Just Another Poorly Maintained Blog

It's probably not the first time you've seen a blog lie fallow like an untended field on an abandoned farm. It is, perhaps, even cliche, almost a default position to start a blog, dedicate a few days of solid work to it, and then realize just how much effort it might take to maintain over time with very little to show for it. A blog might even be described as Sisyphean, if you wish to seem overly pretentious and like just a little bit of a know-it-all, which I kind of do.

That said, one of my New Years Resolutions is to rededicate myself to this tiny effort, and frankly I'm looking forward to it. It is also true to say that breaking New Years Resolutions is perhaps as predictably cliche as letting a briefly tended blog fall into disrepair, so take that for what it's worth.

Speaking of New Years, I would like to credit my wife for coining the phrase "crap rap" for me during Dick Clark's Rocking New Years Eve, which is a term I plan to use as frequently as possible this year.

This Just In

Blogging under multiple deadlines is difficult. Clear skies next week. Until then, stay dry, keep a stiff upper lip and wear clean underwear!

Reputation

In reality, the business of writing about video games is a somewhat small community. Certainly there are a ton of people casually writing either as industry insiders or analysts or critics at all corners of the web, but when it comes down to the number of really credible writers out there with consistent content available in significant outlets you're probably talking about a pretty small number. Truth is, I really don't count myself among their occasionally august company yet, though I'm trying to sneak my way through the backdoor. Though, I am also keenly aware that the desire to be part of the gaming-media is perhaps the strongest leverage available to the people who work in the actual gaming industry.

I think it was Jeff Green who really set me straight on the distinction that needs to be drawn there. People in the gaming media do not work in the gaming industry. And, suddenly now I see everywhere I look people writing about the industry in an inclusive manner, as though we're all one big happy family. I'm sure part of that is a need for validation, but also, I think there's this sense that if you want to get into writing about games you've got to make people like you. Certainly that's what the people who represent developers and publishers would like.

And, that's ok. It's their job to protect their clients and create a favorable media environment.

But, that's not the job of the gaming media. It's not what I believe is either interesting or meaningful, to be a necessary friend of a marketing plan. Sure, it helps you make contacts, which helps you be able to pitch better stories, which helps open the doors with editors, which helps you become a name, but entering through that door with half your soul already sold isn't really worth the time, is it? Besides, I think most good editors see right through those guys.

I wonder if in my writings for Gamerswithjobs and Escapist so far, where I have been abrupt and direct in my criticisms of the past, if I have a bad reputation or a reputation at all. I know from working on some recent stories that the people I'm calling sometimes already know who I am, and of course they are my best friends on the phone because that's their job and they're good at it, but I wonder when I hear them say, "oh yes, I've read some of your work before" if that's going to work to my advantage or disadvantage. This appears to be a media environment where being open, honest and, when necessary, brutal are not very well appreciated.

So, I see why a lot of writers and publications would be at least tempted to play-ball.

But, what I think a lot of these folks forget is that while publications can't survive without the revenue of their advertisers, the advertisers can't survive without the publications to put their ads in. We writers shouldn't be feeling like someone's done us a favor by telling us part of the truth, or giving us access to a game developer so they can talk about their game. We're the ones doing the service for them, and our questions and investigations are not some inconvenience to be suffered and discarded but part of the process.

So, despite the occasional obstacles it may put in my path, I hope that my reputation is that of someone who isn't likely to play the game. I think I'll take a little pride when I hear someone on the other end of the line feel a little uncertain or uncomfortable when we speak, not because I'm unpredictable but because of the exact opposite. That is the kind of identity I hope to build.

Sad Panda

A real post tomorrow.

Illusion

I am not a rock god, but I play one on TV.

As a writer about video games, the topic ends up being on my mind far more than is socially sound. I have been, by virtue of digital brainwashing, everything from a secret agent, to a pro football player, to a god. Of course, the boundary between reality and unreality has always been a tangible line ever visible, and the fact that I can complete an adequate circuit as a race car driver in the digital realm has never suggested to me that I should speed my Corolla through five o'clock traffic.

That said, Rock Band has been a dangerous threat to my distinction between reality and the virtual. In the parts of my brain that maintain the stranglehold on reality upon which I've come to rely is an unsettling whisper that when I play drums on my fake drum machine, I might actually be able to play drums. Never have I been so close to describing some function of video gaming as a skill, but Rock Band has crossed that, til now, ever certain barrier.

