Minmaxing Life

A tree-planet, covered with lush vegetation. A tribe of tall blue aliens that live in close relation to nature. Strange humans with guns and futuristic technology. You know what we’re talking about, right?

We’re talking about Ryzom of course, the science-fantasy world I helped create 10 years ago with my previous game company, Nevrax. Our original intention at the time was to release all the code we were building as Free Software. Unfortunately things don’t always go according to plan and I left the company in disagreement before the MMO was even finished.

Many years and many owners later, it is my immense pleasure to announce that Ryzom is finally Free-as-in-Freedom. And not just the code in its entirety (server+client+tools under the AGPL) but also the complete datas (under Creative Commons by-sa).

As far as I know, this is the first time in game history that a *complete* commercial MMO that cost many millions to make is released for all to use and tinker with. For this, we must of course thank Winch Gate Properties Ltd – the current owner – but also Vianney Lecroart, one of the first programmers at Nevrax, whom I know first hand was instrumental in making this happen. During all these years he never stopped caring about Ryzom and the ideals that founded it and for this he has my deepest gratitude.

This is an event that has been 10 years in the making.
The game might be old and have many flaws nevertheless I feel great pride and joy today.
To me, this counts as a dream come true and I hope it helps spawn many new dreams and creations.

Long live Ryzom !

The great volcano Eyjafjallajokull having seen fit to grant me an extra week in Japan, I was able to treat myself to the Boro exposition at the Amuse Museum in Tokyo. I am quite fond of Mingei in general but Boro is particularly close to my heart. Over the past couple of years, to the dismay of many friends with differing tastes, I have even started collecting a few pieces! However, none of it is anywhere close to what I saw on display today:

Boro means, quite literally, rags. This style of patchwork originated at the end of the 19th century in “snow country” Tohoku – at the north end of Japan – where not only was it too cold to cultivate cotton but, to make matters worse, the samurai class had forbidden the commoners from wearing it altogether. So the peasants had to weave their clothes and bed covers out of coarse hemp. When the prohibition ended, at the end of the Edo period (1600-1868), cotton slowly found its way up from the south. To the destitute farmers, it was so precious that they would carefully save and reuse any little scrap of textile, at times even re-looming the threads with hemp. They called the resulting quilted cloth Saki-ori: tear-woven… It was their most prized possession and often the only dowry a young woman would have when she married.

I am hard-pressed to articulate why Boro resonates so strongly with me. Part of it is its unassuming Mingei beauty. Part is the pain, the life of hardship that permeates through the fabric. Part is its historic relevance.

Perhaps even more importantly, Boro is the purest expression I have found of Wabi-Sabi. In Japanese aesthetics, Wabi-Sabi is said to be a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional.

Boro is undeniably Wabi-Sabi.

Interestingly, one could touch all the pieces at the exhibition. Any self-respecting westerner curator would scream in horror at the thought of hundreds of hands groping the fragile, century old sashiko kimonos! But in this case it seems to me that touching the textile is not only necessary to emotionally connect with it, it is also in tune with core tenets of Wabi-Sabi:

Corrosion and contamination make its expression richer. It solicits the expansion of sensory information. It understands that to everything, there is a season.

Nothing ever lasts…

(With many thanks to Leonard Koren for his most excellent book on the subject)

Here’s a story: a big corporation wanted to write software that could replicate a singing human voice. To do so, it needed samples from real singers. Fearing they would be rendered obsolete if the software could clone their voice too well, the singers refused. Thus, the corporation had to develop the software using samples from well known actresses instead of professional singers. And so it did…

Sounds like the pitch for a bad cyberpunk novel, right?

Except the story is true. The big corporation is Yamaha and the software – known as Vocaloid – is licensed to smaller corporations who then sell it as “voice packs”, complete with a name and a face such as Hatsune Miku – from Hatsu (初, first), Ne (音, sound), and Miku (未来, future) thus meaning “the first sound to the future.”

