The Sinking of the ESA and the Future of the ESRB...

[Cross Posted from IStC]

For those not in the know, the ESA, or Entertainment Software Association is a U.S. based lobbying and representative group with membership largely compromised of videogame companies. They have done quite a bit of research related to market demographics of gamers in the U.S. More recently they have turned to "educational" programs aimed at school children to teach them the dangers of copyright violation and piracy. Their educational programs contain no mention of "fair use," however.

The ESA is also the parent organization of the ESRB or Entertainment Software Ratings Board. The ESRB is the organization which all console manufacturers require licensees to acquire ratings through prior to distribution. Most computer game software goes through this process as well, primarily because most distributors (WalMart) will not distributed un-rated entertainment software.

Recently, numerous large organizations have begun pulling their ESA memberships. This means that they will not be paying their rather large membership dues which keep the ESA in operations.

Here is a sample of those who have officially dropped their support from the ESA:

• LucasArts (Going to E3, but no longer ESA member)
• Ativision/Blizzard
• Vivendi

Other companies though not dropping out of the ESA entirely have said that they will not be attending E3, the ESA's major industry expo. These companies include those above and:

• Id Software
• NCSoft
• D3Publisher
• Her Interactive
• Majesco
• Bethesda

Perhaps more tellingly, Gamecock (a videogame publishing company) recently released the following video clip:

And EA, or Electronic Arts, has said that this massive set of departures shows a "lack of leadership" at the companies who are leaving, but I think that doesn't quite capture what's going on here.

What this seems to indicate is growing industry dissatisfaction with the ESA. Ultimately, I wonder what ramifications this will have on ratings, because the ESA and ESRB are closely related entities. Have these publishing companies made further decisions about the future of game ratings as well?

Casey O'Donnell

The NeXT Open Console? The iPhone SDK and Games

[Cross Posted from IShotTheCyborg]

Oh dear. XNA (and the more closed DS and PSP) might actually have a run for its money, in the form of an "open" game platform on the iPhone. Admittedly there are all sorts of less than open issues associated with the iPhone, but for $99.00 you get registered and make games for the iPhone. The same price oddly enough for full XNA tool usage on the Xbox 360.

While the development environment forces you to use Objective-C, you can use OpenGL ES and OpenAL, which is also more open than DirectX 10 on XNA. So there are some interesting aspects to this device. I've also heard people making jokes about it being a Wii that you can make phone calls on.

Gamasutra - Apple Unveils iPhone SDK with Spore, Monkey Ball

Using the iPhone SDK, “third party developers will be able to build native applications for the iPhone with a rich set of APIs, including programming interfaces for Core OS, Core Services, Media and Cocoa Touch technologies,” leveraging iPhone aspects such as its Multi-Touch user interface, animation technology, storage, three-axis accelerometer and geographical location technology.

Also important is the new store aspect. It makes it easy to get applications onto your iPhone, something that most mobile carriers still seem completely unable to comprehend. I went looking for downloads for my Motorola RAZR the other day, and after 30 minutes gave up. I was not just a potential lost sale, but a LOST sale. I was ready to buy some stuff.

John Carmack on Slashdot

Just based on the blurbs, it looks very good -- a simulator plus debugging on the native device is the best of both worlds, and a 70% royalty deal for apps over iTunes is quite good.

The iTunes distribution channel is really a more important aspect than a lot of people understand. The ability to distribute larger applications than the over-the-air limits and effectively market your title with more than a dozen character deck name, combined with the reasonable income split make this look like a very interesting market. This type of developer / customer interaction is probably the wave of the future for mobile devices, it will be interesting to see how quickly the other players can react. Based on our experiences with the carriers, I am betting not very quickly.

Also based on the early comments from developers, it appears to be a fairly powerful device, and the debugging and profiling tools that developers have access to will give them the ability to squeeze a lot out of the device.

TUAW.COM - Apple Shows of iPhone Gaming Chops

Finally, Ethan Einhorn from Sega showed off a build of Super Monkey Ball, naturally also using tilt controls. What's interesting there is they actually underestimated what the iPhone could do, and ended up having to bring in another artist to upscale the art from what they had anticipated. Again, the take home message: the iPhone is a real platform for game development.

But I really think there is potential for interesting new things with this device. Like the DS, there are just so many options available that developers can think about deploying in their games.

