Smartbomb
The Quest for Art, Entertainment, and Big Bucks in the Videogame Revolution

Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby
Authors
Friday, December 9, 2005 1:00 PM

After immersing themselves in the video game culture by attending gaming conventions, interviewing its inventors and entrepreneurs, along with researching the history of the industry and its influence on pop culture, authors Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby have published their first book "Smartbomb: The Quest for Art, Entertainment and Big Bucks in the Videogame Revolution" (Algonquin Books).

They were online Friday, Dec. 9 at 1 p.m. ET to discuss the book and the video game industry.

A transcript follows .

About the Authors: Heather Chaplin is a career journalist, having written for many major publications including the New York Times, Fortune, Details, and Salon. Aaron Ruby began his career as a biophysics research assistant and has done graduate work in both philosophy and science. He has also written extensively about the video game industry and has reviewed video games for Entertainment Weekly.

For more information, visit their blog .

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Raleigh, N.C.: Read a story about video games in Discovery a few months back. It seemed to suggest that they help exercise the human brain in ways that it has never been worked before. That they're making humans smarter in different ways. What are your thoughts on this? More importantly, could this be a way to convince my wife that buying a PlayStation2 on Ebay is a good idea?

Aaron Ruby: That's a a really great question. After spending these years immersed in the game biz and with gamers, I would def. say that games excercise the brain in new and important ways. What we noticed was that they facilliate analyitical thinking, patience, an understanding of cause and effect, and an ability to conceptualize 3D space.

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Suffolk, Va.: In your chapter 3 excerpt as seen in the last issue of Game Informer, you included details about S. Miyamoto that were so detailed that it seemed as if you grew up with him. Just how open were the Japanese industry icons with you? Did that openness seem contrary with Japanese culture.

Also, what do you thiink are the prospects for the 360?

Thanks!

J.J. in VA

Heather Chaplin: The Miyamoto chapter was really hard, because Nintendo is so tight with his time. We were really lucky to get some good one-on-one access with him (which realy means you and him and about five Nintendo people), but we also read and studied and watched him. We wanted to paint as intimate a portrait as we could. As if Miyamoto himself was sitting there telling you the story.

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San Antonio, Texas: South Korea has seen a vast influx of gaming addiciton (at 70%) and the same can be seen here in the states as we become more 'tech dependent'. I can't help but wonder if the gaming companies should put some efforts to raise awareness about such dangers as does the tobacco or the alcohol industry does. Maybe awareness needs to be put out more in general about the subject. Your thoughts?

Heather Chaplin: I'm never sure how to respond to the question of addiction. What makes you say Korean players addicted? Because they play a lot? I have seen players who seem to have a 'compulsion' to play. But personally, I'm wary of throwing the term "addicted" around. It's easy to diagnose everyone.

As for Korea, though, it's true that they have extraordinarily high rates of game players. and they have the highest broadband penetration in the country.

I think there does need to be more awareness for the public about what videogames ARE and what skills they foster. I'm not sure a danger warning is the answer. But i'm pretty sure ignorance is the enemy!

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Fairfax, Va.: What do you think are the prospects for PC gaming or more diversity in console gaming. One of the things that I enjoy about single-player RPGs on the computer is that they are engaging and, most importantly, relaxing. I can play the game while sitting at my desk with the stereo on behind me.

Console games usually mean sitting akwardly in the family room and being 100 percent absorbed in the on-screen action. Fun, but not exactly the same experience. I get the feeling though that the target market for console games are people who want exactly that type of experience. Do you forsee a wider choice of games for the new systems coming out? Are the companies serious about reaching outside of their base?

Aaron Ruby: It's funny the way you describe your 'ideal' gaming experience. I'm almost the opposite, in that I prefer to play games at a console. The problem, for me though, is that consoles are horrible for communicating by chat.

To answer your question, I do think a wider choice is going to be available for the next generation consoles, but some of that diversity is going to come about at the expense of development for the PC.

