Category: Marketing/Business

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Game Development Games Marketing/Business Politics/Government

The ESRB Ratings System

Since the “Hot Coffee” scandal is in the news, and enough people are talking about it, including developers, I’ll just add my own thoughts so that more than enough are talking about it.

If you haven’t heard about “Hot Coffee”, essentially Rockstar, the developer behind the Grand Theft Auto series of games, is getting itself and the general game industry in a lot of trouble. The already controversial GTA: San Andreas apparently has a sex mini game buried on the CD. You can’t actually play the mini game normally. As far as I can tell based on the media that I’ve read so far, you have to get a patch that someone else made that unlocks access to the content. To top it all off, Rockstar’s statements ranged from quite confusing to downright lying about it.

GTA:SA is already rated M for mature by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. The ESRB provided its own ratings system, and this system is getting a lot of heat. While they providea description of the ratings, I’ll give a basic review of the main ratings:

  • E for Everyone: basically, safe for children
  • E 10+ for Everyone 10+: children 10 or older can handle it
  • T for Teen: not safe for children, but teenagers should be mature enough to handle it
  • M for Mature: the key word, Mature, should indicate that it is not safe for people who are not mature; technically, not for people under the age of 17
  • AO for Adults Only: usually those words imply content the likes of which you will find on late night Cinemax

Now, the ESRB changed the rating from M to AO due to the unlockable content on the game. A new version of the game that prevents the mod will be released for the fourth quarter of the year with the original M rating. If stores wish to sell the current version, AO rating stickers will be provided to them. Of course, most retailers will pull the games from their shelves instead.

Of course, the damage has already been done. Senator Clinton is proposing a law similar to the laws proposed in Illinois. GTA:SA was already considered “bad enough” by certain people, but this “hidden pornography” has a number of groups and politicians up in arms. It’s basically a debate about protecting children, free speech, and the fact that the game wasn’t originally meant to be played by children in the first place. It’s rated M, so children shouldn’t be playing it.

Kotaku does a nice job describing the differences between the movie and video game rating systems, although I would like an actual answer to the question, “What is the purpose of the rating system?” because telling me that they are voluntary and who sponsors them isn’t telling me about the purpose.

Anyway, if we were to compare the ratings to the movie industries ratings, which are widely known, you could see they are pretty much line up nicely:

  • E == G
  • E10+ == PG
  • T == PG-13
  • M == R
  • AO == NC-17

Granted, there are slight differences, but if you understand one, you can understand the other without too much of a problem. At least, I would think so.

One complaint I’ve seen a lot about the game ratings system is that it is so similar to the movie rating system that they should just adopt it themselves. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any reason as to why the ESRB cannot do so. I imagine it might be a trademark thing, but I would like to believe that the MPAA wouldn’t charge an exorbitant amount of money just to allow another industry to use it, especially since the two have so many business connections.

Another complaint is that the difference between M and AO is negligible. I’ve seen many blogs and news articles comparing the two descriptions and concluding with, “WTF?!” Or, to clarify, they find that the difference is a bit contrived and shouldn’t exist.

Of course, in the movie industry, a movie that is rated R will play in most theaters and can make money, whereas a movie rated NC-17 wouldn’t. The sweet spot is PG-13 because now teens AND adults can pay to see it. So there is a huge incentive to get your movies a lower rating, and some people have taken issue with movies like Saving Private Ryan and Orgazmo getting ratings they shouldn’t deserve due to who made the movie.

Similarly, a game rated AO will not sell at most retailers, whereas M will. So some people believe that difference between the two ratings is artificially created to allow otherwise extreme content to sell in stores. In either case, children are not supposed to be playing these games, but they can more easily get access to a game rated M than one rated AO.

Just like they can more easily get access to R rated movies on DVD than those rated NC-17. In fact, this problem can happen more than the problem with children getting access to M rated video games. But I’m still waiting for the outrage and sensationalization on that issue.

Essentially, what’s the outrage here? That’s the question a lot of game players are asking. The games are already not supposed to be played by children, so changing the rating will not do anything but make someone who is 17 wait a year before they can play it. Big deal! Of course, historically video games were played by little children. How many of you adults have heard your mother complain that you shouldn’t play video games anymore? That you should “grow up” and act your age? There is a perception that video games are children’s toys still. They are not anymore, and people need to learn this fact. It doesn’t help when the only ones making noise in the media are the ones who insist on saying things like violent games are being “marketed to children” or that these games are “training kids to kill cops”. The implications to parents and others? Violent and sexually explicit games ARE being marketed to their children. Who is saying otherwise?

