putting an interview with the Garriott Games Lost My Emotion” the “Gaming at Keep up the good work. brothers, an article from newcomer Nick the Margins” series and even “The Play Bousfield about an old adventure game, Is the Thing,” you described the need for A loyal reader, Originally, this week’s issue was The Last Express and an article from games that show the consequences of Nathan Jeles supposed to be “Gaming’s Young Turks Greg Costikyan sharing the roots of our actions, and allow us to make and Slavs,” an issue about the rise of games, all in the same issue. I’ll look decisions that will affect the outcome of To the Editor: First, let’s get the usual gaming in Eastern Europe, both in forward to your comments on The Lounge. the game. In our society there are fewer pleasantries dispensed with. I love the development and in playerbase. I and fewer people willing to take magazine, read it every week, enjoy received several article pitches on the Cheers, responsibility for their actions or believe thinking about the issues it throws up, topic and the issue was nearly full. And that their actions have no consequences. and love that other people think games then flu season hit. And then allergies Many of these people are in the marketing are more than they may first appear. hit. All but one of my writers for this issue demographic for video games. It is great has fallen prey to flu, allergies or a minor to see a group of people who are interested There’s one game, one, that has made bout of forgetfulness. I blame Spring. in showing the need to understand and me cry. Others have made me feel account for the effect our actions will various things, anger (thank you WoW Despite these various ailments, we have on others, and I thank you for ganking), frustration (Ninja Gaiden really received several interesting article stressing this need in your articles. is Nintendo hard), and satisfaction (but submissions, quite out of the blue. And To the Editor: I love The Escapist. As a it’s so rewarding when you finally these submissions were good. So we here, magazine it does more than inform I would ask one thing, if it is at all manage to beat up the nunchaku guy). at The Escapist headquarters, put two about games - anyone can so that. You possible, please report on how this need and two together: on the one hand, lacking on the other hand inform about the is being filled. I am sure that your plea But, for making me cry, that honor goes regularly scheduled content, and on the society and sociology created by the has not fallen on deaf ears, nor would I to Xenogears, the Japanese RPG by other, possessing these special articles. existence of games, which is as important, think that you are the only ones in the Squaresoft that was remade into the in my opinion, as the games themselves. industry to discover this need. So if there more recent Xenosaga series. And so now, this week, we are proud to are games meeting your described bring you what has been lovingly called I have been captured recently by an needs, what are they and who is making The game is two CDs of complex, in the office for a few weeks, “Mish undercurrent that seems to thread them? Where can I get them? Maybe if interwoven, thematically fascinating Mash.” This is a departure from our usual through many of the latest articles: The people were to see that others have story. In what other game do you find thematic issues. But it works quite need for diversity, but also the need for successfully accomplished (or are out not only that you have to kill God, admirably in a pinch. I’m curious to emotional connection and varying currently attempting to accomplish) this but that God is in fact the power source know what everyone thinks of our consequences. In the articles “Where goal, they would be likely to follow suit. for an ancient planet-killing biological weapon that has created everyone on becoming “mainstream” (Though I see “Wal-Mart audience,” as you call it, bought What gives? Earth to use as spare parts in its 10,000 nothing wrong with that - to each his more copies than did the wired, black- year regeneration process? own), for there are many more clothes-wearing, Marin-County-dwelling, - Malia interesting niches waiting to be filled. As $4,000-computer-having audience. In what other game would you have a Julianne mentioned in this week’s To the Editor: I wanted to applaud The love story between two people that get editorial, no game has made her cry. Regards, Escapist and the content it’s publishing. continuously reincarnated for the whole Surely there could exist a tragedy niche, Bill Dugan It summarizes the current flaws in gaming 10,000 years, only to have the woman just as action-adventure is a niche President, Torpex Games in today’s world and makes me feel a die in the man’s arms every time? already well-addressed by games. (Producer, Interplay, Redneck Rampage, little better about being a game designer. 1997) Even now, I still get goosebumps. - Peter Robinett Thanks, To the Editor: I enjoyed your magazine. Mike To be honest, I’m probably not the only To the Editor: In the Wal-Mart article in There are lots and lots of men on every one who will say that a Japanese RPG issue 40, you quoted the programmer of single article ... except the sexuality one. made them cry. Currently, they have two Deer Hunter as having said that its Then there are all women. factors in their favor for producing strong target audience had been “ignored by emotions: They’re long, letting you build the game market (or worse, ridiculed by up feeling for the characters and get to games like Redneck Rampage).” He’s know them, and they’re very narrative- right about the ignoring, but wrong in his based, meaning that there actually are implication of Redneck Rampage. characters, and that stuff happens to them. Your redneck has a deep sense of humor, Thanks for the awesome read. and is not too concerned about maintaining a politically correct stance to - Nick avoid offending those who occasionally fry up a possum and serve it with Moon To the Editor: [re: Dom Camus on Pies and corn liquor. Redneck Rampage Warren Spector] One point perhaps lost was fun and not mean-spirited. The is that the current situation is one of series sold several hundred thousand games stuck in one rather specific niche. units, a large percentage having been Game design can advance without sold from the shelves of Wal-Mart. The Origin created worlds, from the battle- a new game having learned the lessons ravaged world of Wing Commander to of their first game, if you know what I the spooky space station of System mean. Shock to the involving fantasy world of Ultima. The swift, merciless death of “We’ve really only just begun to scratch Origin around the turn of the century left the surface of what online games can the studio a hollow shell of its once great become,” he said, adding, “Most online self. Quasi-mythical founders Robert and games have the same fundamental Richard Garriott were left to wander the design premise, in contrast to solo earth, like Caine from Kung Fu. The games where you get to be the one wandering years took them to their own great hero that saves the world and company and, eventually, to NCsoft’s everything about the game is there to Austin operations, where they preside make you believe that. Online games, on over the mysterious Tabula Rasa and the other hand, your life is pretty NC’s other titles. Our writers caught up average,” echoing the famous lament of with the brothers Garriott at a recent Star Wars Galaxies players who wanted conference, seeking insight into the past, to be Luke Skywalker, but instead found present, and future of the MMOG world. themselves a nameless farmer on Tatooine. “You know, half the people are Richard opened with a critique of the higher level than you; half of them are present, saying, “You know, if you look lower level than you.” at the online games that have come out to date, and it’s almost been ten years The typical game design is still the same since Ultima Online … Frankly, the as it has always been for first generation fundamental game design structure of MMOGs. “You tend to grind levels; it’s most that have come to pass is pretty really your whole goal,” he says, similar to what I consider first generation capturing the experience in just a few thinking. There’s been very few groups words. “Your play cycle paradigm goes that have really published a game something like this: Your first mission is successfully and then gone on to create to go out and fight level one monsters. You go out there to the fields where level create games where people can have 30 sometimes the word persistent thrown in one monsters continually respawn and minute play cycles. You get in, you get there. If you add all that up, that really you farm them for XP and a little more out, and [you] don’t feel that while narrows the interpretation of what online weapons or equipment. You go back to [you’re] out, [your] friends are going to games can be.” That definition is “way town and cash it in and you get sent out level beyond [you] to a point where you too narrow.” Rather than thinking of to the level two creatures, and then you can’t even play together anymore.” “online” as a particular genre, like sports just repeat this process. That, or shooters, “online” should be “a interestingly, is already compelling The problem with the first-generation technology. It is the technology to, enough to have brought in millions of model of gameplay is it’s, well, kind of instead of having AI characters in there people into the online games race.” boring. Richard sums it up as, “[You’re] to deal with, you have other real people going out in a field and farming/grinding to deal with, and whether you’re doing it While some are content to rest on that on the same monsters that respawn in socially, or you’re doing it on the same particular design until the end of time, the same area again, and when you’re team, or you’re doing it competitively, you can sense a bit of dissatisfaction in farming, you’re just standing in front of that’s a tool by which you can now Lord British when he says, “But, each other seeing who does the most provide entertainment.” fundamentally, I think it’s not particularly damage over time, if you’ve heard that elegant.” Looking to the future, and phrase at all. Most games now even In the future, Richard thinks designers including his own Tabula Rasa, he sees provide you the calculated damage over will finally take the step of saying, “Let’s developers learning from and expanding time, which is horrible. It’s indicative of not worry about the model that UO, EQ beyond this model. He continues, “Most the fact that the whole point in this and WoW have repeated and solidified of the developers who have built one game is just to raise that one number, and refined. How can we now provide successful online game realize the error and then you go close your eyes and these experiences that people will really of their ways and now have moved on mash the buttons some more.” In appreciate and enjoy more?” Is finding and said, ‘Okay, what can we do that’s summation, he says, “Horrible, horrible those models difficult? “I really don’t bigger and better than that?’ And so gameplay.” think they’re that hard,” he answers, “I some of these answers, which to me just think people haven’t had a chance should sound pretty straightforward Not only is the existing model too boring, to turn to them yet.” these days, are things like, as opposed the ideas on what the genre is — or to demanding a level grind where the could be — are frustratingly limited. While Richard is “Lord British,” the game only way you can feel successful is to be “There’s the phrase ‘massively designer, his brother Robert is the doing it for 12 hours a day, we’ve got to multiplayer online role-playing game and business-focused President of NCsoft-

North America. Robert puts it succinctly, the number of people who leave a game “He talks about changing the future in each month. “If you switch your [phone] terms of game design. My standpoint is carrier, it’s a giant cost and lots of people when I look at it in terms of, you know, churn very rapidly. And in the online genre and business model, and where game space, basically, people churn I think companies are going to be every ten months. taking this. “So you play it, you like it, you stay for “Two things. One is, the only successful ten months, and then you leave,” he online game anywhere in the world was roleplaying, but the other is that until recently, there were no companies with more than one online roleplaying game that were successful. Our belief was says. Rather than fighting what they saw into a friend, it also allows them to think that: One, we have to really expand the as an obvious industry trend, NCsoft of the 800 pound gorilla of the industry genres to grow the market. The other is decided to go a different way and as a friend. As Robert said when the that there’s a value to having multiple embrace it. “As games become more name came up, “We view World of products within one portfolio. casual, churn rates go up. So, we knew Warcraft as a great product for us, and the churn rates were going up, so we the reason is, they bring a lot of people “And so you might ask how is that going started saying, well, how can we make into this game space, and every ten to change things,” he says, beating the churn our friend? Because there’s months, they’re going to churn onto question and continuing on. “That’s sort nothing we can really do to stop the fact something else. In fact, every subscriber of the impetus behind what we’ve been that churn is going up. Interestingly, if that they have today is probably doing, in terms of trying to develop a you’re a single product company, you different, for the most part, than the whole portfolio of supporting and can never make churn your friend,” ones they had originally.” Departing different products. A long time ago, we because people leaving your one cash players may leave the genre entirely if looked at the business, and we said cow undermines your entire company. the experience was bad, or they may churn is the biggest expense for our stick around in the online gaming space business, just like a telephone business.” NCsoft’s strategy of diversification not if they had a good experience. Robert Churn is industry lingo for turnover rate, only made the detrimental force of churn sums up NCsoft’s dilemma as, “We know that churn to Blizzard is bad, because if slightly changes the probability they will with the customer, so that we can they lose somebody, they lose somebody. stay with us.” Retention is a numbers provide them value that they’re willing to And if that rate goes up, they lose more game. Influence the odds just a few pay for. It doesn’t matter what that looks people. How can we change that?” points and you come up big over time. like beyond that statement,” he says. “If you look at the probabilities, if I have “The great news is that once you’ve The answer proved to be fairly simple. changed this, just slightly, churn gotten over the hurdle of developing that “We felt we’d put a portfolio of products becomes my friend. As a matter of fact, relationship in the first place, like getting together, which we’ve been doing,” he the higher the churn rate, the more their credit card number, which is the says, getting into the secret of turning certain I am that I will eventually own hardest step … it is now more convenient churn lead into subscriber gold. “If we everybody.” It’s refreshing to meet an for them to stick with you than it is to go incentivize and then somehow change executive that talks like a Bond villain, other places. Why do you think people the probability slightly, that instead of but with a portfolio of cool games buy from Amazon? It’s because one click someone stopping playing Lineage and instead of an orbiting space laser. He does it all.” Robert sees Amazon as then going to EverQuest, the probability continues, “So, given that we know “totally trustworthy,” which also happens is slightly different that they might go to churn [will happen], we’ve been trying to to be his goal with NCsoft. He wants the City of Heroes. And how can I change design a business that allows for and company to be “a totally trustworthy that probability? thrives in that new area. Which is why I place that you can go that has great think that a multi-product, multi-genre products and, if you don’t like it, no “I can make it easy for people to play portfolio of products that support each problem. You can get your money back. within my portfolio,” he says, and details other is going to be valuable in the We want to find the way that people are a very simple strategy of working with future.” In other words, even if a player most comfortable with.” his customers, rather than trying to leaves one of their games, Robert wants entrap them in a single game. “I can another game in their portfolio to be Instead of building a model and give them free trials. I can download appealing, because in the end, all the hammering players into it, he’s taking a things automatically to their hard drive. I subscriptions go to NCsoft. different approach and embracing the can send them advertising from the business paradigm the customers want. portfolio. I can send them clips While he might be out for industry “We don’t care if it’s ‘you buy an episode automatically within the portfolio. domination, he still talks a lot about and then there’s never recurring billing,’ There’s a whole lot of things that I can taking care of his customers. “Our goal we don’t care if that is ‘the whole game do to support a portfolio of products that as a company is to develop a relationship is free and instead you buy virtual property.’ We don’t care if it’s a Richard fielded that one with an perspective back to that of a publisher comes up to you and says, ‘Hey, I’ll give subscription-based game, and we don’t unexpected answer, saying, “Well, I think and developer, saying, “That being said, you two gold for that incredibly valuable care if someone invents yet another first of all, it’s inevitable,” taking a as a developer and as a publisher, there sword that I’ll convince you is valueless,’ business model. They’re all fine.” He moment to comment on the legal is a real big legal problem associated and you sell it to them, and then find out uses the Korean parent company for an ramifications before getting back to that with the sale of virtual property. As long tomorrow that, in fact, it was worth a example, saying, “They’re launching “inevitable.” “What I mean by inevitable, as what we’re selling for our subscription gazillion gold pieces. None of those what is called NC Coin, which allows us I think the definition of value has fee is access to our service, and all we’re things matter, because what we’re selling to do micro-billing. You’ll be able to play something to do with the amount of warranting is that, oh, you’ll be able to is entertainment opportunity. arcade-style games for a quarter.” It’s human labor that goes into the creation play, whatever that means. It doesn’t ironic that a super-progressive online of something. Gold is hard to find, matter what rules we change about how “As soon as we are involved at all in the games giant might be able to revive the therefore it’s more expensive. Aluminum you play.” He uses a simple example, sale of a sword,” he begins, sounding like sputtering arcade model. They’re also is pretty easy to mine, so it’s pretty saying, “It doesn’t matter if somebody this is a scenario they’ve gone over a working on “a product coming out that’s