Tag Archives: RL

It’s okay to be Takei

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It’s things like this that make me wish I had grown up anywhere else. I grew up in TN. I went to school for 16 years in TN. As a very young kid my mother stressed to me “Never talk about religion and politics.” I was in 6th grade or so before I really understood. Like many other kids at the time, I was beginning to discover the world at large, picking up on fads, and really beginning to think as my own person. It was during a time when the Ying and Yang symbol became a popular “meme” though that terminology wasn’t used at the time. I bought a little Ying and Yang ring and wore it all the time. A woman at my church, well meaning I hope, lectured me about wearing a “sign of the devil”. When I said it was something about “Chinese religion” (yes, I am aware of how WOEFULLY unknowing I was) she replied that the devil used it that way to trick people into believing in him and all other religions were just his way of keeping people from God.

Seriously. I am not even kidding. Here I am, 12 years old, and THIS is the kind of thing I was being told by a “trustworthy” source. She was an elder of our church. She was my Sunday School Teacher. And she was not above giving me completely inaccurate information to support her own beliefs. The ends justifying the means and all that. Lucky for me, at 12, I had already realized that there were some adults in my life who weren’t as smart as me. So I did what every nerd does when confronted with conflicting information. I looked it up in the encyclopedia. (The equivalent to checking Wikipedia these days I suppose.)

All this leads to the deep and oppressive belief for some people that they are right, everyone else is wrong, and their complete certainty supports even the most heinous of acts, because the other person was wrong. These “well meaning” people are really just self centered, close-minded bigots who want control over everyone else. Sadly this mentality seems to be pervasive in the South. Maybe it is the excess of religion. Maybe it is the excess of poverty. Regardless, it is bothersome.

There is a mountain of evidence that supports that homosexuality is not a choice. (Yes, I linked the wiki article, you can see the references at the bottom of the article.) If the person is over the age of 18, it’s none of our business who they have sex with or even who they marry. How backwards is TN that there homosexuals are having to fight for the ability to TALK about themselves while in other states they are fighting for the right to marry? Stop this! It’s discrimination! All men are created equal! Regardless of whether they like men or women.

What makes this so much worse is that it is targeting kids. Sort of. My point is that here you have adolescents, growing and learning how to be people, and the State Senate is withholding information from them that might be vitally important. I was in 3rd grade when I first kissed a boy. I was in 4th grade when I first kissed a girl. I knew immediately afterward that I liked boys. It was that simple for me. But what if it wasn’t? I don’t think I ever told my mom I kissed anyone, but I know I talked to friends, and I remember talking to a teacher about it. Kids need to have people they can trust, with experience to either help them through their problems, or at the very least find someone who can help them through their problems. School sucks on so many levels. You are learning a ton of information. You are beginning to build relationships outside your family. You are beginning to worry about college, careers, and even becoming aware of the world and all the problems in it. Add to this the hormones, first periods (the male equivalent?), discovering the other sex, bullying, possible family problems, and sheer awareness and you have for someone of the most traumatic years of someone’s life!

So what is a kid supposed to do during this time to come out relatively unscathed? TALK. Oh that’s right. Talk to parents, talk to teachers, talk to guidance counselors. Talk to people they trust. Talk to people with experience who can guide them a bit. And in TN they are trying to take that safety net AWAY. Do I think it should be talked about every day in every class? No, but then I don’t think sex and violence should be either. But I am not the teacher. I am not the parent. I am not the one on the front line having to help a kid deal with their budding sexuality or help a class understand why Suzy has two mommies. Neither are these Senators. They need to educate their teachers, counselors, and administration on how to handle these situations with tact, wisdom, and grace, not make a legal argument that could land a helpful teacher in jail!

I never really thought much about George Takei before. I liked Star Trek, but I was always more of a Spock girl. When he saw the news on this, his first response was to offer up his own name as a replacement. It’s okay to be Takei. Instead of being gay, you can just be Takei. At this moment, I was not only suddenly a Takei fan, but I was also thrilled that someone with the public eye like him was willing to stand up and say, this isn’t right, and is in fact incredibly stupid, we will just circumvent your idiot law.

