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“Thinking back on the last couple of years, there were [so] many smartphone games, that it seemed people had forgotten about the artistic or high-definition games.”
– Veteran game dev Tetsuya Mizuguchi, speaking about the recent history of the Japanese game industry.
Japan has long played host to a vibrant game industry, but in the past two years it seems devs in the region have had a string of international hits, ranging from Persona 5 and Nioh to Nier: Automata, Resident Evil 7 and Breath of the Wild.
That’s the premise of “Ebb and Flow”, a new documentary published on YouTube this week by Archipel (the folks behind the Toco Toco series of videos profiling notable Japanese creators) that aims to explore the past, present and future of Japanese game dev.
If you’re at all curious about the topic this is well worth a watch, as it features conversations with everyone from Rez creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi to Yakuza series frontman Toshihiro Nagoshi and Nier: Automata director Yoko Taro about why the Japanese game industry is changing, and how Japanese devs work differently than some of their counterparts abroad.
“The development environment in the West is more systemic than it is in Japan,” says Taro (via English subtitles) at one point. “Every job is clearly assigned, middleware is streamlined, and everyone has learned how to use it. Level designers know exactly what they need to do. It’s designed in a way to curb trouble from occurring. On the other hand, Japan has failed to form this kind of systematic environment, and we’re still in the stages of trial and error. ”
You can hear more of his comments, as well as input from other devs and the folks at Tokyo-based localization firm 8-4, in the full video.
When it comes to animating, every second counts. What better way to learn how to improve in-game animations and personal workflow than through rapid, rapid-fire succession?
In this GDC 2018 micro-talk session, animators Gwen Frey, Joe Han, Almudena Soria, Jalil Sadool, Kyle Chittenden, and James Benson deliver their best animation tips and tricks as fast as they can in 5-minute bursts.
Animators interested in learning as much as they can in rapid succession may appreciate that they can watch the full talk for free over on the official GDC YouTube channel!
In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.
Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.
Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas.
Why do some people experience motion sickness when playing VR games? Although it doesn’t happen every time a headset is worn, it’s an issue that still plagues VR developers. Before tackling the problem, it’s important to understand what exactly happens to the body when entering VR.
VR developer Suzanne Leibrick provides helpful information through a series of tweets for devs unfamiliar with how (and why) certain people experience motion sickness in VR, while clearing up some misconceptions around the phenomenon.
For starters, not all individuals will feel ill in VR, even if they’ve never put on a headset before. “One common misconception people have if they haven’t tried VR at all is that VR makes all people sick,” she writes. “This isn’t true. It’s also not true that all VR makes people who do get sick, get sick.”
Technology related motion sickness happens when your sense of proprioception (where your body parts are in relation to other body parts/the world) and your visual system don’t agree. This is what will cause some people to feel sick.
“So the first cause of technology sickness would be if your HMD display doesn’t track your physical movement and change accordingly very quickly,” Leibrick explains. “Your tracking system has to be good, but so does the system you’re running VR on. Remember, not only must I know where your head is, but display the relevant data to your eyes, too.”
There’s also content related motion sickness, which comes from motion where you have zero control over the camera. To combat this, Leibrick recommends teleportation as a movement system, or a joystick motion that goes forwards or backwards (although rotating through this motion may cause sickness).
Be sure to check out the entire thread here to learn more about what Lebrick has to say about motion sickness in VR — it’s worth the read!
It’s Friday! Let’s talk a bit about motion sickness in VR! Some common misconceptions, some (hopefully helpful) hints and ways to figure out what triggers sickness for you, and how to avoid it. Most likely not comprehensive, but I’ll do my best. Source – v. good at being sick!
— Suzanne 🔜 Embedded Vision Summit (@inannamute) May 11, 2018
The Gamasutra Job Board is the most diverse, active and established board of its kind for the video game industry!
Here is just one of the many, many positions being advertised right now.
Location: Bellevue, Washington
Are you looking to work in a creative and fun environment where you can work with a tight-knit team and have a big impact in creating a AAA game? Sucker Punch is looking for a self-driven Senior Environment Artist to use their strong modeling, texturing, and technical skills to inspire and create compelling worlds that push the boundary of gameplay, art, and story-telling on PlayStation 4.
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Interested? Apply now.
Whether you’re just starting out, looking for something new, or just seeing what’s out there, the Gamasutra Job Board is the place where game developers move ahead in their careers.
Gamasutra’s Job Board is the most diverse, most active, and most established board of its kind in the video game industry, serving companies of all sizes, from indie to triple-A.
