Tag: from the vault (page 6 of 8)

From the Vault: Why I’ll Never Grow Up

Courtesy Hasbro

I am exhausted. Today’s been one of those days where time seems to stretch out like taffy in front of me, and while the amount seems small from one angle, it’s incredibly long from where I am right now. Tomorrow will be different, and better. But for now, here’s an entry from a few years ago that I feel still applies to me today.


There’s a picture of me out there, and I wish I could post it here with these words. It’s of me, at around 8 years old, proudly showing off my Transformers backpack. Optimus Prime, in all of his 80s glory, is ready to stand up and protect my books and Trapper Keepers from anybody trying to subvert my freedom, which is the right of all sentient beings. I knew Prime wasn’t real, but I believed his philosophy to be true.

As you can imagine, I got bullied as a kid.

My peers made fun of me. I actually got beat up once. I probably caused concern from my parents at more than one point. Somewhere along the way I tried to dial down the behavior that was causing such strife, in the name of fitting in. I never really did, and the behavior remains to this day. At this point, it probably isn’t going anywhere.

These days, though, I wonder why ‘fitting in’ is such a big deal.

The people who we remember, the ones we admire, aren’t people who fit in. Galileo, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther, Nikola Tesla, Rosa Parks, Issac Asmiov, Gary Gygax – these are people who refused to fit into the molds cast by the world around them. They sought change. They embraced their natures. And we love them for it.

Why do we demand so much less of ourselves? Are we just lazy?

Let’s face it, fitting in is easy. It requires almost no effort. Just do what everybody else around you is doing. Buzz in time with the rest of the swarm. Contribute to the overall productivity that will bluesky that turnkey solution. There is no ‘i’ in team.

Because they’re all hanging out in imagination. Innovation. Initiative. Plenty of ‘i’s there.

The problem is that imaginative, innovative people might not always channel that energy effectively. There are lots of mixed signals out there that can muck up one’s internal compass. We look for immediate payoffs. Benefits with minimum investment. Bigger bang for our bucks. To get them, we settle. We compromise. We take the safe road.

There isn’t anything wrong with this, in and of itself. It’s good to have certainty. Especially if you’re in a situation where you need to concern yourself with the wellbeing of others as well as yourself, you need to find a middle ground between dangling by your fingertips and keeping your feet on the ground. The nice thing about not being alone in this is the potential for someone to watch out for you, or you for them, as you make your way towards that goal, inch by inch, one foothold at a time.

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time building LEGOs. And not always with instructions. In fact, I probably spent more time digging my fingers into the big plastic bin, fishing out blocks and assembling them by the blueprints in my head rather than going by established plans. Somewhere along the way, I lost sight of that sort of initiative. I started doing what other people did and were successful at, rather than seeking my own path. I followed well-trod trails around the mountain, rather than looking up and figuring out how I’m going to get all the way up that thing. I’d take a few steps up the incline but then back down when it got hard, because those trails are much easier to follow.

I forgot what it meant to be a kid while still occasionally acting like one.

I’d lament lost time but not consider how better to spend it. I’d rage against my situation and take no steps to change it. I’d experience rejection and loss without using the motivation it was handing me. Kids at their best don’t just cry over scraped knees. They let the pain out, wipe their faces and get up to try again.

At some point, if you’re on top of things and really want to hold onto that initiative, you’ll fail enough that you’ll realize why you’re failing, and instead will begin to succeed. You can’t get there without failing, though. Learning to ride a bike means falling a few times. Ditto traversing the monkey bars. The first few sandcastles you build are going to crumble before your eyes, possibly before you even finish. What matters isn’t necessarily the scrapes, the bruises, the wipeouts. What matters is what we do after they happen.

It’s okay to fail. It’s okay not to fit in. We have to find a way to make the most of those failures, to make not fitting in matter. When we do, the successes mean more, not just because of the failures that lead to it but because we can take full ownership of it. We had the crazy idea. We struggled to make it come to life. We were aware that we’d get odd looks and skepticism. We got to the finish line anyway, and something new and exciting is the result.

