tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8868684846666522602024-03-17T23:03:26.670-04:00Your Critic is in Another CastleK. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.comBlogger155125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-61912643856879429702018-06-06T20:38:00.000-04:002018-06-07T08:18:59.714-04:00AbdicationLet’s talk about stores.<br />
<br />
Humans like to acquire things. We invented the idea of trade in a time before knowing, and we invented systems of commerce basically as soon as we coalesced into cities and started making goods worth exchanging for other goods or services. Systems of currency came along eventually, too, and lo and behold here in the 21st century we’ve got a major case of economics and capitalism.<br />
<br />
Part of maintaining a storefront has always included being picky about what you choose to sell. If you are a fruit vendor, under an awning in a long-ago and far-away agora or souq, you are not hawking cloth. If you are a cloth-maker, you are not selling cows.<br />
<br />
The art of business, of course, has changed over the centuries. But curation has always been a major part of it. The Gap is not going to have a display of bananas between two shelves of skinny jeans. Lowe’s is not going to sell you crappy third-rate knockoff counterfeit appliances, if it can help it. Best Buy won’t have a shelf full of badly-subtitled bootleg movies in the middle of an aisle.<br />
<br />
Brick-and-mortar stores, limited both by their physical square footage and also by the world of competition, curate. They choose what to sell, and they focus narrowly on that thing. Even in a massive big-box retailer like a Walmart, or a classic, five-story department store, every item for sale within those walls is there as the end product of careful, detailed negotiations between the product’s producer and the retailer. It’s no accident where the Post cereals, the Kellogg’s cereals, and the Kashi cereals are, in your local supermarket; that’s highly negotiated, proximity to you, the consumer, itself a commodity to be bought and sold.<br />
<br />
There are, in fact, three major things a brick-and-mortar retail experience provides the modern consumer, in the year of our digital overlords two thousand eighteen:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li><b>Curation:</b> Someone has already taken the full world’s supply of available goods, which is legion, and winnowed it down to a smaller selection you, the overwhelmed consumer, can work your way through decision paralysis to make choices within.</li>
<li><b>A middleman:</b> Someone is responsible for being the bridge between the end consumer and the producer of goods, which means you, personally, don’t have to try to chase down someone ten time zones and fourteen languages away for support if your product has a problem.</li>
<li><b>Customer service:</b> If something goes wrong, you have a place you can go and a person you can talk to about it. Theoretically, that person is even empowered to help you with most issues you are likely to have. Your needs are hard to ignore, because you can be present, literally in the face of the person from whom you seek assistance.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<br />
Now let’s talk about Steam.<br />
<br />
Over a decade ago, Steam was this strange kind of half-store, half-DRM thing you would install in your PC if you wanted to play <i>Portal </i>or a <i>Half-Life</i> game.<br />
<br />
Today, Steam -- the major product of Valve Corp. -- is basically the major storefront for PC games and gaming. Its dual functions as shopping mall and easy DRM led to widespread adoption by indie and AAA publishers alike, as alternative systems like Games For Windows Live sputtered briefly and horribly into life before blessedly guttering out again.<br />
<br />
And it’s easy to see why. Steam is easy to use, for the consumer, a one-stop shop where you don’t have to worry about a thousand awful, competing little failure-prone DRM systems screwing up your machine. It’s cloud-based, meaning you have your purchases tied to an account, rather than to a disc, and can re-download them on any new computer as needed. And it started out <i>friendly</i>, masking its purpose as DRM product in an overlay of social tools to connect you to a community.<br />
<br />
Over the years, as players have flocked to it, Valve has consistently added more features to Steam, like integrated screenshots, streaming, and family sharing. Those features make more players sign on, which makes more developers and publishers sell games on the platform, which in turn makes more players sign on: a virtuous cycle, leading to <a href="https://twitter.com/Steam_Spy/status/976942590116298752">an estimated $4.3 billion in sales</a> in 2017 alone.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, Steam has long since lost its virtue. It’s not actually a monopoly, but like many of its digital-age counterparts -- the Netflixes and Facebooks of the world -- it has enough power in a market the Sherman and Clayton Acts never foresaw to dominate the competition handily and be seen as a must-have in the PC gaming world.<br />
<br />
That sure is a lot of power.<br />
<br />
So let’s talk about responsibility.<br />
<br />
Steam has opened up its storefront to basically all comers in recent years. The platform<a href="https://steamed.kotaku.com/valve-kills-steam-greenlight-1792225494"> abandoned its ill-conceived “Greenlight” program</a>, which required users to upvote would-be games like some kind of horrible reality show production board, in early 2017. Since then, developers have more or less simply been able to apply and pay a fee to sell their wares in the Steam store.<br />
<br />
But the conditions under which a developer is welcome on Steam have not always been clear. In mid-May, the service began contacting the developers of a very specific sub-set of games, visual novels with sexual adult content, saying the games <a href="https://www.polygon.com/2018/5/18/17368814/steam-visual-novels-nsfw-takedown-valve">needed to have some of that content censored or else be removed</a> from the platform.<br />
<br />
Developer Christine Love, whose most recent title, <i>Ladykiller In a Bind</i>, features lesbian erotica, tweeted eloquently about how the capricious nature of Steam’s actions could harm small, independent development studios like her own Love Conquers All Games:
“Regardless of how you feel personally about the games affected, Valve pulling harmless content on a whim, with no consistency or policy, will absolutely have a chilling effect on small developers,” Love wrote. “This is terrifying.”<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
Regardless of how you feel personally about the games affected, Valve pulling harmless content on a whim, with no consistency or policy, will absolutely have a chilling effect on small developers. This is terrifying.</div>
— Christine Love (@christinelove) <a href="https://twitter.com/christinelove/status/997471966251581440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 18, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<br />
She added, “The developers being hit by this are being unnecessarily forced into a no-win situation, and it’s hard to trust Valve when it doesn’t honour agreements with devs. This hurts developers, it hurts players, and it hurts the entire medium.”<br />
<br />
Developers of affected titles <a href="https://www.polygon.com/2018/5/22/17380772/adult-visual-novels-steam">quickly sought alternative distribution</a>, with many ending up on Steam rival <a href="http://gog.com/">GOG.com</a> or smaller indie publishing platform <a href="http://itch.io/">itch.io</a>.<br />
<br />
Merely days after Steam began to excise adult content, however, the <a href="https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/3k45an/agony-a-game-about-dehumanizing-women-isnt-just-bad-its-toxic">execrable misogynist dump <i>Agony</i></a>, chock-full of sexualized situations and sexualized violence, landed on the service. That created an understandable wave of pushback from customers and developers alike, seeking to know why certain kinds of sexual content were being ousted but others were being welcomed.<br />
<br />
And so on June 6, Steam <a href="https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1666776116200553082">admitted what its users have always known</a>: The company is utter crap at curation. But rather than issue a standard <i>mea culpa</i> or promise to do better in the future, Steam doubled down on its failure.<br />
<br />
Instead, Valve's Erik Johnson posited, what if Steam just… didn’t?<br />
<br />
After reviewing the situation, Johnson wrote, Valve decided, “the right approach is to allow everything onto the Steam Store, except for things that we decide are illegal, or straight up trolling.” Sex, violence, all of it -- who is Valve to judge, if your local regulators don’t object?<br />
<br />
Johnson conceded the upshot of Valve’s decision “means that the Steam Store is going to contain something that you hate, and don't think should exist.”<br />
<br />
That, in part, is fair as it goes; there’s a lot of garbage art in the world and taste is far from universal. But it also misses the point so widely that the light from the actual point may not reach Valve for another eight or nine million years.<br />
<br />
In choosing entirely to abdicate curation, Steam is saying it no longer runs a store. What it runs instead is something else entirely: a cesspit, perhaps.<br />
<br />
Because long experience has taught us two important things. First: any online marketplace without stringent, intense curation becomes prone to fraud almost immediately. For example, put almost <a href="https://play.google.com/store/search?q=animal%20crossing&c=apps">any popular app or game</a> into the Google Play (Android app store) search, and see how many unauthorized clones come up. For some games, there are hundreds, and many are malware. It’s not just digital goods, either: Amazon is rife with <a href="https://consumerist.com/2016/07/08/5-things-you-should-know-about-amazons-issues-with-counterfeits/index.html">counterfeit products</a> and <a href="https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/02/money-laundering-via-author-impersonation-on-amazon/">outright</a> <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/nicolenguyen/amazon-fake-review-problem">fraud</a>, despite the company’s attempts at policing its third-party marketplace.<br />
<br />
Second, and perhaps more importantly: Any online platform left untended <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/what-mark-zuckerberg-gets-wrongand-rightabout-hate-speech/">inevitably devolves into hate speech</a>, maximizing the voices of the noisy few and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/10/twitters-harassment-problem-is-baked-into-its-design/542952/">marginalizing minority voices</a> -- women, people of color, anyone anywhere in the LGBTQ spectrum -- even further, a problem <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/steam-video-games-nazis_us_5aa006cae4b0e9381c146438">Steam already has</a>.<br />
