Music of March 2015


The ways to find it collated together:





Musical Foray







Kickstarter: An education in reality

So I wrote this but a good long while ago. Back in late 2013, but at the time elected not to publish it for various reasons (some work related). I didn’t want this to mis-interpreted by readers either in the community or at my former employer Microsoft Studios. As I no longer work there and I’ve had a bit of time to edit this and come back to it, I feel confident putting it out there. 

I have recently gained a new appreciation for Kickstarter. I was always a fan of the system. I am as excited as the next person. The idea of directly donating funds to products or projects which hold your interest is a novel one. Kickstarter delivers the instant gratification of voting with your wallet. Participants and users can elect to put their money forward and immediately feel invested, or they can pass on a project and fancy themselves the discerning investor. I personally backed several projects through Kickstarter at its outset. A handful of which were video game projects, so I have some skin in the game here.

However, my new appreciation of the service has come from a recent realization. It was prompted by a few events, but the clarifying moment came with the announcement by Chris Robert’s Cloud Imperium Games that the dogfighting module of their crowd-funded Star Citizen was going to be delayed. Cloud Imperium were simply adjusting their development schedule based on changing situations. As a developer I understand this completely. But there was significant backlash from those who backed the project. They felt as though they were investors and therefore entitled to answers. What I realized is that Kickstarter is so interesting because it is the standardized introduction of Micro-publishing. Kickstarter projects create a financial situation and an overall atmosphere where the gaming community and anyone who backs a project has adopted the role akin to a singular amalgamated publisher.

What the introduction of said micro-publishing / crowd funding achieves is three very important things; it manifests and amplifies the struggle of publishing a game, it educates the community about game developments budgeting and scheduling, and finally it underscores the degree to which the games market is driven by supply and demand.

Publishers take a pretty serious beating in the games press. They are called unethical, greedy, and incompetent on a very regular basis. Kickstarter brings a small bit of schadenfruede to industry folk by making every backer painfully aware of what it feels like to be a publisher.

Are you a backer on RSi’s Star Citizen or Double Fine’s Broken Age?

When it was announced that said project would be delayed due to unforeseen development issues, were you mad?

Did you feel angry or cheated?

Yes? Good, you have now experienced on a micro-scale exactly what most publishers experience multiple times every day. Professional game development is a fickle and transient process; projects are in a perpetual state of flux. Some things happen in due time, sometimes projects are behind schedule, but what is constant is some unforeseen and immutable problems. This very public and messy exploration is why I am such a huge proponent of the crowd-funding and transparent development process. It succeeds in educating many of the community members on just exactly what it is like to build games. When a project misses the mark or screeches past a deadline, backers get nothing. What’s worse is they hold no leverage or ability to make demands in that situation, they are left to sit and stew.

When the same thing happens with a publisher there a few more options. The publisher, if they are funding have the ability to push the project back potentially disrupting their portfolio timelines (which can cause large scale problems) or they can kill the project. Either way their investment has been lost and there is not much that can be done, its simply mitigation at that point. A third option is possible, that is to launch on unfinished game, which happens far more often then people may think. Often these games are called ‘bad’ or the developers are called ‘incompetent’; the truth is something more complex, chances are the game is at its core good, but is rotten in terms of coherence or polish. The primary reasoning behind this is because most games, being the sum of about a billion moving parts, do not always function perfectly the first time you turn them on. As a result most developers and publishers attempt to build in ‘polish time’. Essentially this is a surplus of time at the of the development schedule (usually more then 3 weeks and no more than 3 months) to allow the team (programmers, designers, and all) to work on those kinks in the machine. But when a project falls behind schedule, often the call is made to eat that surplus time to finish putting the machine together enough so it can turn on, but no time to smooth out the issues. What users get is a game that hardly functions in an optimal way.

Secondly, Kickstarter is effective at illustrating just how large gaming budgets have become. Community members will complain and rant about the cost of games increasing, the superimposing of subscriptions or Microtransactions on existing games. The reality of the situation is that many games have such large budgets and operating costs, that enabling some motivated users to pay more money is one of the most effective ways to ensure a product just achieves its return on investment. This is not to say that the large budgets of most games are appropriate, but they are the current reality. Understanding just how much these games cost can explain why consumers are seeing a rise in pricing and other monetization schemes. So when they shake their head a smaller scale game with a  decent feature set asking for $1milllion dollars, what they don’t realize is that amount of money is actually quite LOW by industry standards and that most games are well above and beyond that. Tim Schafer recently responded on twitter to criticism about the Broken Age budget which was nearly $3.5 million, but failed to deliver a whole game at that amount. Check it out here:

