Spore: Universal Perfection

The genius of Will Wright has struck again.  This past weekend saw the release of the instant classic computer game "Spore".  There's only one thing to be said about this game...

Best. Game. Ever.

Spore is jaw-dropping in scope, simple yet deep, infinitely random, beautiful and amazingly modifiable... frankly you can play this game as was said for 60 *real life* years, and you'd never have seen it or done it all.  There's always a new species to make, a new species to find, new wars to be fought, new allies to be had... there is simply so much here, it's like three full games packed into one, where the third game is ten times as complex as the first two (because once you get to space mode, and see all the stars- then realize ALL of them have planets and creatures and artifacts to play with...well, your jaw WILL be on the floor.)

The professional reviewers are giving it perfect or near-perfect scores.  So everyone's loving it, right?  Nooooooo. Of course not- this is, after all, the Jaded Generation.  If you wander about online, you'll need to put on your moron hat and try to translate the vitriol currently spewing forth about Spore.  The primary complaint is that Spore uses SecuROM, which is a tough DRM.  In this case, the complaints are coming from "users" claiming to be legitimate owners who have burned through their three installs you're allowed by license.  In truth, there is no such limit-  if you own the product, you own unlimited installs... you simply need to be an adult and contact the company with your proof of purchase and request additional installs added to the account.  That is, only if you've messed up and not used the "unauthorize" feature that allows you to "re-add" an install prior to taking it off your machine.  In other words, you have unlimited, infinite installs unless you are computer illiterate and brain dead.

Oddly enough, I've had the game and have only installed it once.   Odd that others can install a game three times in two days.  It's clear to anyone that these are the "pirates", people who have downloaded the cracked version, and are whining because they can't keep the game burned to disc to drag out when desired.  Of course, their opinion on the game is moot, since they are missing all of the constantly user-generated content (that happens in the background as you play) that makes this a truly amazing experience that transcends other gaming experiences.

So, keep in mind, if you wander the net, you need to ignore the reviews - as always- because the level of facts and valid advice in them is somewhat next to nil (I'd reckon -1.  That's next to nil.)  The whiners have mobbed and are giving it 1 star ratings, which is like giving The Dark Knight a 1, or any Prince album a 1, or the Lord of the Rings movies a 1, or Lost a 1.... well, you catch my drift- it's laughable.

Lastly... GO get this game.  If you are a true PC gamer, this will be a staple in your library for years to come.  If you're one of the younger jaded generation gamers, well... you're the one missing out, but I don't really feel sorry for you at all.

For fun- here's one of the highly useful and easy to use tools provided by EA for sharing your creations... take a glance at some of my first efforts (keeping in mind I've spent amazingly little time in creature, building and vehicle creation as I've wanted to experience as much gameplay as possible before slowing up for detailed design.)

Gaming- The Maligned Hobby

"It is in games that many men discover their paradise."
~Robert Lynd

Consider all of the potential activities each individual can engage in for entertainment. Imagine the millions of different types of fun, each fitting into different categories, aligning themselves with the unique personalities of each individual. Now ask yourself, if someone was talking about your friend's personal choice of hobby and said, "Joe? Oh, he'll grow out of that hobby." What is the first activity you think of in which Joe might be participating, that his age or maturity should cause him to cease enjoying at some arbitrary point?

Gaming- particularly computer gaming- is the only mainstream hobby where people (even some gamers themselves) feel others should arbitrarily stop doing due to age. Even in today's technologically advanced society, there's still the misconception that games are for kids, and when one "matures", they will "grow out" of gaming and move on to more "appropriate" hobbies.

Where does this flawed mindset stem from?

In large part, it's a relic of the stereotypes of the past. While most people in touch with modern trends are aware of the diversity of gamers (we come in all shapes, ages and sizes), there is a large portion of the population still relying on 20 year old stereotypes of gamers being nerdy, male, socially inept booksmart types living in mom's basement, dreaming of their first chance to touch a real woman someday!

Are all gamers socially inept virgins incapable of adult thought and activity? Of course not. As with all stereotypes, they are terribly flawed generalizations that false more often than true.

Gaming is an intellectual and creative hobby that stimulates the brain, sharpens reaction times, improves vocabulary and reading skills and can be (based on the game type) highly social in nature. But that is entirely not what the stereotype says! After all, Joe is going to "grow out" of gaming, right? How come no one goes around asking those in their 60's when they're going to "grow out" of watching television? After all, it's a hobby that was born and came into its own as that generation grew into adulthood! Should they not have moved on to more age-appropriate activities? Should they not "grow out" of watching television and go outdoors and do something "better" with their time? Obviously, that is a silly notion, just as it is when applied to gamers and gaming.