Listen to her launch single (warning: J-Pop inside!), or her greatest accidental hit the “Levan Polkka” (fan made) or even the theme song from Mario Bros or Tetris.

Decent singing for a computer – it holds a lot of promise for the future indeed – but nothing really earth shattering yet…
So all of this would only be mildly interesting if it were not for this surprising fact: Miku is a huge hit here in Japan!

It really dawned on me while walking around Akihabara (the otaku district in Tokyo) this evening. Around 08:00pm, after work, grown men and women waiting in a queue to play the recently released “Project Diva Arcade”…

…look closely: these are not kids nor crazed teenagers. They are well behaved, twenty to thirty, salary men and women…

…who just desperately want to play the arcade version of a PSP game featuring Miku Hatsune and her songs!
In fact she’s all over the place. In the streets, in the stores, from the anime shops to the UFO catchers:

It’s Miku everywhere!

But I don’t really understand why… As a singer she’s barely decent, as an anime character she’s nothing out of the ordinary and the game is just an average rhythm game. So why? If anyone reading is well versed in otaku culture, I would love to hear a coherent explanation for this surprising popularity.

So far the only theory I could come up with is that her success is largely due to the fact that people can make her sing whatever they want. Fans can create their own songs with her voice and share it all over the internet. This gives them a sense of ownership over their idol that might justify her meteoric rise.

Hatsune Miku, future of the music industry and first UGC star?

Like my love,
the sakura blossom
dies too soon.

Extremely well dressed Nick Fortugno (of Diner Dash fame) gave a talk entitled “How to Innovate in the Land of Clones”, based on the starting point that there’s a crisis of cloning in the social games industry.

Why do we innovate ?

- Because First comers own their space. At least recognized first comers.
- Markets evolve as users get sophisticated and jaded.

Nick shows the evolution of game genres over time from 2003 on real Arcade.
By 2007, in only four years, all the dominants genre of 2003 were completely replaced by new genres that didn’t exist at the time.

When the games form becomes stagnant the audience moves. Which is why innovation is important for everybody.

Some advice for innovating:

- Point 1: Start from known places.
Example Luxor. When it came out Zuma and Ricochet where really popular. It took the two key mechanics of both games and combined them: a casual hit is born!

- Point 2: Be inspired by other game media
Example Plant vs Zombies. Start with a very successful game type (Desktop Tower defense) and bring it to the casual audience by making enemy movement simpler, making the end condition more comprehensible, make units more knowable, change narrative + polish, polish, polish.

- Point 3: build new mechanics around proven desires.
Example Restaurant City. Slow growth models (because they work) + restaurant are fun places + Pet Society + friends (like all Facebook games)

- Point 4: Go big or go home
…if you’re small and want to innovate. Anything easy to make is easy to steal. The big guys have much more money than you to market the game. Make something so far crazy that you’re going to be hard to catch up with. So do something hard that will be difficult to replicate : complex mechanics under the hood, high production values, Next level technology.

- Point 5: Don’t assume your audience is solved.
Example from movies: District9 , Paranormal activities…
The movie industry is older, has more money and know their audience better and they still get it wrong regularly. So don’t assume we know better in the games industry. Try things out: testing should be your guide.

Right after Nick, Kenny Shea Dinkin gave a fantastic talk which went way too fast for me to take notes other than the money quote: “Emotional connection breeds irrational loyalty”. Point well taken!