Gamasutra - Analyst Talks Apple's iPhone Games Strategy

With recognition of the upcoming announcement of the SDK, Williams added, "The most viable market opportunity for Apple is undoubtedly the mobile space with the iPhone and iPod touch. With hardware features such as multi-touch, tilt monitor, networking capabilities, a microphone and a camera, the iPhone has the potential to be a revolutionary mobile gaming device."

Finally, and perhaps most interesting was the introduction of a fund of $100 Million to encourage new development on the iPhone. This is something that even MS hasn't endevoured to do on XNA in any large scale fasion.

TUAW.COM - iFund: $100M for iPhone/iPod touch devs

This $100 million fund will invest in companies, large or small, that want to develop innovative apps for both the iPhone and the iPod touch.

The iFund will invest anywhere from $100,000 to $15 million in funds for iPhone development.

Coverage on Develop - Carmack Praises iPhone Development Plans

New Hope for Broader Collaborative Efforts in the Game Industry?

[Cross Posted from IShotTheCyborg]

Yes, usually I am writing about how no one in the videogame industry is sharing much. This time, however, I am happy to be writing about a new collaborative effort amongst one game company. Fitingly, its the same company that back in 2003 wrote about how much they benefited from a similar sharing opportunity. The following is a quote from the original Gamedeveloper Magazine Postmortem for Ratchet and Clank:

Sharing technology with Naughty Dog. ... Naughty Dog didn't want anything from us other than a gentlemen's agreement to share with them any improvements we made to whatever we borrowed plus any of our own technology we felt like sharing. In an industry as competitive as ours, things like this just don't happen. (Price 2003, pp. 55-56)

So perhaps a little "gentleman's" head nod toward Naughty Dog in all of this as well. Personally, I'm ecstatic to see this kind of thing beginning to happen. Its about time really. In their own words:

Joystiq - GDC08: Insomniac opens up to dev community with Nocturnal

At a GDC press conference, Insomniac Games (responsible for Ratchet & Clank and Resistance: Fall of Man on PS3) has announced a ground breaking initiative to open up their technologies for the development community at large. Through the "Nocturnal Initiative," Insomniac Games is attempting to break the common development practice of keeping technological advances a close-guarded secret. As they noted, "developers spend resources solving problems that have already been solved."

PR Newswire - Highly-Acclaimed Independent Videogames Developer Insomniac Games Announces 'Nocturnal Initiative'

"The Nocturnal initiative is designed to encourage greater communication and information sharing among the development community because it will ultimately enable us all to create better games at a lower development cost," said Mike Acton, engine director, Insomniac Games. "And, in the end, it's all about making great games."
...
"We feel that the time has come to share what we have learned, and learn from others to improve our solutions to the common problems that present themselves when making a game," said Geoff Evans, an Insomniac senior tools programmer who helped develop and launch Nocturnal.

Insomniac is allowing developers to use elements of its proprietary third-generation PLAYSTATION(R)3 (PS3(TM)) tools chain source code for any purpose, for free. Source code makes up the technological building blocks that drive software development. It is often closely guarded by companies as they create their technology. However, this has led to many functions and pieces of code being re-written time-and-time again, wasting resources across the industry and ultimately affecting consumers' gameplay experiences.

There is an important distinction to be made between unique problem solutions that really give you a competitive edge and just being intellectually stingy. Thus far the game industry by and large has been parsimonious. I do not really know if this kind of initiative will have enough momentum to change the game industry, but I certainly hope so.

I'd love to see an emergent set of standard APIs and protocols which could be supported on numerous platforms. It would make the lives of developers much more predictable. Console manufacturers in preparing their new devices for the market could ensure that these base level technologies were supported. Of course now I'm waxing hopeful rather than realistic.

Nocturnal Website
Insomniac R&D Pages
Gamasutra Coverage

Bibliography:
Price, Ted. 2003. "Postmortem: Insomniac Games' Ratchet & Clank." Game Developer Magazine 10.6:52-60.

Biological Determinism, Gender, and (Video) Games

[Cross Posted from www.ishotthecyborg.com]

Well, I’m supposed to be revising my dissertation, but now that the New York Times has blindly picked this up, I can’t really help myself. I first stumbled upon this article a while back on Joystiq.