<br />
Valve has chosen to stop caring about the experience its end consumers have on its platform, which harms consumers. But likewise, by entirely abandoning curation, it has also made its platform into a place publishers may not want to be.<br />
<br />
Luxury brands in recent years <a href="https://consumerist.com/2016/08/10/michael-kors-pulling-back-on-department-store-presence-in-effort-to-polish-brands-image/index.html">have chosen to stop selling their goods in department stores</a> in order to, basically, not be seen among the riff-raff, and maintain their cachet of value and exclusivity. In short, Macy’s is not a neighborhood Michael Kors wants to be in. Will Ubisoft want its next <i>Assassin’s Creed</i> for sale along a virtual shelf full of <i>Agony </i>clones? Or will all the publishers who can afford to <a href="https://kotaku.com/5876171/surprise-surprise-mass-effect-3-requires-origin-wont-launch-on-steam">pull an EA</a> and stick with their own exclusive, highly curated digital storefronts instead?<br />
<br />
Steam has been dominant for a decade, but it doesn’t have to be.K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-89260651566232938122017-12-18T09:35:00.000-05:002017-12-18T09:35:08.629-05:00I used to be Andrew Carnegie... and now I live in a van.Back in 2014, <a href="http://www.your-critic.com/2014/09/i-am-andrew-carnegie.html">I wrote about how <i>Animal Crossing: New Leaf</i> was basically an Andrew Carnegie simulator</a>: capitalism as perfection, and how to become a magnanimous millionaire.<br />
<br />
Now, in 2017, <a href="http://www.zam.com/article/1626/animal-crossing-pocket-camp-is-a-perfect-metaphor-for-late-capitalism">I wrote for Zam</a> about how I find <i>Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp</i> perhaps a better metaphor of how capitalism screws us all over than it meant to be.<br />
<br />
<br />K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-13622433927475778492017-10-10T08:46:00.000-04:002017-10-10T08:46:47.751-04:00Reality, rebootedWe're in an era of endless reboots and sequels.<br />
<br />
At their worst, they're artless, pointless; form without function, retelling an old story without understanding what made earlier versions worth hearing, and without adding anything worthwhile. (<i>Star Trek Into Darkness</i>, I'm looking at you.)<br />
<br />
At their best, though, sequels and reboots are a chance for a new generation to take an old story and say why it still matters, to point to certain aspects and say, "Hey, this is a thing of relevance to us."<br />
<br />
And right now, <i>Star Wars</i> is there.<br />
<br />
When <i>The Force Awakens</i> came out in 2015, the most common criticism was, "This is just a remake of <i>A New Hope</i>." The Empire was already beaten, critics said; why was the First Order a thing? Why rehash this same old fight, in this same old way, against a same old foe, just with a new generation of heroes?<br />
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<br />
<br />
But if there is anything that the two years between Episode VII and Episode VIII have taught us, it is this: Wars do not stay won on their own.<br />
<br />
Ideology resurges. If you don't fight the Nazis in every generation, they get new clothes and come back, with allies in places they should not be.<br />
<br />
<i>Star Wars</i> ended up being accidentally prescient. But it will not be the last popular art of this era to have to engage with that idea. It is the challenge of our culture, right now, and it will continue to emerge in all the stories that were started this year, and that will not see the light of day for months or years to come.<br />
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Maybe sometimes we have sequels for a reason.K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-46761273752494097862016-11-09T14:48:00.002-05:002016-11-09T14:49:32.306-05:00On CivilizationI wrote an entire post about <i>Civilization VI</i>, over the past few days. It started with observations about the theme music, "Sogno di Volare," and went from there, about what is or isn't disappointing about the game.<br />
<br />
I can't write that post, anymore. I've got it saved. Maybe, another day.<br />
<br />
Here's the video, anyway, because why not.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
I wrote a lot of other things about the song, musically, and then I wrote:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
The song is so <i>earnest</i>. It's absolutely refreshing in a way, after more than a decade of irony-based, cynical, and occasionally nihilist culture being dominant -- but it also leaves out what makes the task of simulating <i>all of human civilization itself</i> so interesting and daunting.</blockquote>
<br />
And I said that for all that <i>Civ</i> tries so, so hard to mount a global approach, deliberately seeking out non-Western, non-colonial civs and non-white, non-male leaders to head them... the game is still very profoundly an American one, with an American outlook towards what civilization itself should be and is.<br />
<br />
It is the march of progress, of science, of commerce and war, and the nexus where those meet. It is the forward, upward momentum of technology and social progress, inevitable even if you aren't leading the pack.<br />
<br />
I wrote that all during the first week of November, before the U.S. election. That election has since transpired, and everyone in the world knows what happened.<br />
<br />
America just made <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/164869/GDC_2012_Sid_Meier_on_how_to_see_games_as_sets_of_interesting_decisions.php">a series of interesting decisions</a>, and chose to go backwards and take the world along with. Yes, the world -- because a huge percentage of the planet is buying our blue jeans and listening to our pop music. We've had the cultural victory in the bag for decades, and nothing that happens within our borders stays within our borders.<br />
<br />
And culture is the hole. It is this -- that ability to go backward, to regress, to be done in not by external forces but by the competing tides of movement and counter-movement within your own society -- that is missing from <i>Civilization</i>.<br />
<br />
The map on my screen is a sterile world, where social forces have no sway and rational economic ones are the only ones modeled. I have, in four games (three won, one lost) and twenty hours, already come to find it profoundly unsatisfying.<br />
<br />
A war, in <i>Civ</i>, is always against external forces. It is a neighbor who wants land, a conquering force that wants your natural resources, a religious zealot who will convert by force.<br />
<br />
<i>Civ</i> cannot account for the fact that within your real civ, people look, think, and act differently from each other, and may, too, come to war within their own country.<br />
<br />
Progress is not inevitable. It is hard, ugly work, and it always comes with regression as its twin.<br />
<br />
The two are inseparable. For every reformation, there is a counter-reformation. For every revolution, a counter-revolution. For every black president, someone literally endorsed by the Klan and actual, non-metaphorical Nazis.<br />
<br />
Maybe if we made a computer model of the world, we could see how it turns out and convince ourselves there's a way. But it wouldn't be a "game" anymore.<br />
<br />
I am not sure I would find it any more satisfying to find my play civilization suddenly regressing or entering a civil war with itself, to be honest. If that's where <i>Civilization</i> went, I think I would find myself spending more time in hero's journeys, where the dragons might be present but <a href="http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/101407141743/every-version-of-that-chesterton-quotation-about">can always be beaten</a>.<br />
<br />
Truth be told, I might need to go home today and do that anyway; I am not above escapism, and we all have to care for our mental health in our own ways. Watching disaster unfold in real-time around me is hard enough.<br />
<br />
Because right now, there are at least 50 million people out there who don't seem to understand that the actual course of human civilization -- the real one, the real thing, where people live and breathe and eat and fuck and shit and die and want and hope and despair -- is not a game. That it is not a set of interesting choices and well-sculpted tiles. That a "game over" doesn't mean you reset; it means extinction.<br />
<br />K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-72800446827398314032015-12-21T11:46:00.003-05:002016-01-15T08:57:38.979-05:00Interlude: Only A GirlOnce upon a time, there was a little girl. When she was about six, she walked to the video rental store down the street and came home with a VHS of a movie called <i>The Empire Strikes Back</i>.<br />
<br />
"I got Star Wars," she said to her mom and dad.<br />
<br />
"Oh, Empire?" they said. "You go ahead and watch it honey, but we don't feel like it right now."<br />
<br />
So she did. And she fell in love.<br />
<br />
By bedtime, she wanted to be Han Solo -- only, a girl.<br />
<br />
She was a nerdy kid, consuming books and movies as fast as she could get her hands on them. <i>Star Wars</i> was an early love, but neither the first nor the last.<br />
<br />
She had always wanted to be Robin Hood (ooh de lally!) -- only, a girl.<br />
<br />
A few years later, still a kid, she wanted to be Taran of Caer Dallben -- only, a girl.<br />
<br />
She wanted to be Captain Jean-Luc Picard -- only, a girl.<br />
<br />
She wanted to be Indiana Jones -- only, a girl.<br />
<br />
She wanted to be Aragorn -- only, a girl.<br />
<br />
She even kind of wanted to be Captain Jack Sparrow -- only, a girl.<br />
<br />
Still, the world moved on apace and "genre" fiction, will it or not, had to come along with. Dragged kicking and screaming, sometimes, but still.<br />
<br />
She grew up. By her late twenties, finally, she got to be Commander Shepard -- who, as far as she was concerned, was only ever a girl.<br />
<br />
And in her thirties, she had a baby: a daughter. And two years after that, someone made a new <i>Star Wars</i> movie, and she went to see it.<br />
<br />
And the hero was a woman named Rey: not "only" a girl. A badass. A main character. A self-saving woman with a staff and a brain and the power and will to use both.<br />
<br />
