#NerdsUnite: Confessions of a videogame journalist (my new hero)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy John. We started talking on the twitter not too long ago, and then he reached out and asked if he could write for us regarding his journey through the nerdy realm. I was all DUDDEEE!! That's so raaaddd!! And now, here we are. Like right now, in real time, this is happening. Pretty cool huh? HIT IT JOHN!!! </editorsnote> 

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's John Sollitto

So in one of my classes we’re learning about the history and philosophy of American media. In the book we have to read it covers a lot of crazy historical figures like Philo Farnsworth and Sarnoff (head of NBC) and Paley (head of CBS), and then all of the really important reporters.

For some reason, we kept coming back to the same man, though: Edward R. Murrow. Murrow, for those of you who don’t know, is the god of news. Seriously, this man single-handedly created television news and the standard for which we hold it. Men like Murrow are the people I wish were in the news industry today.

Murrow took on the plight of the migrant workers in the first one-hour TV special Harvest of Shame. Murrow took on Joseph McCarthy. Murrow became a household name for his uncompromising interviews and cool persona. Murrow and his boys were the news.

I wrote an article a couple months back or so on why I hate “hard news” reporting and why I can’t do it. If this was a different time period, I would love it because I could work with Murrow. The kind of people that worked at that time were guys and gals like Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters. Media giants.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to be reporting on television for the first time and be known as one of the most trusted men in the world because of my reputation and sheer body of work. The amount of respect this man had, and still has, is astounding.

The reason I’m writing about this is because this article is one of those rare confession pieces I do once in a blue moon. Edward R. Murrow is my hero in journalism. He even beat out DC Comics’ The Question as my Number One Favorite Reporter of All Time. That’s something I’d never thought I’d say. But Murrow is real whereas the Question is not, so I guess that helps him slide into the lead just a little.

I’ve had a tough time in my personal life lately and I’ve been thinking back on all the things that I’ve done professionally to kind of kick my ass into a good mood. I’ve become a regular writer for this amazing site. I’ve started my own website that is steadily growing in a grassroots following with loyal fans. My portfolio just keeps growing thanks to social media and my own body of work.

What I found is that at a very early age I decided that I wanted to have an exceptional resume so that when I walk into a place and for a job interview, I can say “This is how much I want to get paid.” And I think in a couple of years, I may not have to do that with the way the Vault is going. I wanted people to respect me for my body of work and my professionalism.

There was never really a goal professionally as to who I wanted to be in the video gaming world. Sure I wanted to write and make games, but I never told myself that I wanted to be the next Shigurui Miyamoto, making Mario games that people remembered for the rest of their lives. I had an inkling that I wanted to be a little like Adam Sessler though, hosting my own review show on a network like G4. A respected member of the gaming community who has the ability to say, for the most part, whatever he wants. Really what it came down to was that I never had a defined role-model.

What’s slightly hilarious is that I’m now choosing Edward R. Murrow. Murrow was not too much a fan of the entertainment industry, hell he didn’t even want to get on TV in the first place when they offered him the position. So the fact that I want to be the Edward R. Murrow of video game journalism is a little bit of a weird paradox.

I’m going to try my hardest to be the most honest and truthful game journalist that I can be. The one who asks the questions everyone wants to hear. The one who says the stuff no one will want or dare to say. Why? Because every industry needs that. Now I’m not going to become some insufferable prick who lauds his position over people and feels that he’s entitled. Hell no. I’m going to work for it so that when people look me up on the internet and ask “Who the hell is this guy,” Google slaps them in the face with my picture and article after article saying “This is who he is and why you should care.”

I want to bridge the gap between player and developer. Sure the devs talk to media outlets. Sure they have forums where they communicate with their fans. But when they come to the Vault and they’re given the hard questions about stuff they’ve said in the past, they know they’re in trouble. But THAT’S why they come to us because no-one else will deliver that kind of news or features.

So, in short, I’ve shared with you a little bit about my passion and my drive. What I want to do in my little corner of the universe and how I’m going to do it. The question is: What about you?

