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. In this, his or her fate. I can’t read that quote Part Four of the series, I’ll be discussing without feeling like I’d be wasting my how next-gen hardware can help and time if I didn’t at least try to bridge the hinder the cause of making great games, gap between game and story. and what we can do to ensure that the next-generation of games isn’t actually a I draw further inspiration from yet step backward in terms of design. another Janet Murray quote, this one from “From Game-Story to Cyberdrama”: Next-gen Hardware and Story Games Sure, more powerful hardware offers basically non-technical guy) to be about portray a world. Our characters will look new possibilities. We will certainly be equivalent to high-end PCs, in terms of even better. Our worlds will look and feel able to create more believable actors. their capabilities — falling short in some much more convincing than they ever We’re already seeing next-gen visuals ways, surpassing them in others, but have. And audiences will come to expect get better. And there’s at least the basically equivalent. And it’s not like a certain level of believability in the possibility that some of our horsepower story and character interaction problems worlds they explore. They will expect the will go toward more robust NPC behavior. have been solved in the world of PC world to look and behave the way the real This could allow us to tell better gaming. In fact, it may be that next-gen world does. (“It looks real; it’ll act real.”) interactive stories. hardware will make it harder for us to accomplish our story goals. All of that means AI — cornerstone of And more horsepower could mean better creating great characters and, therefore simulations and more interesting worlds. Not long ago, I had a conversation with critical to great story games — becomes If you believe, as I do, that one of the Doug Church, secret master of gaming, even more challenging. And here I’m best ways to empower players is to allow where he said something like this: A just talking about the fundamentals of them to craft their own experience, their story is constructed of sentences, strung navigation and base level interaction. own narratives through simulation, more together in a coherent, dramatically We’ve made great strides in AI over the horsepower will be a godsend. significant order. Game “sentences” are last few years, but you’d hardly know it the actions available to and selected by a — the advances have come in the service Simulations — of environments, of player. The more sentences we allow of “just keeping up” with graphical and objects or character behavior — offer players to construct (in other words, the simulation enhancement. players the opportunity to reason with deeper the pool of options we offer), the our worlds, identify problems and solve cooler and more numerous the story Back in the day (that is 20, 10, maybe them the way they want. Simulation possibilities will be. To that extent, a even five years ago), NPC’s just had to enhances our ability to offer significant robust world and character simulation — navigate through a 2-D world or a simple player choices, unique outcomes, both made possible by next-gen 3-D one. Now, even in a relatively simple perceivable consequences. And more hardware — will allow us to tell a better game, they have to deal with highly powerful hardware clearly makes deeper story. But there’s a hitch: all the graphics complex 3-D spaces. simulation possible. power of the new platforms. Again, Doug made the point the other But, fundamentally, next-gen hardware We’ve made — and, thanks to the new day: “We didn’t used to have to worry,” isn’t the solution to our story problems. hardware, will continue to make — great he said, “about a glass full of water The 360 and PS3 and Wii seem (to this strides in the fidelity with which we can getting knocked over, wetting the pants sponsored by of a character seated at the table and games (at great cost) but not better then having to deal with the NPC’s games, and there’s nothing inherent in response, other characters’ responses or the hardware that makes better stories the player’s potential responses.” Now, more or less likely. or soon, players will expect the AI to react believably to all of that. What Do We Do About It? Those of you who know me — or know Once we can create beautiful, my games — know I can’t have just one photorealistic spaces, players will expect endgame. That’s too limiting for players. us to do so, and then we’ll have to teach our NPCs how to navigate through and Similarly, I can’t have just one interact with ever-more complex worlds conclusion to this article. Buckle up, read appropriately. Rapid advancements in on and pick the conclusion that best fits graphical fidelity and depth of simulation your prejudices and beliefs. have always left AI and design playing catch-up. That problem seems likely to get Conclusion 1 worse, not better, in the next few years. Stories have been around forever. The success of story games tells me current Most terrifyingly, we may, in fact, have players are vitally interested in them and missed our opportunity to play with story- will reward us for taking story games to friendly AI and procedural story greater heights. generation. That moment may have come and gone back in the day of lower-fidelity But we want to look beyond current world sims. Now that we’re in a world of gamers to the vastly larger potential high-fidelity worlds, all of our energy is audience of (current) non-gamers — an likely to be sucked up just maintaining audience we have no chance of the levels of AI we already have! The attracting if all we have to offer are cause of non-navigational/non-combat AI prettier, louder versions of what we’ve will take a backseat again. done before.

In the short term, at least, next-gen To grow our audience to match our hardware will allow us to make prettier ballooning next-gen development and marketing costs, we have to broaden the we’d offer players real choices, with real Conclusion 3 Cool as those industry efforts are, even range and increase the quality of stories story and character consequences. The industry can’t do this alone. It’ll take the most daring of pre-existing games is we tell. We need to lure people in with the efforts of people inside and outside just a baby step toward the goal of a things that are familiar and comforting, Great story games are only partly the mainstream game business. truly compelling, interactive story. Face and we must take interaction out of the dependent on technology. They’re it: The home team’s coming to the plate realm of the abstract and into an area hugely dependent on will and creativity To be clear, I think industry’s doing a and swinging for singles. they already understand — emotionally — on the need to engage in dialogue pretty decent job. Any medium that can satisfying stories about recognizable I don’t fault any of the developers people, stories that illuminate and enrich represented here for that: Swinging for their lives. the fences story-wise would probably be commercial suicide, in the short-term, Conclusion 2 requiring an R&D effort far beyond Obviously, I think the road to more anything I’ve ever seen or heard about compelling stories involves learning to in the game business, with no guarantee share authorship with players. of success.