In the short-term, the Xbox 360 actually has a lot more diversity than the usual new console launch, thanks to the myriad games available on Xbox Live. However, it's gonna take awhile for MS's library of new games to fill out. Right now it's not that distinctivve of a line up, though I love PGR3 and Kameo.

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Seattle, WA: Hello Heather and Aaron,It was once the nature of the game industry here in the US that most of the people involved with development seemed to be hardcore gamers/programmers. Money has been flooding the American industry for some time now. Do you think this has caused things to change?

In your experience what would you say are some of the more common characteristics that typify the current crop of game developers and their companies? How do they compare to previous generations of developers and the companies that they started?

Thank you,

Lance

Heather Chaplin: it's true - the gaming biz was once the habitat of only the die hard. People who couldn't imagine doing anything but this one weird thing they did! Making videogames. Or people who fell into it from having studied computer science, but actually wanted to do something FUN! Now, schools across the country are opening degree programs in game development and you see teenagers and young adults 'considering' it as a career option.

I noticed at the Game Developers Conference this year a lot of conern over "qaultiy of life issues." Not everyone in the biz is young anymore, and not everyone wants pizza as a reward for working 20 hours days at crunch time.

I'm not sure it's the money in the industry, per se, that's drawing new interest (in fact, compared to other entertainment fields, the money is not what it could be). Rather, I think it's a generation of people who grew up playing games, and now they want to make games. Think of someone like S. Spielberg, who everyone has read was obsessed with filming model train crashes in his parent's living room when he was a kid, and just never thought about anything except movies and making movies. i think it's like that with videogames and young people today.

One issue you'll see is that still, no one is quite sure what to teach to create Game Designers. Programs include architecture as well as programming and animation. As Will Wright says, there still isn't a very good game design vocabulary even!

But then again the videogame is only 30 years old, as compared with film, which is more than 100 years old.

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New York City: What are the prospects for convincing AI in games? Not just in terms of movement of enemies in, say, war games, but in creating dynamic behavior in more narrative-based games? Have developers made any progress here?

Aaron Ruby: I'd agree that convincing AI is really lacking in the ways that really matter to carrying the medium to the next level--believable NPCs (non-player characters) with simulated emotions for example.

I think that a lot of developers are aware of this need, but AI is an expensive proposition to build and research and (though I'm no coder) the kind of AI we're talking about is usually not resource cheap from a computing standpoint.

It's probably not going to happen in this generation, but the next "quantum leaps" in gaming will no longer be graphics but AI and controllers. The graphics era is reaching a point of diminishing returns, and developers will have to build their design vocabulary around new technologies.

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Alabama: Posting early: I look forward to reading your book.

One of the problems with appreciating great games of the past -- and I agree that video games are an art form -- is the technology. You can create a real masterpiece for a computer, but after five years, the hardware needed to run it becomes obsolete, people upgrade their computers, and soon no one can experience the joy of that game anymore. Sid Meier's Pirates! on the Commodore 64 was brilliant; Accolade's Star Control 2 remains one of the best science fiction stories ever put on screen, but those 10-15 year old games can't be experienced as immediately as putting a DVD of the 64-year-old Citizen Kane in the drive. No one with a computer built in the last five years can play Star Control 2; the machines are too fast.

I know Atari games are being rebundled; I know emulators are out there, but they need to be downloaded and adjusted to particular systems. A DVD player can give one immediate access to the history of cinema, but there's nothing similar with computers, at least as far as I can see. And a lot of brilliant work is cut off as a result.

Do you think the history of video games will always be difficult to study, or is there anything that will change that?

Heather Chaplin: The issue of chasing technology is something Aaron and I heard from almost day one of reporting Smartbomb. As you probably know, when a new console comes out, it takes developers several years to really understand all that they can do with it - at which point, the life cycle of the machine is probably on the way out.

On the other hand, making games for the PC has it's own set of challenges - essentially, because of all the variation out there on people's own computers, designers have to work towards the lowest common denominator.

