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This week, Jim Rossignol discusses music. What I mean by that is what On the other hand, movies and books Wipeout 2097/XL and how it defined the happens the *second* and subsequent and games are almost always the most under-represented genre of futuristic times one goes to use a piece of media fun that first time through. I guess if I We hear from a lot of people on a weekly racers. Kieron Gillen returns to tell of his one has purchased. was really into film as an art form that basis wishing to write for the magazine. own experiences with software piracy … might be different, but, I think when it Some just like the magazine’s style and on the playground. Doug Mealy and If I buy a song, the second, third, comes to the average consumer the want to be involved. Sometimes, they’ve Horace Xiong talk about obstacles fourth...hundredth time I listen to the *novelty* of the plot is an essential part already looked at our editorial calendar Western companies face in the Chinese song, it’s as good as the first time; in of the enjoyment, however much they and have an issue in particular for which market. Allen Varney explores the fact, I’ve found with songs and albums may enjoy the mechanics of gameplay or they’d like to write. And some come difference – or lack thereof – between the most enjoyable ‘listens’ aren’t the the special effects of a movie or the forward with fully fleshed out pitches or videogames and the increasingly first or second, but the couple after that. clarity of a piece of writing. articles, great ideas, but not at all complex slot machines of Vegas. And If the song doesn’t wind up overplayed related to our calendar. Warren Spector wraps up his four-part on radio and stays a deep album cut, I We use the word “library” for books most series on the state of storytelling in can be as much into a song *years* later of all, and sometimes for film, games, It is these orphan articles which cause us games. Find these articles and more in as I was the first time I heard it. and music; I think, however, music gets the most difficulty. You see, we’re this week’s The Escapist. suckers for a great article, but we have designed, and love, our editorial Cheers, calendar. It is the foundation upon which the whole of The Escapist is built. However, we have learned in our first year of publishing The Escapist that sometimes it is best to have a little flexibility built into the mix. It is this need for flexibility that has brought forth the recurring Editor’s In response to “Pro-Choice” from Choice issues you’ll find scattered The Escapist Forum: It hadn’t occurred throughout the calendar. These issues to me until I read this article that from are literally a mix of some of our favorite the perspective of the consumer dealing Homeless Articles over the last few with DRM, games are a lot more like months – and this one is no exception. movies and e-books than they are like used in a library-like fashion more In response to “Third World Pirate” games and cracks to his heart’s content heavily and by more people than any of from The Escapist Forum: An excellent rather than try to convince his parents to the others. article, with some tweak in the details spend a large portion of their about failed economic policies, it would household’s income in a “toy”. So what does that have to do with DRM? apply perfectly to Brazil (where I come Well, it means the consumer has way, from) as well. We did not have an - Meneguzzi way more to lose when they run into economic crisis on the same scale as DRM problems affecting their music Argentina, but the government switched In response to “The Johnny Depp library. Obviously on a first play DRM from a 0-import duties policy to one that Factor” from The Escapist Forum: problems are equally bad no matter what essentially doubles the price of any Got to throw in my current movie genre it is. However, I lose a lot more if I only imported game, while the local of choice here: Westerns get to listen to a song ten, twenty, even distributors sell the same games fifty times before DRM makes my old charging slightly less than the price of a Now, to say cowboy raised a suspicious music files useless than if the same legally imported game. eyebrow, because it’s so easily linked to things happens to a game or a movie or old John Wayne movies. A clean-cut an e-book, even if that’s only the second In this case, it is clear that the big badass doesn’t exactly sound like a good or third time I’m using my e-book/game/ software companies *could* use a time to our modern “gritty” loving movie file. … I think that’s a big part of rational pricing policy, and yet they audience. Not that Wayne isn’t a tough why getting DRM out of music is a much, choose to maximize their profits by guy, but he’s just not tough enough for much bigger deal than it is with games/ selling few high-priced games than the current rising crop. But, that’s why e-books/movies. When a person goes to selling a large number of reasonably I’m not talking about the West with John buy a piece of music, they’re thinking a priced ones. Wayne. I’m talking about the West with lot more about the use they’ll get out of The Man with no Name: Mr. Clint this over the years as a piece of a library I, for one, buy the originals, since after Eastwood. One of two men absolutely than they are when they buy games and getting my degree I’ve been way too required if you want to make an epic e-books and movies. And DRM makes busy to be able to play everything that Spaghetti Western. people feel like they don’t have a library- comes out, so I can afford to buy a game -it’s more like a bookmobile, and you every couple of months, but I’d think the You can’t watch Eastwood in Fistful of never feel safe that they aren’t just going average teenage gamer in Brazil (with a Dollars; The Good, the Bad, and the to drive off with all your media one day. lot of time in his hands and a broadband Ugly; or even Unforigiven without connection) would find it much easier to dreaming of owning a couple six- - Cheeze_Pavilion use Bittorent or Emule to download shooters and riding around collecting bounties, governed only by your own you apologize, like I know you’re going fuzzy morals. to, I might convince him that you really didn’t mean it.” There have been a couple of games already built around this version of the - Blaxton west: Gun and Red Dead Revolver. Red Dead Revolver takes a number of stylistic cues from Sergio Leone’s Man with no Name trilogy. Not only are there games already out there using the genre and style, but Johnny Depp has also been in a sort-of Western movie: Once Upon a Time in Mexico (the name bears a strikingly resemblance to another very influential Leone film, One Upon a Time in the West). Granted Rodriguez is more of a quick paced action guy, so the film isn’t your run of the mill western themed movie. Still, I think Depp could easily pull of the mysterious stoic character needed to front a really great western. Just a quick quote from Eastwood here in Fistful of Dollars: “I don’t think it’s nice, you laughin’. You see, my mule don’t like people laughing. He gets the crazy idea you’re laughin’ at him. Now if “The stories we tell reflect and “[W]hy are we particularly drawn to determine how we think about discussion of digital games in terms of ourselves and one another. A new story?…[I]t is a medium that includes medium of expression allows us to tell still images, moving images, text, stories we could not tell before, to retell audio, three-dimensional, navigable the age-old stories in new ways, to space — more of the building blocks of imagine ourselves as creatures of a storytelling than any single medium parameterized world of multiple has ever offered us.” possibilities, to understand ourselves as authors of rules systems which drive How could anyone not look at the state behavior and shape our possibilities.” of the art and wish for more? - Janet Murray, “From Game-Story to Cyberdrama,” First Person So, how do games tell stories, and what does the future hold for us? And is next- The quote above really speaks to me — gen technology really the answer? and to the importance of game narrative. Murray’s comments speak to the In this four-part series, I’ve discussed personal and cultural uses of stories, to the elements of storytelling, how they the new stories afforded us by a new are (and can be) used to tell stories in medium, to the ways in which narrative games, the importance of structures remind us that we live in a characterization and character world of infinite possibility, even to the interaction, and the concept of a virtual ways in which each of us is the master of dungeon master or storyteller.

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