Started the day by going surfing with Jason and Mike, ended it sharing Intrige (one of my favorite board games).
This has got to be the best GDC kickoff ever! ^-^

The Art History of Games symposium’s days 2 and 3 were extremely interesting. Full of insightful and thought-provoking commentary on games. It was really impossible to transcribe the talks with fidelity. So I didn’t try, just soaked it up and took the time to digest it all. Now that the dust has settled a bit in my mind, here’s what I’m left with:

- Just like nobody agrees on a universal definition of art, nobody can agree on a universal definition of games. But a lot of people pretend otherwise…

- On one side you have those arguing for “purity” as Jesper Juul would say. People focusing on the gameplay, the system, the rules. People who passionately believe the soul of games resides in their systemic heart, on the processing side, and that all the other elements attached to it are negligible, uninteresting fluff. Jason Rohrer is a good representative of people trying to define games this way (check out his latest manifesto in my previous post!), but really most of the indies fall in this camp. This explains why their games all look and sound like crap, stuck in 8 bit land (with the occasional exception): because to them it’s not interesting, it’s not what games are about. Fantastic gameplay, poor aesthetics. All substance, no form.

- On the other side you have people defending a formalist view of games. People mainly concerned about the aesthetics of games in a broad sense (visuals and sounds but also theme or story) and what happens there. Ideally, they would like to rid video games of their “gameness”, hoping to find something new if only they could manage to free them of the tyranny of rules. Tale of Tales (ToT) are the perfect representatives for this side of the argument. It’s a very minority view in the landscape but an interesting one as it’s the polar opposite of the first one. All about the form, not the substance.

- In the middle, you have the folks working on the big AAA blockbusters (or enjoying them) who don’t really seem to be questioning what they are doing: no deep reflection on substance (as to them it’s simply about entertainment) and mostly a “more is better” approach to form. Since that’s what has been working in the marketplace and raking in the money, it’s good enough for them.

- So all these people are coming up with definitions of games that fit their beliefs and they often aggressively attack people not working from the same set of assumptions. For proof, just look at the flack ToT or Jason are receiving from some quarters…

- There also seems to be a lot of confusion from everyone between two conversations: “what is a game” and “what tends to make a *good* game”.

- Of course both the “games as substance” and the “games as form” sides are wrong, or rather, they are both right. You cannot separate a game from its form: even something as abstract as “The Marriage” has a form (if only its title), and that form builds meaning for the player just like the system does. You also cannot separate a game from its rules, even if these rules are minimalistic or changing. And the interaction with those rules is really what makes games unique. However, the aesthetics are really what hooks most people in and what they respond to on an emotional level: by now one would think that the AAA industry has amply proven this point…

So in conclusion, I will argue that the focus of games should be the subjective experience they induce in the player and that many things contribute to that experience: the system *and* its form (which are inseparable), the player’s subjectivity, the (optional) other player’s actions, the context in which they approach the game…
Which is why I can’t agree with games being defined as objects excluding the player.
Which is why I can only come up with a very loose definition of games and I think that’s okay.

There’s a lot of dogmatism going around right now and we seem to be short on tolerance. Let’s just hope this situation reverts itself soon so we can go back to exploring the full range of what games could be. Peacefully and without prejudice.

I am at the Art History of Games (#AHoG on Twitter) symposium in Atlanta.

It all starts with Jason Rohrer handing me his “New Gamist Manifesto” February 3, 2010. It goes like this:

1- Games do not have spoilers.
2- Games cannot be finished.
3- Games do not have characters, except for the characters who play them.
4- Games do not have stories, except for the stories that players tell through them.
5-Playing a new game is less like reading a new story, hearing a new song, or seeing a new film.
6- Playing a new game is more like learning a new language.
7- Games are interfaces, not between minds and content, but between minds.

John Sharp, Ian Bogost, and Michael Nitsche then open the conference by asking a number of questions:

- Is the art of games found in the visual elements?
Colecovision, Boxing ; 2K Boston Bioshock ; Tale of Tales, The Path ; That Game Company, Flower

- Is the art of games in their worlds?
Otto Brückwald, Bayreuth Theater ; Square Enix, Final Fantasy IX ; Rockstar Games, Grand Theft Auto IV ; Valve, Counter Strike

- Is the art of games found in the creative exploitation of technology?
Id, Doom ; Julian Olivier ioq3apaint ; Natal ; David Crane, Grand Prix