I think this issue is part of what makes teh field so interesting - it's a place where technology and creativity meet in a kind of new way. Imagine if every time a film director went to make a movie, he had to reinvent the camera!

Also - I think you're hitting on another issue, which is that a lot of people really miss the simiplicity, if that's the right word, of the classic games. And certainly a lot of critics of contemporary games say designers spend all their time chasing that new technology and miss altogether the all important "fun factor." So I don't think it's surprising that a lot of people are returning to the classics.

Also - I think with the Xbox 360, you can go online and download a whole bundle of classic games. Check out your local retailer too - the companies are catching on to the interest in classic games and rebundling them for modern console and computer use.

As for the history - have you read steven kent's The Ultimate History of Videogames or Leonard Herman's Phoenix. They're both really good histories. And yes, as more universities start to integrate videogame studies into their course books, we'll see a better knowledge of the medium being passed down.

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Brooklyn, N.Y.: Hello. I really enjoyed your book, especially the chapter on games developed by the military. Following the release of America's Army to the general public, do you know of any other American or other armed forces who plan to put out similar game? For example, maybe an Air Force designed and sanctioned flight simulator?

Aaron Ruby: The Air Force is working on a recruitment tool called, "USAF: Air Dominance." As far as I know, it's not yet available.

I think there's no doubt that all branches of the military (and the pentagon) will be using more (not less) videogame technology for recruitment.

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Arlington, VA: I apologize that I have not yet read your book. So you may have addressed this question already, but would you agree that some of the larger gaming companies tend to just churn out games and once on the market they do not put forth enough effort to support these games? For example, coming out with new patches and maintaining updated information on their websites.

As a follow up, are there any small talented companies that you expect to start the next big revolution in gaming? Also, What do you think the next big revolution in gaming will be?

Heather Chaplin: Hey there - no need to apologize - good question!

Yes, there is a lot of concern in the industry today that with so much consolidation at the publisher level and with the cost of games rising north of $10 million for a AAA title, there's less willingness to take a risk on more innovative or 'out-there' fare.

And even big developers complain about how little time their games get on the shelves. It's very much a blockbuster model - if you don't hit fast, like in the first few weeks, you may not get a second chance.

So what i'm saying is that I think a lot of the development houses would point the finger at the publishers. The actual development companies - except for a handful of really powerful ones - don't have much control to what happens to their games after they're finished. That's between publishers and retailers. In fact, if a game doesn't become a hit, a small, independent developer can go bankrupt. There's less and less of them, and they live contract to contract.

This is why so many people are so excited about when the day will come that they can bypass brick and mortor retailers altogether in favor of digital distribution. Maybe ten years?

As for the next big revolution. i think that question is very much up in the air. Remember, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, which led to Doom and Quake, came from a group of guys working out of an apartment and cost a piddling amount of money. As Jay Wilbur, one of the founders of id and now head of Epic Games says - no one know what the next big thing will be, because it's being worked on, as we speak, by a bunch of kids in a basement or garage somewhere who no one has heard of!

That said, I think there is concern in the industry about this exact thing. It's great games that move the medium forward, and if great games can't flourish in the current business/cultural environment, than there is a real problem.

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San Francisco, Calif.: Did you find that video game companies cooperate in any fashion, or is it an industry of closely-held trade secrets ?

For example, have there ever been any sort of partnering in any online games ? I could see a huge value in being able to link two different online worlds.

Aaron Ruby: The industry is definitely much more one of closely-held secrets than a field of cooperation. I've never seen so many NDAs buzzing about in my life, lol.

I think you will see, however, virtual worlds that have a link among them so that identities can be easily maintained across several worlds. But this will be done wthin a circle of proprietary worlds at first. I think that, particularly in the virtual world field, it is very difficult to manage a single world let alone create tools so that you can connect yours with someone else's.

