Since I moved to San Francisco, I always end up backstage the first time I visit a concert venue. This comes from being a vegan baked goods delivery service for Jenny Owen Youngs. This was a favor for my friend Lynn, baker for the Rockstars. This time I didn’t have brownies in my hands, but I would have an audience with Amanda Palmer at the Filmore.

Meeting with Internal Staff

The morning of Sunday May 18th, I met with Margot Cannon, who would be my co-conspirator for this project. While I was planning the ARG assets to be completed by the Palmer Art Army, I needed someone to help me with the writing, planning, and general ‘I know a guy/girl’ task assignments.

While we had talked quite a bit before that morning, this was the first face to face about the project. We got a few things put together, but it’s extremely hard to plan this out when you have no access to the source material, regardless of its status. We were flying blind, thus our plans were pretty wide open.

Time was also the big issue. This was late May and the album’s street date in mid-September. These things usually run with 8 months of planning for a 4-7 month run time. While the ARG would run after the album release, we had less than 4 months to plan and implement. As a product of episodic games, we came up with a plan to break content drops in episodes. The Rabbithole (initial contact) in mid-July lasting two weeks, two content drops every two weeks, then a content drop each week after and though the release of the album. Still a very aggressive schedule, but spacing out the content to allow development to catch up on itself.

This patten is a little less organic than I would like. Structured more on media drops which result in specific calls to action, rather than giving more flexibility to the players on the flow of the game. Not ideal, but this way the game would be accessible to players who aren’t used to ARGs and more accommodating to the very short schedule.

Waiting for Palmer

Beth told me Amanda would meet me sometime after sound check. Having worked as in-house tech and psydo roadie a few years, I’m fully aware this means ‘unknown’. After parking near the venue, I hang out at a Starbucks around the corner as the only place I could chill out near by. The few hours here allowed me to think about this project, and more importantly why.

If I was approached this project any time before March 2007, this would have been the priority in my life. This project would be grand exposure for me as a game designer and lead into other high profile projects or employment at a major studio. This is the thing I went to Emerson College for. In March 2007, I got hired at the best independent studio in the world and working with people who’s work got me in this art form to begin with. I’m at my career path and don’t need something else to accomplish this goal. For the first time in my life, I can say no to a large opportunity and not be that regretful.

I still wanted to do this project! What has changed is the reasons. I wanted a project to call my own outside of Telltale to keep me current. Also, I wanted to get a few more people on my contacts list. Did I mention Neil Gaiman was writing the book companion piece?

There’s also a large moral reason for this project. Which, if I’m going to be taking on a second full-time job as this project would mandate, it needs to be for something more than money and fame. In part one, I talked about the Detroit Dream: Get the fuck out of Detroit. What I want to do is change the Dream. Give inspiration for people to create their own Dream, independent of an outside and physically distant force. It’s not just the money or the credit, it’s being able to make a change in someone’s life by showing them what they are capable of.

Meeting Beth

The call came in and I went to the stage door of the Fillmore where Beth greeted me at the door. She gives me a hug as I walk in and tells me that the sound check was about to wrap up. We walk into the venue and I sit down stage left on the wall. Palmer was onstage working out the rest of the sound check, followed by placing some flowers around the venue for one of her songs.

In my mind I’m figuring out on how to approach this meeting. I had all these ideas and conceptions, but the deficit I had was what the client wanted from the project. I needed to hear from her what she wanted and make a project everyone wanted to be apart of.

While waiting, I saw a fellow Emerson alumni, Jenny. Both of us were surprised to see each other so randomly as we haven’t seen each other since graduation. Though seeing someone I know from Emerson working for Palmer isn’t exactly a stretch. Caught up on what we’ve been doing since graduation and getting caught up.

The Artist will See You Now…

Finally it came time to talk to Palmer. There was a bit of a rush to start as I was being penciled in between interviews and other things Palmer needed to do. She introduced me to Brian V. and got to shake his hand. Being in rushed mode, I quickly told him I enjoyed his work and wish I could spend more time talking with him, but time was very short.

We walked up to her dressing room and told me to wait there for a few moments. I took the opportunity to take a photo, marking the occasion.

Palmer shortly returned and we started the discussion. I started by asking what were her intents with the project; Where did she want to go with it. She started explaining how she liked the concept with Zero Year from Nine Inch Nails & 42 Entertainment. Zero Year included a tight integration between the album (the primary product) and the game itself. The album was made for the album was made for the game. This kind of project involves a lot of time to plot and prepare, and most importantly integration with the album. It was also clear that no one had really sat down and talked to her on what an ARG was, what it meant, and the practices in the art form. Not that she was misguided, but I she was trying to grasp for a vocabulary to express what she wanted. Something I we could work out, but not in a 10 minute span before a concert. Certainly not while she was touring.

Where things started falling apart for me was the lack of access to the development of the album and/or book. I asked where the status of each of these objects were, and she responded that she wasn’t ready to share them yet. I tried to impart on her that I can’t make a project with the title “Who Killed Amanda Palmer?” and not have access to the album and book I’m trying to promote.

Then the 10 minuets were up. We said our goodbyes and that we’ll continue talking though e-mail with her people. After saying good bye to Beth and Jenny, I walked out waiting for the concert itself to start.

Met up with Margot and Tara for the concert. Briefed Margo about the conversation which left both of us not too enthusiastic of the prospect. Time was not on our side, nor was the lack of access to the stakeholders. Still, the Dolls put on a wonderful show, as always. I also got introduced to a band that started the concert. In a place somewhere between the Squirrel Nut Zippers & the Dresden Dolls are The Vermillion Lies.

The E-mail Trail

After that weekend, the e-mail trail was short and not too communicative. Palmer was on tour and starting the Europe leg of it. While Palmer was being positive about the project, there was simply more important things on her radar. Finally, I sent an e-mail cutting my involvement in the project.

I don’t believe that Palmer was dis-interested in the slightest. The problems were between what I required for me to create a project and what the Palmer camp was able to provide. I could have produced something, but it wouldn’t be something I would be proud of giving my own resources and time limits.

Reflections

It’s been over two years since this interesting story happened. In that time, Palmer released the album, followed by her public wishes to be dropped from her label and then granted. She also got engaged to that Neil Gaiman. I’m still working at Telltale having released over way more games than you can imagine on almost every platform that isn’t portable, and two that are.

I also found my way of creating a venue for people to be creative themselves, and in a way that also helps children & families around the globe deal with illness. With Ümloud!, donators take to a concert stage and perform a song using Rock Band. Some of them go beyond simply singing, dressing up as various rock stars and making the performance their own. It’s truly amazing what these people do for the charity concert. So in a way, I’m accomplishing my initial goals with the Palmer ARG, but in a way that also benefits sick children.

What I walked away from all this was my ability to pass on projects of high notoriety. If this project reached my door before I started working at Telltale, I would drop just about everything to do it, even with the tough conditions. That’s just it; I didn’t need to take the Palmer gig to showcase my talents. I do that now with monthly video game releases and with Ümloud!. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to work with Palmer. I just don’t need to work with her.

Amanda Palmer (the person, not the idiom) gave this same opportunity two two people I know: Beth and BriAnna Olson. Palmer took a risk with them to create wonderful art. Both of which have grown stronger in their work by working with Palmer. For this I will still feel a debt for making my friends better artists.

This is why I still wear a “Who Killed Amanda Palmer?” button on my jacket. When people ask why I killed her, I respond:

“Well, I almost killed her, but that’s another story…”

This is the story of “Who Killed Amanda Palmer?” – The Alternate Reality Game (ARG)
The unrelased version by me, Seg.

Photo by kReEsTaL.

This will be a two or three part series of posts. There’s a lot of ground to cover, and one 3000+ word post isn’t good for anyone. It may take a day or two between posts, but I’ll get to it. This would be a good time to subscribe to the Seg On Media RSS feed…

Before I continue, I want to make crystal clear that there is no ill will between me and Amanda Palmer & associates. Things didn’t work out and it was nothing personal. Incidentally, the album is available pretty much everywhere. I also want to note that I’m not going to comment on the ARG that was released for the album as it’s simply not my place to comment. That said, I am glad that a project did happen when I was unable to produce the project.

Context

To give some context, I need to start this story when I was living in Boston and going to Emerson College. During my time there, a musical duo by the names of Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione started their rise to fame as a punk cabaret duo called: The Dresden Dolls. I found out about them as I had a number of classmates at Emerson working for them in various capacities. Specially BriAnna Olson who was to work on my thesis Antidote, but other conflicts came up that prevented us from working together.

