In this week’s TPoI, GTA 5’s shutdown of modding tools sparks anger amongst users, Capcom and Bandai Namco enter a cross-licensing agreement related to online matchmaking, and Project Rap Rabbit fails to meet its Kickstarter goal.
GTA 5’s Mod Shutdown Upsets and Frustrates Players
Developers of modding tool OpenIV revealed last week that they would be shutting down after receiving a legal notice from Grand Theft Auto developer Take-Two Interactive. PCGamer reports that OpenIV’s shutdown was not taken well by users of the mod, who took to Steam to write negative reviews. In addition to written reviews, VG 24/7 states that users down-voted GTA 5 in the Steam store, resulting in the customer reviews to be “overwhelmingly negative”. According to Gamepur, distraught fans started a petition on Change.org, calling for Take-Two to allow OpenIV to continue. Despite the impressive 50,000 signatures already collected, GameRant doesn’t believe that Take-Two will revert their decision, but presumes that it may impact sales on their upcoming title Red Dead Redemption 2 if gamers are still upset by GTA V.
Capcom and Bandai Namco to Improve Online Multiplayer
Capcom and Bandai Namco announced that they have begun a cross-licensing agreement to improve online matching in Street Fighter and other fighting games. GamingBolt disclosed that Street Fighter will be one of the first games to leverage the agreement, and with Bandai Namco’s help, Capcom should be able to release new content faster. PVP Live isn’t surprised that Capcom would band forces with Bandai Namco, as the outlet feels that Street Fighter V’s online experience has been struggling, whereas Tekken 7’s has been pretty successful. VG 24/7 agrees, hoping that Street Fighter V’s online matchmaking will be immensely better with the assistance from Bandai Namco. Forbes hopes that the collaboration with Bandai Namco will also refine Capcom’s upcoming fighter game Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite, and looks forward to seeing the upgraded multiplayer servers.
Project Rap Rabbit Falls Short of Production
PaRappa the Rapper creator Masaya Matsura and Giratoo Man creator Keiichi Yano’s “Project Rap Rabbit” ended in failure as the game did not reach its Kickstarter goal. Polygon states that the project had asked for approximately $1 million, with backers only contributing $204K thousand within the deadline. Comicbook.com theorizes that part of its collapse was due to fans wanting sequels for the titles already made, and suggests that the developers focus on that possibility. As for plans to release the title in the future, DualShockers reports that Matsura and Yano aren’t able to fund further production to relaunch crowd funding, so work on the title can’t continue at this time. The outlet further details that the game will potentially be released in the future, but it’s hard to say when that can be accomplished.
Players of massively multiplayer online (MMO) games have long known that working cooperatively and competitively within the game space has improved not only their leet gaming skillz but also real life abilities, including leadership, communication skills, creative thinking and adaptability. Lee Sheldon, assistant professor in the Department of Telecommunications at Indiana University, has taken the use of MMO design and terminology to the next level and applied it to his classroom education.
Referenced by Professor Jesse Schell in his talk at DICE, Sheldon has applied basic elements of MMOs to his classroom, including forming guilds (small groups within the classroom), quests (activities and projects – both “solo” and “guild” based), offering “Boss battles” (exams), and using XP points instead of grades. While the media has focused mostly on Sheldon’s use of a non-traditional grading system, they’re missing the bigger picture.
According to Lee Sheldon, the use of the MMO system for classroom instruction has resulted in better attendance, greater class participation and more quality coursework. By utilizing terminology that students understand, Sheldon’s ideas may help students become better prepared for the real world, having expanded their collaborative skills, adaptive thought patterns, communication abilities, and leadership.
While Lee Sheldon’s classes are specifically tailored for game design—he teaches courses in Theory and Practice of Game Design and Multiplayer Game Design—these MMO principles (and game design theory in general) could be applied to nearly any classroom situation.
It’s not so far-fetched for the workplace, either. According to IT News in Australia, companies are already adapting some of the basic tenets of good game design and applying them to the work place, even though they’re not necessarily using the terminology of “guilds,” “raids” and “questing.” Some workplace game-like offerings include clear, well-defined goals and gradual, incremental rewards, such as points for showing up on time…
Simple psychology explains the benefits of using gameplay principles in all aspects of our lives. Offer rewards, get better results; you don’t have to be Lee Sheldon to understand that.
