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The Blizzard Worldwide Invitational I visited last weekend certainly was a unique experience. For those of you unaware of what the WWI is, it’s basically a yearly celebration of all things Blizzard, ie. the Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo videogame series, for non-US players (as those have their own Blizzcon). Thousands of eager fans swarmed Paris in search of Blizzard developers, playable unreleased games, scoops and, of course, goodie bags. I gleefully joined them.

The whole thing started with a giant opening ceremony. The most fascinating part about this ceremony wasn’t that the hosts whipped the crowd into a cheering frenzy for the presence of Blizzard’s ‘superstars’. That was to be expected. No, it was because these ‘superstars’ included not only the designers and founders of the company but also the heads of PR, marketing and, yes, even global finance. So here was a crowd of thousands, cheering for those who did not make the games and virtual worlds they adore, but for those whose job it is to make a lot of money out of this love. In all fairness, most of the crowd didn’t even know these ‘suits’ (or didn’t hear their names being called out due to the deafening music) but cheer they did. Hurray for the money!

A fellow researcher also present at the event sighed at one point that, in retrospect, the Sony organised Everquest events of yesteryear where far better organised – as a meeting point for community members that is. At these events, she told me, players all wore tags with their server and guild names on it, and the event nourished these sub-communities to meet and greet. No such things were organised at WWI. In Blizzard’s defense, this event was not just for World of Warcraft players (in contrast to the Everquest events). But it does fit WoW’s image of being allabout playing alone together quit well.

The MMORPG genre has ‘grown up’ commercially. But it seems to have lost a lot of its tight community feeling.

Sub-communities a plenty though, and all were looking for acknowledgment with the Blizzard dev’s. Raiders where present to cheer for everything re-establishing their hardcore-ness (for example when, during a Q&A session, someone asked when Blizzard would solve the problem of the large influx of ‘newbs’). PvP’ers sat on the edge of their seats when class balance was discussed (how dare they/they should give [insert random class] a more powerful [insert random spell]). RP’ers showed up in full costume, proudly defying ridicule (murloc’s ftw!). There was even a brave furrie – he must have been one! – who asked if druids could please get gendered versions of their animal forms (short Blizzard answer: no).

All groups had to deal with Blizzard developers stressing that the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion pack Wrath of the Lich King is going to become ‘not easier, but more accessible’, with ‘less barriers’ and ‘reduced complexity’ (one might suspect these terms now form the official developer’s mantra, as they were heard many, many times). Some cheered, some winced, some took their opinions to the web to cause yet another flame war between casuals and hardcore players.

All I can say is that it’s a logical step that Blizzard is supporting the more casual approach to World of Warcraft play. By far the largest part of the player base can be considered ‘casual’ players.

On the other hand, it’s also usually this group who cause the feeling of a fragmented, individualised community. You can’t really blame casual players though; not everyone wants a ‘second life’. WotLK’s design approach simply looks like the future of the genre in its popular form. We will have to wait another few months for the expansion pack to come out to see if it’s really that bad/good for the community as a whole.

Oh, and the game they were hinting at in the days before WWI? It was Diabo III. When they thought it couldn’t get worse, here’s another title for moral crusader’s on game addiction and violence to start worrying about. Hell, it must be the devil’s work!

In a few days from now, I’ll be on my way to Paris for the 2008 Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational. Allthough they will have all kinds of events around several Blizzard games (most notably Starcraft II), the reason I’m going is the new World of Warcraft expansion pack called Wrath of the Lich King. Can’t wait to try that out and hear the developers talk about the choices made in producing this next step in WoW evolution.

Today though, Blizzard decided to tease the masses (including me!) with the splash screen as shown below . It’s plastered on lots of Blizzard sites and hints at a big game announcement being made at the event. Due to the ice and all, it could just be Wrath of the Lich King after all (beta launch or release date announcements?). Or will they be unveiling the long awaited Diablo III? World of Starcraft? Starcraft: Ghost after all? Or entirely new IP? Or maybe, as many hope with me, a new Lost Vikings game! I’ll keep you posted!

The videogame industry is ever growing and, like many others, The Netherlands wants a bigger piece of the videogame pie. The NLGD Festival of Games, formerly known as the Nederlandse Game Dagen, is basically set up to pursue this goal. As I did some advisory thingamajigs for a workshop for videogame and filmmakers I was invited to join this celebration of burgeoning Dutch game development.

The workshop itself, a co-operation with the Nederlands Film Festival, was fun and interesting but troubled too. The aim of the organisation was to provide a platform for videogame developers and filmmakers to exchange their skills and knowledge – or at least to probe each other to see if such possibilities would even exist. Enthusiasm filled the room, but like always when these two media meet, not everyone was talking about the same things when discussing stuff like emotion, interaction, playing/viewing, story writing and so on.

