The move by Electronic Arts to allow non-EA developers to sell games they funded through crowdsourcing and built on their own on the Origin platform for three months without charging them fees to do so strikes me as a really smart, collaborative decision.

One of the things I’ve been doing out in Los Angeles is visiting sets and talking to people about web television. As I think is clear to anyone who’s watched The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl or Husbands, or played an indie game, the challenge isn’t necessarily getting quality products into production—though extra resources and access to equipment never, ever hurt—it’s finding a way for those products to reach the full audience that would enjoy them if only those consumers knew the products existed, and to make those products sustainable. You can develop the best game in the world, but if no one other than the people who crowdfunded it know where to find it, your chances of using that method to leverage yourself into the next level of business so you don’t have to go back to Kickstarter next time are not great.

Legacy media companies, whether it’s video game distributors or the television networks, have an enormous asset in their distribution networks. Even without a big marketing campaign, if your game is populated in a categories list or popping up in a recommendations list based on your other purchases, or if your show automatically starts playing after another program is finished streaming, that’s a huge advantage over simply hosting that game or show on a website and hoping the audience will find its way there. Right now, these games and these shows are small enough that they aren’t necessarily going to compete with big studio productions—either they’re cheaper so it’s not a financial tradeoff, or the games serve different needs—so the studios lose absolutely nothing by opening up their distribution networks to give the indies a boost.

And these early experiments give them a chance to figure out what a business model for collaboration might look like. EA could end up deciding to let indie games stay on for 90 days for free and longer for a fee. They could shorten the free window to a month, and then let games stay for 5 percent of each sale or whatever fee would make this a viable proposition for indie developers who would be getting sales they never would have had access to otherwise, and for the company whose only costs are expanded maintenance of an existing customer service infrastructure. And legacy media companies could track sales and views and advertising revenue to spot new talent. Legacy media and indie media don’t have to be inextricably opposed, and EA’s opening up its sales platform is a perfect illustration of what an experiment in collaboration might look like.

In the never-ending quest to milk George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” franchise for every last piece of Lannister gold, enterprising developers have turned to another medium: Facebook. Via Kate Cox of Kotaku:

“Game of Thrones Ascent will take place in HBO’s version of George R.R. Martin’s sprawling fantasy world. Developer Disruptor Beam plans for the game to focus on the spirit of backstabbing political wheeling and dealing that forms so much of the backbone of the series, by using Facebook’s social connections to let players forge critical alliances. Players take on the role of petty nobles in the Seven Kingdoms, who ‘claim their birthright by choosing which of the great houses they’ll swear allegiance to, securing their holdings, developing their lands and personal reputation, and assigning sworn swords to quests.’”

In the wake of the HBO series’ breakout success, there have alreadybeen several botched attempts to produce a Game of Thrones video game. I’m not much of a gamer these days, but I am a noted sucker for video game tie-ins based on my favorite TV shows; in my younger years, I was fan enough of both The Sopranos and Lost to play their awful, wholly unnecessary video game adaptations to completion.

Game of Thrones is the latest series to draw the attention of game developers. Last year, developer Cyanide released A Game of Thrones: Genesis, a bland real-time strategy game set centuries before the events of the series that used the Game of Thrones setting as the barest of window dressing (masochists can but the game on Amazon for $5). Though A Game of Thrones: Genesis was poorly received, Cyanide got another crack at the series with last week’s new release Game of Thrones, an action RPG that features voicework from several of the HBO series’ actors and a Stan Lee-esque cameo by George R.R. Martin. While both Game of Thrones and its reviews are more impressive than its real-time strategy predecessor – and it includes quests with options that at least attempt to offer some nuance – it’s clearly nothing on the level of, say, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, or even Mass Effect 3.