Ignoring the problem doesn’t make it go away. Not talking about it doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen or kids aren’t going to be gay. We never talked about it in my school, and yet three of my classmates are now openly homosexual, one of which is fighting for the right to get married. It’s going to happen. Teachers need to be prepared, not ignoring the elephant in the room. Who says “Ohhhhh myyyyyyy.”

The Best Job you will ever Hate.

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“Don’t come here if you think making games might be fun or cool. Don’t waste your time and money. Only apply if you can’t imagine yourself doing anything else.”

I learned Level Design at the Guildhall at SMU, a Master’s level program that focused on training and practical experience. The same professor who said the above, at the risk of having admissions kill him, also said that working on games was the “best job you’ll ever hate.” It is such an odd thing to say, but it was true. It’s the best job, and sometimes I hate it.

Spending 80 hour work weeks for 2 months only to have it universally panned by critics in addition to getting laid off?

Having to work on games like Imagine <Insert Random Profession Here>?

Knowing something is a terrible idea and having to do it anyway because the Publisher said so?

There is a reason the average burn out for developers is around 8 years. Spending more than 2 years at a single studio is uncommon. The average lifespan of a video game studio is 11 years.

It is common for developers to work 60-80 hours a week near the end of the project, to get it wrapped up and shipped.  The sad thing is, for most independent game studios the sales of the previous game go directly to fund the next one. If the game bombs, the studio could, and likely will, have problems getting deals with publishers to make their next game. For an owned studio, if the game bombs, they will likely be working on a less important title next, which won’t do as well, which starts the vicious cycle towards closure.

The business is about making money, so when a game doesn’t make money, it doesn’t get sequels. Why do some games get endlessly remade with only the smallest of changes? They make money. And as a game developer, you rarely get to just work on games you would love, but rather, because you need a job, so you work on Barbie’s Dream House Interior Decorating to pay the bills.

This video is true. People watch it, laugh and say, it can’t be that hard. It can’t be that bad. Oh but it is.

Breaking into the industry is extremely difficult. Staying in the industry is a feat worthy of Sisyphus. Becoming one of the big names is virtually impossible. You don’t get paid as well as you would in another field. You work twice as hard for half the credit. And the greater internet dickwads blast your game and call it crap without ever having played it. So either everyone in the video game is insane or extremely passionate about what they do, despite the many hardships they have to deal with to make games.

Gender in Video Games

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When asked to discuss this topic, I generally gravitate towards Women in the Game Industry, as opposed to Women Gamers. Today I did an interview for an article on gender and how it relates to women gamers, touching on the assault behavior towards women. It’s a complex topic. So too is women gamers and women developers, but in my mind, they are all interconnected and form a cycle.

The Mythical Unicorn

Any female gamer can tell a story of at some point where being a girl who plays games has attracted the wrong sort of attention. The belief in the rarity of women who play and enjoy mainstream video games perpetuates this myth and the responses. Start with a lonely guy that seems to be unable to find a girl who understands him. He likes books, movies, and video games. He meets a girl he thinks is cute, asks her out, and discovers that she couldn’t care less about these things that make up a majority of his passions and hobbies. She cares about clothes, shoes, celebrities, and makeup. Poor guy. Now he meets the one girl in his sphere of acquaintances that does like the things he does. She plays video games, she argues who is better Picard or Kirk, and she, miracles of miracles, revels in HIS knowledge of such topics. Queue the love at first geek scene. And suddenly this girl possibly has a problem. For some reason, lack of attraction, already taken, etc, she doesn’t want to date Lonely Guy. He tries to ply her with gifts, but despite the prevalent belief that women can be bought, it doesn’t work.

What is she to do? Break his heart? Be mean? Try to be nice, but knowing it is going to be awkward and likely will just “string” him along? It sucks for the girl. All she wanted was a friend to argue lore with! And unfortunately the skew of males to females makes this an incredibly common occurrence. Because of this women are more likely to attempt to hide their identity. By hiding their identity the problem is exacerbated and female gamers appear to be more rare than they really are.

We are not a mythical unicorn. Attend PAX Prime or PAX East and this will completely dismiss the belief that gamer women are rare. There are plenty of us running around. We just don’t like to tell people because they get stupid over it. Once I decided I would no longer hide my female status from WoW friends, I discovered something very surprising. Not only did “outing” myself lead to other girls being willing to do the same thing (it was quite a shocking day) but also we were able to develop friendships through our common trials and tribulations. According to various websites, though their numbers are speculative and not backed by Blizzard, it is believed that 1 in 5 WoW players is female. That’s alot of girls running around Azeroth.

