This article is part of a new series of articles that I call “Treasures from the Tickle Trunk” where I pull a game from my basement game library and take a deeper look at what it achieves. This style of article is deeply influenced by Corvus’s Narrative of the Moment series.

As I played through the demo of Penny Arcade Adventures this morning, I kept reminding myself that writing comedy is difficult - and writing interactive comedy well is nigh impossible. Not only is quick wit, rich satire, and goofy slapstick necessary, but it has to be reflected in gameplay in such a way as to play funny. With so few adventure games, and even fewer games with a sense of humor, I thought I would take a fresh look at one of the bright highlights of gaming humor in the 90s - Day of the Tentacle.

Drawing upon the strange, quirky, world of its predecessor, Maniac Mansion, the first minute of DoTT sets the tone for the rest of the game. The game is an excellent example of how every element of a game can be integrated into a holistic theme.

Visual Art

The most striking aspect of DoTT is the bizarre and striking artwork found throughout the game. If you’re familiar with the German Expressionist film movement, you may recognize the kinship between the artistic style of DoTT and films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Instead of the generic 2D perspective view common to most adventure games of that era, the backgrounds are lavishly painted in a tilted, helter-skelter fashion: walls curve into one another, objects lean at impossible angles, characters are illustrated as distorted figures. Unlike German Expressionism however, DoTT combines this illustrative style with a saturated palette of bright purples, greens, and blues.  The artwork, both foreground and background, shrieks of goofy and lighthearted yet sincere zaniness. The game is similarly animated: Bernard struts around with his pants pulled up to his chest and feet far in front of him, Laverne’s neck stretches to impossible lengths in the introduction, and Dr. Fred wrings his hands outrageously in every scene. Nothing in the game is unembellished, and most things are exaggerated to a ridiculous degree.

Music and Sound

Although less exaggerated than the visual art, the music still retains the goofiness of the game. Thanks to the iMUSE system, every piece of music in the game is synchronized and arranged on the fly according to the mood of the scene or specific event. In terms of musical style the game relies upon wind instruments throughout; very few percussion and string instrument pieces are found. The wind instruments - mostly flutes, clarinets, and tubas - give the game a light atmosphere punctuated by the occasional slapstick tuba honk. Although less aggressive in its strength, the music is in many ways reminiscent of the Looney Tunes cartoon musical scores - every scene is arranged to fit the particular scene. In scenes where the character is surprised by something, we are greeted with the familiar and hackneyed da-da-daaaaah! of daytime soap operas or B-grade horror flicks that only serves to make the scene even more outrageous and fun.

The sounds in the game accomplish the same feat: Bernard picking his ear wax makes the sound of two balloons squishing against each other, picking up objects gives the player a yoink! or swipe! feedback sound; the introduction to the game gives a good overall survey of the theme. But unlike the great majority of games that rely upon the same kinds of sound libraries, the most cliched sound effects are put to perfect use in this game because they are so overused and ridiculous. 

The characters in the game are not only voiced convincingly, but the voices always suit their character illustrations in uncanny ways. Bernard is voiced by the somewhat unknown, but excellent, Richard Sanders who played ‘Les Nessman’ on the American sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati. Bernard’s voice is so thickly nerdy that at times Sanders manages to capture in his acting what I think is the quintessential nerd: long periods of whining interrupted by brief, pathetic, moments of bravery.

Story/Narrative

What could be more bizarre than a twisted Scooby Doo troupe bumbling their way through a search for a crazed purple tentacle bent on taking over the world? Apparently this: by sending them all through portable toilets fashioned into time machines to the past, only to have them end up in different time periods because the crazy professor was too cheap to pay for a real diamond to power the Chron-O-Johns!

Hoagie is trapped in pre-confederation America, Bernard in the present, and Laverne in a disturbing purple-tentacle-controlled mockery of the future. By satirizing each period the game does an admirable job of presenting its own twisted look at history: Hoagie for instance spends his time interacting with American colonialists like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Hancock, each of which are thickly stylized personalities. Although the characters are lampooned mercilessly, they all manage to retain their signature styles and contribute to a hilarious and surprisingly educational American conferedation history lesson.

In truth the story theme is itself nothing new (mad scientific experiment goes wrong, threatens world, kids save world), but what makes it so compelling is the sheer oddity of the characters and world, and the sense of humor they constitute together. The story is one long schtick that always stays safely on the side of witty and good-natured, and never makes excursions into senseless violence or needless sarcasm. Because the story and gameplay are so well integrated with one another, both compel the player to keep playing.

Gameplay

As I mentioned in the introduction, finding ways of making gameplay goofy often borders on impossible. Because games depend upon repeatable, predictable, and logical rule systems, making games that operate on a twisted logic and play well is rare. Although DoTT does nothing new in terms of its inventory system and point’n'click verb interface, both are put to new uses thanks to an interesting world and puzzles. Instead of commanding just one protagonist, the player can switch between three protagonists throughout the game: Bernard, Laverne, and Hoagie. Each character has their own distinct personality and will or will not do certain kinds of tasks - Hoagie is hideously lazy, Laverne is not altogether bright, and Bernard is downright clumsy. Since each character is trapped in a different time period, certain puzzles can only be completed by “flushing” items down the Chron-O-John to another time period. Many items are combinable and often in strange and bizarre ways, which many times left me baffled as to how to complete the puzzle. However that is not to say that the puzzles are irrational - the player must simply learn to immerse her/himself in the wacky logic of DoTT. For instance, a great amount of the game is spent changing things in one time period in order to effect changes in future periods; the game does an admirable job of making the most seemingly insignificant change in one period change the entire game. As Chris Remo of Adventure Gamers puts it, “Indeed, the story of the game and the gameplay itself are deftly intertwined. Almost without exception, the puzzles tie directly into the plot, rather than existing on a separate plane.”

