About used games - You never owned them in the first place

I live with a video game fanatic. My room mate, Blue Hanzo, is an action RPG and  fighting game fanatic. I, on the other hand, being the shitty slacker that I am, can't even finish Dragon Age. So, I hear a lot about the industry and what directions it's going in from him.

Right now, the talk is rah rah fight the powah EA sucks (yes, they do suck, they killed one of my all time favorite MMOs, Earth and Beyond). I know this will be a downer post, but I will explain why Game Spot is living on borrowed time, how both the publishers and retailers are ripping you off, and what you can do about it. A big raging debate from my personal circles is that gamers have a right to trade in their games and physical media, that they should be able to hand in used games for credit, and that the publishers should stop being blood sucking vampires.

You're being screwed by both retailers and the publishers, you know.

Retailers screw you by making huge markup margin on your used games. Say, you drop $70 on Call of Duty 99 - Guns Against Bunnies. You burn through the game in a week. You head back to your favorite game retailer, who generously offers to give you store credit of $25 on your purchase. You sell back the game, and have a 50-50 chance of using the credit for a recently used title. So, when they put the game into one of their own boxes and place it next to the new title, a week after release, and proudly say, "just as good as new", what do you think a cost conscious gamer will do when presented with a commodity product? They'll buy the cheaper product. In this manner, the game retailer gets to sell the same essentially new title 2,3,4 times before it becomes stale. No wonder game publishers are pissed (but they're no saints either, keep reading.) The margin on this kind of product is insane. That kind of center can't hold.

On their end, the Publishers are pissed that they're game is being sold multiple times without them seeing a red cent. AA games are being produced on bigger and bigger budgets that are ironically going more and more to marketing instead of actual development. How do they respond? By increasing prices to recover that lost margin, or engaging in shenanigans like DLC or requiring 24-7 connects or other customer harming bullshit. Who gets caught in the middle?

You.

So, here are my views on what changes I think are coming down the pike, and how you can prepare for them.

While game consoles aren't going the way of the Dodo (in fact, they're going to be doing just fine right now), portable media is. You've never owned a video game, and never will. As of the 1972 Berne Convention, it was established in both US Copyright law and in international treaties that while the physical objects that we may have used to carry game code and assets may have been your property, you were renting the code that is actually the substance of whatever game you play.

Go to your favorite game. Read the EULA.

I'll wait.

If you bothered to skim the damned thing (I'm assuming you didn't read it all), it should be abundantly clear that the actual code, assets and creative work that goes into that game isn't yours - it's the property of the people who paid for the creation of the game.

So, X-Box and EA requiring 24-7 constant connections to the Internet? Yes, shitty.  Inability to loan game CDs to your friends? Yes, that sucks.  Games being driven either by free-to-play models that require you to pay for every little peice of crappy content or by DLCs that are $5 and $10 at a time for things that in earlier games would have been included for free? I feel your pain, man. I play MMOs pretty religiously myself (I'm on Star Trek Online and Neverwinter).  PC gamers are getting the shaft just as Console gamers are.

I'm not going to get into the hemming and hawing of whether or not the game publishers owe you anything or whether or not the current distro models are right or moral or bother with all that nerd rage. That's amygdala masturbation anyway. So, take a moment, rant, scream, bitch on Reddit, whatever.  I'll wait again. Enjoy your 3 minute hate.

The fact is, eventually, video games will be delivered online only with no physical media, either to a console, some form of set top box, a PC or most likely, a tablet.  In 10 years there will be tablets and phones that can perform as well as game consoles do now (probably with an iteration of the Unity engine). Gamers will gravitate towards whatever provides them with the best combination of price and ease of use.  Services like Steam will be the norm.  DRM will no longer be an issue because all games will be administered from the Cloud, and downloaded like apps. We can't stop it. We need to prepare for it.

Yes, yes, obvious. So, how can we prepare? What's the good news?

My guess (note the word guess here) is that as the upward visual quality curve of various gaming platforms level off that it won't make much of a difference what platform a game is on. I can see folks playing games on multiple devices all sharing the same technology platform. We're already taking baby steps towards this, especially for non-action game play - witness the Neverwinter Gateway. Since every moment of engagement with a game is a moment when someone can potentially make a purchase, game designers will want players to be able to engage with the game as often as possible, via phone, tablet or desktop unit. I also forsee that one day you'll get X-Box and PS whatever quality on your tablet and phone.. It might be 10 or 20 years, but that day will come.

