The Media is the Message

Like many gamers, I have a few main sources for my gaming info. Perhaps unlike some I go to a variety of mediums for my daily fix: websites, podcasts, and television all contribute. It wasn’t until last week that I got to thinking about why I don’t get my fill from one source rather than all of these. I think the best answer really has to do with the strengths of each medium. This perspective probably comes from completing an English M.A. at a University with a special interest in print culture. That being said, I thought that today I would discuss what I find each medium’s strengths and weaknesses are.

I’ll start with websites first since they tend to be the most popular. For me the web tends to be for fast-food information: quick and easy to digest. Penny-Arcade and Rooster Teeth are where I tend to stop for gaming laughs, and they deliver in perfect packages to help pick up a day at a lunch hour. For the most part, however, I look to the internet for my up-to-date information. Kotaku has tons of great headlines to keep me up to speed, and I try to check once a day just to skim through and see what I might want to check out. They’re also great for video clips, though I often end up downloading these on Xbox Live if they’re posted to see them in higher resolution. Game Set Watch has some awesome articles for those more interested in the industry as a whole. I usually end up reading one or two of those a week, often over at Gamasutra, which is really great for anyone who wants to learn about videogame development. However, I really just read what can be skimmed quickly on any of these sites. Gamasutra articles can be a bit long, but I will often spread those out (sometimes over days) to get through them.

Rounding out websites I like to use podcasts. Podcasts are the community aspect of my gamer media. I like Achievement Junkie, KOXM (the podcast of the Official Xbox Magazine), and Xbox 360 Fanboy, all for their good humour. These all contain a little news which I tend to already know but that doesn’t bother me. I’m more listening to get in on the general chit-chat concerning Xbox gaming. I particularly like the “What we’re playing this week” of Xbox 360 Fanboy. While I don’t feel I’m missing a ton if I don’t get to my podcasts in a given week (I have been known to have a stack waiting on my iPod), I’m not about to delete them all together.

In addition to these I confess to watching X-Play. I’m not a die-hard fan, but I find it does a pretty good job of going in more depth than Kotaku and showing me some great game footage. My biggest problem with the show is that often during their meatiest segment they cut back the screen to show a chat feed along-side the feature. This cut causes the feature to become indistinguishable (even on my 46” TV). I mean come on: I tuned in to see the games, not some jackass giving a shout-out to all his l33t friends.

Beginning this last week I started reading OXM: The Official Xbox Magazine. Now I realize that print media is a sinking ship (I had a professor who asked “Who wants dead tree flakes with dead cow hide any more?”), but I like it. I came to the conclusion to jump on the OXM bandwagon when I realized I’m their target demographic: I can afford the $30 a year for a subscription and I want more than 30 seconds of analysis on Xbox titles. The game disc isn’t much of a selling feature for me. I don’t need it for the demos (I use Live thank you very much), and the videos I’ve often seen already on Kotaku. The gamerpics and other little freebies are cool, but I’m really in it for the stories. Some of the exclusive stuff is nice, but I prefer more the fact that print magazines have a totally new perspective on gaming. They aren’t just there to inform with the latest news any more. It’s almost as much about opinion and interviewing as anything else. Not necessarily what you have to read, but what you wouldn’t mind knowing about.

Now let’s not kid ourselves: these guys all make money from sponsors. I don’t ever believe that anything is without bias, even if that bias is what type of games you prefer. I think it’s important that when ever anyone reads any media they do their best to determine the bias and compensate accordingly. Most magazines are one giant advertisement, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to learn from it. It’s our jobs as consumers to be discerning, not the media man(or woman)’s.

Will there ever be a single source that covers all of these bases for me? Probably not, and I don’t think I would want one. I like being able to get what I want when I want it. Some days I want to relax with a magazine in the shade on the patio, others I want to get a quick fix before getting some work done. So long as there are some great personalities out there willing to provide me with some excellent coverage I’ll be willing to read it.

Crazy Week means Lazy Weekend

The last week has seen significant upheaval in my life, not to mention a late birthday festivity last night, which has resulted in a later-than-usual update with little inspiration.