When I finally got to see them perform at the Avalon, I certainly became a fan. I have a soft spot for a woman who sings and plays piano (see: Amanda Rose Smith, Regina Spector). I also found myself watching Brian intensely. As a former jazz musician, let the record show that I would want Brian to be my drummer. He intensely listens and observes the other musicians in his work. I can put more words to this, but I’m detracting from the point of this post.

More important than the performance of Palmer/Viglione was the spectacle off the stage. Many members of the audience themselves were performers in their own right. Mostly along the lines of a dark circus performance acts, but creating an atmosphere transcending beyond the concert performance itself. This is what I love about Dresden Doll concerts; The audience becomes apart of the performance. At the end of each concert, I feel a lacking that these individuals will mostly hang up their traits until the Dolls perform again. This I find the most depressing part of a Dolls concert.

The participatory nature of the audience and my college buddies working with her illustrates a trait I see between Palmer and myself. We both share the gift of seeing the potential in people. Palmer has better success in turning what’s inside of people to the exterior. When I was living in Michigan, the general despair of the area made this goal much harder. Sadly, the only way of success is living the Detroit Dream: Get the fuck out of Detroit. I wish I could do more, but ultimately the best thing for me was to leave Michigan and hoping that my Journey greats hope for others to live the Dream.

I made these conclusions well before I graduated from Emerson and well before recent events. Interestingly, these thoughts would prove useful when I was called to work on the project.

“I know a guy…”

In March 2007, I left Boston for a job with Telltale Games in the San Francisco Bay area. I started working with people who created titles that got me into the business in the first place. In order words, I landed a job with my Dream company. No longer was I working to get into the industry of my chosen art form, I was now getting paid for it and working with the best people in the art form.

In Jan 2008, my close friend Lindsay realized a mistake she had made for the past few years. She had never introduced me to Beth Hommel. This was a mistake as we had been living relatively close to each other (Boston vs. NYC) and certainly would have benefited from each other as being artists and both of us play/screen writes. There are few people in this world that I will trust blindly, and Linsday is one of these few special people. For Lindsay, I trust Beth.

During this time, Beth ends up meeting with Amanda Palmer and all of the sudden Beth is her filthy assistant. Thus another person in the long line of friends that work with Palmer. I’ll let her tell her own story (Beth: Link!).

Shortly after, Beth asks me if I knew anything about ARGs. I give her the skinny and a few quick examples. Causally pass that it’s part of my realm of work, though I have not done an ARG myself. A few weeks later she tells me about Palmer’s solo album “Who Killed Amanda Palmer?” and my thoughts on an ARG based on that title. Like most things in the entertainment biz, the proposal needed to be done yesterday and with no prior context. There would be an album, and after some Internet sleuthing I found out a book by Neil Gaiman would also be penned. No context beyond that.

Killing a Rockstar

With little content to go on, I resorted to my existing convictions of Amanda Palmer and of her celebrity. The death of Amanda Palmer is not about the real existing person, but of the idiom of Amanda Palmer. What did this death mean then? For anyone familiar with the book American Gods by Neil Gaiman, I took a page of the mythology presented, blended with Clay Shirky‘s theory of the collective cognitive surplus. What I call the Clay Shirky Gin theory.

In practice, I would fashion the plot as ‘something’ killing Amanda Palmer, releasing the collective cognitive energy created by her fans. Her death creating a surplus and someone wanted that power to themselves. While the game progresses in figuring out who killed Amanda Palmer, it’s really about enacting justice over the killing by taking back the surplus. In other words, the players take back their own part of the surplus and invest the creative abilities in themselves; Not the celebrity.

After talking with my cohort Margot Cannon, I wrote what can be counted as an academic paper on the Amanda Palmer Idiom. A risky move, but I had no access to the originating material this game is to be based off of. Instead, I wanted to focus on what I knew, this construction of the idiom. Hoping that I would be given tangible elements to work from.

As for implementation, I would make good use of the Dresden Doll art army. There are a large number of artists on the rolodex of the Dolls, and I could not single handedly produce an international ARG. Nor would I think to quit Telltale to do this gig. My roll would be as ‘puppet-master’ or lead designer, then make art requests. This way costs will be low for the Palmer camp by using ‘internal’ labor and my small team (Margot and I) as primarily consultants. Time was also against us. These things usually take a year to plan. We had 4 months till the album drops.

Selling the Drama

Mistake #1: Way too academic of a proposal. I was on the phone with Palmer’s manager Harvey Leeds who said it was too cerebral. The talk I had with Harvey gave me some grounding with the client I was pitching for and the practical I should be aiming for. It’s Harvey’s job to make sure the album and concerts tickets are sold. Which shouldn’t be read as a sacrifice to artistic decision, but it is a parameter to keep in mind. More importantly: Keep. It. Simple.

I made a bad choice, and lucky to get a second chance. That weekend, Palmer would be performing at the Filmore as the Dresden Dolls in San Francisco with the Vermillion Lies. I would finally meet Beth in person and have an audience with Amanda Palmer for ten minuets.

Continue to Part 2…

Not pictured: Plastic casing; Shipping

For Xbox360, any online communications beyond buying/downloading digital products requires a subscription to Xbox LIVE. I don’t find this a problem outright (subject for another post). What I do find is the mixed signals in the costs of the subscription. Buying a physical object for the service ends up cheaper than renewing a subscription.

Here’s the costs of a the same product: An Xbox LIVE subscription for 12 months.

• Buying via Xbox.com:
  • $49.95 (automatically applied)
• Buying via Amazon.com:
  • $49.95 (No physical thing; E-mailed code)
  • $39.96 (Physical thing; Free Shipping)

For $10 less, a physical object is being manufactured and shipped to you. Even at Amazon.com having the option to e-mail you the code, it costs more to e-mail a set of numbers and letters.

I don’t expect an abolishment of the physical cards. I don’t expect online retailers not to carry them. What shocks me is that even when Amazon.com offers a non-physical and immediate delivery option, it’s the most expensive option. Can Microsoft, Amazon, and other online retailers work on a less wasteful way of selling this service?

In 8 weeks we rebranded, filed as a non-profit, and made a successful event for our first year. $7000+ to Child’s Play successful. We certainly learned a few lessons this year which we’ll implement along with our ‘for next year’ list. Right now I’m compiling my thoughts, specifically for a panel I’ll be moderating for PAX-East this year.

Oh, it looks like I’ll be talking with Chris and others at PAX-East this year in March. While PAX will always be in Seattle around Labor Day, a second one for the East Coast in Boston is happening. I’m gathering up other panelists from other events and Child’s Play itself. The direction I plan to take is illistrate the ‘empty box’ of doing a fundraiser, rather than listing specifics of any particular event. I hope to inspire others to do events with their own flavor, rather than copy/paste existing events.

For me, this is about how and why to file for non-profit status on our own. We wanted to do a local event, enlist sponsors, get a venue, and spend money on an event. We were ‘touching’ the money. We had to be a non-profit ourselves for our protection and the ability for donators/sponsors to count their contributions as charitable. It’s been a process, let me tell you! But most of it is start-up stress which will be much easier next year.

For the Internet based fundraisers like the wildly successful Desert Bus for Hope, the money earned went to a Chip-in button directly to CP. Sponsors (to my knowledge) donated mostly physical objects, so there wasn’t money taken in by the operators. Thus the operators were protected as they never ‘touched’ the donated money.

In addition to getting back to using this blog, I’ll be covering my process on creating this panel in the next few weeks. It will be mostly me and Chris developing the Ümloud! (a local event) section.

If you’re in the Boston area March , I highly recommend you come to PAX-East! The full 3-day pass is $45 if you order by Dec 31st. $55 after that, but there’s a cap at the amount sold.

Hope you all had an awesome holiday! Have a safe and fun New Years!

December 9th, 2009
DNA Lounge

There’s a lot of info about it, and it’s all on the website. If you’re in the San Francisco Bay area December 9th, please come!

• The event really hasn’t changed for San Francisco and is still on as planned!
• December 9th, 2009 will be a charity event for Child’s Play Charity involving playing Rock Band and much more.
• It will still be at DNA Lounge.
• It will not be called Fünde Razor.
• The Denver event will be Kotaku’s event, but still for Child’s Play.
• NYC, Portland, and Austin events will not occur this year.

Wed. December 9th, 2009 7pm – 2am San Francisco: DNA Lounge NYC, Denver, Austin, & Portland: TBA

The other cities haven’t reported in with an official date/venue yet, but they will happen. In the next few months we’ll have plenty of information about the event, but if you’re in the SF bay area, mark your calendars now!

On the Something Awful forums, Nickoten asked me the process I took to get into the games industry. I’ve told people in person, but I realized I never wrote that whole story down. To fix this, I’m going to start writing about my journey to working in interactive media. I should preface this by saying that I don’t think anyone else can take this kind of path anymore as the landscape has changed significantly. What I do hope is the overall themes of my story can help others in their own paths.

