In my post-Red Steel 2-launch phase, I have found myself short on topics rampaging through my mind that I can discuss freely on these, them thar Webs.

There’s been a lot of activity, to be sure: the first sales figures have been being discussed widely, there have been several marvelously supportive articles written by journalists who seem to be ‘in our corner’, so to speak, and in general the “what’s next” question has been foremost in many minds.

Alas, all of those topics fall under the “not in my job description to broadcast” category.

That is to say, were I to share all my personal reflections on the sales figures, it would (as I have learned) likely be quoted as a “statement from Ubisoft” – and that likelihood means that I can’t talk about such things here.

Now, don’t get all weird on me. I’m not complaining about that. Sit down, sit down. It’s okay. I actually think it’s awesome that people are so interested in these topics, and I very much enjoy talking with the press about just about anything they wanna discuss. However, as we all understand, the nature the relationship itself coupled with my role as a Ubisoft Dude means that I gotta watch what I say, man.

So, I’m left to sit and stew silently on these topics, while the world races by.

…

That is not my style.

The previous post was one attempt to overcome that void. Discussing other people’s games is always fun, in particular when they are destroying my mind. Ultimately, though, it has proven to be not terribly satisfying.

So. Right here, I’m going to try a different tact. One that, hopefully, will both bore and confuse you. Simultaneously!

Ian Bogost Is Persuasive

One of the things I do “between projects”, seemingly, is to immerse myself in the literature, media, and whatever, surrounding the topic I hope to address next.

Now is no exception. At the GDC this year, I picked up a book called “Persuasive Games” by one Ian Bogost.

If you aren’t aware of it, there is something like an early renaissance (a “naissance”, perhaps?) in the intellectual discussions surrounding video games. For many, many (many, many, oh god, it was so long) years, the writing on games and their meaning was pretty thin. Recently, however, things have improved, and quite measurably!

Even so, it’s still sort of sketchy territory out there. We don’t have anything like a common grammar yet, and the academics in the field who are considered the go-to people have often been in their role for less than 10 years… often less. We’re young, people.

So, then, Mr. Bogost, and his Persuasive Games. This is a book about meaning.

Red Steel 2 was a success in many ways, but the, er, ‘polemic’ aspect of the title was, perhaps, not our primary focus. Ahem.

In fact, if there was “meaning” to be taken from Red Steel 2, it was probably something like “whacking bad guys with a sword is good fun!” Perhaps this was not the most high-falutin’ message ever presented… but when laid against the backdrop of the work(s) we were inspired by, it seems fitting.

Even so… it’s something I’m thinking about a great deal, now, ‘between projects’: games and meaning.

Mr. Bogost has titled his book “Persuasive Games”, and it doesn’t disappoint. It’s primarily a step-by-step breakdown of how a series of games that operate in the “persuasive” zones (politics, advertisements, satire, others) make their case – the structure of how meaning is made in an interactive work, and how audiences respond to that meaning. It’s fascinating shit – if you can handle academic writing, of course. The book does not pretend to be a ‘page turner’ – he’s making a point, man, and intends to back it the fuck up. With, like, facts.

While this is great stuff, at the end it is not the distinction between “persuasive” and “non-persuasive” games that has made a lasting impression on me.

Uh, did I mention that the book has made a lasting impression? It has. It’s (in fact) messing with my head, quite nicely.

What I found interesting in this book is not that Ian (if I may call him Ian – we both have beards, after all) has laid out how to make more persuasive games. Rather, it is that he has, through implication, laid out a quite convincing structure for the method by which games construct meaning in their audience (re: Holy Grail).

And, people? It’s fucking weird.

Weird, like, throw out all your ideas of interpretation of meaning from cinema, TV, and books, weird. Like, time to start over in having a common language.

However, he’s right. That’s the problem.

[ASIDE] For the record, he’s not necessarily the first dude to pull this off – he’s just the one I have read the most recently, and he made a particularly good case. There’s lots of other folks out there doing great work in this domain. Just so y’all know. And so that y’all know that I know. And, etcetera.

…

But, hey, Bogost has a beard, man.[/ASIDE]

Hmm. Tell you what. Let’s see if the darklorde can actually illustrate what the fuck he’s talking about, and demonstrate that he has actually learned something from this here book thing.

EXAMPLE! James Bond.

In Casino Royale The Movie (and, arguably, in every Bond movie ever made) one can say that the “message” or the “meaning” comes from the struggles the character(s) undergo, and their various relationships to each other.

The chain of events that transpire in a Bond file generally reinforce an idea that is something like “Villains will be punished, the weak should be defended, and heroism should be rewarded.” With Bond, there’s also something in there about how a mix of danger and sophistication is appealing in a man… but let’s just pick one example for now.

Does that make sense to you? Bond’s enemies are bad, bad dudes – and they always (always) meet an untimely end. In fact, we know this will be true before we enter the movie. It’s sort of one reason why many of us go in the first place – to see Bond bring the Hammer O’ Justice down on those vile fellows.

So, it follows that some part of the “meaning” in the film is that “villains will be punished.” We see bad dudes doing bad stuff, and then Bond comes and kills them.

Similar logic applies to the other ideas (“the weak” is whatever starlet Bond is tasked with protecting/saving/being saved by – and he *always* defends them, even if he fails in the end and they die… he still tries).

See? Make sense? Kinda?

It’s a little bit of a mind bender, but I hope so. If not, uh…

…well, keep trying. It’s tricky.

Okay, now let’s look at Goldeneye The Game.

Extracting “meaning” from such an experience is tricky – at least with the language we have from the movies. I mean, who am I, really? There are ‘villains’, sure, but the story in this kind of game is a thin veneer at best.

The game’s meaning is defined by what I (the player) can do in it. Primarily, this means shooting dudes, opening doors, and completing misssions – the amount of personal interaction I have with characters in that game is almost zero (as it is in most shooters).

So, to generate “meaning”, what we do is this: we imagine the game world as meaning.

It’s a world in which hundreds of bad guys are trying to kill me, and I mow my way through them victoriously, all falling before my gunfire, ultimately confronting (and killing) the Big Bad in the last level. What does a world like that mean for it’s protagonist (the player)?