And the woman's heart was glad, for the little girl she had been, and doubly so for the one she was raising. Who, if she could help it, would <b>never</b> be "only a girl."K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-84260014489745986032015-11-07T09:13:00.000-05:002016-02-12T12:19:10.550-05:00The Music of Dragon Age, And What It Actually Says<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNO795owodj5ngLjmfTtdKTdcX7BgCyjytFw2fIdICh-pSeQRSfUgFTtkBHwkXh46LnR420gmqueNpVEeUMpOT1ctsrZ2YLKJb_f1fVNDeMNQwuLd8P-0zr98fcVRZhBjXtYAsQyTq-Yxc/s1600/2015-09-12_00125.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNO795owodj5ngLjmfTtdKTdcX7BgCyjytFw2fIdICh-pSeQRSfUgFTtkBHwkXh46LnR420gmqueNpVEeUMpOT1ctsrZ2YLKJb_f1fVNDeMNQwuLd8P-0zr98fcVRZhBjXtYAsQyTq-Yxc/s640/2015-09-12_00125.jpg" width="640"></a></div>
<br>
Come in! Have a seat, and let's talk about music. Specifically, the music of <i>Dragon Age: Inquisition</i>, which is beautiful and fun and lovely and very helpful, and which is also heavily recycled and manages to undermine the game it is meant to support in tons of small and large ways.<br>
<br>
<b>This conversation has BIG FAT SPOILERS for basically everything that ever happens in the Dragon Age series, across all games to date.</b><br>
<br>
<i>(It is also a very long post with a whole pile of embedded video. Fair warning.) </i><br>
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<a href="http://www.your-critic.com/2015/11/the-music-of-dragon-age-and-what-it.html#more">Read more »</a>K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-8575705142591990312015-03-02T10:01:00.003-05:002015-03-02T10:01:50.280-05:00Why I Play<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i> There is always something worth finding if you go to the farthest edges of the map.<br /><br />I don’t like to play mages or wizards.<br /><br />I do enjoy being an archer, a sniper, or an assassin sneaking through shadows.<br /><br />I value loyalty less than I value compassion.<br /><br />I naturally gravitate toward diplomacy and the resolution of conflict.<br /><br />I worry less about threats to me than I do about threats to the people I love.<br /><br />I will rewrite the goddamned laws of spacetime itself if I have to, to save them.<br /><br />It is not where I go that matters.<br /><br />It is how I feel for having been there.</i></blockquote>
<br />
I was asked why I play, <a href="http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/staff-editorials/11949/why-i-play-video-games/">and this was my answer</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
I play games, and here is what I have learned:<br />
The X button on a PlayStation controller is at the bottom.<br />
Underwater levels are always kind of a pain.<br />
There is always something worth finding if you go to the farthest edges of the map.<br />
I don’t like to play mages or wizards.<br />
I do enjoy being an archer, a sniper, or an assassin sneaking through shadows.<br />
I value loyalty less than I value compassion.<br />
I naturally gravitate toward diplomacy and the resolution of conflict.<br />
I worry less about threats to me than I do about threats to the people I love.<br />
I will rewrite the goddamned laws of spacetime itself if I have to, to save them.<br />
It is not where I go that matters.<br />
It is how I feel for having been there.<br />
- See more at: http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/staff-editorials/11949/why-i-play-video-games/#sthash.qqAuqENp.dpuf</div>
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
I play games, and here is what I have learned:<br />
The X button on a PlayStation controller is at the bottom.<br />
Underwater levels are always kind of a pain.<br />
There is always something worth finding if you go to the farthest edges of the map.<br />
I don’t like to play mages or wizards.<br />
I do enjoy being an archer, a sniper, or an assassin sneaking through shadows.<br />
I value loyalty less than I value compassion.<br />
I naturally gravitate toward diplomacy and the resolution of conflict.<br />
I worry less about threats to me than I do about threats to the people I love.<br />
I will rewrite the goddamned laws of spacetime itself if I have to, to save them.<br />
It is not where I go that matters.<br />
It is how I feel for having been there.<br />
- See more at: http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/staff-editorials/11949/why-i-play-video-games/#sthash.qqAuqENp.dpuf</div>
K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-39405673360546973512015-01-08T10:00:00.000-05:002015-01-09T08:56:30.759-05:00The Age of the Dragons, Part III: The Epic of Ser Cullen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I said on Twitter, as I played through <i>Dragon Age: Inquisition</i>, that I was developing a theory.</div>
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The best representative of the player, I mused, isn't actually the Inquisitor, the player character. The best representative of the player is, in fact, their advisor Cullen.</div>
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And now I will try to explain.</div>
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<i><b><br></b></i></div>
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<i><b>The rest of this post contains big fat unmarked spoilers about basically every game BioWare has released since 2007. You have been warned.</b></i></div>
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</div><a href="http://www.your-critic.com/2015/01/the-age-of-dragons-part-iii-epic-of-ser.html#more">Read more »</a>K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-25423107129922764682014-09-04T11:00:00.000-04:002014-09-06T11:09:05.281-04:00I Am Andrew Carnegie<b>I.</b><br />
<br />
I surveyed the land, then built my home exactly where I pleased: just far enough away from the railroad station and center of government, but close enough to them for easy access. Right on the river, with a nice view. Knocked down some old-growth trees and local flora to do it, but the land was mine to command.
<br />
<br />
Then I expanded the mansion, until the gaudy gold-plated curiosity became the centerpiece of the town.
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<br />
I put down sidewalks where I wished, then razed them, then put them somewhere else. I added landscaping, cut down trees, planted strange and foreign orchards in their stead. I financed the expansion of a museum, then filled it from my own personal collections of art, antiquities, and hunting trophies.
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<br />
Eventually, I built monuments to the greatness I had achieved, and even made clear my full ownership over everyone and everything I surveyed by redesigning the town hall to my satisfaction.
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I exist to build, to buy, to expand. To be is to consume: I partake solely of the natural resources; I clean out the shops. I spend and save and spend and resell and give, strategically, knowing I will receive tokens in return.
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I rule: not through election, but through the power of my pocketbook. The world is mine to command, because I have wealth and privilege. But I must do so lightly, and with compassion. With great wealth comes great responsibility, and my fortune is not for me alone. I spend it helping to better the lot of the working classes, to add art and music to our town. I pay for renovations, and bring in public goods and services.
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In <i>Animal Crossing: New Leaf</i>, Nintendo has created the perfect capitalism simulator. Or perhaps a simulator of capitalism as perfection. It is the ideal game for the 19th century.
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<br />
I rule the town of Villains -- or properly, I suppose, <i>New </i>Villains. The first is but a rust-belt ruin waiting hopelessly for young blood that will never come, languishing away without industry or income on an Animal Crossing: Wild World cartridge I misplaced in 2012.
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For 243 days, I have dominated. I have built a paradise of unfettered but benevolent capitalism, one fruit, fish, and bug at a time.
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I am Andrew Carnegie.
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I am John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt.
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I am that which founded and which underlies the 20th and 21st centuries, both for good and for ill.
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<b>II.</b><br />
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I believe in public art.
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DC is a woefully impersonalized city. Planned and regulated from the start, and required to support its residents without any support for them, it lacks in personality.
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But it still has a soul.
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Its soul is money and greed and power and craven climbing but sometimes, sometimes, its soul sings.
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There was a jazz trumpeter, a good one, busking his heart out at the Metro station this morning.
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It's 2014. I pay for my morning coffee with my phone. I never have cash.
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<br />
I found my reserve parking meter quarters, put them into his case, and used them to hold down a $1 bill that kept trying to fly away.
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He couldn’t chase it. He was playing.
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There are many buskers. I need to carry more cash.
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<b>III.</b>
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I support somewhere between 5 and 10 people on Patreon. I forget how many. The number just keeps going up anyway. I will continue to do so for as long as I have a salary and budget with room for discretionary spending. I am duty-bound to pass along my privilege and good fortune where I can.
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I hate Patreon.
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<br />
I hate deciding which of my talented friends and peers deserves $2 for hard work well-done and which of them deserves $0.50. I hate deciding that I shouldn’t support friends who are popular, because I have less-popular friends who need the money more. I cringe at the thought that anyone might feel they owe me anything in their work, or that they owe me any work at all.
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<br />
I would like to buy a magazine. When I buy a magazine I do not have to decide what percentage of my $5 goes to the cover story and what percentage goes to two other shorter but no less important features and what percentage goes to opinion columnists and what percentage goes to photographers and artists and editors and layout artists and and and and and.
