the gaming masses. Providing this type editorial calendar. Planned topics range To celebrate our new validation as a of information is not what we seek to do from player created content to social distinct culture, we have created the first with The Escapist. politics in and around games to one-hit issue of The Escapist, centered around wonders and the people behind them. the impact gaming has had, and “Well, why don’t we do it? We have The Escapist is an ambitious magazine, continues to have, on our society. In his years of experience in communicating written, edited and styled with a fresh In order to achieve this level of coverage piece, Kieron Gillen examines games as with gamers, connections all over the approach to communicating with on a weekly basis, we have amassed an both art and simulation, showing how world and, between us all, more gaming gamers. We are the complement to the amazing group of writers, editors and gaming is poised to be the most exciting paraphernalia than your average game current gaming journalistic efforts. While thinkers with decades of collective entertainment medium of the 21st store.” the others give you up-to-the-second experience in journalism and gaming. century. Tycho Brahe treats us to a few news coverage, we give you broad looks We’ve tapped everyone from game snapshots into his past, highlighting The Bar Napkin Moment came at the end at news over time, discussing trends and designers to prolific gaming journalists moments of realization that games are of yet another lively office discussion proffering glimpses into the future. While and well-known digerati to jump on not just the small, secret pastime we about gamers and gamer culture. You the others provide previews and reviews board with us. I have been proud to shared in yesteryear. A word of caution know, that conversation that inevitably of the next big thing, we give you a taste work with this cast of players over the for plunging headlong into the offends one person, sends another two of the Cinderella game that might just last several months, from the inception mainstream is offered by John Tynes in into tirades about the simultaneous steal the spotlight, plus a look at why. of The Escapist, and look forward to his monthly column “The Contrarian.” injustice and importance of it all, and And while others ask developers about continued camaraderie over time. These features and more are the ends with “well, I know them when I see their latest projects, we delve into the substance of the next few pages of The them.” This particular exchange was the masterminds’ thoughts and histories to Seeing The Escapist come to fruition has Escapist, Issue 1: Gaming Uber Alles. “Who are gamers? Why is this culture find out what makes them tick. been rewarding, not just professionally, not represented by media?” one. but personally, as a gamer. Gamers’ Welcome to The Escapist! Enjoy! The content covered in The Escapist is numbers have been quietly growing over Now, please allow me to answer the centered on a weekly theme. Both the last few decades. As our ranks have question that just popped into your Tuesday’s main publish and the weekend grown, our relevance as a population heads. What about all the other gaming extra, Casual Friday, will revolve around segment has grown. Our culture has magazines and websites out there? Yes, an issue or event important to gamers. become a recognizable force in shaping there is a veritable smorgasbord of Through a lot of questions and research, our society. And yet, there is no medium gaming news and game information and we’ve determined topics in the forefront through which our matured culture is developer diaries out there. Some sites of gamers’ minds. You will find these represented… until now. and magazines even do an absolutely topics, and others you never knew you fantastic job of providing these bits to were interested in, somewhere on our meaningful, digital lives that we all take for granted.

Games, though, until the last few years, weren’t ready to be the default pastime of sentient creatures. If you’re the sort of person who would read a magazine to stumble upon your Music Television solely distributed in Adobe’s PDF format, and see something that struck me as chances are you know what I’m talking odd. I guess I should say that it strikes about. Graphics have been at a level me as odd now. In 1997, when it attractive to people in general for a actually occurred, I think I just thought couple generations. But what the it was neat to see a commercial for a hardcore is willing to tolerate (and in a game on television. I didn’t pick up at sick way, appreciate) in terms of punitive the time that they weren’t talking to me. gameplay mechanisms and technological They already had me, see, since I was hiccoughs is well above the threshold the three and discerned that the device I majority of living creatures are willing to was holding held some undefinable put up with from their amusement power over the television. No, they medium. Outside of the sports titles were after the sort of people who which have always enjoyed mainstream watched MTV because watching MTV was Normal people are leaping over the refine the intellect. Well, we don’tknow attention, there is a vast geography of actually what they wanted to do. barrier and swarming over the precious know it, but that is our desperate hope, game experiences that rarely break the electronic games which were once our and there is a kind of purity in that. surface of the wider culture. That isn’t Nestled between commercials for sole domain. It may be that they are a Outside of these beneficial (and quite to say there haven’t been moves to push products I would be ashamed to friendly, benevolent force, but it would