The Greater Internet Dickwad Theory

Once people get on the internet, realize they are anonymous, they suddenly become a different person. Much like the Invisible Man changed radically when he realized he would no longer be punishable for his actions, so too do people on the internet believe they can say whatever without repercussion. This leads to XBox Live speak, Trolls, and all other number of wildly offensive things being said over public channels that would *never* be said to someone’s face.

Because of this truth, women often find themselves at the receiving end of extremely offensive behavior. I once had a guy in WoW tell me “Shut up b*tch. I will find you and I will rape you.” I recoiled in horror from my computer. It didn’t matter that this person had no idea who I was. It didn’t matter that I knew he had no way of actually hurting me. The fact that he would even physically be able to type that to a possible woman was appalling to me. I reported him, ignored him, and immediately left the guild (who’s leader responded with “well that’s just the way he is”).

For the most part however, I see these things as a new form of saber rattling, boasting, or puffery. It is a way for them to swing about their manliness. And just like in real life, I can be bothered by it, or I can ignore it. In WoW I generally ignore it and the player depending on what they say. On other sites I protect myself by having over protective security settings.

A Woman in a Man’s Field

Of course, my view of these social interactions is viewed from the eyes of a game designer. I work in a predominantly male industry. The last figure I read was 13% of the video game industry is female. This has been mathematically accurate, or lower, at every company I have worked at. Other than Guildhall women, of whom there are many, I have only met TWO other women designers in the industry. I spend most of my time with males.

The thing that always gets people is how much different I think than other designers, and they have problems realizing that most of my variant viewpoint comes from being a girl. It is different on this side of the fence. It gives me a different lens through which to look at games.

In my current game, we have a small number of female characters. I began attributing female characteristics and names to a few of the androgynous characters in an attempt to “pad” the number. Very soon after I noticed the guys followed my lead. Without a word they were willing to accept these characters as female, despite never having thought so before. When I pointed it out to a senior designer, he laughed and asked what did it matter? I pointed out the large difference in the number of female characters to male and he looked quite surprised. It never even occurred to him to think about equality in terms of sex among the characters. Needless to say, he even agreed it should be more balanced and made a point to start “female-izing” the androgynous characters.

Add to this the fact that at many of these companies I get to have “the talk” when I start working there. As if I haven’t been dealing with unwanted attention from guys for half my life. As if I don’t understand that if things get even remotely awkward I need to run, not walk, to my supervisor and nip it in the bud. As if I haven’t already had to have the conversation once where I was pressed on why I missed work and turned bright red as I explained menstrual cramps to a male. In fact it has become a rather large warning sign when I start at a new company only to find that they have a 3 hour presentation to go through about this sort of thing. Great, I can expect this to be a problem. (As a side note, there was no such talk at my current company and it was all I could do not to caper with glee.)

One step further, having to work on a game that has a woman in a metal bikini. People think it’s odd when I sigh at games that only include the mother, maiden, crone archetypes. Or the groan inducing things like in Uncharted 2 where every woman in the entire game is after Drake like he is coated in sex pheromones. They say, “But you play video games, you should be used to it. If you don’t like it, don’t make games with it in there.” I like having a job. I also like making games. You don’t always get to chose the projects you work on. It also confuses the guys I work with when I say, “Why can’t she be more like Lara Croft and less like Daphne (the princess/hooker from Dragon’s Lair)?” They immediately respond with “Lara Croft is exactly the stereotype you complain about!” A strong, brave, adventurous female that doesn’t spend her time chasing men but rather chasing history? Make her boobs as big as you want, she’s still awesome. And she is capable of having a relationship with a male that doesn’t assume sex.

The Cycle

The problem with all of these things is that they form a negative feedback loop. Women don’t play games because the traditional response of how to make a game for girls is “Pink it.” Women then don’t become game designers because they don’t play games, so it isn’t a career field they want to get into. Women aren’t the ones designing games, and so games don’t get made with women in mind as a valid market.