As a consequence, I feel we will see a bloom of creativity from small developers, especially as universal tools packages become cheaper and more viable for game startups. An example of this is the F2P Warframe, developed by indy studio Digital Extreme and distro'ed by Sony. Video games now seem to follow a production model reminiscent of film production, with studios often being brought together and disbanded for individual projects.

Also, with these universal tool sets, costs will go down. Right now, console makers have a hammer lock on that distro channel due to the high costs of their SDKs, and the audience that their console brand can deliver. As tablet and phone games reach greater penetration, the exclusivity of the console platform will become less and less relevant, especially as HDTVs become more sophisticated. Will having a PS# or Xbox whatever really matter when your 60 inch TV also acts as a tablet and can natively render polygons just as well? The merger of the game platform, TV, tablet, phone and other data appliances is nearly here. Hopefully, we'll see a world where all TVs use the same OS and developers can write for the native TV platform - Android, IOS, or whatever. Sally in Wichita, Greg in Jacksonville and Bobby in Long Island can all grab their bluetooth Xbox style controllers that talk right to the TV. Jim's sitting at a bus stop, so he has to use an attachment through his tablet, but he'll be able to join his buddies for that raid. I know the stars have to align for this scenario, but I feel it's a when, not an if.

This is what I'd suggest to anyone who is a casual to serious gamer to prepare themselves in these ways -

• Forget about media and DVD boxes. If you want a memento of the game you love, buy the merch. I have a fondness too for things like DVD boxes and art, but that's going away. Stuff that looks just as nice on a shelf are things like art books, action figures and other stuff. Also, any serious game company should have some merchandise to purchase.

• Support small developers. I feel that the creativity in the market is going to come from these guys. Consider these guys like your favorite bands - if they get enough support, they'll be picked up by a major publisher.  There's some awesome work coming down the pike from indy devs in the IOS and Android app worlds. I especially like Humble Bundle.

• Get ready for the decline of the PC. I love PC gaming, and I don't game on consoles (although that will change soon.) However, tablets will soon rule the world. PCs will still certainly be around, but game development dollars will flow to the dominant platform, which I estimate will be tablets. I suspect that OS developers will attempt to train users to treat their platforms more like phones than PCs, in order to cut down on piracy. I'm not taking a position on that entirely sticky wicket, except to say that everyone in the industry will do everything in their power to make all forms of piracy structurally harder or irrelevant. Games, like most other media, will be streamed and in the cloud, possibly entirely paid for by microtransaction or subscription. There is a reason why the major platform for fantasy dungeon adventure games is the MMO, and it isn't just the multiplayer aspects.

• Keep a watch out for the unification cascade. I think that whatever becomes the universal code platform will sneak up on us. My money is on Android, but as these things develop in fits and starts, who knows. Whatever happens, I think it will be disruptive, take everyone by surprise, and then a new status quo will be established.

So, that's it. Share your opinions and views. 

A few rules and reminders

Everyone, thanks for your input and responses so far.  Here are a few housekeeping reminders - 

• Drive by comments - if you comment here, you are expected to engage. If you drop by, comment once, and speed away, I will remove your comment. If you want your words to be shared, stay here and engage with me.  Speak freely and be passionate about your positions, but if you're not willing to support your points, you'll be considered a heckler and ignored.

• Argle bargle - ad hominens, insults and other such will not be considered true engagement or debate. No one here is a swine or a shit stain. Such comments will also be deleted.

• Slurs, bigotry, homophobia and other nonsense will be considered BS and deleted. A few naughty words are OK, as I use them myself, but use common sense.

Carry On,

Kid Groovey

RPG Nerd Slack - On how the Storygame RPG versus Sandbox RPG war really is political bullshit and bad for RPG gaming

Nerd Slacker is back, and I'm here to annoy extremeists in the various camps of RPG fandom.

When most people think of RPG's, they usually think of Dungeons and Dragons and it's various iterations. However, within the RPG scene there are a few camps and schools of thought.  A relatively new development over the past few years has been the the Storygame movement, which has generally emphasized player control of narrative and the de-emphasization of a game master and the acknowledgement of narrative as being the essential element to role playing games.  On the other end of the spectrum is what are called traditional games, which emphasize the creative of a simulationist narrative and a high degree of suspension of disbelief, with game mechanics supporting this simulation by emulation approximations of physical processes within the setting, and an organic, free form approach to the development of narrative. I define these as Sandbox RPGs, there's usually a game master who has distinct control over the narrative, with the only player options to have input is to abide by the narrative assumptions of the simulated play space. As many older games use a variety of approaches, using the term Traditional RPG is not entirely accurate, as some of them, such as Pacesetter's Sandman, which by today's standards would be defined as a Story Game RPG) were absolutely not simulation-based sandbox style RPGs.