Conclusion

Although this game has been reviewed a countless number of times, given the recent releases of Penny Arcade Adventures and Telltale’s Sam and Max episodes, I felt it was important to remind myself that the humor in these games was eclipsed over 10 years ago by a true modern adventure-humor classic. I could have written this same article about Sam and Max Hit the Road (which has a completely different style of humor) but I felt that Day of the Tentacle is unmatched in its synthesis of humor, story, and world. Game designers and writers do not need to write or design anything funny - they need to make worlds and characters that in themselves are compelling and hilarious - the jokes come as a natural consequence of that after the fact.

Thanks to the excellent ScummVM project, you can play Day of the Tentacle in Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, etc. I highly recommend playing the CD “talkie” version with full voiceovers.

design documents, email archives, employee phone numbers, sales figures, internal meeting notes, corporate newsletters, and the source code and game files for every released and unreleased game Infocom made.

So why does this matter? Because he went through the drive and weaved together the tale of why Milliway’s: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe was never completed nor released. If you have not played the excellent Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy IF game (designed and created by Steve Meretzky and Douglas Adams) you’re missing out on a crucial piece of computer game history and a damned fun (difficult!) game. I’ll let Andy tell the story, except for two points:

1. It tells the story of a venerable game company in decline; crisis even. Being 1989, Infocom had already merged with Activision and Milliway’s had been languishing since its inception in ‘85. The company closes with not a bang…
2. It comes with a playable prototype of Milliway’s (!!)

Comments from the ex-Infocom folks on the story seem to agree with some of Andy’s story, however it is quite clear that there is more to this than meets the eye. It will be interesting to see what comes of this in the following weeks, as it quite clearly has ruffled a few feathers - and for good reasons.

Thankfully Jason Scott’s new documentary, Get Lamp, is scheduled for release some time this year. I suspect that his own exploration into the world of interactive fiction, complete with interviews of major designers and programmers, should be just as utterly fascinating just as his epic BBS: The Documentary was.

A Few Examples of iMUSE in Action

Note: I’ve intentionally dropped the speech volume on the audio tracks in these video clips so it’s easier to focus on the musical score. You’ll need Flash installed to view the following clips I uploaded to Youtube. The clips have been resized to fit this page, so click on them to see larger versions.

In this scene from The Curse of Monkey Island, Wally - a cartographer-cum-pirate - breaks down under Guybrush’s relentless teasing (“I’m gonna… I’m… gonna…. <sniff>”). As you watch the clip, listen to the way in which the metre and rhythm of the score remains the same, while the melody changes to suit a more upbeat and less sinister atmosphere. The transition, heralded by a few light drum beats, reflects the “lightening up” of the situation after Wally finally stops threatening Guybrush with his revolver. The melody transitions seamlessly and gives me the sense that the silly but desperate situation has resolved for our bumbling hero.

In this scene, Guybrush enters the Voodoo Priestess’s swamp, greeted by Murray the Talking Skull. As Guybrush enters the rotting swamp boat the music transitions from a soft ethereal score to a slightly spookier score with the addition of another wind instrument (anyone know what that instrument is called?). The mood changes again when Guybrush pulls the alligator’s tongue and as the Voodoo Priestess appears she is introduced by the addition of a subtle reggae beat played on the organ. Mixed into the Voodoo Priestess’s beat is a soft trumpet chorus that fades in and out that adds a sense of foreboding to the scene. All of these subtleties are, of course, recognized only at the subconscious level as we play the game but add a fine atmosphere to each scene and help paint the characters in certain musical tones.

In this scene, Guybrush walks into the Barbershop and the music transitions immediately. See if you can pick out the five different themes that are played here as he speaks with each buccaneer hairstylist. The differences are all subtle, and serve to both colour the personalities of each pirate and the player’s expectations. If you want to hear the different audio tracks independently, head on over to iMUSE Island - my thanks to them for noticing the different mixes in the first place!

How does iMUSE Work?

According to the original patent document for iMUSE, the purpose of the system is to produce “aesthetically appropriate and natural” music and sound effects that modify the “texture, mood and character” of scenes in response to “a directing system”. The musical sequence (composed of notes and instruments) that the composer sends to the directing system is marked at crucial musical junction points, ie. at every ‘measure’, marking positions at which the music can branch. The musical sequencer has the ability to jump to any specific point of a composition (unlike most music), thus giving a standard musical score much more flexibility much like the difference between an mp3 file and a cassette tape. Furthermore, as I will demonstrate in the next part, iMUSE was also able to transpose musical arrangements into completely different tunes, giving the melody different tones and moods to suit the scene. The easiest way to imagine iMUSE is to think of a musical version of interactive hypertext - the user can jump around and re-arrange things at her/his whim.