Add in that women and men view fun differently, seek different forms of enjoyment, and create different goals in games and the fact that it is hard for a guy to understand why his game idea didn’t appeal to women becomes very clear. There are not enough female protagonists in games. EA proved that games with female protagonists didn’t sell as well as games with male protagonists. I was stunned by their lack of ability to see that if you only have 20 games with female protagonists and 200 games with male protagonists, then it should be obvious that the male protagonists have had more chances to be in good games that sell well. Not to mention a female protagonist isn’t going to help if the game isn’t fun to women. They are still targeting a male audience and it is easier to connect with a protagonist of the same gender.

Why do MMOs have a better balance of men to women than other games like Call of Duty? Does it have anything to do with the ease of entry into MMOs? Or the ability to customize your character? That the design supports more cooperative play as opposed to competitive play? That MMOs are more social in a positive way than CoD? Or is it simply that the initial induction into an MMO, like WoW, is usually a hand holding one by a significant other, and this play style is supported, as opposed to CoD where it is a huge liability to play is such a manner?

I am a girl. I play games to the point I more than consider myself a gamer. I design games as a career, with the hope of making an enjoyable experience for everyone who plays my game, not just the target audience. I prefer to play a game I can take at my own pace. I prefer to play a game where I can play a female. Does this make me any different from any other gamer? Not really. Do I get treated differently because of the accident of my birth and my love for things outside of my social norm? Definitely. Should I, and do I want to be? Not at all.

The gender gap is closing. The social mores are shifting and games are slowly becoming mainstream. Every day some kid is turning 18 after a childhood of playing games and they aren’t chucking their Xbox just because they are an adult now. Every day another gamer family has kids or gets pregnant and plans how to raise their kid in the tradition of games. These issues will pass after time. And it will get better. After all, every year I have been in the industry, that percentage of female developers has gone up.

100 posts

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I really didn’t intend my 100th post to be a rant about entitlement and people not finding fulfillment in their lives because they are comparing themselves needlessly to others. But that’s how it turned out.

If it makes it any better I have like 20+ unpublished posts that are half written, or turned out to not really be interesting that I never posted.

But I have two great ideas… no make that three… for this week. Lets hope I keep up my posting throughout this year. As much as I don’t expect people to read this, it does make me a better writer. It also gives me an outlet to rant about things I feel are very silly.

Suck it up Princess!

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Honestly, I am sick of it. This “Age of Entitlement” mentality that people have assumed in the last decade or so.

As a kid I was taught the value of hard work and respect. I was always told if I wanted to go to college, I needed to study hard and get scholarships. If I wanted a car, I needed to get a job and pay for it. If I wanted something and it didn’t fall under the set of things my mother would purchase for me, I had to get it myself. That subset of items barely included Walmart clothing, shoes, and the occasional book. I didn’t have a phone in my room, much less a cell phone until I was in college. I didn’t get a car at 16, I had to use my moms, IF she would let me.

I didn’t feel entitled to anything. A teacher was there to help me learn, to teach me new things, but if I failed, that was my own fault not hers. If I misbehaved, that was my fault, not my mother’s.

Now there is this entire run recently of articles and posts about us “20 somethings who are remaining ‘adolescent.’ ” To which I say. Suck it up PRINCESS. Get over yourself. Get over the belief that we have to “accomplish” anything with our lives. They equate college and creative jobs with success. The idealized 50s home, family, and job with the American Dream. Well guess what? We grew up. We moved on. Our world advanced. Catch up or be left behind with the fossils who gripe about television and movies ruining people. We aren’t ruined. We are different. My mother’s goal in life was to get married, have children and get a stable job. That was the goals of her generation. Then she did exactly what parents are supposed to do. She instilled in me a sense of individuality, confidence, and drive to be more than she was.

If you want to accomplish something with your life, don’t expect someone to give you everything, tell you what to do, or how to go about it, simply DO IT. College degrees do not equal success, but rather drive and intelligence will propel you forward. It’s not our generation’s “problem”; it’s our playing field. We move from here.

