendly.

It is also well-designed. The colors were carefully chosen so that the small percentage of the population that is colorblind can still comfortably read the ratings.

The author has granted the freedom to use these works so long as you don’t claim authorship. The only request is to not abuse the fact that you can basically give yourself an E for Everyone rating when you have clearly made a game that deserves an A for adults.

In the end, I think it should be fine. You can’t confuse an E game for an A game. A problem I can see is that someone from Japan will think a game is for everyone whereas someone in America will see the game as too racy for children. Similarly a game will be perfectly fine for American audiences, but will be deemed to violent for Japanese children. Different cultures will have different standards for E, T, and A.

But maybe I’m wrong and there will only be minor quibbles about whether or not a game has cartoon violence or realistic violence. TIGRS will be more effective when more people use it, of course. I think it is a good idea, and it can evolve as needed.

EDIT: the system is fairly new and changes were made. It will no longer use E, T, and A ratings. It is also easier to create the rating. Now, the website is really useful for publishers and customers alike.

Categories
Game Development Games

IGDA Meeting: Willy Wonka Post Mortem

Tuesday was the IGDA Chicago chapter meeting at Dave & Buster’s. High Voltage Software‘s Matt Corso discussed what it was like to develop Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Wonka was plagued with licensor demands. Normally a licensed title might have the developer, the publisher, and a single licensor, but this game needed approval from about five different sources, including Tim Burton! The game had a tight schedule and needed to be released to coincide with the movie. The movie itself was also completed on a short schedule, so the project team did not have much to go on except the original book for a long time.

Over 15 design documents later, one was finally accepted by everyone and they set to work. They created their own art assets, only to find that the concept art from the movie set looked completley different. A number of times they had to scrap any work they had done and start over. They were required to use the sets from the movie, which meant that it would be difficult to create a game around them. But restrictions promote creativity and they managed to make a game that was fun for the actor who plays Charlie. He found it incredibly fun to have free reign of the sets when in reality he was not allowed to go in certain areas.

One thing I found weird was the convincing the team needed that combat wasn’t necessary. The licensors demanded that there would be no combat and that Charlie Bucket could not get hurt or killed. “How do we add combat to this game?” “We need combat!” These comments were common in the group. Matt said that while he likes games that involve heavy combat, he also likes games like Animal Crossing which are fun despite a lack of combat. From the way Matt described it, they made a puzzle game with Oompa-Loompas that could be used as tools, such as in Pikmin or Lemmings, although he never named those games. He made it sound like the lack of combat was frustrating the development team.

In the end, the game was made, missing its target date by only three days. Licensor demands, the lack of assets from the movie, and the constant reworking of the game were identified as the causes of much discouragement.

I personally think that the development could have been less hectic if they wouldn’t have tried to build their own art assets and levels before the concept art and movie assets were available. Also, licensor demands for change were fairly drastic, and I think that if both sides discussed the cost of such changes that it would have been more clear. Non-developers can’t be expected to understand that a request to change an entire level or gameplay mechanic results is in delays and work. It didn’t sound like Matt or the team made those concerns clear to the licensors.

Of course, I was not involved personally. I have no idea how much wasn’t said. I don’t know the day to day events that happen to a group that works night and day for seven days a week for months at a time. Perhaps any perceived dissent would have rubbed people the wrong way. Maybe the licensors were expecting to have their way without question. I don’t know, but I think that communicating concerns would have gone a long way to eliminating the Us vs. Them mentality.

In any case, it was good to hear a post mortem of a game. Reading the post mortem just isn’t the same. I hope there are more IGDA meetings like this one.

Categories
Games Politics/Government

New Letter to Governor Blagojavich

This past week, I submitted the following message to Illinois Governor Blagojavich’s Safe Games Illinois comment form:

I note that safegamesillinois.org cites studies regarding mature game content, but it overwhelmingly suggests that children are buying M-rated games in mass quantities and that such games are a major problem. There seems to be a lack of balance. There are studies such as the recent one conducted by Modulum that found that parents ignore game ratings:
http://gamesindustry.biz/news.php?aid=9703
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4118270.stm

If the above get mangled through your site’s form again, please search for “Parents ignore game ratings” in your favorite search engine.