The early versions of iMUSE-based games used “MIDI” tracks. Since midi arrangements are progressions of electronic musical notes, each note could be remixed on-the-fly. In some LucasArts games that use midi, such as Monkey Island 2, all sorts of transforms (tempo, volume, pan, instruments, etc) are applied to the midi sequence in order to achieve some dramatic effect. In this scene, Guybrush joins a spitting contest. As he approaches the ’spitmeister’, listen as the music detunes and quickly drops out instruments, hailing the entrance of our blundering protagonist. Hey, at least he hocked up a decent loogie this time!In games that use mp3-based musical data, the score is broken up into many constituent musical tracks. Each track, as we saw with the Barbery Coast pirates earlier, are timed identical to each other, so the music engine can seamlessly transition between tracks. While the sound designers lose some flexibility with mp3-based music (because they cannot mix the track note-by-note, instrument-by-instrument, in realtime), they at least can standardize the sound coming out of the speakers on the player’s end because the tracks have been pre-recorded according to their specifications.

Final Thoughts

While the musical feats that the iMUSE technology accomplishes are impressive in themselves, it is clear that all of these examples work not only because of the smooth transitions and/or identical rhythms - they work because the sound designers and composers found the right melodies and rhythms that suited the particular dramatic effect represented in each scene or for each character. iMUSE does not create good arrangements itself, as is evidenced by the occasional failed drama in several games, but rather relies upon the creative composers and designers who use it to craft the right mood for a scene. The subtlety that iMUSE allows for gives players the sense that they’re playing a game, and not simply interacting with a computer. And, when scripted-in with interactive dialogue, art direction, animation, story, and unique characters, the end products are adventure games that capture dramatic moments reminiscent of old radio and television dramas. Add in the rather kooky humor that most LucasArts game writers are known for, and every game beams with a gentle yet compelling story that’s downright enjoyable. Since iMUSE was one of those under-the-hood engines that was meant to work through subtlety, it isn’t surprising that it hasn’t really gotten its due now that it has faded into obscurity. It’s sad that there are so few games that can match the kinds of dramatic achievements that the creators of iMUSE did in their time.

If you’re interested in playing some of the classic LucasArts adventure games, I highly suggest heading on over to the SCUMMVM web site and downloading one of the best open source software projects on the web. SCUMMVM allows you to play all of those great oldies on modern PC’s running Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.

If you’re looking for LucasArts-composed music to add to your music library, wander over to WorldMaker.net (scroll down to the comments section) and take a look at the suggestions - I can confirm those are all great compositions!

This post is included as part of a Blogs of the Round Table discussion on music in video games. Follow the below drop-down list for other January ‘08 Round Table entries. My sincere thanks to Corvus for accepting my rather last-minute entry! The list below links to other blogs who participated in this month’s Round Table - I strongly suggesting visiting them.. these articles are all particularly good reads.

In the excellent Escapist article The Conquest of Origin, writer Allen Varney paints a picture of the rise and fall of Origin Systems Inc., the creative masters behind series such as Ultima and Wing Commander. Throughout the article we are shown how Origin gradually loses its managerial and creative control as (in)famous publisher Electronic Arts asserts its corporate dominance.In the light of that story, I was concerned when I heard the news that local developer BioWare Corp. was purchased wholesale along with co-conspirator Pandemic Studios in an $855 million-dollar sale. The question resting on everyone’s lips was, of course, what does the purchase mean? Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk seem to be claiming outwardly that the sale is the best thing for their company and that they “believe in [EA CEO] John [Riccitiello]’s vision”. Others are more concerned about the purchase; there is no shortage of doomsaying, fear-mongering, and other generalized anxieties of EA.

The question is of course, how can we make some sense of the purchase? What might the purchase mean for the future of BioWare/Pandemic, the future of role-playing games, and PC gaming in general? In this article I try to make sense of the purchase by looking at some of EA’s corporate history, their modus operandi with the companies they’ve owned, and the vision that CEO Riccitiello has for the monstrous game publisher.

A Brief History of Electronic Arts

EA began its life as a publisher under founder Trip Hawkins, who envisioned a game publishing company that highlighted the independent developers prominently in games and promoted software as an “art” and not simply another consumer product. Hawkins himself had experience programming for games, and obviously recognized the artistic skill that went into game design and development. Under Hawkins, EA published an impressive library of games, including: M.U.L.E., Bill Budge’s Pinball Construction Set, Archon, The Bard’s Tale, Populous, Wasteland, The Immortal, Marble Madness, and The Faery Tale Adventure among many other classics. EA also built its own in-house development studio, mostly known for its sports games such as Dr. J and Larry Bird One-on-One, Bulls vs. Blazers and the NBA Playoffs, and the precursor to the now ubiquitous Madden series - John Madden Football.

By 1990, EA began porting its already award winning library of PC, C64, Apple, and Amiga games to the Sega Genesis and Nintendo Entertainment System. According to Gamasutra’s interview with Hawkins, the decision to begin developing and publishing for consoles was a major direction change for the company:

“It was very contentious because many employees and developers did not like consoles, or did not like action games,” he said. “The goal was to stop making esoteric products for an elite customer base, and go make it in the big-time with mainstream gamers. Several employees were outraged and quit, but I convinced the team that if the public chose to buy consoles like the Genesis, then to satisfy our customers we had to make the best games possible on the platforms chosen by the public, not the ones our engineers wished they could afford.” 

