WWdN: In Exile

regarding GTA IV and the morality patrol

With GTA IV coming out tomorrow, the usual gang of idiots are up in arms about how this game will lead to the end of civilization as we know it, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria, etc. As I said in my PAX keynote, this sort of moralistic chest-thumping makes me a little stabby:

Whenever I hear [Hillary Clinton, Jack Thompson, etc.] pontificate about how dangerous and antisocial and devoid of redeeming qualities video games are, I get a little stabby, because these games we love to play are much, much more than the simplistic bloodbaths Mass Media likes to portray them as during May sweeps.

Just as the multiplayer games are social activities, so are the single-player games narrative works of art, and they should be treated that way.

The hysteria surrounding the release of GTA IV has officially crossed into the realm of the absurd as moralizing groups of busybodies lead (shockingly) by Fox News successfully forced the transit authorities in Chicago to pull GTA IV ads from their buses. In Miami, professional attention whore Jack Thompson forced the Miami-Dade transit authority to yank GTA IV ads from bus shelters.

Can I just take a moment and point out how insane this is? This type of hysterical overreaction to a video game is completely out of proportion to any alleged harm it could inflict on anyone, but is accepted because it is done, as it always is, in the name of protecting The Children.

Yeah, it's always about protecting The Children, which leads me to wonder where The Parents are, and if these people are so serious about making the world better for The Children, why they don't invest the same amount of energy and resources into securing quality healthcare and world-class education for them as they spend wringing their hands over video games that aren't even supposed to be played by The Children in the first place.

As numerous others have pointed out, there was nothing offensive or suggestive in the ads that were pulled, but the spineless cowards responsible for running them instantly caved to the slightest pressure from the self-appointed morality patrol. I wonder how much revenue these cities lost because of this? GTA IV is rated M, the equivalent of R, so does that mean that all these cities will start removing advertising for movies that aren't appropriate for children? What about advertising for fast food and junk food and alcohol? Surely those are all things which could cause harm to children, right? If they don't instantly remove all the advertising from city buses that may offend anyone, what will we tell The Children?!

Surely, I'm not the only guy in the room who sees how absurd this whole thing is, right? Please tell me that I'm not, and I'll stop calling you Shirley.

I've said that this behavior can be equated to the Satanic Panic of the 80s. Leslie Benzies, the president of Rockstar North, took it even further back and said that all this hysteria is just like the Elvis Panic of the 50s:

[GTA IV critics are] the same kind of people who complained about Elvis… There is a big fear factor here. It’s [like] the coming of the railways, it’s Elvis shaking his hips. It’s cars going over 25 miles per hour and making people explode.

We’ve had such a beating over the past three years, by the US government, the British government, the Daily Mail. ‘You kill prostitutes’ – that’s usually the objection. I ask if they’ve ever played the game. Invariably they haven’t.

In my PAX Keynote, I said:

Speaking of parents and children and video games and opportunistic, pandering politicians: it’s none of their fucking business what I choose to play with my kids, and I wish they’d stop trying to tell me – and everyone else by extension – what my kids can and can’t play. I didn’t let my kids play violent or graphic games when they were too young to understand what the game was about because I’m a good parent who is involved in his kids’ lives, not because some idiot politician tried to score easy political points with the authoritarian 20 percenters who think censorship is totally awesome.

Let me point you to a great bit of satire, Celebrating 30 years of video games killing children. It starts with Space Invaders ("This will clearly make children think they can get another life after they die, thereby causing kids to start killing themselves in droves thinking that they can instantly come back to life!") and ends with GTA IV:

Studies now show that the average video game player is not a child at all and that their average age is actually 34. Considering this alarming data -- along with our history of pandering for votes by portraying gamers as evil, psychopathic, nut jobs for more than a quarter of a century now -- we have determined the obvious course of action: To protect our political careers, it is imperative that we raise the voting age to 35!

That's what this usually comes down to: people who genuinely don't understand what's going on having their fears exploited by people with an authoritarian agenda, who really aren't as interested in protecting The Children as they are in expanding and strengthening their power. That offends me even more than the spineless cowards who are letting people like Jack Thompson set the agenda for the rest of us.

According to Richard Bartle, though, the age of pandering politicians attacking video games and video gamers to score points with those 20 percenters isn't just coming to an end, it's already over :

We've Won. Get Over It.
I'm talking to you, you self-righteous politicians and newspaper columnists, you relics who beat on computer games: you've already lost. Enjoy your carping while you can, because tomorrow you're gone.

[...]

