Where's the content at?

So this blog of mine hasn't been posted on in quite some time. For shame :(

This is because I have moved on to other projects, please check me out at:

www.virtualeconomyproject.wordpress.com

&

www.npmarshall.wordpress.com

See you there! :)

My Month in Industry: Conclusion

Apologies for the delay to this post, when real life (read: jobs/sickness/DIY) comes a-callin’ I have to answer. After all, I’m only human. Anyway, this is a quick update on the end of my month in the games industry.

My time with Laughing Jackal came to a close, on my last day in the office I bought delicious treats for everyone and in return got loads of Ghostlight swag, posters, a T-shirt and a copy of Agarest Zero.

My lovely signed Digital Devil Saga poster!

The final day of my industry experience was at the Eurogamer Expo in London. All the Laughing Jackal team were there, armed to the teeth with Cubixx HD flyers. After a lengthy queuing session with Daren, who I can only assume thoroughly, enjoyed my company, I was set loose in a world of games. It was great fun to play everything, although the queues were a lot longer than back in 2009 when the Expo was at Billingsgate. The only game I really put up with a long wait for was Skyrim, and that was only because I had Mark Richards, the creator of that delightful Prime Minister’s Question Time game to keep me entertained. 

What I missed most from the old Eurogamer was the lack of developer – customer interaction. Back in 2009 several of the big titles I played had members of the development team talking players through and really adding value to the experience. Here it was largely uninterested events staff, but with one exception. OnLive.

I was sceptical about this new Cloud-gaming service but after chatting to several members of the team, one of whom had flown in from California for the event. A lot of my concerns were laid to rest and I was given a detailed talk-through about what goes on behind the scenes with the OnLive service.

Once again, I’d like to thank all the great folk at Laughing Jackal for giving me such a interesting and useful introduction to the industry. I guess now it’s time for me to go forth and play!

My Month In Industry: Week: 3

It was in my third week that it dawned on me, working in this industry wasn’t always going to be a smooth ride. If the sign above the urinal was anything to go by, someone was out there to actively destroy me.

Feeling inadequate yet?

Thankfully the feeling of woe was gone after a few cathartic rounds of Cubixx HD, the puzzle game that keep dragging me back for more like I’m its bitch. I’ve been playing Laughing Jackal’s games in breaks to better understand them when I’m updating online databases like GameFAQs and Wikipedia or Tweeting/Facebook-ing about what I’m up to, but its Cubixx that gets under my skin and come 1 o’clock its time to play. I just wish I had a PS3 to play it on at home.

Ross took this picture of me ‘working hard’ at Cubixx HD.

 I really need a haircut and shave.

The game I’ve been testing and working on, Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain has been mastered (in theory – finished) and submitted to Sony. Forms, gameplay videos and copies of the games were sent to PEGI and ESRB, the European and US age rating boards and I hope everything goes smoothly from here.

Right now I’m looking to take my next big step in the industry, of course it will be a slow climb but my time here has fulfilled a couple of the basic requirements for entry-level jobs, experience working on a published game and experience working with producers and developers. That experience is largely filled with all the bad jokes I’ve overheard, but also all the important and fascinating conversations I’ve had so far. They have cemented my desire to work in this industry, despite all the warnings from the Lead Programmer that it will destroy me.

We’re all off to Eurogamer on Friday 24^th which should be a great day. Expect my post next week to focus on that. However, for those that remember my Boar article back in 2009 (link provided) I won’t write about the games, I’ll write about the people I meet and all the fun stuff that happens. Give me a shout on twitter if you’re also going!

http://theboar.org/games/2009/nov/11/eurogamer-expo/

Want to see what all the fuss is about with Cubixx? Go here, and good luck:

http://cubixxhd.laughingjackal.co.uk/ 

Next Week: There might be cake.

My Month In Industry: Week 2

“The ladies toilet isn’t closed for cleaning; it’s where we hide the testers who went insane.”

Well that answered the pertinent question of last week, there was a worrying amount of interest online about this, I hope we can consider it resolved and move on to this week.