probably, imaginary) properties, we are it to the forefront, perhaps even before it purchase, let alone use, I saw Final be foolish to assume it. In fact, I think aware that playing these games is was entirely ripe for the purpose. Fantasy VII’s Cloud Strife engaged in it’s best that you wait here with me in completely awesome. That’s pretty various acts of pre-rendered, post- this impervious, well-stocked bunker much incontrovertible; I don’t have to Let me tell you what I saw on MTV. I apocalyptic heroism. Of course, I knew while we try to figure out how things make up a study to prove it. It was won’t admit to watching that channel on who he was, Cloud Strife as an entity went so terribly wrong. really only a matter of time before the purpose. Let me instead suggest that was only slightly less anticipated than vast majority of human beings realized while switching between two other We already know that videogames make this fact and began living the channels - each one dedicated to the a person healthier physically while they higher pursuits of the mind - I happened our Lord Jesus H. Christ. The ability of You’ll forgive me if I assume that the player altogether. Somewhere in my bothered with narrative you won’t find the Compact Disc medium to store data, reader has some knowledge of gaming mind, this has always been the point of your progression hampered. Halo coupled with Squaresoft’s unrivaled genres, and won’t skitter away if I demarcation after which playing included cooperative play - something artistry and intimidating financial power, suggest that Final Fantasy VII videogames was no longer the sole we’re already starting to see the next had created something that looked - at constitutes an epic RPG - but suffice it domain of pariahs. generation of consoles take very times - like a blockbuster film. to say that the user “plays” this kind of seriously - and it’s a feature which no game by navigating a series of blue And so, the way was paved for the doubt projected the game to a wider If the numbers I’ve read are correct, menus for up to a hundred hours. For breakthrough megagame - something audience by infusing what was Square sold one copy of the game for me, hey, I can’t get enough of that kind that would really and truly puncture the essentially a single-player experience every man, woman, and child on Earth - of thing. I crave a good menu. I’ll mainstream and induct them into our with camaraderie. PC gamers had living or dead. sometimes go into a Denny’s and not dark brotherhood. It would have to be a already tasted it, and tasted it at even order anything. But a person could little more interactive, a little more exorbitant expense. What Halo did was That may be an exaggeration. be forgiven for harboring misconceptions accessible. It would have to contain less bring the excitement and social about the experience. All of that aside, blue menus, and it did. It starts with the experience of a LAN party to virtually What a person snared by that it moved a tremendous amount of letter H, and rhymes with halo. Because advertisement thought of the game once dedicated entertainment hardware into a it is Halo. they got it home is anybody’s guess. truly staggering number of living rooms, and gave Console War I to Sony’s There is a lot of meat in Halo story-wise Playstation. The fact that we as if you want it, but if you can’t be dedicated gamers were already sold on the series was only part of the success. The game crossed over, beyond the ramparts, and attracted another type of anyone who wanted to have it. That’s no had started with the original Halo had Now, they walk among us. Try not to be small thing. intensified - three years of addictive, startled by their odd cuisine or strange communal Combat Evolved had created mannerisms! They’re here to stay, and The conversion of gaming from a solitary a culture with its own jokes and shared the effect of their presence on the activity to a group activity that did not culture. I could see that the line in front industry and the games it produces is require thousands of dollars and of me all the way to the register was pronounced. Look at The Sims, or considerable technical savvy is not filled with people I would never see in Nintendogs - a game whose actual, real insignificant. At the time it was the ordinary course of my life. These objective is to make a puppy love you. released, the lack of play were not young men who turned to They’re targeted at, and bringing in, an seemed like a serious omission to the old videogames because - as it sometimes entirely different kind of person. That’s guard - but as it stood, Halo forced you was in my day - the pleasures of a social something we can get into next time, if to get your stuff, get out of the house, existence were unavailable to them. you like, but I kind of have to go. I eat Fritos brand snack chips and tote These were people just as hardcore, in haven’t checked my e-mail in, like, an imaginary shotguns in drive-bys on their way, as I was - and yet they were hour and I’m starting to itch all over. frozen tundra. It’s extremely rewarding, somehow able to blend into the larger and I think it’s as responsible for Halo’s population unnoticed. Mark II, I legendary status as anything else you’d thought. These are Geeks Mark II. care to name. I hid behind a display. When I was waiting in line to grab my copy of Halo 2, it became clear that what the benefits of various video cards until the end of days. (He still thinks buying an Alienware system is a cop-out. Real gamers start from scratch.) He would be Am I a gamer? I review video games for highly insulted if I ever called myself a various sources, including a major gamer in front of him. metropolitan newspaper. In May, I made the