Dwell on this, you smug, out-of-touch, proud-to-be-innumerate fossils: half the UK population thinks games are fun and cool, and you don't. Those born in 1990 get the vote this year.

[...]

This anxiety you sense, this fear of what you don't comprehend: hey, it's OK. Parents who didn't play computer games do feel alienated, do feel isolated from their children; they do feel frightened, and naturally so, because they can't keep their children safe if they don't understand what they're keeping them safe from.

GTA IV will be officially available in about 7 hours here in Los Angeles, but is just 4 terrifying hours away in New York. How will our nation survive this great terror? Will we be able to Keep Calm and Carry On?

Rockstar's Dan Houser:

The ‘controversy’ story gets a bit frustrating… if this was a movie, a book, or a TV show, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We’re an easy enemy to divert everyone’s attention from the stuff that really matters.

There’s an argument that video games have caused this massive upsurge in youth violence–they haven’t, it’s actually gone down. So it’s got nothing to do with the content; it’s to do with the medium.

So the self-proclaimed morality police can just calm down. Relax. The Children are going to be just fine, no thanks to them . . .  especially the ones whose parents have responsibly taken an active role in their lives.

in which we get the band back together

Last night, Anne and I took our friend out to dinner for his birthday. We invited Nolan to come with us, but he said it would be "boring grown-up talking" and even though he loved us, he'd rather hang out at home.

Allow me to translate: "Wait, I can go with three lame adults to a restaurant, or I can stay home, listen to music as loud as I want, and play Xbox the whole time? You guys have fun, and don't worry about hurrying back on my account."

When we pulled into the driveway after dinner, I could hear very loud rock music coming from the house.

"That sounds like Wave of Mutilation," I said. "I love that he's listening to the Pixies!"

I opened the door, and saw that Nolan wasn't just listening to the Pixies. He was playing the Pixies on Rock Band. The song ended as I closed the door behind me and walked into our living room.

Anne said, "Will you come back to our bedroom and help me fold clothes?"

"Yeah," I said. "I'll be right there."

I turned to Nolan.

"What the hell?" I said.

At this point, I should back up a little bit. I ask Nolan to play Rock Band with me every day, and every day he says he doesn't want to, because it's not that fun for him. I know, I know, I'm doing my best to correct this egregious defect in his personality, but I think we all remember how clinically insane we all were when we were his age.

"What?" Nolan said, innocently.

"I ask you every day to play Rock Band with me, and you always say you don't want to play because it isn't fun."

He put the drumsticks in his lap -- oh, yeah, he was playing drums, which is my instrument -- and deadpanned "Well, I'm not having any fun."

"I'm personally hurt," I said as melodramatically as I could. I put my hand over my heart. I sniffed. I pushed out my bottom lip.

I sighed, heavily.

"Would you like to play together?" He said.

"Heck yes I would!"

I ran to the back of the house.

"Hey," I said to Anne, "Is it okay if --"

"Did you want to rock out together before we put away the clothes?"

"Yeah," I said, "Nolan and I were -- wait. Together?"

"I need more cowbell," she said.

And that is how, for the next hour, the three of us played Rock Band. Together. On a school night.

i'm on wired's game|life today

Wired.com's game|life blog does a feature where they ask someone from the gaming community two questions, one about the gaming industry, and one about something that's completely random.

Today, that person is me:

Do you think it is possible videogames will ever achieve the sort of widespread and universal acceptance of movies? What has to happen in order for a game console to become as commonplace as a DVD player in the average home?

Wheaton: I think the greatest barrier that videogames need to overcome is the cost. Anyone can get into a movie for under $20. However, to play a videogame, you need to invest hundreds of dollars in the system and anywhere from $20 to $60 for the game. It's a trade off, of course, because most movies are around 90 to 120 minutes while the games with great narrative storylines (Bioshock, GTA: San Andreas, Mass Effect) can last between 90 and 120 hours, and can be replayed differently many times.

There is also a fundamental difference between the movie and videogame experience that can't be overlooked. Movies are very passive experiences: we sit down and hand over control to the filmmakers for a little while. We have no say over what happens, and not a whole lot more at stake than our money and our time.

Videogames, on the other hand, are by their very nature interactive experiences that, among other things, test our reflexes and problem-solving skills. With the advent of sandbox games, we can explore entire worlds in ways that simply aren't possible in movies, and a good game gives us the opportunity to invest a great deal of time and energy into it. I personally love that, but it's clearly not for everyone.

There's more at game|life. If you check it out, I'd love to know what you think.

rock band gets more awesome

Last week, Harmonix sent out a pretty major software update for Rock Band. Most of the gaming blogs I've read have focused on how great the new online music store is, but have glossed over or completely ignored what I think is the real news in this update: Harmonix has address and fixed two issues that almost broke the game for many players.

