The weight of expectation can crush you, but only if you let other people define success.
An NBC commentator said this tonight in a profile of swimmer Natalie Coughlin. It's advice that Michael Phelps -- and some of the journalists covering him -- might take to heart.
Hours after Phelps earned a bronze in the 200M freestyle -- thus ensuring that he won't meet Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in an Olympics -- some members of the press have been quick to revel in his "failure":
MSNBC: "Phelps could still win six gold medals. But because his audacious challenge fell short, he could be remembered as something of a failure at the Athens Games -- the same perception that dogged Matt Biondi after he won “only” five golds at the 1988 Seoul Games."
The Guardian: "The 19-year-old American saw his dream of matching Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals sink last night just 24 hours after his even more extravagant ambition of exceeding it had been thwarted..."
AP/San Francisco Chronicle: "All those things Phelps achieved in the run-up to the Athens Games, those too-young-to-be-true wins and records, those splashes at the U.S. trials that stopped your breath like a stopwatch -- those are already forgotten."
To be fair, many other sources have pointed out that Phelps has already met his own expectations -- and any reasonable expectations about him -- in earning five medals in five events (so far).
But why the huge buildup of record-breaking expectation in the first place? As The Miami Herald eloquently put it, "we love hype. We eat it up. We build it up. We go along, ignoring the warning signs of letdown. We make bloated comparisons - Ruthian, Jordanesque, Spitzistic - knowing full well how difficult they are to live up to."
Which brings us to what I hope you saw coming (if you've ever read this blog) as an effective parallel to videogame journalism.
The hype around Phelps was probably partially created by outside interests -- a boastful coach, an overzealous agent, his corporate sponsor -- but it was largely a creation of the media. The journalists saw the list of events Phelps was qualified for, did the math, and determined that the potential for a world-record number of gold medals made for a good storyline. Never mind that Phelps himself said that he was aiming for only one gold medal (although later, even he got caught up in the hype)... once the press machine latches on to a good storyline, it doesn't let go easily.
The videogame situation is often similar. Public Relations departments do their fair share of pushing, but it's usually the media that takes a look at an upcoming game, compares it to video game history, and declares it the next big thing. It doesn't matter how humble the developer is or how farthe game is from completion... once the conventional wisdom takes hold, it's hard to counteracts.
The big difference in the videogame world is that the hype can often become a self-fulfilling prophecy. While the cold, hard numbers force sports journalsits to accept the fact that Michael Phelps can't set a new world record in Olympic gold medals, there is usually no such objective data to take into account with videogames. The hype-induced aura around a game often lasts through the review cycle and all the way into print -- especially if the reviewers rush through the game to get a "world exclusive first review."
It could be argued that this phenomenon affected the scoring trend for Driv3r, which got some very good reviews immediately after release (including some that were highly suspect) before being eviscerated in many later reviews.
New York Post: "Setting such a high expectation is not a good marketing tactic," said Jed Pearsall, president of sports marketing firm Performance Research. "If an athlete doesn't achieve it, they're perceived to have failed, even when they performed well."
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Difficult Questions About "Difficult Questions About Videogames"
It often seems that discussion of some of the broadest, most important questions about videogames often gets passed over in favor of endless, navel-gazing discussions about meaningless minutiae. Iain Simons and James Newman are trying to fix that through the Difficult Questions About Video Games project at PublicBeta and . From the introduction:
We’ve grown tired of reading about technology and features we don’t really understand and don’t really need to understand; we’re fed up with hearing scare stories about the effects of videogames on our behaviour, especially given the flimsy evidence; we’re weary of defending games against the charge that they turn us into misfits and loners; and we don’t want to read any more reviews that use phrases like ‘fluid controls’. It’s time to celebrate videogames. It’s time to take them seriously. It’s time to develop a sophisticated language we can use to talk about them.
I e-mailed Simons and Newman to find out more about the project and their thoughts on videogames in general and videogame journalism in particular.
The Video Game Ombudsman: First of all, who are you? (You're not the only one that can ask incredibly freeform questions)
Iain Simons: I'm Iain Simons, I'm the director of the PublicBeta project. I also run a creative projects company called Suppose in the UK - of which PB is now a major project and my principal focus.
James Newman: A fair question. I'm Dr. James Newman and I'm a Senior Lecturer in Media Communications and Cultural Studies at Bath Spa University College. My particular research interest is videogames. I've been teaching and writing about videogames in the university sector for about five years or so I guess and have been researching them since the mid 1990s. My most recent work was a book on videogames (in fact called 'Videogames') in the Routledge Introductions to Media and Communications series published earlier this year –- available at all good bookshops, keenly priced etc. etc. My primary role with regard to PublicBeta is working on the literary side of things, editing books and so on.
VGO: What inspired you to start the PublicBeta site and the DQAV project?
IS: PublicBeta as a site only really exists at the moment to support the other activities, details of which are being released gradually. We've been talking about the PB project for over a year now. It began when James and Dave Doak (Free Radical) came up to Nottingham to do an event for Suppose. The idea was to get people that we thought were interesting to come and talk about their ideas in places where we thought people would like to listen to them.
Invariably this meant pubs and restaurants. These events climaxed with Jeff Minter showing VLM / Unity work and giving a career retrospectives in an Indian Restaurant in Nottingham. The success of these evenings suggested that there might be a wider audience for a different way of talking about games.