From what I took from this “Persuasive” book, blended mercilessly with My Way Of Thinking™, the ‘meaning’ behind a game like Goldeneye can be described as something like “You can be an action hero.” (There’s also a lot of detailed meaning in there that focuses on gun tactics and the use of space in combat – which, perhaps, is the *actual* ‘meaning’ of a game like this – but again, let’s just pick one thing and move on.)

In fact, this particular ‘meaning’ is common to probably 50% of the games out there. Maybe more. As an example, I interpret the ‘meaning’ of Zelda to be “You can save the princess, and the world!” (in addition to the manipulation of space, doors, keys, and the other ‘puzzle’ elements).

Okay, does that make sense?

It’s tricky. Tricky, for many reasons:

• It’s tempting to look beyond such simple ‘meanings’, and look for something more related to morality or ethics. Personally, I don’t see that in most games today – and hallelujah to that.
• We’re used to “meaning” being expressed in absolute, third-person terms. Games must, by their nature, have meanings that are somehow related to the primary actor – and thus are probably better expressed in second person. Weird.
• Looking at a game system and leaping up to what that system, with all it’s possible variables, “means” is a big leap. It’s doable, but… ya better bring a trampoline or something.

In essence, what I have taken away from The Bogost-inator’s book, and ultimately what I want to share with you today, is that meaning does exist in games – it exists in every game, in fact, just as it exists in every other expressive medium.

Now, many high-minded people, when confronted with a ‘meaning’ phrase like “You can be a hero!”, may take it up themselves to shake their head sadly, and make wise-sounding statements about how we “should be aiming higher than that” – that our culture is suffering under the weight of such pap, and that such ‘low-brow’ concepts are devoid of cultural value.

To all the people who feel that way: Blow me.

With that problem nicely out of the way, I can share with you the Big Thought that I’m chewing on here.

What I have derived from this Book O’ Bogost-ity (see what I did there?) is that, as creators, we can choose what meaning we want our games to have, by reverse-engineering our system of meaning.

Today, this is something we often do without thinking about. With Red Steel 2, as an example, I think I chose a meaning for our game that was something like “hitting bad guys is fun!”… but it wasn’t so much a ‘choice’ as it was a natural outcome from a whole variety of choices we made along the way.

I think I’d enjoy being able to exert more deliberate control over the “meaning” of my games than I have in the past, and Ian’s book has handed me one big, bright, shiny key to help me out with that endeavor.

Mr. Bogost: gracias. I hope to live up to the aspirations your work implies to me – even if, ultimately, the result is still “pure entertainment”, it will be hopefully better and more intentional because of your writing.

In the meantime, though, I have some stuff completely unrelated to Red Steel 2 to discuss. If that’s of no interest, you may consider yourself warned.

Actually, it’s not completely unrelated. There’s swords in this topic, too. No guns, though.

I want to talk to you about

Heard of it? If you have, or if you’ve played it, you have my condolences. You know the pain of which I speak… glorious though it may be.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Wayyyy back in the never-never of, uh, well, a while ago anyway, an import review popped up on Eurogamer for a then-somewhat-unknown-in-the-states Japanese import with the nearly-unpronounceable title of “Demon’s Souls”.

The game sported armored knights, undead hordes, and general smashery. It looked slow and dark and, uh, kinda boring, actually.

It was the actual words in the review that got our attention:

The game’s five worlds – all massive – are split into four different sections, each guarded by a horribly large and hardcore boss monster. Everything in the entire world is designed to kill you, quickly and often without warning.

When you die in Demon’s Souls – and you will die, a lot – you lose your physical body, becoming a soul with half a health bar (although in practice it’s more like a three quarters, as there’s a ring in the very first world that lets you cling a little closer to life). The only way to get it back is to kill a boss monster.

To summarise, you end up playing the vast majority of Demon’s Souls as either a dead person or a dead person with no money. Every time you die, you start again at the beginning, with all the enemies you just struggled to overcome back where they were. There is no compromise. There’s not even a pause button. You get better, or you get nowhere.

Precisely because the odds are so stacked against you, precisely because the game sometimes seems to hate you with every fibre of its being, when you do finally kill the bastard f***-off enormous boss monster that ended you within half a minute the first time you approached it, the resulting heart-in-mouth euphoria is the purest kind of gaming thrill. Demon’s Souls is about facing up to the impossible, and winning.

That kind of print will have one of two kinds of effects: either you’ll wisely nod, frown, and turn the page, wondering what kind of damn fool would want to abuse him/herself so badly as to endure such suffering…

…or, you tilt your head slightly forward, glare at your screen from under dark eyebrows, half-raise one eyebrow, and smile. That wicked, knowing kind of smile. A smile that will raise the hairs on the back of nervous men. A smile that speaks words. “Oh yes,” this smile says, “they will fall. They… will… fall.”

Two guesses which response I had.

Wait, actually, just one guess. With two, you could just guess both, and since there’s only two answers, uh. Wait.

Anyway, shut up! The point is that I had to clean the drool off of my goddamn keyboard, okay?? I literally ran into my buddy’s office (the one who had sent me the link to the preview) and insisted – nay, DEMANDED – that he explain himself further.

We learned everything we could about it, and confirmed to my satisfaction that the initial presentations were not fabricated. The game, it seemed, would kill the shit out of you.

It wasn’t available for sale anywhere but Asia at the time, and so I didn’t press the point much further in the months to come, other than to tell myself “next time I’m in Asia, I’ll be sure to pick that up” – this led to some confusion, actually. Uh. Maybe we should skip this part.

…

Listen, the eventual and inevitable “North American version” was announced after I stopped digging up data, okay? So I didn’t personally even know that there was an English version other than the Chinese one, see. And, I managed to switch the Chinese version and the Japanese version in my head, so…

Anyway. I bought the Japanese version when I was in Tokyo for TGS, not realizing that:

• the North American (English) version was coming, and soon.
• contrary to what I had come to believe, the Japanese version had no English menus in it – it was the Chinese version that had those, apparently.

I didn’t have the Chinese version. I had the Japanese version.

So, for a great long while, what I had at home was a game that I desperately wanted to play, but in fact could not actually bring myself to boot, knowing the unending frustration that waited within, given that every piece of displayed text in it would be in freaking Japanese. As fascinated as I am by that language, I do not read or speak it, not even a little bit.