#nerdsunite

Want more from John? Click here to follow him on the twitter!

#NerdsUnite: Confessions of a videogame journalist (augmented reality)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy John. We started talking on the twitter not too long ago, and then he reached out and asked if he could write for us regarding his journey through the nerdy realm. I was all DUDDEEE!! That's so raaaddd!! And now, here we are. Like right now, in real time, this is happening. Pretty cool huh? HIT IT JOHN!!! </editorsnote> 

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's John Sollitto

So we had a professor come into class the other day. I’m in one of my journalism classes so I’m totally prepped for some crazy-boring lecture about editing or how to interview someone, when he says that he’s here to talk to us about augmented reality.

Augmented reality? The only time I had heard that term was when the Nintendo 3DS came out and people were going all crazy over it. Then he starts to tell us how it’s been used in advertising and he shows us a QR code demonstration.

You know QR codes. Those weird black and white square thingies that look like messed up bar codes:

Yeah, these things. They’re all over the place and sometimes they have cool little video links or coupons and stuffs. But apparently now they do these cool 3-D things too if you scan certain ones and have the software that reads them.

Then he showed us this video of a guy wearing a cam-projector thing, and going about his day as it made a phone on his hand, a watch on his wrist, a web-browser on a wall, and all this other nonsense. Now, that was some weird tech demo at a symposium dealio but it was AWESOME.

I mean, the camera was using the guy’s hand placement to distinguish what buttons he was pushing and it was usin’ shapes and all sorts of madness and I literally was sitting there with my mouth open. I mean, I knew some of this technology existed but I had never seen it in practice like that before. It some kind of crazy Minority Report crap.

And then I remembered the PS Vita. Back when I did my little test-drive with Jen in Santa Monica I got to see a game that put your characters into the world you were at with rear and forward facing cameras. The Nintendo 3DS has these cool cards you can use that make stuff pop out of them when you hover your system over them.

What you do is you put the cards down somewhere and the 3DS scans them from afar, and makes crazy little 3D Pokemon models or little games and whatever. But my question is when is this 3DS technology going to get to something like this:

And I’m not saying I want the technology to turn me into Tom Cruise. I want to have my games be interactive to where I finally feel like I’m a part of the action. I mean, how cool would it be to actually move around and interact with your environment as a part of the game you’re playing. You’d actually get exercise while playing a game for once. You could play virtual tennis on an actual tennis court! You could fight aliens in a parking lot or run through a forest and fight monsters between the trees!

I know, I know, this is kind of far-fetched. I sound a little like Jim Carrey in Cable Guy when he’s talking to Matthew Broderick about “THE FUTURE IS NOW!!” Remember that scene? No? Here’s the clip:

But in all seriousness I’m really excited to see how technology has come along in the last couple of years. I mean, it was only a little while ago we were talking about realistic graphics and now the rage is 3D and augmented reality.

What I am worried about is what might happen when this stuff becomes so mainstream. Right now, augmented reality is a bit gimmicky. It’s not a particularly proven technology and it’s not something that you can build a title off of, nor should you. The reason is that it’s an addition, nothing else. The technology isn’t there to make a game purely based off of that because we don’t have it yet.

It just wouldn’t be practical for a company to put all their efforts into making that because the consoles are doing so well and mobile gaming isn’t exactly a viable platform for all of that. I mean, how are you supposed to get all that tech in a phone or a 3DS or PS Vita? They’re close, but they’re not quite there yet. If companies start making games based off of a gimmick, augmented reality might fade away as a fad and become resented as lame and buggy. I don’t want that. What I want is for people to do something they never do: Take their freaking time with this and perfect it.

Really, what I want is an Omni-tool from Mass Effect. I just want a holographic PDA/phone/gaming system that goes on my arm that can unlock doors and shoot lasers and short-circuit robots. But let’s not get crazy now, okay?

#nerdsunite

Want more from John? Click here to follow him on the twitter!