Anti-gamers will have you believe gaming is a mindless, thoughtless activity that causes anti-social behavior and once you're out of your teens, you should be "grown up" enough to move on to "better" things.

I ask anti-gamers: define "better". Is gardening "better"? Customizing cars? Riding a bike?

Yes, someone will surely say... if you're riding a bike, you're getting exercise, you're outdoors, it's healthier for you!

Who has determined these things are "better"? No one has the authority to judge what activities are better than others. Who says being outdoors is "better" than being indoors? You can provide just as many studies indicating you're healthiest indoors as you can outdoors. This is simply an artifact of old-fashioned thinking, as those who had no indoor activities are now parents and grandparents. When they were kids, they had to go outdoors. So of course, to these types, it seems unhealthy that people spend so much free time indoors in front of the TV or computer screen playing games.

No one hobby is capable of being labeled "better" than any other hobby. Each person chooses a hobby based on what fits them best- customizing cars might be "manly" to some... but to others, it is a colossal waste of money and energy. Judging another person's hobby to be better or worse for them is an improper activity.

The bad news for the anti-gamer crowd- the folks constantly seeking to purge, penalize or otherwise ruin the gaming industry- is that the average age of gamers continues to rise each year. Currently, the average age is around 34. Notice that is not a teenage year? And if the average is 34- that means people are gaming well into their 60's! This trend is only going to continue- on a more rapid pace. Those who have grown up as gamers, such as myself, will continue to game until we die. And with the introduction of more powerful gaming consoles, as well as casual-gamer friendly systems like the Wii, more and more people will jump into gaming, only to be hooked for life. The average gamer age is likely to be 40 or 45 within a scant few years.

Eventually the stereotypes of yesteryear will fade away, and no one in their right mind would insinuate that someone will "grow out" of gaming, just as they wouldn't think of presuming they know of another hobby to be "superior" to gaming. Gaming will not be considered any different than jogging, going sailing, reading books, mixed martial arts, or watching television. In fact, the truth that gaming is an active, rather than passive, activity, will become common knowledge.

For now, though, gamers are stuck with the burden of putting up with outdated and inaccurate stereotypes. Those who continue to perpetuate the fallacies of these stereotypes, keep in mind- the gamers you're maligning aren't kids. We're everyone you know- younger and older, male and female... and we're tired of your smug judgment. You enjoy your hobbies- we enjoy ours. Keep your opinions on our fun-time to yourself, because...

We're proud to be known as gamers.

This Post Sucks!

"Most of the younger people I knew didn't seem to have a handle on things; they hadn't found their place, they didn't understand how the world works, they didn't understand how to treat other people, and they didn't know how to stop thinking about themselves."
~Kristin Hersh

It sucks.

What, you ask? Nearly every entertainment product that is released nowadays. Mind you, this is far from my own opinion- rather, this attitude seems to seep throughout our entire culture in today's world. And this attitude is growing stronger by the day.

I can't truly recall the last entertainment product- movie, TV show, computer game, video game or any other imaginable creative production- where I've heard a vast majority shower the new release with overwhelming praise. Even "Dark Knight" started an online war of words. Obviously, you're always going to have to ignore the 0.01 % that deliberately take the opposite side of every issue as some form of attention whoring. But setting that aside, ultimately there should be something out there that everyone agrees is great, right?

Does this just come down to personal preference? Is it that what is great to one person is terrible to another, and therefore a consensus within society is not feasible? Will there always be a large group of people standing outside the theatre after a movie saying, "That was boring. That director doesn't know what he's doing. They should have taken out the car chase scene and put in more of the monkey. I easily could have done it better."

I think that is the case. People will always differ on entertainment, as it is art, and art is subjective. However, I submit that there is a growing trend, particularly in the younger generations- the under 30 crowd, with exceptions (there are always exceptions)- who are adopting an attitude only best described as jaded.

As I roam the internet, I find source after source of people making highly vicious attacks on creators of our entertainment. And yet, at the core of these arguments is nothing whatsoever but personal opinions! There are no facts provided to back up the reasoning of the attacks or why the entertainment products being attacked "suck" so much.

And guess what? There's a simple reason there are no facts.