So what’s going to happen? Politicians are going to continue to make it clear that they are outraged about the situation, or at least clear to those who will vote in the next election. They’ll continue passing laws that won’t have any effect on actually protecting children since the parents will still be the ones who make the majority of the purchasing decisions. Jack Thompson will continue to create his own facts to scare parents. Parents will be confused when they see games that clearly state they shouldn’t be played by children while they hear the media insist that these games are being marketed to them.

In the end, no one will be able to trust anyone. But I believe that Rockstar basically gave the entire video game industry a nice, big black eye. Talking about the nuances of the issue doesn’t change the fact that parents, media, lawyers, and politicians have a perception about video games that is a bit different than it was before “Hot Coffee”. Changing that perception to reflect reality, where an adequate and clear ratings system already exists for parents to use, will be tough. It already was tough, but it is just made all the more tougher since Rockstar gave the opposing view more ammo, no matter how immaterial it would be to the actual issue.

I believe that “Hot Coffee” would have died out on its own. It is a poorly made mini game, and outside of the juvenile curiousity, no one would play it for long. But, the content is technically pornographic, and generally there are laws that restrict the sale of pornographic material to minors. As informed game players, we know that playing a copy of GTA:SA won’t let us play the mini game. We’d have to find and apply the patch to the game first. It’s not as if an unsuspecting child, who shouldn’t be playing the game anyway, can stumble upon the mini game in the course of normal play. Nevertheless, this information isn’t getting out there to the general public. The perception is basically along the lines of “Rockstar has released a game that rewards children for killing cops and glorifies violence. Now it turns out it also allows this child to simulate sexual encounters! This is an outrage!”

Nevermind that GTA actually punishes you for killing cops. Nevermind that children shouldn’t play this game in the first place. Nevermind that it is not possible to just “play sex” with a purchased copy of the game without going through the steps needed to download and apply the patch/mod. Nevermind that the ESRB couldn’t possibly have been able to rate the game based on this content. The point is that Rockstar, the ESRB, and by association the video game industry are perceived as the enemy of parents and moral values. Not to claim that Rockstar is completely to blame and that parents are allowed to be ignorant. Not at all. There are clearly people out there who have an incentive to be less than genuine about the facts, including politicians and game developers alike. Also, I believe that Rockstar should be able to make whatever games they want. This issue is not cut and dry, since they didn’t release the mini game as something playable in the first place and so probably shouldn’t have been required to disclose it.

But the content shouldn’t have been on the CD. While it is normal for developers to leave unfinished levels or other things in the build, this mini game is a bit much, I think. It wasn’t just some unfinished level or 3D model. The repurcussions from this incident and the reactions to it will likely extend farther than just legal issues for M or AO games made by mainstream developers.

Categories
Geek / Technical Marketing/Business

FOSS Innovations

I’ve been reading different news articles about Free and Open Source software. I’ve also read articles that both praise and denounce FOSS. I’ve participated in flame wars and civil discussions about the merits of FOSS.

One argument I’ve seen appear countless times is that FOSS can only mimic the features of existing commercial software. The idea is that with commercial software, there is a profit motive, so innovation occurs. FOSS, without a profit motive, can only aspire to do what other existing packages do. Essentially, people are arguing that FOSS can only copy commercial software features.

There are a few problems with this argument that I can see, and I don’t mean to talk about one-off theoreticals like, “Well a person COULD release a new feature under the GPL”.

One, the way this argument is formed implies that FOSS and commercial software are mutually exclusive. When this argument comes up, no one ever clarifies what they mean by “commercial” software. It is just assumed by all parties involved in the argument/discussion that commercial software is proprietary software that you sell. This assumption and the wording of the argument (FOSS vs commercial) leads to the conclusion that FOSS is the software you don’t sell. This assumption furthers the idea that FOSS can only be free as in beer.

