[MUD-Dev] Much Respect to JessicaM

[apollyon]

Just want to take a moment to tip my hat to Jessica for her latest
Biting the Hand.  I'm sure you all remember the glove she threw down
in "Just Give Me a Game, Please" a year ago.  Shortly after that, on
September 11, she published Raph's response in "The Case For Art."
Given the date it was published, it may have gotten a wee bit
overshadowed by international events.

Well, her latest BTH goes back to refocus on Raph's response.  In
it, she gives much praise to his argument and that's a rare thing
these days.  Given the events of that day, only a year ago, it is
easy to see how people can get so entrenched in their argument and
their point of view that they refuse to even consider the
possibility that the other side might have some good points.
Jessica refutes that entrenchment and to her, my hat goes off.

I had an enormous degree of respect for you in the past.  It has
grown.  Thank you Jessica.

apollyon

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
- Mahatma Gandhi

<EdNote: Copy below>

--<cut>--
Biting The Hand #33:
Much Water Under the Bridge, Much Beer Over the Dam...

by Jessica Mulligan
September 3, 2002

It has been a heck of a year. We all know what happened on September
11, 2001; no need to rehash those events here.

When I look at all that has and has not happened in the world of
online and persistent world gaming in the last year, I feel the
overriding need to say something. That something is: Read Raph
Kosters The Case For Art, Dammit!

One of the consequences of 9/11 was that Raph Kosters guest column,
The Case For Art, which was published on that date, may not have
been as widely read as it should have been. Or maybe Im blaming the
events of 9/11 unjustly, because I believe anyone involved in the
design, development or post-launch management of a persistent world
in any capacity, be it subscription-based or free, should read Raphs
piece. As it is impossible to convince 100% of any population to do
what they oughta, it seems unlikely that everyone who should read it
actually has read it. It stands alone as the tract on both the need
for art and its exploration in these unique vehicles; it is the
perfect counterpoint to my rant on entertainment in games and shows
how both entertainment and art can and should live together in the
same space.

If you read nothing else of Biting the Hand this time around, click
on the link and go read that piece. Even if you read it last year
and several times hence, read it again. If you havent read it, do so
or face strange and terrible punishments, the likes of which are
even now forming in the mired cesspool that is my tortured
brain. Dont make me come over there, pal; Im 64 tall, weigh 200
pounds and can scare the crap out of bear-wrasslin lumberjacks with
a glance. And thats before I put on the 3 stiletto heels. You have
been warned.

Get Over Yourself, Already

Since that piece was first published, Raph, Rich Lawrence of Sony
Online, Jack Song of NCsoft and I served on Gordon Waltons panel
concerning the development of next-generation persistent worlds at
the March 2002 Game Designers Conference. We had an interesting
mini-debate on whether persistent worlds have too many moving parts
to encourage more players to partake of them. Some interesting
thoughts came out of that one and Ive been meaning to dedicate a
column to the subject; it keeps scratching at my psyche, demanding
attention, so Ill probably get around to it pretty quickly.

At the risk of transforming this column into a meeting of the Raph
Koster Fan Club (which my fragile ego would never allow): The
highlight of that hour were the responses of Gordon and Raph to
someone who described himself as a Hollywood story writer wanting to
break into gaming and, specifically, online gaming. He was concerned
about the unwashed masses diluting the pure, precious bodily fluids
of his masterly crafted storyline and wanted to know how to make it
all work out correctly, i.e. how to make sure the players played his
storyline in such a way as to insure his brilliance was not
polluted. OK, he wasnt quite that arrogant, but he was close.

Ive been listening to the tape of that panel again recently and want
to share this transcription of the answer:

  Question from the audience: How do you make it so that if other
  people want to start playing in that (story), either it works out
  or its a good story (for everyone), what do you do?

  Gordon: I want to paraphrase this, let me paraphrase this: What
  are we going to do when these unwashed people actually start
  putting stuff in front of us and, you know, spoil our beautifully
  crafted world to hell? So thats one paraphrase. The other is: How
  are we going to get over the 99% of everything thats crap. Right? 
  So its a real problem, if 99% of everything is crap and most
  people have the desire to be creative, but most of them don't have
  the actual skill to be creative. I think it is a real
  challenge. Why dont we see more of it today? That's probably a big
  part of it.

  Raph is dying to say something. This is probably the last
  question, so start filling out your little forms and, you know,
  mark them 1 for Jessica (Note: 1 was the low end of the scale on
  the forms the GDC asked attendees to fill out for each of the
  sessions . Gordon isnt called Tyrant and Tormentor for nothing,
  <grin>). (Laughter)

  Jessica: Uh, gee, how do you say it? Oh, yeah: [deleted]
  you. (Laughter)

  Raph: Shame on you, now thats on the tape.

  Jessica: Yeah, like they've never heard that word here.

  Raph: Let me say, sir, that I really sympathize. I'm an artsy
  type, as Jessica is fond of reminding me and, you know, I have an
  MFA (note: Master of Fine Arts degree). Ive spent much of my life
  training to write crafted experiences. There's an intense amount
  of learning, craft and skill that goes there, and I hate to say
  this to say this to all the film directors, writers, poets,
  painters and everyone else out there in the world:

  Get over yourselves; the rest of the world is coming.