#NerdsUnite: Confessions of a videogame journalist (dlc or expansion)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy John. We started talking on the twitter not too long ago, and then he reached out and asked if he could write for us regarding his journey through the nerdy realm. I was all DUDDEEE!! That's so raaaddd!! And now, here we are. Like right now, in real time, this is happening. Pretty cool huh? HIT IT JOHN!!! </editorsnote> 

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's John Sollitto

So I’ve taken to perusing the X-Box Live Marketplace and Steam and whatnot, and I’ve found that a lot of DLC’s are being made lately. DLC (or downloadable content for those of you who don’t speak gamer) are often times little additions to a game that can be downloaded (obviously) at your discretion. Now, it’s debated as to whether or not a DLC has to actually contribute to the game’s story and gameplay or add certain little gimmicks for people who are ultimate completionists.

I think the term DLC is a little confusing and often misused.  People just use it to describe anything you can download that contains content. Well, yeah I guess it can be that. Sure. But by that definition every game you download from an online marketplace is then DLC.

There are dozens of different types of examples of DLC to be seen, but there are central ones that basically demonstrate the fact that there needs to be a definite distinction when it comes to this term.

What’s that? You want examples? Lemme do my Lil Jon impression: OKAY!!

Batman: Arkham City, that beautiful piece of gaming history, has four examples in it. First, you could download all these different types of costumes and suits for Batman to wear during your game, should you decide you don’t like the one in the game or you think it would be funny to have the old Batman swinging through this gritty version of Gotham/Arkham. Second, you could download both Robin and Nightwing, two characters that would be available for the Riddler Combat and Stealth Challenges, but that was it. Finally, you can download Catwoman, and with her comes a smaller story that interweaves within the larger story of Arkham City, as well as the ability to use her alongside Batman, Robin, and Nightwing in the Riddler challenges.

Here’s where we get muddy. I think that only three of those are DLC and one of those is an expansion to the game. The Robin, Nightwing, and costume DLCs are nothing more than fluff. Sure, I love playing as Robin and beating the ever-loving crap out of Joker goons with a bo staff and jumping off my couch shouting “SUCK IT!” when I finish the challenge. Who doesn’t do that? But really, does that change the game for you significantly? Not really. Neither do the costumes. I mean, you’re paying money to play dress-up with Batman (I’m sure there’s a female and male contingent out there though that would love to do that).

Those are real DLCs to me. They’re just content, nothing more. Now, the Catwoman DLC comes with a mini-story, costumes for her, and the ability to use her in challenges. That’s all three things the game offers in one DLC. That to me would be a game expansion. It gives more to the overall game in a more complete way.

So now there’s the distinction between expansion and DLC. Good God, so muuuuuch. You know Call of Duty? Of course you do, it’s all over the place and up in your grill like a hater steppin’ on your game. Things that just add a new costume, or a new multiplayer map, or crap like that? Those are DLCs. That is content you can download.

Flip side? L.A. Noire’s “Reefer Madness” or Borderland’s “Mad Moxxie’s Underdome Riot” are both examples of expansions. Things that add more than an hour of gameplay and have more weapons and characters and additional story to the single-player campaign are things that EXPAND the game. See the distinction?

Now, I have a problem with DLC because I think they’re a little bit of a ripoff. I mean, how much do you pay for something so small as a costume change or a multiplayer character? Sure it took a lot of time to make, but I’m fairly sure that Captain America’s fifth costume in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was not that big of a deal as much as adding a new map in Call of Duty multiplayer. That stuff should either be real cheap, or free in my opinion, or at least paired with more stuff.

But expansions? Those guys kill me when it comes to money. Every time they come out I see them on my computer and this scenario happens:

ANYWAY, I’d just like there to be some separation in the industry when it comes to using the term DLC instead of having it bandied about. I’d like for once not to be fooled when someone says “new DLC coming out!” and find out it’s just a freaking map.

P.S. Folks, you see these awesome drawings I’ve been using lately in my articles? They’re from the awesomely talented John Kleckner. Kleckner makes these hilarious comics with wacky faces that I adore so much and he’s honestly very very funny. Please give him a shout-out or follow him on Twitter at @hejibits and his website is www.hejibits.com

That is all! GO! BE FREE MY CHILDREN!