I think I finally felt involved when I got my name on something, not a co-worker’s kill list (which I worry does exist), but the credits of a game – Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. I had wanted to be entered under ‘Intern Hero’ but settled for ‘QA Testing’ when I discovered said title doesn’t exist in the industry. Yet.

Look! Can you see it? That’s my name!

 

However, despite the testing moving away from insanity levels, other tasks in the process of publishing a game present themselves, such as my next objective - getting the age rating.

Firetop Mountain is hardly Grand Theft Auto, (although you can steal a boat and beat-up a variety of the game-world’s innocuous denizens), but like all games going onto the market it has to go through a stringent review process. Europe, North America and Australia each have their own guidelines and processes that need to be adhered to. As a plucky young work experience chap I’ve got to tread carefully as making a mistake can have significant financial costs.

Firetop Mountain paraphernalia currently populates my desk.

 

Here’s an example of what goes on - in one area the player can drink some rum and get a lovely skill and stamina boost. Under let’s say, European PEGI guides, that counts as a scenario where ‘the character gains advantage in the game by the use of tobacco or alcohol’ and therefore it can (in theory) get a higher age rating. However, from what I’ve seen so far PEGI appears to have the most clear-cut and transparent system. The amount of work required to get the American submission right is mind-boggling and if any potentially offensive content is missed out of the DVD I have to make of me playing the game then there’ll be trouble.

Along with the in-house development team, Laughing Jackal, there’s Ghostlight, a specialist JRPG publisher (that’s Japanese Role-Playing Game if you didn’t know). If you’re a fan of that genre then Ghostlight is already a household name, bringing titles like Persona and Agarest to Europe and causing shrieks of joy among fans. It was with a gleeful smile that I viewed these celebrations when I was tasked with writing the Ghostlight blog an announcing the details of the Persona 2: Innocent Sin collectors edition, you can check it all out in the links below.

It’s been an interesting second week and I’m moving on to more stuff soon including marketing, game submissions, and solving the following mysteries:

        

How the hell does the espresso machine work? 

  What discoveries are there to be found in this strange empty room?

If you decide to explore this mysterious room, turn to p.329

To stop messing around and get back to work, go to page p.187

 Be back here next week for more of my exciting industry adventure.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin blogpost

http://blog.ghostlight.uk.com/post/persona-2-innocent-sin-whats-in-the-collectors-edition

Laughing Jackal’s other Fighting Fantasy title: Talisman of Death

http://www.laughingjackal.co.uk/games/fighting-fantasy-talisman-of-death

My Month In Industry: Week 1

It is the most frequently debunked myth about working in the games industry - that games testers get to sit around and play games all day.  However, that myth is actually true. Now, before I get shouted down by all the enraged testers out there allow me to explain myself. After a week of testing I have done plenty of sitting around and playing games – but there’s a method, one that requires skill, ingenuity and patience. You don’t play the games at all like you would at home.  Being a game tester is like being insane, if you go by that misattributed quote on insanity:

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Indeed, game testing is only subtly different; it involves doing the same thing over and over again and desperately hoping there are NO different results.

The game I have been testing is Laughing Jackal’s recently announced Fighting Fantasy game-book adaptation for PSP and PS3: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. After introductions and orientations I was left to get on with it all. 

Screenshot of Laughing Jackal’s recent Fighting Fantasy title: Talisman of Death. 

Fancy a copy? Check it out on the PSN store.

My instructions were deceptively simple:

“Your mission is to visit every page in the game.”

The old British game-book fans of the 1980s are now spitting out their tea at this suggestion as I almost did when I realized the magnitude of it. To visit every page of a game-book is a mammoth task. It involves exploring possible route, replaying outcomes multiple times, intentionally failing tasks and carrying out absurd moves like carrying a bit of cheese through the entire game just to fruitlessly whip it out in the final battle against an evil Warlock.* Doing this is fatiguing and often frustrating, but finding a way to break the game and seeing it fixed is rewarding.

It’s not all doom and gloom. The offices of Laughing Jackal are bright and spacious, everybody’s friendly and there’s a good supply of tea and coffee. My desk is spacious and my chair is comfortable, I’m certainly not working in some dark basement dungeon, staring with bleeding eyes at a screen and being whipped raw by senior management.