rounds of for ten hours a day. I Lately, I’ve been wondering who came have a carefully selected games library, up with this idea of the “gamer” and its and my adoration of GTA dates back to parameters. Do gamers play World of the London expansion pack, when I used Warcraft, while non-gamers are on a double-decker bus to evil ends. I grew EverQuest II? Are you a gamer if you up in the arcades, standing on tiptoes to take a week off to watch DVDs, rather feed quarters into the slots. I give game than play Half-Life 2 when it’s released? recommendations to friends and Do you have to hit 60 hours a week to acquaintances as if I were reading their qualify, or is 20 enough? Do you have to tea leaves. be playing many games at the same time, or if you’ve only ever played City of But, in the opinion of some, I am not a Heroes, does that count? gamer. Maybe gamers are the ones lined up at The common archetype of gamer is midnight for the big release of Halo 2 - specific. He likes FPS - a lot. He has an or maybe Halo 2 is not really a gamer’s encyclopedic knowledge of every game game, just a game for people who think that was released on the . He they’re gamers. It seems like having customized his own PC, and will argue other interests - such as mine, things like travel - rule you out from the gamer town. Once the console - with its the village and into the fields, where you own. It shouldn’t expand to the point of label forever, because you’ll always be wonderfully pre-configured set-up - can then begin mining.” becoming meaningless, but it would be PKed by someone better. entered the picture, the masses flocked good to encompass all of us who enjoy to it. PC players played consoles, too, PC games have become a bifurcated the challenge of games, and spend our To me, being a gamer implies that you but stayed involved in PCs, retreating world of complex, difficult-to-learn time and our energy on playing and play pretty much to the exclusion of into a world of ever more complicated gamer games, and “dad games” like golf thinking about games. I’m not talking everything else. You may stand in line gaming, where learning the basics of an and solitaire. In a way, PC games are a about the person who picks up a PS2 to for the opening day of Spider-Man 3, but RPG or a flight simulator could microcosm of the idea of the gamer get some aerobic exercise with Dance that’s an acceptable anomaly. If you’re a reasonably take 24 hours non-stop. versus non-gamer, since the division is Dance Revolution, and then tries another gamer, you’re not sitting down for a few so clear. game here or there. I’m describing the hours a night to read Jonathan Strange Like the person who knows all the kinds of enthusiasts who can talk about & Mr. Norrell and postmodern musings Microsoft Windows shortcuts, these But is the kid who only plays GTA after Beyond Good and Evil with as much on the Basque region. You’re playing players take pride in their obscure school - and loves it - any less of a passion as a film-school grad discussing games - a whole lot of them - and you’re knowledge, wearing it as a badge of gamer? What about if he has the full Truffaut. much, much better at them than I. honor. “Yes,” they say, “of course it takes lineup of all the major consoles? What fifty commands to get a character out of about if he can only afford the games in Plenty of people put in the hours and To be a gamer is also to spend a lot of the $20 bin, but he plays each all the have the zeal, and I have no interest in money on the act of gaming - getting way through? Does the amount of taking the label of gamer away from new games at $50 a pop, having money you spend make you a gamer, them. We might just decide to agree to multiple consoles set up in your living and the lack of it, disqualify you? What disagree, since as long as qualifying to room, upgrading your PC system about the girl - and yes, it’s often a girl - be a gamer means I can’t pull out the because the new game you want to play who has devoted 150 hours to cultivating DVDs for a weekend - leaving my games demands it. Enthusiastic kids I know - all her crops and neighbors in Animal on the shelf - I’m fine to stay out of the raised on the PS1, and pretty much Crossing? club. But in a way, it’s too bad, because game players for life - wouldn’t qualify if I was a gamer, included in the group of as “gamers” in this scenario, because According to the conventional wisdom, worthy gamer companions, we might they don’t have the money to spend. the answer is no, none of these people have a good time playing together. are gamers. Maybe the whole concept of a “gamer” is outdated, a remnant from five years ago. It’s time to come up with a new label, or It seems like a concept from the era recognize that the old one must expand when PC titles were the only game in its domain, as gaming has expanded its We need a Straw Man. Any volunteers? severe) system in place. If a game features any significant measure of adult Ah, here we are. Could you repeat that content, it goes before the BBFC and for the crowd, Senator Deanna Demuzio gets exactly the same rating as a film or of Illinois? a video.

