(image courtesy Ken Wong, Bad Day LA concept artwork)

It seems that the rhetoric against video games is once again being cranked up by our friends in Washington. It must be campaign fundraising time again. Why else would senators like Hillary Clinton be out fanning the flames of controversy? Quoting an article I just read on MSNBC talking about Sen. Clinton:

She portrayed video games as part of what she called “this overwhelming culture” which assaults children and teenagers with depraved images of violence and sex. She accused violent and pornographic video game makers of “stealing the innocence of our children.”

The same article goes on to state Clinton’s goal of increasing the size of the Army:

“Our army is under unprecedented stress,” Clinton said. “When an army unit returns from service in Iraq or Afghanistan, it barely gets a breather before it begins training for its next deployment. This intense operation tempo is not only tough on soldiers and their families – it also hurts the readiness of our Army and our entire armed forces.”

Ok, so let me get this straight. On the one hand you’re concerned about exposing kids to fictional violence in video games, on the other your all for adding more kids* to the frontlines of a very real and very deadly war? The article mentions that Clinton wants to initiate a study into the long term effects of “Internet, i-Pods, and other electronic media on children.” Ha. How about studying the already existing reports of the long term effects of warfare on returning vets? (*Most new Army recruits are just old enough to buy M rated games and not yet old enough to drink liquor in most states.)

Don’t get me wrong on the war thing… I’m all for supporting our troops; I just think we should do it by bringing them home.

What really amazes me is that this false concern for the welfare of “our children” even works on anyone. Does no one out there realize that this is campaign fund-raising fodder? The article goes on to read, “…that Clinton led all senators in first-quarter campaign fundraising from 14 out of the top 50 industries ranked by campaign giving.”

This is about nothing but money to these people.
My only question is why do lawmakers continue to return to the topic of video games? This really mystifies me:

The New York Democrat said she was struck with “absolute horror” when she read a report that the game had “pornographic content that can be unlocked by following instructions widely available on the Internet.”

Ok, and dur. Has the Senator ever looked in her inbox? I mean, I don’t know about you, but I get something on the order of 50 emails a day enticing me to click on a link in order to enjoy all manner of smut and depravity. I don’t have to turn on my Playstation or Xbox for that! I mean, why view pornographic content that can “be unlocked by following instructions” when you can simply browse right to the real thing?

I once had lunch with famed porn star (some would say God) Ron Jeremy. He explained to me the porn industry concept of “whack factor”. This happened during a conversation where we were talking about whether a porn video game would actually be successful. Ron explained that “whack factor” is pretty much what it sounds like, the litmus test to whether something is “whackable”. The easier it is to whack to, the higher the whack factor, the more successful the thing will be. DVDs, the Internet, and plain ‘ol fashioned smut rags have a pretty high whack factor. They are simple, they work.

Video games? Critically low whack factor. Not worth all the trouble. Anyway, I don’t know a lot of people who are dexterous enough to manage a PS2 controller *and* their own joystick at the same time.

So sex acts in Grand Theft Auto? So what! It isn’t for whacking off to… I’ll tell you that much. If anything it is comedy. Adult comedy, I’ll grant you, but then it is an M rated game. Lets not even mention the fact that the content is contained in an *external* add-on pack!

So why do these people get their panties in such a bunch over violence and sexual content in video games? Why are they no longer attacking “rap music” or going after violent films? I have an idea…

Could it be our marketing? I mean, these senators are definitely NOT playing these games. They certainly aren’t allowing their own children to play them. Are they? So what are they responding to? I think it has a lot to do with the collective message that the games industry is sending out via their visual marketing.

What other entertainment industry these days so heavily features guns, tits, and “rough” culture in their advertising? It isn’t like the rap industry suddenly stopped putting out offensive records or Hollywood kowtowed to Washington. They just got smart in their marketing. You see anything to get upset about there? No, then move along.

It seems that for senators the video game whack factor is just too high. What was it Pac Man said? Wacka wacka?

Is death enjoyable to you?
How many times did you die today?