JN: The germ of the idea for Difficult Questions is one I'd been toying with while writing the first chapter of 'Videogames' book where it became increasingly difficult to actually pin down what all these eminent scholars and commentators were actually talking about – it seems perfectly possible to go to an academic conference on games or read a bunch of papers and for there to be no real consensus on the objects and experiences we're actually discussing – Half-Life 2, Pac-Man, Snake on a mobile phone, Eyetoy, DDR are all fantastically diverse in a whole range of ways. So, given the huge variety of objects, experiences, technologies, ways of playing, etc., that come under the umbrella of 'videogame', it's not surprising that we all end up talking about different things and that our experience and predilections shape our thinking and theorizing, but nonetheless an important point. When Iain and I got together through the Suppose events with Dave Doak, Jeff Minter, etc., it transpired that we'd both been thinking about these kinds of difficult questions for a while so we thought we'd ask them and write down what happened.
I guess the other thing is that we, like a lot of people, have become frustrated by the absence of a critical language for talking intelligently about videogames and gaming. What does 'fluid controls' really mean? Now I'm not suggesting for one minute that DQAV will generate this critical language, but it's one of a number of steps and our particular take on this is to get to the really basic, fundamental questions and keep asking them with a childlike insistence to as many people as possible to pool their opinion and experience.
VGO: Who have you sent the questionnaire to so far? What has the response been like?
IS: It's gone to a lot of developers and players, some publishers and retailers. I have to say that personally I've been very surprised by the enthusiasm with which the project has been received. There are a lot of very busy people out there who are prepared to take time out of their schedule to answer these seemingly childish questions. The quality of response we have been getting has been consistently high. The project was always kind of risky, my personal fear was that people would view it as some sort of wind-up, and in a certain light I can see how it might read like that. It's deeply refreshing to know that our contributors are less cynical than I.
Developers particularly seem to really enjoy being asked to answer questions about things other than gameplay details of their next title, 'can you do a double jump?' etc. etc.
JN: We've targeted developers, academics, journalists, but people from fairly diverse backgrounds have come on board as the project has been publicized. As for the response, if I say we're surprised at the quality and quantity that's not to sound rude, rather that our initial concern was that people would think we were having a laugh. Thankfully, people either generously assumed or, having been in dialogue with us, realized that we are serious. Our initial experience talking to the developers we knew in the UK was that they were just so delighted to be asked different questions and that we didn't just want to know how many polys their engine could shift.
VGO: How long have you been playing video games? What are some of your favorites?
IS: I wouldn't describe myself as a hardcore gamer. I started playing on my older brothers Vic-20, graduating to my own Commodore 64. Of that era I particularly remember Ancipital, Way of the Exploding Fist, Dropzone and the Brian Howarth / Scott Adams Adventures as favourites. I played a little on Amiga and Atari ST, but I got heavily into music for a few years, games dropped off my radar for a while until '95. Monkey Island and the early Lucasarts titles were very big for me. To this day I think there are few games that match (or even approach) what they achieved in terms of wit, pace and restraint. ScummVM has been a big find in the last few years and I'm warmed to find that they still stand up today in a way that a lot of my other old favourites don't... Currently I've been enjoying Spiderman 2, Hampsterball and Spheres of Chaos.
JN: I really became aware of games when my dad started bringing home computers from work – which eventually led to us getting a Dragon 32 when I was 10 maybe 11. I remember going to an interview for secondary school and my dad talking at great length to one of the teachers who had also just bought one. They were talking about programming or something, and I remember thinking at the time, this is going very well, I just hope he doesn't ask me anything because all I do with it is play Asteroids and he doesn't look like he'll be impressed with my high score. Luckily he didn't and my secret was safe.
I moved on to the Commodore 64, which I thought was just great. I used to buy games for the music – especially Rob Hubbard (never actually played Kentilla, just used to leave the music running). I have subsequently made CDs of them and latterly I have found myself ridiculed even by my friends for having Hubbard, Galway and Follin brothers playlists on my iPod.
Favourite games -– difficult one because if you ask me again tomorrow, they might be different. However, I love Super Mario 64 -– it came at a time when I was losing interest in games, and I remember sitting down at home and picking up that weird looking pad for the first time and feeling myself become Mario -– so much freedom and so effortlessly manipulable. Zelda 3 and Ocarina of Time are also very special. There'll always be a place in my heart for Parachute on the Game & Watch. If I say so myself, I was very good at that game –- it has the kind of complex mechanic that I look for and there's just the right balance of action and strategy (i.e. 100:0). Still play it. Animal Crossing is still great and makes me want to dust off Little Computer People and when you have MAME you're never alone.
VGO: What is the number one problem with videogame journalism as you see it today?
IS: Too much focus on the product itself, not enough on the experience of playing it. I think that *might* be linked to the alleged climate of aggressive advertiser influence within newsstand titles.
JN: Can I cheat and give you two things... first, we have an impoverished language for discussing games and play. This is not a criticism of videogames journalism per se, rather that there has been a long standing western tradition to denigrate play and games so we have a comparatively unsophisticated language to describe the structures and experiences.
Second, it feels like there is too much emphasis on the game as a kind of static text. For me, what's interesting about videogames (though this is not unique to them, by any means) is what happens when they are played. So, this could be a number of things – it's about the experience of taking part and engaging with them in a whole bunch of different social and physical settings, it's about your experience and feelings unfolding over time as you continue to play, or even as you think about what you played, and it's about how players actually play games – or perhaps play with them. I'm really interested in finding out more about the different things players do with games whether this is in terms of finding new ways to play them (some people might call this cheating...), or writing narratives about them, writing FAQs about, drawing pictures inspired by them, dressing up as the characters, modding them, even making their own games. Ultimately, it would be good to hear more about videogame cultures and the cultural significance of videogames.