- Is the art of games found in the game design?
Nintendo, Wii Sports Tennis ; NCAA basketball court specifications ; Jason Rohrer Gravitation ; Rod Humble, The Marriage

- Is the art of games found in player activity?
Namco, Pac-Man ; Ali-Frazier ; Robbie Cooper, “Gamer Faces” ; Ubisoft Montreal, Far Cry 2

Then they looked at the issues related to the historical response to games:

- How are games treated as historical artifacts?
Lewis Chess set ; Senet (the ancient egyptian game which no ones know how to play anymore) ; Katsushika Oi, Operating on Guanyu’s Arm

- How do Games as digital Artifacts fit into the traditional art world? (hint bad)
Cory Arcangel, Super Mario Clouds ; Mark Essen, Flywrench ; Brenda Brathwaite, Train ; The E.T / Superman cartridge graveyard

- What problems does the marketplace create for games as art?
Ian Bogost, Guru Meditation ; Cory Arcangel, Super Mario Clouds ; Mark Essen, The thrill of Combat ; Number None, Inc, Braid ; Jason Rohrer, Passage

John Romero’s then takes the stage for his talk: Masters Among Us (italics are mine)

“We unfortunately have only 10% of Mozart’s output. Imagine if Mozart was alive now and we could talk to him. In the games industry, our masters walk among us…

Nasir Gebelli: he was instrumental in Gorgon, Space Eggs and Phantoms Five. At the time, he had to keep the entire game in his head: no source code, written directly in assembly. The slowness of the machine dictated that you had to come up with a lots of tricks to make your games. Then he became the only programmer on Final Fantasy 1, 2 and 3 and then went on to make Secret of Mana. But now he’s gone, left the Games industry.

Bill Budge: originally he played around with early 3D programming but more importantly created pinball construction set in 1982. He now works at Sony in San Mateo and works mainly on tools.

Mark Turmell: Started on the Apple II, then to Atari 2600 than to Midway where he did NBA Jam, Total Carnage, and then created the franchise Ballers. Last year Midway went over after 30 years and Mark had worked there for 20.

But some of our legends and masters have already passed on:

Dan Bunten: The creator of M.U.L.E – which was the refinement of 3 of his earlier game.

James Nitchals: early Apple II programmer. Brilliant sound programmer Bug Attack and Micro Wave and Zany Golf. (I loved Zany Golf as a kid!)

Bill Williams: Great game designer that made games for synapse. Alley Cat, Necromancer, Pioneer Plague…

Gunpei Yokoi: Was the inspiration for Shigeru Miyamoto. The Game & Watch. The D-pad. His theory of design was that great games don’t have to come from the technology they have to come from the design. What have we learned from his philosophy? Farmville, Wii Fit…

Gary Gygax & Dave Arneson: creators of D&D in 1974

Sid Sackson: very prolific board game designer. Made Acquire! His family didn’t recognize his genius and auctioned all of his designs & prototypes. They belonged in museums but now they’re lost.

Then there’s the hardware.

The Atari 2600 was made for Combat & Pong. Originally it was made for nothing else. And from the little tweaks the engineers found, they built the foundations of the games industry.

The Apple II had to be programmed in assembly, it had a lot of limitation but people found ways to break through them.

Today’s designers are far more constrained now than we were 20 years ago because at the time we had complete access to the hardware. Not only did we have the wide open frame buffer but we had the arcades to show us so many design patterns. Dig Dug, Robotron, Pac man…

First there was an incredible diversity of design and then there was Genre-ification.
Wolfenstein, with its gun in front of the screen, was what ignited the FPS genre. Then Doom. Then everything caught fire and lots of clones where being made. Then Quake with full 3D and internet multiplayer. When Quake came out, it was like a nuke and suddenly everything was 3D. The entire game industry turned to 3D. So we created a genre but it became stifling. And that’s not just for FPS but also true for RPGs, MMOs, Tycoons, RTS… If you don’t have a design that fit the genres, it’s not going to get funded. Genre explodes and replicate: just like Farmville is exploding and replicating.