But your question does remind me of Will Wright's Spore. That game will give players the ability to share their evolved universes with others. In that sense, bits of my virtual creation will influence or even become a part of yours. It's pretty exciting actually. =D

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Brooklyn, N.Y.: There's a story in today's New York Times about how affluent massively multi-player gamers are outsourcing the early rounds of games to young Chinese men and paying them paltry (although not too shabby for what they could make otherwise) amounts to do so. As a non-gamer this seems wack -- I mean, isn't to play the thing -- is there something I'm missing?

Heather Chaplin: This is something Aaron and thought about a lot and talked to tons of people about. I think the reason virtual world games (MMOs) are so attractive is that they offer up the illusion of a meritocracy - a place where one is judged on one's accomplishments rather than who one's father is or how one looks. When you start to see people looking for ways to advance their characters that cuts out the 'work" of playing it, understandably, pisses a lot of people off.

What's the point of playing in a virutal world if the playing field is as uneven at the real world's?!

Really, I think part of the problem lies with how hard it is to play these games without putting in thirty plus hours a week. Richard Garriott recently pointed out that perhaps they're not meritocricies as much as "time-ocracies" - he who puts in the most time wins. Gamers who are older or who have families want to have the experiences that you uber players are having, but they may not have the time to, say, amass the gold or get the right quipment.

I do think, however, that that is essentially a game design challenge, and I too hate to see it tunring into another arena where people can "but their way to the top." It does seem to miss the whole point of the open frontier these games offer.

Also, if you've been following games for a while, you know this is something that's been steadily going on for a while (even if the NYT is just catching on!) To me, it just makes the whole thing so surreal - real workers, mining virtual gold for real citizens to use for their virtual personas. We're moving into a science fiction future.

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Frisco, Texas: First off, I just want to say that I love the book. I was at the book signing in Frisco, and you guys did a great job.

Now that you are done with the book, what's next? Are you going to continue to follow the Video Game Industry, or are you going to move on to the next story? And if you "move on," what will you carry with you from writing the book?

Aaron Ruby: We definitely plan on following the videogame industry. I think there is so much to be written about, not only in the industry but also the medium itself. There is really no source of mainstream/non-academic writing about videogames, how they work, what they are, what makes them art (yes, Mr. Ebert, whatever art is, if it includes theatre, architecture and sculpture then it also includes videogames), and how our society will change as videogames (or model-based communication, generally) become the most engaging mass-medium of the century.

We're also working on some gaming projects beyond print, which is really exciting, since i don't think anyone has found a way to truly communicate gaming and gaming culture without aping other media formulae and without resorting to simply 'geeking out' (which is fun to do but not so much fun to watch).

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Chicago, Ill.: Re: Raliegh

I agree that video games exercise the brain, as well as analytical thinking and coordination skills. But they seem to limit the thoughts of children (and adults) into the strict confines of the game. Kids are probably smarter, but more like computers. Is there a video game that makes you use your imagination?

Heather Chaplin: I love this question. Because this is the question we asked over and over and over. You are right: analytical thinking is not everything. There are more ways of being smart than just being able to put shapes together or navigate through 3-D space.

I was just thinking last night that what I personally love about reading is how you have to fill in the blanks with your own imagination. That your vision of Anna Karenina, say, is YOUR vision. Tolstoy led you there, but you created her in your mind. When you watch a movie or a TV show, it's so detailed, the experience is more like being swept away by someone else's vision.

Nolan Bushnell, who founded Aatari, came to our reading in LA, and he said, yeah, kids are smarter, but they don't KNOW anything!

I worry about this too. If games can show us a glimps of the kinds of citizens we're fostering for the future, are we going to have a population of computer-level-smart kids without the intelligence of empathy and creativity.

BUT --- talk to someone like Will Wright (the Sims, SimCity) and he'll argue you to the ground that games very much foster intuition and creativity. in fact, he made The Sims intentionally vague - cartoonish, you might say - so that people would fill in the blanks with their own imagination. That was a conscious design decision. Will says his goal is to make the player be more creative than he/she even knew he/she was.