Why is it so hard to make a video game of Thrones? It’s certainly easy to see why video game developers would be drawn to the Game of Thrones universe: there’s already a large, passionate built-in fanbase, and many of the all-time best video games are set in worlds full of swords and sorcery. But any Game of Thrones adaptation that starts with fighting has already missed the point. We’ve seen how far fighting gets you in Westeros – just ask Khal Drogo or Ned Stark. A Game of Thrones game that invites the player to cut through swaths of cookie-cutter enemies undercuts one of Game of Thrones’ central themes: every death matters, and every killer is risking their life by doing the killing.

The real survivors in Westeros are characters like Tyrion, Varys, or Littlefinger, who have largely shunned swords in favor of politics. That’s the experience that a Game of Thrones game should attempt to replicate, and that’s why Game of Thrones Ascent is the first adaptation of “A Song of Ice and Fire” that has piqued my interest. I’m inherently skeptical of all Facebook games – once Farmvilled, twice shy – but it seems to me that Disruptor Beam’s concept cleverly uses the complex, amorphous social network of our actual lives to replicate the complex, amorphous social network of Westeros. That’s what Game of Thrones does best, and that’s what a video game of Thrones should do, too.

I am wildly excited about Dreadline, an upcoming title from indie developer Eerie Canal. The first effort from the studio features a group of rabble rousing, time traveling, monsters. The characters visit the sites of history’s greatest calamities and wreak havoc on the already doomed souls they find. It’s weird, it’s stylish, it’s ridiculous and sort of horrible (in an amazing way) and I can’t believe I didn’t think of it first.

I knew that Eerie Canal was at work on something awesome given that they were founded by some of my exceptionally talented former colleagues. But I had no idea just how perfectly ridiculous their project was until I saw the trailer a few days ago. You can watch it below:

I caught up with Bryn Bennett and Steven Kimura, the studio’s co-founders to talk more about their new project, going indie, and life in general.

What is Dreadline?
Bryn Bennett: It’s a high paced ARPG, where you play the part of monsters who travel through time, killing the people that are going to die anyway. Think of a mix of Diablo, Freedom Force, and Mario Kart, thrown through an indie game filter.

How did you come up with the name Dreadline?
Steven Kimura: It came to me in a terrible dream.

Bryn Bennett: We googled it, and I think there might be a terrible hard rock band from North Carolina named Dreadline. We may have to get our people on that.

You mention the Titanic and Pompeii in the trailer, what other disaster sites might the monsters visit?
BB: There are so many options! Humans are really an unlucky bunch. The Boston Molasses Disaster?

I really hope the Molasses disaster is in there.
SK: Not the World Trade Center. Please stop asking about that people.

Why monsters, why not cuddly bunnies?
SK: Ghost is a cuddly monster. In the tumultuous wake of the global financial meltdown, we all have to find ways to economize wherever we can.

BB: We did have a bug once where the monsters were rendered really small. Little mummy was the cutest thing ever. We started thinking about moving the game to a more “Muppet Babies” theme.

What platforms will Dreadline be available on?
BB: For right now, PC only. The engine does work on Xbox, but it is tougher to get onto consoles. We are going to release on PC first, and then look at our options. We definitely won’t port it to another platform unless we can find a control scheme that would make sense.

How and when did you decide to form your own studio?
BB: I think it happened at the Middle East (a bar) after our 17th shot of whiskey. I also think we planned on running for congress at that point, but I don’t remember. We just both knew that we had a lot of ideas that we probably couldn’t work on at our current positions. Creating an indie game studio was the obvious choice!

What have been the biggest challenges for you all as you went indie?
SK: We’re completely broke.

BB: I like to think of it as being a starving artist… really sacrificing for our love of games. I also can’t blame any other programmers when the game doesn’t work.

What advice do you have for other indie game makers?
BB: I don’t know if we’re in a good position to answer that, since we are really just starting. There are a number of Boston indie companies like Dejobaan who are much more likely to give a useful answer.

SK: I can say that I love the idea of making indie games, and that people should be as creative as possible since that’s not always possible when working for a larger studio/publisher.