If I could have one thing, one wish Publishers — our only realistic source of granted, for our business, the thing I’d funding — have to be profitable. To do most like to see is more developers that, they have to ship games. On a making games that offer players freedom regular basis. To stay in business, to explore story spaces within developers have to give publishers what constraints imposed by a dramatist. We’d they want. And the audience is seems to let players off the rails a bit more. We like games, and game stories, the way wouldn’t settle for offering tactical they are. It seems unlikely publishers choices, challenging puzzles and movie- are going to invest in multiyear, blue-sky inspired cut scenes. research efforts to change the way we with culture, problems and players. boast of having produced games like tell stories - efforts that may or may not Instead, or in addition, we’d offer players Games can be about something more Thief: Deadly Shadows, Indigo Prophecy, succeed. And who’s going to fund a opportunities to explore more freely and than killing, fighting and puzzle solving. Psychonauts and so on has a lot going three- or five-year research effort into to delve deeper into the inner lives of for it. We are making progress. natural language processing or more their characters in ways that don’t This doesn’t require new technology — it compelling NPCs when the marketplace involve killing them. In other words, just requires new thinking. isn’t demanding it? I truly believe this leads to one, Frankly, a lot of industry types, even the long time to solve — longer than we guys may strike out, but they’re inevitable conclusion: We need outsiders, most creative industry types, look industry-types can afford to devote. swinging for the fences, and to a guy indie developers, academics, two guys in askance at the work of the outsiders, but another of whose mottoes is “Fail a garage somewhere, to point us in new I’m finding myself more and more drawn We’re already seeing some of this in the gloriously!” that’s worth a lot. directions, to show us a new way to to the schemes some of these guys are work of folks like Michael Mateas and involve players in stories and take this coming up with. Andrew Stern, Chris Crawford, Ken Perlin Conclusion 4 medium to a new level. And there are and Katherine Isbister (and others I’m “I think of the writer … as a moral academics, researchers and even some When you find yourself reading sure I’ve just offended by not mentioning agent … someone who thinks about expatriate game developers like Chris whitepapers and interviews and such them). These people are asking great moral problems: about what is just Crawford working on some cool stuff. with these guys, and feeling more questions, tackling many of the right and unjust, what is better or worse, kinship with folks with the letters “P,” “H” problems and making some progress. what is repulsive and admirable, what and “D” after their names than you do is lamentable and what inspires joy when you hear what your peers have to Even if you think these guys are nuts, or and approbation.” say, there’s something weird going on. their belief in procedural storytelling is - Susan Sontag, At the Same Time I’ve been arguing for years that industry misguided, or their specific approach is a and academia need to work more closely dead end, you have to respect the fact Susan Sontag, in a posthumous together and this — the need to develop they’re tackling hard problems. You have collection of essays and lectures, At the tools for collaborative and truly to respect their audacity and their Same Time, called on writers to “be interactive storytelling — seems like a commitment. And I, at least, respect them serious” and to act as “moral agents.” great opportunity to do so. for looking further downfield for their She urged them to think about moral inspiration than developers typically can. problems; about what is just and unjust, I’m not going to pretend to understand Even our most “out there” story efforts are what is better and worse, what is how universities work, but I kind of get still mired in action-movie tropes — our repulsive and admirable. that academics have as profound a need rallying cry might as well be “Let’s make to find funding as game developers. I an interactive Star Wars! Yeah!” Change “writer” to the more generic believe there are, however, a couple of “storyteller” or the more appropriate for things they don’t have to worry about The Outsiders are looking to Moby Dick, us “game developer,” and how can any of — commercial success and 12- to 36- to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, to us not step up to that kind of challenge? month development windows. And that Scenes from a Marriage. That takes positions them pretty much perfectly to chutzpah of a sort I find sorely lacking in How can any of us be satisfied with tackle hard problems that will take a even the most daring “insider” efforts to offering players nothing more than the transform storytelling in games. These opportunity to leap from cover point to cover point as they kill bad guys? Or give do this, the world of interactive stories We have the potential to create not just “Next-Gen Storytelling” is a four-part players tools to move blocks around on a will blossom. a new medium and not just a new series. Parts One, Two and Three can be screen until they reach some arbitrary community of authors but a new culture found at The Escapist Daily. end state? How can we allow them to Conclusion 5 of creators, a participatory, individualized manipulate puppets on a virtual football As in all things, the reconciliation of culture in which we all share in the Warren Spector is the founder of Junction field in the service of nothing more than story and player experience lies in definition of experience, of humanness. Point Studios. He worked previously with having one virtual team beat another balance. People who think games have Instead of being talked to, we discuss; Origin Systems, Looking Glass Studios, virtual team in a virtual sporting event? no business telling stories are nuts; instead of being lectured, we debate. TSR and Steve Jackson Games. people who believe their creativity is This new medium is the first democratic How can anyone who lives, eats, sleeps more important than the player’s narrative force we’ve ever had. Let’s and breathes games, as we all do, not creativity are equally crazy. hope, someday, we use it for something see that games alone among media can more compelling than we have so far. allow players to explore the “just and The key to successful story games is to unjust” for themselves instead of simply use narrative to enhance the play “We tell ourselves stories in order to live” being told about them? experience, to balance the players’ need - Joan Didion, The White Album for choice and power with the positive We have tools at our disposal — aspects of a well-told story. experiences and rules and spaces and characters — that allow us to allow What makes us unique is that story in players tell stories with us. And that games can be the result of player allows each player to become his or her creativity, expressed through play itself. own “moral agent,” to decide for himself We can make authors of each and every what’s repulsive and what’s admirable. person who takes keyboard or controller At the very least, we have an obligation in hand. And that is really something to offer players stories that have a bit of new in human history. subtext, stories that are about something. Hard though it may be, we Of course, if that were easy to facilitate, have to do this. We just have to decide everyone would just do it. It’s not easy. that interactive story is a problem worth It’s insanely hard. But that doesn’t make tackling. We need the will to become the it any less essential. medium we can — we must — be. If we When reading about Todd Hollenshead’s social groups and reached my future- GDC presentation arguing that some comrade in arms. funds from pirate organizations financed terrorism, I couldn’t help but think of the He sidled up to me in Biology. friend of mine who’d be dead if I hadn’t “You got the Bard’s Tale, yeah?” taped him a copy of the Sinclair “Yeah.” Spectrum version of Bard’s Tale. “Tape me one?” “Sure.” This was back in the ‘80s, when our Been friends ever since. games existed primarily on tape rather than diskette, let alone CD or direct A few years later, he was hit with download. The Spectrum version of crushing teenage depression. Bard’s Tale was relatively late, the Unknowingly, in my default, charmless, definition of a niche game. Most people buffoonish way, I helped him through it; were completely unaware of it. The rich that copy of Bard’s Tale gave him kids with their early PCs had already something to focus on other than his been playing it, but the geekiest brand of adolescent problems. Now, he says – in rubber-keyed urchins who hadn’t been a matter of fact way, which still chills me anywhere near anything even vaguely with its casual resignation whenever I like computer roleplaying games were recall it – that he’d be dead today if it hungry for Bard’s Tale. That was us. wasn’t for me.