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<br />
The magazines aren’t on Patreon.
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They’re on Kickstarter. Same problem. Different tools.
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<br />
I hand over my credit card number. If people whose work I believe in are going to be forced to busk hat in hand, when the world won’t pay them honest salaries for honest (so raw, so honest, so good) work, then by god I will be their patron.
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<br />
At least I don’t need cash.
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<b>IV.</b>
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<br />
A pop culture journalist writing about the events of the past terrible month wrote to me this week to ask why I left gaming journalism.
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<br />
In the course of conversation, I told him that one of the things “they” never tell you when you’re growing up is that leaving a job can be every bit as much of a relief, if not more so, than getting one.
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My reasons were deeply personal and somewhat accidental.
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My reasons were completely impersonal and utterly systemic.
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I’m not sure my reasons matter.
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<b>V.</b>
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The fight destroys careers and lives and jobs.
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The fight is <i>for</i> careers and lives and jobs.
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<b>VI.</b>
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I am not Andrew Carnegie. But his is the role I play. K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-28596858671829912742014-02-15T12:01:00.000-05:002014-02-15T12:21:55.754-05:00Not a "Real" GamerIt's amazing how easy a trap it is to fall into, really.<br />
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As a working parent of a 6-month-old, there's always something to do. I pick her up from daycare on my way home from work, and my evenings are a maelstrom of dinner time and bath time and bed time and cleanup and setup for the next morning, when my alarm will go off at 5:59 and I will do it all over again. And as many other parents of young children before me have learned, the first thing to go is the idle time. Hobbies aren't gone forever, but they're on the back burner for a while.<br />
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Last night I was about to lament, "I haven't played a video game in months." The problem is, that lament is false in every way.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5rRmxB-emK4YBm9mO6xSraVNKkfEl6K5sgaCzsTdYV_QM4HWpPVcFoJmwXCHGOgUz3lBwb3gn37FOOpVzVNP9o1wrg4wVBUuHU9QXMMW3Ee2zON2sqqr9DbzQrljNKOzFN7Qh3l7gy2bg/s1600/purple3ds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5rRmxB-emK4YBm9mO6xSraVNKkfEl6K5sgaCzsTdYV_QM4HWpPVcFoJmwXCHGOgUz3lBwb3gn37FOOpVzVNP9o1wrg4wVBUuHU9QXMMW3Ee2zON2sqqr9DbzQrljNKOzFN7Qh3l7gy2bg/s1600/purple3ds.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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I got a 3DS for Christmas. A purple one. I love it to pieces. Not a day has gone by since the morning of December 25th that I haven't picked it up.<br />
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When my husband gave it to me, he also got me <i>Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies</i>, and a few days later I bought myself <i>Animal Crossing: New Leaf</i>.*<br />
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I've been prancing around my town fishing, planting trees, and talking to the neighbors every day for six weeks. But I haven't played a video game in ages.<br />
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I've been working my way through a soap opera of ridiculous cases in a somewhat unhinged version of the Japanese justice system for a month. But I haven't played a video game in ages. <br />
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I've been playing games on my phone--<i>Candy Crush Saga</i> among them, I reluctantly admit, but also loads of <i>Triple Town</i> and <i>Plants vs Zombies 2</i>--with my free hand while holding the baby to nurse with the other every single day for six months. But I haven't played a video game in ages.<br />
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Despite <a href="http://www.your-critic.com/2010/09/if-its-for-women-it-must-be-stupid-pt-2.html">knowing exactly what the pitfalls are</a>, despite analyzing this problem for a hobby and onetime for a living, despite thinking of myself as a person who works really hard to be open and inclusive with gaming, I've fallen into the trap.<br />
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Not a big-budget AAA game that you play with a controller? It's not a "real" game.<br />
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Something women play with one free hand while wrangling the kid with the other? It's not a "real" game. <br />
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It's so insidious. The culture sneaks up on you so easily. And while I watched my husband finish his personal-canon <i>Mass Effect</i> trilogy replay in the evenings, I sat and stewed and lamented that I don't appear to be a gamer anymore... <b>while holding my 3DS in my hand</b>.<br />
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Maybe I'm not a gamer. I probably never was. I probably never will be again. But whether I'm bouncing around waiting for <i>Dragon Age: Inquisition</i>, or whether I'm defending my brains from zombies column by column, I'm playing games.<br />
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And if I can't remember that for myself, I sure as hell can't expect the broader culture to remember it for me.<br />
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* <span style="font-size: x-small;">1048-9696-0755. I still haven't visited other towns or had visitors to mine. Feel free to leave yours in the comments, or to DM/e-mail it to me. ;)</span><br />
<br />K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-74100251999157472792013-09-11T11:14:00.001-04:002013-09-11T11:30:57.246-04:00The Game of Life: No Cheat Codes Available<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>> N</i><br />
<i>You are in the NURSERY.</i>
<br />
<i>> look</i>
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<i>There is a CRIB here. You hear a PURRING SOUND.</i>
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<i>> i </i><br />
<i>You are carrying a BABY.</i><br />
<i>> put baby in crib</i>
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<i> You cannot put the baby in the crib.</i>
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<i>> examine crib</i>
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<i>There is a CAT in the crib. It is purring in its sleep.</i>
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<i>> remove cat from crib</i>
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<i>There is an INDIGNANT CAT on your feet.</i>
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<i>> put baby in crib<br />You are in the NURSERY. There is a CRIB here. There is a BABY in the CRIB. There is an INDIGNANT CAT that gives your ankle an annoyed nibble.</i></blockquote>
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At a ripe old four weeks of age, our daughter is too young for games of any kind. Peek-a-boo doesn't quite take when you've only barely learned to focus on anything, and as she hasn't yet figured out the whole "hands" thing, toys are still a bit of a non-starter. (Though we are getting there quickly, on both counts.)<br />
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For me, on the other hand, my whole life has become something of a game. It's an endless one, and the kind that's more perversely difficult than it is entertaining. It's a series of puzzles, a sequence of boss fights where the rules keep changing every time you think you've mastered a skill.<br />
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There are definite elements of <i>Tetris</i>. If I put the support pillow *here* and the blanket *there* and the baby *just like this* then I can hold all the things at once... at least until I have to open the door.<br />
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Sometimes it's a racing game (perhaps the Rainbow Road track from <i>Mario Kart</i>). If I find a pacifier, and prop it in *just so*, then I can race to the bathroom and back and beat the clock, returning to scoop her up before she notices she's been left alone and cries.<br />
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Mainly, though, I've started thinking of my daily life in terms of the clear meters of <i>The Sims</i>. How hungry am I? How badly do I need to pee? Have I slept in the last three days? Showered this week? She is napping for thirty minutes -- which meters are the most urgent? I'll handle those first.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrYib8htiPXTt1XsTpjMupnuLA22SuCsfghM6MIGb4601kDOMPsasOIb24PceS7HRliLc3p9jOjIpe_HRwh2w6ju89nfF1ewWTMFL5K-topM9Xh3bTADHOUbqPJ2qAN2qj0XZChXUjMxYf/s1600/2013-09-09" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrYib8htiPXTt1XsTpjMupnuLA22SuCsfghM6MIGb4601kDOMPsasOIb24PceS7HRliLc3p9jOjIpe_HRwh2w6ju89nfF1ewWTMFL5K-topM9Xh3bTADHOUbqPJ2qAN2qj0XZChXUjMxYf/s400/2013-09-09" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Guybrush, meanwhile, has decided he is all about the escort missions.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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In this time of profound upheaval, I find myself turning to games with clear rules for a touchstone of sanity. A half-hour a day of <i>Civ V</i> (which is easy to play one-handed, while holding or nursing an infant) keeps me feeling human in the same way that <i>Law and Order</i> marathons (my background noise, of late) find me getting alienated and detached. It is hard to stay in and of the world while parenting a newborn. For me, much of my world has been gaming. And if Alexander the Great is unpredictable (he isn't; the bastard will always backstab during a declaration of friendship, if you have land he wants), he's got nothing on a baby -- a baby who is, at this moment, apparently bound and determined to punch herself in the face as much as possible.<br />
<br />
Parenting is not a game, of course. If it were, there would be cheat codes or hacks available. I could increase time or decrease the need for sleep, increase money and space or decrease need for food. Mainly, though, if I could only have one cheat code right now I think I would use "decrease_newborn_gas." Then she wouldn't wake herself up all the time from farting, and everyone would be a lot happier. Or at least better-rested, which in the end adds up to the same thing.<br />
<br />