I did just play the new Fracture demo that hit Live last week, and I must say it looks like a pretty cool game. There hasn’t been a ton of coverage on this game, probably because the giant P.R. machine at Lucas Arts was too busy with Force Unleashed, but I think it plays to the advantage of a game like this. The Fracture demo plays like a really fun game that you don’t need, but none the less really enjoy. The cool terrain-deforming gimmick is well done. I hate to call it a gimmick since that’s often a term used as a negative, but let’s face it: with all the variety already out there in the shooter market you need a gimmick to stand out. Other than that it felt like a pretty basic third-person-shooter. Nice graphics and some very cool weapons. I’m actually also a little juiced about the story, which looks like it could be a fun yarn. One little detail I noticed in the demo: when the character reloads you seen the canister he ejects drop to the ground and roll before it fades from view. This little detail won’t change gameplay like the terrain mechanics, but I like to see this kind of polish. Gives me a good feeling. I was also encouraged by the fact that they didn’t insert a date at the end of the demo, though I died a little at the poor grammar of “On October 2008″. I’m reading into that a reluctance to release the game before it’s ready. Do I think Fracture is going to be the next Halo-killer, or that it will outsell Fallout 3? Nope. Will I pick it up to add to my collection for some fun weekend gameplay? Yep. One thing I’m curious to try out is the multiplayer. From what I’ve read the multiplayer has some nice use of the terrain changes to mess with your opponents.

Other than that, I recently signed up for a Gamer DNA account. This social networking/gaming tool looks pretty interesting, and I enjoyed the few minutes I was able to spare to poke around at it. Strikes me kind of like Facebook for gaming. I’m curious to see what extra goodies I’ll find when I’m poking through it’s bowels.

My apologies for the tiny post this week, but I promise to stir something good up by next week. In the meantime I recommend the Fracture demo and you may want to add Gamer DNA to your waste-time-at-work bookmarks.

Try Before You Buy?

My gaming practices are restricted by two budgets: money and time. Of those two, the time budget actually takes more of a precedent. Don’t get me wrong, I still have to count my pennies and make sure that I’m not throwing away money on games I’ll never play, but when I’m deciding on whether or not to purchase a game I have to look at whether or not this game is one I really want to spend my time on over others. It’s because of this that I don’t buy a lot of Xbox Live Arcade titles. There are lots that I like, but there are so many retail games that I like to play that I seldom feel like I will ever get to playing any Live titles.

But how do you decide what to buy? For myself, I tend to put off any games for which there are any doubts until after I get the top-tier games on my list. These doubts are often fostered by what I read on the internet. Example: I was really looking forward to the new The Incredible Hulk until I heard that it wasn’t as good as Hulk: Ultimate Destruction on last generations’ consoles. I have, and loved, Ultimate Destruction, so getting a game that is similar but doesn’t play as well isn’t really a selling point for me. You may also keep in mind that I’m a pretty big super-hero geek, so naturally this game has a lot going for it if it feels anything like being the Hulk. Hell, I own Spider-Man 3 and still plan on playing through it, so you know how “hardcore” I am for the super-hero games.

These doubts can often be dispelled, or confirmed, by demos. Demos were really the root of my inspiration for this post. Since I have a budgeted amount of time for gaming, I’m torn when it comes to demos. If a demo will take me an hour to play through, I’m not thrilled to be taking that time away from my retail titles. At the same time, however, I like to know something about a game before I buy it. Iron Man is a game that I was thrilled to have a demo for, because I’m a super-hero whore and probably would have bought it otherwise. The game felt awkward for me, and as a result not like Iron Man. More recently there was Too Human. I was really looking forward to Too Human, and was ready to buy without the demo, but after all the press about the game I decided to take a look at the demo. My first five minutes with the game felt awkward, but I went back and played through the whole demo. I got a feel for why a lot of reviewers were giving Too Human a hard time, and I decided that many of these reasons did not apply to me. It’s definitely a buy, but I’m also not in any rush, knowing that I want to dedicate some real time to it. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is another game that’s getting some rough press after it’s much anticipated release, and I have to say that the demo may have killed this one for me. I’m not saying that the controls are bad, per se, I’m just saying I found the experience a little awkward. What that means is that I found myself thinking about how to play more than really playing, and I didn’t really find it fun. The result: SW:Force Unleashed doesn’t look like it’ll be for me, but I’m sure others will keep those sales figures up for Lucas Arts.

What I find terribly frustrating, however, is that there are so many games out there without demos on Live. Due to my budgeting, I find the absence of a demo is really a deterrent for me and I often end up putting these games off until I can find time to rent them (which I never do, but always tell myself I will).

Now, I understand that many developers might be hesitant to put a demo out there for a number of reasons. Perhaps they don’t want to seem like they’re suckering gamers in with a set of skills you wont accumulate until the end of the game, perhaps they don’t want to reveal any of the story or immersive experience, perhaps they’re worried that gamers will make hasty decisions and decide to stay away from a game that they would really like if they spent more than 10 minutes playing it. But I’m not terribly inclined to agree with any of these arguments. Personally, I believe that a demo should be the first number of minutes of a game. If you can’t hook me with the beginning of your game, your beginning needs work. I hate grinding through two hours of pain just to get to the creamy centre of goodness. I don’t need to see all the powers right now, I just need to see if I can move through the environment while having fun.