“Video games are not art or media. They My issue with the legislation is the are simulations, not all that different reasons it is progressing. First, the text from the simulations used by the U.S. of the bill claims videogames cause military in preparation for war.” definite psychological harm to players. This is, as yet, unproven. Second, Excellent. related to the quote I’ve just taken, the position that videogames don’t receive Senator DeMuzio is the sponsor for the first-amendment free-speech rights as current legislation being propelled via they’re not actually a form of expression. peristalsis through the bowels of the Games are just simulators, virtually Illinois State Government. The bill would identical to the ones we use to train our introduce a legally enforced rating soldiers. No one’s saying anything system for games. The current rating through them. system is voluntary, much like that of the film industry in the U.S. The new Hmm. rating system would hold that if a retailer sells a game to a person below Let’s put aside the question, exactly in the age limited by the rating, they would which imminent conflict the armed forces receive a hefty fine and so on and… well, expect to utilize their finely-honed gold- so irrelevant. coin-collecting skills. Let’s take the good Senator at her word - games are almost To be honest, I don’t have an enormous military simulators, so not expression – problem with a legally-enforceable rating and move forward system for games. As a citizen of the UK, I already live in a country which has a By an odd quirk of fate, I found myself in similar (in fact, in terms of fines, more Prague a few weeks back, visiting Bohemia Interactive. They’re best known of adding destructible buildings to their Compare and contrast with the recently The conclusion we can draw from this is for their breakthrough soldier-sim engine for future games, explaining the released Battlefield 2 demo, which posits that simulators aren’t, by their nature, Operation Flashpoint, critically acclaimed addition isn’t because they want to give the U.S. Marines and a Middle-Eastern neutral. They’re as prejudiced as their for its extreme devotion to realism. The people the visceral thrill of seeing a army as equals on a technological creators. Simulators say something critics weren’t the only ones who building fall apart. Rather, it is because footage. Both are rooted in the language about the world they describe. noticed. After its release, they were they want to create a persistent world of the military, but they’re expressing Simulation is expression. approached by cheery governmental where your successes and failures wildly separate views on the nature of a bodies to transform the game into a remain to remind you of your errors. Fail conflict.Battlefield 2 presents a In fact, simulation is a cornerstone of the training simulator for soldiers. The to defend a farm, and that burnt out beleaguered U.S. in a war which is more history of most cultural forms. Putting resultant VBS1 is used by the US shell is going to be sitting there for the cowboys and Indians than anything else, aside the obvious history of Marines and National Guard, among rest of the game. while Bohemia reaches for something representation in visual art, even others, as part of their training. more akin to a comment on the nature literature demonstrates the pattern of of war using theoretical examples. Even simulation as art. What is Anna Karenina So, in the case of Flashpoint, Senator within the genre of pseudo-military other than Tolstoy’s simulation of society Demuzio is very much right. Flashpoint simulators, there are clear differences life in 19th Century Russia? “Simulation” is exactly the sort of game she was from game to game to what the nature is just another way of saying this is life, thinking about when making her of conflict actually is. Put simply, and this is how it works. The only statement, with the game and the war- Flashpoint’s world is a world away from difference is, in games, the simulator merely tweaked versions of When thinking of the campaign structure Battlefield 2’s. representation created isn’t static; the one another. Where she’s entirely wrong for their future games, Bohemia doesn’t is arguing that this somehow makes the choose a life or death struggle for game not a form of expression. supremacy between equivalent forces. While dealing with fictional situations Bohemia is actually one of the more and antagonists, they base their idealistic groups of developers I’ve met. campaign on the assumption of American They talk about their moral discomfort in Military supremacy in any conventional creating a game about a real conflict, war. Rather than making the game about recalling a specific project based on whether the Americans will win, they Vietnam. The team disposed of months make it how the Americans will win and of work because they thought it your character’s experiences along the impossible to make a game that was way. both accurate and enjoyable. They spoke player is placed inside and left to explore Implicit decisions in design can reveal its contradictions and limits. similar thought processes in general. I remember an early review of Civilization Restraining ourselves to classical written by British games-writer-turned- simulator games, it’s easy to pick out developer Gary Penn, well before it was Inspired largely by the title JFK Reloaded, HB 4023 (The Safe Game Illinois Act) was examples where a developer’s beliefs, enshrined as a modern classic. He was introduced after strong remarks on the harmful nature of video games from Governor philosophies, prejudices or priorities only luke-warm towards it, being Rod Blagojevich late last year. The governor’s originally stated goal in suggesting the reveal themselves in a game. Remember disappointed by how it presented a world legislation was to help parents who “face unprecedented challenges in monitoring and how it proved impossible to construct a where everything was inevitable. You protecting their children from harmful influences.” The bill bans the rental and sale of decent functioning city in Sim City had to invent the wheel. You had to violent and sexually explicit video games to children younger than 18. The bill also without an extensive public transport invent religion. Rather than being free to requires retailers to