Looking for a new job? Get started here. Are you a recruiter looking for talent? Post jobs here.
Twitch has filed a counter-complaint against the lawsuit filed by former <i>Counter-Strike: Global Offensive streamer</i> James ‘Phantoml0rd’ Varga, who sued the company nearly three months ago for damages after being banned indefinitely from the platform back in July 2016.
Varga was banned and his channel was removed after he allegedly failed to disclose his business ties to a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive gambling site (where players could gamble with weapon skins since they had monetary value), which he promoted during his streams.
In a lesser offense, Varga was warned by Twitch for violating its policy against “sexually suggestive content, content involving self-harm, and content involving racist symbols.”
As reported by Polygon, Twitch’s counter-complaint (which was filed on May 2) says it handled Varga’s ban properly demanding “an award of compensatory damages” for harm Varga brought upon the company and Twitch users. Twitch also stated that any supposed damages alluded to in Varga’s lawsuit are “vague, uncertain, imaginary, and speculative.”
The counter-complaint also argues that Varga was warned and received penalties a year in advance “for streaming content that violated his contract with Twitch, Twitch’s Terms of Service and its Rules of Conduct.”
Although the rebuttal doesn’t go into how much the company is looking for in redresses, Twitch is asking for compensatory damages and full coverage of legal fees throughout the duration of the case. A copy of the entire counter-complaint can be seen here.
“A friend posted a question on Facebook: are there any game devs who have actually, really retired? And my response: Who can afford to retire? I was only half-joking.”
– Laralyn McWilliams highlights some issues beyond crunch that the game industry needs to address
There’s been a considerable amount of discussion recently about the game industry’s willingness to embrace crunch and if game development unions could make a dent in the harmful habits accepted by many studios.
But, as longtime dev and Microsoft creative director Laralyn McWilliams argues, crunch isn’t the only problem developers should be talking about.
McWilliams shared her thoughts in a Twitter thread on some of the business-end shortcomings she’s picked up on through her own experiences and interactions with other developers, noting that in many cases game developers are in working situations that don’t provide them with retirement options, healthcare, or financial security.
“Don’t get me wrong: mandated crunch sucks. So does peer pressure crunch. So does sympathy crunch. We should be discussing this and working toward change,” McWilliams tweeted. “But retirement planning/funding and insurance (health, disability, life) are the big Indiana Jones rolling boulders of doom behind every game dev, even if you’re not aware of it yet.”
McWilliams notes that she knows developers that spent the bulk of their career bouncing between game development jobs following layoffs or contract work and, as a result, end up spending whatever savings they’ve built up trying to stay afloat between jobs. Her full thread dives deeper into these issues and offers developers an important look at what she describes as the “long-term” issues in the game industry right now.
I’m saying this as a dev over fifty, looking around me at other devs going into and through their forties. You may not be there yet… but you will be. And I very much want you to be able to retire, even if that just means going indie and making your own games.
— Laralyn McWilliams (@Laralyn) May 11, 2018
In the summer of ‘95 I blew more money and time than I’d care to admit trying to unlock the “secret ninja” that friends said lurked within the aging Mortal Kombat arcade cabinet at our local bowling alley.
20 years and a slew of sequels later, the latest Mortal Kombat game seems refreshingly upfront about the price you’ll pay to unlock its extra fighters – players on PlayStation 4 can “Press X to purchase Goro” right from the character select screen.
They can also pay ninety-nine cents to buy a pack of five “Easy Fatalities”, in-game items that can be spent to let players execute one of Mortal Kombat’s notorious finishers with a very simplified version of the (historically difficult) requisite button combo.
Every player gets a free “Easy Fatality” and more can be acquired just by playing the game, but players willing to pay money to make things a bit easier for themselves will find plenty of opportunities to do so in Mortal Kombat X. It’s not quite as crass as say, charging ninety-nine cents to let players jump higher — but you could see something like that from here, if you squint.
This is the sort of microtransaction that some free-to-play monetization specialists might call a “hard” boost; players pay a bit of real money for limited-use consumables they can burn to make the game easier for themselves.
And while free-to-play games like Candy Crush Saga have long relied on selling boosts as part of their money-making strategy, this is the first time they’ve appeared in a high-profile fighting game. Thing is, Warner Brothers Interactive is charging $60 for Mortal Kombat X — King gives Candy Crush away for free. Now, some fans are publicly venting their frustration at NetherRealm Studios for layering in microtransactions on top of the sticker price.
“When you pay a price like that up front, the feeling that you are being nickel-and-dimed for even more rubs a lot of people the wrong way,” observes long-time fighting game player and developer Seth Killian. “It’s like going to a nice restaurant, then having the waiter ask ten times if you want to add cheese for $1, a side-salad for $3, etc.”