The Beginnings

Since around kindergarden, I wanted to work for Disney Imagineering. I was very interested in creating narrative environments of which a lot of the rides at Disney specialized in. Taking an audience member and making them apart of the story, rather than viewing the story unfold. As I grew older, I had less of a dependency on working for Disney specifically, but still wanted to create these thematic landscapes of which the audience participated in directly. Throughout all my life, I haven’t deviated from this ultimate goal. The tools and forms of presentation have changed, but that driving essence hasn’t.

Grade school was very limiting for me in working in anything arts and entertainment. Band was about the only thing available to me at the time and waited every moment to participate. The alto and later tenor saxophone was my instrument from fifth grade and lasting though high school. This was my first foundation in performance art and the basics of performing to an audience. There were a few plays in grade school, but due to ‘morality restrictions,’ which was limited to Christian plays such as the one John Brownlee wrote about on Boing Boing. I also the school announcements which were one of the few outlets of work in media at the Roman Catholic grade school I attended. It was the start of my carer in voice work, which I wish I did more of today.

In High School I had plenty of other options available. The theatre department was relevant which I took to as a fish to water. I am a card-carrying member of the International Thespian Society and can produce the card upon request. More music options such as jazz and marching band. At the start of sophomore year, I started getting involved with the video production team at the high school. In the three years I spent, Jeremiah, myself, and others built the program to a media production house with live broadcasting and other projects. While my family has supported me all the way, and the arts/theatre department of faculty were highly supportive, other teachers and especially the administration were less than supportive. Mostly along the lines that my work wasn’t applicable to ‘real life careers’. As you might have guessed, I didn’t listen much to them.

Senior year is when I started to gain more of a backbone and confidence that my work can be applied to a larger picture. I became heavily involved with the Thespian Society by being on the state of Michigan board. That year was the most productive year to date having produced two festival events and toured a show called “Guns Kill Kids: And Other Stupid Comments”. It was the first time I was appreciated for my work by complete strangers. What I learned is that I should have worked on outside projects much earlier in my life, but hindsight is 20/20.

My high school years showed me how I learned; I make my own curriculum. The best environment for me is a place with good teachers of established media who are also open to mix other fields of work. To me, the best teachers are the ones willing to learn new things. With my interests in storytelling, and the lack of established academics in the field of Interactive Media at the time, I needed a place where I can have the most flexibility.

College Planning & Limited Options

When it came to college planning, I was in a difficult position. My high school’s grading scale was rigged at every student’s detriment. While the national average was a 93% for an A, my high school’s level was a 96% and trickled down form there. This resulted in me looking dumber on paper. While the staff would make statements that schools adjusted for this, the dark secret is it only applied to colleges in Michigan, Ohio and maybe Indiana. For schools outside of this geographic, admissions wouldn’t realize this subtle but very dramatic difference. So in effect, I was too dumb, but only on paper. Cost issues aside, I couldn’t expect my 2.71 GPA for high school would be seen seriously. Which would be a 3.1 had I went to a public school (higher if the extra religion coursework was removed).

I should make clear that I knew I was good enough for these schools. I didn’t meet academic requirements due to the paperwork.

With this limitation, I had to pick a college which allowed me the greatest flexibility but with good foundations. To be honest, there wasn’t a school in the midwest that really sold me on this. The only schools that started to fit these goals were MIT, Emerson College, USC, UCLA. All of which I knew I didn’t have a chance due to my grades on paper. Instead, I applied to Western Michigan University. Having done work at the college in the Summer of ’99 with the video production department, it was the most comfortable choice for me.

Then and now, I knew I had settled into a college rather than picking a college I wanted. My plans were to build up my academic record and reevaluate either during my undergraduate work or make grad school the place where I started actually learning the way I wanted. This isn’t to say that WMU was a bad school. For the options I had a the time, it was the best school I could pick. There seemed to be enough flexibility for me to work on what I want. My plan was to walk in the door as a Cable/TV Broadcast major and work it out from there.

The admission process was embarrassingly simple. A WMU admission consoler was at my high school, where I sat and talked to her. In four minutes I was officially accepted into WMU. It was way too easy, and I didn’t even feel great after that. No challenge. Nothing I did in high school really mattered. I showed up, and I was in.

To be continued!

Background

Child’s Play Charity is a foundation created by Penny Arcade to provide video games, toys, and other financial support for children’s hospitals around the globe. The Child’s Play website can tell you more in detail about what they do.

Fünde Razor was founded by Joel Johnson (currently the editor of Boing Boing Gadgets) started Fünde Razor in NYC where Rock Band is played to raise funds and awareness for Child’s Play. Last year the event was in three cities: NYC, Denver, and San Francisco. The other cities run by other bloggers like Brian Crecente (Kotaku), Gawker Media, and Chris Kohler (Wired Game|Life). The idea is to have a nation wide event where all cites have the events on the same night. More cities and more people are involved, but I’ll wait for Joel to make that announcement.

The overall purpose of Fünde Razor is to raise awareness for Child’s Play. Come to the events if you can, but if you can’t, consider donating directly to Child’s Play. This makes the judgement of success less about the returns of the one night, but the overall fundraising goals of Child’s Play.

My Involvement

I attended the San Francisco event last December and as you can see from these photos, it was a great time with a lot of people for the 150 capacity at Shine. It was a fun time, but with a media push on the day of the event, I know that the SF event can hold a much larger audience with some additional planning. I decided to get back to the family “business”* and get back into fundraising.

You can think of Fünde Razor as a sort of franchise arrangement. Joel is the founder and above all things go through him. While we work as a team, each city’s planners are working on their own cities. We share resources, but each event has their own uniqueness due to the local and the venue they have.

The past few months I’ve been in talks with Joel and the rest of the Fünde Razor crew. My involvement is specifically is with the San Francisco event in getting the venue, planning the activities for the event, and other things around the actual event in San Francisco. I will need help in running the various aspects of the event itself, but my roll is to make sure the larger parts of the event are planned and managed with a small staff executing the plans. Not that I’m hands-off, but I can’t do everything. Chris Kohler is also a partner in the SF event and handeling more of the corporate communications aspect of the event.

My goals for this year’s SF event include increasing the number of attendees and establish the event as a large, yearly event. This means advertising at least a month or two in advance along with a larger venue and more activities. In addition, I want to activate not only gamers and Rock Band players in the area, but have more participation with all the game studios in the Bay area. At the minimum getting people working at these studios to show up; Bonus for helping to sponsor the event. Though I help here and there, the corporate communications are being done by others in the group. If you know of an organization that would be interested, pass them along to me.

Want to help?

Right now I’m attempting to lock down the venue and date. I’m in talks so I can’t reveal more details than that at the moment. Once we get the venue, date settled and talks with sponsors firmed a little more, I will need a few people willing to be in charge of specific aspects of the event. These positions will be higher-level management that will start working early on. Someone in charge of the main Rock Band stage, for example. Someone in charge of managing all volunteers. Upper-level stuff.

We’ll also need a small army of volunteers who will staff various things for the event. Hopefully we can get a sizable number so no one person is working more than two hours for the event. That call won’t happen till a month or less before the event.

Once we start having these positions open, you’ll all know.

* My family and I have worked for various charities though out the years including Festival of Trees for Detroit Children’s, my High School’s auction, etc. It’s not an established consulting business, we’ve simply done a lot of work in the field.

Scope of this Review

I think it’s important to realize that this is a culturally significant title on a platform never dreamed or intended to be on. There is much said on the game itself in the past sixteen years and I don’t think I have much to uniquely contribute from reviewing the iPhone version. What I intend to focus on is that nature of porting the title onto the iPhone and review the choices made. This review is about how this title works on the iPhone and less about the content.

As someone who claims himself as the resident Myst nerd, there isn’t much Cyan Worlds needed to do in order to buy the title. I own the Myst board game, so I can be counted as part of the base audience. My goals with this project is how this title can attract a new audience to the title. Stated different, how can the new platform revive the franchise. As I stated before, you can earn a one-to-one relationship between the desktop computer experience with a portable device. Success then is how closely the title can communicate the essence of the original experience.

Implementation

Basic Controls

The interface starts off naturally and as expected for an iPhone game. Touch the section of the screen in which to interact with or to move forward. The cinematography of the frame is the interface. Turning around in a node is done mostly with moving the finger across the screen. This is borrowing directly from the iPhone’s photo slideshow behavior.