I also find my imagination feels very engaged with games that tend to called Kids games - Katamari Damacy and Nintendogs come to mind. Also - the role playing games very much demand using one's imagination - people create whole characters and back stories and play as if... I think that inherently takes imagination.

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Washington, D.C.: With all the scientific data out there asserting that for many, games (and screens in general) have become a "new" addiction...and with reams of studies showing that those who spend more than 4 hours a day in front of a screen (many game players) less likely to vote, less likely to be involved in their community and less likely to have a healthy family life...is it time for games to have warnings other than the codes reflecting age appropriateness?

Aaron Ruby: Actually, I do think that the ESRB rating system could use some work. For example, there are 30 content descriptors but no 'skillset' descriptors that let parents understand what skills their children may be encouraged to develop by a given game. Not all violence is created equal in games. There's a big disparity between the skills a child learns to play GTA and those a child learns from Full Spectrum Warrior, yet the ratings system is incapable of distinguishing the two.

I don't think that we want to elevate games to the level of regulation of cigarettes and alcohol, however. Until MUCh more evidence not only of WHAT effects videogames have but also HOW that effect is maniest, I don't see such warnings as serving the public.

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Fairfax, Va.: What are your thoughts on what seems like politicians' basic misunderstanding of the medium of video games? They seem to believe that games are just as dangerous as cigarretts or alcohol, and I'm seen a growing trend to introduce legislation that mirrors the restrictions places on chemically harmful substances.

Aaron Ruby: I couldn't agree with you more that politicians' basic understanding of videogames is nonexistent.

The primary trouble is that our society (US) is addressing videogames as though they're just a media sibling of traditional media. So all the focus is on content, which ignores what is truly novel and powerful about videogames--namely that they are a medium based on using models instead of descriptions to represent things. This difference has a big influence on what kinds of cognitive skills are encouraged and fostered by the respective media.

Also, the research on videogames is still nascent and is only now starting to attract researchers who have any idea what games are about and how to design experiments that are relevant.

The trend toward legislation is distrubing in light of the above.

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Detroit, Michigan: Some of us would like to play challenging games, but do not want to buy a new computer every one or two years so as to play the latest games. It seems the people who make games strive to take advantage of the latest technology rather than coming up with innovative games that can work well on computers of three or more years in age.

Heather Chaplin: I think this is a real problem. It's a hard question to answer simply, though, because you're dealing with rapidly developing technology, a medium being created before our eyes, and, frankly, the very nature of living in a capitalist culture!

One of the things I found myself thinking a lot during Smartbomb was this question no one seemed to ask- But it costs so much money to be a gamer! the xbox 360 is selling for $400. And that's before you got any games. And a kind of cult springs up around each new console, and each new title from a beloved developer.

So there is part of me that feel uncomfortable seeing the new passtime of the future being one that simultaneously demands you be a hardcore consumer.

Not a great answer. But a great question.

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NY: Hello - what, and whom, do you think the future of games will be driven by?

Curious, young female gamer/Comp. Scientist

Aaron Ruby: I think that using dynamic computer models that respond to user input in interesting ways is going to be a huge part of the future. Videogames are just the first part of this shift. It's sort of analogous to the rise of using algorithms to do scientific work (think artificial life, etc.) as the age of 'calculus' wanes.

In more practical terms, I think that the Internet will eventually offer a virtual world interface, not unlike the one described in Tad Williams' amazing Otherland series.

Videogames themselves will splinter off into further 'media'. What I mean is that when we look back at this period, we may be amazed that we lumped GTA, World of Warcraft, Pong, and Indigo Prophecy into a single category. The rift between narrative-based game experiences and more 'gamey' experiences will grow wider until it cracks.

It's going to be an interesting time.

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Takoma Park, Md.: Using paid labor to get to the upper experience levels is just like being in management because you're the son of the boss.

You only stay there if you have the skills to maintain your position.