To make this idea clear (or not, since I always make bad examples), imagine if I asked you, “Do you want to buy this bottle of safe purified drinking water or drink from that spring over there?” The way I worded that question would imply that the spring water is not safe. It may or may not be safe, but by asking that question in that way, I’ve pretty much made up your mind, haven’t I? At the very least, you now have a doubt about the safety of that spring water. Now imagine that instead of talking about the water directly I discuss a side effect. “You can only grow tomatoes in safe water.” What happened? I’m still implying that the water from the spring is unsafe compared to the purified water. After all, I explicitly mention that the purified water is safe, so the spring water must not be safe, especially as you can’t grow tomatoes with it. Only this time you aren’t being asked about the safety of the water. You are being asked about growing tomatoes, and if you just argue about the ability to grow tomatoes, you implicitly agree that the spring water is unsafe while the purified water is safe. It may be that the spring water is also very pure and also very safe, but you’ve accepted that it is completely different from water that is safe by assuming a clear distinction. Crafty, eh? And maybe contrived…

Two, and related to the first point, the argument mentions the profit motive as if it was exclusive to “commercial” software as opposed to FOSS. Since it is possible to have commercial FOSS, FOSS can also be developed with a profit motive. If by “commercial” they instead meant “proprietary”, I still don’t understand how keeping the source secret inherently makes it more innovative than FOSS.

Still, I’ve thought about it. The Free Software Foundation wasn’t formed to create innovative software. It was formed to make it possible to use Free software with a Free operating system. Innovation wasn’t the purpose at all. Somehow this weird debate about the innovation from FOSS vs commercial software came up from others. Almost always, the question gets posed by someone who is against FOSS, and of course this situation pushes the idea that FOSS advocates insist that FOSS is more innovative that proprietary software.

It’s a confusing mess. One the one hand, you want to argue about the merits of FOSS or proprietary software. On the other hand, arguing simply makes people think you accept their assumption about commercial software vs FOSS. And if you argue to point out the assumption, you lose people who find your “meta arguments” pointless.

Anyway, I believe that innovation isn’t exclusive to proprietary software. I also believe that FOSS can be commercial. Heck, my business will depend on it to be the case!

But just saying so isn’t good enough. After all, Microsoft and other companies have been doing a good job perpetuating the idea that FOSS is communist (implying all sorts of evils by doing so) and that “commercial” (implying FOSS can’t be commercial) software provides true innovation. I think it would be interesting to see if a list of FOSS innovations could be made. Of course, innovation isn’t necessarily originality, and Microsoft’s marketing show that it is apparently innovative to make their OS more secure than previous iterations.

Still, a list of FOSS innovations would be nice to have. What did FOSS developers do before proprietary developers “copied” from them? I proposed making this list as a project for the DePaul Linux Community. I’ll take it on myself if there is a lack of interest there.

Of course, when a study or three say so, it only lends more credibility the idea that FOSS promotes innovation. And one innovation I use everyday without thinking about it: Firefox Live Bookmarks. Add one to the list…

Categories
Game Development Games Linux Game Development Marketing/Business

New Linux Gaming Link

Somewhere this past week I came across the Linux Gamer Guide Wiki.

I set this site up to help people be aware that there ARE linux gamers.. and gaming on a linux platform is a CHOICE!.. now… to add stuff.

I’ve been trying to get the site out more in the public..if you find any of these HOWTOs useful please give ’em a link 🙂

I didn’t post the link originally because the site was very new, but now it seems to be taking shape. I think it can be a great resource along with The Linux Game Tome and other sites.

Categories
Game Development Games Marketing/Business

Why Good Games Don’t Sell Well

This past weekend, I had a chance to play Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. My girlfriend’s cousin owned the game. I’ve been wanting to play this game for quite some time, and I finally did for a couple of hours. From the beginning, I could see why people loved this game. Just doing acrobatic moves without much effort was really cool.

I talked with my girlfriend’s cousin about how the game was a lot of fun and that I can’t believe no one bought it. He mentioned that his friends generally felt that the game looked like a “ripoff of Aladdin” and so they wouldn’t even give the game a try. Too bad for them…and unfortunately, too bad for the developers.

Over at Zen of Design, there is a post called Viewpoints on Why Great Games Don’t Sell. It cites a forum post on Idle Forums and a post by Scott Miller about the games Psychonauts and Ico. Both games are supposed to be amazing, and yet they had terrible sales.

While playing PoP:SoT, I did find that the jumping puzzles could have gotten frustrating. I wanted to fight off a group of opponents with flourish instead of jumping across pits at the right moment to avoid a buzz saw. On the other hand, running along walls and leaping from pillar to pillar was kind of fun in its own right. Apparently Ico and Psychonauts also had jumping puzzles.