“You’re free to say no, and maybe the meal doesn’t need any of that stuff to be good, but just the experience of having that stuff put in front of you can leave you feeling less happy about the experience overall.”
I talked about this issue with Killian and a few other folks familiar with both fighting game development and the business of game monetization because to me, this feels like a bit of a watershed moment in big-budget game design.
Not because F2P monetization systems are cropping up in a console game — EA was selling randomized weapon/resource packs in games like Mass Effect 3 and Dead Space 3 for real money years ago — but because NetherRealm is now allowing paying players to circumvent one of the hallmark mechanics of its flagship franchise: fiendishly difficult finishing moves.
As mobile game companies like Supercell continue to reap gobs of revenue on the back of F2P earners, publishers would be crazy not to push developers to implement similar monetization mechanics in premium games. But how far can we go in that direction without meaningfully compromising game design? Has NetherRealm already crossed that line?
The answer, at least according to the folks I spoke with, is no — not yet. But it’s getting close enough for discomfort.
“It’s really just cosmetic and for fun, and doesn’t ruin the game competitively,” notes competitive multiplayer game designer (and Gamasutra contributor) David Sirlin. “It has a strange feel to it, like it shouldn’t be a thing. I wouldn’t actually protest it though, just kind of shake my head in sadness at it.”
Competitive fighting games revolve around mastery — players learn to master executing basic moves, then climb a mastery curve by learning how to effectively use those moves against opponents while defending in kind.
Selling “Easy Fatalities” doesn’t interfere with that — you still have to beat an opponent fair and square before you can “finish him” — but it does seem to undermine the core focus on mastery that underpins fighting game design.
However, the driving force behind their inclusion in Mortal Kombat X is unclear; NetherRealm declined to answer my request for comment on the topic. Killian points out that these sorts of design decisions are often driven by the financial needs of the publisher, and that studios with popular established franchises — like Mortal Kombat — are often pressured to drum up sales in order to shore up their publisher’s bottom line as it experiments with other less well-known games.
“These demands can be a strain, especially if the team wants the core of their game to remain untouched, so you could imagine them sneaking it in at the edges with stuff that doesn’t directly affect the game,” says Killian, estimating that the addition of cosmetic and consumable DLC often boosts a game’s bottom line by anywhere from 5-40 percent. “They do their best to meet the publisher demands while leaving their core experience intact.”
It’s not hard to imagine NetherRealm enmeshed in a similar situation; Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon has already taken to Twitter to state that the makers of Mortal Kombat X would prefer players unlock in-game content by playing the game, rather than paying real money. And when you compare it to a free-to-play competitive game like Hearthstone, which is reaping beaucoup bucks selling randomized booster packs of cards that significantly affect gameplay, the monetization of Mortal Kombat X begins to seem almost laudible in its commitment to maintaining an even playfield.
“It’s so difficult to make even a fraction of the money you could make with an uneven playfield game, that if anyone is even TRYING to make a fair game and monetizing extra stuff, we should be supporting that,” adds Sirlin. “Yeah, this is a weird and uncomfortable example, but it beats the hell out of opening a random pack of Mortal Kombat cards [Kards?] that you can equip for +5 damage or something that would immediately render it as uneven playfield.”
And as monetization consultant Ethan Levy points out, Capcom — one of the more august names in fighting game development — already did just that in 2012 by building a system of performance-boosting gem power-ups into Street Fighter X Tekken and then selling extra gems as DLC.
The PR kerfuffle that followed was likely one of the (many) reasons SFxT sold less than expected; NetherRealm’s DLC experiment, by contrast, seems more sympathetic to the values of the fighting game community.
“[Easy Fatalities] do not affect game balance and were, in all likelihood, very cheap to produce,” opines Levy, predicting that they will “almost certainly make a positive return on investment” at a time when that phrase is more important than ever in big-budget game development.
“In a world where development costs continue to rise while the price of base games remains static, these sorts of experiments are just as necessary as cosmetic DLC, day one DLC and Season Passes have been over the past few years,” adds Levy. “I think easier fatalities gives a look at the new normal for AAA games. Over time, this type of in-game purchase will be so common that it’s mere existence will no longer make headlines on its own.”
Microsoft has rolled out the option for PC users to gift digital games and DLC through the Microsoft Store. The feature first hit Xbox One late last year and has now been extended to cover the PC side of the company’s offerings.
