The Mammon Philosophy

Much as Marle unwittingly follows Crono to the telepod demonstration which sucks her into the middle ages, you can now follow me on Twitter! Simply attach your account to mine in the manner of your choosing, and you’ll receive updates on my latest posts, gaming accomplishments, and other sundry activities such as previews of my movie reviews. I feel this is a good alternative to posting directly on Mammon every time I have a fresh observation about SMB3 that only lasts a matter of sentences before sputtering out.

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MadWorld isn’t out until March, but the developers are already talking sequels. Catch this exchange in an interview at That VideoGame Blog with producer Astushi Inaba:

TVGB: So if this is a big success will you move on to a different title on the Wii or are you thinking about sequels?

AI: Platinum Games has several rights so we’ll be developing something new after this, but if there is a lot of interest in MadWorld then maybe we will make another one.

Not to turn this quote inside out with meanings that aren’t there, but some of the usual suspects are already treating this as a given. What particularly stings is that the news is routinely paired up with a reference to “some of the developers” having been part of the team that brought us Okami, a game much more deserving of a true sequel (not just a Wii-make) than an as-yet untested new property. But even that would be pushing the prognostication envelope too far. Why can’t we ever concentrate on the games that are coming out now? Does the gaming news media machine really devour so much information every day that we can’t sate it with actual titles, forcing the invention of speculative products from thin air to keep the RSS feeds running? Surely someone has another set of panty-shot screens from Street Fighter IV or some more honed rage over allegations of racism in Metroid. (”Samus Aran doesn’t care about Elysians.”)

Of course, I have a vested interest in keeping this sort of Ouija-board reporting down, since I’m generally playing games after they’re released, so perhaps my own editorial bias should be critiqued as well. We’re none of us free from sin.

In the wake of the European Parliament’s Internal Market Committee’s released statement that parents should have a “red button” to disable online games, a prominent Canadian game design philosopher has suggested that even further steps should be taken.

“Your game-obsessed kids need a good spanking,” said Simon Roberts of The Mammon Industry. “Spank ‘em until their cheeks are red.”

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Heather Mallick has an article up on CBC entitled, rather titillatingly, Porn is in the air that we breathe. Hey, with a headline like that, how could I possibly ignore it? And I was rewarded for my keen sense of exotic editorial excavation with a fabulous picture of Madonna in a corset (circa 2004) and this gem of a quote concerning the explicitization of society:

Snoop Dogg popularized hard-core rap, daughters started demanding Bratz dolls (dressed like hookers) and glittery abbreviated stripper clothes, sons began rapping and killing prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto.

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This got past my radar on the weekend, but luckily a clarification put it back on front pages today: Electronic Entertainment Design and Research helps companies make profitable games… or not, as the article explains, detailing how different features (multiplayer, cross-platform design) can be hit-or-miss in terms of overall profitability. The big figure that everyone is tossing around from this story is the percentage of games that become profitable: 4% of all games that enter production, and 20% of those that reach the market.

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Dunno how I managed to miss this one, must’ve had something to do with my seething rage at the press yesterday. But Reggie Fils-Aime said yesterday that the big N was focusing on more user-generated content. Yeah, so I guess they like the whole “make your fanbase work for you” strategy now? Just as long as it doesn’t involve homebrew or translation patches, and I’m assuming mod chips are right out. So the real message here is “we like user-content, as long as it conforms utterly to the strict limitations of creativity that we’ve set out as the untouchable framework.” This is akin to asking someone to whistle a new chart-topping song while the oft-quoted boot continues stamping on your face forever and ever. Is that a little unfair? I guess a more N-friendly comparison would be that these grey-zone illicit activities are like driving on the wrong side of the two-way street. But I’m a safe driver, and it drives me crazy to get stuck behind a Sunday-grandma type who’s going ten clicks under the limit in a no-passing zone. Give it some gas or take the next off-ramp, Nintendo.

That said, I do eagerly await The Conduit and Madworld. Formulaic creativity through violence is definitely something I can get behind — there’s nothing I like better than a developer with an eye for more than the standard “shoot that guy” mentality.

Steve Crisp spoke to reporters today about the foundation being instituted in his son’s name to help underprivileged kids play minor sports.

Steve Crisp said his son was a hockey goalie, but stopped after his size became a factor. He said he believes children should be allowed to play whatever sports they want to.

“He got to a point where he was a little shorter than the other kids, and, you know, his position was kind of moved off the team, and we decided to quit minor sports at that point,” he said.

It frankly outrages me that this is the first we’ve heard of this particular detail. Every news report up until now repeated the same mantra about Brandon quitting sports due to his “addiction” to Call of Duty 4. Being removed from your chosen sport is a different matter altogether, and may even have been the event that drove Brandon to gaming in the first place. When you’re on a sports team, a number of things are set in place: the routine of practising, the excitement of competition, the camaraderie of your teammates. If you’re yanked off the team, all of those things go away, and they leave a void. If something new comes in and fills the void in a destructive way, it is not the new element’s fault. Don’t go telling me that he unequivocally had to quit because he was too short to play in goal. In that case, you move the kid to defense or forward. You do not simply walk away from the organization. That’s just shameful.

In the wake of the discovery of Brandon Crisp’s body, Future Shop decided to cancel two midnight launch parties for Gears Of War 2 in Toronto and Vancouver. And the National Post seems to think that it singlehandedly saved us from these parties.

“The Post called Future Shop on Thursday to ask whether it was appropriate, in light of Brandon’s death, for the store to hold a festive launch planned for last night across Canada for the new Xbox game, Gears of War 2. In the game, participants are embroiled in a genocidal war with subterranean locusts. On Thursday night the chain cancelled the parties outside its stores in Toronto and Vancouver.”

Emphasis mine to highlight another example of underinformed reporting — they make it sound like you just run around snuffing bugs, which is a slight understatement to say the least.

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So today, I almost decided not to play any video games for a week. Allow me to explain: the latest Brandon Crisp story at GamePolitics invited the attention of “Yawheh,” the wife of one of the professional search-and-rescue workers who was in the Barrie area. She issued this peculiar query:

Tell me something! what do you folks get out of gaming.

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I wrote this literally 20 minutes before the news broke that Brandon’s body was found. Once again, my heart goes out to the family.

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