That’s reason enough to abandon the set paths. It’s why we remember those luminaries I mentioned. And it’s why, at this point, I’m probably never going to ‘grow up’.

From the Vault: On The Fringes

The Friday 500 returns next week, when I’m not quite so wiped out. In the meantime, let’s talk again about character death in fiction!


Courtesy FOX

When I watch a good television program or film, one with a narrative that builds its characters and takes the plot in ways one might not expect, I feel the dichotomy in me between watcher and writer. In the moment the story is happening, the emotional connections I feel with the characters, if they are written and acted well enough, feel vital and affecting. Afterward, in retrospect, I can observe the direction and outcome of those moments, and fully understand the foundation behind the decisions the writers made as well as postulate where they might be headed.

It’s important to remember that any character in a story can die. It’s all in the manner of how, when, and why. I think ‘why’ might be the most important piece of the puzzle, and I don’t mean the motivations of their in-story killer. The writer, callous and unfeeling as they might seem, should have good reason for offing one of their creations, especially if that creation is well-liked. Knowing this, I think, actually helps in reading stories as well as watching them. Chuck Wendig could easily kill Miriam Black. Jim Butcher’s under no obligation to keep Harry Dresden alive. And we all know how George R.R. Martin feels about the immunity of popular characters to the flashing scythe that is his pen. Character death is one of those writerly decisions that can hang on the fringes of the story, either making the whole thing more tense or dragging the whole thing down.

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From the Vault: The Video Game Singularity

I’m on my way to Boston for PAX East this morning. While I make my way through several states on what are certain to be lovely roads, have a look at my thoughts on the lines between video game developers and video game players, and what might happen if they get blurred.


X-Box Kitten

I feel we are rapidly approaching what I’ve chosen to dub “the Video Game Singularity”. It’s the point at which the lines between developers and players of video games blurs to the degree that the storytelling experience these games convey is one truly shared between both camps. We’re on our way with RPGs with user mod tools like Skyrim, massively multiplayer experiences and yes, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure tales like the Mass Effect trilogy. Now, things like marketing departments, stratospheric fanatical expectations, and the limitations of current technology will hinder this advent, but it’s sooner than we think.

The Internet’s instant communication and dissemination of information is accelerating the process as we, as gamers, find and refine our voices. While we’ll never be able to excise every single idiot or douchebag from the community, we can minimize their impact while maximizing what matters: our investment in our entertainment. We are patrons, and video games are the art for which we pay.

Games are unquestionably art. Moreover, they a new form of art all their own, with their own traditions, their own classical periods, their own auteurs, their own mavericks. So I pose the question: why do we judge them as works of art extant in other forms when they clearly do not belong there?

Think about it. A movie critic, with little to no exposure to gaming in general, has no basis by which to judge the merits and flaws of BioShock or Killer7 in comparison to Kane and Lynch. By comparison, many gamers who only see a handful of movies may not recognize the reasons why film aficionados praise Citizen Kane or 2001: A Space Odyssey. The two mediums are completely different, and the biggest difference is in the controller held by the player.

From the moment we put our fingers on buttons, sticks, or mice at the start of a game, we have a measure of control over our experience. A well-designed game lets the player feel like they are truly a part of the world they’re being shown, that their choices will help shape the events to come. In a movie or a book, there’s no interaction between the observer and the observed. We experience the narrative the authors want us to experience regardless of whatever decisions we might have made differently. Video games, on the other hand, invite us to make our choices and experience the consequences for better or for worse.

Since players are a part of the building process for the narrative, it could be argued that they have just as much ownership of the story as the developers do. That isn’t to say they should get a cut of the game’s profits, as not everyone can render the iron sights of a gun or the glowing eyes of a dimensional horror-beast as well as a professional, who has to pay for things like training and food. A game done right, however, makes the player feel like a part of its world, and with that comes a certain feeling of entitlement.