The WSJ article calls out several things I want to directly address. First that we are not achieving these lifetime “milestones” within our twenties as our parents did. No we aren’t. The life expectancy of humans is slowly increasing, so logically it only makes sense that our “growth” model also increases. In addition, the number of young adults going to college today is astronomically higher. Unfortunately college has become an extended form of high school to many of those same people. We aren’t being forced to stand on our own feet as early as our parents did, but that doesn’t make us worse for it. When I asked my mother why she had children, in an effort to address my own desires, she responded with “I don’t really know. We didn’t think about it. We just had children. I guess I wanted someone to care for me in my old age.” My husband and I can’t decide to get a new tv without two weeks of debate, so is it at all surprising that something as life changing as children would spark years of careful consideration?

Our lives are not tied to reproduction anymore. Women are able to determine when, how and with whom they will have children, as opposed to being dependent on men to lead them. Our reproductive control has lead to our ability to make informed choices, and even to lead to the choice to not reproduce. A woman’s worth is no longer tied to her ability to mother and birth, but rather to her accomplishments and successes in the same fields as men. People are approaching their lives with consideration and thought as opposed to blindly following tradition and it is the best thing for us, because it is only once we have let go of such things that we are able to forge ahead in ways our ancestors and even people now can barely comprehend!

WSJ talks about jobs and the desire to succeed, focusing on how women are doing it more than men. Well, men do not have hundreds of years of oppression to overcome. Women still have this gigantic looming belief that we have to prove ourselves. So we do. In every way we can find. They discuss how people spend more time in internships and low paying jobs, which honestly is a logical step not at the fault of our generation but at the fault of the companies who employ us. A time was, people started working for a company and often spent their entire lives working for the same company. These days companies and employees no longer feel such a loyalty to each other and the likelihood is, we change jobs every 5 years or so. But does this matter? No. We are responsible for our OWN lives and accomplishments. Don’t rely on an employer to plan your retirement, but rather control it yourself and take responsibility for your lives.

Another thing that bugs me in the article about how we seek out to do our greatest passions for our careers as opposed to looking for jobs. It implies this is a bad thing. Yes, a job not in our field can be required to pay the bills on occasion. I worked at ToysRUs and Borders for 7 months between graduation and landing my “dream” job in the video game industry. But is there something inherently wrong with seeking a career in a field that is our passion as opposed to tradition? And what of it? Or dose this lead back to that blasted sense of entitlement that we shouldn’t have to do crap work before getting to the jobs we want to hold? People believe they are entitled to the reward without the sweat, sleeplessness, and stress of working towards it. If you aren’t willing to work to the bone for what you want, you don’t deserve it! Quit your crying! And just because something isn’t what you want to do or is a menial job beneath an idiot boss at an abysmal company doesn’t mean you should put any less effort into doing your job well. But perhaps this is why I was always promoted at my menial jobs quickly. Not liking a job isn’t any reason to do it any less than with your full devotion. Work at every crap job as if it were the best job in the world and you might just find yourself sitting in that cushy office looking down on the peons.

Don’t even get me started on their usage of video games as an “adolescent” indicator. As if video games are any different from TV, Card Games, Sports, or any other past time that beings as the providence of children until such a time as that generation becomes adults. The truth of the matter is the majority of regular video game players ARE ADULTS. They aren’t toys anymore, but rather complex simulations and computer programs designed for enjoyment.

The blog post, written by a writer I generally admire, goes on to say we aren’t doing these things because we live under the pressure to Accomplish Something Great. Get a grip on yourself. This desire to be famous and have the love, admiration, and adoration of the masses is a sense of rabid entitlement that needs to be purged from our minds. Yes, Mark Zuckerberg made Facebook and became the youngest billionaire ever. He will always be younger than me, thus I can never overcome his accomplishment. Do I care? NO. I get up every morning, go to a job I adore, do a great job at it, come home, play in raids with 24 friends (well 20 friends and 4 people I wish vanished from the face of Azeroth overnight), pay every bill on time, still have money left over to buy mini-pet TCG cards off eBay, and go to bed with a warm fuzzball curled up on my feet. I occasionally bake fantastic bread, grill amazing ribs, and eat an entire tube of Thin Mints. Does that make me any less worthy of praise than Mr. Zuckerburg? Not in the least. My mother is proud of me, my father is proud of me, and I go to bed at night knowing if I die tomorrow, I have accomplished something worth remarking upon. It may not be 500 million users, but 1.75 million people bought and played my game. Most of them hated it too. But where is their game? At the end of the day we should only look to OURSELVES for our measure of success. What have we overcome? What have we accomplished? Is it worthy of admiration and pride? Then job well done. You didn’t create Facebook? So? You raised 3 lovely, well behaved children, who are all doing well in school and show joy? Brava! Who can honestly ask for more than a sense of knowing you have done something amazing?