What makes the iPhone different from other platforms is the lack of cursor. On the PC, your cursor changed based on the context of the area. If the cursor hand was pointing to the left, is showed you could turn left when clicking. With a direct finger input, a cursor would be too much UI and therefor not included. The problem that comes with this decision is communication to the user on what possible actions may be taken. Myst doesn’t allow you to look in every possible place as it’s not a 360 view point. When using a mouse, the cursor did a good job hiding the lack of viewing options. With the touch interface, not being able to go to the left may be either an action not allow, or the user did the behavior wrong. Or in some cases, the user doesn’t know they can look above or below them.

Myst was a unique example of the day by having a very limited inventory system with only pages of books and temporary limited inventory items. For example, the match in the shed.

While I won’t spoil much of what you need to do here and why, it took me 3 minutes to figure out how to obtain a match and then light it. All of which came around the hit areas of this match box. I had to hit the right side of the box to get a match, then strike it. Two minutes was spent on trying to obtain the #@*% match. In this case due to the size of the active area, dumbing down the actions may help with the interface. Let the whole match box be the area of action.

Device Orientation

While it’s very clear that Myst shouldn’t be played in portrait mode (Home button on the bottom), you are fixed to play the game with the Home button to your right and headphones on the left. It would be nice to pick which way the game would play and swap between the home button on left or the right. I can understand issues with accidentally flipping over the orientation on accident. Still, would a preference setting be that hard to implement?

Saving

The Auto save system is spot-on with the iPhone. While doing anything on the iPhone, the application must be ready to close at a moment’s notice for an incoming call. For a title that has a save progress, it’s extreamly important that the application pick up right where it left off. I’m happy to report that iPhone Myst does this very successfully without missing a beat. What I haven’t figured out is what happens when you’re in the middle of a Live-Action video sequence. In all, I don’t worry about loosing my progress all of the sudden.

You are also allowed up to four additional saves or ‘Bookmarks’ as the application calls them. I’ll go more into the specific UI aspects later in this post, but the limits of 4 save slots (in addition to the auto save) is a little frustrating for me, if only so I can make a save for each age. For the average user though, you get what you need from saving. Can’t go wrong with that!

Video

Myst made use of a lot of pre-rendered video due to technical limitations of 3D rendered graphics, rather than a purely artistic goal. While the use of actors for video is obvious, video was used more for animation of objects from switches to stairs appearing to lighting changes. While you will only see human actors in the Red/Blue/D’ni books and when meeting Atrus in person, the rest of the game used video for any animated sequence. Elevator movement, doors, paths/steps rising from water. Computers back then could only play video mixed with still images. Now it’s harder to make a game of all video than to pre-render. Yet with iPhone Myst, there doesn’t seem to be a concern to make these difficulties transparent for the player.

In the 1993 offering, the video appeared seamlessly with no loss of picture.

In the iPhone app, this is the common steps of display:

1. Activate event for movie clip.
2. The ‘loading’ circle appears in the middle of the screen.
3. Black screen for 1.5 to 2 seconds.
4. Play video at full screen, regardless of the effected area.
5. [Optional] Black screen for 1.5 to 2 seconds.
6. [Optional] ‘loading’ circle.
7. Resume rest state and resume interactivity.

This is hugely distracting! The viewer is pulled out of the narrative and reminded of the technology, not the narrative. I’d be concerned about the loading circle, but the black screens are completely uncalled for. I can’t imagine there isn’t a way to send a still image buffer to prevent a solid black screen. This isn’t limited to video that requires the full screen display. All the video in iPhone Myst is fullscreen video. The 1993 title compartmentalized video to only the parts that move. Apparently the iPhone can only do fullscreen video. This may be why the game is larger than the 1993 title; All the video is fullscreen.

I don’t know the background on making these technical decisions, but is there really no other way? This aspect alone makes the iPhone port go beyond being different due to the platform. This aspect ruins the essence of the title.

Settings Panel

The settings panel for the game which is always accessible in the lower-right of the screen during gameplay. While you’ll see the ‘i’ icon in the lower-right, you can turn it off with the ‘Options Icon’ setting, which I recommend you do. It’s not distracting, but once you know it’s there it’s good to turn off.

This is ugly. A mix of custom UI elements with the de-facto iPhone UI elements. I’m not saying the one or the other is a wrong choice, but the mix is a mess. The settings screen is apart of the title as it’s within the title. While you don’t get any part of the story from the settings, it must fit the mood of the piece so that transitioning to and from the actual content is a smooth delivery. Instead, this settings panel says: OH HAI! YOUR ON AN IPHONE PORT! I’d rather it say “You’re in Myst.”

Heaven help you if you hold down the info button too long. Otherwise that ‘Hints…’ button will trigger… into Safari. While the auto save system is top notch, you have to reload the game from the top once you get out of Safari. Same for ‘Help/Info…’ What gets me is with a game already a huge size, why not use an embedded hint/help/info messaging system? Or the in-app web browser API? This information doesn’t need to be dynamically changed, so there’s no fear of imbedded information. Instead the least path of resistance for developers was place; Call Safari.

And what content do you read? “Help/Info…” | “Hints”
I should note that the Hints page only works in Safari (both iPhone and desktop versions).

What really gets to me about this panel is my overall impressions with the iPhone port of Myst. Enough effort was put in to make the game function, but not for a quality experience. I don’t want to say they didn’t care, but I get the feeling that development resigned on so many aspects that efforts to improve the experience fell by the wayside.

Conclusion

I focused on the UI design and technical implementations of this title, but I want to make it clear that I love Myst for what it is. This title was significant for the period and did a lot of amazing things both technically for the time and for the art form. It’s why you have a optical disc drive in your computers. It showed that removing dependence on explicit UI elements can make for a more engrossing experience. I would even go far to say that the iPhone itself has to give acknowledgment to the 1993 Myst. The idea that interacting with the object in a natural manor is the key to UI design.

What I find with the iPhone experience is a lack of that acknolagement. I’m left with the feeling that the experience is attached with too many applogies for the work. I don’t regret the purchase on my iPhone, but I would hisitate giving the iPhone version to someone who hasn’t experienced Myst before in fear they will leave with the wrong impression.

What sparked my desire to do this lecture came from a conversation I had while standing outside a GDC party for Steam/Valve. While talking to a man whom had at least 15 years in the industry, he really brought to light the disconnect between academia and the industry. We got on the education subject and snapped back by saying he preferred students from DigiPen and Fullsail because they do what they are told. I have a much different take on the situation as I consider students from these and other schools with much more respect than he did. I want to make sure there are enough students out there to prove me right and him completely wrong.

Here’s the text I used in applying for the PAX lecture. Obviously not set in stone, but I’d love your feedback as I start shaping this lecture in the next few months.

Title:
Making a Career in Video Games

One-Paragraph Description:
Are you looking for a job with a game studio, or a career in interactive media? Learn how to identify the styles in game development curricula and the tools to help you find the best education for more than a job, but a lifetime’s work in the gaming industry.

Is there anything else you think we [PAX staff] should know?
This lecture will provide tools and perspective for finding the right curriculum for the student. This entails a two part approach. First, a student needs to start figuring out what direction he or she wants to take. The second part is knowing what information to extract from potential institutions. From this foundation, attendants can make solid decisions on which schools are applicable to their educational goals. Potential undergraduate, graduate, and transfer students will all find this lecture helpful.

I include my credentials to represent my own personal expertise, but it does not illustrate endorsement by any current or former employers.

Credentials of Highlight:
* First recipient of a Bachelor of Fine Arts in New Media at Emerson College.
Created the first BFA New Media curriculum at Emerson College, Boston.
* Emerson College, Enrollment & Student Affairs
Created tools and content related to admissions and enrollment for duties related to being an admission counselor.

For more information about me, visit http://segonmedia.com/

Official Website @ Cyan Worlds | This link opens iTunes right to the application.

Myst is one of the trifecta of games that got me into this art form of interactive storytelling. It’s a body of work that helped shape me as an artist in new media and made me what I am today. Which is why I’m buying the crap out of this title. I have the Myst board game for goodness sake!

I hope that Cyan Worlds does a postmortem on bringing the game to the iPhone. A few immediate questions I have are what kinds of decisions were made to update the port. Was there a point where they pulled punches to make the game have the spirit of the 1993 release? I also want to know what they did with the LAV scenes. Can’t wait to play to look how they turned out on the iPhone.

On a forward-thinking note, I hope this will help Cyan Worlds fund a new project from their studio. Honestly, I hope it’s something not Myst related. Heresy, I know. I love the Myst franchise. I love the work Cyan Worlds has done. But I think it’s time to move away from the past and start with something new.

Note: I did copy the above image from the Boing Boing Gadgets article. I can also screencap it myself, but I’m lazy.

Do you want a job or a career?