That word’s been bandied about quite a bit lately, and to be honest I don’t think gamer entitlement is entirely a bad thing. The problem arises when gamers act like theirs is the only opinion that matters. Gaming is, at its best, a collaborative storytelling experience. Bad games shoulder players out of their narratives with non-interactive cutscenes or features that ruin immersion. Bad gamers scream their heads off whenever things don’t go exactly the way they expect in a given story. “This sucks and so do you” is not as helpful as “I think this sucks and here’s why.”

Not to belabor the point, but you can tell an author or director how much a book or movie sucks in your opinion, and the most you might get is a “I’m sorry you feel that way.” Game developers, however, know their medium is mutable. It can be changed. And if mistakes are made in the process of creating a game that slipped by them or weren’t obvious, they can go back and fix them. Now, the ending of a narrative is not the same as a major clipping issue, games crashing entirely, or an encounter being unreasonably difficult, and not every complaint from the player base is legitimate. And in some cases, the costs in time and money required to make changes to adjust a story even slightly can be entirely too prohibitive. But when there’s truth found in the midst of an outcry, some merit to be discerned from a cavalcade of bitching and moaning, game developers have power other creators of narrative simply don’t have.

The question is: should they exercise it?

Let me put it another way:

Should finished games be considered immutable things like films or novels, set in stone by their creators? Does listening to players and altering the experience after much debate ruin the artistic merit of a given game?

I think the answer to both questions is “no.”

Changing the ending of a novel or film because fans didn’t like it is one thing. Most directors and authors would cite artistic integrity in keeping their tales as they are. There are those who feel game developers should maintain the same standards. That doesn’t seem right to me, though. For one thing, a writer may change an ending if a test reader can cite issues with it, and a director can re-cut their film if focus groups find it difficult to watch without any benefit. Moreover, gaming is so different from every other art form, so involving of the end user of the content, that sooner or later a different set of standards should be observed.

As we approach the Video Game Singularity, it becomes more and more apparent that the old ways of judging those who create the stories we enjoy no longer apply. We are just as responsible for the stories being told through games as the developers are, and while games empower and encourage us to make decisions to alter the outcome, we must realize that our power in that regard is shared with the developers, and is not exclusively our own. By the same token, the onus of integrity does not solely fall on the developers. We, as participants in the story, must also hold ourselves to a standard, in providing constructive criticism, frank examination, and willingness to adapt or compromise when it comes to the narratives we come to love. Only by doing this can we blur that line between gamers and developers. Only by showing this desire to address these stories as living things in which we have a say and for the benefit of which we will work with their original creators will gamers stop coming across as spoiled brats and start to be considered a vital part of the game creation process.

We can stop being seen as mere end-user consumers, and start participating actively in the perpetuation of this art form. To me, that’s exciting and powerful.

I mean, we still have people using racist and homophobic language in the community, but hey, baby steps.

From the Vault: Gratuitous Failure, 80s Style

Courtesy Devolver Games

You know it’s a rough day when a post doesn’t go up until the evening. Oof. Anyway, here’s a bit I wrote about failure. Probably appropriate! My actual review of Hotline Miami can be found here.


I’ve been writing a lot about failure lately. This is partially because I believe that we do learn more from our failures from our successes, and also because I know there are folks out there who like to know they’re not alone in the struggles they’re encountering. I am, admittedly, one of them. I continue to maintain that the important part is not the failures, but rather our reaction to them; does failure prevent us from moving forward, or inspire us to redouble our efforts? I often find a microcosm of this frustration and determination in video games, especially uncompromising ones like Hotline Miami.

For those of you unaware of the game, here’s a quick overview. It’s the 80s, an era infused with bright neon colors and oversaturated sound, and you are cast as a nameless individual taking job offers from your answering machine. They sound innocuous enough: babysitting, taking out the trash, and so on. But it’s all code for killing. You’re a contract killer and you walk into house after house, punching and bludgeoning and shooting your way to victory. You do so while wearing a rubber animal mask, just one of many indications that whoever you are, you aren’t right in the head.