When I wrote my Rock Band review for the Geek in Review last year, I said:

To unlock new venues, your band must amass a certain number of fans. The number of fans you gain each gig is determined by the difficulty level of each member of your band, so you reach “fan caps” where the game comes to a halt until you can successfully play at a higher difficulty level. For some players, this isn’t bad at all, and is a good motivator to try harder levels. For casual players, though, it totally sucks. I know plenty of people who love to play on Hard, but have no interest in playing on Expert. The way I understand this, unless Harmonix removes the fan cap (which I think they’ll have to do, eventually) some people won’t ever be able to experience the entire game. That’s just fucking retarded. Not everyone wants to play the game on Hard or Expert settings, and preventing those people from enjoying the game the same way Hard and Expert players do is stupid and wrong.

There is an even bigger problem, though, that almost breaks the game for me: it’s infuriatingly repetitive in multiplayer career mode, especially at the beginning. As you advance through different cities and unlock new gigs, you’ll be faced with challenges, where the audience randomly picks songs for you to play. The RNG that decides the songs is thoroughly fucked, and frequently results in forcing you to play the same song three times in 30 minutes. If it’s a song you love, not such a big deal; but if it’s a song you hate – like Wanted, Dead or Alive, for instance – you’re screwed. If you’re trying to introduce new players to the game who are used to Guitar Hero’s “one and done” approach to playing songs, it can be a massive turn off.

The new online store is great and all, but I don't know why more gaming blogs and media haven't made this front-page news: Harmonix has fixed the stupid fan cap, and they've made the game much less repetitive in World Tour mode.

Check it out:

Revised Fan Caps: To allow Easy, Medium, and Hard players to progress further in the Band World Tour, we’ve increased the number of fans that you can earn before hitting the cap. Easy players can now travel across the Atlantic, Medium players have a wider range of venues they can play at, and Hard players on the Xbox 360 are now able to unlock the “One Million Fans” achievement.

More diverse songs in Band World Tour: If you’ve ever cursed about having to play “Say it Ain’t So” or a Metallica track multiple times in the same hour, then you’ll be glad to know that we’ve tracked down and fixed the issues that triggered these very repetitive moments in Band World Tour.

Awesome and awesome. Thank you, Harmonix! I think my bands, Zombitis and Mr Snüggles, are about to hit the road again.

the luna city arcade: gamer heaven

My dream is to open a classic 80s arcade, complete with well-maintained minigolf, pizza, and waffle cones.

Here's a look inside the Luna City arcade, which is exactly what I want to do one day:

(via Gizmodo. Thanks to Bob S for the link. RSS subscribers probably need to click through to see the video. Offer available for a limited time. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.)

announcement three of four (collect them all!)

This announcement is probably more exciting to me than to anyone else in the whole universe, but I think it's cool: I wrote the foreword to the next Penny Arcade collection.

This one is insanely cool for me, because way back when they put together their first book, Gabe and Tycho asked me to write a foreword for it. I was way too busy at the time, so they got Bill Amend (creator of Foxtrot, which sits on a shelf with The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes in my Library of Awesome) instead. I think they traded up. Way, way up.

Years went by, and they kept putting out books that I kept reading. We crossed paths at Comic-Con, but I never really got to actually know them at all, until I gave the keynote at PAX last year. (You know, I almost chickened out of that, for reasons I've gone into excruciating detail about before, and I'm really glad that I didn't, because I believe it will end up being one of the most significant moments in my life. I can't quantify those reasons now, but I have a feeling that I'll hopefully be able to explain one day, Charles Foster Kane style.)

After PAX was over, Robert Khoo asked me if I'd be willing to write the foreword. It went something like this:

Robert: Hey, would you like to write th--

Me: YES! YES! A THOUSAND TIMES, YES!

So I'm pretty excited about it, and I think that what I wrote totally doesn't suck, which is always a bonus.

I hope I can do more things with Mike and Jerry in the future, because even though I'm the pinky toe on the Voltron we make when we come together, it's still a pretty bad ass robot.

get dressed

There are two new shirts in the Penny Arcade store that rock my world. One is inspired by this comic:

The second needs no further introduction. Sadly, TypePad just flat out refuses to display the image I so carefully cropped and uploaded (three different times), so you'll just have to go over to the Penny Arcade Store right now and see it for yourself. Rock.