Pictured above: Cover art from the classic Archon. Note the relative size between the developers’ names and EA’s logo. That size ratio will change, very very soon.

The move from the esoteric to the mainstream, as I see it, indicates a shift of understanding games as an art, to understanding them as a product potentially purchasable by a large audience. Although it may appear to be only coincidence, during this time EA also moved from the unique 45-rpm vinyl record album-style game cases, toward the traditional boxes we recognize today.

The Escapist article paints a much less sympathetic picture of Hawkins however,

As one example, EA had filed a frivolous lawsuit against Origin. Forced into a costly out-of-court settlement, Origin execs asked Trip Hawkins why he had allowed the suit; he responded, “This is just business. This is the way we’re going to win.”Furthermore, EA was all about marketing. For Hawkins the question was never, “How good is this game?” It was always, “How can we sell this?” 

The move toward developing for consoles also came with a shift in publishing strategy. If you examine EA’s software library from 1989 onwards (thank you Mobygames!) you start to see the first appearance of in-house developed sequels such as Skyfox II, Archon II, Starflight 2, Fountain of Dreams (sequel to Wasteland), Chuck Yeager’s Advanced Flight Trainer 2.0, and Skate or Die 2. However, it should be recognized that at least until the mid-1990’s the number of sequels EA developed was far outnumbered by the original titles it was publishing - this too would change as we will see.

It is in this time that Hawkins stepped down to found 3DO, and appointed Larry Probst as the new CEO of Electronic Arts. It might be surmised that Probst’s interests in video games only seemed to extend as far as their potential profitability. The following excerpt from an interview with Probst is rather revealing:

Q: Did you ever dream of making video games? Can you tell us how you got into this?

A: The answer is no because video games didn’t exist when I was growing up. I started my career in the packaged goods business. I worked for six or seven years for Johnson & Johnson and another couple of years for Clorox. The video game business started to emerge in the late ’70s with the Atari 2600. I was recruited into the business in 1982 by a company called Activision, which in those days was the Electronic Arts in the business.

Q: What game do you play most, and do you know all the cheat codes?

A: No, I don’t know the cheat codes. And to be very honest, I don’t spend a lot of time playing games. I spend a lot of time watching people play games. My most favorite games tend to be the ones selling the best at that moment. So right now, my favorite game is Fight Night.

Q: So you don’t play the games yourself?

A: Occasionally. I’m not somebody who spends 20 hours a week playing video games, but I spend a lot of time looking at products.

These quotes were not cherry-picked for mere effect: Probst has always shown a disinterest in video games as a medium, and treats them purely in terms of marketing and profitability. Richard Garriott said of Probst, “Larry Probst was often not supportive of the things I was doing, but I respect Larry because he was always clear, rational and consistent in his lack of support” - not quite the picture of a visionary publisher that one would hope for as a struggling developer.

The Acquisitions

Under Probst, EA began a series of high-profile development studio acquisitions that eventually led to the rather twisted and painful demise of Origin. Within months of acquiring Origin, the management at EA began putting pressure on the developer to meet corporate deadlines - a business practice that ultimately led to the publication of unfinished or unpolished games such as Ultima VIII and Ultima IX according to Garriott in the excellent book Dungeons and Dreamers. Small-profit or original (”risky”) games were categorically left unfunded by EA; blockbusters and sequels would only get green-lighted. In the end, Origin would close up shop - its staff had lost faith in the company as EA shelved or cancelled their projects one-by-one to focus on more financially exploitable sequels like Ultima Online 2. Many of the developers left for greener pastures, and Garriott himself finally left founding Destination Games which later partnered with NCSoft to create Tabula Rasa.

But Origin was not the only company acquired by EA. A year earlier Distinctive Software (developer of Stunts and Test Drive) had been purchased - the major deal struck a death-blow to already struggling rival publisher Accolade who now had lost one of their major developers. The studio was renamed to “EA Canada” and later became EA’s largest studio, employing over 1000 people. The studio would no longer produce any original titles, and instead became the developer of many of EA’s sports series, such as NBA Live, FIFA, NHL, SSX, and Need for Speed.

Pictured above: You can practically feel Larry Probst’s fingers sinking into your heart, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom-style. (Box art for Populous courtesy of Mobygames)

In 1995, Bullfrog Productions (developers of classics such as Populous, Theme Park, Syndicate, Dungeon Keeper, among others) was purchased by EA. According to a Business week article,

After Bullfrog, the acquisitions went into rapid fire, at least one a year, nearly every year: Lost in L.A. developer Manley & Associates (1996); Maxis (1997); Westwood and Tiburon (1998); pioneering online developer Kesmai (1999); Dreamworks Interactive (2000); former Sega Sports studio Black Box (2002); racing game developer Studio 33 and PC port master NuFX (2003); Criterion (2005); and three more studios this year: JAMDAT Mobile, Mythic, and DICE. 

Of those companies, almost all would either close or be renamed under the “EA” umbrella, and few would continue to develop original titles in the spirit of their founders. Westwood and Maxis, famed for their originality and visionary game designs, were relegated to parts of the EA machinery that put out sequel after sequel based on the new intellectual property they acquired. Both of these studios would be eventually closed and their capital/human resources redistributed to other existing EA studios - Westwood was absorbed into EA Los Angeles, and Maxis was eventually absorbed into EA’s Redwood Shores HQ. Of the two companies, only SimCity developer Will Wright survives as a remnant of his company’s former glory.

