I took a while to reflect upon this loss before sharing my thoughts…

I feel the need to comment on the passing of Gary Gygax for two reasons. I know that this is no longer breaking news - Chris shared this with you last month. However, I have a more personal interest, so I hope that he doesn’t mind me yammering on for a while. On one hand, Gary Gygax had an immeasurable impact on gaming and videogames as well. On the other hand, I feel the need to address how D&D was vilified in the late 70s and early 80s. It seems so relevant considering what videogames currently are experiencing. All of this is bundled rather tightly in my chest right now because I was an avid D&D player in my youth and I know what a positive experience it was for me and my friends.

As for impact, Gygax was the man who applied probability to practical gaming and found a way to help us navigate the fantasy worlds of our imaginations.  He understood what it meant to explore. He also recognized the creative power of the mind. Gygax and his contemporaries tried to simulate the potential unpredictability of experiencing adventures by quantifying probabilities to be determined by the roll of a few dice. The original rule sets and tables were available through publications like The Dragon, and later were collected, revised, and bound in handbooks and manuals. These became the foundation from which videogames could eventually build code to simulate these experiences in immersive interactive electronic form. These concepts were just as crucial to older games like Temple of Apshai and Dungeon Master as they are to more recent titles like Champions of Norrath and World of Warcraft.

We owe it all to Gary Gygax and his colleagues.

At the same time, back in the day things were not always peaches and cream. As the game grew in popularity with high school and college students, many parents began to take notice. Some over-reacted and accused Gygax and others for creating a form of cult that had satanic overtones. The use of spells and the presence of demons and non-Christian gods was the source of the concern. Many a PTO meeting revolved around the perceived occult behavior associated with this popular pastime. In 1982 the movie Mazes and Monsters was released and it told the story of a young man who lost himself in the fantasy world that he played.

Does any of this sound slightly familiar?

As parents, we have the right to look out for our children. Yet, this right includes the obligation to understand their interests and activities as fully as we can. We have grown past throwing rocks at the moon. Though we often fear the unknown, we have the tools to transform the unknown into the known. Through understanding our children’s interests, we better understand our children. Through better understanding our children, we come to know ourselves.

I believe that Gygax wanted to share the excitement of discovery with others. Through these virtual adventures, many were able to discover important things about themselves. I know that I did, as did my friends.

I have no shortage of D&D references to send him off, but I’m afraid that I cannot be that glib. My life would not be as rich, nor many of my friendships as deep were it not for Gygax and his vision. I hope that he is at peace and that his spirit can feel the joy and the sense of awe that he provided so many of us through his work.

[Read more →]

In our last article, Chris brought up the concept of licensed games and how they make their way onto our children’s wish lists. It is important to understand the politics of making a game that has a television or, especially, a movie tie-in. The rule of thumb is that these games are rarely great games. There are exceptions, but they are infrequent. The fact is that nothing can be more frustrating for a family during the holidays than to get a highly anticipated game as a gift only to realize that it isn’t fun at all. Well, one thing is more frustrating…being the parent who paid $50-$60 for that game and realizing that it was wasted money.

Licensed games are titles that are created to extend the experience which began with the film upon which the game is based. The thought is that if you really loved the movie, you’d like to take on the role of the hero and experience it yourself. The concept makes sense and to the massive entertainment industry, it gives them yet another opportunity to market something based on a successful franchise to its target audience at the height of its popularity. This last part of the equation is crucial. I will reiterate that it should be timed for release at the height of the franchise’s popularity.

This means that as teenagers were leaving the theatre after seeing Spider-man in the spring/summer of 2002, it was important to have a playable game available in the stores that they could buy while the experience of the film was still fresh. With this in mind, the game was released two weeks before the movie and was available accordingly. In the case of the Spider-man games that tied to the movies, they haven’t been bad. (Although the current Spider-man 3 for the PS2 and Wii isn’t highly recommended. The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions are better.)

The challenge is that to have a game available for the optimum sales window, it must be completed, packaged, and in the stores when the movie is released. This is a firm deadline and cannot be pushed back. There are many developers who estimate game releases and then push them back when they realized that they have unforeseen challenges. GTA 4 for the PS3 and Xbox 360 was delayed from Fall 2007 to a Spring 2008 release. A number of developers (and most gamers I know) would prefer that a game get delayed in order to provide the developers the time needed to fully realize the experience. Sure, we all would prefer to get things sooner, but how many people would rather have pancake batter poured onto their plates at a restaurant instead of waiting until the pancake is finished?

In the case of a firm deadline, game companies have to ship the game in the state it’s in. Since this deadline is understood early on, sacrifices are made during development in order to stay on schedule. There are three aspects to any project (not just games):
1) Time
2) Resources (i.e., money, staff, facilities)
3) Quality
If one of these is firm, then adjusting to handle unforseen challenges falls upon the other two. In the case of a licensed title, you can’t change the deadline so you either have to put more money into the development or you sacrifice the quality of the production.

One of the first (and most notorious examples) of a poor franchise videogame was the original E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600. In Howard Scott Warshaw’s (the game’s programmer) defense, he only had 5 weeks to make the game and he told me in a conversation that I had with him a few years back that two of those weeks were spent on coding the title screen alone. He had a firm deadline and no one else in the company wanted to work on a doomed project so his resources were limited. What happened? Quality was sacrificed.

This was only the first of hundreds of licensed games that have not met the expectations of the game-playing public. This is not to say that all movie-based games are bad. Two of the three Lord of the Rings games (all rated “T” for teen) for the last generation consoles (Gamecube, PS2, & Xbox) were excellent. The Two Towers and The Return of the King had co-op play that allow you and your kid to share in the experience. As for The Fellowship of the Ring, you’re better off watching the movie again or, better yet, just pull out the book and read it with your family!

[Read more →]