Joystiq - Science Says: Men’s Brains get More ‘Reward’ from Gaming

The study, which looked at 11 men and 11 women, asked participants to play a simple territorial point-and-click game while hooked up to an fMRI machine. The men in the study showed much great activity in the brain’s “mesocorticolimbic center,” which is associated with reward and addiction. … Yeah, yeah … tell it to the Frag Dolls.

Yeah, and tell it to the ladies I coach hockey for. “You just can’t enjoy it on the same level as us boys.” Not a good idea. I love the fact that the NY Times doesn’t even manage to pick up on a fatal flaw in this study, which even Joystiq commenters notice: sample size. I INTERVIEWED more people in my dissertation research and my research is qualitative. They managed to examine only 22 people, 11 boys, and 11 girls, all, “young adults.” Not to mention that fMRI research is one of the most unproven areas of brain research.

Which instantly begs the question: Isn’t the brain a complex feedback driven device? Wouldn’t age and training impact this? How do young children differ from young adults and adults from young adults? How do the brains of self described “gamer girls” differ from those of the other young adults? Perhaps to be addressed in a future project, but state those limitations NOW.

This study really becomes an excuse for letting women and girls slip through the cracks. “They just don’t get it. Add more bouncing boobs!” Think I’m reading into this to much? Check out the lead researchers comments:

Science Daily - Video Games Activate Reward Regions Of Brain In Men More Than Women

The findings indicate, the researchers said, that successfully acquiring territory in a computer game format is more rewarding for men than for women. And Reiss [the lead researcher], for one, isn’t surprised. “I think it’s fair to say that males tend to be more intrinsically territorial,” he said. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who historically are the conquerors and tyrants of our species-they’re the males.”
…
Reiss said this research also suggests that males have neural circuitry that makes them more liable than women to feel rewarded by a computer game with a territorial component and then more motivated to continue game-playing behavior. Based on this, he said, it makes sense that males are more prone to getting hooked on video games than females.

However, the brain is a social organ. It’s “neural circuitry” is both biological and social. It’s circuitry is developed over time through experiences with an outside world. Yet, this argument falls back on a biological deterministic argument. Boys are just better wired for this. Go cook and gather girls. Women were flayed if they acted like boys when all the conquering was going on big guy.

What about girls and women who are raised in environments where it is OK to be competitive? I suspect there is a reason that the majority of the women on the USA Women’s Olympic Ice Hockey Team grew up with brothers that played hockey and parents that encouraged them to pursue it. Just this weekend my ladies had referees telling them that, “If they weren’t careful they might hurt themselves,” because they were skating too fast and playing too hard.

But, “science” says they just don’t get it, their neural circuitry isn’t right.

*sigh*

NY Times - “Patterns: A Video Game, an M.R.I. and What Men’s Brains Do”

?!? 90% of US Nintendo DS Users are Pirates ?!?

[Cross Posted from www.ishotthecyborg.com]

I'm not that big into the use of massive punctuation, but I really couldn't help myself in this case. Apparently, 90% of US Nintendo DS users are using devices like the R4 or the DSTT to pirate software for the Nintendo DS. That would mean that only one of my fellow friends with DSs should NOT have one of these. Except that as far as I know, I'm the ONLY person with one of these in the area, and I don't use mine for piracy.

PocketGamer.co.uk - 90 Percent of US Gamers are Playing Pirated Software

UK trade body ELSPA has claimed that an astonishing 90 per cent of of all DS users in North America are playing pirated games using devices such as the notorious R4 cartridge.

Not only does this reek of simply made up numbers, it should be noted that these devices have more than one use. You can use them to play video files, MP3s, or *gasp* develop your own DS games. And it seems that only the boys over at GayGamer.net have managed to hit the nail on the head.

GayGamer.net - You are All Pirates (According to the Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association)

Kudos on that outlandish statistic, 90% of us use the R4 to pirate software. Working on a sample (IE: everyone I've ever met) the number of people I've seen with one of these is a big zero. The article reeks of fear mongering, essentially he's trying to get anti-piracy laws changed in Scotland by scaring the crap out of game retailers, which can in turn lobby the government to make third party bootable DS cartridges illegal. After all, if they outlaw these, it would increase their potential profits by 900%.

I guess this means that likely in the coming months Nintendo will continue to pursue legal action against these companies (you cannot find many R4s any more, though there are alternatives...). In the mean time I continue to import them one or two at a time in an effort to protect my right to speak on my DS (Yes, I'm stockpiling them out of principle). I wonder if they'll raid my apartment hoping to find gobs of pirated ROMs, and will rather find one highly peeved no-longer-Nintendo enthusiast.

