PixlBit

Wow. This article made me a lot more emotional than I thought it would. I want to make games one day but I've always felt really sad (just to put it simply) about the AAA model and the way our industry operates. I don't like the status quo, but when you look around and see the AAA model used as a rule and the consequences it reaps, it makes you think, "I want to make the best games I can, games that I want to play, and games that can contribute to this art of design, but I can't." The AAA system tells me I can make a game, but only if the suits say it's okay, and even then, they'd throw me under the bus and leave me in the gutter in a heartbeat if they didn't get their money from the developer's hard work at the end of the day.

Game design is an art that can used to make profit, but there needs to be a balance, and these days there's no balance. The AAA system is set up to keep the publishers afloat as much as possible and the developers can more of less get the trickle-down and if they die, they die, and the publisher moves on as long as they can. I'm all about art, the suits are all about business. I see the appeal in profiting, and I would like to profit, but I have the intellectual capability to see both sides of the coin and strive for a balance. More often than not, the suits won't end up having that ability, and I have a hard time believing that executives even see video games as art, creativity, and hard work. If there's no balance there, the system has failed and I don't want to use it.

I went to Double Fine's Kickstarter campaign site and what I saw blew me away and brought me to life. It's a little after 5pm here in Colorado and as of now Double Fine's supporters have raised well over 1 million dollars Jesse! Over a million and counting, and 33 days left to go! When you look at this one "little" situation it shows you that gaming really is an art, and in this particular case it's in the hands of the artists and the connoisseurs who love experiencing the art. There's a recession, everybody has bad news, the sky is falling, yada yada, and gamers have come out in force to put down their money for something they want, Double Fine's next game.

:) Tim Schafer, you and your team go and make your game. Do it your way, make it the best you can, and when it's time to ship and all the fans are playing it, just know that you proved the AAA system isn't the only way.

Hi Nick, it's Mike here. I think the design of the site logo in the new header looks amazing. I like the way the "Pixl" section has a raised and reflective look. The "bit" section of the design is classic. Vic Roman did a good job. I think the news ticker is a cool feature, it scrolls at a pretty reasonable speed, and I especially appreciate that the ticker stops when I scroll over the link I'm interested in so that I can click on it easily.

I have some feature suggestions for the site that I was hoping you could ponder. When it comes to the sites features, what do you think about:

1. Personal messaging or commenting system

2. Personal profile feature rearranging

3. Flexible notification system that notifies not only new messages sent to your inbox, but also new comments in a thread your involved in

I first thought about it a couple days ago when I was on the site looking at one of Kathrine Theidy's Tour de 64 features that she does. I went to her profile and read that she has a huge collection of N64 games and does the Tour de 64 series about those games I would assume. I wanted to ask her if she had the game Body Harvest 64 in her collection and if she ever did a Tour de feature on it, but I realized I didn't have a quick simple way to talk to her. What if it used rich text as well? I love having rich text in not only blogs but in comments as well like we already have here. It's an awesome luxury.

In general I think it might be neat to continue adding features to personal profiles to let members personalize it more, or just make it more efficient through organization. At the moment the layout is pretty nice. Having the bulk of text on the left and info compartments on the right seems to work, but boxes like "Upload New Avatar" seem a bit out of place and I think the task of adding a new avatar photo could be reduced to a button up near the heading of the profile where the member's name and avatar are. Also, when I'm at my profile, the bottoms left side of the page is empty and unused. Maybe there could be a way to occupy that space with a new feature or something. I'm not sure what kind of feature, but I'm sure that negative space could be used in a practical, clean, Pixlbit fashion.

As far as the messaging and notification system goes it would be cool if we could have the service to message eachother in the event we have something to say that doesn't pertian to a discussion going on in the comments sections of articles and other media. The notification system could be an icon somewhere easily visible like at the top of the page where the Profile, Blog, Collection, and Log Out features are. There could just be an icon that changes depending on whether you have a new message or not. It would be nice if the notification system also extended out to other features like comments and such. If I'm in a thread talking to folks in a Pixltalk discussion for instance, the only way I know new comments get added is by either personally scrolling thought each thread I'm involved in, or by observing the Recent Comments compartment on the front page of the site (which only holds 4 new comments at a time). It's true that the Recent Comments box has a link that takes you to a list where many more new comments can be scrolled through, but I don't think it would be as efficient as a notification system because in the current system you click the link, scroll, and search for something that might not be there. With the notification system, you will know when something new has happened, and one click will take you to it, or to an inbox/hub where it will be available.

As the size of the site increases, that Recent Comments compartment will be adding new comments as multiple discussions occur simultaneously and it will be unable to represent the community as a whole and each discussion. I love having the Recent Comments compartment and don't want to see it go anywhere, I just think that if we rely on it alone to keep us up to date, it won't be able to get the job done by itself.

