A raging war of words that never seems to disappear for long, the eternal question “are games ert?” has reared its many-spectacled head yet again. On the first side we find those who passionately believe in the idea that games are indeed ert, and wish them to be viewed as such. On the other, the stridently dubious, who feel that games are not ert, and either cannot ever be it, or at least have many steps to go in order to become it.

It is well understood that ert is important and a big deal. Many people pay respect to ert– and as such, if games became ert, then respect would be paid to games. This means we could talk about what we do in good company by saying “oh, I make video games,” and our interlocutors would respond “oh, yes, games– they are a kind of ert, aren’t they?” And we all know that this is certainly not the case right now.

To confuse matters further, there is also a contingent who have spearheaded a kind of backlash against the question itself– games, they counter, should be about something else– having “fon,” apparently, and thus it is lamentable that anything else (especially ert) would be the concern of those who make games, particularly because the quality of being “fon” interferes with, or somehow contradicts, the quality of being ert. Which begs another important question: can games be both ert and fon at the same time?

Many further symposiums, blog posts and ert-fon diagrams will be necessary to answer the question definitively.

2277 May 09 – I’m feeling kind of down. The propaganda we made doesn’t seem to be doing much. I can’t even be sure it’s really being heard by anyone out there in the wasteland. Sometimes I feel so powerless, like I don’t have the actual ability to change anything.

2277 May 20 – You know what’s really frustrating? If only I had the three-digit password to activate that water purifier machine, I could rid the world of mutants forever. Colonel Autumn suggested just using a robot to try all the possible combinations, but that’s ridiculous. How many possible combinations of three-digit numbers are there, anyway? Like a million or something?

Call him the Bard of Avon or England’s national poet or ShakeyP, there’s no doubt that William Shakespeare is one of the top contributors in the business today. That’s why we were positively exploding with anticipation when we learned he’d be dropping by our office with a recent build of his latest project, tentatively entitled Hamlet. To our disappointment, Hamlet wasn’t a cross between ham and an omelette, as tasty as that sounds. No, it’s a new play, one that according to its author will break new ground in the often staid tragedy genre. But will Shakespeare’s Hamlet really live up to all the hype? Hit the jump to find out how our demo went.

Neurons and glial cells held a rally today in order to bring attention to their controversial plan to fundamentally re-shape the way the body is constructed.

Their proposal calls for a massive new type of processing center, dubbed “the brain”: essentially a drastically enlarged and significantly more complex version of the clusters of nerve cells that run bodies today. They claim that this dramatic expansion would provide untold benefits– from the ability to quickly analyze massive amounts of data to the capability to formulate logical models of the world around us.

But this highly ambitious plan would come at a steep price: staggering energy requirements, a difficult gestation process and no immediate guarantee that it will make existence any easier or more understandable. The proposal has been sharply criticized by constituents of other organs, such as the powerful endocrine lobby, who have ridiculed the idea as “preposterous” and characterized it as an expensive waste of money.

According to its critics, neurons’ use of resources is already excessive, and any further appropriation of the body’s energy would handicap other, more important systems. And commentators have pointed out what they see as fatal flaws in the plan: for example, that the relatively delicate construction of the so-called brain leaves it prone to damage.

Backers of the brain project have responded with the suggestion for a bony outer structure, called a “skull”, they say would protect the brain from all but the most concussive impacts. Ironically, though, this has increased the proposed budget for the brain even more. Though they continue to claim that the benefits of the brain’s processing power would more than make up for the tremendous expense, advocates for the brain face a difficult road ahead in making their dreams a reality.

“It’s a Catch-22,” said one glial cell, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “You want everyone to imagine the possibilities– but they can’t really do that without, you know, a brain.”

Hello everyone, and thank you for coming to my talk. Today I’ll be speaking about player rewards: what they are, why and how you should put them in your games. I’ll start as usual with the obvious. People play games for entertainment. People like being rewarded. Video games can provide both entertainment and reward. Therefore, it follows that good game design is about making a game’s rewards equal and appropriate to its associated challenges. I have dubbed this concept “conflicto-payoff concordance”. An example of a game with poor conflicto-payoff concordance is Solitaire, since you do all this work and the only thing you get at the end is an empty table and a pack of cards, which, as we all know, is what you started with. I had a funny slide here with a photo of an old man playing Solitaire but it isn’t working for some reason. Anyway, you want to space out rewards so that players feel compelled to keep playing, but not so often that the rewards don't feel like rewards at all. In other words, my advice boils down to carefully considering your design and not overdoing anything in one way or the other. That’s basically what we did on War Zone of War 2, and it worked out pretty good for us. Thanks for coming.