VGO: How many answers are you planning on receiving for the book? How many will you actually publish? How heavily edited will the submissions be?
IS: We'll publish all of the ones that add something to the book. At the moment the problem is that that means about 98% of the material we have... The submissions won't be particularly edited as much as structured -- that is to say we plan to generate much meaning from the arrangement of different contributions alongside each other. There are a number of people who I suspect may not get their contributions in on time.
JN: Depends how many we get. Once you need two hands to lift it, we'll have to rethink, but the current policy is to print those responses that further the discussion. So, if it's interesting, it's in. We want to take a light touch regards editing -– typos and stuff like that -– but we'd rather think about positioning responses against each other where they present contradictory stances or support each other's position. As editors, we'll be framing the sections and questions but not to directly comment on or critique them as such, but rather to draw out themes or emergent issues and resonances. We see the value of the book as deriving from the diversity of responses to these simple but difficult questions gathered in one place and rubbing up against each other.
VGO: You say you want to hear from "developers, or... academics, or players, or publishers..." What about non-gamers or people who only have a tenuous view or understanding of videogames? Will their views be in the book?
IS: There's an obvious practical issue here to do with not being able to ask everyone. I think it's fair to say that most of the people on the book have some kind of insight and opinion into games, and more importantly are able to express it in words. We've had to be fairly focused in this instance just to be able to manage it. We do have plans to extend the life of this project in other forms, more about that later though...
JN: Yes, this is one of those difficult questions that we've grappled with. At present, most of the people we've asked and who have responded without us asking have some obvious connection with videogames. However, we are aware that non-game acolytes can contribute a great deal to a lot of our questions –- particularly things like, 'what is a videogame?' We do have plans in this area but if I told you I'd have to kill you...
VGO: You say on the site that you're publishing the book yourself and launching at the European Developers Forum. How will the book be distributed? How many copies do you plan on selling?
IS: The book will be distributed to bookstores in the UK. We're still looking at international distribution/publishing options. We'll be selling it at events and online through the site. As for how many, we genuinely have no real idea. Economically we're trying to do with as little risk as possible, but...
JN: I suspect Iain has filled you in on this. But, at the risk of duplication, distribution is initially limited to the UK via bookstores. There'll also be direct sales – specifically through the site and events.
VGO: Your site includes quite a few references to cheating in games. Is this a pet subject of yours? What are your own views on video game cheating?
IS: It is indeed a pet subject of James' who I'm sure will elaborate more than I. I find cheating a fascinating philosophical area, particularly the blurred distinction between strategy guides and cheating.
JN: Yes it does, and yes it is. My views on cheating can be read about in a series of forthcoming publications. It's another one of those things where the word is trying to do too many things. My interest is in trying to unravel all the activities and practices that get called 'cheating' (with all the unwelcome baggage that the term comes with) and working out what they really are, why people engage in them, what the pleasures are, etc. My current academic research is centred on thinking about how 'cheating' helps us understand the various pleasures of playing videogames (more of those difficult questions – why do you play? Is it fun?) When you think about videogames and the 'digital literacy', there's some really interesting moral and ethical dimensions to this area. There's a lot of work to be done.
VGO: Your site mentions, "creating brilliant live events," and, "a series of unique liveshows about cheating." Can you elaborate on these plans?
IS: There will be a U.K. tour of a 'Difficult Questions' show this October to promote the book, we're planning a series of other shows to help build the community around the publications. There are many other site-specific nights planned...
JN: There's some interesting stuff in the pipeline and I'm sure Iain's told you about the things that are coming up like the DQAV live events. Can't really say too much about the cheating event other than it will be fantastic and perhaps not what you might expect. But then I would say that, wouldn't I?
VGO: Finally, a seemingly simple yet surprisingly hard journalism question for you: Is videogames one word or two and why?
IS: Frankly, I've not done a great deal of research into this. My personal opinion is that it's one. It feels like one, although people have argued against that within some of their responses. "Gameplay" vs. "game play" has also been an issue for many...
JN: What did Iain say? If he said two words, then I'll say it's one. It's one on the cover of my book...
At least one of our respondents picks this up and strongly feels that it should be two words (as it is in the OED, though I tend to chastise my students for using dictionary definitions). Most of our respondents have used 'videogames' but they may be being led by us...? Perhaps this is the most difficult question of all. What do you think? One or two?
-----------
If you've read this far, chances are you fall into the target audience for submissions to the project, so I encourage you to head over to take some time out of your busy schedule and fill out their questionnaire.
We’ve grown tired of reading about technology and features we don’t really understand and don’t really need to understand; we’re fed up with hearing scare stories about the effects of videogames on our behaviour, especially given the flimsy evidence; we’re weary of defending games against the charge that they turn us into misfits and loners; and we don’t want to read any more reviews that use phrases like ‘fluid controls’. It’s time to celebrate videogames. It’s time to take them seriously. It’s time to develop a sophisticated language we can use to talk about them.
I e-mailed Simons and Newman to find out more about the project and their thoughts on videogames in general and videogame journalism in particular.
The Video Game Ombudsman: First of all, who are you? (You're not the only one that can ask incredibly freeform questions)
Iain Simons: I'm Iain Simons, I'm the director of the PublicBeta project. I also run a creative projects company called Suppose in the UK - of which PB is now a major project and my principal focus.