Afterword: Later this year, Lee Sheldon will be reporting more of his findings and detailing this project in his book “Practical Game Design: A Toolkit for Educators, Researchers and Corporations.”
Continuing our efforts to engage in real discussions with the leading members of the gaming industry and beyond, TriplePoint recently had the opportunity to chat with IGN’s on-camera host and staff writer, Jessica Chobot. Since 2005, Jessica has become a key influencer within the gaming community and we were fortunate to talk with Jessica on her quick rise at IGN, social media, and oh yeah, the infamous PSP photo.
TP: How did you find yourself in your current roles at IGN and Maxim?
JC: How I got my spot here at IGN is a long and intricate story, so I’ll give you the semi-quick version. I was going through a quarter-life crisis and working as a model for quick pocket money and at EB Games for discounts. I had pre-ordered a PSP and the day it was released was the same day I had a photo shoot. On the way to the shoot, I stopped by EB to pick up the PSP, took it with me to the studio and during a break, showed it off to everyone and was screwing around and taking goofy pictures. One ended up being the “PSP lick” picture.
Shortly after getting a copy of the photos, I showed them to a friend who informed me I should send them to Kotaku to see if they’ll post it. I thought, ‘Sure. Why not?’ Sent them over to Brian Crecente and figured that was my fun 15 minutes of fame.
And then, things blew up! Brian IM’ed me and told me how everyone was asking who I was. G4 asked me for an interview on Attack of The Show. IGN hit me up to be a part of their Babes channel interviews (now called Stars) and I started freelancing for Brian’s personal site and FHM UK.
From there, I hounded daily until they offered me a job freelancing for their IGN Insider section which eventually led me to being hired full time as their main on-camera host for our shows (IGN Strategize and The Daily Fix) and event coverage (E3, GDC, Tokyo Game Show, etc…).
As for my spot with Maxim, that was more of a ‘guest appearance’ type of thing. Nothing permanent.
TP: You’ve transcended games journalism and have established yourself as a unique brand. Define the Jessica Chobot brand.
JC: I like to try and think of myself and my brand as the non-shameful female nerd. I say non-shameful because I feel that a lot of women out there are still a little intimidated by tech and gaming or, if they aren’t, are refusing to come out from their boyfriend’s shadow and step into their own limelight. Also, for the ones that are brave enough to stick their necks out, they’re often put into such a competitive position within their gaming/nerd careers; they find themselves attacked from all sides and end up becoming overly agro and defensive. And still another theme is for women to take the easy way out, show some tits and cash in on the nerd trend without offering anything of real substance or talent.
I find nothing wrong with any of these approaches…to a point. That point is usually reached when someone gets involved in the industry without any real passion for it. Or takes whatever shtick their going with and only half-asses it or attempts to be something they aren’t.
My motto: Do whatever you want. But if you’re gonna’ do it, then do it well.
TP: How have you used social media applications such as Twitter to connect with your fanbase and extend this personal brand?
JC: I use Twitter, Facebook and Modlife to tell people what I’ve got coming up, things I find cool that they might want to check out and sometimes just to shoot the shit. Lately, I’ve been using my Twitter account to sound off on the REAL AWESOME *sarcasm* United States airlines and the TSA. It’s a well-oiled machine and the TSA treats people with SO much respect that it makes me proud to think they’re the first people visitors to our country get to interact with. (Hahahahaha! Oh, I crack myself up sometimes!)
TP: What is the craziest PR request you have ever been sent?
JC: Honestly, nothing too bad. Wacky PR requests usually get dissolved before they even hit my office inbox.
Typically they revolve around the common denominator stance of: attractive girl in some sort of bikini or sexy get-up or some play off the whole PSP licking thing. I’ve gotten a little irritated by that at times because it just shows a complete lack of creativity. Nowadays though, the PR stuff I see come across my desk is a lot more funny and cool. I’ll admit it; I have no problem showing off a little skin if the concept is good. I just don’t like it when it’s the default and offered up with nothing else.
TP: What is the best way to pitch you?
JC: Pitch me something that is creative, pushes the boundaries, funny and proves that you have some familiarity with our demographic. Not knowing who our audience is a MAJOR turn off. It just screams volumes about how you don’t care and are making no effort to do your job.
TP: Any current games you are unbeatable in?
JC: LOL! No. I’m beatable in everything. I love gaming but I don’t think I’d be defined as a “good gamer” in competitive gaming terms.
TP: Any last words?