Other PC-based game storefronts like Steam and Humble have offered game gifting for some time, so Microsoft’s decision to enable the feature for its platform brings it in line with both its PC competitors and its own digital Xbox One game store.
Additionally, Microsoft has expanded the Xbox One’s gifting features to include all Xbox One titles, though Xbox 360 and Xbox Classic games on the store are still unable to be gifted.
From the PC Microsoft Store itself, players can choose to buy a game either for themselves or as a gift at the moment of purchase.
Many of the same restrictions from the Xbox One gifting system still apply. Preorders and free games are ineligible to be gifted, as are things like loot-boxes or in-game currencies. Each user can only gift two discounted games in a 14-day period and any gifted title is bound to the region of the purchaser, not the recipient.
I’ve rarely come across a video game where its subject determines the mechanics in such exacting detail.
NeoCab, Chance Agency’s forthcoming visual novel about driving a rideshare taxi à la Lyft or Uber, draws deeply on those companies’ gamified incentives for drivers to make the–perhaps inevitable–video game about the experience. Set in 2040, the action takes place in Los Ojos, a fictionalized cyberpunk California city. The point-of-view character–Lina Romero–is the last human driver in a town dominated by a rival firm’s AI-driven rideshares.
But to the extent that this highly narrative game has mechanics at all, they’re shaped by the job. Understanding this requires a slight digression.
At the risk of stating the obvious, real life isn’t a video game. The striking thing about so called “gig economy” occupations, however, is the way they blur that boundary quite deliberately. To look at Lyft and Uber’s “driver incentives,” for instance, is to see the logic of an MMO imprinted onto a real person’s working life. Consider the following post from a popular rideshare blog:
“Uber had this spectacular incentive where if you give 12 rides between 10pm-3am, you will be guaranteed $325. That is about $28 per ride and this was commission free, so that is take home pay. This seemed too good to be true and it was. Almost all drivers I spoke to couldn’t get 12 rides.”
Indeed, like a videogame with its fansites, the rideshare industry has spawned countless websites devoted to helping drivers maximize their returns and “win” the system. Complete 75 fares in Los Angeles and get 500 dollars from Uber; like an achievement, but with real money. Some of these incentives are even literally called “Quests.” Your car becomes a Skinner Box.
“We’re less interested in creating a character that players will empathize with than we are in creating a character whose empathy is core to her strength.”
But the most visible gamified aspect of rideshare, of course, is the star rating system, which any passenger is familiar with as it’s entirely for their benefit. Every driver is rated out of 5 stars, and earning that five-star rating is an overriding goal; if the rating slips to even four stars, a driver may find it impossible to get fares, or be locked out entirely.
This, then, becomes an overarching concern for Lina Romero in NeoCab. When an acquaintance contacts her in desperation, urgently requiring a ride out of a dangerous situation, Lina has to choose between denying her or cancelling on a passenger she just agreed to pickup–thus risking her five star rating. Doing the right thing here and helping the friend in crisis leads to a 1 star rating from the irate customer who explains “night RUINED.” Even playing this vertical slice, I found myself invested enough to silently pray that this choice wouldn’t cost me too dearly.
Creative lead Patrick Ewing described this in some detail as we discussed his team’s vision for the game. One tension here at play is the fact that Lina is the last human driver in the city; perhaps some of her passengers want a personal connection? Or, perhaps, just a real person they can boss around or even hurt. “How do the perverse incentives of something as badly designed as Uber/Lyft’s star rating system play into this dynamic? That’s the core of the gameplay – trying to survive and thrive a precarious world that thinks it’s post-scarcity, from an emotional and economic perspective.”
“We started talking to gig workers from the get-go – reaching out to our network of 1st and 2nd degree friends primarily,” he said, when I asked about the research that went into the game. “We talked to folks who’ve worked for Uber, Lyft, Postmates and Zesty, and these unbelievable stories just started pouring out. Touching, funny, scary, deeply offensive – gig workers, and rideshare drivers particularly, see it all. Some stories were so intense, I knew immediately they wouldn’t fit in a game like ours. But the overall message was clear- there is a wealth of human experience here.”
This is, in Ewing’s conception, a game about emotional labour: the ineffable, personalised aspects of a product that’s being sold. “Service with a smile” is, after all, marketable. But someone has to affect that smile; all day, every day. This isn’t exactly new, but the gamified gig economy has–as it’s done with so much else–taken longstanding business models and exaggerated them to Picassan dimensions.