cheap. People invest a lot of time in basically going to allow you to play for a getting gold or things of high value in a certain amount of time, up to a certain virtual world. It makes sense that that level, and you can play all the way has real world value. Therefore, of through the game. But if you want the course, secondary markets will exist to super-uber swords and the higher level allow people to shortcut that work and experience and upper-level dungeons, reward cycle,” he says, showing a then you can pay a small subscription remarkable grip of economics and fee, five bucks a month, or something human nature without the high dudgeon like that. So, basically, [it will be] a fairly so common among game designers on simple game that people can get into this issue. “I buy virtual gold all the and have a good time, play a lot, and time,” he says, adding, “I have no problem once they feel like they’re getting really with it. I’m a supporter. I understand that good value out of it, then they can pay my position on this is different from our more to actually have upper-level stuff.” sole corporate perspective. But anyway, I participate in it.” Since he raised the issue, and since it’s the talk of the industry of late, we had to With the accompanying PR rep in need of ask. Virtual property: Good, bad or ugly? medical assistance, he shifts his time or two. “Suddenly, if its value Disclaimers aside, though, Lord British according to Richard, is, “We know the changes because we change the rules, says he’s “very interested in creating people who run IGE, and they are so suddenly if it gets lost because of a games that have virtual items that are well-protected, you wouldn’t even begin technical glitch, if you get bilked out of it sold just outright for real money, and to know who to sue.” Robert adds some by some other character in the game, all skip the front end. As an enthusiast, I perspective from his end of the business those things suddenly mean that our think it makes a great deal of sense, but — trying to find a way to confront company is exposed legally to that it has to be backed up with all the rest of overseas sellers — saying, “The copyright transaction, like it would be in the real the banking backdrop, which most of the laws are different over there. Plus, try world with a real sword. If you sell people doing these early ones are not suing someone internationally, and the somebody a rusty sword that disappears, [doing]. The only people I think are expenses are astronomical. Plus, there’s you’re in trouble. If you sell a sword and going to succeed these days, out of the companies that provide service for charge ten times what it’s really worth, few companies that are selling items and companies that provide service for you’re in trouble. stuff, tend to be small companies who companies that provide services for the are not worried about losing their little person sitting in a shack in the “There’s a line there that I think, once a portfolio, or they’re in Hong Kong or middle of nowhere that happens to have game developer has chosen to go across, China, where you can’t sue them a computer. Try going through that. It’s you just have to prepare your content to anyway, or they work through other ridiculous.” expect that. That is not what the current people and just sort of connect people. designs are designed for,” he says, They’re trying to protect themselves Shifting the conversation to Asia, Richard echoing RedBedlam’s Kerry Fraser- from being able to be sued. I’m really gives us a bit of insight into the Asian Robinson. “Anytime you’re selling items, interested in seeing how the Sony gaming culture. “Using Lineage as a you expect a certain amount of data [Exchange] works out, because they are touchstone,” he says, “And Korea and integrity in backing that up. You go to an obviously a major company and they’re Taiwan, where 20 percent of the airline, for example, and you buy even a backing it up. I don’t know that they’ve population of those countries are active $50 ticket on Southwest. You show up at had any real problems, but subscribers to Lineage today … that level the airlines and they say, ‘Hmm, looks probabilistically, they are going to when of penetration is approaching things like like we lost your ticket; guess you’re they lose something substantial, and how Coca-Cola, and when you have that going to have to buy it again.’ You’re they back that up, I’m really wondering.” amount of penetration, of course you are going, ‘Wait, that’s not fair. You can’t just going to see the cross-section of life lose my ticket.’” The problem with a legal solution, when issues that show up. That’s why, it comes to the virtual property issue, occasionally, a press report comes out about how in Asia, some guys in a and it outsold all the previous Ultimas by massively multi-player online game got a factor of five or ten. Even then, people in the real world and killed each other. were like, ‘Oh, that’s because Ultima’s Well, it’s like 20% of the population [of got a hardcore fan base of 20 years, and the country] is in this game. Out of five surely this isn’t going to be repeatable people, someone is going to commit by anything other than something like an suicide. In fact, it’s probably a low rate, Ultima,’ and then, of course, EverQuest so people should probably play this comes out and does about twice that.” game so they don’t commit suicide. They It’s a familiar picture, one where, “each probably have a more fulfilled life than year, there is the latest and greatest, those that are not playing.” which brings in another few hundred thousand to million people, and now WoW, Is 20% penetration realistic for the which has a couple million people, and United States? Richard says the outlook each time it just gets bigger and bigger.” is hazy. “Possible? Of course, it’s possible. Is it reality? Who knows. No Richard contrasts the U.S. to Asia, one in their right mind is predicting that saying, “The thing that [is] unique about sort of thing. But on the flip side, Asia, compared to the U.S., are things though, every year that I’ve been in this like broadband penetration, because business, [they’ve said] that the market they are densely populated areas. There is surely saturated by now, surely it are things like, in Korea, for example, won’t grow again. It started with Ultima game machines were banned up until Online. The sales predictions for Ultima recently because of a holdover from Online were 15,000 units prior to its World War II that they didn’t want to release. Then, of course, 50,000 people import Japanese console machines. If paid us to become part of the beta you’re a gamer in Korea, you’re a PC testing cycle, which immediately told gamer, not a console gamer, and those people that the predictions were a little kinds of thing drive it to a uniquely rapid off. And, of course, it was the fastest and high point. Fundamentally, over the selling PC game in history at the time, long haul, there’s no reason to think that culturally, as we’re all becoming one world playing in an online game. You’ve got — because we really are blending even online games that look like single-player our gameplay styles, where it used to games, so you can ‘win’ them, and be all PvP over there and all PvE over you’re going to have single player games here, and slowly those things are that look like online games, so you can coming together.” take your friends. So, really, this whole business is going to merge together and In the long term, he says, “It’s be a giant business and that, combined, reasonable to think [in] the U.S., like will have the sort of penetration rate Asia, it will be incredibly common for we’re talking about.” We bring up his people to play online games. What we earlier comments, about no one in their call online gameplay will also be very right mind saying these things, and he different. Over there, all online gameplay retorts, “Did I ever say I was in my right is very hardcore, while over here, the mind when I started it?” online gameplay is much more casual. Pretty soon, [it’s] all going to develop The console market will pick up, but, until there’s more and more online “not in the way, I think, people predict. capability, and the big MMOG games are Another thing I hear all the time is online going to sort of downgrade.” Richard games capped. Another thing I’ve heard sees a future where the boundaries and since I started is the death of the PC. It’s genres as we think of them now are still dying. It’s been 30 years now and blurred. “It’s going to be hard to it’s still dying. They ship more high-end differentiate between what is an offline PCs every year than game machines. So, game and what is an online game. They here’s my take on online games on will have all sorts of mixed components. consoles. If you think about what When you really look at even an online consoles do great — and by the way, I game, and what you can do with left my cell phone in my bag, but I even instanced adventures where you play online games on my cell phone now basically go off and do your own thing, — they’re going to be great at different really, that’s a single-player game or things.” He cites Parappa the Rapper as light multiplayer game that you’re the last console game that got him very excited, “Which speaks to his mental interfaces you have, including the Before we could get him in much more level,” cracks Robert, as only siblings can. keyboard or much more traditional or trouble, the newly-resuscitated PR rep diverse input variations, your face is was busy shuffling the brothers away. As Unphased by Robert’s wisecrack, Richard much closer to the screen, where you’re a closing, Richard added a thoughtful, plunges on, “The great games, in my pretty much almost putting your face “The platforms really kind of define the mind, on consoles, tend