JC: When I go home tonight, I’m going balls deep into some Bioshock 2.
Video games challenge players to solve problems, overcome obstacles and, in many cases, learn. While some argue that games can be extremely effective education tools, researchers have just started to scratch the surface of what actually happens in our brain when we play games.
Cerebral Cortex, a research journal for papers about the study of the cerebral cortex, published a recent report by the University of Pittsburgh’s Kirk Erikson, Assistant Professor of Psychology, about certain regions of the brain that seem to facilitate advanced understanding of interactive media. In other words, Erikson discovered four distinct areas of the brain that might actually make us better at playing video games.
The caudate nucleus, putamen, nucleus accumbens and hippocampus, were all discovered to have an impact on a person’s ability to comprehend and engage interactive digital media. Even more, it was noted that participants with larger nucleus accumbens were noticeably more proficient in the early, learning stage of a game, what we often refer to in the industry as the, “learning curve.” Conversely, those with a larger than average caudate nucleus and putamen were better at adapting to changing strategies within the game. It would seem that while the nucleus accumbens helps the player establish a firm understanding of the overall game world, the caudate nucleus and putamen help the player understand how it evolves and changes with their input.
Here's an image of the brain showing the caudate nucleus (blue), putamen (red), nucleus accumbens (orange spot) and hippocampus (green).
The study is problematic, as Arizona State’s James Gee points out in response, because the internal structure of the brain and external stimuli interact in very complex ways. As Gee points out, ” it is hard to tell whether a set of experiences led to a brain difference (e.g., more reading leading to changes in the brain) or a brain difference led to people wanting, getting, and being better at some experiences (e.g., seeking out reading and liking it more and being better at it).” This kind of brings us back to the nature v. nurture argument, except we’re talking about one’s ability to play video games, rather than the ability to adapt and survive.
If anything, this study shows just how little we actually do know about the cognitive faculties that are engaged during game playing. It’s clear that there is a positive correlation between video game interaction and cognitive development, and if there are scientists out there that want to claim that you have to be smart to play video games, I’m okay with that.
In terms of respect in the gaming industry, sports videogames sometimes get, for lack of a better term, “the shaft.” Despite the massive annual sales and worldwide appeal of perennial juggernauts such as EA Sports’ Madden and FIFA series, sports videogames arguably do not receive the proper attention in terms of critical analysis and recognition that they deserve from the gaming community.
One person who has made recent breakthroughs in the way sports videogames are received and covered is Kotaku’s Owen Good. Owen is the voice behind Kotaku’s sports coverage, satiating readers’ appetites for in-depth coverage and discussion of issues within sports gaming through daily updates and his Saturday sports column, “Stick Jockey.” To further explore the latest issues in sports gaming, Owen was able to sit down with us and share some of his thoughts.
TP: How did you find yourself in your current role as the leading voice behind sports coverage at Kotaku?
OG: Somewhat by happenstance, really. Brian Crecente (the site’s editor in chief) and I were both reporters at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, starting within about a week of each other in 2001, come to think of it. We kept in touch after I left in 2004, and in April of last year, he needed a weekend editor and asked somewhat out of the blue if I’d consider it. The role was more part-time then than now. In July of this year Brian expanded my duties to make the job more of a full-time position. Shortly after, both he and the deputy editor, Stephen Totilo, saw that I was writing consistently about sports games, having a great deal of interest in the subject both as a gamer and as a former sports writer. Recognizing that it’s a potential growth topic, we three quickly agreed on creating a Saturday sports column for me. Others at Kotaku will write about sports — Luke Plunkett, especially — but since the column’s debut in August, “Stick Jockey” means I’m the de facto face of sports gaming for Kotaku.
TP: Sports videogames seem to be frowned upon by other gaming journalists. Do you agree that there is a certain bias against sports videogames in the journalism community and if so, why?
OG: I wouldn’t say there’s a demonstrated, overt bias in the specialty press as much as there is a passive, albeit strong neglect. Sports games are a lower priority in general interest games publications and sites, that’s fair to point out. And, speaking for Kotaku, were we to consider only our readers’ reactions, we probably wouldn’t make much of an effort on the subject either. If you were to take these as your only measures, there’s a definite chilling effect seen both in reader comments and the pageviews for sports topics compared to other subjects, and that’s because the typical hardcore gamers who comprise our readership came to gaming for shooters, role-playing games, action/adventure titles — something other than sports. I view this as more of an opportunity; and so does Kotaku’s editorial leadership. We should present sports gaming in a useful and accessible way to all readers, but I think if you’re looking to make a hardcore gaming audience interested in sports games, you’re going to be frustrated. Instead I’m trying to grow our site’s reputation with and exposure among sports gamers, who maybe aren’t as inclined to visit general-purpose gaming blogs. But there’s no question it is an underserved readership. A game like Madden isn’t successful because 10 teenagers buy a million copies each year.