The biggest hurdle to take was that the videogame makers present were mostly coming from big budget, internationally-operating developers like Triumph Studios or Guerilla Games, while the filmmakers have to do the low-budget, often arthouse-oriented nature of the Dutch film system. Understandably, the second group isn’t really that interested in grand scale first-person shooter extravaganzas for their own work (and vice-versa). There will be a second round of the workshop in September during the film festival, so ‘to be continued’…

The real gems of the NLGD Festival of Games were to be found in the keynotes and other talks, the biggest draw being the venerable godfather of the industry Ralph H. Baer, creator of the Magnavox Odyssey. It was a pleasure to see this golden oldie carve his own spot in videogame history, for example by sneakily avoiding references to his long-running feud with Atari’s Bushnell about Pong.

Following Baer, Edge Magazine’s Margaret Robertson took the stage, trying to show both how much and how little the game industry’s has innovated itself since Baer introduced his first console almost 40 years ago. Her main point was a solid one. The industry has to stop hiding behind the supposedly puberty-like start-up problems of the medium. They should have been long beyond this point (and are, if you look at the right games). Grow up and act accordingly, please.

One more speaker I want to mention is Chaim Gingold, lead designed of the Spore Creature Creator. He had a big, nice talk about how to overlap the spheres of the possible, the probable and the desirable in creating tools like the creature creator. The morning before his talk, I happened to read about players using the ‘possible’ to create their ‘desirable’ content, like walking penis creatures. As we can see, being immature is not only the industry’s vice. More interestingly, in some cases players were being threatened with an account ban for doing so.

So I asked Gingold about what can best be described as the impossible and undesirable as a result of launching such design tools in a participatory framework. As expected, all he could reply with was they he did not know about the legal games being played in the upper echelons of the company, and that he as a developer doesn’t mind such user creativity. Well, apparantly, publishers EA and/or Maxis do mind. At least the issue gave me the questionable honour of saying ‘wobbly penises’ through a mic at an international conference without anyone even blinking an eye. You gotta love the game industry…

Imagine making a game out of as much copyright protected material as you could possibly think of, publishing it through a company who is not aware of you doing this and then hyping it all over the internet as if it’s the coolest, most original game out there.

I think I’d better let the fine people from Rock, Paper, Shotgun explain this one.

After the read, head to Amazon.co.uk to read the highly suspicious consumer review and accompanying comments. “I lol’ed” indeed.

I didn’t even notice this startling news: apparently, the Dutch government is thinking of withdrawing its subsidy for Skrien, now in its 40th year of publication, due to budget cuts or something. It’s the only serious film mag the Netherlands has, and a safe haven for mediastudies scholars.

The following pressing letter was sent out through the film and television industry mailing lists. It’s in Dutch, it basically states that if you want to offer your declaration of support for their cause, do it today on skrien2008 @ gmail.com.

Skrien reddingsplan 2008 – Ondersteuningsbrief

Beste filmliefhebber,

Waarschijnlijk heeft u al via de media vernomen dat de Raad voor Cultuur aan het ministerie van OC&W heeft voorgesteld Skrien niet langer te subsidiëren. Dat betekent kort gezegd het einde van Skrien.

Wij denken dat er nog ruimte is om de Raad voor Cultuur en het ministerie van mening te doen veranderen. We vragen daarom of we uw naam onder onderstaande brief mogen zetten. Daarmee kan Skrien laten zien een gewaardeerd onderdeel te zijn van de Nederlandse filmwereld.

De brief zal worden aangeboden aan de Raad voor Cultuur en het ministerie en online worden gezet op de website van Skrien.

We hopen dat u deze mail wilt doorsturen aan collega’s en vrienden in de Nederlandse film- en televisiewereld. Mocht u hierdoor deze mail meer dan eens ontvangen, dan vragen we uw begrip. We hebben helaas weinig tijd en er staat veel op het spel; daarom maken we gebruik van deze methode.

We hopen dat u in een e-mail aan skrien2008 @ gmail.com wilt bevestigen (onder vermelding van uw naam en functiebeschrijving) dat wij uw naam aan onderstaande brief mogen toevoegen. Het liefst voor 29 mei, zodat de brief op tijd is voor de deadline van het beroep bij de Raad voor Cultuur. Maar ook daarna zijn nieuwe namen welkom: de definitieve beslissing van het ministerie valt pas in september.

Bij voorbaat dank,

André Waardenburg en Kees Driessen

hoofd- en eindredactie Skrien

I finally got my copy of Digital Culture, Play, and Identity – A World of Warcraft Reader. And all I can say is that it turned out great!

For those who don’t know it yet; it’s an impressive collecting of articles from a collective of researchers who gathered to not only analyse World of Warcraft, but also to play it. It’s a broad but still in-depth look into the WoW phenomenon and, being the object of my research too, I will certainly enjoy digging further into these articles.

Even though I missed out on participating in the creation of the book (I joined The Truants too late, meh), I’ve been playing with this crowd for quit some time now and they are not only a smart but also a fun bunch (go Truants!) .

A big /cheer to Hilde and Jill for this fine book. And /hug Torill for keeping the Truants spirit alive!

Sometimes I get asked to write weird articles. Still, I wasn’t expecting this one.