I still wonder why they’ve given me such a nice TV, thought it best not to ask.

Although there’ll be plenty of testing to do in the coming weeks I’ll also be getting experience in other roles and projects. I end my first week with a new-found respect for those full-time testers who work long hours to ensure my gaming experience is as smooth as possible.

Next week I answer the following candid questions: What happens when a team submits a new game to the console developer? How do games get their PEGI rating? Why is the ladies toilet closed for deep cleaning? And how long till someone adds me on Facebook?

Get back here on Wednesday 14th, for the answer to all those, and more!

*To those who cried “Spoilers!” I have the following to say: ET goes home, and Deckard kills Roy. Consider the year 1982 thoroughly spoiled for you.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - how to advertise a game in 2011

Back in the 90s games had very little publicity, A TV and magazine spot was typically all the major publishers did. Games sold on good reviews, franchise reputation and word of mouth. A publisher could expect a continuous return over a long period of time as their games slowly departed high-street shelves into the hands of gamers.

Now things are very different: the cost of making a game rises every year, and the profit margins decrease. The burgeoning second-hand market cripples the industry: Buy the latest Harry Potter title from GAME this week and trade it in next week for only £5 less, they then remarket it in a ‘like-new’ state for just under the RRP. You win, GAME wins – but the publisher loses out. It’s a difficult situation for us consumers as we all want a bargain and there is little a publisher can do. They need the stores to sell the game, they need us to buy it - they can't get away with anything much beyond restricting downloadable content to new purchasers only.

So the industry had to find a new way to react, this was to think bigger and bolder about how to maximise sales before the huge second-hand market gobbled up the profits. A while ago that just meant more publicity, capitalising on new media and the internet. But now game releases are on a par with film premieres. Midnight releases are now common affairs along with celebrity packed launch parties for Triple-A titles like Modern Warfare 2,  these maximise the’ day-one’ sales which are the most profitable for publishers.

 Halo Reach midnight launch in 2010 - a decade ago this simply didn’t happen.

This is all good in theory, it’s fun for the gamer and its good money for the publisher. But are we now hitting the point where midnight hype is no longer enough? I use as my case study here the upcoming Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a game that could be the biggest seller of this year. The marketing teams of Eidos and Square Enix have done a fantastic job of utilising all the modern methods available to attract attention to their title.

 Firstly the release of a tie-in novel which has become standard for big releases, the Assassins Creed series now has three. By publishing The Icarus Effect in February consumers who might not have heard of the Deus Ex game will become potential ‘day-one’ purchasers. It is also a chance to treat the fans to something they want and will buy.

The second and more imaginative modern approach is viral and live-action advertising. Just placing adverts for pre-ordering and trailers everywhere isn’t effective enough. Back in 2004 the website www.ilovebees.com was a huge hit among Halo fans, it was a real world viral marketing campaign where players rushed about answering payphones and emails, trying to solve the mystery of an AI that had crashed on earth. The most dedicated followers received a DVD and a chance to play Halo 2 before it came out. Deus Ex has gone a step further with a campaign that combines viral advertising games with the ethical debate on transhumanism. 

A few months back the trailer below was released, telling "real life stories" of men and women who have had the augmentations that will feature so prominently in the game. It was a fresh and amusingly cheesy approach that certainly brought attention to the upcoming game.

Following the link at the end revealed a website were you could find out more about this fictional corporation that would play a major role in the game. That was until yesterday when things took an interesting turn.

Now when you visit the Sarif Industries site ( www.sarifindustries.com ) it glitches up after having been hacked by the anti-augmentation group Purity First. This is playing into the recent media exposure of hackings and alongside the live-action trailers it builds up an alternate reality game much like ilovebees.com that has plenty of potential to expand in the month until the game's release on August 28^th.

So is this the new standard for games? Midnight launches and live-action trailers are certainly here to stay, although the quality does vary, (youtube Mass Effect 3 Live Action Trailer if you want to see poorly acted and hammy example). Novel tie-ins are only profitable with the biggest titles but the number released is slowly increasing each year. Viral marketing campaigns will however become more complex and intelligent as publishers take advantage of social networking and mobile devices to gather the interest of the crowd and survive an industry that, whilst thriving, doesn’t hesitate to kill off unprofitable ventures. 