My home town of Stafford, being the No piracy, no friend. I can’t bring myself perennial cultural backwater it always is, to feel too bad about it. we weren’t in much luck. There were no copies to be found. The only copy in the So, yeah, I pirated games as a kid. entire school was mine. It was my Didn’t everyone? Computer games – as birthday, and my mum had somehow opposed to console games – have always had the incredible foresight to actually been rife with piracy. That’s why we order the game. Somehow, word got bought things with keyboards rather around, bounced across a couple of than joypads anyway. You tricked the initial purchase from parentals with promises that it’d help your schoolwork your mate, just so you’d have someone and then were able to keep on playing with whom to talk about it. Sometimes it games all year via the cheaper games was formalized, with computer clubs at and pirate copies to fill in the gaps. schools avidly swapping their games. Which is the core of it: In terms of Other times, it was illicit – not because playground piracy, the industry lost no of fact it was illegal, but because of the money from us. They already had all the nerd-stigma of being a gamer. Here were money we had to give. secret meetings before school to swap games, the product of the iconic Saisho In Hollenshead’s case, linking piracy to double tape recorder. terrorism is just counter-productive. In the same way kids are bombarded with The tech was the other side of it – the dire warnings of what happens when you further you go into the ‘80s, the more a have the vaguest association with drugs, dual-cassette deck was a rare and and when they or their friends beautiful thing. Ownership of such item experience no such immediate in a family was a route to a technological damnation, they disregard all the advice. demi-godhood. “I knew about two people What’s more, companies like id wouldn’t who actually had one,” said one of my be around if it weren’t for pirate correspondents when talking about this. networks. id came from the shareware “[It was] like they actually had the scene, whose model was pretty much monolith from 2001 in their bedrooms. entirely based around someone passing There was a lot of begging. Thinking someone else a disk with a cut-down back, it was probably the only way they version of a game to get people hooked. could convince people to come to their What particular network of people- houses after school. Their mums thought passing-stuff-on-which-they-like did they they were so popular.” think they were exploiting back then? While playground lore only had a mug Because piracy back then was primarily a trying to put more than one game on social thing. In the relative isolation of each side of the tape – just too pre-internet game culture, you pretty inefficient, too fiddly - there was the much gave a pirated copy of a game to gaming equivalent of mixtapes; big C90s filled with pretty much random games, paper. In practice, it was actually easier through. Saving the world and his and my earliest Spectrum education was to read after you’d photocopied it. education. That’s some doing. just working my way through these endless experiences. I came to Connection with the actual “real” pirate Retelling anecdotes like that, I can’t help computers relatively late – I was 10 by community was only ever peripheral. but feel romantic about it. Videogame the time I owned anything – and it When the Amiga-era sent dual-cassette piracy wasn’t about funding terrorism or pretty much acted as my Liberal Arts decks to the great copyright prostitution or dirty nihilists who want to education in the form. infringement graveyard in the sky, disk blow up Sweden. It was like scrumping copying software proliferated. Those with apples. It was innocent. We just liked Then there was the issue of copy- trickier systems were cracked by apples a lot. protection. For just casual playground mysterious men in mainland Europe, and copying, circumventing the manual a copy worked its way through the one The obvious argument is the nature of protection was almost part of the game. guy at the school whose older brother piracy has changed in a peer-to-peer The Spectrum classic Jet Set Willy actually had a modem. The continental world. It almost certainly has. But the featured an enormously convoluted grid origins of much of the software had nature of a core of pirates almost with a color in each square. People would some strange effects on the gaming certainly hasn’t. They pirate games sit down with graph paper and manually gene pool. because they’re compelled to. They may copy it out with crayons, a square at a get it from BitTorrent, but they’re still time. There’s few images in my head as One person I talked to only passed his passing BitTorrent links to friends. And nostalgically iconic early piracy as GCSE French because of a pirated game. people, if they had the money, would still someone coloring on graph paper. In Because he couldn’t stand the rote rather buy an actual copy. later eras, other devices were memorization required to learn a pragmatically disassembled. The language, he was trailing in the subject, It may be illegal. For most moralities, it’s beautiful LucasArt code wheels were before acquiring a copy of the legendary wrong. But