With the European soccer championship coming up, the University of Amsterdam’s weekly magazine, Folia Civitatis, decided to make a soccer-themed issue. As I’m their regular film journo, they asked me to write something film-related. Of all things they could’ve come up with, they chose Bavarian porn.

‘Bavarian porn?’ some of you might think? Well, it was a highly successful 70’s softporn/comedy genre from the Bavaria/Tirol regions of Germany and Austria (there’s your link with soccer; Austria is one of the hosts of the championship). It’s infamous for its combination of heimat nostalgia and silly sex and nudity. In a sense a bizarre subgenre of sexploitation. The genre is known as Lederhosenfilm in German speaking territories, and as Tiroler seksfilm in the Netherlands. It’s cheap, dumb and degrading to women and/or humankind in general. But in its stupidity and offensiveness it’s also very, very funny.

Really, track one down if you’ve never seen one, they are hilarious.

I actually had the dvd of Ach Jodel Mir Noch Einen (1974) lying around the house (don’t ask) and revisiting it was a blast. It’s better (un)known as 2069: A Sex Odyssey in English, a title which should be telling enough; it actually combines all that is worst/best of Bavarian Porn with sci-fi!

Naturally, I had a lot of fun writing the piece, especially as it needed to be a bit tongue-in-cheek (it’s pretty hard to write anything serious on this stuff anyway). I’ll provide a link when it’s published. The conclusion was that if you don’t give a crap about soccer (like I do by the way), watching Bavarian porn this summer is the next best thing to do to cleanse your thirst for stupid fun in the Alps.

I couldn’t let this one slip:

Jack Thompson, considered to be the bane of gamers worldwide, is guilty of no less than 27 of 31 misconduct charges in court cases he led against Bully and GTA. At least, this is what a judge is recommending to the Florida Supreme Court.

Only some of the charges:

-Knowingly making a false statement of material fact or law to a tribunal
-Using means that have no purpose other than to embarrass, delay or burden a third person
-Engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation

Oh, the irony…

Read the full report here.

Maybe this will halt his strange crusade. It probably won’t…

I guess this is my first entry into the ‘blogosphere’. Well, here goes…

One of the best things about getting a little kid – she is one month old now and growing like crazy – is that I actually had more time to, well, do nothing much. Sure, taking care of the wee one takes up a healthy chunk of our time, and the whole sleep-poo-cry cycle can be tiring for all involved. But I had taken some weeks off from work to be a full time family man, which freed up so much time that, suddenly, I had the liberty to do all those things I never had the time for! Did I read all those books and articles lying around? did I watch all those films and series I missed? Did I even go out in the sun which scorched Holland in the past weeks?

No, I pretty much spend most of my free hours playing GTA IV.

Perfect timing Rockstar!. Some recent minor distractions aside, this is the first game to really pull me away from World of Warcraft. Which wasn’t that hard by the way, my WoW being hacked and plundered just after my kid was born (I lost 8000g on that one, thanks virtual economy!).

Thus, there I was, taking my new buddy Niko through all kinds of violent ordeals in Liberty City. And what a splendid killing spree it turned out to be. Gone are most of the troubles which plagued prior instalments like messy aiming, cars popping in out of nowhere, no multi-player. And now we can even skip those unnecessary long drives to and from quest objectives after failing missions again and again; now you can just take a cab, pick your location and skip the entire ride!

Skipping the ride almost always feels like a loss though as GTA IV’s Liberty City is one of the most beautifully rendered, vibrant and believable virtual worlds out there. It is however not just a New York 2.0 for virtual sightseeing. It is clear that, like previous GTA’s, Rockstar wanted to make a sandbox with a point. GTAIII, Vice City and San Andreas all parodied American culture through its radio channels, billboards, dialogues and so on. GTA IV follows suit but got rid of all the over-the-top silliness which tended to make you forget its finer details. So, no jetpacks, Area 51’s or overkill of ramps here. Calling the changes ‘gritty’ or ‘darker’ is marketing mumbo-jumbo but there’s truth in it as well. You could almost say that Rockstar has taken a more mature approach (gasp!).

More than ever, Rockstar’s Liberty City is a bleak, dystopian depiction of the real. It takes no prisoners; the media, the internet, the government, the crime gangs, even people just walking down the virtual streets, all of them are degenerated, corrupted, spoiled. It might still be far off – ‘it’s only a game’, remember – but it’s eerily recognizable. As suggested elsewhere, the American Dream has never been so far out of reach for Liberty City’s inhabitants. Drawn to Liberty City under false promises of freedom, peace and wealth, Niko’s downward spiral into sin is entirely believable, even logical. And you wish him while doing so.

Exposing a child to such harsh, violent worlds might be a bit unethical but hey, where else but in your lap do you put a crying baby when you’re playing! When I was ploughing down rows of pedestrians and crashing my car into other players (GTA multiplayer is a hoot!), the pleasure the baby seemed to derive from the rumble my controller made on her tummy made it al seem ok. She really digs that!

Ps. This post seems a bit dated already but Blogger decided to lock my brand new blog for suspicions of me being a spambot (sigh).