Our world has changed, and I don’t think any of us would say it hasn’t been for the better. The knowledge of mankind at our finger tips. The ability for our voice to be heard around the world by millions of people without ever leaving our homes. I play a video game with college students from Indiana, Marines in Japan, Marine Biologists in Alaska, video game developers in California, and mothers in Texas. It’s literally MAGIC. Advancements in technology, science and human understanding have lead us to a golden age, that is only being held back by people’s absurd desire to belittle each other, compare themselves to unrealistic figures, and false nostalgia that things used to be “better.” They weren’t. We are more intelligent, enlightened and capable than ever.

GET.OVER.IT. Don’t look to the past for your “guideline”. Look to the future. The world is changing at a rapid rate and if you stop to wonder about the bygone days you will find yourself an archaic leftover from such eras. You are entitled to nothing. Stop making excuses. Stop blaming our “generation”. Stop blaming society for your own shortcomings. We have more choices and opportunities than any other generation of humans. So quit sitting around and griping about what you are entitled (education, love, happiness, liberty, family accomplishment), set your own goals and achieve them. Be happy with YOUR accomplishments and quit trying to fit the mold, achieve the status quo, and striving for aspirations that are impossible. You are only accountable to yourself and responsible for your own future, happiness, and success.

As a kid my mother always congratulated me on what I had done, then pointed me to the next big thing. She always gave me the impression there was always something further to reach for and the only thing that would ever stop me from doing it was myself. In this age of entitlement and whining about how “bad” we have it, even when we really have it spectacularly well, I am grateful beyond measure my mother instilled such values in me that I am able to say, “Suck it up PRINCESS.”

14th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards

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So apparently all Activision developers are enrolled in the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. One of the things they do is like the Oscars, but for video games. As an Activision employee, I was enrolled (though it appears anyone who works in the industry can apply, which is pretty neat) and today received an email asking me to vote on the nominees to determine who would receive the awards for various areas. It’s a pretty neat idea and as games have moved into the area of art, they deserve the recognition.

However I have some issues with the entire process. First off, what pool of games is this pulling from? Minecraft is no where to be seen, so one assumes “indie” games do not count. Also there doesn’t seem to be any consideration given to the size and scope of games in comparison to each other. Angry Birds was a fantastic game. But does it in any way, shape, or form compare to Red Dead Redemption?!? The sheer scope of the games puts them in a different class from each other! (The movies have “shorts” much like this should really keep casual/small games in their own category.)

Second, when the academy votes on movies, they have to take time to view all the movies before voting, while there is no such ability to do so for these games. They ask you to cast votes on things you are certain of. So it is on an honor system. But then, I felt terrible because I had to pick a game with an outstanding soundtrack from a list of games I have never played. I ended up choosing the one that was a sequel to the game I felt had a great soundtrack.

Third, the nominees are heavily focused on about 4 games. Now to be fair, this *can* happen. Look at Lord of the Rings Return of the King. Or this year with The King’s Speech. The thing with the game nominations is that it really feels like people just took one game they played and nominated it for every spot, regardless of how appropriate it is. What this leads to is categories like Innovation in Game Play, where *none* of the games are particularly innovative despite the fact that there are games out there that were wildly innovative. Back to my Angry Birds example, it’s a great game, but physics is not particularly innovative. Half Life 2 did it how long ago? Boom Blox did the exact same thing how long ago? I ended up voting for Heavy Rain, despite the fact that I feel it isn’t really a “good” game because at the very least it tried to be innovative. (Not that quick time events are innovative, but at least the heavy weave of the story, the character outcomes, and such were mildly innovative, though the case can be made that Indigo Prophecy did it first without the quick time events.)

I like the idea of an awards show. Even the Spike awards as an idea appeals to me. But it needs to be a thoughtful consideration with clearly defined areas that allows all games to shine. Unlike movies, games can be wildly divergent and should be compared to their peers. Also the terms need to be clearly defined to the voters. There is a great deal of adjustment that needs to take place for these awards to truly mean something and to be fair.