like underage sex, I’m not dismantled, photocopied, and then action-game Flashback. He was obsessed going to be swift to condemn it too assembled into functional facsimiles – to with its rotoscoped glory, but there was strongly. It’s an act born of love (or lust, the distress of the original owner of the one, small problem: It was only in which is another unappreciated emotion). game. Sometimes the copying process French. He played through the entire As long as games are too expensive for a uncovered something interesting. For game with a French-to-English dictionary big chunk of consumers to purchase as instance, Team 17’s Alien Breed 3D code beside him and somehow ended up with regularly as they’d wish, they’ll turn illicit book was black varnish printed on black a functional enough vocabulary to scrape means to satisfy their desires. Hollenshead should look around the office, even. Famously – seeMasters of communities. But, in amping up their Doom for further details - John Carmack vitriol and linking all piracy to the worst actively broke into a computer laboratory things in the world, it’s just too much. when he was 14 to steal an Apple II. The majority of pirates aren’t monsters. Somehow I doubt it was to just pawn it. They’re your consumers who find themselves short this month. They’re Similarly, when researching this article your kids and kids’ friends. Some of and talking to my peers, an odd them are your future peers and the realization struck: Any game journalist of future of the medium. And when you any note I’d talked to had, at one point, paint them as abominations in league been a pretty serious pirate. Then I had with terrorists, it does make you think, another realization: Why do I know a lot at the least, you don’t remember the about games? Because I played a lot of intensity of passion which once drove games. How did I play enough games to you. And at the worst, it makes you know enough? I bought all I could, then suspect maybe – just maybe – you never pirated the rest. Why? Because I cared had it at all. too much about games. Kieron Gillen has been writing about If it’s true of the proto-game-journalists, videogames for far too long now. His it’s just as true of game designers. If they rock and roll dream is to form an Electro- weren’t rich - to acquire the mass of band with Miss Kittin and SHODAN knowledge of videogames to be any good pairing up on vocals. whatsoever - they’d almost certainly be pirates. Due to the sheer cost, any game designer wishing to be properly literate in the form will almost certainly involve some manner of copyright infringement.

Developers can be angry at pirates now that they’re all grown up, which is completely understandable – especially the militant cracking and hacking You’ve seen all the Star Wars computer If Darth Vader shows up on reel 1, and device licensed and manufactured by games, but have you seen the Star Ben Kenobi on reel 5, they duel. By International Gaming Technologies. IGT Wars: A New Hope slot machine? Sit pushing a button, you pick one to win, has a couple of other slots in its Star down at the cabinet, put a penny in the and if you pick right, you win more Wars series: Dark Side and The Empire slot, push the big lighted SPIN button pennies. But that’s still not all. Strikes Back, the latter featuring a big and watch the video screen. While John plastic Yoda. Gotta love the advertising Williams plays, five columns of images Atop the machine cabinet, mounted on poster for the Empire machine: “Become spin upward, then slow to a stop, an axle, stands a big plastic Death Star. a hero you must. Win a million you could.” revealing pictures of Chewbacca, droids, When you line up three Death Stars starfields and planets. If three or more onscreen, the reels vanish and Han Solo Have you gone to a casino lately? Most pictures of Luke, Han or Leia show appears, chased by stormtroopers. You slot machines are now videogames, with onscreen, they animate to show a movie push buttons to choose two graphics and sound right out of casual clip, and the jackpot bell brings a clatter stormtroopers; this lights two arrows on games, licensed movies, TV shows and of pennies. But that’s not all. the Death Star globe. The globe spins, even food. IGT’s “Game King” machine and the arrows point to bonus numbers licenses include not only Star Wars, but that are added to your winnings. The Price Is Right, I Dream of Jeannie, Kenny Rogers The Gambler, Creature But wait! If an arrow points to the Death From The Black Lagoon, SPAM, TABASCO Star’s superlaser, another round begins. and (get this) Amazing Live Sea- You target enemy TIE Fighters chasing Monkeys. IGT’s Soul Train slot machine, the Millennium Falcon; corresponding based on the 1970s music show, arrows light up, and the Death Star features the voice and image of host Don spins. If you get the superlaser again, Cornelius, plus “an extensive cast of you can now join a Rebel Alliance run on animated disco divas that dance to well- the Death Star. Target more TIEs to spin known R&B songs.” And while you drop the globe a third time. If you get the nickels in the Alien slot machine, you can superlaser, you destroy the Death Star relive nostalgic memories of chest- and win the spoils of victory, 10 dollars. bursters and facehuggers.