What makes Rock Band such a remarkable game is how basically fun it is. It's very hard to pick up drumsticks or that spindly pretend guitar and not let the game immerse me in virtual mirth. It is unlike any game I've played before at transposing not just the mechanics of the thing it wishes to simulate, but what I assume is the basic feeling of playing in a band. Admittedly it should probably also include some sort of simulation of the frustration at getting a paying gig, the inter-band politics over who isn't quite as talented and why does Kevin always get to pick what's in the f'ing set. And, at least once I should have to fall asleep driving the van back from Duluth. Then I would know the real band experience, but we can only ask so much of a simulation.

I digress.

I have had the opportunity to play professional at critical thought on the game, and within that context I always feel compelled to temper my more primal responses to games, be they good or bad. But, it's worth stating that Rock Band is an absolute blast to play, and is that rare kind of game that bursts through the gamer/non-gamer dichotomy and is more like a toy that uses your tv. Honestly, you could do worse things with your time than pretend to make music.

You might just believe you have talent!

Podcast

One of my favorite times of the week is recording the podcast for Gamerswithjobs. This might seem odd for someone who tends to be a writer by nature, but the deep and analytical structure of writing in its best conditions is one kind of pleasure where the raw immediacy of conversation is a totally different one.

People often expect since I have at least some ability at this writing thing, that I will therefore be able to naturally articulate my thoughts in the same kind of manner. It's hard to explain that writing and speaking, despite accessing the same basic forms of information ultimately use two entirely different parts of my brain. When I am writing I can feel the thoughts coming from some entirely different stretch of cerebral flesh than when I am conversing. Maybe it's that writing is naturally slower and you can spend more time even while in the act of thinking what you're about to say, while conversing never quite lets your mind catch up with the moment without spending a bunch of time saying "ummm" and "uhhh".

I am, in fact, quite jealous of people who are able to beautifully articulate in the moment.

Still, like playing a game of pick-up basketball when I never hold any illusions about going pro, being able to exercise that skill in a semi-professional setting of the podcast is endless fun. There is a thrill in knowing that you can't suddenly stop in the middle of a sentence to check Wikipedia and make sure you're not about to make an ass out of yourself with some poorly researched statement. You have to just nut-up and go for it, which is why it doesn't bother me nearly as much about being wrong and raw in the podcast than in an article.

I'll never be a highly paid motivational speaker, but getting together with friends to discuss video games in a mode that a few thousand people will end up listening to is a little bit of a rush.

Things I Never Thought I'd Say Before Having Kids #1

Why is there hand soap in your underwear?

Trust

Maybe it's my old age talking, but I'm increasingly convinced that the more technologically aware we become, the more we are convinced that evil and trouble are lurking just around the corner. That the world is now small is an illusion of such staggering proportion that we seem to be forgetting the value of trust and faith in humanity in the communities we actually belong to. That we have begun to ascribe the sum total of actions in the global community to the potential action of our local environment is a festering hotbed for paranoia and despair.

Information is a blessing and a curse of exactly equal proportion. The more it benefits us on the one hand, the more it threatens us on the other. In this digital age of 24 hour news programming where the worst terrors of the world are portrayed in the light of being on our front doorstep and leering through the living room window, it's so damn easy to simply assume that our lives are in mortal danger at every moment. And, truth be told, they are in a way.

The complete and utter ruin of your world could be waiting just the other side of sunset. Or not. So it's always been, and so it will always be, but it seems everyone in this modern age is so much more keenly aware of death's breathy whisper on the napes of our necks that we exert that much more effort in staving it off and in turn lose increasing faith in those who share our world.

Distrust is such an easy and alluring reaction, and a natural one for anyone who spends time reading CNN. The volume of bad news we can ingest is bad enough, but that we have active participants scouring the globe to find us the worst of the worst for our current events pleasure will unfailingly shake any sane person's faith in humanity. When we perceive the world as being small, the fate that befalls some unfortunate child in Kansas or California or Kuala Lampur seems like it's taking place right in our backyards. We lose scope of the size of humanity and its ordinary actions of completely un-newsworthiness in comparison to the barrage of bad news.

The world is so easy to perceive as a permanently bad place, and I encourage you to look away from sensational terror. I feel the tickle of pessimism in me regularly, and it takes an active effort of trust to not assume the person next to me at the grocery store isn't a killer, rapist or music stealer.

In this age of awareness and information, it seems to me that the likelihood of bad things happening has neither risen nor fallen in comparison to more innocent times when the world ended at the city or state line. Our information age has not taught us a way to protect ourselves from the occasionally inevitable, only to live more of our life in fear of it.

And, that's why I don't watch Dateline NBC.