TP: How do you combat such a bias?
OG: I’m happy to write about sports games any day of the week. But as my column shows, there has to be buy-in from the editorial leadership of a magazine or site. They have to see the value or at least the potential in sports game coverage, and then give that copy mainstream play within the rest of their report. Kotaku’s taken a progressive stance on both counts.
TP: In your opinion, what is the single greatest innovation in sports gaming in the last 10 years?
OG: This probably goes back even further than 10 years, but I think it’s 3D gameplay. Seems a little basic but it completely remade our expectations of the genre. The means to create an accurate league, game, or season simulation, in the math anyway, has been around since Microleague Baseball on the PC in the 1980s. Full 3D motion-captured animation finally brought the gameplay up to TV-like realism and created what we now know as the modern sports simulation — which marries statistical accuracy with on-field verisimilitude, both under control of the player. Prior to this, even a title like the beloved NHL ’94 was more arcade than lifelike in its gameplay. Other than 3D animation, the core components of a sports title — single game, season mode, player creation and roster management, full league licensing — have been around for most of the past two decades.
TP: Recently, microtransactions have worked their way into the sports gaming scene. EA Sports introduced the ability to purchase stat upgrades in Madden 10. Furthermore, EA Sports will offer Tiger Woods PGA Tour soon in a free-to-play, browser-based version, encouraging players to purchase in-game objects. Do you see this trend continuing, and will it be healthy for sports gaming?
OG: To directly answer the question: yes, it will continue. While I don’t think they do a whole lot to invigorate sports gaming from a consumer’s perspective, microtransactions certainly don’t harm it. In games like Madden and NCAA Football, we’re not talking about paying to access major features or expectations of a game that should be in the retail code, and the performance boosts are for singleplayer only. I bought all the upgrades for my dynasty in NCAA Football 10, and justified it as a role-playing decision — elite programs make hard-cash investments in attracting and developing their personnel, don’t they? Opening up an extra recruiting pipeline is not even the kind of core game feature where you say, well, if the game was $70 it would be included. At the same time, it’s an extra revenue stream and if that helps keep the price fixed at $60, as a gamer I can tolerate it.
TP: You recently mention NFL 2K5 as an overlooked game of the year possibility in 2005. Through EA’s purchase of the NFL license for use in videogames, this franchise has taken on an entirely different form since. Through eliminating direct competition, do you feel that financial strategies such as EA’s acquisition of the exclusive NFL license inhibit progress and innovation for sports gaming in general?
OG: There are two things at work here. One is that EA’s exclusive deal showed up at the same time as the Xbox 360; Madden was rushed to that console and its underperformance on the current generation correlates to that deal, and so everyone blames the deal. Which, to be honest, has its own shady history, as the retired NFLers’ lawsuit drew out in litigation. Without defending Madden 06 to 08, I think this is mostly a knee-jerk reaction, because the same people who rip EA for being lazy in that franchise turn right around and rip MLB 2K, and pine for MVP Baseball the same way they do for NFL 2K5. It has a lot to do with the hypercritical and anti-overdog sentiments native to a lot of hardcore gamers. But the truth is you can’t reasonably expect to transform a sports video game — with much more rigid gameplay boundaries — on a one-year development cycle the way you can something like BioShock or Grand Theft Auto on a two or three-year cycle. It’s easy to say direct competition assures a better overall product for the general gaming public, but it seems to be an expectation only of sports games, and I’m not sure that its absence means someone’s holding back bona fide game-changing features. I think they’re just harder to execute in this genre once every three years, let alone every year.
TP: Which sports games currently take up most of your time? Do you prefer taking the battle online, or playing locally against friends?
OG: I grew up in North Carolina before we had major sports teams, and I’m a proud alumnus of N.C. State, so the Atlantic Coast Conference is the big league of my youth, and I love both NCAA Football 10 and NCAA Basketball 10. But I’m more of a singleplayer guy. The game you play online is much more mercenary and I don’t have the skills to beat anyone other than a few friends I already know. I also strive to build accurate season simulations — with a few exceptions. In hoops, I love creating myself as a deadeye 99 shooter, automatic even from 25 feet.