James Newman: A fair question. I'm Dr. James Newman and I'm a Senior Lecturer in Media Communications and Cultural Studies at Bath Spa University College. My particular research interest is videogames. I've been teaching and writing about videogames in the university sector for about five years or so I guess and have been researching them since the mid 1990s. My most recent work was a book on videogames (in fact called 'Videogames') in the Routledge Introductions to Media and Communications series published earlier this year –- available at all good bookshops, keenly priced etc. etc. My primary role with regard to PublicBeta is working on the literary side of things, editing books and so on.
VGO: What inspired you to start the PublicBeta site and the DQAV project?
IS: PublicBeta as a site only really exists at the moment to support the other activities, details of which are being released gradually. We've been talking about the PB project for over a year now. It began when James and Dave Doak (Free Radical) came up to Nottingham to do an event for Suppose. The idea was to get people that we thought were interesting to come and talk about their ideas in places where we thought people would like to listen to them.
Invariably this meant pubs and restaurants. These events climaxed with Jeff Minter showing VLM / Unity work and giving a career retrospectives in an Indian Restaurant in Nottingham. The success of these evenings suggested that there might be a wider audience for a different way of talking about games.
JN: The germ of the idea for Difficult Questions is one I'd been toying with while writing the first chapter of 'Videogames' book where it became increasingly difficult to actually pin down what all these eminent scholars and commentators were actually talking about – it seems perfectly possible to go to an academic conference on games or read a bunch of papers and for there to be no real consensus on the objects and experiences we're actually discussing – Half-Life 2, Pac-Man, Snake on a mobile phone, Eyetoy, DDR are all fantastically diverse in a whole range of ways. So, given the huge variety of objects, experiences, technologies, ways of playing, etc., that come under the umbrella of 'videogame', it's not surprising that we all end up talking about different things and that our experience and predilections shape our thinking and theorizing, but nonetheless an important point. When Iain and I got together through the Suppose events with Dave Doak, Jeff Minter, etc., it transpired that we'd both been thinking about these kinds of difficult questions for a while so we thought we'd ask them and write down what happened.
I guess the other thing is that we, like a lot of people, have become frustrated by the absence of a critical language for talking intelligently about videogames and gaming. What does 'fluid controls' really mean? Now I'm not suggesting for one minute that DQAV will generate this critical language, but it's one of a number of steps and our particular take on this is to get to the really basic, fundamental questions and keep asking them with a childlike insistence to as many people as possible to pool their opinion and experience.
VGO: Who have you sent the questionnaire to so far? What has the response been like?
IS: It's gone to a lot of developers and players, some publishers and retailers. I have to say that personally I've been very surprised by the enthusiasm with which the project has been received. There are a lot of very busy people out there who are prepared to take time out of their schedule to answer these seemingly childish questions. The quality of response we have been getting has been consistently high. The project was always kind of risky, my personal fear was that people would view it as some sort of wind-up, and in a certain light I can see how it might read like that. It's deeply refreshing to know that our contributors are less cynical than I.
Developers particularly seem to really enjoy being asked to answer questions about things other than gameplay details of their next title, 'can you do a double jump?' etc. etc.
JN: We've targeted developers, academics, journalists, but people from fairly diverse backgrounds have come on board as the project has been publicized. As for the response, if I say we're surprised at the quality and quantity that's not to sound rude, rather that our initial concern was that people would think we were having a laugh. Thankfully, people either generously assumed or, having been in dialogue with us, realized that we are serious. Our initial experience talking to the developers we knew in the UK was that they were just so delighted to be asked different questions and that we didn't just want to know how many polys their engine could shift.
VGO: How long have you been playing video games? What are some of your favorites?
IS: I wouldn't describe myself as a hardcore gamer. I started playing on my older brothers Vic-20, graduating to my own Commodore 64. Of that era I particularly remember Ancipital, Way of the Exploding Fist, Dropzone and the Brian Howarth / Scott Adams Adventures as favourites. I played a little on Amiga and Atari ST, but I got heavily into music for a few years, games dropped off my radar for a while until '95. Monkey Island and the early Lucasarts titles were very big for me. To this day I think there are few games that match (or even approach) what they achieved in terms of wit, pace and restraint. ScummVM has been a big find in the last few years and I'm warmed to find that they still stand up today in a way that a lot of my other old favourites don't... Currently I've been enjoying Spiderman 2, Hampsterball and Spheres of Chaos.
JN: I really became aware of games when my dad started bringing home computers from work – which eventually led to us getting a Dragon 32 when I was 10 maybe 11. I remember going to an interview for secondary school and my dad talking at great length to one of the teachers who had also just bought one. They were talking about programming or something, and I remember thinking at the time, this is going very well, I just hope he doesn't ask me anything because all I do with it is play Asteroids and he doesn't look like he'll be impressed with my high score. Luckily he didn't and my secret was safe.
I moved on to the Commodore 64, which I thought was just great. I used to buy games for the music – especially Rob Hubbard (never actually played Kentilla, just used to leave the music running). I have subsequently made CDs of them and latterly I have found myself ridiculed even by my friends for having Hubbard, Galway and Follin brothers playlists on my iPod.
Favourite games -– difficult one because if you ask me again tomorrow, they might be different. However, I love Super Mario 64 -– it came at a time when I was losing interest in games, and I remember sitting down at home and picking up that weird looking pad for the first time and feeling myself become Mario -– so much freedom and so effortlessly manipulable. Zelda 3 and Ocarina of Time are also very special. There'll always be a place in my heart for Parachute on the Game & Watch. If I say so myself, I was very good at that game –- it has the kind of complex mechanic that I look for and there's just the right balance of action and strategy (i.e. 100:0). Still play it. Animal Crossing is still great and makes me want to dust off Little Computer People and when you have MAME you're never alone.