@Julian Hey Jules is this the FF game that you were telling me I should play? I was talking about how much I love LotR: The Third Age and you were telling me to check out a particular FF game because The Third Age rips the combat system wholesale. If FFX is the one, I'll definitely get it and play it, probably for PS2 though. I'm thinking about getting a PS2 again like I used to have back in the day, and building a collection of the games I loved as well as the games I never player (I missed a metric ton of awesome games back in the PS2 cycle). I'll be able to find FFX on Amazon pretty easily I'm sure, if that's the game you were talking about.

It's cool you work at a Thai restraunt, I've only had Thai food once and it would be nice to try some more. At the university there was a cultural night and people gathered to try out some Thai food and it was pretty good I thought.

Glad you got around to buying some games and getting some play-time in. I've never played a Monster Hunter game before I don't know what they're like, but when I've seen screenshots or advertisements it looks like something I'd want to check out. I'm not sure how many FF Crystal Chronicles games there are but I think they made a Wii version of the original, is that the one you bought? In one of my blogs I was talking about how I got Crystal Chronicles for Gamecube not long ago. I think it should be pretty fun.

As far as Fragile Dreams goes, I've never played it, but I think it's awesome that it made you cry. It's great when games can be that powerful and take you on a journey that is emotional enough to get those reactions out of you. I cried hard at the end of Zelda: Ocarina of Time when I was a kid and finally beat it. I cried a little at the end of Half Life 2 Episode 2 as well, because something ridiculous and sad happens right at the end and it like traumatized me as the credits rolled lol. Was there anything in particular about Fragile Dreams that made you real emotional? My name is Mike by the way. Good blog!

You're right Angelo there must be more to it than just Schafer having the dream to design the game and Notch having the money to make it happen. I don't know enough about the other components of the process. I'd make a terrible bussinessman. My idea of bussiness is to just make batches of awesome sauce. If Psychonauts 2 was to be a downloadable title for online services, there would be a whole mess dealing with contracts from Microsoft, Sony, Steam, whatever else. If it was a full console title it would probably be even messier.

Hell yea Notch is the man. "Let's make Psychonauts 2 happen" is all he needed to say to get me cheering for him and Schafer. Go all the way guys, make some momentum out of this, and put the money where the passion is.

Dark Souls! Dark Souls! Khaaaan! But really I want to play Dark Souls badly and give it a chance. I really want Dark Souls and The Witcher 2 for 360 once I get a new one. I'll probably bundle them on Amazon and get them at the same time, and then I will giggle like a little girl once I own them both. I was watching a Let's Play of Dark Souls and I everything I saw made me excited. I did see the player die a lot, but it always made sense and had a pretty logical solution. A boss character was inflicting giant amounts of damage, so the player adapted, kept trying, and eventually killed the boss. One time the player got killed by a booby trap, so he started moving slower and watching more carefully. He started going up stairs or into rooms with his shield up, sword out, balls to the wall, and ready to fight and win or fight and die. It was so much fun to even watch, it hit me in the gut and made my survival instincts and fear kick in and I wasn't even playing.

In one of the past Pixltalk discussion I think Jesse and I were having a discussion about difficulty, AI, level design, and combat. I was saying that I wish games were more dynamic, difficult, and when you go into combat, raise your sword, aim a rifle, or put up your fists, you need to be dead serious about it and be ready for consequences just like it would be in real life. I don't want all games to be like Dark Souls, not at all, because I love my frantic action and regenerating shields in Halo, but I appreciate what Dark Souls is trying as well. It reminds me of Bioshock and the fights I had with Big Daddies.

In Bioshock when I saw a Big Daddy I felt an instinctive urge to slow down, think, crouch like an animal, stalk it and watch its behavior, set up traps for it, etc. When I would get close to the Big Daddy or its Little Sister, the way the Big Daddy moans and suddenly faces you and starts shoving you away just made me go, "Wow! He means business and if I keep bothering them he's going to kill me." So I would hunt the Big Daddy, set traps, make sure I had enough health and ammo, and I knew that once I took a single shot at him the shit was going to hit the fan and I might die, but hopefully I'd win because of all my planning. I love that feeling and I've only ever got that from Bioshock before. A million low-AI fodder enemies put together could never add up to the satisfaction I got from a single encounter with a Big Daddy. Something tells me I might have a similar experience in Dark Souls. I want to respect my enemies and evolve as I play.

In one of the previous Pixltalks we were talking about tutorials and learning styles, and I agreed with Jules that games shouldn't hold our hands as much, and the way a player learns to succeed in more sophisticated games should come more organically through observation, interpretation, and experimentation. Maybe that'll happen Dark Souls, I'm not sure. It worked perfectly for me in Portal 2, so it's a proven formula and I want to explore it more and learn to implement it. Sorry I just realized nothing I said has much Japanese flavor or content to fit the topic. Dark Souls was mentioned towards the end for a few moments and I took that and ran with it lol.