Finally, the surge and growth of crowd-funding is a blatant reminder that fans and enthusiasts will pay for anything, truly anything. Kickstarter is a quick education in extrinsic value propositions and monetization. Please, take a moment and peruse some of the ‘reward tiers’ for any game Kickstarter out there. Note that these promotions, are not an inherently bad thing, in fact it’s quite liberating. Gamers in the community are getting very upset recently because of the introduction of different monetization schemes. While some of them are poorly implemented and truly exploitative, there are many examples of fair and valuable monetization done right. Downloadable Content, Microtransactions, Collectors Editions, and Merchandise can all provide great value to players who are looking for it. Funny enough though, these same vocal players seem to be willing to pay for these more material based Microtransactions up front, before the game is even completed, because of how it is framed. In many cases it seems like an altruistic act of charity, helping out the struggling developer to make their game, as opposed to the filthy patronage of someone who has already paid for their game. They will put up money to get their name in the credits or to get a cool signed poster, but the collectors edition of the game is seen as money grabbing. In all it takes a certain cognitive dissonance to place the two purchases in totally different categories. It also requires a certain level of ignorance to continue believing this is the way of things. That developer who you refuse to patronize because they already got their money and made their game, is in so many cases on borrowed time. They have funded said project through private investors or publishers, both of which fully expect to be repaid, or said developer will suffer greatly.

This is one of the great things about Kickstarter, it allows developers to fund their projects upfront, keeping themselves in the black, so that they can remain solvent as they build. Instead of over extending themselves only to fail when they don’t hit the sales requirements / recoup number in their contract.

But hey, as long as games keep getting made, and more people understand how they are made, that’s just fine with me.

Reference on the Star Citizen Delay:

Alien: Isolation – now this is how to reveal a game.

So if you were watching the games presses Monday (1/7), or my twitter feed. You saw that Sega & Creative Assembly announced a new Alien game. Alien: Isolation is the latest game installment of the film franchise started by Ridley Scott in 1979.

I have to say I am just really impressed and pleasantly surprised by this announcement. The game itself has me excited to be sure, but that’s not really what has caught my eye.

Truthfully I think the manner in which they announced the title hits just about every key point of a clean game reveal. I’ll break down what I mean.

Firstly Sega/CA did a competent job of keeping this project quiet by minimizing leaks. It probably helped that Aliens: Colonial Marines burst into flames so publicly; effectively blinding the community to any other mentions of the word ‘Alien’. However, when it comes to confidentiality they executed wonderfully on the plan of “If you have to keep things quiet. Keep quiet.”

This game pretty much slid in under the radar until it was just upon us; a well orchestrated maneuver for building hype with surprise.

Perhaps one of the most important parts of this announcements is that, by all press accounts, they let the game speak for itself. They sat members of the press in a darkened room with surround sound and put a controller in the hands of journalists, unleashing them into the demo.  There was no faffing about. No sophistry.  Simply put the game in the hands of reporters and answer questions when asked. This method of ‘show and quietly tell’ does well to dispel much of the speculation and misplaced hype that can torpedo game at launch (ie Aliens: Colonial Marines). Creative Assembly has demonstrated that the value of saying little is more valuable than saying a great deal.

The reason I feel comfortable saying that this ‘demo’ is more legitimate than other vertical slices is driven by the fact that all indications point to this being a Alien: Isolation is near being finalized. Showing the games final engine with a stable and playable build speaks volumes about Sega/CA’s desire to assuage consumer fears of another debacle of misrepresentation (ie Aliens: Colonial Marines).

Arguably the best part about the entire reveal is the perfectly precise nature of the showcased gameplay and selected conversations. Creative Assembly clearly understands what experience they are trying to deliver in Alien: Isolation. Their reliance and insistence on the fear-inspiring, suspenseful, and dreadful atmosphere of the original 1979 film is apparent. In the game segments shown there is a focus on moments of slow and weary exploration of an eerie space station. The attention to detail in these moments is an incredible. As CA mentions, they faithfully recreated the art style of the film by ruling out in-game assets that couldn’t have been reasonably manufactured in 1979 for the original films production. These tense times of wandering are punctuated by moments of startling noises and terrifying glimpses of the Xenomorph. Every dark corner becomes a danger, every time you turn your back an overwhelming sense of vulnerability takes hold of you. The ominous reports of the motion tacker stop you heart with every beep. The team at Creative Assembly made damned sure that players were aware of how these moments of gameplay drive the overall experience. There was no need to stand on ceremony, buzzwords, or mention of graphical fidelity.

By sharing a complete press package of trailers, in-engine footage, hands-on demos, hi-res screenshots, and straight talk the CA/SEGA team have introduced a skiddish community to a promising game that respects its origins. They have laid the groundwork for a game that focuses on a compelling experience which is not trying to be anything other than what it needs to be: a horrifying, suspenseful, and engaging survival tale without the distraction of needless features or content.

Bravo to the teams at Creative Assembly & SEGA. I’m not one to place pre-orders, but rest assured you have my attention. My undivided attention.

A million times: Yes.






Below is a quick transcription:





Thanks for saying what all of us sane people were thinking.

One hobby please. In a tall glass.

For the love of beer.


Or so said the younger version of myself.



A hobby?




The Unending Search



Do It Yourself.



What’s mine is yours.



Talk to me.



And why shouldn’t I?




Stop Trying To Use ‘Companies Are Greedy’ As An Argument. Just Stop.