If someone could just tweak the collision plane on the crib so the cat can't get in, though, that would help for now.<br />
<br />K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-47002114474916521482013-08-20T21:05:00.001-04:002013-09-19T12:41:33.586-04:00Blogger Life Update: Explanation of HiatusReaders will notice that posting has been extremely light and sporadic this year. It's not that I've lost interest in games, or in writing. It's that I've gained this:<br />
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<br />
Her name is Miranda Claire Cox. I spent all of 2013 (and a little bit of 2012) growing her from scratch and she joined the world at 7:49 a.m. on Thursday, August 15.<br />
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The combination of pregnancy and finding and settling into a new job took up the bulk of my physical and mental energy over the past six months. And the combination of recovering from (an unexpectedly surgical) birth and learning who this little person is (and how to keep her fed) is taking up all of my mental and physical energy now.<br />
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I do plan to return to sharing my thoughts on games and gaming. There's a lot going on to investigate, question, and think about. A new console generation is coming in a couple of months, and that changes the commercial landscape. There's more than ever going on in art, experimental, non-commercial, and indie gaming. And frankly, parenthood in general and motherhood in particular are changing my focus and perspective. The <a href="http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2013/07/hyper-mode.html">dadification of games</a> and <a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/07/31/support-boobjam-a-game-jam-about-boobs/">Boobjam</a> in particular have my attention. I know plenty of men in gaming and writing with kids, but almost no women with kids, and there are reasons for that. There are systems and narratives and prejudices that need poking into, and I plan to keep poking into them.<br />
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But not this week, or this month, or probably the month after. This time's for my family, which I now have, and that is an incredible feeling. K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-21601370898073762282013-06-06T19:57:00.006-04:002013-06-06T20:07:42.321-04:00How Microsoft Actively Chose to Cut their Customer Base, or: a Parable of CousinsI have these cousins. Or, rather, my husband has these cousins, but, y'know, family through marriage.<br />
<br />
So. There are these cousins: three kids, teenagers. Good kids, and I like spending time with their parents, too. Their dad really likes video games. The girls really like video games. The family has a Wii and definitely gets heavy use out of it, playing the hell out of every game that they buy. Whenever we all get together at the beach in the summer, the girls <a href="http://kotaku.com/5930220/one-stranger-made-a-world-of-difference-to-a-fifteen+year+olds-journey">love playing whatever we've brought</a> and last year we talked <i>Mass Effect</i> with their father. This year, the oldest came to visit and stay with us for a few days and my husband and I sent her home with a burned disc full of our favorites from GOG, for her and for the rest of her family.<br />
<br />
Because here's the thing about this family: they live in a rural area. A really rural area. Their internet service is satellite-only, and it's got a cap of 5 gb per month. 5 gb, for two adults and three teenagers, in 2013. And even without the cap, the speed doesn't support streaming much of anything and since it's satellite, a good rainstorm can knock their service out.<br />
<br />
These cousins are a middle-class American family of five, and Microsoft is emphatically rejecting their money or the idea that they could ever be an audience worth courting. <br />
<br />
"Because every Xbox One owner has a broadband connection..."<br />
<br />
This is how Microsoft <a href="http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/connected">desperately tries to clarify their stance</a> on whether the Xbox One is always-on or not. Those are their own words. "Because every Xbox One owner has a broadband connection."<br />
<br />
It's not that Microsoft doesn't understand that plenty of people in the US and worldwide don't actually have reliable broadband connections. It's that they don't give a damn. If your connection isn't reliable, then by default, <i>you are not an Xbox One owner</i>.<br />
<br />
It's almost a relief how clear and cavalier Microsoft is being about this, in fact. If you have concerns about this system, that's okay with them: they do not want your money, your business, or your patronage. They do not value you as a potential consumer of their goods, and they do not care if you are aware of their contempt.<br />
<br />
It's good to know, I suppose.<br />
<br />
Of course, American broadband infrastructure is notoriously spotty and challenging. For the first two years my husband and I lived together, our connection was unstable and prone to fits of going at dial-up speeds or simply dropping out altogether. Comcast eventually fixed the wiring and solved the problem, but this was not long ago or far away. This was 2008-2009, in metro Washington, DC. The nation's capital.<br />
<br />
Yes, our internet service was fixed and now works as well as we pay for it to. And yet Comcast can throttle service to our whole building anytime they want, if my media-savvy neighbors and I appear to be sucking down too much of their precious bandwidth. So it goes, in densely populated areas: a thinly-shared resource can mean rationing.<br />
<br />
And all this, of course, does not even make mention of our global neighbors, and how tricky heavy reliance on high-bandwidth internet connections can be in such tiny countries as Australia and Canada. Nobody in those places wants to play Xbox games, right?<br />
<br />
The always-on, fully global web really is the wave of the future. I won't fight it (though I might tie an onion to my belt and tell you all to get off my lawn) but the truth of the matter is, we're still not there yet. Tiny pockets of us are, and Microsoft is doing the best they can to erect stockades around those pockets and hanging handwritten signs over the gates that say "go away." It is certainly their right do do so. But contemptuously driving away groups of people who could spend their money with you strikes me as an incredibly bad idea in an ever-tighter and more crowded entertainment market.K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-24554986983234425222013-05-22T15:52:00.000-04:002013-05-22T16:06:36.329-04:00Guest Post: On Xbox One and Television<i>Your Critic's partner is usually silent on the blog; he prefers it that way. In light of the recent Xbox One reveal announcement, however, he has asked for the platform to provide a guest post with some industry expertise, and I am more than happy to provide it. And so, I am pleased to present a look at how Microsoft's approach to television and cable is somewhat misguided and out of date, by Matt Cox. </i><br>
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<a href="http://www.your-critic.com/2013/05/guest-post-on-xbox-one-and-television.html#more">Read more »</a>K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-53171477924449142732013-02-26T08:30:00.000-05:002013-02-26T08:30:03.297-05:00Antichamber, Unhealthy Relationships, and putting Mass Effect in the Smithsonian (again).Back in December, I got an e-mail that made my day. It was an editor for <i>Smithsonian Magazine</i>, asking if I'd be interested in taking on a short piece looking at the use of film noir style lighting in video games.<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/What-Does-Citizen-Kane-Have-to-Do-With-Mass-Effect-2-192101611.html">finished piece</a> is indeed very short (I could definitely write a few thousand more words on the topic) but I had a great deal of fun writing it and my editor was excellent to work with. It's in print on newsstands today, in the March 2013 issue, or available <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/What-Does-Citizen-Kane-Have-to-Do-With-Mass-Effect-2-192101611.html">online</a>.<br />
<br />
My picture is on <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/magazine/Contributors-Mar-13-191880031.html">the Contributors page</a> for the issue and everything. Next to Jane F*cking Goodall. I'll probably be pleased with this for quite some time to come.<br />
<br />
(And yes, that's the piece that inspired my <a href="http://www.your-critic.com/2012/12/the-surprising-moral-clarity-of-mass.html">meditation on light</a> in <i>ME3</i>.) <br />
<br />
In other work I am pleased with, I have been doing some light contributing to <a href="http://gameological.com/">Gameological</a>, who are also a delight to work with and a fount of patience. I pitched in to the <a href="http://gameological.com/2013/02/15-dysfunctional-relationships-in-games/">Valentine's Day Inventory of Unhealthy Relationships</a> in games (guys guys guys there are <i>so many</i>) and I got to review <i>Antichamber</i>, which is a delicious mindscrew of a game. I found its logic best explained <a href="http://gameological.com/2013/02/review-antichamber/">in the language of the dreamer</a>. K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-39748795939704111172013-02-21T13:12:00.000-05:002013-02-21T13:46:48.595-05:00Another Day, Another Press ConferenceThis isn't even about the PlayStation 4 at all, actually. My opinion on that is currently irrelevant: it seems like a PC circa 2011, only it can't also run productivity software. It'll be six months before the details that matter are available for me to form a strong opinion. We'll probably end up with one in the house in 2014. That is neither here nor there.<br />
<br />
This is about the press conference at which Sony announced the PlayStation 4.<br />
<br />
Sony's big problem: diversity. The vast majority of presenters on-stage were white men, a huge percentage of whom were even sporting the same haircut and glasses. The exceptions were a small handful of Japanese businessmen. Naturally, the circles I hang out in on Twitter took exception to this. When Patricia Hernandez gave it <a href="http://kotaku.com/5985822/why-were-there-no-women-presenters-at-the-playstation-4-event">a mention on Kotaku</a>, the <a href="https://twitter.com/LineHollis/status/304663203751788544">predictable troglodytes</a> crawled out of the woodwork to leave nasty comments.<br />
<br />
One <a href="http://kotaku.com/people/hsuadfhaspodhf">jerk</a>, though, nailed the actual problem without even realizing he had. In trying to explain why everything Patricia wrote was an invalid complaint, he said: <i>"The reason there were no women on-stage is because the presidents and
developers who happened to develop the software being presented happened
to be male. It is not part of some sexist agenda, it just so happens
that the people behind the creation of the content being presented