The one-creator control approach of Sandbox RPGs has been championed by many members within the OSR, or Old School Revival movement. While many within the OSR have staked themselves out as 'trad gamers', not all have, as the definitions of the OSR are loose and in flux.  Dungeon World is clearly a story game, for example, but has been declared by many within the overall gaming community as being an Old School Revival game (i'm not sure I entirely buy that myself, but Dungeon World certainly makes use of the OSR aesthetic.)

Now, some of you who are partisans of either stance - that Storygame RPGs rock and that Sandbox RPG games are for troglodytes who rule their campaigns with players having no agency except as decided by the arbitrary whims of the GM who represents a simulated world that really is their own personal narrative, while storygamers are snotty pseudo-intellectual swine who are seeking to foist their political opinions upon honest, hard working gamers who simply want to have fun and are also trying to steal the definition of what an RPG is.

Well, guess what? I find both positions to be utterly full of shit.

The real debate between the story game and the OSR-based Trad Game movement is inherently based in real world politics, even though many within both movements aren't entirely aware of the political origins of their positions.  Allow me to explain - 

Story Game RPGs were influenced in their development by such things as critical theory, which is an inherently leftist political and philosophical position, as well as post modern, as identified by Christian Giffen in his essay at story-games.net. In the Story Game movement, Rules Matter, since the rules act as principles by which even game masters must abide and act as a democraticisng force, much as the rule of law acts in civil society.  Story Game RPGs are an emergent political movement in RPGs, since Story Game RPGs arise from the socialist thought of the Frankfut School, even if indirectly or without conscious intent to do so.

Sandbox RPGs political rise out of a more mainstream view of American social relations, with a central authority figure arbitrating and interpreting rules, and players deferring to his or her authority. The GM acts as the sensorium through which they perceive the game world.  Ideally, the GM acts as a neutral arbiter and is merely the conduit to the objective world simulation in which the players participate, who survive by the virtue of their wits against an environment that would go on whether they were present or not.  Player agency is both heightened and reduced in this scenario, as while player have the absolutely authority to control their characters they have no other ways to control the setting on a meta level.  The narrative in these games are supposed to be emergent, not planned.  This is what is known as sandbox play.  For my purposes, I will refer to this impulse as the Sandbox Play movement, which is by definition a rejection of the Storygame RPG movement and is an expression of neoclassical ideals in terms of politics.  GMs own their campaigns, and if players don't like it, they can leave.  GMs also own whatever they choose to represent, and some even go as far as to fully embrace random reaction and encounter tables to determine NPC behavior and frequency of appearance in the game setting.  In my limited experience, many sandbox gamers seem to identify with libertarian ideals and a full embrace of game theory and rational actor style economics.  Sandbox gamers also, in my purely anectdotal experience, generally self-identify politically rightward. Gaming forums such as the The RPG Site generally have an audience that skews white and male (although I have met Sandbox gamers who do identify with the US mainstream political left.) Sandbox gamers are the John Galts of the RPG world, who suffer not any interference in their narrative property rights.

So, being that each branch of the roleplaying game hobby derives ultimately from schools that are part of the spectrum of worldwide politics, I will break out how each side is harming and helping the hobby, and certain elements in each movement  are actually pushing agendas that have nothing to do with gaming and everything to do with social relations and political agendas.

First, the story game movement gets my stink eye - 

STORY GAMES ARE INHERENTLY IMMERSIONIST. There, I used caps so that the appropriate level of drama can be generated.  Use of mechanical structures to create scenes and outcomes within a narrative are devices that set the stage for immersion.  Some sandbox gamers claim that the story mechanics in story game RPGs destroy their immersion - to that, I counter that the Sandbox is exactly a form of narrative construct just as much as the staging and dice allocation mechanics from games like Fiasco and Cortex.  They are simply different forms of creating the narrative stage upon which immersion takes place.  For my purposes, immersion is the moment when the player and character action, intent and perceptive stance are united.  The claim that mechanics remove one from immersion is a false statement at best, unless one participates in totally free form, mechanicsless type of game (which is an actual thing, in the style of European Free Form Larps).  A simple roll to hit and most combat mechanics are simply systems that somewhat randomly determine the narrative outcomes of combat, and tense RPG combats that have an uncertain outcome while emulating the narrative effects of the genre they are simulating are immersive.The guy who says that narrative mechanics destroy immersion is as full of shit (although perhaps not intentionally so) as the guy who says that immersion is false and impossible.  Both of these positions express a desire for rhetorical conflict and tribalism that have nothing to do with playing and enjoying of RPGs.