EA Under Riccitiello

With the replacement of Larry Probst as CEO in 2006, there has been a brief glimmer of hope for EA. According to the New York Times, EA’s new CEO John Riccitiello has promised a whole new corporate structure and game development strategy,

“If the E.A. of four years from now isn’t a bunch of properties you haven’t heard of on a bunch of business models that aren’t familiar to you,” Mr. Riccitiello said, “and if most of them can’t be picked up the first time by your mother and she can’t have fun with it, we won’t be the company I want us to be.”  

In short, Riccitiello sees the future of gaming in the casual games sector - a relatively untapped audience so far, apparently due to the complexity of the current games. But what does that mean? Is Riccitiello serious about a move toward innovation and original titles?

Partly. And this is why it is important to understand his vision in terms of EA’s history. Riccitiello is in fact making the same decision that Trip Hawkins made back in the day - that in order to reach broader audiences (and higher market penetration; profits), EA had to open itself up to new territories. In Hawkins’s time it was video game consoles, in Larry Probst’s time it was corporate growth through acquisition, and now Riccitiello has recognized the financial potential of the casual gaming market. The “innovation” that Riccitiello envisions only exists insofar as it broadens the potential audience that can play games, and ultimately lead to even more market dominance by EA. Nowhere in his vision is a commitment to improving the overall quality of games for the sake of quality alone. Riccitiello, like Probst, was never a game developer nor gamer, and his interest in games is purely in terms of product marketing and sales. He’s a Coca-Cola salesman, through and through.

What kind of evidence do we have that Riccitiello will not change much about EA’s business strategies? The clearest evidence came from this week’s closure of the EA Chicago studio which was responsible for the original titles Def Jam and Fight Night. In an internal e-mail posted earlier this week, President Frank Gibeau (an old managerial holdout from the early Probst-led days) had this to say:

“Within the EA Games Label, we are committed to running each franchise and facility as a city/state, teams with unique creative identities as well as responsibility for product quality, ship dates and profitability….Unfortunately, EA Chicago hasn’t been able to meet that standard….Closing EA Chicago is the toughest decision I’ve made in my career - one that in no way reflects on the talent and dedication of the people who work there.” 

Pictured above: Box artwork for The Immortal. Don’t fear the reaper - it’s just a job after all, right?

And, the same day, EA announced their quarterly earnings as well as the future closure of several of its other studios,

… EA’s Board of Directors approved a plan of reorganization on October 29th in connection with the reorganization of EA’s business into the new ‘label’ structure. Over the next two years, EA anticipates closing certain facilities, including EA’s studio in Chertsey, England; relocating and/or eliminating certain job positions… 

In response to the planned closures and losses, Riccitiello had the following to say:

“Our strategic priorities on quality, innovation and managing cost are showing progress,” … “Highly accessible new properties like Skate and MySims have broken through with consumers and EA Sports continues to deliver great experiences on every platform. We’ve also announced a restructuring as part of a plan to better align cost with revenues.” 

In short, it is clear that Riccitiello is following quite carefully in the footsteps of his forefathers and will do nothing to upset the corporate modus operandi that began with Hawkins’s move into console gaming. But how then do BioWare and Pandemic fit into this picture?

The Future of BioWare/Pandemic

From the preceding text, it should be clear that BioWare and Pandemic fit very well into EA’s ongoing plans for monopolization of all gaming markets. EA’s CFO Warren Jensen has said himself that BioWare and Pandemic are the missing corporate pieces that will allow EA to finally penetrate the RPG and adventure game markets; to him the acquisition is part of “an important step for [EA] in driving growth and profitability.”

The implication here, however, is that BioWare and Pandemic now face the same financial constraints that now-defunct EA Chicago faced under the EA Games label: produce something profitable, or we’ll shut you down. This should be especially worrying for fans of these companies - EA paid almost $800 million for the companies and will be looking to recoup these losses as soon as possible, especially given the recent financial strains I spoke of earlier.

While many hail BioWare’s upcoming Mass Effect as another must-be hit, it is very important to recognize that the company itself has had a major shift in its interests: Mass Effect will only be published for the XBOX 360. That choice should stand in particular contrast to BioWare’s long-standing commitment to publishing their games for both consoles and PCs. In essence, BioWare’s new console strategy (Mass Effect 2 and 3 have already been announced) fits perfectly into EA’s strategies: making old genres more ‘accessible’ and bringing them into new markets.

The following comment from an Swcollect mailing list subscriber also pointed out some potential problems that BioWare may face in the future:

Please don’t forget that Bioware’s “cashcow” had always been AD&D. When Atari got the rights of AD&D and gave them somewhere else (Obsidian, for Neverwinter Nights 2), the attention went elsewhere.[Knights of the Old Republic] was a decent profit as well, but will Lucasarts let Bioware keep the rights now that they’re part of EA? 