Okay, okay, so that by itself would have been fine – I could maybe have eBayed the damn thing, and replaced it, or something along those lines. But…

…see, my son started playing it (the Japanese version). Beyond the profound shame I experienced at being out-hardcore’d by my own son, the fact was that when he got totally into it that “replace the version with another version” door sort of swung close with a malignant click.

“Just buy another copy!” the Japanese version would taunt, lying there on the shelf beside the plastic black monolith that is the PS3. “It’ll be worth it!”

Grit teeth. Snarl at world.

So, it wasn’t until my recent trip to the GDC in San Francisco that I managed to work up the gumption to go ahead and drop another $60 on the damn thing. But I did. Yes, people – I have spent approximated $120 on Demon’s Souls. Yes, I did.

You know what? They deserve it. You know why?

That’s why. This is my Demon’s Souls character profile. Yes, that is play time, and yes, that’s hours and minutes. I’ve logged that much time in…

(…don’t want to do this math…)

…just under two weeks.

Those of you who don’t know me may not have experience with this behavior. Ideally, as I am probably speaking mostly to gamers at this point, those numbers might not have the kind of effect on you that they have on, say, my mom.

Although supportive of my endeavors to date (thanks, mom!), she, along with many of my friends, utterly fail to comprehend that I could spend what amounts to a full-time job’s amount of time on something quite like this.

…57 hours!! And I’m still not even done with the first run-through!

This is, perhaps, because I am a little bit of a grinder when I play. Some. Kinda. Okay, actually, I often play games as an excuse to grind. Sick, right? This, by the way, is why I can’t play Pokémon any more, or ever again. That damn game eats my life in the same way that tsunamis eat coastal villages. There is little left behind to rebuild from, you see.

Whatever. What is my point here? What in the hell am I talking about? I wanted to tell you about Demon’s Souls, and I’ve run off into the Navel Gazing Highlands again. Ye gods, man.

Let me abruptly, and without much of a transition save for this uncomfortable sentence, get to the point.

Demon’s Souls is incredibly compelling, for all the reasons that much better writers than Yours Truly have already laid out. You don’t need me to explain to you how the structure of the game is well-conceived, how the open-ended system is empowering, blah dee blah blah blah – let’s leave that to the professionals, shall we? What I wanted to share with you was my enthusiasm for the game, first and foremost, and secondly, this:

Playing Demon’s Souls is, strangely, the most like being in a real sword fight than any experience I’ve had since playing Bushido Blade.

The actual motions that the weapons you choose make vary quite a bit, and the exact paths of those motions are crucial to your very survival. Mis-judge the length of your swing the tiniest bit, and often you’ll be contemplating your failure before a screen that reads plainly “YOU DIED”. Each weapon type has it’s own style, and often the reach of your weapon is a huge factor in choosing which one to go galavanting around with. Shield and sword? Two-hander with a parry? Two blades, perhaps? The devotion to realizing something like true combat is palpable here – it exudes from the very disc itself.

The cover of the game is just a dude in armor with a sword, man. Just sayin’.

I’m on the record as having some interest in this kind of gameplay. For that reason alone, Demon’s Souls would be inspiring and rewarding for me to play. That it then heaps so much more awesomeness on top of that, and then actively punishes you for trying to play it… but juuuuuuuuuust enough so that when you do overcome those astounding odds and finally drop that metal-shield-wielding forty-foot-tall mechanistic automaton who killed you fifteen goddamn times previously, the temptation is to shout “YEAH! TAKE THAT!”, and jump around like a loon…

…well, you really can’t beat that, IMHO. Not even with a stick.

When you release any kind of product, there is almost always uncertainty about how it will be received. Unless you can hop into your time machine and check out the day of your release, you really are never guaranteed that things will go smoothly.

This is why, for me, as the release date loom-eth, the Terror simply cannot be abated. It can be controlled, redirected, endured… but I’ve… I’ve seen… too much… The eyes, they–they haunt me…

/shudder

Anyway, if you’ve been following along, you’ve heard about all this crap before from me, and now Red Steel 2 is out, man! So? Now? How is it going??

[diplomatic answer]
Well, I still haven’t seen any actual sales numbers. Any conclusion at this point remains a speculative guess at best. Honestly, who knows?
[/diplomatic answer]

…

Actually, we have a LOT of feedback. The press embargo is good-and-over, and the fans in all territories (save Japan) have been playing it with unfettered abandon for a few days. The message boards have lit up, there are fan reviews appearing all over the place. Exciting! And, on the whole, people seem…

…well, they seem pretty damn enthusiastic.

In fact, there’s something that I think I am seeing bubbling up in the reviews & the fan responses that is an honest-to-golly “new thing”, at least to me as a developer. It’s something I want to try and point out to you – right here, in this little blog post.

It’s a little slippery, though, this thing – elusive. You might even call it “ephemeral”.

As in, it might not exist. My ego is a gigantic, looming thing, and it clouds my perspective in a horribly world-warping way – I might just be making it up to seem more important to myself. Or, what I’m noticing might just be too subtle to have any real relevance. You might well get through this post without actually seeing the thing I hope to point you at – either because I do a bad job of laying it out… or, uh, because it’s not there.

If that turns out to be the case, then my bad. But what the hell: let’s make a go at it anyway.

Let’s start here: if you clicked that Metacritic link back there, you know that (as of this writing) our average rating is hanging out at a solid 81%.[*]

I’ve released a few games in the past, and spent a good chunk of my life reading game reviews. My experience tells me that normally, in this types of case, you can expect a kind of “good job, buuuuuuuuut coulda been better” kind of response from the media.

Here’s the thing, though. Maybe it’s just me, and maybe it’s because I’ve spent so much of my life making mediocre movie games and reading pissed-off reviews about them… but…

…

Screw it. How about I just try to show you what I mean?

I’m gonna pull some quotes from a bunch of the major reviews we’ve seen so far for the game. And, I’m going to quote full sentences, so that I can fool you into thinking that I’m not manipulating you by being overly-selective. Ain’t I clever?

As you read these, keep in your head the idea that what I am used to hearing with an 81% is stuff like “an excellent example of this kind of game”, “good stuff”, and “a lot of fun”.

Nintendo World Report (90%):

“Plain and simple, this is one of the finest games to grace the Wii console.”

GamingNexus (A+):

“Are you a gamer? Do you own a Wii? Then you need Red Steel 2. In fact, this game is a reason to own a Wii all by itself.”