Yes, this is a real casino slot machine (or, All these slot machines, as well as many for British readers, a fruit machine) – a hundreds of other non-licensed brands genuine, Lucasfilm-approved gambling from a dozen manufacturers, have the same gameplay: Drop the coin; push the machine companies present upbeat which EGM is a major part, is global. button; repeat. Like Star Wars, when corporate histories that read like North America is the primary market, you hit certain combinations, some Candide: Innocent entrepreneurs, just with gambling revenue of $84 billion in machines offer little mini-games, which trying to make ends meet, repeatedly 2005. Forty-eight U.S. states, all but involve – pushing the button. Yay. What’s encounter tumult and calamities. Yet Utah and Hawaii, permit lotteries or interesting is their insanely various frenzy despite setbacks, these companies, other forms of gambling. The casino and clamor and flash, their multifarious being hardy and resourceful – they market in Europe is large, and the fast- glitzed-up beckonings that could jump an might say “scrappy” – pick up and move growing Asian space includes Southeast ICU patient out of his coma. These video on, like gypsies. Asia, the Philippines, Japan and, soon, slot machines feel so much like old arcade Taiwan. But common wisdom has it that games, you just know whoever makes Take Bally Technologies and WMS the world’s most fanatical gamblers are them grew up playing Pac-Man and Gaming (formerly Williams). Though Chinese. Macau, a former Portuguese Defender and Frogger. Bally has built slot machines since its colony near Hong Kong, is now the start in the 1930s, both companies found world’s largest gambling haven; its 2005 Hey, wait. These slot machine makers – their early fortune making pinball revenues of US$6.9 billion outstripped they made Pac-Man, Defender and machines. In the late ‘70s, coin-op video the $6.5 billion earned in Las Vegas. And Frogger. Bally! Williams! Konami! What’s arcades devoured the pinball market, all these casinos buy hundreds or more, many of those who design and and these scrappy multi-million-dollar thousands of slot machines and Video code today’s slot machines come from corporations (along with a new startup, Lottery Terminals. the hallowed early days of video and Konami) adapted to the new business. computer gaming. (Bally/Midway: Space Invaders, Tron; The arcade game makers were well Williams: Joust, Robotron; Konami: positioned for this market. The first video Why? Gyruss, Time Pilot, Super Cobra.) They poker machine appeared in the same all made big bucks until the arcades year as Space Invaders, 1979. In both *** dwindled, and then, as before, they fields, manufacturers constantly pushed moved on – to the richest field yet. their technology, and over time they Companies in the gambling industry – basically converged. Slots added confusingly, they call it “the gaming EGMs (electronic gaming machines) are microchips to improve randomness, industry” – tend to suffer at least mild a far, far bigger market than our own while arcade stand-ups developed ever disrepute, for reasons that hardly need little computer and videogaming glitzier graphics. By the late ‘80s, if you rehearsing. But on their websites, slot- business. The gambling industry, of could make an arcade game, turning it into a slot machine meant hardly more Games sells mainly to America’s largest Why such pressure? Like all slot makers, than adding a payout trough. market, Native American reservations, Multimedia has gone heavily into and to the fast-growing $10-billion networking. “Progressive” slots offer top Williams sold its first video slot in 1991. industry of “charitable” gaming (i.e., jackpots that increase as people play, The next year Bally, which had already bingo). For years, the top-grossing slot and “wide-area progressives” link pioneered electromechanical slots in the on the reservations was Multimedia’s hundreds or thousands of machines, 1960s, introduced Game Maker, which Meltdown, the first to feature music by across a casino or a whole country, to offered multiple video slot games in one none other than computer game music offer giant aggregate jackpots. All the cabinet. Konami survived the arcade legend George “The Fat Man” Sanger. networked machines communicate with bust better than the others and only The Fat Man has since scored many a back-end server. entered the slot business later, in 1996. Multimedia slots, including Good Mojo Konami has since made a splash of and, uhhh, Cash From Uranus. Programmer Phillip Eberz writes server sorts: In February 2007, the government code for Multimedia. Like some other of Ontario pulled Konami machines for Sanger contrasts slot creators with Multimedia coders, Eberz is an Origin flashing subliminal jackpot messages. computer game developers. “Both alumnus; he worked on the Ultima groups are wonderful. In my experience, series. He describes some differences Almost all new slot machines made the casino guys are more businesslike between computer games and slots. today are video slots. Bally leads the and kinder. Crunch time is more gentle; “Video gambling development includes market, along with IGT, Aristocrat there is more emphasis placed on loyalty significant transaction validation and Technologies and Atronic; smaller and on the importance of family and recording. A bug here can result in players include Konami, Williams and a charity. Their world is somewhat less hundreds of thousands of dollars in dozen others. One of these, in Austin, rocked by the many ghosts of Texas, has become a refuge, a reliable disappointments and failures that haunt paycheck, for more than a few computer the videogames workplace. game developers: Multimedia Games. “On the other hand, with a few *** exceptions, the casino crew are even more inclined than videogame people to Slot manufacturers occupy different follow trends set by successful products. niches in the gambling ecosystem. IGT is There is somewhat less pressure to big in Nevada and Atlantic City; innovate, and more pressure to make an Aristocrat owns Australia. Multimedia airtight, bugless game.” erroneous payouts or lawsuits. As financial “Suppose you and 99 other people play a A better lesson? Videogame concepts systems, they also require extensive lottery game for a one-dollar buy-in. In and technologies are spreading widely monitoring and control. Many gaming one version of the game, 45 people into society. Video slot machines are a systems store screen captures of every double their money, receiving $2. In symptom of this propagation – likely an gameplay result to aid in dispute resolution. another, only one person wins, but wins early symptom. In the years ahead, big, taking home $90. Which would you expect more devices to look and sound “Of course, federal and state law governs rather play? In either case, the game game-like. And if they sound like slot video gambling systems much more pays out the same amount – 90 dollars, machines, be ready to buy earplugs. tightly than most other gaming. or 90 percent of the pay-in. But each Occasionally, legal restrictions limit feels much different. A lot of marketing functionality. For example, the law tightly and complex analysis goes into deciding Allen Varney designed the