label violent and sexually explicit video games, similar to the system? Imagine how the game may experiment in possible civilisations, it “Parental Advisory” label found on music CDs, and to post signs explaining the video differ if created by an advocate of the implies we live in a Liebnitzian Best of All game rating system. Retailers who violate the ban face a fine of $1,000. Fines are automobile industry. Staying with Maxis Possible Worlds. The world is what it had also imposed on retailers who fail to properly label games or place proper signs. games, consider the egalitarian sexual to be, and to Gary Penn, it was a shame. politics which permeates The Sims, with I’ve no idea whether Sid Meier believes While it is certain HB 4023 will be signed into law shortly, attempts to legislate video sexual orientation being a matter of in something like the inevitable march of games across the are being met with mixed results. In California, choice and all decisions being equally history, but Civilization certainly does. Assembly Bill 450 (Assemblyman Leland Yee) was voted down in May by a committee respected. At the other end of the of the California House of Representatives, which later reconsidered and approved it seriousness spectrum, until relatively In other words, a simulation is never just on a bipartisan, 6-4 vote. Reviving most of Yee’s original bill (AB 1792) from the year recently Sports Interactive’s incredibly a simulation. Equally, freedom is rarely before, AB450 proposes fines of up to $1,000 for retailers selling M-rated games to thorough management simulation of the actually free of designer-imposed children less than 17 years of age. North Carolina Senate Bill 2, also addressing game football/soccer leagues, Championship desires. Even in games with the most sales to minors, is currently in House committee. Manager (now Football Manager), had a self-expressed mandates of “choice” for terrible tendency for Everton to perform the gamer, it doesn’t mean that there The key problem for legislation is making the law durable enough to above what their statistical abilities isn’t a message. In Deus Ex, the withstand challenge once it is approved. Federal courts have already struck down should suggest. Eyebrows will remain generally politically liberal Ion Storm various regulations previously approved by Washington State, Indianapolis and St. unraised when I reveal that the Collyer Austin created a world where you could Louis County in Missouri, stating they encroach upon rights protected by the First brothers support a certain Liverpool- choose between violence and pacifistic Amendment. based team. approaches, but the charismatic characters urged you towards peace while the monsters suggested violence. To be praised by someone actually worth jump,” and start thinking, “I’ll jump.” liking, you had to restrain your more Just look at the language people use to scarlet impulses. Deus Ex’s central tenet talk about games to show how much was freedom of choice for the gamer, but their sense of identity has merged with it’s clear what choice Ion Storm wanted their in-game character. If someone’s you to make. enjoying a game, it’s, “It hit me,” never, “It hit my character,” in the same way At the other end of the ethical scale, mark. Most games bear no relation to viewed as machines for artificially that a human’s sense of self can expand Postal 2 is a genuinely monstrous game. military simulators at all. In fact, what inducing sensation in the gamer - digital to include the vehicle they’re in (“He hit You are positioned as an everyday Joe, games mostly choose to simulate bears hallucinations creating holidays in places me!” versus the actually correct “He hit going about everyday tasks, whose no relation to reality at all. Most of these that don’t exist. my car!”). everyday frustrations lead you to entirely games can’t be called a simulation atypical, grotesque violence. Most except in the very broadest sense. You Well, yes, but the counter-argument to Videogames are the simulator which troubling – and it’s this that reveals could argue the base laws of physical games’ rising importance is that’s swallows your consciousness alive and there’s something more than lizard-hind- causality, which form the majority of equally true that most forms of art or takes you to another place. While other brains at the developers, Running With games, make most games simulations. entertainment induce sensation. For forms just let you look at how the Scissors – it’s a choice by the player However, it sits awkwardly when you’re example, reading any piece of fiction, creators believe the world to be, games which leads to the slaughter. You are describing a simulator of something that from Dr. Seuss to James Joyce, is an let you step inside an artificial construct presented with the choice of sitting simply doesn’t (and never will) exist. exercise in building images and fictions and allow you to actually be there. through a tedious delay or short-cutting Describing Ocarina of Time as a boy- in your mind. Where games differ is their it by pulling out a shotgun and starting with-fairy simulator fails to really interactive nature. The feedback loop to blast away. It’s a nihilistic, sick gag, convince… or do justice. between your decisions and the game but it’s only really funny because you’ve involve you in a way other forms simply been made entirely complicit. They may Except, perversely, that’s what it actually can’t match. have wanted you to, but it was you who feels like to play the Zelda pantheon. pulled the trigger. It’s a game which Even if it’s a ludicrous, fantastical Games create a cybernetic system plays games with you. situation, it convinces you of its truth. between you and the machine, with your