IGN (86%):

“There are still some issues, both in game balance as well as wishy-washy motion sensing control, but the awesome style and energetic gameplay are enough to make this one of the top titles on Wii.”

GameZone (8.5/10):

“While there are some lingering control issues and a linear feel, this is one of the best shooters you can find on the Wii.”

GameShark (A-):

“The sword fighting works well at first but it isn’t until you start unlocking the various special moves where the system really opens up into one of the most thrilling and visceral combat experiences on any console.”

Cubed3 (9/10):

“Ubisoft have created an amazing adventure.”

GamesRadar (90%):

“But that’s exactly why you should forget the first, as this completely overhauled sequel is easily the best FPS on Wii and a wonderfully shocking example of how damn good a Wii-exclusive shooter can be.”

GamesTrailers (86%):

“Red Steel 2 has it where it counts, with a deep combat system that continuously improves as the game progresses. It could do with more interesting tasks outside of battle, but it nails the swordplay like no game before it.”

GamerVision (8.5/10):

“It single handedly proves the Wii MotionPlus’s value for adventure games, while providing one of the best action experiences on the system.”

VideoGamer.com (80%):

“Despite its flaws, Red Steel 2 is one of the best action games on the Wii.”

VideoGamesDaily (8/10):

“Red Steel 2 is complex without being incoherent, innovative without being off-putting, and one of the finest brawlers we’ve played full stop.”

Game Informer (80%):

“Red Steel 2: Stellar Swordplay Overcomes A Few Dull Edges”

Even Eurogamer (who gave us a 70%) had lots of nice things to say, like:

“In the end, you’ll likely forgive Ubisoft’s game its shortcomings on the strength of its energy, obvious good will, and deep sense of craft.”

Do you hear it? I hope you do. I’m taking up your precious time with what amounts to intellectualized bragging, and I appreciate you hanging out with it for this long, but I really do have a point I want to make, personal, tiny, simple though it is.

Ready?

When we sat down to design this game, the core concept we began with was “hitting things is fun”. Now, that statement is true, in this weird, visceral way that not everyone understands… but that a lot of people do.

It was scary, hanging our hat on this bizarre idea: could you construct a video game that is basically a whack-’em-up? I’m going to put you in a room and let you beat the shit out of a bunch of virtual dummies. That’s it! That’s the whole concept!

We wanted to do a lot more, of course, but given the time frame and what we knew at the time…

We committed – committed ourselves to the belief that even just that, just whacking and stabbing and bashing your enemies, but for real this time – just that might be enough. And, on a more personal level, that the power of that experience might just make the whole damn endeavor worth our while.

There would need to be more, of course, a lot more, but if we could bring something really cool and new…

That “something” might justify the years of effort from over a hundred people, all the blood, sweat, tears, effort, tragedy, difficulty, pain, frustration… and all of that hope would hang on this bizarre idea represented in an image we found of two young boys whacking each other with branches in their backyard – an image that, for me , summed up the idea of the fantasy we were building.

My core belief, and, I think, the belief of many of the other folks in the company that got behind the project, was that yes, this would be enough. Yes, this could be satisfying. Yes, people wanted this, and yes, people had never experienced this kind of thing before.

But, it was a gamble. It always is.

Now, looking at the response, I see the enthusiasm, I see the heart-felt excitement, I see the fans writing long, passionate reviews in the comments sections of other sites, I see people talking about how much their arms hurt from playing for all this time… and, notably (for me anyway) absent are the detractors: absent are the criticisms of combat, absent are the folks who couldn’t figure it out, absent are the cries of general displeasure that comes from an accumulation of negatives with no redeeming value.

…

Hmmm. I seem to have no idea how to phrase my conclusion.

…

Honestly, though, I think it’s not even really for me to make a conclusion about this state of affairs. I wanted to show you guys something I thought was cool, something that is, for me, exciting, confusing, satisfying, and a little scary. From the inside, it’s beginning to look like the game is working, that the message has been received…

…and that some people really like it. Quite a lot, in some cases.

That is an amazing feeling.

[*] EDIT: Removed a paragraph about my perception of how good or bad the overall score is – seems that lots of folks got the impression I was actually complaining about the score, when in fact that was not my intention at all – I’m quite happy with the score, in fact.

One of the projects that our illustrious in-team marketing peeps have worked on over the course of Red Steel 2 (thanks, Olivier!!!) has been getting a statuette of the Swordsman put together.

He’s about 18″ tall.

I think it goes without saying that I’m jumping-up-and-down ecstatic about this model. Even so, I think I’ll go ahead and say it anyway: I just about lost my shit when I first saw this guy “in the flesh”. I’ve had models and ‘maquettes’ made for games I’ve worked on before, but nothing even approaching this level of awesome.

Your mileage may vary – not everyone thinks that big resin dollies are the coolest thing in the world. Me, though? I’m in the “yes, please, and lost more of that” camp.

Thanks again, guys. Outstanding job.

Lo, it is a time when all who follow the Way of the Developer, yea, unto, even from the very small to the very large, from the greenest n00b to the most wither’ed old geezer, makers from every stripe of the field (yea, the testers, the artists, lo, the programmers, the designers, forsooth, the audio folk, and even, dare we speak their name, they who know the lore of the darkest of evil… the producers) gathereth in a single location, and speak the words that have been spoken among our kind for nigh unto dozens of years:

“Dude! Great to see ya! So, like, where are you working now?”

I arrived last Tuesday (the… uh… the 9th of March). The show “proper” (there are pre-show tutorials and other “opening band”-style events in the days before) began in earnest Thursday (the 11th), and ran through Saturday (the 13th).