Video games it seems are the stuff of life and death. When I walk around the show floor during E3 and glance at the monitors what I see usually amounts to something like this:
Guy running, firing weapon, taking damage, death. Reload.
Next monitor:
Guy running, firing weapon, falling in hole, death. Reload.
Next monitor:
Guy running, firing weapon, swimming in lava, death. Reload.
Ad nauseum.

I witness the same sequence of events whenever my non-video game savvy friends come over to try out games. And regardless the setting, the reaction from the player is always the same: frustration. Death is no fun. No one enjoys it. It takes you out of the game experience, and the immersion you were enjoying, usually to some form of save-game reload screen. For players unversed on load screens, the experience is jarring and even somewhat confusing. Which game to load? Why do I have to go so far back? Where are the weapons that I previously acquired, and so forth. I know to hard-core gamers this stuff sounds moronic, but it’s real. And I feel it is part of the reason why games are considered “no fun” by so many of the uninitiated.

I’m going to skip past my general belief that games these days are simply too difficult for most mass market consumers… and go straight to the question of death. Why do we continue to use death as a game mechanic in video games? Why is it that video games are the only medium to employ the repetitive life/death mechanic?

Not suggesting that we get rid of ‘death’ per-se, but that death not be something that takes you out of the game context. Right now most games remove you from the game and take you up a level of immersion in order to display a load screen. Whenever this happens I feel that the amazing entertainment experience I was just enjoying has been hijacked.

If you ever owned a laserdisc player or have watched a VCD movie, then you know the feeling. You’re watching the film, completely into it, anxiously awaiting the next scene, the next bit of action, and BAM! The screen goes blue (or whatever flavor your player sports), and you are prompted to insert the next disc. It’s like the lights being turned on at the bar at 2AM. Huh? Where am I?

That same thing can be seen with video games. Watch your friends the next time they’re playing a game: Head craned forward, eyes locked to the screen, fingers twitching madly, body movements mimicking in-game actions, mouth agape, totally oblivious to the outside world, then BOOM. Death. Everything changes. The neck straightens, the mouth closes, the eyes blink, the head comes round, and the experience is ended. Where are they now? Sitting in their living room in real life, death-limbo on screen. Out of the game.

Grand Theft Auto 3 is a great example of a game where the load screen interface is replaced by an in-game construct, the hospital, or the police station. You die and then, instead of being prompted to load a saved game, are taken to a logical in-game location where your character is reset and control is returned to you. Loss of immersion is very low, at least compared to viewing a load game menu, waiting for a game to load, and then effectively traveling back in time to your previous game state.

I think there are limitless possibilities for wrapping the death/load mechanic into some less jarring wrapper that makes sense in relation to a game’s characters and setting. Helper characters can take the fallen main character to be revived. The main character can have some intelligent death-handling AI that allows him a death-time interaction with the player. Perhaps death is replaced with an accelerated “sleep” from which the player can awake after 5 seconds after having watched the nearby environment clear itself of hazards. So forth and so on…

If death is going to be a core element to video games, then it should be something as seamless as turning a page in a book or transitioning from one scene to the next in a film. It should not distract from the quality of the game or remove the player from the experience. If it does then it becomes a heavy-handed crutch and means of increasing difficulty without delivering any play value.

Garnett Lee over at 1up.com has posted a nice preview/interview of Bad Day LA.

When he announced earlier this year that his next game was titled Bad Day LA, the gears started turning in our heads wondering just how off the wall the concept of having a “bad day” in LA (of all places) could get.

Read more…

Well, finally something is *happening* with the Alice film! I”m happy too… I think Sarah will make a fine Alice, especially after her performance in The Grudge.

This was announced in the Hollywood Reporter today…

June 21, 2005

In the game, Alice has grown up to become a disturbed young woman. After her parents are killed in a fire, Alice returns to Wonderland, a dark and threatening place of looking glasses, mysterious potions, nonsensical tea parties and talking animals, confronting her fears and the wicked Queen of Hearts.

Read the full article.