And it’s here where we find what I senses eventually expanding to possess But that moves beyond the strict suspect is the central core of gaming’s your avatar when you’ve sufficiently “simulations” which our Senator was power and why it should be the premier mastered the control system. This is the referencing, which only illustrates by form of interest of the twenty-first absolute magic of the form, where you how great a distance she missed her century. In this future, games can be stop thinking, “I need to press X to This is a fundamental power of the form enough in their current actuality, rather will ever be the same again, and perhaps and can’t be overstated. There’s never than their abstract future, to make them a little bit of the colour mauve, as well as been anything quite like a videogame interesting and worthy of discussion. literature can? before. For this reason, Neophiles gather Living solely for the future is just as bad around games, because they’re a form as living solely for the past. All this line of argument does is lacerate which still has a little bit of The Future in games for not being another form. It’s them. While you can argue that games It’s in that spirit we find developers and bemusing why games are always are grounded in postmodernism in that gamers denigrating themselves. The compared either film or the novel, as if they, by their nature, celebrate the death feeling seems to be that even though they were the only art-forms worth of the author and explicitly make the games are amusing enough at the mentioning. Why aren’t games compared “reader” the driving force, the fact moment, because they’re stuck dealing to – say – dance or architecture, which there’s still so much to do with them with primary-coloured emotions and are equally accepted as art forms and makes them absolutely modernist. As without the subtle blend of emotion that don’t operate anything like the silver the rest of pop-culture plays remix tricks literature manages, games are somehow screen or the printed word? with the past and can’t even be bothered lesser. When will a game chart the emo- to start thinking about ways forward, esque moment of seeing someone who This form of inferiority complex has videogames have a grand vista before reminds you of a person with whom you always been endemic in any new cultural them of new, uncharted possibilities. But had an ill-fated affair and now you form. Last year, I finally got around to I think he missed a trick in his it’s not purely in potential where games experience regret mixed with longing reading Aristotle’s Poetics and was determination to prove one superior to are interesting. There’s more than with a touch of realization that nothing charmed to discover that large sections the other, however. Rather than being a involve Ari discussing the relative merits competition where one must triumph, between the new-kid Tragedy versus the the real situation is that Epic Verse established form of Epic Verse. He cites succeeds in different things in different other critics who argue that Tragedy, ways than does Tragedy. That’s all. In featuring vulgar elements such as other words, things in ancient Greece singing and creating works of hugely less were exactly as they are now. The new scale, is a lesser form than the forms are judged according to the traditional Epic Verse. Aristotle plays it standards of the old forms, and found cute, arguing what they’ve analyzed as wanting, until someone notes that while weaknesses are in fact strengths, the new form may not excel in one area, allowing Tragedy to move people in ways it far exceeds the old in others. Epic Verse simply can’t. Narratologist may snort at Tetris or a Ludologist take issue with a Final Fantasy game, to remove either from the canon lessens the import of the canon. That beloved games with real power have come from both traditions, and successful hybrids appear at every point between the two poles, shows how foolish such attempts are. Games are bigger than that. With games’ immersion So, no, games aren’t currently as able as of expressing experiences other forms through interactivity, they can abstractly literature or film at capturing those have had difficulties with, where its take us anywhere, show us anything and quiet, sensitive moments. And, while I competitors’ possibilities are at least allow us to do whatever we want. personally doubt this will prove to be the partially quenched. While film, and its case, maybe they never will be. Really, it smaller-screened sister television, So, where, precisely, is this brashly doesn’t matter. When you manage to casting the last hundred years in soft, confident child of the arts going to take show me a book that captures the flickering light, still achieve magnificent us in the twenty-first century? exhilaration of flying down a snowy slope things, its ideas and boundaries are while pulling a physically impossible increasingly well plotted. Games have I really don’t know. contortion even a fraction as well as SSX barely even started. Tricky does, we’ll talk about which one is And that’s exciting. intrinsically superior. And please bury It even helps games’ case that film is a that absolutely vile concept that primal more limited form in what it can present. sensations are somehow “lesser”. Saying Games can and have consumed it’s vulgar is just another way devotees influences from all other arts, and of another form admit they can’t manage integrated them into a seamless whole. to appreciate it even a fraction as well While the academic fisticuffs between and, through this label, put limits on the mechanic-hungry Ludologists and the what’s an acceptable sensation for a story-obsessed Narratologists have work to translate. attempted to