When can we get our hands on the demo?
BB: We plan on being done in early 2013, so we’ll probably start asking people to help us test in late 2012.

Does Frankenstein have a cameo anywhere in the story? (Please say yes).
SK: Dr. Victor Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus?

BB: (Steve reads a lot.)

I should have clarified, “Frankenstein’s monster.” Sorry Steve.

Anything else we should know?
BB: We’re just crazy excited to get this game out there! Indie development is awesome, and we’re so pumped to be where we are right now. Please check us out at http://www.eerie-canal.com as well as http://www.facebook.com/EerieCanalGames and https://twitter.com/eeriecanalgames

So there you have it. Any other questions for the Eerie Canal crew? Post them in the comments below.

By Dennis Farr

Science fiction is an odd beast, asking us to suppose and imagine a world that is often based off our own, with little bits and bobs changed. When set in the future, there is a certain level of world building that must occur, and to which we must then be introduced. While we will still bring our own thoughts and assumptions into that story, they do not necessarily feed into the story itself, depending on the skill of the author (whose own short-sightedness may make an appearance instead). However, with games, this line becomes incredibly difficult to separate, as the player also becomes part of the authored experience. The writers and designers of a game that entails some level of decision-making can answer many of the typical questions: how, when, where, etc. Ultimately, I am the one who decides why, however.

The idea of this dissonance came via playing Mass Effect, where the male Shepard I played was quite gay in my mind. It was not until the third game that he was able to express his love for a squadmate, however. By this time, it seemed obvious he would have been in the closet, though the game’s writing about its universe makes it clear that being in the closet seems an outdated notion. Unfortunately, I, as the player, was playing in the here and now, and retroactively writing that bit of world building in did not stop what bits of the story I had already filled in for the series.

This idea can be problematic in many regards: talking of a futuristic setting where people are of mixed heritage, because Earth’s default is multicultural, and nationality is no longer really a concern, offering the option to have a POC as the protagonist, and then finding yourself surrounded with white people. If a game is telling my character that she is the norm, but then finds herself not, it is a bit jarring, and leads to the player coming up with explanations—explanations that will conflict with the lore of the game.
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io9′s Charlie Jane Anders has a typically intriguing interview with Jon Spaihts, the screenwriter who did the first drafts of Prometheus, and part of the discussion came down to the difference between rendering worlds and telling stories in video games and movies:

Storytelling in games has matured tremendously in the past decade. Some really great work has been done. But the design requirements are totally different, almost the opposite of filmic storytelling. The central character of a game is most often a cipher – an avatar into which the player projects himself or herself. The story has to have a looseness to accommodate the player’s choices. This choose-your-own adventure quality is a challenge for storytellers and, I fear, militates against art.

A filmmaker is trying to make you look at something a certain way – almost to force an experience on you. Think of the legendary directors, whose perspective is the soul of their art. It’s the opposite of a sandbox world. It’s a mind-meld with a particular visionary.

I’m actually curious if this, as well as production costs, are part of why it’s been so hard to adapt major video games into major motion pictures. There’s always uproar in fan communities about how true an adaptation is or isn’t to source material, and if the main character’s mostly a vehicle for a player, to project themselves into the game, it will be awfully hard to reconcile all of those private universes into a coherent whole that’s mostly satisfying to a majority of people. I know we all agree what Chell looks like, but I don’t know if anyone shares my idea of who Chell is.

The bridge is yours.

-TV’s best gingers.

-Reflections on Adam Yauch’s death.

-David Tennant might be in the next Fast and Furious movie.

-Having the guy behind Toy Story 3 and Little Miss Sunshine working on the Catching Fire script sounds exciting.

-Sandra Day O’Connor gets into the video game business.