A lot of the talk and guidance about video game education is rooted in getting a job with a studio. Yes, being employed is apart of a career and one seeks an education to become employable. I’m not questioning this aspect. What concerns me is the debate is geared towards getting that one job. There isn’t talk about the sustainability for one to adapt though their life time in interactive media. Simply training for getting hired out of college, not as a practitioner of the field.

by Sklathill

Part of this comes from the current venues of advice one can seek. Naturally one would look towards the veterans in the industry as cues for being successful. While this advice is very valuable, the material from them seems more about getting the job rather than forming a career. The veterans of this industry created careers in a way that can’t be duplicated; The industry is created now. The experiences of our veterans can’t be duplicated. I wish there were more long-term advice applicable to today, but right now one has to extrapolate how the experience of the vets can be made in current times, and how it can’t. This kind of nuance isn’t realized by a potential applicant from high school, nor is anyone pointing this out. The debate is stuck at ‘get a job,’ not ‘make a living.’

On the academic side, there’s two extremes going on which don’t help anyone. On the traditional academics side: There are individual professors doing great work across many different schools. I’ll name drop my alama mater, Emerson College, but other schools like USC’s Interactive Media program and Michigan State’s Media Arts & Tech program. The problems are trying to advertise these programs. I see a lot of failures from admission offices to assist applicants in informing the program properly. Professors should be working on teaching and leave the admission office to sell the school. This requires the admission office to be knowledgeable about the climate of the academic landscape and how the program they represent etches their unique space. There isn’t much of that going on from my experience. The reasons are varied for each school. Some schools simply have uninformed admission consolers. Some schools don’t want to pitch full-blown game development degrees in fear their program isn’t adequate enough. Great work is being done, but they aren’t informing potential applicants properly.

The other end of the spectrum are establishments that go all-in with video games as their only avenue of training. DigiPen, Full Sail, and schools advertising game production on late-night cable. For the most part, the marketing with these schools fills the void the traditional schools create. A lot of the marketing messages are along the lines of “we only focus on games/media” as to imply liberal art schools set back the student. My largest fear with these institutions is too much focus on current production tools and methods; Less on forming a background on larger principles that aid in a career. Producing a project soon and often is a sexy selling point, but at what point does it become a cheep thrill at the expense of a lasting education?

At this point I feel I’ve sealed my fate in trying to bring a more substantive debate on what an education in interactive media means. I’m starting with formulating and applying to conduct a lecture at PAX in Seattle. It’s safe to say there will be enough interested people looking to go into higher education in interactive media. My goal is to get these people to ask the right questions to themselves and potential educational institutions. I think it’s an attractive lecture to have, I hope the organizers agree. If it turns out well, I can reprise at PAX East in Boston.

¹ Still waiting for the recording to be released. Will post when this happens.

When ever Boing Boing Video posts the clip, I’ll post it on here. I’m curious to see how I cam across on the video, King of Cosmos head and all.

Boing Boing Video + Offworld @ GDC
Direct UStream Link

I should also note that I will be at GDC as well, sans the time when I appear on Boing Boing.

In all seriousness, I am very glad that an effort is being made. I only have their website to go on, so I have to go on a bit of speculation from the presented materials. They’re also starting off small but hoping to expand their collection and open a full presentation and space in 2012.

There are a few things I will be watching for. I don’t want to give the impression that I am looking down on this effort from the start, but I have deep concerns which I hope are addressed. I hope this center can make the history of our art form accessible.

Games as Toys vs. Games as Storytelling Objects

The largest concern I have is on intent and focus. The center is under the Strong National Museum of Play. What concerns me is that the center will portray all articles as an article of a toy and by extension only for children.

It is very true that in the early days of video games were marketed as toys rather than media texts. What I fear is that the context of games as toys would perpetuate in modern context. Would we consider the story line of Myst as a toy? Would we consider all movies only for children because there are Disney movies? I fear that this center would only perpetuate a misconception that video games are only for children.

Reading though the center’s Concentric Circles document [PDF], I don’t have the fullest of confidence. Most of the dialogue is about video games for children only, and mostly being male centric. I feel that the initial goals of the center are only about focus on children with video games, rather than a society which has incorporated electronic games though the years. While it does raise some broader questions, I feel that the center is tied down by being apart of a museum which goals are for children’s toys, rather than a broader discussion of a form of media and how different audiences have participated.

The toys vs. media text argument is certainly a mater of academic discussion. What I fear with the center is a lack of discussion in this area. The art form has evolved where video games are presented differently now than they were. Quickly looking over the documentation, I am left with little confidence.

Access to Collections

It’s obviously way too early to make a conviction of how these materials and research will be presented, but it’s the right time to discuss how the material will be accessible. The center is located in Rochester, NY. No matter where you decide to put a physical place, there will always be limits to people to come visit. This is the current statement from the center on their access to the collections:

All the collections are accessible to scholars for research. A small but representative sample of artifacts is on view in museum displays, and a few games are available to guests to play as components of exhibits on other topics. Plans are underway for a major, permanent exhibit projected to open in 2012. See below for additional information.

Which raises many questions for me. This statement is along the lines of access to the physical objects which have obvious access limitations. You wouldn’t want to put out physical artifacts in the effort to preserve the quality of the artifacts. What worries me is the accessibility of the information of these artifacts and other findings. It’s not fair to go into speculation, so let me present how I hope the center will proceed with the collection.

First and for most, I hope all text and images are released under some form of Creative Commons license, ideally Attribution 3.0. What’s the use of history research when no one can use the information?

Which leads into my next thought: How will the collections and presentation be transmitted? Nothing can replace the experience of viewing and interacting with the actual artifact, but I hope that each artifact is presented online with it’s relevance. Allow anyone to look though the catalogue and know the relevance of each piece. Allow anyone to start their own research with out the need to be pre-approved as ‘scholars for research’. While I fully understand and appreciate limiting pubic accessibility for the physical objects in person, there is no reason to provide digital copy and images of these context.

Here’s an idea out of the blue: Join up with MobyGames. Course, MobyGames doesn’t technically share their content freely being copyrighted content, making their mission not entirely philanthropic. This is a larger topic for another day, but my point is to have a catalogue of titles that is shared to the public for any use, matching with tangible objects.

How are they interfacing with the producers of electronic games?

What is the outreach effort for collecting the history? How are they going to deal with the significant presence of Japanese and other non-US roles in electronic games? How are they going to accept participation from current developers for preserving the current history? In other words, how people involved in the history help in preserving?

What’s the long-term plan?

The center is ramping up for a dedicated presentation space for 2012, but what are the future goals of the project? I see a center like this making a decision between two paths. Will this be a center which collects artifacts only to encourage visits to the center? Or will this be a center which presents their collection to the world, with the physical building only a starting point to a larger mission?

After looking though the Strong National Museum of Play’s website and other artifacts, I really don’t see how they are in a position to treat our history with the respect and context. Nor are they willing to put the resources in sharing history to the general public. I only get a very limited view of what might be presented at the main museum; I can’t even find what is in the collection with much detail. I can’t find much confidence for the electronic games division to be different. I do hope to be proven wrong.

Watchmen has finally made it to the sliver screen with much fanfare and service. The preamble has been enjoyable with posts from The New Frontiersman. An ingenious way of putting more use out of B-roll and props the film created.

This photo for example was the first put on the Flickr account, and the most important one. But there were a slue of other significant artifacts including this video “6 Minutes to Midnight”. Don’t want to dwell on this for the post, but I really wanted to illustrate that this was pre-release marking at it’s best. These things weren’t blatant and weak attempts, but strong pieces to help establish the narrative.

The format of the Media

The main point I want to make is how the format of the media can hinder or strengthen an adaptation. Watchmen is a 12 part story which also included ‘book excerpts’ for all but the 12th chapter. Even when you read the novel in the complete book form, there are 11 intermissions between each chapter; You can pause and take in the stories. Movies don’t allow for the audience to ‘digest’ the story before continuing. You have to go along for the ride until it is done. While you can pause a DVD, the fact that the movie doesn’t allow for these pauses by design.

This was the inherent problem for me with adapting Watchmen for the silver screen specifically. Even if there was a ‘part 1/2′ of the film, it still wouldn’t be enough to digest the narrative parts. I don’t claim that this film shouldn’t have been done because of this; I have to embrace the fact that we can never be satisfied with a film that can’t be broken into it’s parts.

But what form of media do we have that can be separated into parts but still yield the high production value required for the film? TV has the ability to separate into parts, but not the kind of production value to supply the demand. The movie industry can provide the funding, but the format limits. The Internet in general can do this, but not enough capital can be made to fund the production.