define what gamesshould be, all either has done is make the grand Despite the nay-sayers, games are still totality of games smaller to fit their in the enviable position of being capable prejudices. As much as a classical rolled out their massive assault on Ubiquity is a funny thing. It turned American suburbs in the 1990s, they movies into a sporting event, with the decided that buying 70mm projectors weekend box offices as scoreboards and and building theatres that would do them people rooting for their team. The entire justice was just not part of the industry changed, compressing their spreadsheet. They wanted the lowest marketing efforts to nail that crucial first common denominator of technology, and weekend. It’s made more films available I sat down in the movie theatre. The perfect, so detailed, that I couldn’t that meant good old 35mm, the same to more people, which is a fine thing. lights went dim, the curtains parted, and believe my eyes. No film I’d ever seen in middling format we’ve been staring at the projector fired up. The big white this theatre looked like this one. I could for decades. But ubiquity only works when it’s screen in front of me, the very same one step right through the screen. married to standardization. Species I’d sat before a hundred times, suddenly Until the multiplexes rolled out, 70mm evolve to the point where they reach a turned into a clear glass window. The I’d like to think that you’ve had this wasn’t just a curiosity. Big films were plateau of ubiquity, at which point all film wasBaraka , the format was 70mm, experience, too. But you probably shot in this format, including Lawrence members of the species are pretty much and the picture on that screen was so haven’t. Seventy millimeter filmmaking of Arabia, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the same. Humans have the same is dead, killed by the ubiquity of Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet, and even the number of fingers, the same number of multiplexes. When the corporate gods Tom Cruise historical epic Far and Away. eyes. Ubiquity plus standardization behind AMC Theatres, Cineplex Odeon, But about ten years ago, all that dried up equals success. Mutants arise and, for Regal Entertainment, and all the rest and died. Hollywood got out of the the most part, die off. 70mm film business because not enough theatres had the projectors to make it When gamers talk about how gaming is worthwhile. The explosion of screens everywhere, how game culture has demanded standardization, and suddenly permeated everything, they miss this the movie business couldn’t justify the lesson. The success of our hobby is the expense of working with 70mm cameras. jackboot sheathing the downward- Why bother, when you were just going to driving foot of global commerce, and the shrink it down to 35mm and pump out snapping neck beneath its heel is prints by the thousands to ensure that innovation. 98% of the population could watch Shrek on opening weekend. This is why is doomed. Okay, not entirely. Nintendo’s hardware won’t be processor-competitive with the Sony was hot. The mutant died. The is doomed. The ? Drowning. Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360; instead, standard took hold. Sega surrendered, Gamecube? Buried. Revolution? Dead on the boys from Kyoto say their gave up on hardware, and did what they arrival. Sony and Microsoft have begun innovations in game control systems will did best: make great games for the process of cleaning their clock, and drive entirely new types of play. whatever platform they could. there’s just a bit of dust on the minute hand still left to go. They’re wrong. That’s the problem. Publishers want to make one game with one set of art The thing about Nintendo that keeps me assets, then recompile it and spit it out awake at night is that they’ve always for every platform they can. innovated. When they made the leap to 3D with Mario 64, they designed the Consider this: some major licensed controller to fit the game. Shigeru games in 2006 will be released for some innovative ways to exploit the Miyamoto understood that camera seven platforms. Let’s count ‘em: touch screen for playing Tom Clancy control was the single biggest challenge Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Xbox, Xbox shooters? of 3D gaming, and he wanted a 360, Gamecube, Revolution, PSP. This controller that would support his camera This is not a new story. Look at Sega: seven-platform window won’t last long. No. No way. There’s a bigger chance of solution. He was spot on: nine years they ruled with the Genesis, botched the The Gamecube has already dropped off EA adapting NFL 2006 to use Nintendo’s later, games still routinely ship with Saturn, but came back strong with the the map for some publishers, and in digital bongos. crappy camera controls. It’s not because Dreamcast. It was a great console, very 2007 you won’t see many titles the developers are lazy; it’s because powerful, with an innovative controller launching on PS2 and Xbox. But they’ll Publishers want to make one game, one cameras are hard. Miyamoto and his scheme. The memory card had its own last longer than you expect, because investment, and then leverage that colleagues at Nintendo realized this and controls and LCD screen, and you could publishers now believe they left money investment on as many platforms as they didn’t screw around. They built the play little games on it by itself or plug it on the table when they abandoned the they can as cheaply as possible. If the platform to support the game. into the controller where it could display PS1 too soon. Revolution has some crazy gyroscopic additional information during the game. controller that works in a brand new way It wasn’t the only