VGO: What is the number one problem with videogame journalism as you see it today?
IS: Too much focus on the product itself, not enough on the experience of playing it. I think that *might* be linked to the alleged climate of aggressive advertiser influence within newsstand titles.
JN: Can I cheat and give you two things... first, we have an impoverished language for discussing games and play. This is not a criticism of videogames journalism per se, rather that there has been a long standing western tradition to denigrate play and games so we have a comparatively unsophisticated language to describe the structures and experiences.
Second, it feels like there is too much emphasis on the game as a kind of static text. For me, what's interesting about videogames (though this is not unique to them, by any means) is what happens when they are played. So, this could be a number of things – it's about the experience of taking part and engaging with them in a whole bunch of different social and physical settings, it's about your experience and feelings unfolding over time as you continue to play, or even as you think about what you played, and it's about how players actually play games – or perhaps play with them. I'm really interested in finding out more about the different things players do with games whether this is in terms of finding new ways to play them (some people might call this cheating...), or writing narratives about them, writing FAQs about, drawing pictures inspired by them, dressing up as the characters, modding them, even making their own games. Ultimately, it would be good to hear more about videogame cultures and the cultural significance of videogames.
VGO: How many answers are you planning on receiving for the book? How many will you actually publish? How heavily edited will the submissions be?
IS: We'll publish all of the ones that add something to the book. At the moment the problem is that that means about 98% of the material we have... The submissions won't be particularly edited as much as structured -- that is to say we plan to generate much meaning from the arrangement of different contributions alongside each other. There are a number of people who I suspect may not get their contributions in on time.
JN: Depends how many we get. Once you need two hands to lift it, we'll have to rethink, but the current policy is to print those responses that further the discussion. So, if it's interesting, it's in. We want to take a light touch regards editing -– typos and stuff like that -– but we'd rather think about positioning responses against each other where they present contradictory stances or support each other's position. As editors, we'll be framing the sections and questions but not to directly comment on or critique them as such, but rather to draw out themes or emergent issues and resonances. We see the value of the book as deriving from the diversity of responses to these simple but difficult questions gathered in one place and rubbing up against each other.
VGO: You say you want to hear from "developers, or... academics, or players, or publishers..." What about non-gamers or people who only have a tenuous view or understanding of videogames? Will their views be in the book?
IS: There's an obvious practical issue here to do with not being able to ask everyone. I think it's fair to say that most of the people on the book have some kind of insight and opinion into games, and more importantly are able to express it in words. We've had to be fairly focused in this instance just to be able to manage it. We do have plans to extend the life of this project in other forms, more about that later though...
JN: Yes, this is one of those difficult questions that we've grappled with. At present, most of the people we've asked and who have responded without us asking have some obvious connection with videogames. However, we are aware that non-game acolytes can contribute a great deal to a lot of our questions –- particularly things like, 'what is a videogame?' We do have plans in this area but if I told you I'd have to kill you...
VGO: You say on the site that you're publishing the book yourself and launching at the European Developers Forum. How will the book be distributed? How many copies do you plan on selling?
IS: The book will be distributed to bookstores in the UK. We're still looking at international distribution/publishing options. We'll be selling it at events and online through the site. As for how many, we genuinely have no real idea. Economically we're trying to do with as little risk as possible, but...
JN: I suspect Iain has filled you in on this. But, at the risk of duplication, distribution is initially limited to the UK via bookstores. There'll also be direct sales – specifically through the site and events.
VGO: Your site includes quite a few references to cheating in games. Is this a pet subject of yours? What are your own views on video game cheating?
IS: It is indeed a pet subject of James' who I'm sure will elaborate more than I. I find cheating a fascinating philosophical area, particularly the blurred distinction between strategy guides and cheating.
JN: Yes it does, and yes it is. My views on cheating can be read about in a series of forthcoming publications. It's another one of those things where the word is trying to do too many things. My interest is in trying to unravel all the activities and practices that get called 'cheating' (with all the unwelcome baggage that the term comes with) and working out what they really are, why people engage in them, what the pleasures are, etc. My current academic research is centred on thinking about how 'cheating' helps us understand the various pleasures of playing videogames (more of those difficult questions – why do you play? Is it fun?) When you think about videogames and the 'digital literacy', there's some really interesting moral and ethical dimensions to this area. There's a lot of work to be done.
VGO: Your site mentions, "creating brilliant live events," and, "a series of unique liveshows about cheating." Can you elaborate on these plans?
IS: There will be a U.K. tour of a 'Difficult Questions' show this October to promote the book, we're planning a series of other shows to help build the community around the publications. There are many other site-specific nights planned...
JN: There's some interesting stuff in the pipeline and I'm sure Iain's told you about the things that are coming up like the DQAV live events. Can't really say too much about the cheating event other than it will be fantastic and perhaps not what you might expect. But then I would say that, wouldn't I?
VGO: Finally, a seemingly simple yet surprisingly hard journalism question for you: Is videogames one word or two and why?
IS: Frankly, I've not done a great deal of research into this. My personal opinion is that it's one. It feels like one, although people have argued against that within some of their responses. "Gameplay" vs. "game play" has also been an issue for many...
JN: What did Iain say? If he said two words, then I'll say it's one. It's one on the cover of my book...
