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pector s blog ramblings about games life and more about games warren spector s blog ramblings about games life and more about games goodbye to this blog hello to gaming the system september 21 2023 i m shutting this blog down i started it back at junction point and intended it to be a place to talk about what was going on at the studio that didn t happen i started writing stuff that properly belonged on my personal blog gaming the system i started getting confused so i can only imagine readers did too so to rid myself and you of the confusion i m shutting this down and writing exclusively on gaming the system well i have a blog on gamedeveloper com too but for now i m duplicating the posts so they appear in both places just at slightly different times anyway if you want to follow what s going on in my head a scary place move on over to gaming the system that s where you ll find me from now on https warrenspector wordpress com warren posted in uncategorized leave a comment i m captivated and in need of assistance september 24 2013 in just a couple of weeks october 6 8 to be precise the first captivate conference is taking place in austin tx http captivateconference com obviously given that it s in my home town and i m speaking at the conference i m a tad prejudiced but i think captivate is shaping up to be something pretty cool for starters there s the thing that got me most jazzed in the first place the cross media nature of the event austin s such a big games music and movie town i had a head slapping moment when the organizers said they were going to try to bring those communities together instead of keeping them at arms length from one another the way most conferences seem to do how is it no one s done that before sheesh and now that we re getting closer to the date attendance looks like it ll be good there ll be live streaming of events and even opportunities to get up on a stage and pitch startup ideas whether you re an official speaker or not don t ask me how that s going to work i just think it s cool anyway given that we re a week and a half away from c day you d think i d have my talk all wrapped up and ready to go but that s not the way i work oh i ve got plenty of material but i d like to get some input and additional material from you folks before i get up on stage locked and loaded and ready to talk so whether you re attending captivate or not i hope you ll share your thoughts with me on games leadership that s the topic of my talk and while i have a fair amount of experience to draw from and shocking lots of opinions i wanted to draw on the wisdom of the crowd here and get some thoughts from you here s kind of what i m looking for who are gaming s leaders how did they become the leaders they are is there a difference between creative and business leadership i e between game direction and game production or between studio leadership and discipline leadership does the game business do a good enough job training evaluating and growing its leaders is anyone whether in development publishing or academia rigorously training game leaders who how what have been some of the best and worst experiences you ve had that could be credited to or laid at the feet of great or poor leadership and yes everyone who s worked for and with me is welcome to gang up on me here i m tough i can take it i m even looking to talk about how leadership might differ when you move from medium to medium so feel free to chime in on film or music leadership too that s just a sample if there are other leadership oriented topics i ve left out answer questions i didn t even think to ask basically the more data points i have the broader the perspective i can take the better the talk s going to be so share talk to me about leadership good and bad how one becomes a leader sensibly and not so sensibly what role leadership plays in game development and publishing and how that s changed over the years help a guy out here wouldja and if you happen to see me at captivate come on over and say hi it s austin we re friendly thanks warren tags captivate posted in austin games links of interest 15 comments gta v great game probably great review definitely september 18 2013 want to read a great game review great review i mean i have no opinion about the game yet try this nice right quibbles my only real quibble with chris suellentrop s review is that he s more forgiving of misogyny and the fun of virtual violence than i might be here s sam houser on the topic of misogyny i mean i suppose we could have done it early enough on with a female character leaving aside the fact that suellentrop was able to get one of gaming s more reclusive figures to speak out i think the discussion was about more than just player avatars suellentrop seemed to have been pointing out that all the female characters in the series are treated badly but hey if next time around we get cool female avatars in a gta game that s a win right so yeah much as i like the review i feel that suellentrop lets gta v off the hook too easily for its content issues of course in the spirit of total honestly that has to be qualified by the fact that i ve always found it nearly impossible to get past the content and story choices the gta team offers i try really i try but i always seem to find the content too much to bear even when the gameplay is rock solid and in this case suellentrop makes a solid case for the gameplay assessing it in highly positive and likely accurate terms my squeamishness is easily countered feel free to ignore me on this the important thing the important thing is not who likes or doesn t like the content or even who does or doesn t like the gameplay the important thing is that this review told me everything i needed to know to decide whether to buy the game or not and then it went on to tell me what place the game might play sorry for the pun in a larger cultural context wow i read the review and knew to expect open world stuff on a whole new level more options available to me than ever great music visuals that will blow me away content that makes me go ugh and a story that makes me go meh okay i made those last two up that s me talking not the reviewers bad warren but all of that being given the thing i found most compelling was as suellentrop put it the game evokes and satirizes the anxieties of 21st century life there s a fake facebook lifeinvader a fake twitter bleeter a fake apple fruit a fake kickstarter beseecher a fake 50 shades of grey chains of intimacy even a fake call of duty righteous slaughter 7 a first person shooter game that advertises itself with the tagline the identical art of contemporary killing oh yeah i m in facebook as lifeinvader twitter as bleeter that kind of self consciousness and cultural awareness are right up my alley just what it takes to crank a game up to 11 a less well conceived and executed review might not have twigged me to all that was going on in the game this one did if only all game reviews were like that so i ve read the review i ve thought through my history with the series will i buy and play gta v yeah sure you kind of have to if you call yourself a gamer or game developer right i m just hoping i can get past the content this time review as conversation starter whether you re a curmudgeonly developer a gamer a parent a reviewer or a game hating politician go read this review at the very least it ll make a great conversation starter and we need more