Here’s what a day at the GDC is like for yours truly:

• 6:00am
  Wake up. Because, see, I’m still adjusting to the 9-hour time difference. Experience gladness that I’m not waking up at 3 or 4am instead, like I was during the first few days.
• 6:03am
  Turn on laptop, and log on to the Internets. (I’m not an addict. I can quit any time.)
• 6:07am
  Pour the water into the weird “one-cup-at-a-time” style coffee makers they have in hotel rooms, unseal the “one-shot” pre-packaged coffee filter thing, put it in the little weird plastic tray, and hit “brew”. (I can quit any time. But I’m not going to.)
• 6:08am Realize that I forgot to charge my stupid cell phone again. Plug cell phone into charger.
• 6:09am – 8:00am
  Be consumed by the Web.
• 8:01am – 8:15am
  Extract self from the Web, shower, and assemble “conference gear”: comfortable shoulder bag with conference guide and lots of extra space (for books and swag), pocket full of business cards, cell phone, room key (crucial, that), camera, notebook with pen(cil), wallet. Everything else stays in the hotel. Walking all day with heavy stuff that I probably won’t need or use? Not a plan for success.
• 8:15am – 8:30am
  Breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Buffet-style – granola and yogurt, some fruit, and LOTS and LOTS of coffee. This only takes 15 minutes at the most. I am the fastest eater you will ever meet. Yes, even faster than that one friend of yours.
• 8:31am :
  Start walking to the Moscone Center. While walking, review the “GDC-at-a-Glance” brochure to make sure I know where in the hell I’m going for my 9:00am talk.
• 8:34am
  Smile at, and then try to ignore, the crazy dude on Fifth and Market who wants to explain to me that the most recent Robin Williams movie was actually all about him. (I am not making this up.)
• 8:45am
  Slip into the Starbucks next to the convention center, buy a big ol’ cup of coffee. This brings my consumption for the day up to about 2 pints.
• 8:50am
  Stroll into the Moscone Center.
• 8:51am – 9:10am
  Meet someone I used to work with, but haven’t seen in 12-24 months. Hoot, smile, shake hands and/or hug, chat, share personal details. Then run, because now we’re both late for our talks. Jog (with the cane) to the talk.
• 9:11am
  Tweet that I am entering the talk. Yes, on Twitter.
• 9:12am – 9:55am
  Sit in a lecture, feeling vaguely superior to the speaker when s/he says something I disagree with, and vaguely impressed when s/he says something I agree with. If they say something I haven’t ever considered before, feel both impressed at how clever the speaker is, and satisfied that I was smart enough to come to the show. (Sometimes, write down and/or tweet this little gems.)
• 10:00am
  Grab a cup of coffee from one of the buffet-style tables they have in the hall. Have my badge examined to be sure I am allowed this cup of coffee. I am.
• 10:05am – 10:15am
  Meet with Ubisoft PR dude somwhere bright and sunny. Give a quick on-camera interview on Red Steel 2. Be entertaining! Wii Motion Plus, first person swordfighting, new cell-shaded graphics, new world, new hero, best swordfighting game you’ll ever play, Wii exclusive, yes the other motion control systems are exciting. Done!
• 10:16am
  Wander over to the GDC bookstore, because there’s nothing really interesting going on at 10:30am.
• 10:30am…
  Still browsing game development books.
• 10:45am…
  Still browsing. What. Leave me alone.
• 10:55am…
  Buy a book. Grab a cup of coffee, then go sit down at a chair to wait for a friend to arrive at our previously arranged location.
• 11:03am
  Friend arrives! Conversational mayhem ensues. I tell the story of how Paris is (this has been done over 500 times now – I think I should get an Achievement for that). My friend shares their recent history as well.
• 11:35am
  Another friend (maybe more of an ex-colleague, but close enough) spots us, and joins us! More mayhem. I repeat an abbreviate version of the Paris story (still sans achievement).
• 11:45am
  Friend(s) become sick of me. Friend(s) make various goodbyes, and wander off.
• 11:47am
  Well, crap. I’ve got 45 minutes to kill before I meet my lunch date. Look down the escalator. At the bottom, the doors to the GDC Convention Floor are gleaming enticingly.

Now, beyond those portals, I know, lie riches and wonders beyond count. All our dreams are contained in that room.

The booths at the front are huge, glorious, imposing monoliths of technological wizardry.

On the right side of the chamber, rows and rows of hiring booths have sprung up: black plastic walls bearing the familiar names and logos we all have come to appreciate and/or distrust, through their products. Blizzard, Activision, Ubisoft, Naughty Dog, THQ, Lucasarts, Traveller’s Tales… all of them, big and small, all with desks ready to receive resumes, and often bearing mini-treasures: swag.

And, beyond, in the back of the hall, lay the mini-booths of the hopeful: the up-and-comers, the book publishers, the experimental-controller-developers, the representatives from countries who want you to open up a studio inside their boundaries…

And, lo, there, nestled between the food court and the Hall of Meeting Rooms, lies the open battefield of the Independent Game Festival: the greatest icon of game development hope ever constructed. We, the developers of the world, wander through the black plastic towers of the IGF every year, completing our annual pilgrimage, imagining, silently, that, were we also independent, that we, too, could demonstrate creative ingenuity and plucky resolve, like those we see gathered around us. We imagine, sometimes, that we might even win a prize, and be able to count ourselves among them: the independent developers.

The hall doors beckon. The guardians standing watch at the gate will yield to my badge, I know, for it says “MAIN CONVENTION”, and thus allows me to participate in the great GDC feeding frenzy: the Booth Crawl.