The Changed Ending

My LA collogues already warned me that the ending was different than the novels, but made sense and worked. When I saw the movie, I agreed that this change made a nice take. Though I would have loved to see a large squid…

What I find interesting is what kind of ‘other’ that left the society with each ending. For the novel, the ‘other’ is an alien race. This leaves the society to think to the stars and to not feel alone in the universe. Though hostile, there were other sentient beings in the universe. With the movie, the ‘other’ is Dr. Manhattan. Since he’s simply indestructible, the best path is to avoid him at all costs. Thus society is closed off from the rest of the world.

Personally, I’d rather have a world of a giant squid than Dr. Manhattan as the enemy. At least we’d be looking towards the stars more.

The Soundtrack

Being a period piece, using licensed songs can do a good job taken in the mood of an era. 99 Luftballons was welcomed both for the choice of the german version and that it’s a cold war protest song. Then it got weird.

While I can’t recall the specific songs and scenes, what stuck out was how simply inappropriate these songs were. I felt like I was back at Emerson where a professor would play a scene of Triumph of the Will (1935) and play the Yakety Sax song as the soundtrack. It ruined the mood and was simply awkward in a couple of scenes. ESPECIALLY with the sex scenes.

This is the only aspect of the film that was a completely wrong choice.

Random other thoughts

Jupiter / Silk Speckter II: Didn’t smoke. Was only apparently missing with the Mars scene.

Night Owl I: Completely skipped his death which was an extremely key aspect to Night Owl. Obviosuly we’ll be getting it with the 20-hour DVD version, but the situation around Rorschach’s death (the 2nd friend he looses in a day) really explains the crushing weight of the situation.

Rorschach: Jackie Earle Haley needs to be nominated (again) for best actor due to his performance in this movie. I can’t put it plainer than that.

I can’t begin without mentioning the various references to Michigan though out the movie. The family is from Pontiac, MI and moved to Oregon. The real father wears a Michigan State sweater. A key prop is a snow globe of the Horace Rackham Memorial Fountain. Both of which is funny because Rackham donated heavily to U of M. Not that it needed help, but I found myself warming up to the movie for these references.

As for the film’s content, I found myself needing to supplement some of the short comings of the film in order to make some of the choices Coraline makes more meaningful. Particularly, I found the real mother portrayed in the film as extremely vicious with no redeeming quality. While the real mother needs to give push back in order to stimulate Coraline’s desire fulfillment in the Other world, the real mother doesn’t show any real love for Coraline. There’s no subtext communicated for the Real mother, which leaves Coraline making the choice to not to live in the other mother’s world, rather than to live with her real parents. While I haven’t read the book, I feel that this may be more of a problem with Selick cutting that depth for the film. While I am fully aware that you can never communicate in a film like a book, there doesn’t seem to be an effort to make the real mother have any love for Coraline. The connection is too assumed with no context.

The voice casting was great as I didn’t find myself having any issue. What did stand out for me is the ‘stunt voice’ casting with the Father. John Hodgman was the voice of the father which certainly brought a smile to my face. A former literary agent voicing a writer is not lost on me. What stood out for me in casting is the “Other Father Song” about Coraline, sung by non other than one of the Johns of They Might Be Giants. What struck me is how well the singing voice matched Hodgman’s voice. Hopefully there’s another film which Hodgman’s character needs to sing and TMBG are brought in.

At once point in the film, there is a musical number with the characters Miss Forcible and Miss Spink. While sitting in an audience with a fair mix of 20-somethings and families with kids, the point where a psydo-bursleque act created a bit of an unease in the audience of “Oh wow, they went there.” Not really that risque, but enough to give an eyebrow raising moment. Which brings me to the next point…

I’m just going to come out and say this. All old ladies in this film have very enormous breasts. There. It has to be said. And come to think of it, that pattern of stop-motion animation characters where old ladies have enormous breasts leads me to wonder why such a pattern. Even Corpse Bride had this. In Coraline, even the saleswoman in the uniform shop had very large breasts. What’s going on here? Is this the Wilhelm scream for art direction in stop-motion animation?

After my friends Jim and Liz saw the film, they told me the film is Psychonauts: The Movie. When the movie reached the point where Coraline discovers the ghost children and given the task to find the three eyes/souls, I couldn’t disagree. The story turned into a potential interactive storytelling (re: game) with clearly given and multiable tasks to the protagonist. While there is a game adaptation of the game, it’s a merchandise product of the film. Not an independent piece of art.

I’m not advocating that Coraline should have been a (well produced) game either. If anything, this observation is my feeble attempt to get Neil Gaiman to write a new story for interactive media. Course, not just with anyone as there aren’t very many studios that would be a good match. Such a studio would need the consultation and collaboration skills with Gaiman in order to deliver an interactive story which exploits the talents they would all posses. Also, I believe that something new would work out better artistically, rather than adapting a set linear storyline; Thus removing expectations.

As for Coraline, its a very strong initial feature film offering from Laika and I expect good things for them in the future. Well worth seeing and will tide you over till The Watchman opens.

Edit (2-22-2009): I made a mistake and said Plymouth instead of Pontiac. As a bonus, I added a YouTube link to the Other Father Song by TMBG.

The point of this post:

Windows 7 must include a fully patched DirectX installation.

Users of Windows 7 will still need to run programs in DX10 and DX9. There’s no reason why the OS should be updated to the latest of DirectX; Especially when the updates are over four years old.

Windows Update needs to include DirectX as apart of updatable software.

Of all the ‘optional’ and ‘critical’ software that Windows Update includes, updating a core API as DirectX is to Windows should be one of them. Updating DirectX is crucial for any graphics intensive program, especially Games for Windows. Why not include it, even as an ‘optional’ update?

DirectX needs real version identification

Did you know there are at least 17 versions of DirectX 9.0c and 8 versions of DirectX 10? All of which report with only on version number?

Did you also know that Vista still needs updates to DirectX9, but wasn’t included when Vista was released?

This makes it very hard to do technical support when no one can decree a realistic version number.

The Context:

For anyone who’s played games on Windows, you may be familiar with Microsoft® DirectX. DirectX is an API and acts as a bridge between software with advanced sound and visual needs and the array of devices and drivers on your computer. There are others¹ for other and operating systems and platforms, but these problems are for DirectX specifically.

Without these APIs, each software would need to program for every possible graphics and audio card in existence individually. With an API, software needs only to work with the API and drivers of devices needs only to work on the API. From there, new software or new hardware can be released and still work without massive overhaul.

For Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People, the engineering team developed what I nicknamed a “Flash” shader in order to achieve the similar look of the Flash animation into 3D graphics. The graphics would work on Windows so long as the user’s Windows computer had at least DirectX 9.0c – Aug 2007 installed.

I have to include the date with this version number as Microsoft stopped incrementing version numbers, even though releases were made after 9.0c on a bi-monthly and now quarterly bases. Yet any callable version number are all listed under “9.0c” or “4.09.00.0904″, which is the primary version for Windows XP SP2, released in August 2004. Even when you update DirectX, the same version number is reported.

The problem: We needed users to have August 2007′s release or later. Upon research, I found a form of version numbering with DirectX. If you look in “C:\Windows\System32\”, you’ll see a series of files named “d2dx9_**.dll”, the ** being a range of numbers starting at 24. The ’27′ being the August 2007 DX9.

Windows XP (RTM / SP0) included DirectX 8.1. Windows XP SP2 included DirectX 9.0c. Only after SP2 did the “_**” updates start. To add more insult to injury, Windows Update doesn’t check or update DirectX. Ever. While they’ll include optional software and Office updates, DirectX gets the shaft.

My saving grace is the DirectX updaters will update all versions on all platforms of Windows in one installer. There are two flavors, one large installer for off-line updating, and one small and web-based. The web installer downloading the components needed at the time of install. I included this with the Strong Bad episodes. It’s worked out, but it adds a step in the install process by asking to do an install one doesn’t expect.

By now you may be thinking: “But Vista is on DirectX 10 and Windows 7 on DirectX 11. Certainly there isn’t an issue because it’s later version!” Oh how I wish this was true. Normally when one thinks of software version numbers, the higher number replaces the lower numbers. In the land of DirectX, the version numbers are modes that run independently of each other. While you have Vista, you still run DirectX 9 unless the software specifically requests DirectX 10. Since DirectX 10 doesn’t run in Windows XP, very few games run in 10. If they do, there’s a DX9 version along side it. Even with DX10, there’s quarterly updates. Still, this isn’t updated via Windows Update. Meanwhile, users still need to update DX9 and DX10.

Try explaining all of the above to users with Vista. “But I have DirectX10 which is more up to date than 9!” Yes you have DX10, but you don’t have the latest DX9 which you still use. The DirectX installers I mentioned above work on all platforms, which is something. However, it’s still left trying to instruct users to run the installer, which goes upstream from conventional thinking.