Pretend you've landed in an airport and are disembarking from a plane. Have you ever heard anyone on the way out ripping into the pilot for how he flew the plane? Not complaining about a bumpy ride, or bad flight attendant service, but that he should have gone up to 30,000 feet for the first hour, then changed direction to catch the jet stream? Or, consider this: you're in the hospital, and you pass by a group of patients standing around yelling at a brain surgeon. How could he have made that incision the way he did? Why didn't he use a different approach to his tumor removal method? Or perhaps complaining about his choice of stitching when closing up his last surgery?

It sounds ridiculous, no? Of course it does! Yet- have you ever heard someone tell you exactly how the local professional basketball team's coach should have handled the substitutions for the game last night? What trades must be made for the team to make the playoffs? How the team's all-star player isn't trying anymore, and should just drive to the hoop each time down the court, which will guarantee victory every game? Of course you've seen this- repeatedly, and in regards to countless topics.

Here's the most common thing I'm sure you've seen, if you're an online gamer- legions of message board posters telling game developers (in extremely petty and vicious language) how uncaring they are for not playing their product, and for deliberately trying to ruin the game for the players. Or complaining for all to hear that the company that makes the game is only out for money, and they simply do not care about the players' experiences. And my personal favorite- have you ever seen a post on a game's forum telling the developers how that person could, in a matter of weeks, reprogram the game into perfect balance and make everything "fun" again?

The difference in these situations is obvious, but almost never considered. The reason no one gives a brain surgeon or airline pilot grief on their jobs is simple- the average person has no experience in performing these actions. You don't casually fly a plane around as a kid, or slice open someone's skull just to see what you can do. (I'm really hoping you don't, at least.) Yet almost every single person has picked up a basketball in their lives. Many have seen basketball on television, and learned the rules (somewhat) by which the players play. There are countless young adults who are fluent in multiple computer programs and languages- they know how to create programs or scripts, sometimes quite impressively.

This is the crux of the matter. When people have personal experiences to draw from, it is easier to judge the performance of another based on your perception of how things should be done. However, there's a fundamental flaw in this that most don't take into account.

Let's take computer game development, in particular, World of Warcraft. Massively Multiplayer Game Services (MMGSs) are highly complex, detailed programs of massive scope and scale. There are countless aspects in development of the product that you would require a short novel describing all of the individual tasks required to create and provide the service. Yet, if you grab any one of the majority of the players who've played the game, they will give you a list of faults with the product and how they would fix them. Most will complain about how nothing is ever done to fix the flaws within the product, and anger is expressed when something is altered that makes the experience more difficult for their character to succeed than before. Almost every thread on the forum concerning the game will have countless complaints on how poor the service is run, and how to fix these errors. Many of these threads even have information where the poster claims to have multiple years of experience in developing computer games, or other similar products, and therefore how qualified they are to point out how to fix the problems.

That is the flaw that people don't understand, and why none of these suggestions are factually based. You see, unless you have worked on the exact entertainment product being discussed, any criticism on your part is simply your opinion on the matter. Only the people who have been part of the development of a product have most of, or all, of the information necessary to make factual commentary on the matter. You could be the world's best brain surgeon, but you would never criticize another brain surgeon off-the-cuff because they killed a patient. Instead, you would have to familiarize yourself with all aspects of the case- everything to which a person uninvolved is fully unaware.

You see, you can't truly tell Blizzard how to factually "fix" World of Warcraft... because you don't know how World of Warcraft works. You might think you do, but you don't. You haven't been in the meetings. You haven't manipulated the engine. You don't know Blizzard's policy of handling art changes and the procedures involved in adjusting the timeframe of the project. That is, unless you work for Blizzard, and work on World of Warcraft. You see, without having all of the information, you don't have enough information. And without enough information, you're simply guessing.

That's why all criticism beyond the creators of entertainment products is pure opinion only. However, since people are familiar with aspects of the entertainment product, they feel like "experts". They are using their personal knowledge of programming, as if they are now on even ground with the developers. They are using their understanding of how to make a movie, to judge the latest sequel to hit the movie theaters.

So where does this new jaded attitude come from? This belief where "that sucks" is so often repeated? It's coming from familiarity. As the world continues to get more technologically advanced, the younger generations are growing up with personal video cameras, and learning computer programming languages. The younger gens are tech-savy, and are using this experience to judge the world around them. They've seen it all before, and the more they see the same thing, the more jaded they become. Unfortunately, no one has ever stopped to tell them that casual knowledge and experience are not replacements for professional knowledge and experience on the actual development of a product.