In that light, what kinds of outcomes might we expect in the next 5 years? Based on the account I gave earlier, some of the following situations are plausible:

• EA will relocate either the Edmonton-based BioWare studio to Vancouver (merging into EA Canada), or collapse the Austin-based Pandemic offices into a nearby EA-branded studio, as part of their current financial restructuring plan.
• EA may front large sums of cash to BioWare in the hopes of producing a mass-market subscription based MMORPG that directly competes with Sony and Blizzard’s blockbusters. If the project runs over budget, or takes longer than anticipated, BioWare/Pandemic will be held responsible for the overruns.
• After producing a few lukewarm niche successes for the next 3-4 years, Riccitiello will become uneasy about BioWare’s financial output. The studio will be pressured to produce titles with shorter development cycles and wider mass-appeal. This is perhaps already congruent with their interest in publishing Mass Effect only for the XBOX 360.
• If any of the aforementioned business techniques do not staunch the financial wounds, EA will resort to its default corporate behaviour and BioWare/Pandemic will be closed and their employees will be redistributed to other EA studios. The developers uncomfortable with EA will leave both companies and form their own rival studios focused on niche games, and join the industry ecology of upstarts-buyouts-shutdowns that has typified the gaming industry of the last 20 years.

Pictured above: The festering corpse of the Sonic the Hedgehod license was recently revived by BioWare who will be producing a Sonic RPG for the Nintendo DS.Image courtesy of House of Nintendo.

With that in mind, it is foreseeable that EA now has a potential timebomb in its hands. Of Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Mercenaries 2, and the unnamed MMO, only one of those games are sequels; the rest are original titles that have not yet been tested against a rather unreliable audience. Despite BioWare’s rather ardent fandom, their expensive Jade Empire project drew nowhere near the kinds of crowds that their Star Wars and AD&D-licensed games did. If Mass Effect or Dragon Age suffer from the same kinds of mediocrity, BioWare/Pandemic may in fact become an $800 million notch in EA’s bedpost. However, if any of these games meet even moderate successes it is quite clear that EA already intend to milk every sequel possible out of them - when has EA ever called it quits on a financially successful franchise?

In the end, I’m left conflicted with the way I’ve painted things here: if BioWare/Pandemic are financially successful their games will become increasingly mainstream and casual. However, if they do try to push innovation and originality and aren’t met with the kinds of profits that are expected of high price-tag budgets - EA will likely shut them down within the next 5-7 years.

Dragon’s Lair has always drawn serious polarities from gamers - some people (like me) have fond memories of dumping $20 worth of quarters into it at the local arcade; others find the game unforgiving or simply unrewarding. According to the source of this news clip, the game has both a “classic” 1983 mode that is identical to the original game, and a new mode that makes use of the DS’s stylus and microphone.

Happy Halloween from the Artful Gamer!

This year I had the opportunity to carve some very gamesy pumpkins. Unfortunately, the trick-or-treaters we had were almost all under 6 years old, and didn’t recognize most of these games/characters (one kid recognized the pumpkin on the far right though!). We had 45 kids this year - definitely better than last year when it was 15 below celsius and snowy.

That being said - the Artful Gamer is holding a special Halloween contest. If you can guess the three games represented in my pumpkins correctly, I’ll enter you into a draw. The winner of the draw will receive one of three downloadable games from the Introversion Software online store (valued at approximately $20 USD). You can choose between Defcon, Darwinia, or Uplink. I own all three of these games in fact… and each definitely has a unique charm. Let’s continue to support indie game developers - especially the good ones!

Entries will be accepted from now until Midnight, Friday, November 2nd (GMT - 7). That gives you 2 full days to figure this out. E-mail your contest entry to: chris {@t} artfulgamer {d0t} com

The winner will be announced on Monday, November 5th. Thank you for continuing to read AG - your support and comments keep this site alive and well.

Why don’t mainstream media outlets like Time and the NYTimes get video games? Why do they so regularly and predictably fail to get beyond the worn out Pong / Pac-Man / Mario reference points?

I think it’s because most of them rely on a 19th century model of journalism that continues to define what the news looks like today. Journalists and editors tend to use three basic criteria when determining what they will deem “newsworthy” - conflict, novelty, and prominence. J-School 101 dictates that a story about a video game is worth writing only if it meets one or more of these standards. {more here}

And not to mention prolific! Somehow he manages to pump out an article every day. His articles cover the entire gamut of video game culture - from mainstream games, to indie games, design and production, artwork, storytelling, politics, and (you’ll find) … his loathing for Halo 3 (agreed!). And mostly importantly - it’s refreshing to find an academic who actually has a history of playing video games [and still plays regularly] and is not just a ‘ludological theoretician’!

Anyhoo, I’m not trying to up-sell you here - The Brainy Gamer speaks for itself and I’m enjoying the reading so far.

As for the Artful Gamer - I apologize for the large lag between posts. I’ve been recruited to serve as the Best Man at a wedding for a friend of mine, and those duties (aside from marking 10000 midterm exams) have obliterated my opportunities to write. Coming soon is my review of Ultima VIII: Pagan, an interview with the creator of now-defunct indie MMORPG “Omega Syndrome”, and a short article on pencil’n'paper roleplaying games.

This news has been covered by plenty of other news organizations, but I thought I’d mention it here for anyone that came by to read my interview with Stephen Emond. Furthermore, I am reviewing a copy of the book, Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture, from Geek to Chic - the book features Richard Garriott quite prominently throughout (the review should be posted in a week or two).