While the study was conducted in the UK, I can see that a similar problem would be occurring here in the US and Illinois in particular.

It seems that the studies listed on safegamesillinois.org are quite biased and would indicate to someone not familiar with the industry that there are no studies that contradict them. The Useful Links page does not provide any links to the IGDA or any other representative body for the video game industry. The “Summary of Video Game Studies” does not list studies that indicate that most minors either have permission from their parents or have their parents present when they purchase M-rated games. Rather than fostering an Us against Them mentality, the site could be much more useful.

Some studies indicate that the problem isn’t enforcing ratings. They indicate that parents are buying games that they otherwise consider bad for their children because they assume the ratings don’t apply to their children. Once again, I ask in light of this information how the new laws are supposed to help protect children when the children aren’t the ones doing the purchasing and the parents are the ones who are providing access to the games in the first place? I still believe the new laws will not be effective at protecting children or preventing “seemingly arbitrary” violence in society at large.

I think parents should be better educated about game ratings and content, but I would prefer that safegamesillinois.org be a bit less biased and sensational and a bit more informative. Frightening parents away from video games isn’t the way to protect children. Not all video games are like Manhunt or Grant Theft Auto, and safegamesillinois.org does not do a good job of informing parents that there are other options.

Please pass this letter to the Senior Advisor Sheila Nix. I look forward to hearing from you regarding the balance of information provided on safegamesillinois.org. None of the studies on the site indicate that children are actually buying M-rated games, and it seems that the main problem is creating informed purchasers. The site could be an incredibly valuable tool for parents in making the purchasing decisions that they are already making, but I think the site is seriously lacking and misleading in its current state.

Gianfranco Berardi

I still think that the purpose of the laws doesn’t match with the reality. Children don’t buy the games in general, and citing that X% could buy the game doesn’t imply that they do. 98% of children walking to school could run out in front of cars, but they don’t generally. We don’t see legislation preventing children from taking dangerous walks to school.

These recent studies show that parents don’t think they need to pay attention to the ratings that are put there for them to use. And yet the game industry is painted as creating killers.

Huh? Am I supposed to assume that when a parent buys a game for a child that his/her negligence of the ratings system is now the game industry’s fault? The studies show that parents basically say, “Yes, I know the ratings. Yes, I know what they mean. Yes, I bought the game anyway because even though I don’t like the content, my child can handle it.”

The laws passed the Illinois Congress already. I’m sure we’ll see them overturned like similar legislation. But the Safe Games Illinois website claims to be a resource for parents, but it really isn’t. It seems to be more like a resource for those who are already convinced that the video game industry is out to get the children and have managed to sneak past the hard-working-but-innocent-victim parents.

Yes, video games can teach. Yes, there are games that are incredibly violent. But they aren’t the only games or lessons, and it is apparently the case that parents DO have the means to tell the difference.

Categories
Games Geek / Technical

Response From Gas Powered Games

In response to my letter to Gas Powered Games regarding Supreme Commander:

Hello Gianfranco,
Supreme Commander is still a ways away and in development. At this time I
am unable to answer questions about portability or platform support. Look
for more info in the coming months.

Regards,
Greg Stackhouse
Gas Powered Games

Well, at least it is a response. B-) I really do hope that the game gets ported to multiple platforms. It would be a shame if it was stuck on Windows.

Categories
Games Geek / Technical Personal Development Politics/Government

What Games Taught Me

I grew up watching television and playing video games. I read books, but not as often as I do now. Somehow, I managed to get honors in high school. If games only allow me to “learn how to shoot cops”, how do so many people who play video games get good grades?

On Game Girl Advance’s Kids Can Learn to Read and Shoot Cops, the question came up: what can games teach us?

I would think that, if the game really gets a young, innocent, prelapserian child interested, then it also makes that child investigate the world of the game further. They might learn something about recent American history.

But maybe this is just me. Am I wrong? As a curious, unofficial poll, what new SAT words or useful skills did video games teach you folks? Have games taught you anything that makes you feel smarter or a better person? Any Trivial Pursuit questions answered correctly because of video games? To paraphrase Senator Schumer, can Johnny learn to read while shooting cops?