PARANOIA constrains whether a video gambling payout percentages.” paper-and-dice roleplaying game (2004 system can include skill-based play – e. edition) and has contributed to computer g., hand-eye coordination play, or trivia One wonders how such analysis differs, if games from Sony Online, Origin, knowledge tests.” Slot makers pay at all, from, say, Blizzard’s analysis of Interplay and Looking Glass. testing companies like Gaming loot drops in World of Warcraft. Laboratories International (GLI) to certify their software. Bids and contracts *** often specify a GLI compliance level, like GLI-11 or GLI-13. Given the similarities between computer game and slot machine design, what can Aside from legalities, slot designers must we learn from the gambling industry? also think about the user experience in a Theoretically, computer game designers way different (or is it?) from computer could pick up pointers on creating game developers. “The game payout addicted players – though that is a matrices can become very complex when touchy subject. Game security expert dealing with multiple betting options on Steven Davis, on his PlayNoEvil blog, multiple concurrent games,” Eberz says. commented, “Game addiction is going to “The amount and frequency of the be the next big legislative target, now payout greatly affects the users’ that game violence is a proven failure.” experience and enjoyment of the game. gaming experiences, yet only a few turn perfect game in a cultural environment up in each generation of gaming. What is where games and pop culture were wrong with the game of flying cars? colliding. Electronic music and videogames matched well, and the marriage created In 1996, Sony’s marketing spawned new media for mainstream consumption. something unusual: a worthwhile Rather than being exported quietly to videogame that was also a product of some geek-chic ghetto, Wipeout 2097 was corporately manufactured cool. Wipeout part of the opening barrage of Sony’s 2097, or Wipeout XL as it was known in attempt to bring gaming to the forefront of North America, was the result of a popular culture. deliberate attempt to associate a rare sub-genre of racing games with But there was more to it than that: Futuristic racers seem to embody contemporary dance culture. The game’s Wipeout 2097 had the balanced challenge something essential about videogames: atmosphere was heavily weighted by the and the velocity to genuinely command fluid, neuron-firing challenges for our inclusion of music from The Future the attention of hardcore gamers. We coordination and dexterity, explosions of Sound of London, Photek, The Chemical spent weeks honing our nervous systems color that meld high-concept science Brothers and Underworld. What the first on this thing, pushing and pushing until fiction with the vertiginous thrill of Wipeout game had lacked was a sense of we could lap each of the opening tracks accelerated speed and kinetic violence. style, and now Sony had supplied that, without a fault. It was electric. Complete with whirling missiles and too. These electronic musicians were just magnetic humming, futuristic racers are far enough outside the mainstream to be There had been futuristic racing games iconic, vibrant experiences that could seen as cool and cutting-edge, but also before - Powerdrome on the Amiga and only be videogames. Titles like Wipeout getting enough radio play for everyone Atari ST (later unsuccessfully “remade” are routinely selected for montage clips to know who they were. Videogames later for the Xbox and PlayStation 2) intended to encapsulate the spirit of were, by force of smartbomb marketing, being a prime example - but it was contemporary videogaming: the speed, becoming cool. Wipeout 2097 that suddenly charged the the violence, the spectacle. Yet when you genre. It seemed to matter, and would look closely at this genre it becomes Wipeout was exuberant, colorful and become one of the era’s psychic clear that the future racer is actually a gifted with a twitchy, amphetamine pace. landmarks in gaming. It was an neglected, unfulfilled genre. You’d expect It merged perfectly with the dance music experience that everyone remembered futuristic racers to be defining, obligatory scene. Its velocity allowed it to be the from that time in their lives, like the biggest pop records on the charts, or the Clearly, to compete with PlayStation success. Just as EverQuest and then some definite flair for moving outside the loudest Hollywood movies in the legend, the Xbox had to prove it could World of Warcraft have defined how the Wipeout template. The cars were cinemas. It was spectacle, an event to hit all the same high notes, and a majority of MMOGs have been attached to the course, but were also be recorded. futuristic racer was crucial to such a implemented over the last decade, so able to play with physics - driving along display of gaming eminence. While my few futuristic racers have been able to walls and ceilings with absurd aplomb. It And then there was nothing. A few half- own weakness for the genre means I escape the gravity of the Wipeout series. was a game that hooked dozens of the hearted futuristic racers turned up here enjoyed Quantum Redshift more than its people who bought it, but made little and there, botched and clumsy in their overall lackluster critical reception might The future racer, then, has been both impact on the genre as a whole. No polygonal paintjobs, but there was have suggested, I still knew it was a best exemplified and worst shackled by games went on to imitate the title nothing to replace Wipeout 2097/XL. flawed and doomed project. It tried to be Wipeout. Its initial sucwellcess seems to beyond its sequel, Rollcage Stage 2. Even the Wipeout games to follow that everything that Wipeout had been, and have engendered a chronic lack of 1996 game lacked the same inertia and simply could not recreate the moment. experimentation within future racing fidelity of that second, peerlessly Whatever you thought of Quantum games. Of course, there were some produced Wipeout game. Wipeout 3 Redshift’s lavish imitations, its water- exceptions to the rule, but their scarcity failed to return to the scintillating beaded camera and hyperbolic, spandex- only drives the point further home. standard set by its progenitor, then most carved pilots, the facts of its critical and crippling of all was the inevitable commercial slump are undeniable: The F-Zero GX, Quantum Redshift’s PlayStation 2 follow up, Wipeout Fusion. follow-up game was cancelled by contemporary on the GameCube, took its Fusion was arguably a disaster for the Microsoft, and the development team, inspiration from quite a different source franchise: sloppy handling, an ill- Curly Monsters, disappeared into the silent and was the last great future racing conceived array of weapons, and a lack ether of redundancy and dissolution. game. It managed to sidestep Wipeout’s of cohesion in track design and game impact by having its own wide, ultra-fast modes - it all combined to deliver a Perhaps the fate of Quantum Redshift tracks, weird environments and ruined experience. Anyone who came to explains the fate of the genre as a fantastical backdrops. Impossible angles futuristic racing at the time of Fusion whole. It tried to live entirely