happened to be men."</i><br />
<br />
DING DING DING DING DING.<br />
<br />
This is, in fact, <b>exactly the problem</b>. There are no women in leadership at Sony and, if there are, SCE does not feel comfortable bringing them into presentations or the public eye. In fact, I can't recall ever seeing a woman executive presenting for Sony, despite the fact that many of their best game franchises and studios have very <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0377339/">high-ranking</a> women <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1936241/">making them</a>. So why, in 2013, is Sony still so resistant to having women in its top echelons? I refuse to believe that, worldwide and especially in the Americas, there are no competent female executives -- except for that the systems that generate executives continue to favor a very narrow spectrum of men.<br />
<br />
I have no love for Microsoft or for the 360, but during their major press conferences at E3 and so on, they almost always have women on stage at some point, even if they are generally presenting non-gaming, non-"core," family-friendly tools and features.<br />
<br />
I am sure that most of the men on stage were perfectly lovely fellows. But the narrowness of that particular slice of humanity really hit home when one came on stage to introduce what was later revealed to be a new <i>inFamous</i> game. "In 1999, I got tear gassed at a protest," he began his story, which went on to feed in to the <a href="http://kotaku.com/5917417/we-are-scared-right-now-what-todays-video-games-say-about-the-moment-we-live-in">current era of paranoia</a>. The cops, it turns out, <i>aren't always 100% good</i>.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.dailytech.com/California+Cops+Arrest+Harass+Man+for+Videotaping+Them+on+the+Job/article29272.htm">Really</a>.<br />
<br />
You <a href="http://www.care2.com/causes/trans-woman-sues-d-c-police-for-harassment.html">don't say</a>.<br />
<br />
I'm sure there is <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/07/driving-while-black/307625/">no population out there</a> who <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-28/the-plight-of-young-black-men-is-worse-than-you-think">could have told you that</a>. Every day. For the last century.<br />
<br />
The statement was not ill-intentioned; far from it. It was naive, and came from a place of privilege, from one very specific outlook. It was a statement from a guy born into a population that doesn't routinely have trouble with cops, TO a population that doesn't routinely have trouble with cops.<br />
<br />
And that's the kind of statement that comes out of a really, really narrow outlook. When everyone looks the same and shares the same life experiences, nobody's going to introduce a new perspective into a presentation. So you get more of the same, designed for the same people, even as the audience gets continually <a href="http://www.theesa.com/facts/gameplayer.asp">more diverse</a> in <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2008/Adults-and-Video-Games/1-Data-Memo.aspx">every way</a>.<br />
<br />
What happens next? I guess that's up to Microsoft, and we find out at E3.K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-42797837084306677482013-01-10T15:59:00.001-05:002013-01-10T16:05:26.843-05:00I am not a racecar; I am not a man.<br />
<a href="http://killscreendaily.com/headlines/its-very-seldom-you-see-player-not-care-about-what-token-represents-them-game-board/">Kill Screen</a> posted a single quotation today, and it struck me quite deeply. From a <i>Monopoly</i> expert:<br />
<br />
"It's very seldom that you see a player not care about what token represents them on the game board."<br />
<br />
That's it. One sentence. And that sentence is about, quite literally, <i>Monopoly</i> game pieces. And yet, in a certain way, it's one of the most revealing and useful things I've ever seen written about games.<br />
<br />
The speaker, <i>Monopoly</i> expert Philip Orbanes, is right, of course. Any of us who has ever played the game, particularly in childhood, knows the ritual.<br />
<br />
"I call the thimble!"<br />
"Dibs on the dog!"<br />
"The racecar is mine!"<br />
(Nobody ever wants the iron.)<br />
<br />
The game world of <i>Monopoly</i> is in some ways as abstract as they come. Its colorful painted squares represent streets, avenues, neighborhoods; they represent socioeconomic strata and an insurmountable class and economic system. Those little pewter-toned chunks of daily life we steer in circles 'round the board are our avatars, representing us as we navigate this world. Even in a system this abstract, avatar representation matters.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://art-eater.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/2lcpnav.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://art-eater.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/2lcpnav.jpg" width="162" /></a></div>
In video games, avatars run the gamut from completely abstract, as in <i>Lim</i> or <i>Thomas Was Alone,</i>
to compulsively detailed, as in every AAA game of every year for the
better part of two decades. When those avatars are compulsively
detailed, they are almost always white men.<br />
<br />
It's like living in a world where the only <i>Monopoly</i>
token one is allowed to choose is the racecar. I don't want to be the
racecar. I took the racecar because it was the only option given to me,
after everyone else involved had their say first, and decided my outlook didn't matter.<br />
<br />
The story of the racecar has gotten boring. I don't care how <a href="http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/1/10/3853198/ken-levine-bioshock-infinite-vgas">well-written</a>
a profile is; I am tired of the story of the man who wanted to find a
girlfriend. I don't care how well-written the supporting or alternate cast is; I am
tired of them not being front and center. I don't care about all of the
daddy issues that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Effect_2">show up</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dead_Redemption">in every</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_3">damn game</a>; I want a dramatic story about mothers. Or women. Or anything new at all, really.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9MgP1tGjlY-JtJ-sdR1zOhXIElvxuXYXRbITougOpejNdeslhYBD0tnie5xCDvLvrtsS3KR14-RPMBHvLc0dPetr_ops7BTdRPjV3qdr_s5phiFGipdkSChIIW7_p6DPwogWLSiAXRLCi/s1600/manlyboxes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9MgP1tGjlY-JtJ-sdR1zOhXIElvxuXYXRbITougOpejNdeslhYBD0tnie5xCDvLvrtsS3KR14-RPMBHvLc0dPetr_ops7BTdRPjV3qdr_s5phiFGipdkSChIIW7_p6DPwogWLSiAXRLCi/s400/manlyboxes.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Box art: <i>Halo 4;</i> <i>Mass Effect 3</i>; <i>BioShock Infinite</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Everyone seems to understand, instinctively, that it's okay to have strong feelings about your <i>Monopoly</i> piece. From a young age, we got passionate about the dog, or the car, or the shoe (but never the iron), and that was all right. So why does similar passion about digital avatars create such a hue and cry? If you say you are tired of the slate of straight white men, you are a whiner. You do not understand that "sex sells." You are a troublemaker. You are a "feminist bitch" <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/culture/anita-sarkeesian-ted-talk-misogynist-comments/">and worse</a>. <br />
<br />
I am not a racecar.<br />
<br />
I am not a man.<br />
<br />
I am tired.K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-91632486996591061962012-12-31T15:44:00.000-05:002012-12-31T15:44:03.381-05:00Happy New YearI don't have a game of the year. In the same way that multiple games left profound and lasting influences on me <a href="http://www.your-critic.com/2012/01/happy-new-year-etc.html">in 2011</a>, several have likewise done so in 2012--<i>Journey</i>, <i>Mass Effect 3</i>, and <i>The Walking Dead</i> among them.<br />
<br />
So instead of writing any kind of GOTY post, I will instead direct readers to Sparky Clarkson's <a href="http://ludo.mwclarkson.com/2012/12/the-year-of-the-games/">The Year of the Games</a> roundup, a collection to which I and nearly a dozen of my colleagues and peers contributed. It's been a fascinating year, as the big-budget, AAA games wrap up franchises and stall out, waiting on a new console generation, and as indie and avant-garde-inspired gaming well and truly comes into its own.<br />
<br />
Likewise, Critical Distance has once again rounded up <a href="http://www.critical-distance.com/2012/12/30/this-year-in-video-game-blogging-2012/">their must-read highlights of the year</a>, and they are indeed pieces that should be read.<br />
<br />
And as for me? Well. I had many, many beginnings in 2012, and some endings too. I look forward to seeing what games inspire me to write <a href="http://www.your-critic.com/search/label/mass%20effect">too much</a> in 2013.K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-59568433854256686742012-12-29T13:52:00.000-05:002012-12-31T15:41:48.443-05:00The Surprising Moral Clarity of Mass Effect 3I've been working on a commissioned feature about film noir lighting in video games. Without going into what I'm writing in that essay, my very first thought was: "Oh, that's easy. I've played <i>Mass Effect 2</i>."<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6tlQDxOlmWjrEITLAMynID4lnnBUsd7SXQJAPsqvWm-e9cAxXE8AfEi7Is8hP8Y46cGDB1vIP3nSSu_UtEzUYEonblUPF1cH4mSp7NJlt4TU40kUuNcNcXnpDhmojRWgmdG3bzPo00RBS/s1600/2012-01-07_00012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6tlQDxOlmWjrEITLAMynID4lnnBUsd7SXQJAPsqvWm-e9cAxXE8AfEi7Is8hP8Y46cGDB1vIP3nSSu_UtEzUYEonblUPF1cH4mSp7NJlt4TU40kUuNcNcXnpDhmojRWgmdG3bzPo00RBS/s400/2012-01-07_00012.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's <i>Blade Runner</i>! It's <i>Double Indemnity</i>! No, wait: it's Thane!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<i>ME2</i> casts Shepard in an ambiguous moral position. Not only does the paragon/renegade problem carry over from the first game, but its effects are amplified dramatically. With interrupts added to the game--sudden, one-click decision points that add to Shepard's paragon or renegade scores--as well as charm and intimidate keying to reputation, rather than to skill points, the question of Shepard's soul begins to matter more.<br />
<br />
As well, she is in a more tenuous position with regards to, well, everything. Now employed by the shadowy Illusive Man, she is working for Cerberus, known from the first game only as a terrorist organization. The crew she assembles around her is full of misfits, exiles, and murders who, if we're lucky, mostly turn out to have hearts of gold, or at least good intentions.<br />
<br />
Of course, we all know where the road paved with good intentions leads.<br />
<br />