For the record, I did get a Trivial Pursuit question correct. Towering Inferno was one of my favorite Atari 2600 games, and I learned years later that it was based on a movie. While playing the DVD Trivial Pursuit, I listened to a mock pitch for a movie that sounded somewhat similar to the game I played. I got a piece of the pie for it. B-)

I also learned what scurvy was due to playing Illusion of Gaia. I remember looking up information on it because the idea of a lack of Vitamin C causing a disease was quite “out there”. Was it just made up for the game, or is it real? I had to find out. I had to learn.

I learned resource management. While I know of at least one person who hates strategy games (“Give me a mission, tell me what to do, and I’ll do it, but keep that crap away from me!”), I loved the intricacies of playing Ghengis Khan 2, Nobunaga’s Ambition, and P.T.O 2, all made by Koei. Real time strategy games like Total Annihilation and Starcraft similarly stressed the importance of resources. When I pack for trips or make plans for events for my LUG, I understand the importance of logistics. Not having enough pizza, underwear, or Medics can make or break your plans.

I also learned about the real-world people featured in the games. Nobunaga’s ambition to unify Japan was real. MacArthur’s famous “I shall return!” and the strategic importance of holding the Philippines were real. The political struggles, the balancing of Army and Navy resources, the value of allies and supply lines and research and intelligence…hundreds of hours watching the History Channel or reading history books doesn’t compare to the experience of watching a turn play out in front of you and knowing that what you did has an impact on the outcome.

What’s more vivid in your mind, reading about how North America was colonized by England, Spain, Holland, and France, or actively trying to keep peace with the Iroquois tribes nearby your main towns while preventing a competing nation from making landfall on “your” shores? Colonization introduced many of the major figures involved in the conquest of the New World in a way that history books just couldn’t.

Even games like Super Mario Bros taught me to tackle problems from multiple angles. You couldn’t find all of the bonuses or power-ups if you didn’t try hitting blocks that “weren’t there” or jumping into a pipe rather than over it. Thinking outside the box was normal in video games.

Games taught me how to be an organizer. Games taught me how to be efficient with limited resources. Games taught me how to experiment with new ideas or methodologies. Games taught me how to work well with others. Games taught me the importance of planning. Games taught me that my decisions can have multiple outcomes and affect many people.

Unfortunately, some people think that all I could have learned from video games is how to be dangerous and destructive.

To be honest, I did cause natural disasters like tornadoes and earthquakes in order to destroy my SimCity, but I distinctly remember cleaning the city back up and making it better than ever. B-)

Categories
Games Geek / Technical Linux Game Development

Letter to Gas Powered Games

I just received the latest copy of PC Gamer and saw Supreme Commander listed on the cover. I was a big fan of Total Annihilation, and I couldn’t wait to read about SC.

These days I run Debian Gnu/Linux as my main operating system and I would prefer to not have to boot up Windows just to play a game. If the game is only available for Windows, I’d be less inclined to play it. Are there plans to release a Linux-based port of the game? If not, will the game be designed and written in a highly portable manner so that such a port could be written by others without too much effort?

Thank you for your time,
Gianfranco

I just submitted the above message to Gas Powered Games, founded by Chris Taylor. Taylor was the creator of Total Annihilation, which is still my favorite real time strategy game. Today I found the latest PC Gamer magazine waiting for me when I got home. On the cover was Supreme Commander, which is his newest RTS. Atari owns the rights to TA, but SC is considered the “spiritual successor”. A big thank you to THQ for publishing it when others are insanely turning it down.

A lot of people say that the RTS genre has stagnated, but Chris Taylor apparently has the goal of actually adding strategy to the mix. Apparently you can play from multiple levels: tactical, which is what you find in most RTS games, and strategic, where you can get a high-level X’s and O’s look at the war. Besides the actual war and battles, the units will also match the epic scale. You can have normal units running amongst the legs of the massive units, and according to the preview, the battleship won’t fit completely on the normal screen. Nuclear explosions usually don’t look all that impressive in most games. Even in Empire Earth, which had the most impressive explosion (the screen went blindingly white), the blast radius only affected a small area. Original War had a really impressive weapon that actually left an area contaminated for a little while after the explosion, but it still wasn’t very massively destructive. But in SC, apparently nuclear weapons will live up to their name.