Epic Fails of Ancient Rome: How (not) to buy the throne

How does a man become emperor? Generally speaking he either has to be proclaimed a successor by the current emperor, or he can seize the city of Rome with an army and force the government to declare him emperor. Simples.

But in the year 193 A.D one chap, Marcus Didius Severus Julianus Augustus (let’s call him Didi to save words), attempted to break the mold, he went against the grain by choosing to buy the imperial throne and the empire that came with it.

Now, Didi was from a prominent family and had a high-flying career that befitted a man of his status. He followed the cursus honorum – a traditional career path for any aspiring politician that gave all the experience necessary for a government career.  He had worked both at home and abroad, in administrative and combat roles; in short he was a viable candidate for emperor.

So how do you buy the throne?

Step one – find out who owns it

Nearly a century before Didi’s purchase, the emperor Claudius had worked out just who actually owned the throne. The Praetorian Guard. These men based just outside Rome were the only major military force for hundreds, if not thousands of miles around.  In principle they protected the emperors life but they were also known to take it if it benefitted them. When power changed hands between emperors it was the Guard who had the final say, and by this period they received a donation from each emperor. They were wealthy, and their commanders were hugely influential.

Step two – wait for an opportunity to purchase it

Didi’s predecessor, Pertinax, was assassinated by the Praetorian Guard. The reasons vary but a tightening of discipline and a failure to provide them with a promised sum of pay are both possibilities. A force of them stormed the palace one night and took his life.

Afterwards the Praetorian Guard proclaimed that the throne would be sold to the man who paid the highest price. This was Didi’s opportunity.

Step three – attend the auction

Naturally there would be some competition for the position of emperor, ruling the world was a popular job back then and the entry requirements were (financially) extraordinary. Titus Flavius Sulpicianus was the first to attend the action at the Guard camp. He was Pertinax’s father-in-law and Prefect of the City so he had a strong claim.

Meanwhile Didi was chillaxing at a banquet when his family rush in and tell him what is happening. He dashes to the senate-house to be told that the auction is taking place at the Guard camp. So there he dashed.

Step four – bid big

Sulpicianus was already close to clinching the deal and Didi couldn’t get into the camp to make his bid. So he stood beyond the wall and made various promises to win the Guard over. Ancient sources offer us various claims but the financial one is the most important, 25,000 sesterces to every Guardsman! 

This is a difficult bid to believe, there were 9,000 guardsmen, so that makes a whopping 225 million sesterces! 

Attempts to convert values like that into modern terms don’t work*, some rough calculations suggest that Didi could have purchased forty-five Italian estates (so basically most of Italy) with that amount of cash. Did he even have that much money? We will never know, but upon his accession to the throne he did debase the currency by 6.5%, shaving a nice 14 million in value off of his still unpaid bid, despite the public outcry about it.




Step five - prepare for civil war
So with all four of these steps completed, you too can own Europe (and a bit of Africa/Asia), however you won’t get to have it for long, probably only a few months, as Didi unfortunately found out.

You see, he and Sulpicianus weren’t the only ones who wanted Rome; they were just (un)lucky ones who turned up in time. Out in the provinces, on the frontier edges of the empire were generals with armies at their back. Upon hearing that they had missed out on the auction, they were decidedly angry and one in particular, Septimus Severus, decided to march on Rome from his post in Pannonia (modern day Hungary).  Didi rushed to train his new army, but they were supposedly lazy and disinterested, their position was secure regardless. Didi became desperate and attempted to negotiate with Severus, this failed and soon the Guards and Senate abandoned him in favour of the new guy with the army. Didi was killed by a soldier in the third month of his reign.

I think we can consider Didius Julianus to be an epic fail of ancient Rome and a lesson to all of us who have ever thought about buying our way into power. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to do some revision that is actually relevant.

*For reference, by comparing it as a percentage of estimated GDP, Roman and UK, we are looking at a modern equivalent of £45 billion.