Heather Chaplin: Ha. And interesting point. But you can understand why the people who, say, don't have a dad with a friend to get them that job interview in the first place are annoyed that the boss got to be the boss - even if he's doing a good job to stay there. They're thinking to themselves, 'well if i had a chance, I'd do good job too.' Right? And, if the playing field is so uneven as to mean that certain people never get the changes and other people do - than there's legitimacy to the complainT, right?

These virtual worlds are interesting models of our own worlds. And I think players HATE feeling that same feeling they - as you point out - probably feel at work already!

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Bethesda, Md.: Why did you name your book Smartbomb?

Heather Chaplin: Smartbomb came from Aaron. He grew up in Orange County playing Defender, first of all. Then, he was interested in how the term came into the culture initially through a videogame, and THEN with the first Iraq war.

It seemed like a title that resonated with the very subject matter of the book - that this is essentially a smartbomb being dropped on our society. The medium fosters "smarts" and is being created by super smart people, they're being carefully guided to exlode over our heads by companies like Microsoft and Sony, and the connections between the industry and military run deep. So...thus you have Smartbomb as our title!

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New York City: Does it concern you that something's being lost, with the growing penetration of this relentlessly addictive form of entertainment, in the cognitive development of children?

Perhaps TV is not much better, but at least that conformed to more traditional models of story-telling, narrative, character-development, etc. Video game stories seem very primitive, and the fact that players decide what happens in them almost seems to limit, rather than expand, the "craftedness" of the story. So eye-hand coordination and 3-D problem solving, etc. might be getting better, but are children being enriched in the same way that they might have been reading a good (or even bad) book?

-Cadillac Man

Aaron Ruby: A good question. It's basically the same concerns Roger Ebert has expressed recently.

There's only something being lost if we assume that one medium or another has to be THE medium. I think what videogames do is provide an entirely new medium at the disposal of educators, artists and CEOs. They're not a replacement. I wouldn't have bothered to write a book if I thought otherwise. =]

Videogames are indeed primitive right now. But that's a design and technology problem, not an inherent feature of the medium itself.

And it's not just 3d visualization, analytic skills, and hand-eye coordination (tho many games require very little of the latter) that games encourage. Those are simply a few of the ones that can be generalized across games.

Individually, games can teach almost anything. They can provide your child with empathetic experiences that film and books cannot achieve. They can help your child understand subtle cause-and-effect relationships and how a seemingly small decision in one part of a system can have a great influence on the larger system as a whole, and they (along with large networks) are able to allow children of many cultures and locations to engage and challenge one another.

So yeah, children may not get enriched in exactly the same ways as books, but they can certain achieve precisely the kinds of 'civilizing' effects that so many feel are threatened by the rise of gaming.

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Washington, D.C.: As an xbox 360 owner, and avid call of duty online player, i have begun to get worried by xbox live and teh xbox 360's dependence on the internet. A couple problems arise for me. First of all, how high is the risk of viruses etc. that consoles have been protected from all these years. Second, and more importantly, do you think that, because the xbox has such a large HD (20 GBs), and updates can easily be downloaded, that game developers will begin putting out unfinished products, planning on just being able to have patches for them as the users discover glitches/problems. Basically, i'm worried that developers will spend less time testing their games, as it is such an expensive part of the game development process.

Aaron Ruby: I think that while the risk of viruses is low atm, we will definitely see more mischief on consoles as they become more and more connected to the Internet.

Since only one version of the Xbox360 has a hard drive, and since all developers are required to have their games run on both versions of the console, I don't think half-finished products will be much of a problem. What I do imagine will happen, though, is that developers and MS will figure out just how much content they have to put on a disk to get people to buy it, and they will stretch some content out as optional for-pay downloads. But this also means that games could come down from their currently ridiculous prices.

These factors and others are one reason we hear so much talk about episodic content.

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Heather Chaplin: Hey Everyone - our time is up! Thanks for coming out! Great questions. Feel free to go post anything we didn't get to on our blog - smartbomb.us - and we'll try to answer from there. OK?

Heather and Aaron

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