Part of the fun of Total Annihilation was just the excitement of blowing up so many things. It was far from mindless, but there was a lot of action going on. You could have multiple fronts in a massive battle with a large number of opponents. Plus, it was highly expandable, and people are still making mods and units for it.

Supreme Commanders is looking to make a big splash in the RTS genre when it hopefully gets released next year. It might finally be a real time strategy game that employs actual strategy so that the naysayers of the genre can be happy.

And having a Gnu/Linux port would be really nice. It would be unfortunate if it was restricted to only Windows and Mac OS X.

Categories
Game Development Games Geek / Technical

Difficult Questions About Video Games

I recently bought Difficult Questions About Videogames from PublicBeta. They are giving it away “free”, saying that it is £100 off and I only had to pay shipping…yet the book arrived with a price on the back cover of a little over £14. Not sure what that’s about…

Anyway, I actually like it. It asks questions like “What is a videogame?” and “What is gameplay?” These are terms that get thrown about in game reviews and general conversation, and yet no one has a definitive idea about what they actually mean. Also, they use videgame as a valid word, but some of the responses they received questioned its validity since it should be “video game” much like rap music instead of rapmusic.

And it is amazing how different everyone’s opinions are! Some people make a distinction between video games and computer games, claiming that the former involve dedicated proprietary machines whereas the latter makes use of general purpose computers and software. Others make some incredibly arbitrary definitions in my opinion (usually played with thumbs? Seriously?). My favorite was: “Pass.”

It is clear that the language of video games isn’t very clear. Everyone knows what a video game is, and yet everyone disagrees about the exact definition. We apparently can feel good gameplay, yet can’t say what be improved for something that has “bad” gameplay.

It’s hard to believe that with video games being as popular, profitable, and important as they are, we still don’t know how to talk about them so that everyone understands what we mean. At first “what is a videogame” sounds like a simple question, but if you try to define it exactly, you can quickly see that it is a difficult undertaking. Difficult Questions About Videogames is definitely a good read for game developers and players alike.

Categories
Game Development Games Geek / Technical

Will Wright’s Spore

I finally had a chance to sit and watch Will Wright’s Spore presentation at the GDC. Yes, I’m probably the last to do so, but I found out through from Game Girl Advance that even though I missed GDC, I still could see the presentation.

When I first read the articles about it, I remember getting very excited. Now that I’ve seen it, my only request is that it be available for Gnu/Linux. B-) If anyone knows anyone at Maxis/EA, can you please pass that request along? Thanks.

Anyway, there is almost always talk about how stagnant the video game industry is. Most of the highly anticipated games are sequels, and usually just better looking ones at that. Nothing truly innovative about them. People say that we don’t want more of the same, but if you look at the big sellers, we do. Games like SimCity and Katamari Damacy occasionally come along and are new, fun, and easy to get into, but most innovative titles tend to get great reviews but poor sales. I have yet to play Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, but I heard that it was an amazing step forward for games of its kind. Sales figures, however, say that most gamers didn’t care. Then the sequel, Warrior Within, was released. Apparently the developers of this title decided to play it safe and go with what worked in the past. Sales were great.

Was Warrior Within a good game? I haven’t played it, but I heard it was. Just not as great as Sands of Time. Half-Life 2, Doom 3, Unreal Tournament 2004…all of them sequels, all of them basically first-person shooters. Vehicles, shadows, and gravity guns are their claim to fame. The next Unreal Tournament looks awesome, but then, you could compare it to Half-Life 2.

That’s not to say that I think these games are bad. Far from it. I’ve always felt that people tend to put too much importance on innovation. Sometimes a good game is just a game that is fun to play. Imagine if there was only one copy of every game type. Would it be better if Wolfenstein 3D was the last FPS? No way! The ability to actually aim in three dimensions is a nice feature to have these days. Better user interfaces make for better games, even if you are playing what is basically the same game. At the same time, if you are only going to play games that invent new genres, you will miss out on a lot of quality games while you wait.