So in light of all of this, I tried the Windows 7 beta (using VirtualBox on my MBP). You would expect the latest released updates of DX9 and DX10 right? Wrong. What ships is the DX9.0c before the updates, and DX10 from the original Vista RTM release. Since DX11 is still in beta so there are no quarterly updates to speak of. I honestly can’t fathom why they wouldn’t roll the updates in at this point. It’s inexcusable.

¹ Other APIs like OpenGL, OpenAL, etc exist and do a great job, but require a full client-side install on Windows.

The experts watched as Kaminsky opened his laptop and connected the overhead projector. He had created a “weaponized” version of his attack on this vulnerability to demonstrate its power. A mass of data flashed onscreen and told the story. In less than 10 seconds, Kaminsky had compromised a server running BIND 9, Vixie’s DNS routing software, which controls 80 percent of Internet traffic. It was undeniable proof that Kaminsky had the power to take down large swaths of the Internet. 

To be honest, the Internet dodged a bullet with this one. Had this been discovered with someone with less moral character, there would have been a very very bad day for the world. Then again, we currently only patched the hole; Bought some time.

Secret Geek A-Team Hacks Back, Defends Worldwide Web

Can You Name the Video Game Systems (Released in the U.S.)?

As someone who studies video game history, the test really kicked my ass. Under the cut (or huge spoiler line) are my analysis of my results, but a few tips. The auto-correction is very good and will take most acronyms as well as the official titles. So if it’s not firing off as correct, you are either wrong or need to be more specific. “Sega” alone doesn’t cut it. For reference, I got 25/68 and kicking my self for forgetting three of them.

OMGLOLBBQ SPOILERS BELOW!

I thought about putting this above the spoiler, but it would give away answers. The Game & Watch is a bit contradictory with the ‘single game system’ rule. G&W were a series of single game systems; No cartridges replacing games. There’s also things missing like Leapfrog systems which fit the definition. Just because the target audience is different doesn’t make it not a console system.

The three I bonked myself in the head for forgetting: Dreamcast, PSP, and 3DO.

The rest of what I missed were either me forgetting the exact number for the Atari systems, forgetting the word ‘Odyssey’ for the Magnovox systems, me not realizing that the Sega Master Systems were indeed released in the US, N-Gage was marketed as a game system, and forgetting to list out things that are currently on the Virtual Console for the Wii. Some of the rest of the entries are systems I never read about or were obscure enough that I never even heard of!

Needless to say, it’s time for me to do some reading on a few of these systems. Like the Nomad for example or the Mega Duck, if only for the name!

“We are not here to compete with the games industry,” he says. “We are not here for people to come and make a game in a less-expensive manner utilizing equipment and software that has student licenses.”

“Just as importantly, we are not equipped to properly firewall our projects in the sense that we really don’t know legally speaking how many or which students created which games. We don’t know whether they received input from other students who have not been credited.”

This statement really rubbed me the wrong way on a few levels. The academic institution is skipping an extremely teachable moment by not incorporating IP rights and attribution of work. Will mistakes be made? Very much so. This is an educational institution and mistakes are part of the learning process. Avoiding the issue doesn’t make the issue go away, only defred for the student post-graduation. I can’t see how a student can be prepared to work in a field of intelectual property without understanding the basic law and practice of IP.

The counterpoint is the position is schools should teach the use and practice of tools and the IP should be left for law students. While I’m not claiming that each student should be prepared for entering a pre-law program, IP practice is the core integral part of being a professional artist. You don’t have to fully agree with the practices, but knowing the basics of how business is conducted seperates the professionals from the hobbyists. By denying students how to run the business, DigiPen seems limit student’s ability to become involved with being their own independent participants of this art form. The DigiPen curriculum seems to make worker bees for the game industry, rather than practicianers of interactive entertainment.

Wanting to work for a company is certainly a good choice to make in a career. Hell, that’s the choice I made for myself in my career. I was afforded that choice from my curriculum at Emerson College, rather than forced to that choice as DigiPen’s IP policy states. My education allowed me the choice to either start my own studio or incorporate myself into an existing studio. In either case, I was prepared to be an active and educated individual, rather than one who simply followed orders.

This was afforded to me though the shared distribution policy. While I own the IP rights to Antidote and can do pretty much what I want with the thesis (with some exceptions of commercial software I used), Emerson College has shared publication rights to showcase Antidote. I can do whatever I want with the game, so long as Emerson can show the piece. This way, any IP claims are rested on me, the student. Not the college. Emerson’s not the only insitution with this policy, but it’s also one of the reasons why I chouse to go to Emerson.

All said, the best policy that meets everyone’s needs is one that passes this test:

Can the student choose to distribute the IP under a Creative Commons license?

I think it’s very important for an academic institution to be able to showcase all work its students submit in their educational career. This is how an academic institution can illustrate the work done at the school for many purposes including enrollment and more importantly academic performance. What’s also important is respect for the students’ work. A policy that divorces the rights away from a student is simply insulting to the student.

Notice that I use the word ‘choose’ and not require. For DigiPen, not only are students not allowed to do a traditional copyright IP license, but they can not choose a copyleft IP license either. In fact, the DigiPen policy prevents one from using any copyleft as DigiPen owns everything. Any sharing is forbidden. There’s simply no choice in the matter. Having the choice of copyleft means that right or left versions can be imployed. Even if the school requires sharing of distribtuion rights, any IP license can be picked.

I do hope this topic gets more attention as it is a very serious aspect of an education in a creative field. Students should know these topics as it is apart of their careers. DigiPen and other schools seem to avoid these topics for the sake of avoiding teaching. This can not be tolerated by anyone.

While there are a small assortment of titles I can point to, the largest influence in my career as a game developer and artist is Myst. Now that I am employed as a developer at Telltale Games, I wish Cyan Worlds a happy 15th anniversary of their landmark title. Thank you for all of your quality work though the years and inspiring me as an artist.

Mini History Lesson

While 7th Guest was released prior to Myst, 7th Guest was highly restricted due to adult content. I remember purchasing a Packard Bell which included 7th Guest, but wrapped in paper marked “ADULTS ONLY” before revealing what was inside. Myst on the other hand was all ages in the sense that any age can enjoy the title, not dumbed down for children nor exclusive to adults.

Myst really was the killer app for optical disks for data. While there were certainly CD-ROMs prior, they were mostly storing large amounts of data and the occasional postage stamp of video and audio.¹ Or (as the case of 7th Guest) restrictive in target audience. Myst was the first widely distributed entertainment product that fully utilized the space to make an enriched experience not emulated on other media.

It was also a time where a new generation of computers as multimedia centers were available. However, being able to watch non-interactive video was not as attractive on the computer when you have a TV and VCR. Myst was a new experience entirely, so consumers wanting a new computer would want their standard word processing and spreadsheet work, but also a computer that ‘played that Myst game’. Thus CD-ROM drives were quickly became a standard issue on a computer. The rest trickled down from there.

While a case could be made that something else may have come along, Myst was the app that got optical disk drives standard in all computers, which lead to DVD as well.

¹ Yes, Myst’s video was also postage stamp size, but it was embedded into full screen of photo, not a small window in the Windows UI. Thus the framing of content was full-screen.

Before I continue, I want to make extremely clear that I do not wish anything bad to Shigeru San. As you’ll read, this is a platform for me to talk about a larger context with a theoretical concept using him as a test case.

In the dream, I was an upper management of a video game history museum (a concept I covered before) which was prepared in the sense of being able to act quickly when a high-profile designer passes away. First there was a press conference, having timing it for after Nintendo of America made their statement. I was presenting the main statement by quickly reviewing the many accomplishments Miyamoto had done in his life time. While he is one of Japan’s greatest sons, he really is one of humanities’ greatest assets. This was followed by the museum having a memorial service and special visitations. A monument at the museum, already erected in his honor with a prior event, would become the focus point for visitors to pay their respects. The museum itself would be open, but in order to provide the context of Miyamoto’s work the admission would be waived for two days. In addition, three days there will be someone standing watch over the monument and public visitation at any time.

The takeaway I have from this dream is what would happen now if one of the great pioneers of our industry were to pass away. For the amount of contribution certain individuals have made to the art form, I worry that their work doesn’t match the recognition they have made. Miyamoto has the benefit of representation from Nintendo, but what about Nolan Bushnell, Tim Schafer, and anyone with a Lifetime Achievement award?

