PixlBit

Hey guys, I dig the two mancast.

I think that it's great for development teams to have a person front and center that people know. Sure, there are large teams that work on every game, but the same can be said for movies, but you'll usually only hear from the director or writer. That was why Electronic Arts was originally founded-to highlight the people making the games.

The problem comes when there isn't an attempt to bring up the next set of "stars". It has become obvious to me that there's a real problem at Kojima Productions. Either his people are too intimidated by his legacy to step up, or he hasn't done a good job of giving them confidence to be the next generation at Konami. His displeasure was obvious in that Konami documentary video about Metal Gear Rising, and his team looked absolutely demoralized. But having actual personalities in the industry-Cliffy B, Peter Molyneux, Randy Pitchford, etc.-makes the gaming industry a much more lively place.

@Julian yea I'm with you, I think that we will continue to see developers who represent their respective companies, they just not might be in the same places. Who knows, maybe no one will ever step up at Konami, but others who have both the talent and the personality will show themselves. Notch is a perfect example. While Mojang is still small, Notch is and will continue to be synonymous with that company. Maybe it will be the indie scene that reveals our new group of gaming stars or maybe it will be in a revitalized genre, I can't say for sure where they will show up, but I do think they will.

I like how Mass Effect 2 came into the conversation lol. I loved how they added depth to the Geth by giving them culture, choice, and division. In ME1 the Geth were just fodder and henchmen of more important and colorful characters. In ME2 the Geth became colorful and important by themselves due to the choices made with the writing. You learn that the Geth you have been killing all this time have just been a small division of the entire Geth society which has broken off from the majority and decided to worship the Reapers. I was fascinated by their collective processing, compounding intelligence, speed of light consensus, and intellectual depth. They're so alien yet so relate-able, which makes them terrifying but capable of being reasoned with (so it would seem).

I rewrote them and saved the dissenters from being destroyed so they might become allies later on. Intellectually I labored quickly over it when the choice came up, and I thought about what was the better choice and in the end I decided I didn't want to be "good" or "bad", and I just decided to make the choice I myself would make. I'm exited to see how that decision plays out in ME3.

Earlier in the conversation when you both were talking about reviews and the situation that exploded after Duke Nukem's release, I agree that when it comes to reviews most people already have their mind made up. When most people read reviews I think they often just want catharsis. Reviews aren't about catharsis, they should be about analysis. People want to see a reviewer have the same experience they had, or experience the same emotions, purge those emotions together, and preferably have the emotions be the exact same. It's quite human and understandable because catharsis is a beautiful thing, but reviews probably aren't the right channel to engage in it. When Nukem came out and its reviews were deservedly low, and fans started lashing back out at the journalism community, all those zealous fans were quite insufferable and irrational but at the same time I felt sad for them because they were looking for catharsis in all the wrong places. Even people who play and love shitty games deserve to be happy, play their games, and share their emotions about it with each other.

@ Michael I completely agree with you saying that reviews have become a means of catharsis instead of a critical review. I think the consumers need to find this relationship plays a large part in the recent growth that has been found on YouTube (especially gaming videos). Literally an industry that did not exist three four years back has transformed into a healthy network of avid gamers who are there mainly to share and explore their gaming experiences. However, even with more viable avenues for this relationship to take place people still and probably will continue to look for catharsis in game reviews. It's difficult for me to necessarily knock this however, because if people are only reading these reviews to share their experiences if we take that away, will they read it all?

@Mike Great point. If all the readers want is catharsis in their gaming reviews and they aren't getting it, it's a legitimate fear that they might not want to use journalism or go read something at all. Strategically and intellectually I come to the edge of a cliff as to what to do with that whole situation. It's quite simple because it's all supply and demand, but it gets deeper than that because it makes journalists ask themselves, "What kind of content to do I actually want to put out, and will anybody care?" Taking the evil scientist route, ideally I wish I could uniformly and neatly rewrite data in the brains of the masses so that everybody would have the same understanding for what critical analysis is compared to catharsis and everybody would be efficient and organized in knowing where to go to get each interaction. With those definitions programmed into people and that foundation set, a journalism site could literally provide all of those needs for an audience because they could give critical reviews but also allow users to have personal blogs, forums, personalized profiles, etc, to express their emotions resulting in much needed catharsis. When people are online they should have the information necessary to educate them fairly and critically on a topic, but they should also have avenues for more abstract thought, expression, and interaction. One site that gives readers the chance to exercise both hemispheres of the brain and have the interface and features to efficiently and entertainingly satisfy both. Most sites just see this divide between reason and emotion and decide to go for one or the other, and so the definitions of a "review" evolve over time. If one site does reviews and they are very emotional and viewed as biased, it becomes normal, if one site seems very cold and calculated, it also becomes norm for the audiences. There's no boundaries set, no standards, structure, or uniformity. Reviews should based in critical thinking, but the more personalized features of a site don't have to be. There has to be a way of giving the readers what they need without them necessarily knowing it or thinking about it. Ironically I think that if a site has the variety of content, the interface, and features that satisfy the readers, the readers shouldn't really notice it. They will just use it. When a person's car is mechanically sound and running, they aren't thinking about the engineering, they just drive it off into the direction of their choice. The mechanics in a car are very organized and they try to keep definitions consistent, and when it's all organized and the different features are doing what they do, the car just works.

The problem isn't with reviews. Or to be more accurate, there wouldn't be an issue with reviews if we didn't have these protracted preview times. Sadly, it's just part of this "need it now, 24 hour news, bombard me with information" society the internet has created. In the golden days of video game magazines, you'd get a preview of a game in the October issue, and the review in the November issue.

Now, we get months, if not years, of buildup to a game. We see a million screen shots, trailers, and even full gameplay demos online. Hardcore gamers, and by that I mean people who follow the games industry closely, already know what they think about a game long before it gets released. So when a review comes along that doesn't justify the game that they pre-ordered 9 months ago, they rage.

For my part, reviews are still very important to me. I am an educated gamer and know what I like, so rarely do the reviews lead me to a game I wasn't already going to purchase. But I like to know what people I respect have to say about them, and that's where I think the future of reviews is--with the personalities that write about them. If you're a fresh face, I'm likely not going to care much about what you wrote. But as I read more of your writing and get to know your tastes and personality, you may become a person I seek out for criticism. I may not care about "x" game, but if Jeremy Parish is reviewing it, I'm going to read it. Similarly, if Jesse reviews a game for PixlBit, I'm going to jump on that review right away. Not to take anything away from the rest of our staff. I've just had more time to get to know Jesse as a writer and respect his opinions.

Hopefully, we will continue to let our readers get to know us, and thereby create an environment where they seek out our reviews. Not because it will validate their opinions, but because they want to know what we think.