Every so often, I get to go behind closed doors and preview games early. Well, not before signing a non-disclosure agreement and sometimes giving proof that yes, this scrappy looking kid is in fact writing for [insert name of publication.]
I got my start on paid writing work with previews, but it wasnāt until recently that I actually started doing event coverage regularly. Thereās more to the demo kiosk than a write up might tell you.
My first event was none other than my favorite current gen franchise, Gears of War. I played the games religiously, and followed news on the franchise intently but standing there, just feet away from the people who actually made the game was something else. On top of that being my first time out, being in charge of writing up something so high profile meant that I was beyond terrified.
You might read developer interviews, follow or perhaps even interact with game makers on social networks, but thatās different from actually meeting a person. You see the excited glimmer in their eye when theyāre talking about something interesting, or you feel a gravitational pull when theyāre talking about something they care about. That is, when theyāre not being hushed by their PR person juuust as theyāre getting to the juicy part. Damn.
Thereās always this sense of restraint thatās palpable at events, which is a shame.
The thing that always strikes me about these events is the fact that someone like me exists at all. Iām a middleman, yes? And games are interactive experiences. I canāt help but feel like every time you read something someone writes on a game, thereās an inherent disservice going on. The words can only approximate the feel of a game and todayās technology means that hypothetically someone like me doesnāt have to exist (!).
Developers can get the games straight to consumers. That eventually happensāitās usually one of the later segments of a marketing strategy and itās not uncommon for consumers to have demos that journalists play months beforehand.
Of course, thereās a reason why someone like me ostensibly exists. Weāre story tellers. We frame the experience, contextualize it, package it in a way that makes it seem palatableāeven if maybe what Iām looking at isnāt quite finished or polished. Weāre bound to see more of the frayed edges of games, the not-quite-there-yet in motion. A game that doesnāt entirely work as intended yet, or that sometimes craps out and goes into code-heavy screens that only developers can decipher. Cue nervous laugh, resetting of the game on the dev kit.
We donāt experience the crunch time, but we get a smaller taste of something thatās slowly being built, grown. Maybe Iāll see a game at an early stage and think there isnāt anything there to write about yet. Next time I see it, itāll be further alongāand thatās what youāll hear about.
Every game has dozens if not hundreds of people behind it. Each of those people has a story, and some of those people have stories that will never, ever make it to the bullet points a PR person has to tell every new journalist inquiring about a game.
Not that Iām suggesting that I try to sell you on something that doesnāt look good, but my role is primarily a utilitarian one, right? You read a preview to help you decide if you want to buy something. And I write with that in mind, even though I donāt have much of an interest in guiding peopleās purchasing decisions. Crafting an engaging story is the overall aim, but still, the reason youāre reading revolves almost entirely around the fact the game is a product and youāre a potential consumer.
So we ask developers questions and sometimes they talk. What you end up reading is a small segment of the overall storyāsometimes, just a few lines from hours worth of material is what you see because itās the only stuff thatās usable in the tale I want to tell. Or the only parts Iām allowed to talk about. Thanks, NDA!
https://lastchance.cc/gamings-biggest-problem-is-that-nobody-wants-to-talk-5928663%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
I might not intend to sell you on something thatās not worthwhile, but I canāt help but fear it anyway. What I see when I play a demo at an event has been specifically chosen to highlight the best aspects of a gameā¦which makes sense, but that game segment might not be representative of the overall game. That Bioshock Infinite demo that everyone raved about at E3? Word on the street is that itās a far cry from the overall state of the game. But you wouldnāt know that from the coverage.
https://lastchance.cc/bioshock-infinite-update-multiplayer-modes-cut-gears-5933119%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
All I can do is write what I see. Maybe thatās not enough, and it worries me. But then again, the worry that Iām not doing right by the people Iām supposed to serveāthatād be youāis an ongoing struggle. The second that I walked into the world of press, the second I started attending events things changed. Iām not the average gamer anymore. I never want to get so far from the average consumerās concern that my writing is not of use to youā¦but Iām not supposed to be you, exactly, either. Reporter! Objectivity! And so on.
The biggest thing about events, though? The thing that makes me pause the most, downright makes me uncomfortable? Well, itās in the name itself. An event.
Every game has dozens if not hundreds of people behind it. Each of those people has a story, and some of those people have stories that will never, ever make it to the bullet points a PR person has to tell every new journalist inquiring about a game.
Itās not that the small army that made the game possible is missing, itās that I always get the sense that the human element, period, is missing.
In the last year Iāve dated some game designers, but mostly Iāve befriended many. What youāve seen on Indie Game: The Movie is the tip of the iceberg. There are so many stories out there. Kotaku updates every half hour, sometimes more, and we still donāt nab anywhere near all the stories out there.
Meet Zoe Quinn. Sheās a close friend working on her first title, Itās Not Okay, Cupid ā a game about trying to find connection where the player navigates a dating site. Maybe youāre searching for love. Maybe youāre searching for the night. Everyoneās looking for something, though.
When Zoe was a child, her motherāwho has mental health issuesātold her that her heart had a defect and she wouldnāt live past her 20ās. Zoe believed her, and lived much of her life thinking that she didnāt have too much time to spend on this Earth.
So she became a dilettante and began making thingsāall sorts of things. Arts, crafts. Anything that might live beyond a life taken too soon, anything that might inspire someone to make something themselves, anything that maybe, just maybe would change a life.
So she became a dilettante and began making thingsāall sorts of things. Arts, crafts. Anything that might live beyond a life taken too soon, anything that might inspire someone to make something themselves, anything that maybe, just maybe would change a life.
And thatās how she came to video games, the perfect amalgamation of just about every art you can think of.
I saw her go through a flurry of people on dating sites, both as a blind, hungry attempt to meet someone and a means to conduct research on Itās Not Okay, Cupid. The type of weird closeness, you might say, that Nicolau Chaud experienced with Polymorphous Perversityāthe kind that blurs lines and the creator becomes the subject and the recipient of the work. The kind where you get so involved that you end up thinking to yourself, if I donāt finish this game, thatās it. I donāt want to live.
But most of all, there was the acknowledgement that our own work was so personalāfor her, itās her games, for me itās my writingāthat it was like throwing a bottle out at sea. Weāre hoping someone receives that bottle, opens it, and gets it. And maybeāin this little romantic, idealistic world of ours where things like this can happenāweāre hoping someone falls in love with us, too.
I will never hear about something like this at an event. But this past year has made me so hungry for this human element, to find the soul in the binary of games, that it pains me to see it nowhere when Iām at an event.
Bright lights, booming music, fancy food, attractive attendants and PR representatives though? Present. Itās worse at bigger events, where the audience is so large, the displays so lavish and the performances so crazy that the spectacle of it all is the only thing I can focus onānot the games, and certainly not the people. Everyone dreams of E3; I dread it.
At the same time, the slew of big blockbuster games developed by developer giants who often seem scared to take risks with their gamesāwho create something that cannot be considered anything more than a āproductā, not a work of artāI canāt help but think that maybe, just maybe, the spectacle captures the empty soul of these games well.