to be games through into the virtual world.” games that will be best to play on them,” where I sit on the couch, the monitor is and though he admitted he wasn’t in his well away from me, the user interface “I think the more in-depth online games right mind earlier, there really is device is very simple, the play session is will always be favoring the PC,” he says. something to that. We said our goodbyes incredibly short, and if you’re socializing, it’s actually better to socialize with people on this side of the screen.” Perhaps he’s familiar with rubbing a friend’s — or a sibling’s — face in ultimate triumph. “And, yes, if the AI on the other side of the screen was really human, then it might be better. And if the experience is light enough, like I’m here to shoot them, then it might be “The social online games. The first- and left them to go back to the land of compelling. But on the other hand, I person shooter, combat-oriented ones Austin where they build worlds once think what the PC does is far better. It might very well be at least as prevalent, again. [has] games where the experience you if not maybe more prevalent, long-term, want to have with that person or what’s on a console. And you’ll have even Shannon Drake and Julianne Greer beyond the screen is deeper than different experiences that would be more collaborated on this article. Shannon can something I want to shoot at. In which like what we’d call Animal Crossing, that typically be found here at The Escapist case, you look at the personal computer. might even be the most popular on my or at WarCry.com, while Julianne is The You generally are sitting upright in the cell phone, where it’s literally just a pick Escapist’s Executive Editor. chair, where you’re comfortable for up, 30 seconds to five minutes at the longer periods of time. The types of most, thing you do on your cell phone.” When the press looks at games, what limited to digital media. The importance they see is a multibillion dollar industry of computing for games is, instead, that filled with glitzy graphics, interactive digital media permit mediation of an stories and armies of geeks in huge interactive experience in a way that sweatshop teams laboring for long hours hides the underlying complexity of that to create the Next Big Thing. And to be experience from players, thereby making sure, that’s a fair description of the it possible to offer rich and complicated modern digital games industry today. But games to people who would not have the it’s a remarkably incomplete view of patience to learn and master them if that what games are, how they’ve become a interaction were provided to them in major cultural force - and how and non-digital form. In other words, if you where innovation and growth in the field want to play a boardgame, you have to can be sustained. read the manual and perform whatever computations are required yourself. In the last 25 years, we’ve seen an Videogame players notoriously do not explosion. Games have grown from the read manuals, and they don’t have to, in passion of a few into the casual most cases, because the rules are entertainment of the many. The popular embedded in the software. perception - one shared by many game researchers who ought to know better - If it didn’t begin with Pong, where did it is that the explosion has been fueled, in begin? Let me suggest some key moments. the final analysis, by Moore’s Law: The arrival of processors cheap enough to In 1759, a British publisher of hand- include in arcade cabinets, game tinted, cloth-backed maps named consoles and desktop PCs has created Carrington Bowles published a game this multibillion dollar marketplace and a designed by John Jefferys called A novel popular art: the game. Journey Through Europe. It is the first known game that we can ascribe to an It’s not that this view is completely individual designer. In other words, prior wrong, but the revolution didn’t begin to that time, all games were analogous with Pong, and the game explosion isn’t to the anonymous epics that spurred the rise of literature; they were what Dave or: Parlett (in The Oxford History of Board Games) calls “folk games.” A Journey “He who rests at 48 at Rome for Through Europe was, in essence, a line kissing ye Pope’s Toe shall be banished extension by its publisher - a way of for his folly to No 4 in the cold island of reconfiguring a map (in this case, of Iceland and miss three turns.” Europe) to provide a game rather than a reference, thereby appealing to a A whole series of games, most but not different audience. As a game qua all travel games associated with maps, game, it is nothing to get excited were published in Britain during the about; it’s a straightforward track late 18th and early 19th centuries; we game, with players advancing by the may imagine that they were pricey use of a teetotum (a sort of top with items, given the need to hand-tint and multiple sides, each side numbered, hand-mount the maps. It wasn’t until the player advancing as many spaces the mid-19th century, with the arrival half of the 20th century, a handful of teens. Those of us who are admirers of on the track as the number on the side of (relatively) cheap color printing, that game designers, such as Alex Randolph the art of board and card game design on which the top comes to rest - a original board and card games and the immortal Sid Sackson, found it today gravitate mainly to German common component of early obtained what we might consider a possible to make a full-time living from imports, because Germany retains a boardgames, since dice were viewed as mass market, with the rise of such games, and began to evolve a language thriving and highly competitive gambling instruments and hence not to publishers as McLaughlin Brothers, and approach to game design that is boardgame industry, where designers be permitted in respectable Milton Bradley’s eponymous firm, and recognizable to modern designers. Sadly, such as Reiner Knizia, Klaus Teuber and households). The players begin and George Parker’s vehicle, Parker however, a combination of American Alan Moon (an American forced to seek end in London, and many spaces Brothers (his brothers Charles and unease with “childish” entertainment and publication abroad because of the advance players or transport them to Edward handled the business side). the eventual establishment of a virtual deficiencies of the U.S. market) continue other portions of the board, e.g.: monopoly in the market by Hasbro to do highly creative and innovative The mass market boardgame industry (which now owns Parker, Bradley, work. “He who rests at 28 at Hanover shall continued to grow throughout the early Selchow & Richter, Avalon Hill, TSR, and by order of Ye King of Great Britain 20th century, and, in the post-war era, Wizards of the Coast, among others) has The mass market boardgame industry, who is Elector, be conducted to No 54 grew enormously with the spread of relegated the American boardgame however, was instrumental in paving the at Gibraltar to visit his countrymen department and chain outlets and with market to the publication of old way for the modern digital industry. It who keep garrison there.” the growth in leisure time. In the latter standards and licensed drivel for pre- established a distribution channel that the earliest console games sold into (toy we can imagine The King’s Game served manual and computer-moderated, are and chain stores); it established the idea as inspiration. The first kriegspiel we widely used in the armed forces of all of games beyond the traditional ones in know of was invented in 1824 by developed nations today. But they the public mind; it demonstrated the Lieutenant von Reisswitz of the Prussian remained a non-commercial game style, importance of design; and the kinds of army, who devised a game using realistic until 1911 ... games it fostered continue to influence military maps at a scale of 1:8000; he modern digital games, particularly in the demonstrated it for the Chief of Staff of … When H.G. Wells published Floor “casual downloadable” market. the Prussian army, who exclaimed, “It’s Games, updated in 1913 as Little Wars. not a game at all; it’s a training for war!” It was the first published rules for *** and he ordered a copy for each regiment waging battles with military miniatures, of the army. The game and its variants and while we can assume people had That, however, is only one strand in the continued to be played in the Prussian been playing with miniatures for skein of influences that brought about and German armed forces for decades centuries before (and may have evolved the games revolution. To explore thereafter. their own house rules) Wells’ games are another, we must begin with The King’s the first to codify them in a commercial Game, created in 1780 by a man known In 1876, Colonel von Verdy du Vernois of product. Perhaps curiously, Little Wars to history only as Helwig, Master of the German army devised a new sort of did not immediately spawn a market; Pages to the Duke of Brunswick. The kriegspiel: The complex rules of von indeed, until the 1950s, it’s rare to find King’s Game was, in a sense, a Chess Reisswitz’s game were dispensed with, any other miniatures rules in print, variant; but its board contained 1,666 and instead, an experienced officer was Fletcher Pratt’s 1938 Rules for Naval squares, containing different types of brought in as a game master. Players Wargaming being a notable exception. In terrain, and the units represented were permitted to do whatever they 1957, Jack Scruby began publishing War infantry, cavalry and artillery. In other wished, as long as the game master Game Digest, a small press magazine words, unlike Chess, it was a simulation, ruled it feasible. In a sense, these less devoted to miniatures gaming that often an attempt