Will Wright’s Spore, on the other hand, shows that huge leaps in innovation are possible, and it also demonstrates that you can mix genres with great results. Granted, the game isn’t out yet. All I’ve seen is the presentation he gave. But the capability to make the kind of game he is talking about is definitely there. And you don’t have to be Will Wright to do it, either. He said that his biggest bottleneck was convincing himself that it could be done.

Most new game developers learn that they should never undertake a huge project when they don’t know how to do anything but come up with an idea. Start smaller. It’s good advice, but at some point, when the developer has more experience, that good idea has to be brought back out into the light. Everyone had that RPG they wanted to make. Everyone had that cool game mechanic they thought would make Super Mario Bros 3 so much better. After all, there had to be something that made you want to make games in the first place. You didn’t want to just make puzzle and Pac-man clones all your life, right?

…Right.

Looking at the project ideas I’ve come up with, I can see that they are impotent in comparison to Spore. I could console myself with knowing that Will Wright and Spore put a lot of game developers to shame; however, I’d rather push myself to do better. I can come up with much better ideas than what I have now. Yes, ideas are a dime a dozen, but that just means I can afford to come up with a few hundred or a few thousand. One of them is bound to be the beginnings of a great game.

So I’m optimistic about the games of tomorrow. Spore shows people that they can do much better. I’m sure others will make fun games that are innovative. And I’m also confident that I can be one of those developers.

For now, I still need to finish my first project, even if it is based on a clone.

Categories
Games Politics/Government

Violent Video Game Ban Passed in Illinois House

I read this article in the Chicago Sun-Times. Apparently the Illinois House passed the law 100-6.

Someone on the Indie Gamer forums posted a link to the FTC study that gets cited a lot by the Governor. Let’s look at the findings:

Ability of a minor to purchase an Electronic Game: 85% in 2000, 78% in 2001, and 69% in 2003
Ability of a minor to purchase a DVD: no data available in 2000 or 2001, but 81% in 2003.
Ability of a minor to purchase a movie theater ticket: 46% in 2000, 48% in 2001, 36% in 2003.

Now, this study only shows whether a minor was able to make the purchase. It never details whether or not such purchases are being made normally, so there is no indication that there is a problem in the first place.

But remember, the Senior Advisor to Governor Blagojevich says “Whether such inappropriate purchases are part of a widespread problem or not, this administration thinks that no child should be able to purchase these types of video games without his or her parents’ supervision.”

That’s a perfectly valid point to make. If you believe that children shouldn’t be able to purchase violent video games at all, then that’s fine. But all the studies cited make mention of television and movies. Are inappropriate purchases of DVDs not as bad? 81% is a LOT. Even if it isn’t part of a widespread problem, should children be allowed to buy R-rated DVDs? Apparently so. And at 36%, it is clear that the movie industry isn’t the great self-regulater that it’s made out to be. 36% is a LOT, and the Governor’s office has made it clear that there shouldn’t be ANY minors buying inappropriate video games.

And there you go. “Protecting the children” sounds all well and good, but it is not consistent with the actions of the government. I’m sure you’ll forgive me for not believing that it is the goal of such legislation to actually protect children. If it were, then the laws would do something meaningful at the very least. You don’t cite studies saying that television, movies, and video games have an effect on children, but then only show outrage at the popular scapegoat of the year.

Categories
Games General

Video Game Manifestos

I found A Gamer’s Manifesto at Game Girl Advance. It’s humorous and hits home. I’ve always had Nintendo systems so I never really dealt with long load times before, but PC Games and apparently Playstation and XBox titles are plagued by developers who think that long loading times are great. Another valid complaint is the invisible barrier that keeps you within the game map. With the power of game platforms these days, couldn’t the map itself keep you within its boundaries? If I am going to hit the edge of the map as if it was a normal wall, why not make it a normal wall? Or some other suitable obstacle?

Other famous video game manifestos: