On Skyrim and Bias

So this little video I made has caused quite the kerfuffle over at NeoGAF. I wasn’t going to address it, because I’m trying to reduce the amount of e-conflict (.comflict?) in my life. But the more I thought about it (and the more I saw some well-reasoned debate on the topic there) I started to suspect it might be — as my girlfriend Oprah says — a teachable moment.

One of the things I’m proudest of at Joystiq is how we work to eliminate opportunities for bias whenever possible. We don’t take trips paid for by publishers/developers. We don’t accept gifts. We try not to get too close to people making games (or at least recuse ourselves from covering products they make if it happens). Why? Well, we believe that if it’s not a gift or trip or back rub presented to the reader, then the reader — rightfully or not — might assume we let that perk color our judgment.

“But Justin, Oblivion is your favorite game. Isn’t it a double standard to let someone who’s biased towards loving Oblivion review its sequel?”

I don’t believe it is, and here’s why: It’s a bias that any reader could come by on their own. In fact, in this case, I would wager to say that most people considering a purchase of Skyrim really enjoyed Oblivion, because otherwise, what are they doing? Actually, let me take that one step farther. I think if you didn’t really enjoy Oblivion and you’re reviewing Skyrim that’s enough of an outlier in the “possible Skyrim purchasers” group that you may want to consider disclosing it.

The fallacy on behalf of people who suggested I shouldn’t be allowed to review Skyrim is that I’ll in some way be inclined to be unfairly kind to Skyrim because I loved Obvlivion so much. Seriously, have you guys not met any game critics? Or, indeed, the internet? My biggest worry about reviewing Skyrim is that it will in any way disappoint me and I will, as a result, savage it. But being aware of that bias and compensating for it is the work of any good critic of anything. You can eliminate all the outside marketing influence you like, but any reviewer is going to bring some level of baggage to any review, because they’re human beings. The trick, to crib a line from Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning musical Rent, is finding a critic with baggage that goes with yours. Or, perhaps even more productively, reading the thoughts of several critics with disparate baggage and then watching all their slideshows and deciding for yourself … you know … what Hawaii looks like. Or something.

The people reading about video games are excited about them. And the people arguing about them on sites like NeoGAF are really excited about them. I think the moment that a game critic falls out of step with those groups is the moment they should get into PR.

Sorry, that was a joke.

They should get into marketing.

Again, sorry. Still totally joking.

Anor Londo: A Musical Tribute

This is my haunting musical tribute to Dark Souls. I quit it last night, but needed a more fitting way to say goodbye.

The Office: “Character Study”, a spec script I wrote

Character Study – An Office Spec Script
So this is kinda weird for me, but I figure it this way: Fuck it.

This is a spec script I wrote for “The Office.” I don’t think it’s terrible, but I don’t think it’s great either. It was mostly written to teach myself the format, conventions, etc. But now that Michael Scott’s off the show (and they did a theater-heavy plot last season with Andy), I figure this ship has officially sailed. Rather than just leave it to rot on my hard drive, I’ll leave it to rot here, on my WordPress blog. Hope you get a chuckle out of it.

JUSTIN McELROY in ONE OF OUR ASTEROIDS IS MISSING, a story by Ben Paddon

Ben Paddon writes a blog called Game Journos. It’s sometimes mean and sometimes right and sometimes both. This is a story I commissioned about myself by Ben. The theme I requested was “Justin McElroy, hero to all.” I think it’s great, and I think I need to pay for part 2 right away. Enjoy.

PART ONE

“From the trajectory, it appears the asteroid will hit the Earth in approximately 72 hours,” said the General.

The President placed a cigarette between his lips, lit it, and inhaled sharply.

“Is there anything we can do?” he asked.

“We’ve liaised with several world governments, sir. Japan, China, Great Britain, Germany, France. No-one has the facilities to bring this asteroid down. We’ve also considered several suggestions from Michael Bay, Jerry Bruckheimer, Steven Spielberg, and Roland Emmerich, all of whom agree it’s far too late to mount a daredevil mission to the surface of the asteroid to blow it up.”

“Who’s Roland Emmerich?”

“He directed a number of ‘disaster porn’ films, sir. ‘Independence Day’, ‘2012’, ‘The Day After Tomorrow’,‘Godzilla’…”

“Does ‘Godzilla’ count as a disaster movie?” asked the President.

“Hard to see how a giant monster rampaging through a major American city could be seen as anything other than a disaster, sir.”

The President stood up, and looked out of a nearby window. The view was unspectacular – they were a mile deep underground – but he’d requested the windows be installed so that he could look out of them in a contemplative manner.

He turned to the General, and flicked his cigarette at an unfortunately-positioned intern. “What about Initiative J?” he asked.

The General shuffled in his seat. “With respect, sir, Initiative J hasn’t even been tested yet. We’ve no way of knowing if it’s even suitable for a large-scale disaster of this magnitude.”

“Well, we’re about to find out,” the President said, smiling.
~*~
Justin McElroy stepped out of the car wearing a finely-cut black suit and the most expensive aviator shades money can buy ($34.95 plus tax). He walked towards Air Force One where the President awaited his arrival.

“It’s an absolute honor to finally meet you.”

“You needn’t stand on ceremony with me, Mr. President. I’m just here to do a job.”

It is as this point that you may wonder exactly what Justin McElroy looks like. Mere words cannot convey this man’s exceptional good looks. Indeed, the movie rights for this story have already been optioned by a major movie studio based on McElroy’s looks alone, however all involved in production have asked that he be portrayed by British actor Matt Berry who, while certainly handsome, is just odd-looking enough to make all of the other actors feel a little bit better about themselves. McElroy himself has signed a lengthy contract forbidding him from appearing on set to avoid any work stoppages and tantrums from the actors.

Aboard the plane, McElroy laid out his plan.

“It’s a simple three-fold operation,” said McElroy. “First, I go up to the asteroid. Secondly, I punch the asteroid in the face. Finally, upon my return, there’s an orgy.”

“Are you sure?” asked the General.

“It’s more likely than not. Orgies tend to just happen when I’m around. We’re having an orgy right now.”

“I think he was referring to the second part of your plan,” said the President, wiping a small glob of butter from his eye. “You honestly think you can stop this asteroid by punching it?”

“In the face, yes,” nodded McElroy, maneuvering himself so as not to be kicked in the face by a female intern.

“Do asteroids even have faces?” asked the General. “My dear General,” McElroy smiled. “Do you know nothing about Astronomy?”
~*~
Several hours later, McElroy was strapped into a space shuttle and blasted into the sky. Millions watched the event on TV and via a live web stream. The fate of the world rested in the hands of a man determined to punch an asteroid in the face.

The shuttle touched down upon what McElroy had dubbed the “hair” of the asteroid. The airlock doors hissed open, and McElroy took his first steps out onto the surface.

He looked up at the earth, looming above him. The blue marble.

He looked down to the asteroid. He clenched his fists, let out a mighty cry, and punched it in the face.

All around the earth, people watched in awe as the asteroid suddenly stopped moving towards the planet, instead spinning off into the depths of space, never to be seen again.

“McElroy, this is mission control. You did it! Come on home. Over.” Silence. “McElroy? Come in.” Still silence.

McElroy had known all along he wouldn’t be able to return. He’d watched ‘Armageddon’ recently, and he’d always felt an affinity with Bruce Willis. While he was right about the orgy that would ensue after the success of his mission – an orgy that would be held globally on this day every year afterwards in his honor – he would not be able to participate.

But there would be other planets. And, more importantly, there would be other orgies. Space orgies.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Corrected Reviewer’s Guide for Epic Mickey

[Reference]

Gaming’s rubber chicken problem

One of my acting professors in college had this saying “One rubber chicken funny, one thousand rubber chickens, one thousand times funny!” He used to say it with an Eastern European accent, which I never quite understood, but the point he was making was this: Just because something is funny doesn’t mean more of that thing will still be funny.

This was rammed home to me recently as I played … well, that’s not important. The important thing is that it was a funny game, or at least was designed to be. It had a cute premise, a fun lead character and some clever writing. But it was also pretty tough, meaning that I was hearing a lot of that writing many, many times. There were plenty of occasions where I initially laughed at gags, only to curse them through gritted teeth as they were repeated at me mockingly for the 1,000th time. Some were high-quality rubber chickens, but they quickly lost their luster as identical ones piled up.

In what genre would you say comedy has been the most effective? Right, adventure games. I’ve always assumed that game from the people creating them (and it certainly does) but what if their structure is just as much to thank? Think about it, when you’re playing an adventure game there’s typically no risk of death or failure, meaning there’s practically no reason you should have to hear any joke twice.

I don’t care how good a comedy writer is, half the power of a joke comes in the not knowing it. If written humor is ever going to be effective in games with frequent death/failure scenarios, your characters can’t repeat gags. They just can’t.

Now, the only question is where you’ll find enough metaphorical rubber for all those chickens, which is  … either money or talent, I don’t know, I’m pretty sure I’ve lost the metaphor.

A New Standard of Internet Civility: Choose Joy

We live in an amazing world, but a severely divided one.

If you are reading these words, if you’re someone who regularly browses the internet, enjoys writing emails or commenting on message boards, you are almost certainly among the luckier half of people on the planet. Maybe the luckier third, or even hundredth. While you and I sit here in polite electronic discourse, talking about our favorite movie or what social networking site has become passe, we do so as someone somewhere is going to bed without enough food in their belly.

I’m not advocating that you feel guilty about your luck. But I think that we should be conscious of it. I think we should celebrate it. I think we would all do well to remember that no matter how angry we may be at “BruinsFn67,” we are blessed to be in an economic and social situation where we can read his words, free from persecution, starvation or danger.

The next time you go to your favorite e-watering hole or, by extension, have a discussion about all the wonderful forms of entertainment we have nigh embarassingly constant access to due largely to where we were born and who we were born to, why not do so with a spirit of joy? With a sense that no matter how starkly we may disagree, we are mindbogglingly lucky to be able to do so?

And if you are filled with so much misguided anger or plain old glumness that you’re ready to lash out at the commenter above you, why not take a moment and spend that energy trying to make the world a little better for someone else not quite as lucky? I promise you’ll feel better about it the next day.

Help out the people of Huntington with your old PS2 games

The wonderful kids of Huntington, WV have a problem. The pediatrics wing of the local hospital only has a PS2 to occupy them while they’re on the mend. That’s the not the problem though, they know that there are a ton of great PS2 games out there. They just have a problem with people occasionally stealing them (I know, people are monsters). Any way, here’s where you come in: If you have old PS2 games you’d like to give a good home for, I doubt you’d find a better one. Just send them here (anything below M rated should be fine).

Huntington Games Donation
Attn: Andrew Yoon
AOL
770 Broadway
5B:C51
New York NY 10003

Thanks in advance.

A New Standard of Internet Civility: Part Two: Loving Your Audience

I can’t count the number of times I’ve gotten infuriated with a reader. It’s rarely one of those who I interact with regularly, some of whom I’ve met in person and consider friends, but rather the random commenters that seem to love nothing more than tearing down something that I’ve written. I would assume that, if you write or perform on the internet in any way, the same thing has happened to you.

In the past, I would have leaped into the comments myself and started bashing away, using my rapier wit to show this nobody “who he was messing with.” In fact, if you Google hard enough, you can likely find some of these embarrassing displays. We’ve talked already about internet arguing and its relative uselessness, so I won’t waste your time there. But how much more pointless was it for me to attack the very people who make it possible to do what I do, no matter how wrong headed I might have thought they were?

I have been extraordinarily blessed in gaining readers and fans over the years who seem to genuinely enjoy what I do and have been marvelously supportive. Some of these started out as the sort of detractors I would have tried to “set right” in the past. The secret to winning over people who either don’t know you or don’t care for you is the same and very simple: I try to love them. Do I always succeed? Nope. Do I lose my temper? You betcha. But I try to remember one simple fact, and it’s one that I think we’d all do good to keep in mind. Because they take a moment to visit my site or listen to my podcast, I’m able to have the greatest job in the world. How can you not love somebody like that, even when they’re acting like a jerk?

This did not, I should caution, come naturally. I had to learn it, just the way I hope you’re learning it now. Here’s the very vignette that taught it to me from How to Win Friends and Influence People, I think it makes my point far better than I could.

If it’s been a while since I’ve said it, thank you for reading. I appreciate it more than you know. I love you.

Games Aren’t Art, But These Aren’t Games

The “games vs. art” debate is pretty much the same as the debate about abortion (and absolutely just that important).

It’s not that anybody thinks killing babies is cool, it’s that we don’t all agree on when something is a baby. If we all agreed on that, there is no debate about abortion.

When Roger Ebert says that “games aren’t art,” he’s right, if we’re going by the definition the word has had since c. 1300 save for the last 30 years or so.

The problem is that the interactive electronic entertainment Ebert’s detractors care so much about outgrew the “game” nomenclature practically as soon as it was assigned. When you think about all the incredible experiences that we use the word for (most of which Ebert is ignorant of, I’d assume), everything from creating extemporaneous fiction with a friend in Sleep Is Death to World of Warcraft‘s miraculous ability to get millions of adults to simultaneously pretend that they are elves, gnomes and orcs, it’s quickly apparent that “game” is not even close to a large enough umbrella.

For whatever reason, it’s a term we pretty stubbornly cling to, writing off anyone who tries to toss around “interactive cinema” as pretentious (and with good reason sometimes). But even “interactive cinema” doesn’t solve the problem, as it attempts to define this incredible, inclusive medium as an old one that’s just been refracted through a different lens.

But we’re already pretty far out to sea with “game”, and it seems like there’s little chance of rowing back. If someone was smart enough to come up with a word that encompassed the medium more accurately than “game,” we might be able to backpedal, but the thing is, they won’t. It just doesn’t exist.

Think about that for a second. Interactive electronic entertainment in 2010 is so vast, so varied, so filled with incredibly disparate experiences that it’s impossible to even come up with an accurate name for it. I don’t know about you, but I’d take that over getting everyone in the world to classify games as art any day of the week.

(Oh, and as for Mr. Ebert: He’s a man with an incredible voice and an unparalleled insight into film, let’s not waste the time he has left going in circles about this and sending a lot of negativity his way. We know what’s up — isn’t that enough?)