Experience is not interchangeable. It is unique.

There is every right for the gamers and movie watchers of the world to speak up and voice their opinions on why they dislike their entertainment sources. However, there is no reason to hide behind the bravado of internet anonymity, insulting and attacking the people creating these artworks.

So when you're on your favorite game's message board, and the uber-programmer with all the answers is telling everyone including the developers how to fix the product in three easy steps of programming, call them on it. They don't know, they aren't the developer. If you're chit-chatting with your local team's sports fans and someone's calling out the coach for how poorly he substituted during the game, call them on it. They don't know, they aren't the coach.

Remind these people that they're only providing their own opinions, and their own personal experience has no factual relevance in regards to judging the entertainment. Ideally, if we can all start reminding each other that other people are giving their all in the production of these sources of enjoyment for us, we can begin to agree more readily that most things don't "suck". In fact, we might all begin to calm down and see that everything around us is really pretty great.

Or, do I just suck for writing this?

An Accurate New Name for "MMORPGs".

If you're a gamer, you've heard and used this phrase countless times. Even when it first became widespread in its usage, jokes flew with its lack of brevity. You know the name... "MMORPG": "Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game".

That name has to be changed.

Why? Certainly some will agree it's a pain to say, but you can just call it an "MMO" instead, right? Unfortunately, that doesn't reach the crux of the matter... it's inaccurate. My first question to you is: Name one massively multiplayer game that is not online.

I'll wait while you rack your brain. Football isn't massively multiplayer. Golf isn't. Baseball? No. A marathon isn't a game. There is no game which exists offline that has thousands upon thousands of simultaneous players!

We've just started, and we've already found that part of the title isn't necessary!

• First change to the genre name: The O's gotta go.

So, we've whittled "MMO" down to "MM". What about the "MM" portion of the title? What defines "Massively Multiplayer"? Thousands upon thousands of players all within the same game universe able to freely interact in game at the same time.

Some games that are often considered massively multiplayer fall short due to design and gameplay considerations. Let's examine Guild Wars. Great game! Fun times. A solid title to own for most gamers. Guild. Wars. Is. Not. Massively. Multiplayer.

What? Everyone says it's an MMO! That is nothing more than a case of people being stubborn when presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The actual developers of Guild Wars have themselves proclaimed it not to be an "MMORPG", but instead call it a "CORPG": "Competitive Online Role Playing Game". I refer to it as an "OCG"- "Online Computer Game", like Diablo 2, for instance.

Still, when you are discussing a game with the proper design to allow simultaneous mass-gaming, "Massively Multiplayer", or "MM" works well enough to describe the genre.

What of the final part of the title: "RPG", for "Role Playing Game"?

Role playing can be defined in gaming purposes in two different ways- the act of role playing one's character, or in the design of the game mechanics.

If you log into World of Warcraft (or any other "RPG") on a "Role Playing" designated server you will find only a small portion of players are actually role playing their characters. The majority of players are simply playing the game, ignoring the basic ideas of role playing.

Considering the design standpoint, many of the latest genre offerings are moving away from role playing concepts- the market is saturated already. When every offering available is not of a role playing design, it's inaccruate to declare the entire genre to be "RPG".

• Second change to the genre name: The RPG's gotta go.

So we've reduced the name to "MM", which is obviously missing something.

One of the most common discussions on all massively multiplayer message boards regards the cost, which ususally consists of the retail price and a monthly fee. If you're offering a massively multiplayer game for profit, you must have a monthly fee or other means of income (perhaps ads), or the project will lose money.

Why do products like Guild Wars work with no monthly fee? The design, functionality, infrastructure and operational expenses change all of the cost variables. This simplified system does not require the resources a true massively multiplayer game requires, and therefore can be sustained on expansion packs or advertising alone. Full massively multiplayer games are far more complex and require a full service.

Ah-ha! We've come to the final element we're seeking. These products are Gaming Services.

We now have a shorter, less awkward title than the original mouthful that is "MMORPG", but more importantly- something accurate.

• An accurate title that should be used instead of "MMORPG" is "MMGS": "Massively Multiplayer Gaming Services".

I've done the hard part here- it's now up to the gamers out there to take the next step and be part of the cutting edge in using the new name to support our favorite MMGSs. After all, why continue to use a name that isn't accurate?