#nerdsunite

Want more from John? Click here to follow him on the twitter!

#NerdsUnite: Confessions of a videogame journalist (damn you #E3!)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy John. We started talking on the twitter not too long ago, and then he reached out and asked if he could write for us regarding his journey through the nerdy realm. I was all DUDDEEE!! That's so raaaddd!! And now, here we are. Like right now, in real time, this is happening. Pretty cool huh? HIT IT JOHN!!! </editorsnote> 

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's John Sollitto

So here’s the thing. Me and the guys at the Vault applied for E3, right? And Parker, God bless him, got his application in first. But, he was rejected! These guys want 10,000 site views a MONTH to our site for us to qualify as a legitimate press site.

Okay, I can understand wanting the best of the best there, the people who can get you the most eyes on your products, and the real journalists to cover your event. That totally makes sense. It’s the Electronic Entertainment Expo after all. What really grinds my gears is them letting in Gamestop employees cause they’re in the “sales” industry, and guys like us at the Vault get denied. We got 10% of what they wanted, and Joe Shmoe from the Gamestop down the road, the guy who works the register and stocks the shelves, is going to get in because he’s “part of the industry.”

Lemme tell you something: The guy that sells food at the supermarket is not a farmer because he handles produce all day. You get me?

I get that they want the game vendors to know the future products. But won’t I be providing the same information, just on a website and not in a store? I’m no math wizard, but that just don’t add up in my book.

Oh, and if you just happened to want to attend E3, and you’re not part of the industry, it’ll only set you back a pitiful $795. Yeah, you read that right. And after April 23^rd? That goes up $200. That is if you still qualify to their registration standards because the general public is not allowed to attend since this is a “trade-only event.”

So basically they force you to go to a number of websites that have been approved to cover the event itself and watch/read their coverage of E3 from your computer/couch, and drool over all the fancy stuff people get to play. OH NO! WAIT! THAT’S ALSO A LIE.

Remember my first article here on TNTML? While I walked around last year’s E3 I found out that even if you were still industry and press, you had to have an appointment to test out some of the stuff being shown there. YEAH. This event is so exclusive and some of the reveals and demos are so secretive and sensitive, that even the industry professionals aren’t allowed to touch them.

It’s like these guys decided to make a gamer club where everyone gets to show their wares, but only the cool kids get to play.

I imagine that entire conversation went like this:

“Hey, so we got rid of the public because we wanted to control how many people tested the games and were able to experience them. Now we have all of these press and industry people walking around…How do we get some of our biggest supporters the traffic they need to stay in business and leave the rest of the people to get try stuff out that everyone knew about?”

“We could always make them schedule appointments to test out all the really really exclusive stuff so that they have first dibs on all the breaking news and demo footage.”

“Well we could always make that process really difficult, and raise our standards so that even legitimate small-time press junkets that want to cover us, can’t. That’d mean we’d have the same people year after year until the smaller people got bigger and might give us the publicity we want.”

It’s just…ugh it’s just so dumb. It’s crap like this that perpetuates the idea that all game press junkets are filled with elitest monkeys who sit around on golden thrones and complain about games aren’t as good as they were in the 90s. Unfortunately I have no illustration for that turn of phrase so you’ll just have to imagine that. I think the monkey is wearing a JINX shirt…yeah. That’d be funny.

The hard news equivalent to this would be if the White House threw a fancy pants 3 day dinner for people at CNN, Fox News, BBC, and any other big news name. They all sat around and talked about policy and foreign relations, ate a crap-ton of food, and danced the night away. Then all the press people came back and told everyone what was going to happen for the next year in politics.

Wouldn’t that make you feel a teensy bit distant from your press as well as politicians? As gamers, we all feel disconnected from the big companies and even the press outlets now. All we can do is comment on forums and articles and hope our tweets get on the live streaming Twitter wall of some show somewhere.