within the and unlikely courses that raced off at could be forgiven for never picking up shadow of its predecessor. Wipeout was right-angles to the plane of gravity kept the pad to tweak another speeding so iconic, so vital, as to dictate what it things flying, but still it was dogged by rocket-car, it was that flabby and weak. meant to be a futuristic racer. The future its pack of appeal, its lack of newness. racer genre suffers from the same The Xbox meanwhile opened up the problems as the MMOG genre: There is Then there was the 1999 experimental throttle on its own Wipeout, with the one game that all others are forced to racer, Rollcage. Although not well visually wondrous Quantum Redshift. ape if they want to make a pass at received by critics, the game showed Also without any progeny was 2001’s fiction racing had been the most vital around which to base our playful scary, too?) Something, anything, just left-field, ultra-high-speedBallistics , and inventive of game genres. speeding antics might not make financial make it fast. from the Swedish team GRIN (who went sense, but damn, it’d be fun. Or more on to create the recent Ghost Recon And so we racers lament the passing of a practically, what about a future racer Science fiction speed-freaks as yet games). Ballistics did speed and little genre. There has been no great future that threw even more conventions out of unimagined, we salute you. else and soon vanished into obscurity. racer for five years, and there are none the window and ended up being Two thousand kph down steel tubes, on the horizon. From my perspective, as something like Test Drive Unlimited, an Jim Rossignol is a writer and editor based sound barriers breaking, outrunning the a burned-out, disillusioned sci-fi online future city were impromptu in the South West of England. He writes noise of your own engines. Flawed, yes, speedster sifting through a collection of street-racing events were the lifeblood of about videogames, fiction and science. but it was a game that did something not quite classics, I can see that what a persistent racing persona? Or what new, did something that belonged to that the next generation of consoles needs is about a different kind of future -a decent single game. It moved outside the Wipeout a future racing revolution. We can’t post-apocalyptic racer in the dust storms template and, inevitably, was lost. afford to lose this iconic genre, but it of Australia, or a simulation based on also has to change, to shed a skin that is telekinetic engineering? What about The same could be said of the criminally hardening into a death mask. It needs to survival/horror racing, where outrunning underrated Star Wars Pod Racer. Seldom be faster, brighter and more fashionable the undead is all you can do to stay is a single set piece from a film able to than anything that has gone before. But alive? (Surely a racing game can be create such a strong concept for a game. it also needs to not look to Wipeout for Hurtling through the Star Wars universe validation, and should seek out the ideas and fixing exploding pods as you travel of other genres for new and exciting were rare experiences, and a wealth of angles on getting around a racetrack at ideas were once again lost to the churn high speed. of videogame fashions. For that next futuristic racer, the one to These few experiments represent the replace Wipeout in those exciting video- suffocated spirit of experimentation montages, we need some of that reality within fantastical adventure games, and bending that games are getting so good their like should be encouraged without at: portal racing, or teleporting rocket- Something, anything, reserve. They offer a portal into an ships, or a racing game that does for alternate world, where Wipeout had not racing what Steel Battalion did for giant just make it fast. smothered the category and science robots - giving us an absurd peripheral A few years ago, the question was if successful PR campaigns of MMOGs Dark Chinese and U.S. developer collaboration Age of Camelot and EVE Online. would ever occur. Now that top MMOGs Comments from the U.S. perspective are have begun penetrating the China in white; comments from the China point market, the new question is how of view are in yellow. successful such collaborations will be in the long term. Will the success of these Challenges in Dual-Culture collaborations be the result of Collaboration: Language and overcoming cultural battles, or the result Translation Issues of mutual respect? Cooperation by Creating good games is difficult and Chinese and American businesses in risky; creating successful MMOGs is general is long established, but East/ orders of magnitude harder, as West collaboration in the world of game evidenced by the 50 percent (or higher) development is largely uncharted mortality rate of MMOG developers. Add territory. Despite EVE Online, World of to these levels of challenge the mixing of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot and different cultures, different languages others’ presence in China, dual-culture and different work practices, and the collaboration is in its infancy. project becomes even more complicated and difficult. The first stage in This article provides some guidelines on collaboration is to address the challenges how two culturally diverse development of communicating with each other. teams can best collaborate to create games with global appeal. The authors Language. Probably one percent of U.S. provide input from two cultural game developers are fluent in Mandarin, viewpoints – Horace Xiong from the the language of business in China, while a Chinese point of view (Horace heads the higher percentage of Chinese developers Shanghai-based support team for CCP are fluent or competent in English. Games’ EVE Online presence in China and pre-production of future products) In mainland China, since the 1980s, and Doug Mealy, who heads an online English became compulsory lessons for marketing and PR firm that has launched students starting at age 12. So, a person 280 games and has contributed to the in his 20s in a position such as a Business Development Manager, for example, for almost everything else. U.S. reason: They can’t proofread any should have basic English reading and developers and game marketers can use translated work for final approval. writing skills. But, due to lack of exposure translation services in China (outsourcing to an English-speaking environment, his which is sometimes assigned to students Developing Business Partners in China: oral and listening proficiencies may be who may have a limited understanding Essential for Success somewhat limited. So, don’t expect every of the business and/or a limited linguistic senior Chinese executive to be 100 expertise), U.S.