• 11:48am
  Still staring at the Convention Floor doors, begin to move, unconsciously, as if in a dream, towards the escalator that will convey me slowly down to them.
• 11:49am
  Enter the Convention Floor.
• 11:50pm – 12:27pm
  Crawl the booths. (What transpires there will remain forever between me and those I encountered. This is as it should be.)
• 12:28pm
  Stagger out of the Convention Floor, laden with the fruits of my adventures. No, you can’t have any: they are for my kids.
• 12:39pm – 1:55pm
  Lunch! Mmmmm, Chevy’s. Give apologies to colleagues, for I am late. Be slightly annoyed that they expected this. Have two or three Diet Cokes, and end with a cup of coffee.
• 2:00pm
  Arrive at second interesting talk of the day. Realize that the talk actually started at 1:30pm, and I have missed half of it already. How in the hell did this happen? Did everyone at lunch also not know the schedule?? Think about this, and realize that only 1 out of 10 of my friends and/or colleagues actually attend the talks at GDC. None of those were at lunch. Curse their names.
• 2:01pm – 2:30pm
  Attend second half of the talk. A friend is there! Sit next to friend. Be quiet, respectful, and sarcastic at the same time during the remainder of the talk. Tweet.
• 2:33pm
  Emerge from the talk, and nab a cup o’ joe from the tables.
• 2:35pm – 2:45pm
  Second interview time! Repeat _exact same script_, but in a new, fresh way. Be fun.
• 2:46pm – 2:55pm
  Browse books. What.
• 2:56pm
  Buy a book that I couldn’t quite get myself to justify buying earlier this morning. But, see, NOW it’s okay.
• 3:00pm – 4:00pm
  Skip the talk I was going to attend because I learned that another talk is better, and then on the way get totally shanghai’d by running into another friend who I haven’t seen in forever. Find a chair somewhere and sit and compare notes about our various companies. Realize that we can help each other out in our projects. Exchange business cards, email addresses, phone numbers, and make a date to complete this conversation in more detail tomorrow night after the show, okay? That work for you? Cool. Enter new date into calendar, say goodbye, watch them walk away, and realize that I have no clue what I’m doing next.
• 4:01pm
  Flip through the GDC-at-a-Glance brochure. Find nothing I want to attend. Damn.
• 4:02pm
  Grab a cup of coffee.
• 4:04pm
  Pass through the doors to the Convention Floor.
• 4:05pm – 5:30pm
  Crawl the booths. Gloriousness abounds. Both sadness and joy, hope and abandon, envy and respect, useful products and those that are clearly doomed… all this and more, spread out across a carpeted warehouse whose painted-white cement arches fairly drip with distilled possibility, the air is so thick with anticipation and promise. Witness wonders and horrors.
• 5:31pm
  Exit Moscone, and emerge into the twilight of downtown San Francisco. Wow, my feet are sore. Start walking to the hotel anyway. Window shop on the way there. Buy nothing, as I am already feeling guilty about over-spending at the bookstore.
• 5:45pm
  Return to my hotel.
• 5:46pm – 8:30pm
  Ignore any request to try and coax me to come out to a party, gathering, festival, drink, pub crawl, or other evening-themed activity. Instead, have dinner with one of the many folks who are gathered here who I would gladly leap at a chance to hire and/or work with again, if it were ever to arise. I have excellent taste in friends, and these evening conversations are the reward at the end of a challenging day. Have at least three Diet Cokes, and end with a coffee.
• 9:02pm
  Collapse into my hotel room. Peel off the gear, drop off any new-found treasure, don the jammies. I’m so tired. My feet are killing me, and my head is throbbing from over stimulation. What I need now is sleep.
• 9:03pm
  Log on to the Internet.
• 12:03am
  One bye one, desperately rip the long, gelatinous tendrils of cyber-interactivity from where they have attached themselves to my flesh, as if to feed on my very soul. Ignore the cries of the Beast as, denied its victim, it is forced to withdraw back into the screen. Stab my laptop power button in a final act of glorious defiance. YOU WILL NOT FEAST THIS NIGHT!
• 12:04am
  Stare at the screen. Look at the clock. Do the math. Six hours of sleep is what I will get, at best. Try not to hate self, but do not entirely succeed.
• 12:15am
  Sleep.

Rinse… and repeat.

It’s a hell of a good time, frankly.

Here’s why: it has happened before. I’ve learned over the course of my career that just because things look good right now, doesn’t necessarily mean that they will continue to.

Even so, the fact that said response is (so far) based on the opinions of hundreds of people who have actually played the game (many of them for over three hours) makes it easier to develop some faith. I figure if you can get three hours into the game, and you’re still enthusiastic, something’s working for you. And, really, for this game, the next few hours resemble the first few, except with more stuff, so if you liked _that_, ideally, you’ll like the rest.

However.

However, it’s still faith. It’s way, way to early to be able to relax. I’ve noticed, for example, that my typing has become more jackhammer-like over the past few weeks, a sure sign of tension.

I’ve mentioned this before. Like, fifteen times. That’s because it’s become the majority theme in my existence for the past several months, and until the game is fled and out there in the wild, rampaging around like a katana-wielding Tyrannosaur (yes!!), it’s going to be the majority theme. Sorry if it’s boring. I ease my conscience by reminding myself that if you’re reading this, it’s by choice. I sleep better that way. You have no one to blame but yourself.

Now, what I want to talk about here, today, is something about how the whole ‘release’ situation is made more complicated by the nature of the factors surrounding it.

See, normally, when you are releasing a new installment of an existing franchise, once the game is done, the team immediately begins planning and developing the next version. Generally, games are planned well in advance, and so you tend to know exactly what the next steps will be at the moment you hand the final disc over to manufacturing.

This case is a little bit different.

[ASIDE] In the press, my answer(s) to the question of “Will there be a Red Steel 3?” has been, shall we say, ‘re-emphasized’. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, it has lead to some misunderstandings. I’m gonna try to straighten out the issues a bit here, while we’re chatting. You’ve been warned. [/ASIDE]

Why is it different?

Let’s talk about the franchise a little bit. And I’m going to try to do this without violating my corporate responsibilities… which is always challenging. Let’s see how it goes.

As a franchise, Red Steel has a surprising amount of affection among gamers. There’s (very vocal) exceptions, but on the whole, people who played it were disappointed, but somehow that didn’t interfere with their hopes for the future. “It could have been better,” they seem to say, “and we’d really appreciate it if you would make it so.”

That’s 100% why we are here now, with a new installment. People wanted it.

Why wasn’t a sequel more of a sure thing? Well, let’s be honest with ourselves here: it’s not the hugest brand in the industry. The name recognition of Red Steel, while quite high among gamers who were early adopters of the Wii, isn’t quite what is referred to in the Intellectual Property biz as “universal”. Add to that the troubles with controls and other factors in the first game, and you get an overall mixed perception.

Still, though. People wanted another Red Steel, and they wanted it to be awesome.

Fast forward to NOW!

/fasts-forward

[ASIDE] Do you gol-darn kids even know what ‘fast forward’ means, for chrissake? Is that phrase even in common use any more? I’m starting to feel like a dinosaur for using it. It’s a reference to cassette tapes, people, and those haven’t been sold in stores since…

…uh, since before the Wii came out, that’s for sure. Woah. Anyway. Maybe “skips to the current track” would be more contemporary? No, that sucks. Listen, help me out here, if you can. [/ASIDE]

…

Dammit! Where was I??

…

RIGHT! Now. Now is when people are still wanting another Red Steel! And how does that relate to the overall topic of anxiety about the release, and the bizarre sub-topic I introduced about what I and the Red Steel team are doing at the moment??