Another limitation we have now is APIs. APIs save you plenty of time because there’s lots you don’t have to do. But they also limit you in your expression. They come with their own limitations.

So Priority number 1 is to go back to the founders of our industry, talk to them and ask them where their ideas came from. Not just interviews but graduate student thesis. We need to go back to the beginning.

We are much more constrained today than we were before. By Technology, by genre-ification, etc… We need to go back to our masters who found ways to innovate and inspire us. Who tackled every subject. Who worried more about play than polygons. And we need to do it before this knowledge is lost.

We don’t want what happened to Mozart to happen to our masters.

My design decisions. When I think about them, I ask myself what would the masters decide? What would they do next?”

This past weekend, we once again did the Global Game Jam and I ran the Paris event with the help of my friends from the ISART video game school. In just a year, the GGJ has grown massively with 4349 jammers in 39 countries and 138 sites producing 927 games! We pulled our own weight in Paris, going from 11 participants last year to 40 this year who produced 7 games.

The global constraint was “Deception” to which I added “Seduction” for Paris as – in France – one never goes without the other! ;)

On top of this global constraint there was a time zone constraint. For GMT+1 it was: “Each game has to contain at least one of these items: a Key, a Monkey, or a Donkey.” All of which led to much perplexity from the jammers as evidenced by this sketch:

But in the end, after lots of pizza munching and coffe guzzling and not so much sleep, we got a batch of hilarious games involving princesses, donkey and monkeys (of course):

- Princess Kun Kun Pecho Pecho

A horny tiny prince in his tighty whities (don’t ask why…) wants to kiss all the princesses.But he must do so in the back of the other jealous princesses or they will turn into furious little donkeys and trample him!

- ^V><

You are a “space peasant” hidden among space princes trying to seduce the Monkey Princess. But you don’t know the right choreography for the love dance and need to guess it from watching the other princes dance. Watch for their mistakes and be the last space monkey standing!

- Parisian Moon Sheep

Up to four players race to the top of a stylized Paris to conquer the love of their She-sheep (moutonesse in french).

- Give Me Your Skin

A Ninja Princess seduces an army of ninja creatures (including monkey & donkeys of course) and steals their skin to make her way up to her prince’s throne room.

- ShiFuNanny’s Sausage

An old hag trying to take her donkey to the slaughterhouse. The donkey trying to reverse the situation. Use a sort of reflex ShiFuMi to decide the outcome…

- Meet Me at the Banana Disco

How to pick-up in a noisy environment. Get as many phone numbers as you can… and find out who exactly you’ve hit on! A great demonstration of how to create very diverse moods with little effort (but a lot of creativity).

- Kawaii Maximum Overkill

You’re the Devil. You hate the cute, fluffy, Kawaiis. Disguise yourself as one of their own to better seduce them and bring them in your deadly trap.

As expected this year’s GGJ was full of pressure, full of laughter and full of fun – as is clear from the event’s pictures… Games were made, friendships were tied and I can’t wait to do it all over again!

Last month I spent an extended weekend on the tiny island of Naoshima, in the Seto inland sea. Naoshima became a well known cultural spot in Japan after the Benesse corporation (owner of the Berlitz language schools) had Tadao Ando design and build two museums for contemporary art. I usually dislike museums because they feel more like mausoleums than anything else. However the Benesse House – as the first one is called – is an interesting place not just for the art it holds but because you can sleep there: the museum also serves as a small hotel. Art pieces are on display everywhere, from your bedside to the surrounding outdoors and even on the beach. Art becomes part of your messy life, as it should be – it isn’t sterilized and sanctified ready-for-worship. Getting out of your room late at night and wandering through the deserted museum is quite an experience! I would go so far as to say it completely changes your relation to the pieces. Now, if only they would let me sleep in le Louvre…