What I’m trying to get at is the differences of when a high-profile artist of the entertainment field passes away and the differences between media. Movies, television, music and to a slightly lesser extent with books work within each other so that daily entertainment programs and news programs provide context to each other. Interactive entertainment is mostly avoided in a positive context as the impression video games are stealing audience away. Course, ignoring the situation doesn’t help matters. My aims are to make the art form I chose not loose it’s relevance to society. Specifically, equate the public perception of the work to the size of the audience. It’s not the death of the individual that we can make this case, but it’s the honoring of a person’s work that we can see where the art form has made an impact.

My background in the entertainment business is in performing art; Theatre. Creating art directly in front of a live audience give the instant feedback of an audience. With interactive entertainment, there are no opening nights. No red carpet screenings. A file is uploaded to a server, a variable switched, and eventually some people roll in with comments on forums. While I certainly welcome and value the feedback on any form and appreciate our world-wide release in an instant, I still long for the face to face interaction with the audience. These conventions are the few places where I can get that interaction.

Most of the setbacks about the conference are do to my lack of planning. This trip was very last moment for me and I will never do again. While I very much appreciated the hospitality I was given, I will only do PAX again while staying at a hotel within walking distance. I missed out on a lot of things as I carried my day’s worth of stuff and tied to the Seattle bus system. PAX runs till 2am, but the last bus is at 1am. Not to mention being able to drop stuff off at the hotel and change would have helped a lot. And while I had a few friends on site, they were not as available to enjoy the conference with. Rob from Orange Lounge Radio was working as a media contact, and Kate had her own things going most of the time. I did get to spend some time with them at the conference, and found others as the weekend progressed, but more would be more.

The big conference-only complaint I have was crowd management. I felt there were lines for something that shouldn’t be a line, and other high-profile events that should have been managed better. The biggest culprit was the line to get into the expo. Attendees are encouraged to wait in line for the 10am opening of the expo floor. Not an event such as a keynote or performance, just the expo floor. The reason? Armbands for the 8pm concert. Frankly, I can’t understand the logic of having people show up early to an all-day event. I’d rather they encourage people going for the expo floor to show up starting shortly before 10am. And the evening’s concert you want the armband? You can get in without them without problem, negating the need to line up for the expo. This is getting worked on, but it was a confusing decision in the first place.

I’ll be writing some specific things about the conference in the next few days. Right now I needed to get out the overview and acknowledge I attend and arrived home safely. You can also take a look at the photos I took while there. Here’s a sample:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_seg/

1) I moved!

I went from living in the North Bay where I was close to work but very far away from civilization, to living in the East Bay. Here the commute to work is longer by 10 minites, but it’s a trafic-less ride. My place is also much bigger and accomidating to guests, not to mention actually on public transportation.

2) Vacation!

Finally took a vacation after 15 months working. Traveled back to Boston and NYC to hang out with friends in both areas. While my lappy broke on vacation, I was still able to hit the reset button for myself and come back fresh.

3) My Lappy Broke

My PowerBook G4 Laptop bit the dust and is out of warrentee. While I still have my two desktops, I’m not able to remotely write on the thing. For the interested, I’m getting the ‘bad RAM’ post error where the laptop beeps three short beeps when attempting to turn on.

I have been in the market for a new laptop as I need to get on the x86 Mac bandwagon, but was waiting for the next revisions of laptops to come out. Luckially the rumor mills seem to point to a laptop update in 3-5 weeks from now. When they do come out, I’ll be deciding between the newest hottness or a referbished which will be much cheeper.

4) Releases!

On Monday, we will be releasing the first epsidoe of Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People for both Windows and WiiWare. It’s totally awesome and will be a great relief to finally start the season.

Still getting a bit settled in the new place. Once I do I’ll be posting much more. Got a few topics I’ve been simmering about for a while and want to share sometime soon.

I’m amazed at how good this is done. Nice to see some creative writing and simple-yet-effective Flash use. Not to mention how this sells the marketing firm’s services.

Before I continue, here’s a little review of recent weeks of highly publicized public gaming projects and research grants.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation announced the first round of recipients in their Health Games Research Project. Over $2 million to various institutions focusing on using video games for public health research. Some of these projects are research-only projects while others are focused on games for public consumption. For you NPR listeners, you may have heard their sponsorship announced for the past few months.

At Games for Change conference in NYC, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her collaboration with Arizona State University with a game called Our Courts. It’s a piece that addresses the lack of knowledge of the American judicial system.

It is clear that there are existing venues of funding for public works of games. I can’t see how any foundation would say no to a well proposed video game project that fits their goals. I wish developers would take more interest in pursuing these grants. However, there’s a common thread among all of these projects that I think a CPM would will the need: Publishing Services.

Publishing and distribution of a title is not as easy. Even with titles that are free to play for a consumer via the Internet, the marketing of your game and distribution is wildly crazy. And don’t get me started on console development! This isn’t to say that it’s impossible for a grant institution to make a successful marketing campaign for a project, but right now that kind of effort needs to be invested per project. There is no central body that focus attention on distribution of public interactive media. With an organization that specializes in publishing services, the publishing line items can be assigned to a different grant institution, rather than demanding more costs to pay a third party for publishing.

Enter the CPM. While I would hope for a grand-giving wing of the organization, the primary role would be publishing services. This would be the minimum involvement for a title included in the CPM portfolio and include:

• Infrastructure investments (bandwidth, hosting solutions, etc)
• Quality Assurance
• Marketing of titles
• Customer Support / Troubleshooting
• Console publisher relations & console port development.

The CPM would have a goal of building a reputation as a solid venue of interactive content, just as NPR and PBS do with their content. Instead of building a marketing campaign from the ground up per title, the network reduces the marketing development for any new title. Using Our Courts as an example, the development from Arizona State and et all are paid for. The CPM’s roll can range up the web server architecture, pays the bandwidth bills, etc. In addition, the marketing wing includes Our Courts as apart of the CPM network. First-tier support handled by CPM, which is a huge reduction of burden on the developer!

Then there’s taking the project further to other venues. It would be great to see Our Courts on consoles using the exiting digital distribution channels for each console. Sadly, there’s no way a publicly funded institution can effectively launch such a plan and effectively negotiate with any one or more console manufacture for a freely distributable title. CPM would help to create a relationship with the big three and help to bridge the development and distribution gaps between. But that’s another post for another time

I’m actually lucky to play though all of the WiiWare games today (except My Life as a King) today. Checking the competition, I realize that we don’t have competition. Not in the perspective of quality judgments, but for the fact that each of the titles released on WiiWare are very different from each other. There is something different for a lot of different people, which is about what one would hope from a service launch.

The Wired Game|Life Blog does a good job outlining all the launch titles, now with impressions of each title. But if you insist, here’s my quick review of the titles:

FFCC: My Life As a King
I abstain since this was the one title I did not play today.

Pop
I feel kinda torn with this title as I don’t hate it, but don’t think it’s worth $7. You pop bubbles, and it gets fun for a time being. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, but with Defend Your Castle at $5, Pop just seems too much for little return.

Defend Your Castle
While I hate to admit cost as a factor, the value of this title is tied to it’s price. The group play and pure loony of the title makes this a rewarding game. When set to normal, it starts out VERY slow just to make sure you have the mechanics and you rank up on points to spend. But once it gets insane… it’s fun. Well worth the $5 and great for one-player and multiplayer. It’s also very easy to add on players while you’re playing; The difficulty will adjust as more players join/leave.

LostWinds
This is simply a must-buy in my book. It looks and sounds beautiful, plays great with the wind mechanic, and leaves you feeling fully rewarded when playing. Don’t be put off by people saying it’s too short; This is a quality game and worth the $10. Frontier Developments, great job!

V.I.P. Casino: Blackjack

It’s Blackjack and that’s about it. Of all the launch titles, this is the simplest title (yes, more so than Pop). You play blackjack and that’s about it. If you really love blackjack and like to play it on your Wii, then by all means. It’s not worth $7 to me, but others may see it differently. I hope this was just the first step in seeing more WiiWare titles from High Voltage Studios. Considering that their website doesn’t even mention it on their games list, I’m thinking this was just a first-run WiiWare title with more in the future. At least I hope.

TV Show King

I agree with Chris Kohler of Wired that the Wii is surprisingly devoid of trivia titles, so it’s great to see Gameloft make the first attempt. If you have friends that come over and play with you on your Wii, this is a good game to get. While the game mechanics of the Wheel could have been better, the rest of the game is great with groups. It is $10, but if you plan on having friends over, it’s worth the purchase.

As an aside to TV Show King: There are people asking the questions about expansion packs to questions beyond the initial 3,000. I have no idea or any inside information at all, but I will say that Nintendo requires titles selling DLC content to notify up-front, which this title doesn’t. Assume you get only what you paid for now.

PS: I hope Jellyvision realizes they need to partner with a studio to make You Don’t Know Jack on WiiWare. Unless they have already and it’s too early to talk about it.