to represent military conflict rigid kriegspieler were forerunners of the published rules, and within a decade, of the era, not an abstracted pastime. modern tabletop roleplaying game. dozens of rules sets for different periods The connection between The King’s were on the market. They remained Game and the rise of kriegspieler in the Kriegspieler were used in military historical in nature, however, until 1971, 19th century - military training games training across Europe by the end of the when Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren intended as both simulations and 19th century; and their derivatives, released Chainmail, the first rules for training for warfare - is uncertain, but complex combat simulations, both fantasy miniatures. In 1983, Games Workshop released the first edition of frequently and helped to expand the Board wargames continue as a viable, if Gygax, the first edition of the game was Warhammer Fantasy Battle, which today audience further. small, commercial medium, but in the published in 1973 (a few pre-release is played by hundreds of thousands of hobby market, they have been eclipsed copies were available in 1972). Despite people worldwide, and has relegated By mass market standards, board by two subsequent game styles: dismal production quality and equally historical miniatures to a small audience wargames were incredibly complex, with roleplaying games (RPGs) and trading badly written rules, it was an instant of enthusiasts (which, of course, is the simplest having several thousand card games (TCGs). smash hit, and by the early ‘80s had where it always existed). words of rules, and the most complicated become a genuine cultural phenomenon, enormous tomes. But the wargame The first RPG,Dungeons & Dragons, played by geeks and nerds in high Miniatures gaming led directly to the market had a major impact on the emerged out of the Chainmail rules, schools and colleges across the nation creation of what’s called the hobby development of the modern industry; it which had the concept of “heroes,” and the world. No other game ever games or “adventure games” industry, created, in essence, the first game geek individual characters as powerful as dislodged D&D’s dominance of tabletop non-digital games sold primarily to an culture. Wargamers were the first to call whole stands of regular units. Dave RPGs, but by the late ‘80s, dozens of audience of hardcore game geeks. The themselves “gamers” and to view Arneson modified and refined the rules, competing games were on the market, first game style to become established themselves as something of a nerdy approaching Gary Gygax, Chainmail’s taking the basic paradigm of the RPG to after miniatures was the board wargame, elite; the first books on game design publisher, with the results. As refined by different settings and genres. a genre created by Charles Roberts who, emerged out of the field; and, indeed, in 1953, published Tactics, a game with the term “game designer” first appeared a square map grid and cardboard pieces in the wargames industry (coined by representing military units, simulating a Redmond Simonsen, SPI’s art director), battle between two abstract armies. It along with the first games to credit their was self-published, but sold well enough developers on a consistent basis. And it for Roberts to turn to publishing under spawned the first “star designers” - the Avalon Hill label full-time in 1958, Dunnigan, John Hill, Richard Berg and releasing Tactics II as its first title. By John Prados, to name a few. Many of the the late ‘60s, there was an enthusiastic earliest stars of computer gaming, audience of board wargamers who including Chris Crawford and Dan purchased every new Avalon Hill release, Bunten, became interested in games and in 1969, AH got its first real because of the wargames they played. competition, when Jim Dunnigan and And board wargames retain an influence Redmond Simonsen founded what today; e.g.., Rick Goodman, creator of became Simulations Publications, Inc., Empire Earth, is an old school board which published games far more wargamer. Conventional histories of digital games The last big piece of the hobby game we got into contact with Irad Hardy, who generally take, on the one hand, arcade market is the trading card game, created had held the same position a decade amusements and pinball, and on the by Richard Garfield in 1993 with the before for SPI. Irad had left the industry other, academic experiments with publication of Magic: The Gathering. for a career in the car rental industry, computer games like Space War and Garfield observed that hobby games and was astonished that a market still Colossal Cave as their starting point - were increasingly being sold in comic existed for hobby games. He assumed it and while those were important book shops - and that many of these influences, any history that doesn’t stores stocked trading cards in additional recognize the importance of tabletop to games and comics. He understood roleplaying is missing the boat. A whole that this was merchandise they were generation of digital game designers comfortable handling, and that a game became fascinated with games at least based on trading cards could be as much through their exposure to D&D successful. Magic was the result; and like as because of the Atari 2600 or the D&D before it, it quickly became a arcade. Richard Garriott’s Ultima was cultural phenomenon, growing to eclipse had been crushed by the juggernaut of directly inspired by D&D, as were almost the tabletop RPG market in terms of videogames. all the earliest Western digital RPGs - dollar volume, with kids comparing cards Wizardry and The Bard’s Tale and the and playing the game at playgrounds But the truth is, the rise of digital games rest. Will Crowther, the original creator everywhere. So far, aside from a few has been accompanied by a rise, not a of Colossal Cave/Adventure, the ur-text “virtual” TCGs (and Magic Online), TCGs decline, in non-digital games; in the adventure, has also said he was inspired have had little direct impact on digital early ‘70s, the hobby market grossed no by D&D (although the earliest version of games - but then, the generation that more than $20 million annually, and Colossal Cave predates D&D’s release), played and loved Magic has not yet today it grosses several hundred million and there’s a reason that Bartle and gotten into positions of power in the game (there are no reliable industry figures). Trubshaw’s MUD-1 was a “multi-user industry, and its impact may be to come. In essence, videogames have helped dungeon.” Indeed, you can make the hobby games to thrive, by making case that a huge number of modern *** “gaming” an acceptable and broad digital game styles - RPGs, adventure practice across society, and inculcating a games, action-adventure games, and In the mid-’80s, when I was Director of whole generation with a love of and MMOGs - derive directly from tabletop Research & Design for West End Games, desire to play games. Tabletop roleplaying. a wargame and tabletop RPG publisher, roleplaying games and Magic players direction, too, as videogame budgets rise success in the hobby market, if not at religious and self-improvement themes play videogames, too - and many and it becomes harder and harder to get the level of D&D or Magic. they then promulgated - he wanted videogamers are wholly comfortable anything original funded: Jordy games that grappled more with the sitting down with a German boardgame, Weisman, who started in tabletop with *** realities of life and the concerns of the a TCG or a tabletop RPG. Games, of all the Star Trek RPG and BattleTech, then day-to-day. H.G. Wells took time away sorts, are no longer the purview of a few founded a computer game developer and Games, of all sorts, have always been from his career as a writer to produce a proud geeks, but the common vernacular sold it to Microsoft, went back to fueled by passion. George Parker commercially pointless little exercise in of anyone under 40. tabletop a few years ago, founding designed his first games because he game design because he liked to play WizKids, and releasing the HeroClix line loved the boardgames he played as a with toy soldiers. Jim Dunnigan stole Paper games are largely ignored by both of collectible miniatures games ... a big child, but rebelled against the soppy telecommunications equipment from the the industry and general press, and it’s warehouse where he worked to sell on understandable why: Non-digital games, the black market to fund SPI - never as a business, are an order of magnitude really believing that a viable business smaller. But the reality is that the two was in the offing, but just that he wanted sides co-evolve - the growth of digital to create better wargames, and by God, games brings new players to paper ones, he could do it. (I wouldn’t normally say and the ability of the paper field to something like this, except I’ve been at innovate and experiment at far lower conventions where Dunnigan has said cost than digital games gives it a this, flat out - and when questioned by disproportionate influence on the the audience, has simply said, “Well, hell imaginations of designers. That influence ... the statute of limitations has expired.” is more than indirect, too; many Sometimes, an entrepreneur’s gotta do designers began in paper gaming and what an entrepreneur’s gotta do.) moved to digital, if only because if you want a career as a designer and also to Gygax and Arneson didn’t create D&D live a reasonably comfortable middle with the idea of making millions, but class living, it’s hard to do that in hobby simply came up with a very cool idea games. See the chart for some examples. that they had to share. Nolan Bushnell, playing with breadboards in the office While the movement from paper to carved out