Doing it With Style: Age of Empires in PC PowerPlay
Also, FarCry 3!! Looking forward to that.
So I actually got two articles out of Age of Empires: Online. The second one is now available for your reading pleasure in issue #196 of PC PowerPlay. So that's also my first magazine publication, congrats to me! (Self-congratulation on one's own blog: 30 Narcissist achievement points!)
The article is one of the new 'Perspectives' column that PCPP are attaching to some of their reviews that David Wildgoose describes as 'criticism.' In this case, I'm examining the nature of AOEO's art style. Its an interesting issue given that the art style of computer games is so often relegated to 'graphics' and measured in objective terms like number of polygons and draw distance. Here's the first paragraph:
In art forms other than videogames, the pursuit of high visual fidelity or verisimilitude is but one style of art amongst myriad others. In videogames, this pursuit of a visual realism is the de facto standard, and anything deviating from that is ‘artsy’ and somehow on the fringe. Even this discussion, which highlights the artistic style of Age of Empires: Online as an interesting factor worth exploring in particular, can easily be seen as positioning the ‘normal’ way of making games look realistic at the centre.
Now go and buy a copy of the magazine so I can continue writing these things!
Sustaining Content Providers, redux
I wrote an article over a year ago in response to Ars Technica openly discussing their dilemma regarding generating cashflow. Theirs is the same problem faced by many, if not all, commercial websites providing media content. I am inspired to bump that article again here, as the problems have come to a head today. The Escapist have, up to now, hosted a remarkably successful video series Extra Credits. A very nasty disagreement has erupted quite publicly between the two. From Extra Credits, there are accusations of non-payment and breach of contract, along with unreasonable claims made on charitable donations to cover medical expenses. From the Escapist, various explanations, mitigation, and an admission that they simply didn't have the money to pay their content providers, such as Extra Credits. (Here's a post that seems to be tracking and updating the situation.)
Siding with the perceived 'little guy' in this situation is all too easy, especially since I really like the content Extra Credits produce. Yet I feel for the Escapist in this situation too, as a representative of a huge slew of online publishers that I'm learning a bit more about lately. Paying creative producers like the EC team is an absolute necessity, I have no doubt about this. But where does that money come from? The standard set all those years ago is that content on the internet should be free, so the money doesn't come directly from the consumers, that's for sure. The alternative, up to now, has been to rely on advertising revenue. Is it working? Well I'm not privy to the accounts of enough websites to know for sure, but from what I do know, online games sites aren't all rolling in cash.
So I ask again, all the same questions that are in the article, one of the first I wrote for this blog. Where to now?
Missing the Point: Breivik, Christianity and Videogames
Earlier this week, Anders Behring Breivik (allegedly? do I have to say this when he's made a confession?) planted and detonated a bomb in Oslo, Norway shortly before landing on a small island summer camp dressed in a police uniform and wielding an automatic rifle. He proceeded to massacre dozens of young political party members of Norway's left-wing, incombent, Labour party. He also released a manifesto comprising 3 books and some 1500 pages outlining his worldview and political theory, as well as step-by-step instructions on becoming a Justicar Knight Templar. His goal is simple: to defend his vision of a white, Christian Europe from the overwhelming threat of unnatural Islamification.
In this staggaring tome, Breivik articulates an astonishingly meticulous historical account of the development of a 'cultural Marxism' whereby the natural order of white, male, Christian hegemony in Europe is undermined by multiculturalism and specifically collaboration with Islamic, Arabic states. The first 280 odd pages are the historical background in which Breivik describes the development of economic Marxism into a more insidious cultural Marxism that progresses through academia in the Frankfurt School, various forms of critical theory and sociology. Specifically, Breivik's concern is this new culture of egalitarian 'political correctness' is causing historical revision in order to allow Muslims to invade Europe. For this to occur, the unwitting population of Europe has been duped by various ideologies that allow for no disagreement, feminism, multiculturalism, religious tolerance etc. The second book, around 500 pages, extends this documentation into the modern era. He traces social and political transformations across the entire history of Islam, exploring the "Eurabia" doctrine, the formation of a Palestinian state, reasons that the Europeon Union and United Nations are actually detrimental to European countries, linking feminism to the perceived Islamic invasion, the dangers of global capitalism, the roots of "Muslim hatred" and the history of jihad, and various examples of European countries' preference of Islamic issues at the expense of "native" concerns.
Age of Empires: GameSpy Article
In case anyone has noticed the long gap between posts here, there are reasons, good ones I promise! I've been extra busy with my actual thesis and organising the GAME event at Macquarie, but I've also been writing some freelance work for other outlets. The first is now available at GameSpy!
Check out the full article here.