Loading... Moths vs Butterflies

Welcome to the 857th Edition of Loading...

If you aren't reading this in your e-mail, you could be. Sign up. Are you looking for gaming news? Look no further for all of the headlines. General industry news, right down to game specific and forum thread feeds are all yours as part of Ten Ton Hammer's news syndication program. Enjoy!

Daily Column

Loading... it's what happens when Chuck Norris meets Vin Diesel

First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

If the Top 10 isn't enough, we also show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)

World of Warcraft - 200 BPM
Age of Conan - 195 BPM
Lord of the Rings Online - 76 BPM
EverQuest II - 56 BPM
Warhammer Online - 42 BPM
Guild Wars - 38 BPM
EVE Online - 35 BPM
Lineage 2 - 34 BPM
Vanguard - 33 BPM
Dungeon Runners - 32 BPM

Congratulations to Germany on their big Euro 2008 win yesterday. It's Russia vs Spain today with the Spanish wearing their "bad luck" yellow jerseys. Russia beat out Sweden to get to this point in the tournament.

Fortunately, Sweden still has Dreamlords. David Rosén, CEO of Lockpick Entertainment had this to say about the relaunch,

"Being an MMO developer is not the easiest job you can choose, but might be one of the most fulfilling. As you may know we launched our latest game, Dreamlords – The Reawakening, this week and I guess it's not entirely unlike having a child. Lots of emotions and a relief that everything seems to be okay.

Being of course slightly biased, I think that this game pretty much embodies all the things we love about making games. What you actually see, and play, is not only a result of our own creative vision and hard work but also of the deeply involved community. We did it together.

Making MMO games is not a one man's or rather one team's effort, but a collective one – and that's what I love about making games."

Much of what David referred to could also be said of game journalists. It isn't an easy job, or at least shouldn't be if you are doing it well. Every column, article or opinion piece that a journalist writes is like a child; a child that is immediately thrown to the wolves to be first denigrated, then devoured and regurgitated into something quite disparate from the original.

Writing about games is in many broad-stroke ways like making them. You start out as an energetic, piss and vinegar young fellow, ready to take on the industry, telling it like it is, by the people, for the people. The euphoria of tearing the shrinkwrap from a new game, a game that was sent to you by a, gasp, publisher is a drug coursing through your veins. You play the game. Then you play it again. You write and you write, covering every little detail of the title, no nuances are too minute to be left out. The section on character creation is four-pages long! Nobody knows as much about the sliders that raise and lower the characters' ears as you do. You're unstoppable; a force that will change the industry and everyone involved with it. Developers will make better games because your review will point out the minutiae that they obviously missed. Then again, you're not there for the developers. You're there for the players. They will read your reviews, agree with them and praise you to the skies. Statues will be raised in your likeness. You'll never pay for another drink.

Of course, the writer fresh out diapers doesn't have any frame of reference with which to gauge what is truly great and what is only good. The more you see of something, the less impressed you become until you find that only feats of super-human prowess will give you the jolt of distilled awe that you crave.

Fast-forward to his third or fourth article when the realization that the players don't give a rat's rump about him or his articles begins to devour his inner fire. His writing style changes. He becomes less informative and more punchy. What he says matters less than how he says it. Maybe if he uses the f-bomb or puts the word wanker in every paragraph people will flock to his prose, eager to read more. Perhaps he'll pick a game that has great reviews and tear it bits with his vitriol and venom. Critical thinking be damned. People are going to be shocked!

The shrinkwrap no longer smells like freshly baked bread. The pile of games on his desk sit, pondering his existence and his worth. How is he going to write an article about Vanguard and World of Warcraft in the same day? Vanguard is easier because he can be hateful, so that gets the nod. He taps away, making derogatory comments about the developers, the game and the community, though truly he has no knowledge of what it takes to make a game. He has become what he disliked most, a negative influence on the industry. His articles have no value other than to incite the masses or validate their negative opinions. Remember, it's OK to be successful. Just don't be too successful or people will dislike you. Even World of Warcraft can't generate a positive article. He searches for the dirt, the dissent in the community, for it is here that he now feels most comfortable. These are people just like him, angry, disillusioned, discouraged. Imagine being a game developer and having this gentleman come to interview you.

And that my friends is the life-cycle of the majority of the writers in this industry. Some never become belligerent, instead they cease to care at all, writing blarney and drivel to fill space before sticking a score on the end. It's no coincidence that the Editors-In-Chief at PC Gamer last on average two years. It's a soul devouring job. You not only deal with the industry from your own perspective, but from that of dozens of other writers. Imagine once again that you are a developer, being interviewed by a journalist that you can tell is just going through the motions, asking the same canned questions that you have heard dozens of times before.

The few that make it, still enjoy going to the store and picking up a game to play. They can never enjoy a game like they did in the "good old days", but they understand that and deal with it. Analyzing games is part of their gene pool now, but still, they can have fun. I liken these writer to Jason and the Argonauts. In one of Jason's adventures he needed to sail (and row) his ship past the islands called Sirenum Scopuli where sirens lived. Sirens would sing beautiful songs, luring sailors to their deaths. Jason recruited Orpheus, the father of songs, to ride with him. When the sirens began to sing, Orpheus sang, louder and more beautiful, allowing Jason's crew to bypass the danger and continue their journey.

Writers seem to feel torn between being informative and entertaining as if the two are mutually exclusive. I'm not convinced that this is the case. In fact, it isn't, but until we have an atmosphere where the best writers have a reason to flow into the industry then we are going to remain mired in the shock-talking, blunt, gaming journalism world that currently put up with.

There you have it, in a nutshell (or the nutmeat as Colbert would say), the life of a games journalist from energetic pupae to crotchety old moth or beautiful butterfly.

Do tell. The Loading Forums await you. Do you feel the need to contact me personally with naughty pictures or derogatory comments? Here's my E-mail.

--
[A big thanks to Karen Hertzberg for putting together the links today. Real World News compliments of yours truly. ]

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today

Premium Content