Recently I was on Kotaku, a place which I often try to avoid due to the content of their comment boards and editorials. Nonetheless I came across an editorial that just miffed me. This particular article was entitled “Stop Trying To Use ‘Companies Exist To Make Money’ As An Argument. Just Stop.”

This article was essentially a concurring editorial posted in response to an editorial penned by Jim Sterling, someone for whom I have much respect. The Kotaku op-ed itself was authored by Patricia Hernandez. Aside from the fact that 40% of the piece is quoted from Jim Sterling’s piece, what it succeeds wonderfully in doing is illustrating the most profound lack of understanding of the games industry by a ‘journalist’.

What do you mean by that, Connor? Well allow me to explain. The main thrust of Hernandez’s article, which is ripped directly from Sterling’s, is that game publishers are greedy robber barons. That these companies are leveraging their control over the market to charge an exorbitant price for content that should be free.

Alright, I suppose I understand your point. I mean I understand the point Jim Sterling made (and made it better), but I still get it.

Do I disagree? Not entirely, no. I admit I see products being pushed that are inferior quality and priced up to a premium. However I think the intent of this article is entirely misdirected and comes from a place of ignorance. It assumes that there exists no Downloadable Content (DLC), Digital Rights Management (DRM), or Microtransactions (MTX) that actually provide value. It goes on to imply that any person who says otherwise in defense of such systems is “stupid”, “spineless”, and “a fanboy”. Interesting. I’ll move past the insults and directly answer the first part by saying: there are surely some pieces of DLC, DRM, and MTX that have value. To suggest anything to the contrary is to discredit things like Steam’s DRM, MTX for games like Blacklight Retribution, LoL, or World of Tanks, and the DLC on games like Borderlands 2. I believe such a quality speaks for itself.

Continuing on that train of thought, if you are so offended by the implementation of such services, you could simply not involve yourself with them. Sterling’s article was much more clear about this, there is nothing wrong with being a happy consumer, and there is nothing wrong with being a disgruntled customer. I agree, you have every right to speak your mind about what you see as unethical or exploitative behavior. In fact I encourage you to do so! As a game designer, I see a baseline for quality. Your product must be of _this_ quality. I think that a company who falls short of that is not doing their job, and should be reminded of that. But I do not believe it is fair for consumers to rant and rave at companies who happen to make a product that users simply don’t like. I believe you have the right to expect a certain level of quality, information, and respect. I do not however believe consumers have the right to be entertained by every product. Often when I see people who attack companies for being greedy, it is totally misdirected at a publisher based solely off a personal dislike and not any real objective lack of quality.  So I would ask Jim Sterling the same he asked of me. “I’m not telling you that you definitely have to support a company/product — but don’t tell others they can’t.” I would as for one more thing, if you are going to call a company greedy and exploitative, do it from a position of certainty and reason. Not just a the default reaction when your personal fancies are satisfied.

Moving on from that immediate context, I think this rant gets to a larger issue about game companies. The implication is that the products being released serve no end, other than the financial exploitation of consumers. Let me just squelch that fucking thought there. Are there companies that put out products so that they can profit from them hand over fist? You-fuckin-bet. Is that every company and every product? By no means.

I’m going to let you in on a secret. That game you love, the one that you’ve spent hours playing, the one that you love to chat about with people, and the one for which you recoil in disgust when people don’t recognize the name; yeah that one. That game lost money. I mean, that game cost X dollars to make, it made Y dollars, and Y is less than X. Long story short, the only reason that game is ever getting a sequel is because some behemoth of a blockbuster game was published. Between the retail and DLC the blockbuster raked in 400% of its investment. After that money was used: to recoup the enormous costs from development,  pay employees, cut bonus checks, and saved away for the next iteration of that blockbuster; the remaining dollars were set aside to fund other projects. Projects like the game you love so much. What am I saying? I am saying that the success of other products and their monetization that you find so distasteful paid for the financial failure that is your favorite game.

What does this mean? How could this be possible? If these greedy capitalists only do things for money, how could they possibly make a sequel to a game that made no money? Because they give a shit. As much as it may strain the fabric of you tenuous argument, developers and publishers actually care. They create products not just to line their own coffers, they do it to provide entertainment.

And frankly, as someone who has in the past and will in the future worked at a publisher in the games industry: it not only offends me that you think so little of my motivations, but it just makes you sound ‘stupid’ when you characterize an entire organization off of your flawed understandings.

Financial viability means an awful lot in games production. If something can’t get its money back, its very difficult to get it made, regardless of its quality. That is just how things work. If every developer made every game they wanted, they would quite frankly go broke. Its very difficult to sustain titles that do not have broad appeal.

So what am I saying? The games industry is not black and white, no matter how much so called ‘journalists’ try to pigeonhole it. There are bad or derivative games that have a positive result. There are companies who disrespect their consumers. There exists quality DLC and MTX. Finally, there do exist limits to your entitlement as a consumer, you are in fact not always right. Especially for those who haven’t the slightest idea about the cost and commitment required to develop video game.

Disclaimer: I have worked for, and accepted a job offer from, Microsoft Game Studios. My views expressed here are my own and no one else’s. I represent myself.