It’s not fair, and honestly the press is not an accurate representation of how the consumers would react to something. How often do reviewers cover every single perspective and every single opinion of a game? That’s the point of allowing the public in. You can actually communicate one-on-one with your customers and maybe even find out some stuff about your games they won’t like before you release it!

Now, E3 being exclusive to industry is old news. I get that. But even as a small-press editor, I feel my chain is being jerked by the man on this. I’m really starting to see how our industry needs to change if we’re to get back to quality.

#nerdsunite

Want more from John? Click here to follow him on the twitter!

#NerdsUnite: Confessions of a videogame journalist

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy John. We started talking on the twitter not too long ago, and then he reached out and asked if he could write for us regarding his journey through the nerdy realm. I was all DUDDEEE!! That's so raaaddd!! And now, here we are. Like right now, in real time, this is happening. Pretty cool huh? HIT IT JOHN!!! </editorsnote> 

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's John Sollitto

So it’s a pretty awesome time to be alive right now in the gaming industry. This is probably the most exciting thing that I’ve been alive for and privy to in regards to my industry.

If you’re not aware of the Kickstarter craze that is happening right now, then I’ll enlighten you. A few weeks ago, Tim Schafer set up a Kickstarter account for his company Double Fine. Tim Schafer is one of the gods of the gaming industry due to his work in the early point-and-click adventures and independent gaming genre now. Encouraged by a couple of people, two of them being Notch (the guy who brought the world Minecraft) and Steven Dengler (a friend of mine through the Nuka Break filming that I did way back when), Double Fine pitched the idea of making a new point-and-click adventure for fans of the genre and the company.

The whole pitch is online here, but the gist was that Schafer asked for $400,000. $100,000 would go towards filming a documentary of the game making process, while the $300,000 would actually go into making the game. After putting the pitch up on Kickstarter, Tim went to a convention and sort of forgot about it while he went and worked.

Literally hours after he had arrived and finished his day, he was receiving calls from the office saying that they had met their goals. That night? They passed it. The next day? They had made over a million dollars in donations. They still had a month to go. Now, the amount of donations is in the tens of thousands and the money raised is over 2 million dollars.

Why is this exciting? Well, for one, I love Tim Schafer’s games so I dropped the most amount of money I’ve ever donated to make sure that the game got made. My donations was pitiful compared to some people, but I like to think I contributed. Two, this could completely change the gaming industry. Like, for reals guys. This could actually have an impact on the industry in more than just a “this is how we play games” or “this is how games look” way.

I interviewed Steve for the Vault (the article can be read here at the Vault blog) and we broke down how awesome this whole thing was. Now, Steve is a business man and that’s awesome because we could actually talk in a professional sense rather than just two fans nerding out. Steve mentioned that if this became more than just a one-hit-wonder occurrence, that if several companies did this and did it successfully, then the way games are funded and made will change dramatically.

Think about it, fans putting money down to see the games they want made by the companies they like. No more would development studios have to rely on big publishers like Sega, Activision, or EA to tell them that it’s okay to make a sequel to a game they own the rights to. If the company can wrestle the licenses from the big dogs, they can go to Kickstarter and ask the community if they want more, and they can make funds directly from that.

The industry now thrives off of the Metacritic method. Metacritic is a site that compiles all the reviews of a game and gives it an overall score that devs and publishers can see. Based off of that and the commercial success of a game, they decide whether or not they should continue the franchise or drop it. That won’t matter anymore if people are willing to fund games regardless. Die-hard fans will have their love rewarded despite the naysaying of hard-hearted reviewers (like me).

Honestly, I’m freaking out. I’m chomping at the bit. If this takes off in the industry, it shows little indie publishers that it’s okay to take a chance if they’ve made several games that people like/love. Steam, the X-Box Live Arcade, and the PlayStation Network will become advertising grounds for small companies to show their skills and demonstrate their ability to deliver. After that, getting funded by fans might be a Kickstarter pitch away. Who knows?

So: I’m excited. You should be excited. We should all be excited. I’m so excited that if I die right now, my ghost will look like this:

#nerdsunite

Want more from John? Click here to follow him on the twitter!