What I really think developers are scared of is that people will find out their game is crap. I mean, if there was no Iron Man demo I probably would have bought that game despite the low reviews. Now that I’ve played it I won’t. Wouldn’t this be a clear argument against demos? I say not. The fact is, many games without a demo get bumped to the end of my list because I’m just plain unsure of it. I’m weary about games which could be a lot of fun, but could also be easily broken. These are the games I never get around to buying, even though they might be a lot of fun for me. I keep saying for me because I find that reviews seldom align with my experience of a game. I would imagine this is the case for most gamers, since we now have so many gamers who are of an age that they’re lives aren’t so simple as school during the day, games at night. Work (and often relationships) creates a whole new dynamic when it comes to how you game, and I think that developers need to remember that when they’re scared what releasing a demo might do.

Of course, there are other ways to try a game before you buy. You could always rent a game, but I find I’m never able to set aside time in my precious budget for a rented game because I’m always playing other games I already own. Maybe I’m too cautious about my gaming budgets. Maybe I should just buy whatever I like the cover art for and throw caution into the wind. For now, however, I’m going to get through Bioshock before I get my copy of Too Human.

Trade Show or Convention?

Last week saw the passage of both the Leipzig Game Convention and The Penny-Arcade Expo (or PAX)*. As I watched and read the plentiful media coverage of these events I got to thinking about our expectations for game conventions. In particular, why these two events were receiving tons of praise while media writers continued to swing away at the “new E3″ as a failed format.

Many people now know about the change in E3 format. A few years ago E3 went from being a massive convention which welcomed seas of fans as well as media outlets to a scaled-down, press-only trade show. What it seems to me that many people are forgetting is that E3 began as a spin off of the Consumers Electronics Show. Let’s take a moment to go back to that original setting. CES, which continues today without a videogame component, is a trade show. It’s where companies come to show their new wares for the upcoming year. I’ve had the good fortune to attend a few trade shows in my current employ, and here’s a newsflash: they’re not really fun. Trade shows are usually by invitation only, which is what E3 is now. I’ve never seen booth babes at any trade show I’ve attended, and normally everything is doused in florescent light. What am I trying to get at? I think people should cut E3 some slack. It wasn’t designed to be a convention for fans, it was designed to be a trade show for the media only, and I think it lives up to that. I agree that videogame companies should be allowed a trade show that doesn’t cost them a noticeable chunk of their annual budget to sit down and explain what they’ve got coming up. That being said, I do agree with many of the attendees from this year who said that E3 should be moved to a better time of year. It would appear that E3 this year was stuck in a no-man’s-land with the best announcements coming out before at the Game Developers’ Conference or the best experiences at Leipzig and PAX.

I really do think that Leipzig gained a lot of points for its timing. It was able to land some juicy gameplay that wasn’t at E3, and if you throw in the fact that the public could attend, it got a lot of love E3 didn’t.

And then there’s PAX. PAX began with an attendance of 3,000 people years ago, and this year it hit 50,000. The original spirit of PAX was bringing gamers together to game. It is a convention, which is an event geared not towards press and industry professionals, but fans. Its popularity has sprung from the great community vibe PAX has nurtured, and game developers have recognized that and are bringing their wares to reach the fans this way. Game Set Watch has an article which points out the benefits to developers attending PAX. Because PAX has great features for both developers and the public, it’s become recognized by many as the North-American videogame convention. As such they’ve had some growing pains, which each year they get better and better at dealing with, and we can expect a second PAX in 2010 on the East Coast to help relieve some pressure.

Just like E3, since PAX is big people are starting to create their own expectations for the convention. In the wake of PAX there are many blogs which are giving criticism about how PAX ought to behave. A good example is this one which suggests that PAX is being held back from being the ultimate convention by having the Penny-Arcade name attached. Articles like this perplex me. I think it’s great that PAX has so much going for it, and that it’s grown to this amazing convention, but I think it’s unfair for us to project our expectations on the events of others. Ultimately PAX is the Penny-Arcade Expo. They put it on, and I think they have every right to put it on as they see fit. It’s my understanding that part of the reason they started this convention was to hold their convention their way. Why should they change it because it started to build momentum? And does that momentum not already show that they’re doing things right?

Perhaps it’s the nature of the press in the videogame industry, but it seems to me that they aren’t satisfied with how their trade show excludes the fans, or how the fan convention doesn’t cater to the press. Personally, I’d rather see North America stick to a few conventions which do what they do very well, instead of trying to pander to everyone.

_{*There was also the X’08 convention in Toronto for Canadian gamers from Microsoft, but I haven’t heard much about that one yet.}