adult conversation around games the way they play the ideas they express and their place in the broader media cultural world and that conversation doesn t have to end with debate about the merits of a single game one might just as easily use it as a jumping off point for a discussion of my current fave topic the state of games criticism today serious criticism is alive and almost well thanks to many of you i m starting to find that the kind of writing and thinking i see in the new york times is more common than i thought there s more quality games criticism out there than i expected sadly if unsurprisingly most of it is found on gamer oriented websites which still leaves the ny times as one of the few outlets maybe the only one that reaches normal humans but luckily the times critics are doing a fine job and that leads to what i consider to be a big question a big question does either stephen totilo or chris suellentrop have a large enough body of work more importantly a philosophically coherent body of work to justify a collection of reviews in printed or ebook form such a collection with an introductory section outlining the critical foundation supporting all the individual reviews could be our i lost it at the movies our confessions of a cultist or our the private eye the cowboy and the very naked girl and if you don t know those books look em up someone should publish that book now i d blurb that book in a heartbeat heck i d write the foreword if anyone asked and then i d start bugging totilo and suellentrop to tackle the little job of writing the games version of the american cinema at this point there s no one i d trust more to do the job right a bigger question back to gta v anyone know whether i should play on xbox or ps3 that s one thing suellentrop and the times didn t tell me tags games posted in games 5 comments not another games criticism rant september 12 2013 for a while now i ve been ranting about games criticism if you ve been paying attention you re probably sick of me ranting about games criticism as much as i ve ranted i ve found a few signs that maybe just maybe some writers websites and print publications are making some progress toward legitimate games criticism one of the signs is the increasing seriousness with which the new york times covers game news and offers useful game reviews mostly i appreciate what the ny times does with games when they do anything at all but today the times ran a review of amnesia a machine for pigs no i m not making that up a review that left me shaking my head in confusion and dismay here s a link go to this link go directly to the amnesia review read it and come on back http nyti ms 14mpgqp sounds good right i kinda want to play the game i marvelled at the writer s tantalizing hints at what the story might be i enjoyed the author s clear case for the game s emotional impact and lingering resonance then i noticed that there s not one word about what players do in the game in the review not one word seriously can anyone reading this review tell me what the game is about from a play verbs standpoint that seems like a critical oversight pun not intended but very much enjoyed the piece reads like something an editor got hold of an editor who knew nothing about games but had to save some column inches so he or she hacked out the bits that would have made the review make sense to a potential consumer honestly i hope that s the case because the alternative is far worse however it happened it happened we have here possibly the first game review i can remember that doesn t actually discuss the game under discussion look if this review had mentioned the game s genre however the reviewer chose to define that word in the context of games if he or she had talked a little about the play patterns and then wrapped up with a paragraph talking about how the play and the story work together to create the powerful resonant emotional impact the game clearly delivers well i d be cheering as it is i m left shaking my head in confused wonderment if the author of the review reads this fat chance i know i d love to know the backstory on the review but even more i d like to know something about the game so i could decide whether to play it or not oh and can we all vow right here right now never to make another game that starts with a player character who awakens in a strange place suffering from amnesia thanks i appreciate it posted in uncategorized 8 comments hero vs hero september 10 2013 i have no idea what got me thinking about this but as i was drinking my morning coffee it occurred to me that all the superhero movies were missing the point or points i guess first they seem compelled to retell the origin of whatever hero or heroes they portray in each film as if most all viewers aren t already familiar with who the hulk is or where he came from as if superman s origin isn t force fed into our brains as infants as if any human likely to see a batman or spiderman movie isn t already in on the secret origin tm of its star come on marvel and dc have some conviction that you ve done a good job taking over 21st century culture that your creations are part of the cultural zeitgeist and have some faith in us that we ve been paying attention just get on with the story will ya what else are the comics companies doing wrong when they bring their work to the screen this is what really got me worked up this morning unless i miss my guess every superhero movie has been about a hero fighting a villain sometimes there s a secondary plot about the hero fighting himself someone s been reading joseph campbell again well what s wrong with that you ask nothing i say but there are other kinds of super hero stories that comic books do routinely and well the ones i m most find of are the hero mistakenly versus hero before realizing their mistake and then going after the real baddie stories i get that this is just a subtle okay maybe even trivial distinction vis a vis the hero vs hero story i was just complaining about but subtleties matter and they can determine whether a story resonates with an audience or not a straitforward statement like how is hero x going to defeat villain y is way way different than when are heroes w and x going to figure out that they should be defeating villain y instead of beating each other to a pulp i mean think about it if you re like me at least 10 year old me though truth be told i haven t changed much since then if you re like me your favorite stories were the classic thing vs hulk battles in the old fantastic four books the avengers vs x men tales the batman vs superman stuff the flash and superman racing to see who s fastest the original x men vs the new x men the original averngers vs the new avengers and others my fading memory can t call to mind right now interestingly some games do a better job than movies of recreating this sort of hero vs hero magic i m thinking of some recent beat em up games that allow players to pit hero agains hero yeah i know the narrative content is pretty weak but at least games offer something like the classic battles i loved as a kid and still love today now if we could get some narrative games going that played with the who s the real enemy idea maybe we d be onto something i d be first in line to play a thing vs hulk game i realize there are other superhero stories to be told the do i save the world or pay my rent stories the hero who walks away before being dragged back into the fight stories the can a he...