Scott Miller provides a few of his own reasons for why a good game can fail, but I think part of the problem was the lack of marketing. I saw an ad in PC Gamer about Psychonauts. It didn’t immediately appeal to me and I still can’t tell you what the game is about. The review, on the other hand, made it sound kind of cool. I guess I didn’t read it very thoroughly though. And Ico was mentioned many times in the “Difficult Questions About Videogames” book, but I still don’t know anything about it. Of course, I don’t have a PS2, so I wouldn’t have played it anyway.

I suppose Miller could be right about the “kid’s game” idea. After all, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within was made darker and sexier than SoT, and it sold a lot better. But perception is a marketing problem. Obviously, Psychonauts looks childish, but I’m sure marketing could have figured out a way to convey the game itself rather than the idea that it is just a kid’s game.

Now, blaming it all on marketing is a cop-out, and I don’t believe it was the sole problem with these games. But I’m sure more could have been done to prevent this problem. Play testing is important. Are you telling me that no focus groups are arranged to figure out first impressions on games as well? “Based just on this ad, what can you tell me about the game? How do you think it would play? Would you buy it?” Tailor your ads based on the feedback you receive here.

Also, do something about the jumping puzzles and similarly tedious gameplay mechanics. It could be that no one really enjoys them. SoT at least made them interesting and fun for the few hours I got to play.

Categories
Game Development Marketing/Business

Outsourcing Artwork for Game Development

I’ve always been able to draw well. Give me a pencil and a piece of paper, and I can probably draw a fairly accurate portrait. Of course, art isn’t my concentration when it comes to game development. I can draw, but I’m terrible with tools like Blender and the Gimp. I’m a programmer. And programmer art is what I make when making a game.

Programmer art isn’t good enough for professional quality games, so I plan on outsourcing my artwork. Jon Jones recently wrote an appropriate article: Outsourcing Art: Ten Steps to Success.

I think it is really informative, but I think it also shows a disconnect between artists and game developers. While I don’t have much personal experience with game development, I’ve heard and read enough about the way games evolve during development. It isn’t always possible to plan out all of your art asset needs. Communication is definitely key, as Jones points out, although I think he places too much of the blame on game developers when relationships have gone sour due to poor communication. Both parties are involved in communication, so if one failed to communicate, the other failed to communicate as well.

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Marketing/Business

LinkedIn for Networking

David St. Lawrence of Ripples had posted about the importance of networking. He mentioned an online tool called LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is basically a way to network with others. You might have a list of people you know, but LinkedIn allows you to keep those contacts in an easy to use yet formal way. On top of that, you can meet others through the people you know.

LinkedIn uses the concept of connections. If I know you, we can make a formal connection between each other on the site. So let’s say that I make a connection with the CEO of a game company, and you are interested in meeting that CEO for a business proposition. If you know me, you can send a message to the CEO through me, and I will forward the message on for you. Naturally, if I don’t know you or don’t think it would be good to pass the info on, I won’t. But connections are made quickly, and you can grow your personal network to discuss business opportunities, gain expertise, or just keep contact with old coworkers.

I’ve long known that I needed to discuss game development with a mentor or two. I’ve just signed up, but I’ve already made contact with a few Chicago-area game developers that I didn’t know before. It’s still early to say, but LinkedIn might be one of those tools that you can’t live without. The Beta Subscription is currently free, and I think the people behind LinkedIn are trying to figure out how much to charge in the future or if they should use advertising. Part of subscribing for free is to fill out a survey to help them decide.

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Marketing/Business

Superstitious Pigeons

Seth Godin wrote wrote an article a few years ago in Fast Company called The Threat of Pigeons and Other Fundamentalists. He claims that not too much has changed today.

It basically talks about how people make business decisions based on what they think the truth is. Pigeons, it turns out, are superstitious. If you put them in a cage and feed them at regular intervals, they do whatever it was that they were doing when they got fed. They apparently believe that if they got fed while spinning around, they must be getting fed BECAUSE they were spinning around.

Contrast with a company that becomes successful while concentrating its resources on some specific aspect of the business. If that aspect doesn’t apply anymore, how long will it be for the leadership to adjust its view? If the company did the equivalent of spinning around while becoming successful, it will be difficult to persuade the people involved that they are being superstitious.

The article caught my eye because PigeonGB is my handle when I play games. It was a nickname in college.