And now, sandboxers - 

THE SANDBOX IS A NARRATIVE CONSTRUCT. All those wandering monster tables, NPC reaction charts and other stuff used to simulate an objective game world? Guess who choses when they will be used and rolls the dice? The GM, exercising his or her narrative control.  While the idea of an emergent, organic narrative is one of the awesome components championed by the sandbox game movement, it is a narrative.   I find it absolutely intellectually dishonest that a sandbox GM will allow a nonsensical result derived from a reaction of encounter table to get in the way of a string of fun the he and the players are having.  The GM saying "that's what the tables said, sorry" is like a player saying "but that's what my guy would do!", neither acknowledging that their setting and character respectively are constructs that they control and that they are the driving agency behind.

NEITHER SIDE OWNS THE DEFINITION OF ROLE PLAYING GAME - I think this goes without saying.  The hobby is large enough that multiple definitions of what an RPG is should be embraced.  The definitions of what an RPG is are still emergent, and all sides of the hobby are still contributing to this, especially as technology changes the forms of how people can participate and create content.  My definition of a roleplaying game is as follows -  Any game in which role play takes place, and which includes game style mechanics to resolve uncertain situations within the shared narrative, is a role playing game.  This definition is still in flux for me, but it's the best that I can produce right now.

CANON IS BULLSHIT.  Members of both sides are trying to determine the 'canon' definition what an RPG is.  They're both full of shit.  Certain games do not cause brain damage or make people into swine. While Paul Cornell doesn't discuss rpg gaming, his notes in regards to canon within fandoms smack absolutely true. 

THE OSR IS NOT THE EXCLUSIVE PROPERTY OF THE SANDBOX GAMING MOVEMENT.  As someone who started with AD&D 1 and lived through those days as a gamer, I can say with a certain degree of authority that there was no actual formed philosophy concering gaming back then.  People just as often had pre-determined story archs back then when they ran AD&D (if it worked, it was Awesome, if it failed, it was railroading), so story in a game definitely was a thing.  Also, TSR Marvel Super Heroes, with it's Karma rules and comic book based framing structure, is absolutely a trad game that was crreated long before the Story Game and Sandbox movements arose.  Some have accused Tenra Bansho Zero of being a story game, but it's actually a fusion game which makes use of certain framing techniques reminiscent of modern story games.  But the game also uses a random reaction table (the emotion matrix) which clearly derives from random NPC reaction tables while Aiki, Kiai and Karma are objective things which exist in the setting. All one needs to do to play Tenra in an entirely sandbox manner is to discard the scene framing techniques.  Further, both MSHRPG and Tenra were written before the foundation of the Story Game movement (1986 and 2000, respectively.)  The OSR is a feeling, a vibe, and an aesthetic.  This is one of the reasons why Dungeon World is identified by many as an OSR game, even though the authors don't define it in terms of sandbox gaming.   A large degree of Dungeon World's fanbase identify it as a story game RPG, AFAICT.

BOTH STORY GAMES AND SANDBOX GAMES ARE AWESOME.  The Sandbox gaming movement, through the channel of the OSR, has come up with innovative ideas as to executing emergent style narrative gaming.  The passion and creativity in the development of adventure content and settings that flows from the Sandbox gaming movement are outstanding and to be cheered.

Over on the Storygame side, the passion and creativity I've seen in the story game scene have also been astounding, with new ideas and settings and fun flowing in a spigot.  I salute both RPG movements.

CREATORS DETERMINE DEFINITIONS. Hey, RPG ideology nerd? No one elected you to be gaming pope. I don't care if you are a disciple of RPGPundit or worship at the feet of Ron Edwards in the Forgeite army. Only creators get to define what their games are called, and accusing them of being deceptive or dishonest is the pot calling the kettle black. In a creative hobby such as this, definitions are fluid.  Do creators the courtesy of abiding their authority over their own work.  I'd never call a sandbox RPG a story game RPG, for example, because most authors within that movement don't like the term and I'd call it whatever they defined it as on the cover.  The same goes for Story Game creators. I support creator rights and ownership over their work, especially as in regards to definitions.

GOT A PROBLEM WITH THE OTHER GUYS? DON'T HATE, CREATE. Screeching at each other on blogs and gaming forums does jack and shit for the gaming hobby, and chases away new gamers.  Instead, create new stuff and show us why your point of view is good and makes for fun.  You see, that's the ultimate measure of success in this hobby - we're all here to have a good time. Prove em wrong by publishing and selling. Which brings me to my next point - 

IF IT'S NOT FUN, IT'S WORTHLESS.  I don't care about the purity of your ideological position or your first principles.  I do this thing because I have a good time. It doesn't matter how enjoyment is arrived at - let the most fun game be the one that is regarded as the most right.  Pissing matches blaming other people for your own lack of success, talking about conspiracies and dishonesty or other argle bargle nonsense is just blog and forum hot air crap. MAKE GAMES AND OTHER PRODUCTS. Don't *tell*, *SHOW* us why you're right.