The latest episode of Extra Credits, the web series about gaming that’s hosted on Penny Arcade TV, is about in-game harassment, and it’s pretty fantastic. The show’s creators said they felt reluctant to speak up until they had proposed solutions. And, in collaboration with a range of experts, do they ever. Among other tools, they propose auto-muting players whose mute rates diverge more than 10 percent from the average, making communication tools a reward players have to earn, and providing publicly available data on guilds and clans that are influenced by individual players’ behavior to provide peer pressure in support of better behavior. And they’re asking Microsoft as the proprietor of X-Box Live to be the first company to step up and provide these innovations. I think these are all great ideas, and I hope they stay on Microsoft and keep us updated with a response.

I’d note, though, that all of these possibilities are circumventable. The most determined harassers and stalkers aren’t particularly deterred by basic attempts to separate them from the people they want to communicate with and intimidate. Determined misogynists can team up in clans and guilds. Technological and market-based solutions are great. But harassment victims should have the recourse to get their harassers kicked out if all other options and the communities fail them, and there should be policies and procedures in place to facilitate that final option when it’s necessary.

The New York Times reports that, in the first year that National Endowment for the Arts’ Arts in Media grants were open to gaming and web-based projects, those projects ended up winning funding ahead of established PBS programs:

Among the PBS programs receiving significantly less funding are “Live from Lincoln Center,” which was granted $100,000 last year and nothing this year. The Metropolitan Opera received $50,000 to support its national “Great Performances at the Met” telecasts, $100,000 less than last year. WNET received $50,000 to support other “”Great Performances” productions and the same amount for “American Masters,” compared to $400,000 for each last year.

“The PBS NewsHour” will receive $50,000, half that of 2011, for arts segments; independent documentary series “Independent Lens” will get $50,000, down from $170,000, and documentary series “POV” will receive $100,000, down from $250,000.

WNET, however, did receive $75,000 towards production of a new series, “The Electric Animation Festival,” and its companion Web site, and PBS received $50,000 to support the creation of mobile apps for its arts initiative. A number of other individual documentary films and smaller programs also received funds, as in years past, as did NPR, and numerous public radio productions.

Opening up the grants to more kinds of media projects makes a great deal of strategic sense for the NEA: it lets the organization meet arts consumers where they’re at, makes the organization look forward-thinking in supporting projects that might not garner support or be treated like priorities within their industries but still have important potential, and frankly, it also gives the NEA bases of support in industries that might previously have been indifferent to the organization, or the cause of public funding for the arts. But it does raise a fundamentally tricky question for the NEA in the future. How much of the organization’s work should focus on keeping alive high culture that has wealthy patrons but trouble attracting a new generation of mass-market attendees? And how much should it focus on driving the culture of the future? Obviously these priorities aren’t mutually exclusive, but they are competing for resources, and I do wonder how the mix is going to shake out.

By Alli Thrasher

Yesterday The Oatmeal ran a comic about the differences between online gameplay experiences between the genders. In it, Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman, depicts his own experience playing a few rounds of Left 4 Dead online. In the panel below, he showcases the ease with which a clueless girl gamer accidentally trashes her teammates and receives pleasantries and accolades for her faults:

Naturally the comic sparked outrage across the interwebs. The piece drew ire from gamers across the board, largely for its totally flawed portrayal of the realities of online gaming. At first, Inman seemed to miss the point, responding with a pseudo apology post in which he wrote, “a terrible female gamer gets away with more than a terrible male gamer.”

Cuppycake, Lead editor of The Borderhouse Blog, summed up, perfectly, why the above statements are not only erroneous, but also evidence of the privileged perspectives that make gaming often unwelcome for women: “You know what actually sucks about being a woman who games? Being harassed because of my gender…When I make a mistake in games, it’s because I’m a woman trying to play games. When you make a mistake, you just suck at the game and made a mistake.”

After receiving, and obviously digesting, further messages and tweets about the comic and the follow up post, Inman made a huge step in rectifying the situation by not only making a large donation to The Women Against Abuse Foundation, but also noting that he really and truly effed up: “I’m a guy and I barely talk into my mic, so I’ll concede that my view of things is probably very skewed.”