Categories
Game Development Marketing/Business

Chicago Game Dev Meet-n-Greet

Last night was the a Meet-n-Greet for the Chicagoland game developers at Gameworks in Shaumburg. People from the Chicago Indie Game Developers, the Chicago chapter of the IGDA, and DeFrag were there. There was also the special guest: James C. Smith of Reflexive Entertainment.

It was quite a turnout. Attendees ranged from aspiring game developers to more established names. We spent a good amount of time just talking to each other. Actually, it was more like yelling at each other over the televisions, music, and arcade game sounds. Still, it was great talking to people.

I even saw someone I knew. Shawn Recinto recently incorporated his own game company. I remember brainstorming with him and a bunch of people when we were all going to work on a game project together. I left the group after I felt the project was too ambitious and didn’t like the direction it was going. He’s working on making mobile games and showed off a Frogger clone he had made. We exchanged some interesting ideas for game design and development.

Eventually we moved to the nearby Starbucks, which was relatively quiet, although I think the acoustics are terrible for big groups. People showed off demos and others asked questions.

Joe Sislow of CosmoOSe showed off an integrated circuit board that could be used for arcade games instead of hard drives and other devices which may get jostled during shipment. He talked about how inexpensive they were to make and that some interesting games could be made with them. Lower development costs and the ability of CosmoOSe to do field testing should allow for some innovation to enter into the arcade scene once again. I talked to him later about potential innovation in real time strategy games and found that he was a Wizardry fan as well.

Action of Curiosoft showed off his Einstein gameography work-in-progress. There were now some particle effects and a new game mechanic that I thought was pretty cool. It really looks like a game that could teach people to think differently.

I didn’t get the name of the person from TC Cons, but he showed off some games he made using Game Maker. He also mentioned making a horseshoe game that still sells fairly well because it is the only horseshoe game in existence. What a niche! He referred to himself as a second generation “new” game developer since he has made games in the past but now finds himself learning about game development again.

James C. Smith showed off some developments on Big Kahuna Reef. He mentioned that people liked making levels for the game and that he was trying to make it easier for those level makers to decorate their designs. He was also talking about making a word game to complement the match-3 game.

People suggested books and mentioned articles. They talked about games they’ve made and business models they’ve tried. It was really cool to talk to so many more people than from previous meetings. I felt that there were some people who didn’t get to converse much, but hopefully that will change next time and as Chicago builds its online game development community.

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Marketing/Business

Ok, I’ll Be Selfish

Kathy Sierra, an author from the Head First series of Java books, has made an open post where anyone can comment and trackback, no matter how off-topic or shameless. So, I’m taking advantage of it. B-)

Well, to make it more useful, I’ll say that I wouldn’t mind seeing Head First Game Development, but I’d prefer C++ in my game dev books.

Categories
Geek / Technical Marketing/Business

Anti-FOSS Conspiracy? Meh.

In “Something’s Amiss in the Linux Community”, Walter V. Koenning suggests that there are people who are so against Linux and Free and Open Source software in general that they will take the time to post negative comments under articles that are pro-Linux. He notes that the negative comments appear to be copied and pasted into each article. At the same time, he notes that there seems to be more articles praising the merits of Windows.

Yet, I propose there is one big difference. The difference is so major that it allows me to smell the fishy smell, and notice that which has gone amiss and still sleep well at night.

Linux did not get to where it is today because it was promoted extensively, strategically deployed, well marketed, etc. It got to where it is today because there is an unquenchable thirst in the world (I’m talking about all of humanity) for creativity and collaboration.

Thousands of people have volunteered their blood and sweat to OpenSource because it matters more than general economics or power.

What we create with our minds and fingertips together with others we’ve never seen matters and benefits many and leaves a legacy that money can’t buy and power can’t wield. It’s not possible to stop inner human passion. Nor will it be possible to undermine the community that makes it tick so well. Instead, for every action, there will be an equal and opposite reaction.

If there are forces at work to try to undermine FOSS and make it appear dangerous and inferior to proprietary products, then doesn’t it mean that the people behind those forces are afraid? If it really was as bad as they say, FOSS wouldn’t survive on its own merits.

Yet it does. And apparently if the trends the author indicates exist, people are dedicated to spreading Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt to slow it down. It simply demonstrates that Free and Open Source Software is important enough to be a threat, which means that it is good enough to compel people to switch.

Quite simply: they’re afraid.