Which brings me to my final point - 

YOU SHOULD BE SPENDING LESS TIME ARGUING ABOUT HOW OTHER PEOPLE GAME, AND MORE TIME GAMING. 'nuff said.

I welcome comments, as I make no claim to perfection and invite reasoned debate.  But if I smell argle bargle, bad language or other unpleasantness, then your post doesn't get approved..  If you're willing to be respectful and polite, we can have a great exchange, but acting like a jerk will get you screened.

EDIT - As detailed in the comments below, it appears that I am off base with at least some leftists that game using sandbox techniques. For this, I stand corrected. But the political and cultural zeitgiest from which both movements derive from I feel is still valid. Thank you for all the great comments so far, keep em coming.

Wherein a casual gamer starts his journey down the slackfilled road.

Hello all,

If you're reading this and you're the kind of video gamer or nerd media consumer that is passionately dedicated to their piece of nerd turf, be it world of warcraft raiding, tabletop roleoplaying games, gaming on one of the major videogame console platforms (XBox 360, PS 3, Wii), hardcore PC gamer, fan of Moe, Mecha or mostly any other form of anime, big into House, Harry Potter or Lost, or otherwise BLAZINGLY, BURNINGLY PASSIONATE about your particular thing, then you will mosty likely hate this blog.

You see, I'm the apathetic, average, casual consumer of most nerd media.  I'm the guy who plays halfwway through both KOTOR 1 and 2, who levelled only 1 toon in WOW to 80 (but on Ravenholdt, a PVP server, before I moved to Kirin Tor because I found a guild as casual as I was), the one who has only watched selected episodes of Full Metal Alchemist or Naruto Shippuden, and who can only name a few of the main cast members of Bleach.  I get bored and disgusted with games that are too easy or too hard.  If a printed book, movie or video game fails to capture my interested in the first 5 episodes/20% of game play/100 pages/5 comic issues, then into the trash bin it goes.  I have as much attention as a mayfly.

I am the middle, zero point marketing demographic that media creators aim out.  I'm the guy whom they make video games for, as opposed to the hard cores who are rabidly dedicated to their respective franchises.  I'm the poltroon who drags down the common denominator of everything you like.  I'm also the guy who those devs and marketers can't in a million years understand.

If you're a hardcore, you hate me.

I'm the guy who buys the game at launch but then doesn't buy the 2nd and 3rd installment.  I'm the guy who buys the first DVD but then passes on the rest.  Why?  Because it sucked.  It was made lousy, it was unimaginative, it had low quality production values, it wasn't up to snuff.  My lazyness and apathetic nature makes me the ultimate sloth like snob. If you're a producer that is lazy with me, I shall be lazy and fickle with you.


The purpose of this blog, then, is to serve a few purposes -

• To call media makers, be they game developers, comic creators or film producers on their bullshit.  I'll be reviewing crap that I come across, and I will describe, in an utterly subjective and non-professional way, why I don't like it.  If it is good, I will give it praise that it deserves.
• To make commentary on the current media landscape.  I dig advertising, culture jamming, copywriting, and promotion, and how this relates to Nerd Media.  I'm interested in how Nerd Media exists as a subculture and how, like all subcultures, it is being monetized, and what this means for both the subculture variation in question and the larger US media culture which absorbs and uses it.
• To make commentary on the fan side of various subcultures, be it Harry Potter, Giant Robots, Cosplay, Griefer and Goon subculture in video games, /b/tards and Anon, and other things which capture my interest.  Since I am a social media deconstructor of the Frankfurt School, I love applying the conflicting throughts of pessimist Adorno and the optimistic ideas of Habermas to current media and nerd culture.  Go go critical theory!
• Throughout this all, I make no claim that I am any sort of "expert".  I'm just a guy who occupies his own unique space in the world, so I give my own unique view.

So, Nerds, Zebra and Weeaboos, if I insult your favorite fantasy world of other bit of nerd dom, rage on.  Pop culture is both srs bsns and not to be taken terribly seriously.  Pop culture is laden with metaphor, and often is a better indicator of the national and world zeitgeist than more serious, overt studies.  But then, I approach this kind of critical analysis in a gonzo way anyway.

So, watch this space. First up - WOW Patch 4.0, and what it means to lazy, casual nerds.