-based translation A local partner is essential for any percent fluent in English. services (with the same potential foreign game company that plans to do problems of accuracy) or use free or business in China, no matter what type Simplified vs. Traditional Mandarin. There commercially available translation of product they want to sell. The Chinese are two formats of Chinese used around software (which sometimes translate game industry is quite young, where the the world: The Simplified version is used with 80 percent accuracy). local enterprises are too small to in mainland China (95 percent of the compete with foreign giants. To cope population) while the Traditional version You should be very careful when with the possibility of instant failure, the is used in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. choosing the right translator services, government issued lots of unbreakable because a poorly translated term or protection policies, such as forbidding American slang. Americans use a lot of expression can give your targeted reader fully foreign-owned companies to slang terms, which we define as phrases a completely different impression. operate an MMOG. Furthermore, laws that don’t translate literally into foreign Specifically, when you plan to localize and regulations for the industry are still languages (e.g. “screwing up big time”). your product for the Chinese market, be under development. There is no U.S. developers need to refrain from sure to ask well-known and experienced supervision mechanism or any product using slang in their emails and in voice professionals in the industry to do all the rating organization. The whole industry communications and use words and naming and supervision work. We advise is regulated by many national ministries phrases that are direct and allow the against using any general translation who sometime issue conflicting policies. least likelihood of being misinterpreted agency - they may have senior experts This is confusing and even dangerous for or mistranslated. in traditional fields like finance or law, any foreign company, if they attempt to but it’s likely they will have difficulty with work without a Chinese partner or in a Translation issues. A lot of product all the gameplay-related keywords. joint-venture structure. names and programming terms in English are used freely in Mandarin and In any of these scenarios, U.S. developers How Basic Marketing Activities Compare: don’t need translation, such as PC, CPU, and marketers are at risk for one obvious Know What to Expect CD-ROM, etc. But, translation is needed The obvious goal of any dual-culture That information is available through PR collaboration is a game that sells, and agencies in the U.S. with clients in that requires an investment in China, and from China-based PR marketing. Here is an overview of some agencies, but there aren’t many of them. basic marketing efforts of public relations, advertising and exhibiting at Advertising. Advertisement sizes and trade shows so you’ll know a little more specifications are easily accessible in about how things are done in China and both countries simply by visiting the what they might cost. publication’s web page.

Public Relations/Media Relations. In China, there are no strict rules for There are about 80 credible game web game ad content or message, because sites in English, but you only need to neither the regulating authorities nor the interact with the top 15 or 20; the rest readers take “game stuff” seriously. The of the sites will post links to published fact is game companies always use press releases so there is a good chance exaggerated expressions, even that if you send press releases to those “aggressive comparisons.” Some weak 15 or 20 top sites, that you’ll get products even use bold comparisons to coverage on many of the other sites. an influential title to “borrow” the marketing strength from known titles. The media ecosystem in China is similar. Only a few (perhaps 10) big game Trade Shows. Arguably, the biggest portals dominate most new release marketing investment new development sources and public attention and thus studios make is exhibiting at trade attracts largest share of marketing shows. In some cases, this expense may budget from clients, while smaller sites be as high as 50-60 percent of their can copy and paste. annual marketing budget.

The challenge U.S. developers have is The exhibit space cost for a standard finding out what the top China game 10’x10’ booth at U.S. shows ranges from sites are and the name and the email $12 to $53 per square foot of exhibit address of a specific editorial contact. space, so a 10’x10’ space can cost from $1,200 to $5,300, whereas most U.S. with U.S. exhibit agencies with offices or and Asia Business Development Manager. shows offering 10’x10’s in the $3,500- partnerships in China. These agencies He successfully introduced pioneering $4,000 range. work collaboratively with their Asian MMOG EVE Online to the China market counterparts to achieve the marketing and started the CCP Asia office in Building a booth in China is quite different objectives of their clients. Generally, this Shanghai. He can be reached at horace@ than building one in the U.S, both in approach is the most worry-free option.” ccpgames.com. process and in cost. In China, you can have your booth custom built on site. Given all the booth options in China, it Local craftsmen set up shop around your may make sense to rent smaller booths booth space and build walls, lighting, etc. and custom build larger booths onsite. right in front of you. Here’s a rule of thumb: The ratio of space cost vs. booth Go East, Young Man building cost in China is 1:1, while the same ratio in the U.S. is 1:5 (minimum). So there you have it - some basic information on how Chinese and U.S. Shipping your booth to China is risky game developers can begin partnerships business, and expensive. Rose Faler, with one another. If our two game Account Director of AccessTCA, one of cultures can better understand how the largest exhibit companies in the things work in each other’s world, the world, says, “When U.S. companies chances of clashing will be minimized, choose to ship their custom booths to and collaboration will prevail. China for a trade show, it is a highly calculated choice. The risk of damage, loss, delays or theft is high. The Doug Mealy is founder and president of transportation infrastructure in China is Online Marketing and Public Relations, developing. The majority of the shipping and he has launched 280 computer trucks are small. Minimal storage is games and managed 130 trade show available, and those storage ‘areas’ are exhibits, both industry records. He can sometimes nothing more than a parking be reached at [email protected]. lot or field with a large tent overhead, and are often unprotected and not Horace Xiong is CCP Games’ first Chinese secure. Most companies prefer to work employee as Chief China Representative EDITORIAL PRODUCTION BUSINESS Executive Editor Producer Publisher Julianne Greer Jonathan Hayter Alexander Macris

Content Editors Lead Artist Account Executive Joseph Blancato Jessica Fielhauer Rebecca Sanders Russ Pitts Layout Artist Chairman of Themis Group Contributing Editors Jason Haile Thomas S. Kurz JR Sutich Shannon Drake Lead Web Developer Whitney Butts Research Manager Nova Barlow Web Developers Erik Jacobson Contributors Tim Turner Kieron Gillen Doug Mealy IT Director Horace Xiong Jason Smith Jim Rossignol Warren Spector Allen Varney

Issue 94 © 2007. The Escapist is published weekly by Themis Group, Inc. Produced in the United States of America. To contact the editors please email [email protected]. For a free subscription to The Escapist in PDF format please view www.escapistmagazine.com