of his young daughter’s digital is long established, we’re starting, bedroom, could not have known that his perhaps, to see a motion in the other little tennis game would spawn a risk, and that means not taking risks. Huizinga, “the magic circle”) by creating multibillion dollar enterprise that, as long But risk-taking is what spawned the games that integrate with everyday life. ago as the early ‘80s, was being modern industry and gave it life. ballyhooed as “bigger than Hollywood.” In the “indie RPG” movement that views Richard Garriott, coding on his boss’s The future of games? The future of roleplaying as closer to theatrical improv time while handling the few customers games does not lie with the EAs and than to traditional ideas about “the game.” who wandered into a little hobbyist Ubisofts of the world any more than the computer store, just wanted to put a future of music lies with the BMGs or And in the independent digital games little bit of his roleplaying experience into Sonys, or the future of film lies with movement - people creating games on software. Ken and Roberta Williams Disney or Universal. small or non-existent budgets and wanted to put some graphics into the praying for a viable path to market, adventure games they loved, and never The future of games lies with people who experimenting with novel game styles imagined that someday they’d sell Sierra love them. And here’s where to find them: that will mostly fail, but just might set to a publicly traded company for eight the world on fire. figures (and have doubtless suffered In the hobby games market, of course, considerable heartache since, at how where the distribution channel is still Games are a big business now. But badly it’s been managed). Peter Adkison open to the off-beat and odd-ball, and games are an art form. And as with any was running a little third-rate publisher where development costs are low enough art form, if you want to understand its of roleplaying adventures when one of that experimentation is still possible. future, don’t follow the money. Follow the freelancers he worked with showed the passion. up with this strange little game based on In the live-action roleplaying movement, collectible cards that was so bizarre it particularly in Scandinavia, where it has Greg Costikyan has designed more than couldn’t possibly sell, but so cool that become a major cultural phenomenon, 30 commercially published games in you had to publish it. in which people are experimenting various genres and platforms. He has with integration of gameplay into written about the game industry for The central problem with the realworld spaces. publications including the New York conventional game industry today is the Times, Salon, and Game Developer problem that every other creative In the “big games” and “alternative magazine. He’s also the CEO of industry - maybe excluding book reality games” movements, in which Manifesto Games. publishing - has utterly failed to solve. people are experimenting with games As budgets rise, you have to manage that “break the fourth wall” (or, pace The Last Express opens in Paris, June 1914, the eve of the First World War. Boarding the famous Orient Express is a diverse crowd of anarchists, aristocrats, musicians, dissidents and businessmen. Amongst them is an American, Robert Cath, a doctor and a fugitive, wanted for his part in a nasty episode in Ireland that left two men dead. Boarding the train at the very last moment, Cath makes an unpleasant discovery: His contact, Tyler Whitney, has been murdered by one of his fellow passengers. Stuck in a berth with a fresh corpse and with the police already after him, Cath needs to think fast.

In retrospect, it’s tempting to compare Jordan Mechner’s 1997 opus, The Last Express, with Yu Suzuki’s Shenmue, released some four years later. Both were hugely ambitious and expensive, with Mechner’s game costing $6 million to Suzuki’s rumored $20 million. Both comprised a large cast of speaking characters and, though linear and story driven, offered a large degree of freedom in how the player progressed. And, of course, both began with a murder.

After producing two award-winning platform titles – Prince of Persia and its sequel, The Shadow and the Flame – it must have been tempting for Mechner to sit back and watch his franchise reel in the money. Instead, he formed a game studio, Smoking Car Productions, and set to work on an ambitious cinematic adventure set aboard the last Orient Express train to traverse Europe before the outbreak of the war.

The game was to be a point and click adventure title, but one which featured some unusual and innovative game mechanics. Unlike previous adventure games, which organized themselves solely by location, The Last Express worked to a timetable of events occurring in the half dozen or so carriages of the Orient Express train. Like Shenmue, the game used an accelerated real-time system and directed its cast around the player, rather than having the player’s interactions dictate the flow of events. Playing The Last Express felt uncannily team chose to depict the passengers. All and do that counts, and The Last anarchist and romantic, sharing the train like being on the train and mingling with the characters were played by live Express doesn’t disappoint here, either. with his childhood friend Tatiana and her the other passengers. Events occur actors, who were filmed in a month-long Mechner’s game was populated by grandfather, Count Vassili, a Russian around the player, who is free to roam blue screen shoot, and then painstaking individuals plucked from every corner of Aristocrat and Alexei’s natural enemy. the train at will. As conversations are rotoscoped. Rotoscoping is a technique Europe, and almost all of them had And most interesting to Cath is Anna overheard and fellow passengers are by which filmed images are projected something to hide. There’s Herr Schmidt, Wolff, a beautiful Austrian violinist, encountered over dinner or in the onto a surface, then turned into the German industrialist and arms- traveling alone except for her faithful smoking compartment, the illusion of animated sequences. It was used most dealer, growing fat selling weapons to dog and a concealed revolver. being within a microcosm of pre-war notably in Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the anyone prepared to pay the price. Could society becomes total. In a final touch of Rings adaptation, and more recently in the Serbian nationalists sharing the Additionally, the voice acting is uniformly verisimilitude, the designers went back Richard Linklater’s Waking Life. Although berth just down the carriage, discussing excellent; quite a feat considering the to the records of Compagnie full motion animation was occasionally ways to free their country from number of accents and languages used. Internationale des Wagons-Lits, the used, most characters use a slide oppression, have anything to do with Characters speak constantly, in English, company that runs the Orient Express, system, consisting of about one frame him? Then there’s Alexei, the high-born French, German, Russian and Serbian. to ensure that details such as departure It’s even possible, during the stop in times, weather details and the number Vienna, to discern the differences of carriages present were correct. When between native and Austrian German the friendly English gentleman who speakers. Subtitles are used for the seems to know too much about Cath languages Cath understands, which is remarks on the rain, you can be sure his small talk is historically accurate. per second. While using the actual Second to The Last Express’ gameplay filmed images in this way would have innovations were its distinctive looks. been awkward and jerky and would have The interior of the train had been required a huge amount of storage modelled with a high degree of accuracy space, the rotoscoped images seem – Smoking Car even went to the length quite natural and have a beautiful, of acquiring an actual Orient Express painterly, art-deco appeal to them. carriage to verify their digital reproduction. But the most striking But no matter how interesting a graphical feature is the way Mechner’s character appears, it’s what they say several. The player is freely encouraged and watching them interact with each Mechner’s game. Abruptly, Softbank Express is currently out of print, though to keep their ears open, as much of the other and with the player offers a decided to pull out of the games market, copies can be acquired via eBay and games clues are in snatches of overheard fascinating perspective on this period of cancelling the almost complete similar channels. For the curious, the conversation. world history. The game ticks all the Playstation port of The Last Express and official site has been mirrored by one of boxes required by the arthouse games dropping the game completely. the Smoking Car design team. The Last Express is more than just an movement: innovative gameplay with a entertaining yarn. Each of the characters fresh slant on an old genre, an original The next year, Broderbund was bought And that’s where the journey ends. The stands for a different faction in Europe, graphical approach and a sophisticated, out by educational software publisher, Last Express could have been another adult story and theme. So why isn’t The The Learning Company, who promptly Myst, a game capable of attracting Last Express better known? ditched Broderbund’s gaming division. gamers and non-gamers alike. Perhaps it Left without any publishing deal at all, could have joined Sam and Max or The answer is fairly simple: The game Smoking Car Productions watched the Broken Sword and become a classic of sold only 100,000 copies. It finished game it spent five years making quietly the genre. Either way, it did not deserve somewhere