At least one of our respondents picks this up and strongly feels that it should be two words (as it is in the OED, though I tend to chastise my students for using dictionary definitions). Most of our respondents have used 'videogames' but they may be being led by us...? Perhaps this is the most difficult question of all. What do you think? One or two?
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If you've read this far, chances are you fall into the target audience for submissions to the project, so I encourage you to head over to take some time out of your busy schedule and fill out their questionnaire.
Friday, August 6, 2004
Bill Gates Kills Yamauchi With His Bare Hands!
Given the amount of wrong information I've read about the recent rumors that Microsoft was going to buy Nintendo, I wouldn't have been overly surprised to see a headline like the one above.
Pop quiz time, kiddies.
Quoth the Gates
Given that this entire fiasco was based on an innocent quote at a cocktail party, I would hope that the media complex could at least agree on what was said in the quote. Not so:
I found it particularly intriguing that Reuters started the quote with "when" while all the other outlets used "if." This one word could mean a world of differece in the implied meaning of the quote -- "when," to me, implies that he is expecting a call, possibly soon. If is much more hypothetical.
My girlfriend, who happens to speak German, translated the quote as, "If/When Hiroshi Yamauchi calls me, he gets me (will get me?) on the phone certainly/right away/pronto." When asked about the if/then dichotomy, she said that, "it's mostly 'if' in the sense of 'in the case where'..." That's good enough for me.
Since When Is 10% A Majority?
An overwhelming majority of these articles, including the original German article, stated that Hiroshi Yamauchi was "majority shareholder" or held a "majority interest." in Nintendo. Fewer sources said that he was simply the largest shareholder. Who's to be believed?
Well, a quick Google search comes up with a USA Today article from May, 2002, which says, "Yamauchi... is Nintendo's biggest shareholder with a 10% stake." It's possible his status could have changed since then, but I think either the Google search or I would have heard about such a large buyback by a retired company president.
Is this seemingly minor mistake a big deal? You'd better believe it. If Gates is talking about buying shares from a majority shareholder, he's talking about owning a controlling interest in Nintendo. Yamauchi's 10% share, if taken alone, would give him a major say in the company's direction, but not absolute authority.
It would be easy to use this oft-repeated factual error to figure out which sources did their own reporting and which were simply aping the reports from the German article. It would also be easy to use this error to emphasize the importance of checking absolutely every fact in an article, even the seemingly apparent and irrelevant ones.
A History of Rumors
"Didn't Microsoft try to do something like this before?" you are no dobut asking yourself. "I remember hearing that they wanted to buy Nintendo even before the Xbox came out."
Indeed, IGN wrote definiteively that "Microsoft, in its attempts to get into the game industry a few years ago, made offers to buy both Nintendo and Sega, but was rejected on both accounts."
Is that so? I found plenty of sources that alluded to the previous Microsoft offer, but they all used words like "believed to," "rumors of," and "allegedly." A UBS analyst, quoted in this CNN/Money article summed up the history of the buyout rumors nicely:
"All I know is since Microsoft announced it was getting in the gaming business, there have been rumors, but I just can't imagine Nintendo selling,"
As a journalist, it's your job to keep straight which past accusations proved to be true and which were simply alleged; to disntinguish the facts from the rumors of the past. If you don't know, or don't remember, then either print it with one of the above caveats or do some research before you state it so matter-of-factly.
The Magazine Is German, Not The Conference
IGN/Gamespy introduced a rather unique fact error by reporting that the conference Gates spoke at was in Frankfurt, Germany. This despite other sources saying that it took place at Microsoft's U.S. headquarters in Redmond, Wash. (even the orignal German article said it was in the U.S.).
Gamespy quoted a Forbes article that had a dateline from Frankfurt but made no mention of the conference being in Germany. Those little assumptions will bite you in the butt every time...
It's Worth Re-iterating Why Spong Stinks
In a follow-up story, a Spong author writes: "At this point it would be worth re-iterating the original context of Gates’ relatively flippant remark. A German journalist asked him informally if he would consider buying Nintendo, Gates said yes, in theory."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the term re-iterating imply that the context was iterated in the first place. The original Spong article makes no mention of the comment's casual cocktail connotation (a problem that also plagued the otherwise well-written GI.biz article). The Spong article did sarcastically call the original article "one of the most astute pieces of investigative business-technology reportage ever seen." How can I stay mad at them when they spout bitter little gems like that? It almost makes me jealous.
-----
I could go on about how some articles overeagerly reported the story without an attempt to get confirmation from Nintendo or Microsoft, how other articles used the rumor as a vehicle for merger cost-benefit analysis instead of any real reporting, and even how the various sources couldn't seem to agree one whether Wirtschafts Woche is one word or two. But I don't have the time or the inclination to keep writing about this subject. Let me know what you all think of the reporting that this rumor received.
Pop quiz time, kiddies.
- Was Bill Gates at an analyst conference in Frankfurt recently?
- Did Microsoft make a formal offer to buy Nintendo at that conference?
- Did Bill Gates announce his intentions to buy Nintendo to the entire conference?
- Has Microsoft made an offer to buy Nintendo in the past?
- Is Hiroshi Yamauchi the majority shareholder of Nintendo?
Quoth the Gates
Given that this entire fiasco was based on an innocent quote at a cocktail party, I would hope that the media complex could at least agree on what was said in the quote. Not so:
- Wirtschafts Woche: The original article quoted Gates as saying "Wenn Hiroshi Yamauchi mich anruft, kriegt er mich sofort an die Strippe." The Babelfish computerized translation for this quote: "If Hiroshi Yamauchi me calls, kriegt it me to strips immediately." Not very helpful.