From Gamasutra:

Space tourism firm Space Adventures announced today that ‘father of Ultima’ and current NCSoft exec Richard “Lord British” Garriott, son of former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, has begun preparations for a “commercially active” mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

Although it was rumored by Wired writer John Borland that the trip might be sponsored by NCSoft as part of a marketing campaign for Tabula Rasa, the Korea Times later confirmed that he will not received any funding from the company,

… NCsoft confirmed that Garriott will fly to the International Space Station (ISS) in the fall of 2008. But he will not get any money from the firm and will have to finance the project by himself, it said.

“It is a personal affair (of Garriott). We decided not to participate in the program,” NCsoft’s spokesperson Kim Ju-young said.

There is now even an official Richard Garriott’s Space Mission web site that will chronicle his trip into space. I guess when you’re spending $30 million on a space vacation you might as well advertise a bit.

This is all well and good, but crucial questions remain: Where will Richard find enough Tri-Lithium to power the rocket? Will he find Planet X and Father Antos?

(if you got that joke, you are truly truly geeky)

Chris - I didn’t catch on to the Ultima series until I was in grade school, and got severely hooked playing Ultima VII: The Black Gate on my 486. What was your first Ultima experience?

Stephen - My very first Ultima was Quest of the Avatar on the Amiga. To this day it remains my favorite game of all time. That’s not to say later Ultimas didn’t improve upon what made Ultima IV so incredible but I still regard it as the ‘soul’ of the series, the game that truly defined Ultima.

(Editorial note: For those who have not yet had the pleasure of playing Origin’s seminal Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, or simply need a refresher, I strongly suggest reading either Scorpia’s review or the review at Mobygames for exemplary analyses of the game. These reviews demonstrate just why Ultima IV remains to be a capstone of novel and meaningful RPG design and storytelling, even 20+ years later. It can be played on a variety of systems thanks to the XU4 emulator, available free here.)

Chris: I have fond memories of sitting for hours exploring the catacombs in Ultima VIII, and the jungle in Savage Empire, and the vast dungeons of the Stygian Abyss in Ultima Underworld. Do you have a personal favourite in the series, and if you do - why? Has it withstood the test of time?

Stephen: Now THAT’s a tough question… So many aspects of the series appealed to me. Each game had its own unique charms that I will always look back on fondly - even the less popular games like Pagan (and I played it *before* the patch). I really enjoyed exploring all the worlds… In fact for Ultima I-IV I mapped everything - every world, every town, every dungeon. The Ultima I Sosaria and Ultima IV Britannia maps are HUGE.

If I had to pick one thing that really stood out for me though it would be the belief systems. While the Britannian Virtues are the most commonly known, almost every Ultima from Exodus on had at least one unique belief system. The ethical dilemmas you encounter during your quests really set the games apart for me. It wasn’t a matter of absolute good or evil, it was about the many shades in between.

Chris: What inspired you to write an Ultima collector’s guide? The series certainly has a tendency to produce fans and collectors… I even have a sizable collection on the bookshelves of my basement. Is there something specific about Ultima, say - compared to the Might and Magic series, or the Wizardry series - that invites rather ardent fandom?

Pictured above: A few shots from Stephen’s stunning Ultima/Origin Systems Inc. Collection.

Stephen: I’m a collector by nature so over the years I’ve collected quite a variety of things… Gaming being my biggest passion it was only natural for me to focus on that. I currently have over 3500 games spread across almost every gaming platform. Of all of them Ultima remains my favorite, and not just because they were such outstanding games. Most game collectors would agree that Origin consistently went above and beyond when it came to packaging and contents, particularly with the Ultima series. Beautifully detailed booklets, cloth maps, and meaningful ‘trinkets’ from Ankhs to Moonstones were the norm. With most games (then and now) you’d be lucky to find that in a special collector’s edition.

As for starting the guide, one thing that really struck me was the lack of collecting resources available for video games. Sports cards, comics, coins, stamps, toys… Almost every other collectible out there has a wealth of information available from checklists to grading systems to price guides and more. Mind you since I first began my guide information has become more readily available, but even now it’s almost exclusively limited to the internet. Being a completist I wanted to dig deeper than the standard information and find all the variations and obscure items that most people would never bother with. It was a project I really started for my own benefit but will hopefully be useful to most Ultima collectors.

Chris: (And of course, I have to ask) - What was it like meeting the Ultima game developers like Garriott, Spector and Loubet at the Videogame Archive fundraiser? Given that these folks have been more-or-less idolized by fans and gamers for over 20 years, was there anything about them that you found particularly surprising?

Stephen: It was huge for me just to have the chance to go to Austin and meet the developers I’d idolized for so many years - but for them to not only know ME but to be impressed with MY work… it was almost surreal. In the course of my book I’d emailed a couple of them in the past, but it was great to actually shake their hands and talk to them in person. Between the UT fundraiser, the Tabula Rasa pre-launch party and the Austin GDC I got to meet:

Pictured above (left to right): Warren Spector, Richard Garriott, George Sanger, Bill Bottorff, and Stephen Emond. Bottom right: A copy of the book! (image courtesy of the UT Videogame Archive)

Richard Garriott (’Lord British’), Warren Spector, George Sanger (’Fatman’), Starr Long, Denis Loubet, Sheri Graner, Billy Cain, Mike McShaffry, Robin McShaffry, Caroline Spector, Chris Launius (’Binky’), David Watson (’Iolo’), Michelle Caddel (’Mariah’), Paul Sage, Tim Cotten (UO Dev), as well as April Burba (’CuppaJo’) and most of the people at Destination Games (Richard Garriott’s new company currently developing Tabula Rasa).