around a million units shy of drift away, unsold and un-played. to become a footnote in gaming history. breaking even. Just as Smoking Car Even today, almost ten years after the Productions was putting the finishing Smoking Car Productions shut down, game’s completion, The Last Express still touches on The Last Express, the cracks shelving their plans for further titles. looks, sounds and plays as well as it did were appearing in publisher Broderbund, Jordan Mechner wouldn’t return to game in 1997, offering the exact same level of whose share price had been steadily design for another five years, when he immersion. There are relatively few titles falling since 1995. In 1997, just before agreed to work on Prince of Persia: The one can say that about. Start up the the game’s release, Broderbund Sands of Time for Ubisoft. Ironically, game, and it’s June 1914 all over again; dissolved its marketing department. As a while receiving mass critical appeal, that at Paris, Gare de l’Est the journey is result, The Last Express was released game was also set to suffer from low about to begin anew. with almost zero publicity and sales and poor marketing, though advertising. Despite this, it still garnered thankfully not to the same degree. Since All aboard. excellent reviews across the board. then, he has turned to filmmaking, producing the award-winning Nick Bousfield is a freelance writer who But worse was to come. Broderbund was documentary Chavez Ravine: A Los loves games, books, films, music and in partnership with Softbank and its Angeles Story, filmed while he worked comics. He also loves being paid to write subsidiary, GameBank; a publishing deal for Ubisoft, and has not made public any about them and harbors the crazy dream formed in a bidding war for the rights to future plans regarding gaming. The Last that one day he’ll do it for a living. EDITORIAL PRODUCTION BUSINESS

Executive Editor Producer Publisher Julianne Greer Jonathan Hayter Alexander Macris

Content Editor Layout Artist Associate Publishers Joseph Blancato Jessica Fielhauer Jerry Godwin Gregory Lincoln Contributing Editor Lead Web Developer JR Sutich Whitney Butts Director of Advertising Susan Briglia Research Manager Web Developer Nova Barlow Erik Jacobson Media Sales Associate Laura Rotondo Contributors IT Director Shannon Drake Jason Smith Chairman of Themis Group Greg Costikyan Thomas S. Kurz Nick Bousfield Laura Bularca Joe Blancato

Volume 1, Issue 42, © 2006. The Escapist is published weekly by Themis Group, Inc. Produced in the United States of America. To contact the editors please email [email protected]. To subscribe to The Escapist, and be notified by email each week when a new issue is available, please visit www.escapistmagazine.com Ubisoft Romania became famous name in gaming? And you didn’t even because of Silent Hunter 3 and Peter know about it; you, who are the prime Jackson’s King Kong. Romanian target of every game distributor and developer Fun Labs made a name for developer; you, who have access to the itself with the Cabela games. Serious latest hardware and software Sam’s place of birth is in Croatia, Mafia technologies; you, who are rich and is a Czech product … I could go on and benefit from the power of freedom and on with examples such as these to prove information; you, the gamer every that Eastern Europe not only exists, but gaming magazine writes for. is also very active in the international gaming industry. But what does that give The Americans dominate the videogame you, other than a few names and “Did industry. Numerically speaking, this will you know?” trivia best suited for a quiz be true for many years to come, due to show? Yes, we code. We have proven the simple logic of economics. But what that Eastern Europeans are able to the Eastern Europeans lack in numbers create competitive products very much is compensated with quality, passion and appreciated by any gamer. But knowing unity. We don’t want to be the biggest, this, you still have no idea about the but we intend to be the best. The reality of the Eastern European gamer; amazing success of online games you don’t even know we exist, and I’d uncovered our hunger for electronic wage you never even thought about it. entertainment, and surprisingly enough, it also showed we are no longer poor, nor It may come as a shock for you to find closed minded, nor uninformed. In fact, out that one of the biggest World of what the American gamer should fear is Warcraft guilds was established by our ambition and our enthusiasm; we Romanians, one of EVE Online’s most offer fresh faces and our gaming market notorious pirates is Romanian, and World isn’t glutted. We’ve stepped into a world Cyber Games first prizes have gone to where the American gamer is already Eastern European players. How did this bored. We’ve reached a point where we happen? How is it possible for Eastern feel we have to make a statement: We’re Europe to establish such a powerful just as good as you. And as surprising as it sounds, the turbulent shift from a communist nation to a capitalist one has given us numerous advantages in catching up to the rest of the world. 20,000 pirated Lineage 2 accounts say a lot about our interest in games. Advantage number one: piracy. Until 1996, Romania was one of the so- But we’re not all bad. Despite the huge called most favored nations due to our amount of pirated copies, 1,300 copies economic collapse under communism. of Lineage 2 were sold in Romania, and Our new government lacked many of the 300 people have preordered Guild Wars: regulatory laws required to balance a Factions. free market. More to the point, we didn’t have a copyright law, so possessing and Advantage number two: ambition. distributing pirated software, including Let’s talk about EVE Online. It’s a game games, wasn’t a crime. Pirated games that requires an awful lot of time and flooded into the market and is how patience, but tickles your ego in such a games became popular in Romania. pleasant manner, you become obsessed in no time. It is also a game where it’s subscribers. His first battle ended with Advantage number three: unity. Discovering games was like getting ice very hard to become important. But him killing 10 people, and the taste was Vlad Dracul is Dracula’s Romanian name. cream after a terrible flu. In a situation Gavroche is an ambitious 23-year-old so sweet, he never left that way of life. But Vlad Dracul is also the name of one like that, I can never get enough Romanian who wanted to show the world He is now a representative of the of World of Warcraft’s largest guilds. goodies; I want more and more until I that all it takes to make a statement Romanian EVE Online community, working Established by five Romanians who first make myself sick again. about his homeland’s potential is passion hard to enrich and promote Delta Team became friends playing Asheron’s Call 2, and courage. and Romanian Renegades, two well-known Vlad Dracul had over 1,000 members at While copyright laws have been organizations. “It makes me feel so good its peak. Of course, not all of them were introduced, old habits die hard - we still He was talented enough to become a to know that Romanians unite for a single Romanian – only 20 percent of the peak have a very high piracy rate. Once you pirate with a 1.6 billion ISK bounty on purpose,” states Gavroche. “As a nation, membership were born and raised in get your hand in the cookie jar, it’s hard his head – meaning he’s one of the most we have a bad name, but I think that now Dracula’s land; but they all thrived under to stop, especially when you truly can’t notorious characters in an online world we stand a chance to show our real value, Romanian leadership. I don’t think I need afford to buy many cookies. But still, that currently numbers over 100,000 at least in EVE.” to explain how hard it is to manage 1,000 people in an MMOG. It takes a great deal was 15 years ago; things change. In stated that “this is an emerging market of leadership skill and patience to keep 2005, Romania’s first nationwide internet and it matters.” The situation is even and entertain your members. provider, RDS, offered affordable prices rosier in other Eastern European for broadband cable connections. countries, such as Poland and Hungary, But Romanians did it. One of the According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, in where the average salary showed even founders, a 35-year-old gamer who calls 2006 there will be approximately 5.5 bigger growth since they joined the himself Smaker, told me the secret of million Romanians connected to the European Union. success: good coordination. Currently, internet. This is possible not only Vlad Dracul’s leader is a Croat, although because of competition among providers, But this is only the beginning. We have the leadership is still Romanian in but because the average monthly salary no government restrictions on what we majority, and they are one of the few in Romania reached approximately $270 can play and when. How could we, when guilds able to organize simultaneous raid in 2005, in comparison to around $200 coders are a rather wealthy segment of groups for Molten Core and Blackwing in 2004. That’s $50 more per month to our population and when the internet is Lair, two organization and manpower spend on, well, anything. widely available to the masses? Besides, demanding end-game instances. everybody has a chance to prosper, since Only this year, three of the most Eastern Europeans offer a new challenge, a Advantage number four: money. important players in the gaming industry new and fresh culture, a lot of enthusiasm, It is true we were poor and oppressed expressed interest in the Romanian and the willingness to overcome new while under communist rule, but that market: NCsoft, Vivendi and Valve, who boundaries and preconceptions.