TP: What do you see as the next true step/revolution in videogame sports?
OG: I think it’d be easy to say motion controls. But honestly, I think most sports gamers gravitate to these sims because the feats of athleticism are so difficult to replicate in real life. Performing some approximation of hitting, pitching or tossing a touchdown pass, either in Natal or with Sony’s motion control, actually holds little appeal for me as a gamer. That’s not to say sports games won’t or shouldn’t develop for that capability. But I think the next step, and the more achievable one, will be full broadcast integration. I can easily see this happening in other sports titles, and EA Sports just sent out a survey about NCAA Football 11 that indicates it’s at least considering such a thing for that title. We’re midway through the current console generation’s lifespan, roughly, so we aren’t going to get increased processing power or memory and the visuals or content that come with it. But as sports gamers increasingly expect to play the kind of game they see on the television, a way to deliver that immersion will be in the use of actual networks’ graphics and sound packages. NCAA Basketball 10 is not a perfect game but, in using two networks’ presentation assets, it is to me this year’s most visible innovator, and at least one major sports title should emulate its proof of concept in the coming year.
The Drucker Institute at Claremont McKenna will be celebrating the 100th birthday of famed management writer Peter Drucker on November 19. TriplePoint is a Drucker fanboy, most notably The Practice of Management (1953) which still has many lessons to teach, and The Effective Executive (1966, revised numerous times.) These works have focused on scientific management.
His Management Challenges for the 21st Century might even be better. It is certainly among most distinct of his works. It focuses more on social trends that will affect management. Most notably, the opening chapters cover the implications of a falling birthrate in the western world. He reminds us that:
…trends in the distribution of disposable income that go to a certain product category or service category tend, once established, to persist for long periods of time. They are usually impervious even to the business cycle. (p. 51)
With the declining birthrate, there are massive demographic implications are towards a society obsessed with retirement. This is even responsible, he argues, for an increased emphasis on shareholder-centric views of the corporation in the last part of the century. (Equity shares being the principal means of establishing retirement income for the middle class, the maximization of profit becomes paramount when in conflict with other social or personnel obligations traditionally seen as a corporate role by mid-century.)
Financial services companies he writes (presciently in 1999, those halcyon financial times) have nevertheless misread their share of disposable income
[The world’s fastest growing…industry] has been Financial Services-but Financial Services the like of which did not exist at any earlier time, that is, retail services to provide an affluent, aging population in the developed countries with financial products to provide retirement income…This new growth industry is, however, quite diferent from the traditional financial industry as the “corporate banker”, a J.P. Morgan for instance, a Citibank or a Goldman Sachs…They only saw that “finance” takes a larger–a much larger — share of the disposable income in the developed countries. But actually the share of these traditional financial services-major corporate loans {etc} is not growing. As a result the traditional financial giants have greatly overexpanded worldwide. And as their legitimate corporate business became less and less profitable…these corporate giants…have increasingly resorted to “trading for their own account,” that is, to outright speculation, so as to support their swollen overheads…[this] has only one – but an absolutely certain outcome: catastrophic losses. (p. 56)
As a prediction this couldn’t have been more spot on. As macroeconomic attributions for what caused the financial implosion of the last two years proliferate (persistence of low interest rates, political pressures on housing) it serves as a good reminder that there still was a managerial misread in the use of capital, driven by a mega trend that arguably hasn’t been mentioned in other analyses. Even today, investment banks are aggressively trading for their own accounts, “doing God’s work.” Mutual funds and insurance companies who are really capitalizing on this trend do not.
There are lessons here for the gaming industry. A company’s industry can be in a great growth curve, but if misreading the appetites and shifts within that curve (the second derivative so to speak) you can wind up rather bloated and inefficient, resorting to ever-more desperate gambits to keep the enterprise afloat. This often comes in the form of repeatedly overpriced acquisitions.
In this week’s TPoI, GTA 5’s shutdown of modding tools sparks anger amongst users, Capcom and Bandai Namco enter a cross-licensing agreement related to online matchmaking, and Project Rap Rabbit fails to meet its Kickstarter goal.
The Drucker Institute at Claremont McKenna will be celebrating