What sets Hotline Miami apart from other games is the overall feel and timbre of the gameplay. You enter the homes of your targets from a top-down perspective, something not often seen in modern games, and everything is pixelated and vibrant in color, rather than rendered in 3D and drenched in modern, realistic palettes. This is probably a good thing given the level of brutality on display. People, human beings, are punched hard, have their bones broken, get their skulls smashed repeatedly against hard floors, and are shot, stabbed, bludgeoned, and sliced to death. They even get savaged by dogs. And more often than not, this will be happening to you, since you’re not going to get it right the first time. You’re going to fail.

Much like Super Meat Boy, the appeal of this game comes from the challenges it presents the player. Without hints, without cheats, without even a clear indication of how the player should proceed, the game sets up the pieces and lets the player have at it. I think this is part of the reason that the graphics look the way they do: the violence is not the point. Oh, it’s visceral to be certain, but reduced to this fidelity it verges more on goofy than disturbing. The true meat of the game is in its challenges, not in blood and bone and bullets. It doesn’t teach players to shoot people with different skin; it teaches them to keep trying even after you fail over and over and over again.

The message of Hotline Miami is not one regarding violence or madness or the 80s being even more fucked up than we remember. Those are just the trappings, the rails on which the story hums along. Within that story, through its mechanics, the game’s message becomes more clear: You’re going to fail. Keep trying anyway. Bludgeon the challenge the way you bludgeon that mook with a shotgun. Sooner or later, you’ll get it right, and it will feel awesome when you do.

I’m not sure what this says about me, but I’m okay with turning a few pixelated faces to paste to get that awesome feeling. And I know I’ll get it in other areas, too.

From the Vault: Moderation in Geekdom

Reposting this as it is still relevant today.


Courtesy CCP
If this is the most important thing in the world to you, it’s time to have a talk.

I’ve said in the last couple days that I am either in love with or obsessed with Enforcing. I don’t take that sentiment lightly. As rewarding as the experience was, as wonderful as making so many new friends makes me feel, as affirming as it might have been to be helpful, useful, and enduring throughout the weekend, it would be unhealthy of me to make it the entire focus of my life. Geeks have a tendency to obsess, something I know through some experiences I am loath to repeat.

Don’t misunderstand me, enthusiasm is a good thing. I’m quite enthusiastic about Enforcing, as well as writing, gaming and game design, movies, music, and so on. Enthusiasm is what keeps people interested in their passions and their arts, that helps them endure the drudgery of the day so they can experience what they enjoy later. Enthusiasm is not the enemy, and should even be encouraged, as being dispassionate is just as unhealthy as being obsessed.

In fact, obsession with one thing can lead to a lack of passion or interest in other things, which are arguably more important. As much as you might think your World of Warcraft guild’s raid schedule might be, you do still have to do your homework, laundry, or other household chores. You can’t flit all over the country for conventions and hangouts when that money should be used for medical procedures, care of your family, or paying the bills. You might think that being in a teleconference with your corporate cohorts in EVE Online is the most important thing, but that couldn’t be further from the truth if your wife and kids are feeling neglected and marginalized while that’s going on.

I’m not saying don’t have fun. I’m not saying gaming is the enemy. That’s the sort of knee-jerk reactionary rhetoric you’ll get from some supposed news outlets and sensationalist narrow-minded pundits masquerading as journalists. I am not a journalist. I’m just another geek, and I know from experience that geekdom that becomes obsession leads to broken homes, shattered dreams, fractured hearts, and even damaged minds. I’ve spent the better part of ten years coming back from one of the worst blows dealt to me in my entire life, and it came from my own brainpan, my own neglect, my own obsessions. I’m saying, my friends, that we must be mindful of what draws us in and lights our fires. It’s good to be warmed and illuminated by those flames, but if you don’t manage that fire, it will consume you.

Take the time to get your life right. Sort things out and make sure you’re not losing anything crucial by pouring yourself into something insignificant. That purple loot, those enemy ships, your favorite star or the latest episode or the next event or release – none of it matters, in the end, if it costs you friends, family, or sanity. And even if you think you’re fine, take a moment to look at those around you, at your spouse or children or co-workers or close friends. It only takes a moment, but it can change, or save, your entire life.

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