The essay in question will be running in early 2013, and I have been asked to make it current, to tie it to one or more big 2012 releases. Knowing how strongly <i>Mass Effect 2</i> relies on the conventions of film noir and neo-noir, I thought that my sprawling, ludicrous collection (1800+) of <i>Mass Effect 3</i> screenshots would lend me the perfect inspiration.<br />
<br />
I was wrong.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuCJ8jgiNOd_iP4aRddIta7bZ13cI4CdpGtnFwL08Z1lr2CKqXFSBquFuTyywAXL9HwuG-vR9OoQzAvZ21EI_HyQa08IBVTAgA4tkwNAJbVkJfYt9LcUhS_otzZNW5ZlBFnbavzaXa1erV/s1600/2012-05-16_00013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuCJ8jgiNOd_iP4aRddIta7bZ13cI4CdpGtnFwL08Z1lr2CKqXFSBquFuTyywAXL9HwuG-vR9OoQzAvZ21EI_HyQa08IBVTAgA4tkwNAJbVkJfYt9LcUhS_otzZNW5ZlBFnbavzaXa1erV/s400/2012-05-16_00013.jpg" width="400" /> </a></div>
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With only a handful of exceptions (as in the shuttle, above), Shepard's lighting in <i>Mass Effect 3</i> is surprisingly clear and unambiguous. Even when she is in a visually dark location, the lighting spares her. Shadows fall around her, but not on her; even her companions are largely of the light.</div>
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As the game itself gets darker, in every possible sense of the word, the ambiguity becomes stripped away from the <i>Normandy</i> and its passengers just as it becomes stripped away from the plot. Yes, every decision has consequences, and the strings of three games' worth of choices bear out in many meaningful ways. But even while that matters, the time for ambiguity is, simply, behind Shepard and behind us.</div>
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By <i>ME3</i>, the reapers are here. They are destroying worlds, cultures, civilizations, life... everything. There is no question of "sides," of "morality." Respect her (paragon) or fear her (renegade), Shepard is our hero and the hero's time is now.</div>
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In fact, the more I browse my enormous gallery of images, the more I feel like <i>Mass Effect 3</i> is lit with a series of spotlights. Where <i>Mass Effect 2</i> threw diagonal shadows around the place to create effect, <i>ME3</i> is doing everything it can with framing, light, and color to highlight our heroes, fighting to the end in a darkened world.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh2rvRTfR1WTwW11S7RG5kz-x1cR9PympAQkMIWevX4wW_T6FiWhwDuflKo8DEJKJLP2DxcDnUeMyubDPXKe_D3vTcHwyUwmtYcnM4nW-uOjxwsyeymxh1SxCCM8pgE6oRMha1mrAwUwyI/s1600/2012-05-21_00003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh2rvRTfR1WTwW11S7RG5kz-x1cR9PympAQkMIWevX4wW_T6FiWhwDuflKo8DEJKJLP2DxcDnUeMyubDPXKe_D3vTcHwyUwmtYcnM4nW-uOjxwsyeymxh1SxCCM8pgE6oRMha1mrAwUwyI/s400/2012-05-21_00003.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sometimes that world is darkened a little too literally.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Indeed, even in an area and on a mission where moral ambiguity and character confusion could easily have been added, the game avoids that construction. I am speaking of a point somewhere near the end of Act 2 (relatively speaking) where the asari Council representative has summoned Shepard, to impart a secret and necessary piece of information.</div>
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The asari's motives and goals are unclear. She could be honest; she could be dishonest. Shepard's reaction is unclear: the player can be angry or resigned. The conversation takes place in an office, where light and posing could easily have conveyed ambiguity and confusion. Instead, the conversation is brightly lit, with all the whites the Citadel presidium has to offer. The greatest distance the scene ever creates comes through framing one shot on the other side of a window, hinting at a sense of voyeurism and eavesdropping.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS4gEBtM7pr9q4q3z2zzU_oZ-adcyZI0I_BEMiD1FptuNJLJ-Cj3ICAFiVxDmtXdAF7OUdoqpsIt_WZazigRhrCFOda4ZpB3TXJZlqJcAGwmoK1uN4uQSYh4EYVax9oh9fGt4kF1-CgxNF/s1600/2012-06-02_00008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS4gEBtM7pr9q4q3z2zzU_oZ-adcyZI0I_BEMiD1FptuNJLJ-Cj3ICAFiVxDmtXdAF7OUdoqpsIt_WZazigRhrCFOda4ZpB3TXJZlqJcAGwmoK1uN4uQSYh4EYVax9oh9fGt4kF1-CgxNF/s400/2012-06-02_00008.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You know, if you had mentioned this BEFORE your planet was invaded, that would have been helpful.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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By the time the Shepard's saga reaches its third and final game, that which is... well, is. Most of the questions and mysteries are removed from the story, and the moral ambiguity of our players along with. This is not a game for introducing new characters, or questioning their motives; this is a time to revisit the consequences of the stories we already told, and resolving the fates of characters we already know.</div>
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Even knowing that, though, I was surprised at how strongly the visuals bear that out. Subconsciously, they of course reinforced that message the entire time I was playing. That's what visual language does.</div>
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There is also, of course, an exception. Or in fact, a pair of exceptions. The <i>Leviathan</i> and <i>Omega</i> DLC add-ons each provide dozens of examples of moral ambiguity and character confusion conveyed through noir-like use of light and shadow. And it makes sense: these are the segments of game that introduce new characters and new concepts that stand slightly to the side of the hero's straightforward quest for war resources. Aria, Nyreen, and even the Leviathan itself are all moral wildcards when they are introduced, standing aside from Shepard's binary perspective, and so the lighting lets us stand in Shepard's shoes for a little while, uncertain about who we have just met.</div>
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K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-88549567750235158912012-12-19T18:41:00.000-05:002012-12-19T18:41:57.303-05:00In which I develop an opinion on Capcom<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I really had no particularly strong feelings on either Capcom or on their upcoming <i>Devil May Cry</i> game until today.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">But then, via <a href="https://twitter.com/SamitSarkar/status/281539333926842368">Samit Sarkar</a>, there was <a href="http://www.polygon.com/2012/12/19/3785920/capcom-holiday-card-dmc-devil-may-cry-dante">this</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a href="http://cdn2.sbnation.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/5301025/capcom-holiday-card-dmc_840.0_cinema_960.0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://cdn2.sbnation.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/5301025/capcom-holiday-card-dmc_840.0_cinema_960.0.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">That, right there, is the Christmas card that Capcom PR sent out this year.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Not only is Dante--that charming fellow on the left, there--surrounded by angels, but the angels are, of course:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">women</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">light-skinned women</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">big-busted light-skinned women</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">big-busted light-skinned women with hourglass figures</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">big-busted light-skinned women with hourglass figures and prodigious, posed posteriors</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">And this partridge in the pear tree of disgusting is, of course, the one lady angel on her back, her mouth oh-so-suggestively aligned with Dante's crotch. And JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED IT, he's pointing to her head.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Wow.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I didn't care about Capcom until now. But as of today, they're on my personal shit list--there to remain, I suspect, more or less permanently.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Well done, Capcom PR! </span>K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-81762357282528911422012-12-03T12:58:00.000-05:002012-12-03T12:58:49.435-05:00Music<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Back in the summer of 2011, <i>Kill Screen</i> was taking pitches for pieces for their sound issue. I sent one in; Chris Dahlen, the editor-in-chief, accepted it.</span></span><br>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It was the first piece I ever sold. "Giddy" doesn't even begin to describe how happy I was. I had enormous respect for the magazine and couldn't believe I'd get to be among the all-star list of contributors on that front page.</span></span><br>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Alas, the piece got cut for space, and although Chris originally planned for it to fit into the following issue, he left <i>Kill Screen</i> and the new editors chose to take subsequent issues in a new direction. My piece no longer fit.</span></span><br>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I showed it to Kirk Hamilton, the Melodic block editor, when I first came to Kotaku, and we agreed that it was great and that we should do the hard work of editing it to fit, sometime, but (more due to me than to him), "sometime" never managed to come before my time at the site ran out.</span></span><br>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So.</span></span><br>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It's not perfect, and it could use an editor, but here's that piece, in its entirety. Because sometimes, you just need your music to make you a goddamn space marine.</span></span><br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.your-critic.com/2012/12/music.html#more">Read more »</a>K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-4815406270638772462012-12-02T09:55:00.000-05:002012-12-02T09:55:09.342-05:00Go read thisFile under, "I really wish I had written this:" Katherine Cross's "<a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/article/game-changer">Game Changer</a>."<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It is hardly surprising that some men perceive the gaming world as, in
Kimmel’s words, a “virtual men’s locker room” threatened by the presence
of women. When women inhabit this space, claim visibility, and attempt
to shape it, their presence becomes an existential threat to that “not
PC” safe space that some of these young men enjoy. When abuse occurs,
the conceit is that it’s “just a game,” which enables people to—in the
words of one of Kimmel’s interviewees—“offend everyone!” It’s not like
real life, which is too, well, <em>real</em> to risk flagrantly
violating norms of decorum. But, at the same time, these male gamers
know that the space is a real, tangible thing, in need of protection.