- Reuters: "When (Nintendo's top shareholder) Hiroshi Yamauchi calls, he will get me on the phone immediately."
- Spong: "If Hiroshi Yamauchi phones me up, I will pick up at once..."
- New York Times: "If Hiroshi Yamauchi calls, he'll get me on the line right away,"
- GamesIndustry.biz: "If Hiroshi Yamauchi phones me, I will pick up at once."
- CNN/Money: "If Hiroshi Yamauchi calls, he will be directly transferred to me."
- Gamespy: "If [Nintendo owner] Hiroshi Yamauchi phones me up, I will pick up at once."
- IGN: "If Hiroshi Yamauchi phones me up, I will pick up at once,"
- TotalVideoGames: “If Hiroshi Yamauchi calls me, I’ll pick up straightaway.”
I found it particularly intriguing that Reuters started the quote with "when" while all the other outlets used "if." This one word could mean a world of differece in the implied meaning of the quote -- "when," to me, implies that he is expecting a call, possibly soon. If is much more hypothetical.
My girlfriend, who happens to speak German, translated the quote as, "If/When Hiroshi Yamauchi calls me, he gets me (will get me?) on the phone certainly/right away/pronto." When asked about the if/then dichotomy, she said that, "it's mostly 'if' in the sense of 'in the case where'..." That's good enough for me.
Since When Is 10% A Majority?
An overwhelming majority of these articles, including the original German article, stated that Hiroshi Yamauchi was "majority shareholder" or held a "majority interest." in Nintendo. Fewer sources said that he was simply the largest shareholder. Who's to be believed?
Well, a quick Google search comes up with a USA Today article from May, 2002, which says, "Yamauchi... is Nintendo's biggest shareholder with a 10% stake." It's possible his status could have changed since then, but I think either the Google search or I would have heard about such a large buyback by a retired company president.
Is this seemingly minor mistake a big deal? You'd better believe it. If Gates is talking about buying shares from a majority shareholder, he's talking about owning a controlling interest in Nintendo. Yamauchi's 10% share, if taken alone, would give him a major say in the company's direction, but not absolute authority.
It would be easy to use this oft-repeated factual error to figure out which sources did their own reporting and which were simply aping the reports from the German article. It would also be easy to use this error to emphasize the importance of checking absolutely every fact in an article, even the seemingly apparent and irrelevant ones.
A History of Rumors
"Didn't Microsoft try to do something like this before?" you are no dobut asking yourself. "I remember hearing that they wanted to buy Nintendo even before the Xbox came out."
Indeed, IGN wrote definiteively that "Microsoft, in its attempts to get into the game industry a few years ago, made offers to buy both Nintendo and Sega, but was rejected on both accounts."
Is that so? I found plenty of sources that alluded to the previous Microsoft offer, but they all used words like "believed to," "rumors of," and "allegedly." A UBS analyst, quoted in this CNN/Money article summed up the history of the buyout rumors nicely:
"All I know is since Microsoft announced it was getting in the gaming business, there have been rumors, but I just can't imagine Nintendo selling,"
As a journalist, it's your job to keep straight which past accusations proved to be true and which were simply alleged; to disntinguish the facts from the rumors of the past. If you don't know, or don't remember, then either print it with one of the above caveats or do some research before you state it so matter-of-factly.
The Magazine Is German, Not The Conference
IGN/Gamespy introduced a rather unique fact error by reporting that the conference Gates spoke at was in Frankfurt, Germany. This despite other sources saying that it took place at Microsoft's U.S. headquarters in Redmond, Wash. (even the orignal German article said it was in the U.S.).
Gamespy quoted a Forbes article that had a dateline from Frankfurt but made no mention of the conference being in Germany. Those little assumptions will bite you in the butt every time...
It's Worth Re-iterating Why Spong Stinks
In a follow-up story, a Spong author writes: "At this point it would be worth re-iterating the original context of Gates’ relatively flippant remark. A German journalist asked him informally if he would consider buying Nintendo, Gates said yes, in theory."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the term re-iterating imply that the context was iterated in the first place. The original Spong article makes no mention of the comment's casual cocktail connotation (a problem that also plagued the otherwise well-written GI.biz article). The Spong article did sarcastically call the original article "one of the most astute pieces of investigative business-technology reportage ever seen." How can I stay mad at them when they spout bitter little gems like that? It almost makes me jealous.
-----
I could go on about how some articles overeagerly reported the story without an attempt to get confirmation from Nintendo or Microsoft, how other articles used the rumor as a vehicle for merger cost-benefit analysis instead of any real reporting, and even how the various sources couldn't seem to agree one whether Wirtschafts Woche is one word or two. But I don't have the time or the inclination to keep writing about this subject. Let me know what you all think of the reporting that this rumor received.
Thursday, August 5, 2004
The Revolution Will Be Written
According to Brian Hook, the videogame journalism industry is in serious need of a revolution:
No matter how inculcated popular culture may be with games, society still doesn't take gaming seriously as an art form. It's a leisure time activity, a hobby along side golfing, doll collecting, and home theater. As long as this remains, we'll probably find that the quality of reporting in this industry will never approach that of Daily Variety. Hell, I'd be happy if there was a gaming rag on a par with Entertainment Weekly.
The article is from early June, but I managed to miss it until today, so maybe some of you did to. Take some time out of your busy schedule and read the whole article. The rest of the site is pretty interesting too.