This is yet another reason I love being a geek. We get stuff like this, while the cool kids are stuck with the same sports logos and brand names everyone else buys at the mall.

announcing announcements

I have three announcements, ranging from cool to awesome, coming over the next 24 hours or so. They're all interconnected, so I could make them all at once, but where's the fun in that?

I'm heading out to a meeting right now that's related to one of the announcements, so feel free to speculate in comments if you're looking for a way to kill time today.

Two things before I go:

1. Watching American Gladiators on its own is mildly entertaining, but watching American Gladiators with Nolan is awesome. If they can stay focused on the events and stay away from any reality TV bullshit, this could be a hell of lot of fun to watch. I've already devised a drinking game: Whenever Hulk Hogan says "brother" you have to drink. Good luck making it to the first commercial break.
2. Tron is coming to Xbox Live Arcade this week, and this week's Rock Band DLC includes Number of the Beast and Interstate Love Song. Boy am I glad I got one of my two deadlines behind me already.

Oh, I guess that would be four announcements, I've just realized. The fourth, though, isn't really related to the other three. Still, it's pretty awesome.

So how's your day going? Mine totally doesn't suck.

Because nobody asked: Wil's Game of the Year for 2007

I think I may have gotten a sinus infection for Christmas. The last two nights I've woken up at least a dozen times, my head is killing me, and I'm so congested my head throbs whenever I move it. Which, as it turns out, is frequently.

So I'm exhausted and a little blurry right now, because I'm not getting enough sleep and I feel like my head is encased in lucite and pudding. Well, maybe pudding in a lucite box. Yeah, but the lucite doesn't have any scratches in it, so it's almost like it's not there at all. But if it wasn't there, what would hold the pudding? Nothing, that's what. There'd be pudding every where, and I'd still feel like hell.

Uhm.

From that place -- which isn't exactly Bat Country, but is certainly on the road to it -- I present my game of the year award:

Nobody asked me, but if someone did, my Game of the Year for 2007 is Portal, from The Orange Box, because I can't recall the last time I played a new game and loved every single thing about it. Seriously, there's nothing in Portal that I don't like. The story is creepy and simple, the gameplay is unlike anything else I've ever encountered, and the length of the game -- cited by its detractors as their chief complaint -- was perfect for me. The soundtrack is awesome, too, and I find myself singing Still Alive almost every day. I loved Portal so much, I bought myself a Weighted Companion Cube plush toy for Christmas. I put it on the red chair next to the tree, with this silly snowman we put out for Christmas every year, but had to move it, because Ferris kept trying to take it off the chair and chew on it.

I'm not the only person who likes Portal enough to bring it into our world, either. When I finally gave up on staying in bed and trying to get sleep this morning, I came across this Portal LEGO display at Geekdad, who say "You could call it the Orange Blocks." I loves it.

Oh, hey, look! Gabe and Tycho agree with me. See? Great minds think.

Runner up -- by a Planck Length -- is Rock Band, which I'll be playing with my friends on Monday when they come over for the first annual Wil and Anne's New Year's Rock Band Eve. (This is why I'm going to the doctor today to get shot up with uranium or whatever I need to beat this sinus thing into submission right quick. I don't want to cancel this party, El Guapo.)

Honorable Mentions: Bioshock, New Super Mario*, Puzzle Quest.

*Oops. This came out in 2006. But since I discovered it in 2007, I'm putting it on my 2007 list. Hey, I'm the boss around here, and I can make up whatever rules I want as I go along. Don't mess with me; I'll chase you with a used kleenex. I am so not kidding right now.

xkcd addresses the rock band haters

Last night, Ryan and I played Rock Band for a couple of hours, taking turns playing guitar and drums. We're both sore today, and it was entirely worth it.

The point isn't to play real instruments. The point is to pretend that you're in a rock band, and have fun while you do it.

Our final set list was:

• All I Want is to be Next to You
• Reptilia
• . . . And Justice for All
• Foreplay/Longtime
• Won't Get Fooled Again

At the end, I threw my drumsticks down on the living room floor, and threw both my arms into the air, throwing double goats. Ryan spun his guitar controller around his neck, threw his arms up into the air, and we shared a spontaneous double high five.

I don't care about playing real instruments. I just want to have fun with my friends (or, in this case, my son.) I've played real guitar and real bass, and though it was always satisfying to play songs well, it was never as fun as it was playing in Zombitis* last night. Rock Band haters (who have to try real hard to impress everyone with how cynical they are) completely miss this fundamental point, which is sad. Maybe if they were having fun like this, they wouldn't be such dicks.

*2/3 of Zombitis, anyway. We couldn't convince Nolan to stop playing Warcraft long enough to rock out with us.