“You are the general, a smooth game-publishing machine. Budget? Check. Vertical Slice ready? Check. Marketing knows why your game matters? And how! You’re so smooth your developers refer to time before they worked with you as the “Dark Scary Time.” You were put here on this planet for the sole purpose of bringing high-quality video games to expectant gamers like a Next-Generation Digital Distribution Stork. Your games make Cert on time, every time. Don’t believe the hype, it’s selling you short. If this sounds like you, and you strive to provide a narrative experience rivaled only by Hollywood blockbuster movies, we want to hear from you.”

– One of the strangest job ads ever.

1.

At one point, Tim and the Princess had even tried to see a professional relationship counselor. The counselor lowered her bifocals to look at Tim, to peer into his soul with her birdlike eyes. In time, Tim heard about value systems, about maladaptive patterns and letting go. The Princess sat quietly with her arms folded, and she already seemed distant. It had snowed that day, and Tim was reminded of the time he built a snow fort, from the safety of which he lobbed gritty snowballs at the neighborhood kids. But that’s all gone – relegated to the past, forever. There is no snow fort to protect him now.

For the following month, anyone writing or speaking about video games who uses the word “narrative” will be administered a mild electric shock to the temples. The shocks will increase in strength and duration the more times the word is used in a single thought.

“Wait!” I hear someone saying. “Denied the use of this most important of words, the entire critical framework built up around games today will be reduced to a shambles!” Well, I don’t care. You’ll just have to make do without it.

The injunction begins… now.

Everything is “so” something.
If it’s not so something, it’s so not worth talking about.

Ask a rhetorical question, then immediately answer it.
Why would any writer do something like that? Because it’s awesome, that’s why.

Skirt the edge between sarcasm and sincerity, so you could be construed either way.
It’s no good to clearly express your opinion. Oh, no. Better to safely retreat behind a constant sly smirk. That’ll keep them guessing, and set things up so that you can never be wrong. Yeah.

Strikethrough is your friend.
It’s a clever typographical device that opens up a whole new way to be a knee-jerk smartass express your thoughts.

So is italic.
I mean, duh.

Sprinkle in useless metaphors and orthogonal pop-cultural references.
That makes the writing more spicy— like a taco lovingly slathered with Tapatío brand hot sauce. ¡Muy Salsa!

And above all… never forget to exaggerate.
Because hyperbole is the essence of wit, and what makes this all-too-short life worth living.

If you’re not visiting Next-gen.biz, then you’re not in the games industry, as far as I’m concerned. Only a craven serf would not carefully read this website every morning.

– Sir Howard Stringer

Wanna be plugged into the white-hot, pule-pounding business of video games? Next-gen.biz captures the nonstop bare-knuckle action of the industry without ever losing its hip swagger.

– Rolling Stone

Next-gen.biz didn’t just knock my socks off– it blew them into a million tiny pieces!

– Shigeru Miyamoto

1.

Let’s think about the future for a second. You probably don’t understand the kids that make up the bulk of our audience, but I do. I call them the network MySpace remix 3.0 social generation. Unlike any other people before them, young people today like to interact with each other. They also like music. YouTube is the perfect example of whatever point it is I’m making. Everything should be online and customizable.

I count at least five of them.

Level 5
Factor 5
Red 5 Studios
5th Cell Media
G5 Entertainment

Unreal Engine 3 – The most advanced, most cost-effective and easiest-to-use Gears of War engine ever created

Knights
Programming generalists who jump around as needed, Knights work on this or that or anything else as the needs of the game demand it. They are often found doing gameplay programming because they have an innate sense of design and can interact well with the non-coders on the team. Not only are they very smart, but energizing to be around since they can translate highly technical concepts into language that the other departments can understand. They are future leaders.

Beyond the numbers and the money, another aspect in which the game industry competes fiercely is something called “thought leadership,” the talk and the perception of both people inside the industry and those who observe it. Like ladies maneuvering for status in a period costume drama, companies in the industry experience peaks and nadirs of sentiment about them. Nintendo is the grand dame of this season’s thought leadership ball, back at the top of the heap after close to a decade of suffering through life near the sidelines (not that she would admit it). Sony, the reigning queen, has made some decidedly awkward steps on the floor this evening and people are holding their breath to see if she stumbles. And Microsoft doesn’t understand why it isn’t all about her– after all, she’s bought the best dress in town and hired the most expensive carriage!

Engine Parts:
Valve
Gearbox
Turbine

Civil Unrest:
Radical
Rebellion
Guerilla

Team Effort:
Ensemble
The Collective
The Creative Assembly

Self-Descriptive(?):
Irrational
Nihilistic
Insomniac

Make Up a Word – and Get Bought by Activision!:
Treyarch
Luxoflux
Beenox