No matter how inculcated popular culture may be with games, society still doesn't take gaming seriously as an art form. It's a leisure time activity, a hobby along side golfing, doll collecting, and home theater. As long as this remains, we'll probably find that the quality of reporting in this industry will never approach that of Daily Variety. Hell, I'd be happy if there was a gaming rag on a par with Entertainment Weekly.
The article is from early June, but I managed to miss it until today, so maybe some of you did to. Take some time out of your busy schedule and read the whole article. The rest of the site is pretty interesting too.
Tuesday, August 3, 2004
The Dangers of Video Game Journalism
Think being paid to write about games is a dream job with no downsides? You'll think differently when you read this report from the field that I recently received from CNN/Money's Chris Morris (reprinted with his permission)
...It has been traumatic today, though. And that trauma was just renewed, which I must now share with you to purge it from my mind. Our office is a highrise and we happen to be directly across the street from some apartments. My desk is situated so I happen to face the window whenever I look up from my primary computer's screen.
The people who own these apartments and live four or five floors up rightly assume the people on the street can't see into their places, so they don't bother with blinds in many cases. What they fail to realize (oh God, I HOPE it's just that they fail to realize it) is we're all of 20 yards away and have a direct view into their living rooms. Three times today - THREE TIMES, MY FRIEND - I was subjected to seeing an 80-plus year old woman puttering around her apartment stark naked. I will only say that gravity is not a kind force of nature. Actually, that's not true. I'll also say.. My eyes! MY EYES!!!!!
On game controllers: I received the same feedback. What's funny is developers I talk to are eager to get rid of gamepads. More on that in a future column, though. Ironically, the previous month they --- OH MY GOD, SHE'S BACK THERE AGAIN!!!!
I'm filing for worker's compensation.
Where was I? I have no idea...
I'm going to curl up in a ball and cry softly now...
the horror... the horror...
Hope you enjoyed this lighthearted look into the dangerous world of the video game beat. Next time, I'll be back to taking things way too seriously.
...It has been traumatic today, though. And that trauma was just renewed, which I must now share with you to purge it from my mind. Our office is a highrise and we happen to be directly across the street from some apartments. My desk is situated so I happen to face the window whenever I look up from my primary computer's screen.
The people who own these apartments and live four or five floors up rightly assume the people on the street can't see into their places, so they don't bother with blinds in many cases. What they fail to realize (oh God, I HOPE it's just that they fail to realize it) is we're all of 20 yards away and have a direct view into their living rooms. Three times today - THREE TIMES, MY FRIEND - I was subjected to seeing an 80-plus year old woman puttering around her apartment stark naked. I will only say that gravity is not a kind force of nature. Actually, that's not true. I'll also say.. My eyes! MY EYES!!!!!
On game controllers: I received the same feedback. What's funny is developers I talk to are eager to get rid of gamepads. More on that in a future column, though. Ironically, the previous month they --- OH MY GOD, SHE'S BACK THERE AGAIN!!!!
I'm filing for worker's compensation.
Where was I? I have no idea...
I'm going to curl up in a ball and cry softly now...
the horror... the horror...
Hope you enjoyed this lighthearted look into the dangerous world of the video game beat. Next time, I'll be back to taking things way too seriously.
Monday, August 2, 2004
Dial "M" for Manhunt
There was a pretty large media to-do this weekend when British teen Warren Le Blanc, pleaded guilty to murdering 14-year-old Stefan Pakeerah, a crime some say was provoked by an obsession with Manhunt. Prominent British retailers pulled the game off the shelves in the wake of the incident and the parents of the victim (and others) were threatening legal action. Here's some largely non-judgemental observations on the initial web coverage, as summarized by the always useful Google News:
- With a complex story like this, it's hard to get all the relevant information into the limited space of the headline. Most stories focused on the fact that a game was blamed for the murder (Video Game Blamed For Murder, Video game influenced 14 year old to murder his friend) sometimes incorporating quotes form the victim's parents (‘Violent Video Game Led To Our Son’s Killing’, Killing 'Incited By Video Game'). Many others focused on the retail reaction to the murder (Manhunt Pulled from Stores After Murder, Game Over: Dixons Drop Violent Manhunt) and some others focused on the threatened legal actions (Parents To Sue Maker Of Violent Video Game, Mother of Murdered Boy Begins Campaign to Ban Video Game). Very few publications used a headline trumpeting Rockstar's defense of the game (Game Firm Rejects Death Link, Game Maker Rejects Killer Link). A large portion of the headlines called the game "violent" and some went as far as to quote the parents who called it "evil."
- The three major wire services (The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence-France-Presse) all filed short stories that failed to include any reaction from Rockstar Games or any other source willing to defend the game (Reuters did note that Rockstar wasn't immediately avilable for comment. Other sources managed to get a statement from Rockstar later). Reuters and AFP failed to mention the game is classified as "18 plus" by the British Board of Film Classification, meaning it should not be sold to minors. AP and AFP quoted the victim's parents as saying the murderer was "obsessed" with the game. Reuters simply called him a "fan of the game."
- The specialist press generally took a more defensive tone than the mainstream press. IGN PC and GamesIndustry.biz both said the Manhunt connection was questionable given the drug-related case presented by the prosecution. XBox365 editorialized that the Manhunt-blaming was a "typical knee-jerk reaction. Although the events are tragic, it's clear that the killer must have mental problems." GameSpot made an effort to correct "erroneous news reports" about the gameplay as cited in other stories. Many of these sources drew links to previous controversy surrounding Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series.
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