EXCELLENT QUESTION!

Here’s how: we _believe_ this game will do well. It appears to be moving along a ‘positive trajectory’. See above about uncertainties about that, but here’s the thing: even in a perfect market (which we are not in) it’s very tough to be sure about anything. Very tough, indeed.

So, imagine yourself as a Ubisoft planning person. You’re smart (just trust me, they are), experienced (yes, also true), uncynical (I’m not making this up, I’ve actually met these people), and you really want the company to do well financially (duh) and make great games (listen, I’m serious – have you met them?? no?? well I have, and this is what they are like).

Okay, so you’re this planner, and you’ve got Red Steel, a much-beloved, much-troubled franchise, on _one platform_ (ouch), and the new game requires the Motion Plus attachment (always dangerous), the Wii market is going through these weird contractions and rumbly upheavals… everyone is panicking. And, the team wants to know if we should be going full-guns and dumping a whole new bunch of money into Red Steel 3. And, if you make the wrong call, everyone in the company loses, the stockholders get pissed off, and you get a bad review that year. Your annual raise will be smaller, so your kids’ braces are going to have to wait for another year.

What would you say?

I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking I’d say something like, “Hey, guys – what say we just hang out for a few weeks and see what happens? You know, just to make 100% sure that the market for this game even exists.”

And that would be the right call.

But you know what that means for the dev team? It means that the answer to the question of “so, what are you doing now?” is _really_ complicated to answer. And when people say “will there be a Red Steel 3?” you tend to hem and haw a little. My answer has come down to something like this: “We don’t know. Depends on what happens when this game ships.”

Now, what I’ve learned about that answer is that it is easy to hear it as “The Future Of Red Steel Franchise Depends On Red Steel 2 Success” (to mis-quote recent web headlines).

Let’s take a second, though, and look at that. Ironically, such a statement is, in fact, a tautology – it’s obviously, always, necessarily true. And, not just for Red Steel: it’s true for every product in existence in the markets of the world.

More: I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it’s even true for every product in the entire universe. Even Alpha Centaurian planners use this axiom: prior success often gives you an indication of future success, so plan accordingly.

But it’s not a binary operation. It never is. There are uncountable factors that go into a complex decision like pushing a game into a third iteration: sales, reviews, hardware, economy, other games, individual interest, whim, marketing, appeal… it goes on and on. And, frustratingly, there is just no sure way to know with anything like certainty which direction these market winds will blow.

So, we hire scads of weatherpeople. We hope. We plan. We invest in wind-detecting science. We measure.

And then, one day, we get in our boat, pack our goods for the journey, look to the heavens…

…raise our sails…

…and wait.

I failed, instantly. The release of this game has so completely taken over my life, it makes me begin wonder if there really ever was anything else, before this, the Great Red Tide.

The deluge of media, previews, comments, and just all-around stuff to me is beginning to resembled something that might be familiar to fans of a somewhat-more ancient form of mass-market entertainment: the opera. Following this line of thinking, this part is, perhaps, something akin to the Overture.

Rehearsal is over: it’s the big night. We (the Red Steel team) are sitting in the orchestra pit, sporting our best tuxedos (or gowns, in some cases). The audience is gathering, and we have finished with the intricate ritual of tuning our instruments. The lights start to dim, and, as is customary, before the curtain rises, we gently seduce you into the Show That Is To Follow with a piece written exclusively for the purpose: a musical “preview” (if you will) that highlights the core musical themes that will, later, as you are watching the actors cavort around on stage, grace your ears. It warms you to the tone, and gives you a head-start if you are new to the show.

Later, during the show, when you hear these cues, they might also serve to remind you that we warned you this would happen.

It’s about three weeks and counting until it’s all over and we get to find out what people really think about the game. Currently, all we know is what people would like to think. While this can have a tendency to inspire hope, it does not always accurately predict the final outcome.

…

Okay, now I’m going to drift off of Red Steel for a second, and go kinda random on you. Because, see, there’s a deep, personal irony at play here: all of the above madness is happening at a time when some of my compatriots in arms (best friends, in fact) are undergoing what might be called “the worst of times”. How to resolve the conflicting mental frisson produced by on the one hand seeing your labors being at-long-last revealed before the expectant audience, while at the same moment people you care deeply for are being subjected to unspeakable horrors?

That might be overstating it a bit.

(If that astonishes you, then this is clearly the first blog post from me you’ve read.)

Okay, so then, today, all that became even further complicated by other friends of mine becoming closely involved in new, confusing, potentially exciting yet dangerously strange events. The world stage of game development is re-shaping itself, and I know too many of the people involved to know which team to root for.

I have, in fact, no idea how to feel at all.

…

Thankfully, it ultimately doesn’t matter if I can or cannot sort through this or not in the time I have alotted. Because, in just a few minutes here, the overture will end, the curtain will go up, and the show will go on. Once that happens, it’s all down to instinct, the work you’ve already done, and your current companions.

I’m ready.

…it’s the wait that’s a killer.

For the record, I always get sick after a big tour like this. I’m such a natural introvert, that the amount of energy expenditure it takes to do these shows is huge – so when I get home, I fall apart. Happens pretty much every time.

Anyway, I’ll talk to you guys tomorrow, hopefully. Apologies.

The topic, if you don’t know (or if you’ve just forgotten – yeah, I *knew* you were drunk when you were reading it), was how weird it is to be on the broadcasting end of the “celebrity experience”, instead of the receiving end. Not weird in a “this sucks” kind of way – but weird in a “I hope this means that you guys & gals like the work” kind of way.

Boy. I got some responses.

I’ll spare you the detailed breakdown – though it makes some interesting reading, if you’re into that. The short version is that the word back was “man, we think you should enjoy it, and keep moving.”

Good advice, I think…

…but still. Gotta tell ya. It’s all rattling in my noggin a bit.

To make matters weirder, the Internet has exploded with reviews and interviews. Now, what’s unbelievably awesome is that they are all (in general) positive. Still, though.

Still.

…

I want to go off on a tear here for a second. Because…

…well, because interfacing directly with fans (on Facebook, on the Red Steel 2 forums, on Twitter, in person… they’re everywhere, man!) has, so far, been an absolutely mind-meltingly, life-changingly, consciousness-alteringly awesome experience.

Why? Well, see, it actually was impossible three, maybe even two years ago, what’s happening right now.