NeoCab takes that one step further and extrapolates this into a future where emotional attachment is a resource all its own. The acquaintance I had to rescue was a passenger from earlier in the night, a fellow gig economy worker who spent her days in an exosuit layered over with holographic displays. Tension flared as Lina realised that what she’d thought was a genuine conversation with her passenger turned out to be a survey conducted on behalf of the Capra Corporation. By the end of the ride, however, at least with the dialogue choices I’d made, the two became fast friends–at least, after the exosuit was turned off. “Gig workers have to stick together,” she said.
Five stars, by the way.
The question lingered, however: what was real socializing and what was fake market-driven banter? Worse: would there be a meaningful difference in twenty years time?
***
But this is all, in many ways, a backdrop to one woman’s story which lead editor Paula Rogers insists is the focus of NeoCab. “Her relationships with the pax [passengers] and her missing friend, Savy, are far more important to her character arc than the economic situation of Los Ojos. Like anyone, her socioeconomic status shapes her experience, but it does not define her.”
The story Rogers paints is one that stands in contrast to an unfortunately pat analysis made in a Gizmodo preview of the game:
“Creative lead Patrick Ewing told Gizmodo a reason they chose a woman, specifically a woman of color, as the protagonist was because they are more vulnerable in the gig economy.”
Being Latina myself, I wrinkled my nose at this; I’m more than my ‘vulnerability,’ and certainly not interested in seeing fictionalized Latinas posed for tragedy porn. (The link that the Gizmodo journalist used to support her claim is, however, very much worth reading.)
Rogers and Ewing were both quick to clarify what they meant at some length and regret what had been lost in translation, however. “[Lina’s] power as a character is through her empathy and her ability to make emotional connections with the pax,” Rogers told me. “Our hope is that her choice to stay empathetic and open (to stay human) works as a kind of resistance to the economic and political forces in her world, and elevates her far above being a simple victim of these systems. So we’re less interested in creating a character that players will empathize with than we are in creating a character whose empathy is core to her strength.”
Rogers went on to describe the nature of that power and how she and her team of writers tried to express it. “We made decisions early-on to avoid creating anything that could be seen as tragedy tourism,” she said. “It’s an emotional survival game, but we always balance how terrible the world gets with how resourceful Lina is as a character. The challenges she faces aren’t designed to destroy her to prove a point about terrible systems, they are designed to let the player feel into this character’s power.”
The slice I played certainly gave me a sense of that. Tensions flared, Lina fought exhaustion, she put on a show for her passengers, and she ultimately succeeded at getting by.
“I didn’t want the lead character to be in the ‘majority’ position navigating all the strange ‘weirdness’ of another culture. I wanted our main character to be a part of the world in a deeper way.”
In describing the start of the “long, collaborative process” that settled on Lina Romero as a character, Patrick Ewing asked, “What kind of person is still working the night shift, listening to confessions from strangers, in 2040 when people are zipping around in little AI capsules? And Lina’s character began to take shape from there.”
“Her identity allows us to tell the story from a unique vantage point, and amplify voices that aren’t widely represented in games,” added Vincent Perea, the game’s art director. Mexican-American himself, Perea sought to help shape a character who reflected the women he grew up with, who had to “walk the line” between different worlds, between technology and humanity, or between different ethnic and national identities. “Also, on a more personal note, it isn’t often that you get to make your main character come from your own background, especially when you are not Caucasian. I certainly haven’t had the chance given the previous games I worked on. I knew I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to draw inspiration from such a personal place so that I could elevate it and talk about it.”
There was also a desire to push back against the tropes of cyberpunk that had defined its earliest iterations, which Perea characterized as “Caucasian people living in a world that has culturally collided with another culture,” citing Blade Runner as a key example of a fictional Los Angeles strangely devoid of Latinos. “I didn’t want the lead character to be in the ‘majority’ position navigating all the strange ‘weirdness’ of another culture,” Perea added. “I wanted our main character to be a part of the world in a deeper way.”
This all came as a relief to me, and it was buttressed in the game itself. There is, after all, a pratfall that white progressives are–dare I say–vulnerable to falling prey to: elevating or telling stories about minority groups that overemphasize intractable tragedy rather than the interplay of our humanity with hardship. Thankfully, NeoCab definitely looks to be the latter. Any “political” theme runs the risk overwhelming everything else, driving its ‘point’ home with thudding obviousness.
The mirror risk, of course, is a game that uses important and painful themes as mere window dressing to tell a banal story. But so far this appears to be a game that balances its various narrative and thematic ingredients with care.
There’s an art to these things that transcends a ‘message.’ NeoCab may actually have mastered it.
Katherine Cross is a Ph.D student in sociology who researches anti-social behavior online, and a gaming critic whose work has appeared in numerous publications.