@AlmostAutumn Great blog. I really liked the section on difficulty as well as the one where you mentioned Borderlands. In some of the Pixltalk disscussions in the comments sections, I think it was Julian that said developers don't give consumers enough credit anymore. Like you said in your blog there are perfectly good reasons to make difficulties easier and more accessible to a wide variety of people, and I'm just fine with making games accessible. I don't want to be the one designing levels nobody can get through. If people play my level designs and break their controllers as a result I'll be sad and feel the need to adapt and find a better balance.

These days I don't think developers have found too many balances for their game's difficulties. We should absolutely give players more credit, always challenge them, and not insult their intelligence. In one of my 1UP blogs (I'm going to post those up here at Pixlbit at some point as well) I started a diary series where I tear apart things I design. In that blog one of the many things I detailed was all the interal debate I went through when managing difficulty, when I failed, succeeded, when I got lucky, and when I had to evolve my designs to make a better level, etc. I was constantly trying to strike a balance between challenge, simple consistent fun, and cutting luck out of the obstacles I created. I wanted player to use the simple mechanics is consistent ways and be able to consistenly be successful in completely exciting and challenging set pieces. I didn't want to punish players with glitches, inconsistency, or require them to rely on lucky bounces.

I liked the quote in the stay the course section where you said, "One story, one point-of-view". I really love how I have one story, and one point-of-view in games like Zelda, Portal, and Half-Life. I like being able to be a single charcter, have control of the character all the time, and be able to wander around and observe interesting events in an interesting game-world. I don't have a huge problem with the constant character swapping and irratic changing that goes on in campaigns like Call of Duty for instance. It's not too bad I guess, because I'm not playing the game for story anyways, but that method of constant changing isn't the way I want to make my games. I'd rather stick closer to the one story, one point-of-view style and just make the characters as interesting as possible. Do more with less.

Glad to have you AlmostAutumn, welcome! Your blogs over at 1UP are great and I love the way you think and put your thoughts together in your writing. You're much smarter than the average bear (yogi bear cartoon references aren't out of style are they?) lol.

The people here are great and I've been getting to know everybody through their blogs, features, reviews, previews, podcasts, discussions in comments, etc. The aesthetics have been changing from time to time, features have been getting added, and it's only getting better each time. I've been growing terribly fond of everybody since I got here and became part of the community (I'm beating around the bush like a child. I kind of love you guys and this place and want to see it succeed in every way). I knew Julian and Jesse from back at 1UP, and when they started working here at Pixlbit I'm one of the ones that came on over.

Nick's welcome message to you was quite similar to the one I got from him back when I started leaving comments. Honest and welcoming. Nick is a great leader here, him and Chessa are the real deal and they've been adding great components and people to the site. Thanks Nick.

I love video games with a passion and everytime I come sign in here at Pixlbit and start lurking around, I know I'm in good company and with people who love video games as well.

Haven't we been through this before? Bills like this have been proposed in so many states over and over and each time it gets up to the Supreme Court and gets turned down. I'm optimisitic so I'm going to assume a person like Fourkiller wants to increase revenue during rough economic times, plus there's also the possibility he doesn't understand gaming and thinks they are ruining the youth. With those assumptions in mind I could understandly perfectly why he would give a go at this and try to make some money off of games. Fourkiller isn't looking at this seriously and intellectually, he just sees a scapegoat and possile renevnue for Oklahoma.

That's where Supreme Courts and judges come in. Bills like this get proposed by people like Fourkiller, and once the bill gets to a court it's the first time somebody has actually thought rationally and intellectually about the subject. It's a waste of time and money, and every couple years a new legislator tries to pull a similar bill. If people just took the time to do their research, not only scientific but also legislative, it would yield far more time to internally debate the merits of a bill and its chance of success for the person proposing it. Anti-gaming or more specifically anti-violent-video-gaming stigmas have led people to assume gaming rots your brain. Just like masturbation makes you blind, right? It's silly and that's why I say that by the time a bill like this reaches a court it's probably the first time a person has rationally dissected it and done the research.

With all that in mind, part of me thinks Fourkiller is insulting the intelligence of Oklahomans as a people and a legislative body. If he had done his research and still came to the conclusion to propose this bill I could imagine him saying, "Video games haven't been proven to be harmful even after several long studies across the world. Bills like this always fail, but......maybe my fellow Oklahomas don't know all that. Maybe I can get by with this. Maybe it'll work in Oklahoma"

I'm optimistic and forgiving so I think somebody like Fourkiller has good intentions, especially since he would want the collected money to go to anti-bullying efforts and outdoor education efforts, but honestly he should do his research. I feel like everytime somebody comes along with anti-gaming sentiment and bills like this, they inevitibly get thrown into the intellectual and scientific debate, get backed into a corner, shut down, and it's a waste of everybody's time.