time Nintendo went Their online service turned the What’s missing from that list? Game Boy which is incompatible with the dominant out on a limb. There was the , Dreamcast into a TV web browser and DS for one. Do you think Ubisoft is going DualShock paradigm, publishers will look the Power Glove, the Gamecube to Game introduced networked gaming to the to crank out the latest Ghost Recon for the other way. They don’t want to make Boy Advance Link Cable, the Donkey living room. the DS? If they do, do you think they’ll a big investment in tailoring a game for Konga Bongos, the Game Boy DS. put a lot of work into giving the second the special features of one particular They’ve made it clear that the Revolution The publishers yawned. screen an interesting use, maybe find platform. That’s why the Sony PSP is going to win. The saddest part of all this is that When gamers celebrate the fact that Publishers understand it: powerful 3D, Nintendo knows it. Some of them do, gaming has gone mainstream, that it’s familiar controls, absolutely zero anyway. You just need to read their everywhere, they’re dancing on innovation. That’s how they like it. They awful press release for the Game Boy Nintendo’s grave. They’re rejoicing in a can take Ghost Recon and slap it out for Micro; it tells the tale. Right at the end future of narrowly defined genres: the the PSP. Why not? It isn’t fundamentally of the first paragraph, Nintendo’s own shooter, the stealth action, the character different from a PS2 or an Xbox; it’s just marketing people issue their cry for platformer. They’re laughing at the portable. help: “In an instant it attracts attention burning wreckage of Feel the Magic: XY/ and positions the image-conscious player XX and Nintendogs and Odama. They’re Even Microsoft paused from chest- as someone on the cutting edge of cool.” whipping out their PSP and playing “Tony thumping long enough to cave on this As soon as your marketing department Hawk: Back For More Cash” and saying point. Their mutant Xbox controller flat-out says, “Hey kids, our product is look at the screen, look at the graphics, departed from the Sony standard of the cool!” it’s time to sell the stock short. isn’t it pretty, and so familiar. They’ll eat four shoulder buttons in favor of two The first rule of marketing is you don’t at McDonald’s and shop at Wal-Mart and triggers and then black and white say you’re cool; you show your product listen to The Killers and wear their Hot buttons no one knew how to use. Look at with cool people, cool music, or cool Topic. And ten years from now, some the Xbox 360 controller: Yep, four imagery and let the consumer fill in the guy like me will write an article about shoulder buttons. The mutant died. The blanks. But no, Nintendo marketing rants “Remember Game Boy?”, and that’ll be standard took hold. ever on: “Because of its diminutive size that. and industrial-hip look, Nintendo is already on the mat. Sony immediately identifies the person playing Enjoy. shoved their fingers in Nintendo’s nostrils it as a trendsetter with discriminating and dragged them screaming up and style.” It’s tiny, “allowing it to sit down the block. Microsoft scurried over comfortably alongside today’s hippest to their whimpering, bloody body and technological gadgets.” stole their lunch money. Nintendo blubbered something about the Nintendo’s marketing department is the supremacy of the Game Boy, but now canary in the coal mine. They’re losing they have their first real competition in the war and they’re desperate and they years and a user base that’s ten years no longer care who knows it. older than they realize. It breaks your damn heart. Rockstar Stirring the Coffee copies at Barnes and Noble alone. The overall total EDITORIAL Lead Web Developer Whitney Butts The GTA: San Andreas “Hot Coffee” sex mini-game appears to be slightly higher than Halo 2’s final Content Editor “discovered” by Dutch hackers has been labeled as preorder sales, which topped off at 1.5 million. Julianne Greer illegitimate by Rockstar. The mini-game, which Halo 2 sold 2.38 million copies the first day; IT Director Jason Smith includes skill gain in certain areas of “prowess,” has Rowlings’s newest book is predicted to sell 10.8 Contributing Editors lit a fire under the ESRB and other pundits to million. One wonders if there’s much overlap. Joseph Blancato BUSINESS investigate the origins of the mod to see if Rockstar JR Sutich deliberately hid the mod from the ratings group. Hostile Takeover Coming for ATI? Publisher According to an ATI expert, the hardware firm Research Manager Alexander Macris PSP Proves Useful might be targeted for takeover by business giants Nova Barlow Tech-minded PSP users now have the option to AMD or Texas Instruments. ATI, which has product Chief Financial Officer install rudimentary HTTP and FTP servers on their in over 70% of video-displaying hardware, extends Contributors Thomas S. Kurz handhelds. Now if someone would just get around themselves far beyond just games. Stocks rose Tycho Brahe to writing a decent browser for it. after the musing went into publication. Jennifer Buckendorf Director of Advertising Kieron Gillen Susan Briglia Harry Potter Claims One Million Preorders John Tynes Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Associate Publishers Rowling’s latest addition the massively popular, PRODUCTION & DESIGN Jerry Godwin instant-classic series has sold one million preorder Gregory Lincoln Production Manager Jonathan Hayter

Volume 1, Issue 1, © 2005. The Escapist is published weekly by Themis Group, Inc. Produced in the United States of America. To contact the editors please email editor@ escapistmag.com. For a free subscription to The Escapist in PDF format please view www.escapistmagazine.com