They were all outstanding and made me feel right at home. Lord British was of course the star of the show so I only got to talk with him briefly but I did get the full tour of the amazing Britannia Manor.

Warren was awesome, he even wrote about me in his blog! According to Fatman he’d spent quite some time searching through my guide to find anything I missed but couldn’t come up with anything

Fatman was kind enough to help me get through the swarm surrounding Richard and Warren so I could talk to them before the main event started. He put on a great performance with his group ‘Captains of the Chess Team’.

Denis invited me to the launch party for his new company’s game “Fireteam Reloaded”.

Billy Cain invited Joe Garrity (curator of the Origin Museum) and me over to his house to go through some of his old Origin artifacts.

Spending the afternoon with Iolo (David Watson) was everything I could have hoped for. He is incredibly diverse and fascinating to listen too - they captured his character quite well in Ultima. He had numerous stories of a young Richard Garriott who had just joined the SCA. After I toured his workshop (and played with his crossbows) he presented me with my very own crossbow bolt - which he pulled from a quiver he made for Sentri He even pulled out his lute and played Stones for me, with the seldom heard lyrics no less… I really have to thank Joe for letting me tag along and asking Iolo to give me the full package tour

Starr was really cool too, I talked with him about Tabula Rasa and assured him my Ultima Online book was on the way.

April (community manager for Tabula Rasa and all around amazing woman) gave me the full tour of Destination Games / NCsoft. Very cool - ESPECIALLY the Hall of Ultima. I think the janitor had to mop up a little drool afterwards but that’s ok. ALL the original Denis Loubet cover arts, prototype maps, gold disk sales awards… I even got to pet D&D #1

Needless to say it was an experience I will *never* forget.

Chris: Warren Spector said on his blog that he’s looking forward to reading your book when it’s done - what kind of response have you gotten from those who have seen an advance copy so far?

Stephen: So far only three copies exist (mine, a copy I presented to Richard and the one auctioned off at the fundraiser). As such exposure has been somewhat limited. The feedback I did receive though has been quite positive and enthusiastic. Considering it came primarily from former Origin legends and the Center for American History (who requested another copy as reference material for the archive itself) I really couldn’t ask for higher praise. I just hope other collectors will feel the same way if they decide to get a copy.

Chris: Hell, I could go on forever here. So maybe just one last question - have you secured a publisher for the book? When can we hope to get our grubby hands on one?

Stephen: I’m working out the final details now but it should be available very soon. I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

Stephen ‘CmdrFalcon’ Emond is the Tabula Rasa Managing Editor over at Tabula Rasa Stratics. You can find out more about Ultima: The Ultimate Collector’s Guide and other books at his web site.

This of course begs the question, what does he mean by ’success’? Just as the Hollywood film industry and the North American record industry buried their heads in the sand when confronted with poor sales figures, the mainstream game industry blames production processes, business practices, and marketing techniques for mediocre sales, instead of taking a cold, hard look at the quality of the MMORPGs being released.

With that in mind, the “critique” that psychochild offers is rather illuminating: ¹

1. Your game suck? Throw money at it. You’ve got tons.

2. Don’t make a game - make intellectual property. That sells.

3. Have 20 years of back-catalogue handy to force your next turd onto the shelves.

4. “Enjoy total freedom” - have so much corporate clout that you can bully your publisher into accepting any release date.

5. “Lie with statistics” - fool your audience into buying your game, because good games don’t sell themselves.

I apologize if this comes across as being terribly cynical, but it is frustrating to watch the mainstream game industry attempt to re-invent itself using the same dead corporate ideas that got the industry into a creative slump in the first place. It is especially worrying when these ideas come from industry representatives that claim to be concerned with re-inventing the medium in closed-door invite-only conferences. Of course, the author is only the messenger here and it doesn’t make sense to point the finger at him alone, but the message we’re hearing is pretty clear: we still haven’t learned anything from WoW.

Pictured above: Big, dumb, and powerful beast. Barely visible: Creative innovation.

Nowhere have I see an analysis of World of Warcraft that questions its value in the game industry, and the creative advancement that it has brought to gamecraft as a whole. Instead, analyses of the game focus on financial success as the ultimate standard, and only demonstrate the ongoing irony of an industry that howls, “we must innovate; push the creative envelope!” while quickly balking at designs that “might not sell”.

If the industry is so concerned with making a purse of a sow’s ear, the first thing I’d like to see are experimental, dangerous, creative exercises; not evolutionary expansions of the same recycled gameplay/stories/genres that I’ve been playing since 1981.

That’s not to ignore the fact that giant, meandering, beasts of companies with hundreds of employees do have to release some sort of game with financial targets in sight, but as I’ve said before - these financial concerns can only be taken into account after creative considerations have been fully realized.

¹(Keep in mind that the point of psychochild’s article isn’t to critique creativity in World of Warcraft - but it is noticable that the only lessons he covers are financially-driven. I would be interested in reading the possible creative/revolutionary game ideas that he sees in WoW.)