Their “offending” serves to police the boundaries of who can and cannot
inhabit gaming culture, and to keep out people who threaten “their”
space. </blockquote>
<br />
Cross does her homework and her research, and articulates very clearly and cleanly the theories that I--and anyone else who examines sexism in gaming--have bandied about for ages. She even looks at the moving goalposts: if women like it, <a href="http://www.your-critic.com/2010/09/if-its-for-women-it-must-be-stupid-pt-2.html">it is no longer</a> a "real game." <br />
<br />
<br />K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-64929994267830268872012-11-29T16:46:00.000-05:002012-11-29T16:46:04.985-05:00What It's Like Inside My BrainLast night, we were playing <i>Red Dead Redemption</i>. I had successfully steered the ponypony somewhere and M was shooting some guys. They probably deserved it. I made some offhand comment about the game.<br />
<br />
"Well, it <i>is </i>a Western," he replied.<br />
<br />
"Maybe in a sense, all games are kind of Westerns," I mused.<br />
<br />
"There's an article," he quipped back.<br />
<br />
*** <br />
<br />
If my thought process resembles anything, it's probably the <a href="https://twitter.com/PeterMolydeux">Molydeux</a> Twitter account. I tilt my brain and stuff falls out. Sometimes it's awesome. Sometimes it's not. When it manages to connect to something else that's rattling around in there, it's an article.<br />
<br />
*** <br />
<br />
"The word 'yellow' wandered through his mind in search of something to connect with. Fifteen seconds later he was out of the house and lying in front of a big yellow bulldozer that was advancing up his garden path."<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
I'm not quite sure why I thought that all games were Westerns, but if I sat back to argue it, I bet I'd come up with a connection. Something about the lone hero, probably, but then that would have me delving back into my film history books to define why the hero of the Western was the way he was.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
In my self-image and self-perception, I still <a href="http://www.your-critic.com/2010/11/girls-dont-suck-at-consoles-i-suck-at.html">suck at consoles</a>. Despite having played a huge number of games on the PS3 this year for review and for fun. Why was I so surprised that steering the ponypony around the not-entirely-wild-but-wild-enough-West of the turn of the last century wasn't hard for me? After dozens or hundreds of hours of PS3 time, why am I still surprised at myself for, yes, knowing how to use the blasted machine?<br />
<br />
*** <br />
<br />
When I came back to the blog this week, I discovered twenty-three (23!) abandoned drafts and half-drafts from over the years. Some had their best paragraphs lifted and folded into <a href="http://www.your-critic.com/2011/11/on-choosing-role.html">other things</a>; others just sit, as husks, with their careless author having long since forgotten why they were important to begin with.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
There are notes on the whiteboard on my wall, on post-its all over my desk, jotted into the little notebook I keep tucked inside my purse. "Kinect - class - space - McMansion - who games for" is one that makes sense. I can remember that. And it's written down twice, which means I thought it was important at least twice.<br />
<br />
*** <br />
<br />
Maybe "Beyond the Girl Gamer" would be a good title for a weekly
column, somewhere, that addresses topical gender issues in gaming.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
I have a note that says "JUST LIKE <i>Dark Souls</i>," a game I have never, in fact, actually played.<br />
<br />
*** <br />
<br />
<a href="http://theoatmeal.com/comics/making_things">This is the truest comic I have ever read</a>. Among many true comics.<br />
<br />
<br />
*** <br />
<br />
I've got three separate notes on the nature of online multiplayer as the 21st century continues to unfold, two on <i>Sherlock Holmes</i> (the 2009 movie), and one full angry screed about over-reliance on the Cold War that, somwhere in the middle, morphed into a meditation on how the maturity of game narratives is attached to the maturity of the cinema it chose, unnecessarily, to ape.<br />
<br />
That one about how combat is and isn't a useful mechanism for storytelling--that's one I keep promising myself to write. I know a dozen other folks already have. Someday, I'll have to do it anyway.<br />
<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Today, I feel like I am out of ideas. I am dwarfed, overawed, by the incredible things my colleagues and peers--my friends--have written.<br />
<br />
I hate those people.<br />
<br />
I love those people.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The thing is, if I wrote that column, I'd become, even more than I am, that "girl" writer. Not that game writer. Or that writer.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Until Tuesday night, I had the <i>Omega</i> review to hang onto. I played it. I wrote about it. And then it was done. Two days, two measly days, without the anchor and already I am asking the cat if Communism really <i>was</i> just a red herring, and why Gandhi is always such an asshole in <i>Civ</i> games.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Everyone's wished me luck, asked where I'm going next. I'm not being coy or teasing when I say that even I don't know; I really don't know. Aside from trying to convince the Commonwealth of Virginia that they are the ones who owe me unemployment, and that they can't fob me off on New York or Maryland, I really don't know what I'll be doing next week.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
I'll be vacuuming my apartment like mad. Twice. Each day. My cat-allergic parents are coming to town the week after.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
I want my friends and colleagues and peers to be wildly successful, famous, rewarded with piles of cash.<br />
<br />
I want to pay my rent.<br />
<br />
I really hate competitive games. <br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
I really, really want a Coke. Or maybe a beer. Maybe I can learn to like beer.<br />
<br />
Maybe I can learn to like a lot of things.<br />
<br />
I'd learned to like Kotaku. A lot. Really a lot.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
I always said I hated BioWare-style RPGs and then 2010 and 2011 and 2012 and <i>Mass Effect 3</i> and <i>Dragon Age 2</i> came and went and now even the people who make those games have publicly noticed my rather excessive love for them. I still have a paycheck, for another week. Time to get the <i>Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition</i> and teach myself some history.<br />
<br />
Then I can write about the experience.<br />
<br />
That's an article.K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-37309324815438745162012-11-27T11:12:00.000-05:002012-12-08T16:32:22.843-05:00Oh, my, it's quite dusty in here...Oh, hello. *blows the dust off the blog* I, er, let things sit around here for rather a long time, didn't I. <br>
<br>
So, I said back in February that I was going to try to do a monthly best-of link roundup to my work from Kotaku. That promise very clearly fell by the wayside, and hard. Sorry about that. I just ran out of steam, most weeks. But better late than never, right?<br>
<br>
Anyway, a roundup is easier when you know where it ends. It has been a privilege and a pleasure working with the team at Kotaku. It certainly made 2012 interesting in a number of unexpected ways. That particular adventure, though, has drawn to a conclusion; the site and I officially part ways on December 1. It's time for a new adventure.<br>
<br>
Meanwhile, I've got a veritable mountain of links after the jump. It's not everything I posted at the site (most weekdays, I ran between 3 and 8 stories); just the ones I can remember as a best-of. Criticism, impressions, and general essays are arranged by month, with all the full game reviews (all of 'em) afterward in alphabetical order. Because I am nothing if not compulsively organized.<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.your-critic.com/2012/11/oh-my-its-quite-dusty-in-here.html#more">Read more »</a>K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-886868484666652260.post-5380197543803191442012-05-30T23:28:00.000-04:002012-05-30T23:28:05.533-04:00"So what's it like...?"<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
In the past just-over-three months, many friends and acquaintances have all asked me the same question:</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
"So what's it like, working at Kotaku?"</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
In terms of the day-to-day details, my colleague Kirk Hamilton's <a href="http://kirkhamilton.com/2012/05/20/a-week-in-the-life-of-a-kotaku-writer/">look at a week in the life</a> is, while obviously different in the details, pretty similar in the big picture.</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</div>
<a href="http://www.your-critic.com/2012/05/so-whats-it-like.html#more">Read more »</a>K. Coxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06554183349391372039noreply@blogger.com6