See, before, when one released a game, the communication pipe with the people who would eventually play the games that you spent those long months and years tending to was long, convoluted, many-staged, heavily-policed… and, generally, one-way.

Here’s how it used to work:

1. I would sit in a room, generally somewhere in the studio.
2. A representative from the (current) company would deliver members of the press to said room. Conversation would ensue.
3. Later (often much later), a written summary of the encounter would appear in some printed form.
4. I would read said summary… aaaaaaaand wish I could say something in reply.

That was it.

Now, however, it seems to work more like this:

1. I sit wherever I damn well please. Usually, I’m at a computer: at work, at home (like now), or in a hotel room, but sometimes it is still face-to-face.
2. Members of the press — or, actually, anyone with an Internet connection — pose questions and/or make statements about the game. Or anything they have in mind.
3. I respond. Often immediately.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until someone gets bored and leaves.

You might expect that this might lead to Internet tousles. World’s full of trolls, you know, and people can be–

Nah.

So far, what I’ve found is a bunch of incredibly enthusiastic, fun, thoughtful people who can’t wait to play a cool game. And, even if that isn’t what the world is filled with, that is what I choose to see. Take THAT, trolls!

So, what’s it like to hang out online with lots and lots of cool people who are really enthusiastic about the work that you and your team have been whittling away at for several years?

There is only one word.

Humbling.

I mean, first of all, it was great. When we show the game, the result is nearly always the same: anyone who picks up the controls has quite a good time playing it.

That’s not necessarily boasting – that’s just what I see again and again in the presentations we make. Some people are cool on some aspects of the game, and there are lots of questionable decisions that we made (to be sure), but players seem to be unanimous about one thing: RS2 is fun to play.

Joy!

But that’s not really what I want to talk about today. I’ve been musing (extensively) on this weird little blip of Internet celebrity I seem to have accumulated, and I want to talk a little bit about the experience.

For those of you who don’t know what in the hell I’m talking about, here’s a quick primer:

• Back in June, I was asked to announce Red Steel 2 at the Ubisoft press conference. As I had just broken my knee, I came out on stage not only looking like my normal freak self, but with a cane. This seemed to clinch things: I was suddenly being recognized as “that dude with the beard and the cane”.
• Since then, I’ve done about 1,453,901 interviews while promoting Red Steel 2. Over the past 9 months, this has slowly changed from “Oh, hi, who are you?” to “I’d really like to get an interview with Jason VandenBerghe, if that’s okay.”

For the record (and, whether or not you believe me) I’m not bragging. Not at all. That’s actually part of the point of this blog post, I think – to open the door a little bit on that.

Yes, I love the attention, yes, I’m a glory-hound, yes, I like talking to the press, yes, I’m fundamentally insecure and am trying to compensate for that, yes. Yes yes yes. All true. But I’m also 100% clear that appreciation is something that fans decide to give, not something that I can “make happen” or “deserve”.

I’m amazed at what has been occurring, but no more feel like I “own” the attention I’ve been getting than I own the weather. People seem interested in me right now, I think that’s cool and fun, it helps the game, and if people get a kick out of what I’m doing, then I hope it continues. If it doesn’t, then c’est la vie, baby.

Either way, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. This week was particularly weird – I had several journalists who seemed to be very interested in my personal creative origins for some of the stuff that appears in Red Steel 2. This is hyper-weird for me:

• First of all, as an American, the concept that the press would be interested in talking about what I do as “art” is just surreal. I’ve learned that in Europe this is not such a foreign (ha ha) concept, but it still takes a leap of faith for me to believe that they aren’t being sarcastic.
• Secondly, it’s an action game, so the interest level about the surrounding details is surprising. Welcome, but surprising. I spent a good deal of time (with one Greg Roach, among others) working out how the “Red West” works as a setting, and it’s great to hear that people are curious. Surprising, but great.
• Third, I’ve been working in this industry for going on fourteen years now, and never really popped up as more than a “hyperenthusiastic designer” in any of my earlier contacts with the press. I’m sure this has at least something to do with nearly every other game I’ve made being a movie game… but it has the effect of lending an “overnight” feeling to the whole thing.
• Fourth, at EA and Activision, this whole thing would simply have been impossible. I do not have the kind of political power and interest that it takes to become a spokesperson at those companies, and my years of (largely) quiet service is evidence of this. I did a few articles, press tours, and quite a few “tourguide” stints with visiting dignitaries and student groups… but nothing like what Ubisoft has done with Red Steel 2. So far, Ubisoft seems to see my quirkyness as an advantage, and are more than willing to let me cavort around to my heart’s content (as long as the game is good, of course).
• Fifth… uh… I seem to be wandering way off the course here. Let’s just get back to the blogging, shall we?

The unspoken “background noise” in this topic is that I have always had a deep-rooted desire to do something meaningful.

Like, from birth. Something that touches people, something that gives back to the culture that created me – that was always the goal, from the furthest back I can remember. This has so completely dominated my thinking throughout my life that I don’t really know what it would be like to live without it.

Even against what is sometimes a cynical, shallow world, I want to do things that matter to people. (Not capital “M”, Matter. Just the regular, lowercase “matter”.)

Juxtaposed against the above “micro-celebrity weirdness” concepts, perhaps you can imagine something like what it feels like when people express interest in my work: I’ve spent my entire life craving the opportunity to do something valuable… and then, suddenly, in small fits and spurts, some people seem to be responding.

I know that this isn’t necessarily because of me personally, but I do experience what can only be described as enormous relief at the idea that perhaps, for once, the inside world and the outside world might be more closely aligned than they have been for the past few decades.

For the record, I’m not 100% sure that I have an actual point here that I’m trying to make. I think perhaps what I’m trying to do is share a little bit about what this whole weird trip has been like (good, strange, confusing, marvelous), and keep up with my long-standing policy of being as bluntly honest about the human nature of what I’m doing in my life as I can be, with anyone who is interested.

Also, I’m rather disorganized as a person, and processing everything publicly seems to be the best way for me to not miss things.

Anyway. This is turning into a boring, navel-gazing style post, so maybe I’ll call it here. If you made it this far, gratz. And, thanks for reading – I hope that at the very least, this post at least makes it more clear that I really do genuinely appreciate the interest.

Why? No clue. I think I was born this way.