I feel… anxious.

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I haven’t even had the VCR plugged in for the last 4 years or so. The hundred or so vhs tapes have just been sitting on two spindly media shelves taking up space in my hallway.

I boxed them up. I have the vcr ready to give away to someone tomorrow.

I feel… anxious. A bit upset. I feel like I am abandoning old friends. I mean seriously, how many times did I watch that copy of Lion King?

It’s a bit easier for the ones I have a dvd copy of. The buffy tapes, while heart twinging, went into the box much easier than Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer.

I just keep repeating to myself: You didn’t watch them. You don’t need them. You hadn’t watched any of those movies in 4 years. Look at your hallway, isn’t it pretty without all those shelves? I need to de-clutter. I need to purge the unused stuff. As soon as I had them boxed up I immediatly took the shelves out to the dumpster. (Hopefully they will find a new home.) I had to. If I had kept the shelves, I might have changed my mind. Too late now.

Deep breaths, small steps. I can do this.

Non-attachment

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Buddhism has this great part to it called “Detachment” or non-attachment. The extremely paraphrased idea is that we can lead holier lives by detaching ourselves from worldly things. The idea being that is we are not attached to something it’s loss does not cause us the pain and such that we would have if we were attached to it. By not having pain at it’s loss, we are less likely to engage in behavior that would hurt us and others.

When cleaning out my bathroom and back bedroom over the break, I, as always, had the thought… “Good lord, I have too much crap…” So, I cleaned, and didn’t throw out too much, though I chose a few things that headed out to the dumpster, or have been placed in a pile to be donated.  I kept thinking I should go through this and throw things away. I would hear this second voice in my head saying, “Well yeah, but later. If we stop to cull we will never get it clean.”

In true Ember fashion, I thought about it quite a bit, then promptly forgot. Until I did my weekly check of Lifehacker. Lifehacker is a great little Gawker Blog that talks about all kinds of tips and tricks to streamline your life. Due to the New Year, they were running articles on organization. One of the articles was a re-post from a minimalist who writes a blog that details how she lives a minimalist life. She had a list of 100 everyday things she doesn’t own. I thought, oh this will be interesting!

Turns out, not so much. She doesn’t own a couch, but instead sits on the floor. She doesn’t own a desk or computer chair, rather she sits on the floor and uses her coffee table as a desk. No kitchen table or chairs, they just use the coffee table. No tv, they use their laptops. No bookshelf, dvds, etc, they use their laptops. The further this went on the more I was like, “Well yes, that’s all very nice for you that your entire life can be packed into a car, but I am not in college anymore.” I like having my favorite books in physical media. I love snuggling down on my couch and watching a good movie. I like sitting around my kitchen table eating or playing board games.

But it got me thinking. What can I logically change to digital? What can I logically get rid of? One of the items MissMinimal listed was she didn’t have a stereo, so no need for that or cds. I have probably 100 or so cds. I generally rip them onto my computer, then toss them on the shelf. Occasionally a few sit in my car, but I always prefer to have the car copy be a burned one. So why keep cds? Why buy physical copies?

Well, my normal reasoning is that if my computer dies, I want to *not* lose my music. The thing is, I have a *ton* of music on my portable harddrive that isn’t on cds. So what I really need to do is do proper backups of my harddrive and portable harddrive and just nix the cds all together.

That’s gonna be hard for me. I like having things. I like having a physical item. But I need to do this. I can’t just keep collecting stuff forever. There are things that are great for hanging onto, but there is a great deal of stuff I need to cut out of my life.

The more I thought about it, the more I noticed a thing or two I wouldn’t mind not having anymore. I mean, do I really need that ceramic thing I painted back in college? Do I really need those 200 or so vhs tapes that I haven’t watched in 4+ years? I mean yeah, I still have a working vcr too. I should probably get rid of that too. I have a PS2 (one of the fat ones) that only works about half of the time. It is unreliable enough that we got a PS2 slim to replace it.

While I don’t agree with MissMinimalist, I DO agree with another poster who suggested the 1 In 2 Out method. The idea is that for every 1 thing you bring into the house, you take 2 out. At first, it’s really easy. As time goes on though, it gets hard. And you eventually reach a point where you stop buying new things that aren’t vitally important because you don’t want to have to take 2 things out!