I commend Inman for skewing away from the typical mansplaining of “stop being so sensitive” that often accompanies the response to pieces like his comic. That he recognized his position as privileged and went even further to show that he came around to understanding what the problem with the post was is HUGE. The entire situation, however, brings to light, again, the true realities of online harrassment in the video games community.

As part of his apology post, Inman asks readers, “Outside of steam, it sounds like it’s still pretty horrible for women to play games. Is this true?” Yes, Mr. Inman, it is.

Need proof? Check out http://fatuglyorslutty.com/ or http://www.notinthekitchenanymore.com/ And guess what? The above include posts from all over the sphere of gaming – Steam, XBLA, and beyond. While I’m very aware that trashtalking is the nature of friendly competition, for women gamers (or gay or lesbian gamers, or gay gamers, or well basically anyone who doesn’t immediately present as a white straight male), our mere presence online opens us up to language that goes well beyond trashtalking. I’ve gotten cursed out playing Uno. And it’s not just “idiotic 13 year olds” doing the harassing. Research proves that the average gamer is 37 years old and that eighty-two percent of gamers are 18 years of age or older. Speaking from personal experience, the worst harassment I ever received as a gamer or community manager came from a man in his early 30s who had a job, a long time girlfriend, and most definitely did not live in his basement.

Truth be told, I’m thankful that the whole debacle occurred for a number of reasons. First, and foremost, it’s HUGE that a very public, internet celebrity, like the Oatmeal creator, can have his eyes opened to the experiences and realities of other gamers. Second, the reaction, to Inman’s original post, highlights again, that a sizeable portion of the gamer community is very aware of, and not cool with, the unfriendly nature of online gameplay. Finally, it provides an opportunity for all gamers to proactively look at how they address harassment when they witness it.

I think all gamers are invested in their play experiences being fun, productive, and straight up awesome. Moreover I think we all want the spheres we play in and the communities we participate in to be welcome places. So what do we do about all of this? Simple, report, call people out, and refuse to accept that violent sexist language is part of our culture or experience. If you’re a guy playing online and you hear someone trash talking, call them out. Feel free to say, “hey, that’s not cool.” Better yet, feel free to report and block them. Refuse to play with them. If you’re a moderator for an online community, enforce guidelines regarding hate speech. Educate members of your community about how their language can alienate other players. Don’t be afraid to use the banhammer.

And finally, if you’re a woman playing online, don’t stay silent on your end of the headset. I know this is tougher—who likes opening themselves up for abuse? But it’s high time that we stop hiding. Women make up over 40% of the gaming population – we’re a huge part of this community and we should not let ourselves be made invisible. So turn on your voice chat, ladies, and let the folks on the other end know that you’re there, you’re playing, and you’re not going away.

By Andrea Peterson

Yesterday, Microsoft announced Halo 4 will reach U.S. consumers on November 6, 2012 — also known as “Election Day.” To call the Halo series important would be an understatement; the first-person shooter is without a doubt the flagship series for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console and has sold over 34 million games worldwide. Sales of the most recent installment Halo: Reach were record breaking at the time, with over $200 million in sales on its first day This begs the question: With thousands of gamers likely to line up at midnight to pick up a copy of Halo 4, how many will choose to stay in and play over getting out to vote?

According Nielsen Games, as of October 2011 35% of 18 to 24 year olds owned an Xbox 360 – the exclusive release console of Halo 4. That’s 35% of the only age group to show statistically significant growth in the 2008 cycle that will have something exciting to distract them from voting on Election Day… and 35% of the President’s base: President Obama won 66% of votes from 18 to 30 year olds in 2008. And unfortunately, gamers who know they will be unable to tear themselves away from the Master Chief on Election Day may find it harder to vote due to new barriers and limits on advance and absentee voting thanks to conservative voter suppression efforts around the country.