  Okay? People value self-expression. Is story going to go away?
  No. Is careful crafting going to go away? No. Are the
  professionals engaged in that going to go away? No. Well, except
  that IP the concept of intellectual property may, but thats a
  whole other side discussion. The thing is that people want to
  express themselves and they don't really care that 99% of
  everything is crap, because they are positive that the 1% they
  made isn't. Okay? And fundamentally, they get ecstatic as soon as
  five people see it, right?

  So we can move to a meta-level of the crafting experience. We can
  try to take a step up and say, We can do what Lego did, which is
  give them the building blocks, so that they fundamentally can't
  make something so screwed up that everyone ends up leaving. And
  that's a different level of authorship than what we are used to,
  but it's a really exciting area of authorship.

  It's all them, guys, and, fundamentally, authorship is about
  us. And it's the wrong medium for it. It's not what the medium is
  for.

Gordon and Raph put into cogent phrasing something many of us in the
industry know and have been trying to tell Hollywood since 1994,
when studios such as Time-Warner, Turner, MCA-Universal, MGM,
Dreamworks SKG and the rest of their ilk decided it was time for
them thar PRO-fessional story-tellers to come in and show us poor
benighted geeks how to do this computer game stuff the right
way. They were out in force at the CGDC that year, hiring anyone who
would stand still in the corridors long enough to be offered a
salary 25% to 50% above the then-prevailing standards. Thats not an
exaggeration; after participating in a roundtable, I was offered a
30% raise above my then-current salary at Interplay while riding
down an escalator. Several of my friends were offered even more. It
was a feeding frenzy.

Naturally, since we game developers didnt really know how to make a
real game, studio empire-builders with no experience in the PC/video
game industry were in charge. Oops. After several years and several
tens of millions of dollars thrown to the winds, most studio game
development shops closed down altogether, sold their development
studios to existing computer and video publishers or fired their
inhouse teams and started contracting with experienced development
houses. The reason for that failure was, ultimately, that Hollywood
understands television and movies quite well, but hasnt the first
clue about what makes a good game and the reverse is true, too; you
have only to watch the movies Street Fighter and Wing Commander to
understand that. What Hollywood thought were games were, for the
most part, actually interactive movies with a linear, set storyline,
which to game players have the same entertainment value as
repeatedly dunking ones head in a bucket of warm spit.

The take-away here should be A) games arent TV or movies, B) what
makes you a success in one market doesnt automatically guarantee
success in another, and C) games are shared participatory and
creative experiences, not shared observational entertainment. Until
Hollywood truly understands point C), theyll never understand how to
capitalize on interactive entertainment and will continue to be
merely companies from which game professionals occasionally license
properties.

Thats why Im not particularly interested in having the average
Hollywood scriptwriter or director involved in any persistent world
Im working on; the great majority of them just dont get it. They
think its all about their precious story. They are, of course,
wrong.

You talkin to me?

Another consequence of 9/11 has been for many of us to stop and
reexamine what our lives are all about; there is nothing like having
war declared on your country by extremists willing to kill
themselves to get at you, to make you rethink things a bit. For me,
personally, this has resulted in a decision to take some extended
time off to relax and de-stress before digging into what looks to be
a very busy winter.

In between relaxing in the sun and stuffing my face with great
Florida Keys seafood these last two weeks, Ive been spending more
time in the Skotos forums, reading what people have been saying
about the column and making some long overdue responses to some of
the comments. As a columnist, Im very lucky; many of the people who
write in the forums are smart as hell, industry insiders or both. I
encourage you to check them out and, if the urge bites you, to
participate. I promise to feather my own bed by remaining active
there.

And Ill have more time to do so, for all that there will still be
much to do: Besides writing Biting the Hand every two weeks, there
is the post-production work to be completed on Developing Online
Games: An Insiders Guide, the book Im co-authoring with Bridgette
Patrovsky for Prentice Hall and scheduled for publication this
winter. It looks like the publisher is going to pick up the option
for a second book, so that work will need to be completed before the
spring thaw. Things also continue to be busy at The Themis Group,
where I remain on the Board of Directors. And Intelligent Games, for
whom I serve on the Board of Advisors, is running internal Alpha
tests on their intriguing turn-based online game Imperial Wars and
preparing for late Alpha and early public Beta tests; Im having a
ripping good time with it, so far. On top of all that, Im determined
to spend more time with my family, whom I have neglected quite badly
the past ten years in the pursuit of my passion of online
games. Since they live all over the country, that means repeatedly
subjecting myself to the black comedy that our airport security
measures have become. I must be sure that my carry-on baggage doesnt
contain the weapon of choice for terrorists around the world, those
deadly Mark IV Clippers, Nail (Issue: one each) or that
bioweapon-grade breast milk Ive been hearing about. Yes, it is going
to be quite a busy winter of writing, playing, consulting and
traveling.

I can hardly wait.
--<cut>--
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