C-out

Shameless Plug: DIY Console Game Development

Well, it probably isn't as cool as Hector's self promotion, but I recently did an interview which has become a two-part podcast. The pages linked have both the actual podcast and associated transcripts. Wes Unruh of Alterati ran the interview. He's recently developed an interest in DIY (Do it Yourself) forms of media production. In this case he and I are talking about DIY game development, particularly on consoles.

Part 1 and Part 2.

Here are the introductions of each of them to give you a flavor of what we talked about.

Casey O'Donnell on DIY Gaming (Part 1):

I talking with Casey O’Donnell about his research into game development, both to get a better understanding of the tools available to the DIY gamer intent on creating their own games and modifying the platforms they own. We sat down with a list of topics from modding all of the popular platforms out there and the attitudes those various companies have toward the modding and homebrew community, as well as the various legal issues that crop up when you are taking apart the gaming platforms and software you own. There’s a lot of material ahead, I’ve broken the discussion into two parts so look for the second half of this interview very soon.

Casey O'Donnell on DIY Gaming (Part 2):

This part of the interview continues, with discussion about how the game manufacturers have alternately reached out and clamped down on hobbyists. DIY Gaming - is it viable, how does one go about it, and where’s the line between free expression and protected code? This is the second part of an interview with Casey O’Donnell.

At Least I've Got Carmack On My Side

[Cross Posted from Over at IShotTheCyborg.Com]

IGN had an interview recently with Id's John Carmack on bringing Orcs & Elves to the Nintendo DS. I was particularly interested in a comment he made about homebrew development on the system.

IGN: Since this is your first Nintendo DS project, what was it like poking at the hardware?

Carmack: It was probably the most fun platform that I have personally worked on. The early consoles that I worked on (SNES, Genesis-32X, and Jaguar) had fun hardware and full documentation, but a lousy development tool chain. A lot of later consoles had much better development tools, but they started playing secretive with the exact hardware specs, at least around console introduction time.

While there are a few nooks on the DS that aren't documented, they weren't things I cared about, so to me it was almost perfect. It is a shame that homebrew development can't be officially sanctioned and supported, because it would be a wonderful platform for a modern generation of programmers to be able to get a real feel for low level design work, to be contrasted with the high level web and application work that so many entry level people start with.

Having just written about the interesting catch-22 which developers are put in (in the US at least) of being expected to know how to do things that they don't have access to. I've said for a long time that the N64 would be a great platform for developers to learn on, and it's not like it's making Nintendo any money on licensing any more. But opening up the DS to sanctioned homebrew development a la XNA Express sounds like an even better idea to me.

I got a chance to play with DS development while in India and it was a fun system to work with. I also think it's a great platform for designers, engineers, and artists to cut their teeth on, because it provides interesting design elements (two screens, one touch sensitive) with pretty capable hardware. I also imagine that Nintendo could make a lot of money on some sort of cart+memory system that allowed people to both do sanctioned homebrew, and could download games from some homebrew repository and upload them to the DS, or even a DS downloadable content "store".

My only hesitation really is that US publishers really haven't figured out the DS. So would the opening up of homebrew just be an excuse for them to continue offloading their R&D onto those with no budgets or experience? What's the logic to innovate if you can get it for free? I know I'm being a bit cynical, but I've been watching publishers kill innovative DS titles for four years now, so that cynicism is rooted in experience not just dogmatism.

Of course they're concerned about piracy now. They used to be worried about production, and they're probably worried about branding a bit still. They don't want porn games on the DS. But ultimately I think they've moved on to being concerned about piracy. But isn't that happening already? Is that fear worth the continued infancy of production methods in the industry? Didn't they just say that they use "natural selection"? It's kind of hard to have natural selection when you have legally backed up birth control flowing through the water system. Wouldn't this encourage greater species diversity?

On a related note... I've recently imported from Hong Kong one of these "unofficial homebrew solutions" for the DS. In part because I fear that Nintendo will attempt to wipe them off the face of the planet with recent efforts. Why? Because part of my dissertation is going to be interactive and on the DS. Homebrew needs to start pitching itself as speech, and if my dissertation is illegal, then so be it. It's also going to be Creative Commons and the source code is going to be in the appendix.