Tiny Subversions

I'm a really big fan of Thomas Pynchon's writing. He just released a novel last week called Against the Day. It's kind of a big deal, because it's the first novel he's released in almost a decade and it's only the sixth novel he's ever released in a career that spans almost 50 years.

Now, this ain't no highfalutin' literary blog, but I was reading the new book and was tickled to see Pynchon give a shout-out to one of the most beloved video games of all time.

The novel takes place around 1900, so understand that this is all pretty anachronistic. On page 123, we see a Russian airship called "The Great Game." Its captain is one Igor Padzhitnoff. Sound familiar? The book goes on to describe that

Padzhitnoff's own specialty [is] to arrange for bricks and masonry, always in the four-block fragments which had become his "signature," to fall on and damage targets designated by his superiors.

Okay, now it had better sound familar. Yes, it's only a minor thing, but it's a rare moment when I get to draw on my knowledge of video games to inform the lit geek in me!

So let's say you're at a conference, and you've secured yourself two minutes to talk to Mr. Big Stuff, the Gamedev Goddess, or whoever your hero happens to be. Probably the worst thing you can do is gush about your favorite game that they worked on.

There's a quote from some famous artist that goes something like this:

The absolute worst thing you can say to an artist is that you like the artist's old stuff better than her new stuff.

I kind of modify this into a rule about networking with famous people: Be more enthusiastic about the new stuff they're working on than the old stuff they're well-known for.

This applies to famous game designers and their most famous games. At some point, they get tired of people constantly gushing about Game X they made five years ago that sold 100 million copies. If they're real geniuses, they're already over Game X. They're busy thinking about new problems, problems that are far more interesting to them. It's okay to walk up to a famous designer and say, "Game X is my favorite game of all time. But I read about your new game, Game Y, in PC Gamer and I'm totally psyched." It's less okay to say something like, "Game X is my favorite game of all time. How did you come up with the concept?"

In fact, often it's best to avoid discussing their games. If you have a deep understanding of a designer's sensibilities, they'd probably be far more responsive to an abstract question about design. If I ever had the chance to chat with Shigeru Miyamoto, I'd ask him a question about how he balances player intuition with guidance from the game. I wouldn't talk about how much I loved Super Mario World.

It's important to keep in mind that this only applies to famous developers and famous games.

• It's a really good idea to talk to a non-famous developer about a non-famous game they worked on. That just shows how much you know your history.
• It's pretty acceptable to talk to a famous developer about a non-famous game. For example, I used to write games in ZZT all the time. If I ever met Tim Sweeney, I would totally gush about how awesome ZZT was, and kind of forget to mention anything post-Unreal 1.

The general rule of thumb when talking to anyone in the industry is to be really interested in the new stuff they're working on. (Unless of course, the project is unannounced, in which case you politely avoid talking about it. You don't want to pressure anyone to break an NDA.)

Labels: know_your_history, networking

Hey kids: I stumbled across yet another great article to help you know your history. This one is about the history of Epic MegaGames. The article is great not just because it gets the history right (although James Schmalz's name is misspelled) but it also provides context as to what other games were out at the time and who their competitors were. (Fun fact: ZZT is the best game creation software ever.)

Labels: know_your_history

I was reading this Wired article about Orson Scott Card and video games, and early in the article they make the claim that "[w]hile Card's writing fueled classic LucasArts games The Dig and The Secret of Monkey Island, his latest book, Empire, is part of a multiformat franchise that was conceived from the ground up for video games, comic books, novels and films."

This is true, but also misleading. There is no mention at all of Card's project Advent Rising, which was by all accounts a flop that seriously hurt then-awesome publisher Majesco. Also, The Dig is often considered one of the worst LucasArts adventure games (although I kind of like it). There is hardly the consensus among adventure game players to label it a "classic."

Come on, Wired. Are you so busy pandering to your celebrity science fiction writer that you won't even mention his failures?

If you live in the United States and are older than 18, you should vote tomorrow. There are a ton of reasons for this, but I'll stay on-topic for this blog. Games exist within the political sphere. In fact, everything you care about is touched by politics in one way or another.

If you're registered, you can go to this website and find your polling place for tomorrow, along with who's on the ballot. Do a little research. Take an hour and vote.

Art is one of the gaping holes in my knowledge of the game industry, so when students come to me asking about art, I usually throw up my hands and say, "I don't know."

Today, a coworker of mine pointed me to a forum thread she posted with a ton of advice for aspiring game artists. It's great stuff, not just her initial posts but the whole discussion. So, my loyal artist readers, go forth and be educated! I know I learned a lot reading it over.

Labels: breakingin

Well, that didn't take long.

Why are they doing this when the publishers pulled out of E3 to begin with? What are they offering to publishers to entice them to do it all over again?

I'm happy to announce that I'll be helping run the two-day Academic Workshop at GDC 2007. This is particularly awesome for me, because the Academic Workshop in 2003 was the very first GDC event I ever attended, and it's where I first met some amazing people including Ben Sawyer, Robin Hunicke, Greg LoPiccolo, Ernest Adams, and of course Jeff Ward.

Being a student at the time, it was also a great place to become acclimated to GDC--sure, I was star-struck by all the developers there, but 50% of the workshop attendees were professors or fellow students, so those two days were kind of a halfway point to the full-on assault of the first real day of GDC. (Being surrounded that third night by 800 drunken game developers with Microsoft buying drinks was a formative experience in my life.)

So I'm very much looking forward to helping make this year's workshop super-awesome. And Darren will also be helping, so I think we're gonna make it work.

Labels: gdc, speaking

So I gave my talk at the Game Career Seminar at VGXPO this past weekend. It was really cool meeting a bunch of the CMP folks I had never met before. Plus I met a ton of great, really impressive students eager to get into the industry! Makes the blood rush, ya know?

My talk about networking went pretty well, I think. I think I managed to get across many of the important points that I wanted to, plus I gave the audience some time to network with each other. Several students said my talk was their favorite of the whole seminar, whch was awful nice of them to say.

I gave tons of one-on-one networking advice, too, which was really fun. I like learning about someone's specific situation and then giving them exactly the advice I think they need. It's so much more focused than writing general articles on this blog or in magazines.

Also, I got to hang out with Jeff and Bill, who I hadn't seen in 6 and 8 months, respectively. Plus I met a ton of NY/NJ developers I'd never met before.

Jeff, Bill, and I checked out the VGXPO itself (attached to the Game Career Seminar but not run by CMP). The coolest part was the main floor which had tons of old arcade cabinets. I played old favorites like Defender, Gauntlet 2, and Crystal Castles, but I think I had the most fun playing old games I'd never tried before. Specifically, I'm thinking of APB and a game that plays like the third-person levels in Contra, but you can strafe around, literally twisting the joystick to turn. I want to call it Cy-something, but Google fails me. (EDIT: Xybots it is!)

The second-coolest part was a bunch of guys making new Atari 2600 games. Homebrew assembly programming rocks!

The rest of the expo was not really my thing. Lots of teenagers and cosplay, and not much to see except other people playing video games.