I am Romanian; I know my country. I know its ups and downs, and I know how it feels to be a gamer here. It feels damn good.

Laura Bularca is a freelance writer from Eastern Europe. She’s making her English-speaking debut in The Escapist. I’ve noticed games are a lot more fun everything in front of us and burning out when I’m not actually playing them. like relapsed junkies. It’s all about the Fix, and whenever I get away, the guys Let me explain. After I’ve beaten the find something new. final boss, run off a group of PKs or won the Super Bowl, more often than not, I Of course, I’m no better. I’ve led exit the game and look for someone with unsuccessful charges into UO, whom to share my accomplishments. Shadowbane (not to be confused with Invariably, the conversation with a friend Erik’s suggestion - we’re not immune to becomes longer than the original act, landing in the same place twice) and percolating into strategic talk, old Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines catchphrases and half-remembered (this one would’ve worked if it hadn’t stories of triumph and sorrow in similar demolished every PC it touched two situations. And when you play the same Novembers ago). No matter the game, games as all your friends, when you there’s always the resultant dialogue. start living the games outside of their Did you do this quest? Where were you media, it only gets worse. last night? We should form a guild with a stupid name like Tasty Breakfast Treats. I’m part of a group of guys here at work Jesus Christ, how did JR (our intrepid that can only be classified as enablers. Contributing Editor) figure out the best Every time I put gaming on the min-maxed template again? When we’re backburner for a new hobby, someone at work or out drinking or hanging out at inevitably drags me back. Jon, Producer someone’s house, our nerd-speak pokes for the magazine, got us all playing EQ2 through, a latticework of facts and trash for a while. Then, Erik, our Web talk connecting over whatever branch we Developer, convinced me Shadowbane land on. was the place to be. Then Jason, our IT Director, got us all playing Oblivion. Most fresh in my mind, though, is our We’re a group of addicts with ADD, relationship with EVE. chasing a content high, devouring Getting us into the game commonly world, they would be right around white- described as “the best screensaver in the collar criminals. In EVE, these are the business” was a pretty tough sell; it took people even murderers look down on. two members of the group to drag the rest of us in. Jon and Shannon (our Needless to say, our band of merry Industry Relations guru) led a two- industrialists (and, in my case, pirate in pronged assault on the rest of the group. training) was drawing a lot of heat from I’m the gaming equivalent of a faux- other corps, and these other corps had a cynical pill popper. I’ll talk a lot, but at lot more manpower than six or seven the end of the day, I’m taking whatever’s newbies with chips on their shoulders. in front of me; the only way to find fun By the time the second corp declared is to continually look for it, so I was the war on us and blew a few of us out of first to subscribe. Quickly afterward, the sky, the talk at work turned ugly. everyone else fell in line, taken in by Jon’s offer of free crap, Shannon’s mid- Accusatory looks got cast at Shannon work stories of stealing stuff from other from across the room, and two camps players like a debonair Dread Space Pirate quickly formed: those of us who didn’t Roberts, and me constantly appending “in particularly care and those of us who felt spaaaaaaaaaace” to everything I said. death’s sting. And in EVE, death really How could anyone opt out? stings. We were no longer a group of buddies playing games, we were a We all jumped in, joining into Jon’s corp disjointed group of junkies and half of us about as quickly as we were destroying didn’t like the way the other half rolled. it. Shannon had a couple weeks of skill Rather than talking about which skills to training on us, and he had already train next or where the best missions developed a reputation as an ore thief, were, we were arguing between sending someone who would fly up to enemy corps money as peace offerings defenseless miners, take their harvested and trying to pick off their individual minerals and run off to the nearest members as we could. Half of us desired station before the miners could call for peace. Half of us desired guerilla war. help. In EVE, ore thieves enjoy a special rung on the social ladder. In the real The worst part, though, was we all liked Pretty soon, no one was working with What was most interesting during our less about the game and more about the the game in our own ways. We trumped anyone. What’s worse, no one was period of virtual self discovery was the BS session at the coffee machine. At the the “screensaver” crack after getting talking about EVE in the office. The best talk around the office, though, and how end of the day, it doesn’t matter what through the awkward newbie experience, part of playing together was replaced each world would interact and merge world you’re in, as long as you’re in it and we all found a niche rather quickly. A with aggressive silence, everyone daring with the others. My 30 second KotOR2 with someone. few of us got into the tactical side of one another to bring up the fact our play review mingled with Jon’s EQ2 story, truly 3-D combat, Erik loved the idea of styles were utterly incompatible. The which somehow got JR and Erik onto Joe Blancato is a Content Editor for The being a space-trucker able to make high we’d been chasing finally arrived, their misadventures in WoW. Really, it’s Escapist Magazine. millions in a single run across the galaxy, but it all affected us in personally and the rest of the contingent really different ways. enjoyed mining ore and producing tons of player-created objects. All in all, we had the potential to become a pretty good corp, despite our size, if only we could get around Shannon’s insatiable need to piss off miners.

That’s how the disintegration started. The unspoken understanding between all of us that the needs of the many One by one, we began to drop off. outweighed the needs of the one seeped Shannon was the first to go, but the into everything we did as a group. While exodus commenced shortly thereafter. those of us in the pro-war faction tried to Once the levee broke, it was a lot easier keep the peace within the group, for all of us to make our departure from Shannon’s antics, combined with our EVE and head off in our own directions own, were too volatile to jive with the for a while, looking for our own thing guys who were just trying to make a buck. before inviting the rest of the group into it. lifetime; if you accept this, then beyond JR Sutich, Contributing Editor simple reproduction, your task is to find Crush your enemies, see them driven work that engages your talents and before you and to hear the lamentations allows you to accomplish things you find of their women. Each week we ask a question of our staff and featured writers to learn a little bit meaningful. about them and gain some insight into where they are coming from. This week’s Joe Blancato, “Coffee Break Worlds,” question is: I trust this answers your first question. Content Editor As to the universe and everything, I may More liquor. be able to elucidate further post- singularity. Julianne Greer, “Scratching the Surface,” Executive Editor Shannon Drake, “Scratching the Learn from the past, savor anticipation of Surface” the future and live wholeheartedly in the Liquor. present.

Greg Costikyan, “The Revolution Beyond that, we have no means of Nick Bousfield, “Gaming on the Began with Paper” ascertaining whether the universe has Orient Express” From a study of evolutionary history, we any sort of underlying principle, direction Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, can deduce that the purpose of life is to or meaning; and in the absence of such Right, B, A, START beget further life, and that organisms direction, it is our responsibility to find that fail to reproduce fail to pass on their meaning where we may. Or as my ex put Laura Bularca, “We Play!” genes to future generations, and thus it, our job is to entertain ourselves until If we believe Mister Adams’ computer, their life, however meaningful in the we die. This is a non-trivial task, as any you’re reading that answer right now. At short time frame in which they live, is activity becomes tedious if we do not least The Escapist’s version. I wish I’ll ultimately void. Ergo, the first principle invest it with meaning. Dr. Laurence J. end up having 42 true friends and 42 must be to reproduce; failure to have Peter, creator of the Peter Principle, once good reasons to smile. But if I end up children is to relegate yourself to an said that work is the only thing capable with half of that, I think I will proudly evolutionary dead end. of engaging a person for an entire state that I found the Answer.