Here’s to less unimportant stuff. I will try to remember to update back with what I do get rid of.

You know the single player game is done right?

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Once again, an idea from comments on a news post. Some goof ball commented that Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword had been completed, they were just drawing it out to extend the life of the console. Even the Picard-Riker double facepalm isn’t enough to cover that idiocy.

But it reminded me of the time David and I were in Borders, looking for an Iron Man collection. I had just been hired by Sega and was very excited to be working on Iron Man 2: the Video Game. I wanted to read the comic, at least a bit, so I would understand the world and the characters. I couldn’t find it, so when one of the ever so helpful employees walked by and asked if I needed help, I asked if he knew anything about Iron Man and if he did, could he recommend a few of the graphic novels for me.

As it turns out, he didn’t know anything about Iron Man. But he *did* know about Superman and Batman, and began recommending those to me. I interrupted him to point out, I was looking for Iron Man for a very specific reason. I pointed out I wanted to find the ones that covered the time period when Tony Stark was in charge of SHIELD. When he admitted he didn’t know, he asked me why.

Now, I have never been one to keep information to myself, and I quite love the look on people’s faces when they find out I design video games. I am an extrovert, we have no secrets unless they aren’t ours. So I explained to the young man why I was specifically looking for Iron Man stuff. He, as do most people, got very excited and struck up a conversation about video games. One thing lead to another and we got to talking about future games we were looking forward to.

I feel the urge to point out, up to now, David, had been standing silently by, as he always does. He doesn’t like telling people he makes games, and has expressed to me that he doesn’t particularly like when I tell people he makes games. Odd, but generally I respect his introvertedness.

Right as David turns to join the conversation, the Borders Employee says that one of the games he is most looking forward to is Bioshock 2. Of course, David, working on Bioshock 2, immediately clams up. I nod and say I am quite looking forward to Bioshock 2 as well. The guy interrupts me to say, and I will quote as accurately as I can recall:

“You know the single player game is done right? It’s been done. They are just working on the stupid multiplayer. Don’t you just hate when they ruin games by taking time away from the single player to tack on a multiplayer that no one really wants?”

To this day I have no idea how I managed not to laugh in this guys face. Oh, to be fair, he had no *clue* who he was talking to. But surely they know 2k is in the area and they are *likely* to have the employees in the store. I can assure you, not only was the single player not complete at this point, but also the multiplayer, not even being developed by 2k Marin, but rather by Digital Extremes in Canada. Holy wars of the necessity of multiplayer aside, this guy could not have been more wrong. We didn’t say anything, but the very moment we got into our car we both started laughing about it.

After 4 years in this industry, I can honestly say, I can’t imagine a publisher being “done” with a game and *not* shipping it immediately. More than half the time I would say they aren’t done with the game and it gets ripped out of the developers hands and shipped anyway. It’s the great joy of producers to come in and slash features to make sure a game ships on time. And generally the aim of every programmer, designer, and artist to cram as much awesome as possible into the game before then. I am always surprised at how much developers are completely willing to crunch just to get a feature or thing into a game because they truly believe it is going to make it better.

I doubt very seriously that any publisher would *sit* on a game, all done, just to “extend” the life of a console. If anything they would push to release a second game quickly, to extend the life of a console. It is far more correct that games are in fact rarely, if ever “completed” but are instead ripped from their loving womb and shoved into the cold hard world to be broken, criticized, and abandoned, long before they are actually ready to. It’s part of why leads and producers love completion – just make it work type developers so much.

One Bad Apple — Re-post

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They always say you never know how much you liked/loved/used something until it is gone. I so rarely updated my blog, and yet now that I can’t post on it and know it updates where others can see it, I am bothered. I am sad. I want to update it every 15 minutes and I have tons of ideas of what I want to do.But no. Stupid hackers had to go and ruin it. And for what? A few minutes of having their bile and vitriol displayed on an out of the way site that no one ever looks at? How lame is that?

Now I am having to learn about security measures and re-posting everything because of a few bad apples. Go crawl back under your rocks trolls.

UPDATE:

I will now be re-posting all of my facebook notes on my last attempt to have this work. If it gets immediately hacked again (let’s hope not) then I will be finding an alternate solution to WordPress. All of the re-posts will be updated to their original post date.