As a gamer, you sometimes forget about the differences that people may have from each other. The stereotypes of gamer geeks and manchildren are somewhat eradicated now, because of am emerging casual market, and a lot of different groups of gamers are coming into the fold. Recently though, the LGBT gaming community has hit a speedbump, thanks to a ridiculous Microsoft policy.

Now as a bisexual, I have had a fair share of discrimination from people (New York is liberal, but not THAT liberal, at least where I live.) but on an online forum, where everyone is anonymous, I usually don’t put out my sexual preferences. Plus, I have a plethora of gay friends online, and we have done countless rounds of Soul Calibur, Left 4 Dead, and Rock Band together without incident. But since the whole scandal between Microsoft’s really somewhat intolerable policies on posting your sexuality over X-box live, it’s become somewhat sticky for the company to keep their public image.

What happened is a woman playing on live had her account banned because she had said she was a lesbian in her profile. The woman was harassed online for a while, until Microsoft banned her name, saying that it was a violation of terms of service. Microsoft went on to say that saying anything about your sexuality, whether it be “straight” “bi” or “gay”, is essentially a bannable offense, if deemed by the higher powers of the company.

The policy is, frankly, too zero tolerance. While I can understand Microsoft trying to avoid conflicts, because anonymity online leads to thousands saying things they normally wouldn’t say, I personally think this is just pushing off a rather important issue. People will always be, for a lack of a better word, dicks online. Hell, any game where I get called “gay” for winning is proof of that. When someone is actually gay, and he or she gets harassed doubly so because of identifying themselves as such, it should be expected that there would be some intolerant and close-minded idiots out there.

But is it right to do punish the victim over it? Microsoft is asking them this question, and has recently tried to apologize for this, claiming that their own banning policies are “inelegant” and is looking to revamp the system to make it friendlier for online interaction. One idea was to implement symbols that would denote your orientation, according to Stephen Toulouse, the program manager for policy and enforcement on X-Box live.

But if Microsoft really wants to change their policies, they may have to look inward first, and deal with their own issues. Recently, Microsoft is under fire once again, this time being sued by an employee of their subsidiary, Lionhead Studios. Lionhead, as you know, is the creator of games such as Black and White, the Fable series and The Movies. Microsoft purchased the English studio two years ago, and that is when the trouble began for Jamie Durrant, an 11-year vet of the company and a senior game designer. At his work studio in England, the human resources department has, since last January, been harassing Durrant due to his sexual orientation, sending defamatory emails and posting homophobic messages in his office.

Durrant, who became under stress from this, appealed to the HR department chair, which promised to send emails reminding the staff on how to behave in an office that is diverse. Sadly, the emails never went out, and when Durrant inquired why, he was told that the firm “would have to draw up new policies before an email could be sent.”

This is significant, because, Microsoft, back in 1989, was one of the first companies to already HAVE policies of non-discrimination in regards to sexual orientation.

Durrant “was allegedly asked to sign a document agreeing not to raise a formal grievance and confirming that he was happy his complaint was being dealt with. He said that he refused but it was agreed that Microsoft would post its anti-discrimination policy on the firm's intranet for staff to see.”

Durrant’s grievance is probably blown out of proportion, but it does make you scratch your head for a second. Why would a company blatantly lie to an employee who is being harassed? Of course, Microsoft is denying this ever happened, and the whole he said she said back and forth will likely follow, but it’s somewhat interesting to see Microsoft being called hypocritical, especially on the heels of a very unpopular policy action one month ago.

Maybe it’s just the timing of the two events being so close that makes this more important, but all the same, it’s fairly bad publicity for Microsoft. Perhaps if they would enact a stricter policy of tolerance, this might have blowed over. Maybe if Microsoft would just accept that there are tons of homosexuals playing Halo 3 as much as heterosexuals, then this will become a non-issue. Be that as it may, controlling a workforce is one thing, controlling the internet is another.

But as gamers, we need to recognize differences of others. I may be a bisexual, but so what? It doesn't make me less of a gamer. I can probably shred faster than you in Rock Band, just as much as you can snipe me in Halo. Sexuality never should be an issue when playing a game, or making one for that matter. Gamers are just as diverse as any other social group, and embracing that diversity, be it tolerance or acceptance, should be step one in solving these issues of discrimination. This is, perhaps, the true lesson that Microsoft needs to learn, not just for the sake of one employee, but for the sake of their clients, who just want to have a good time.

 *Note: This was written in January of 2009. It was before "Cursed Mountain" and "Silent Hill" were announced for the Wii, but the point of the article is still significant if you ask me to share here.
 
Recently, IGN just did a little piece on this Survival Horror game called Winter, that was made exclusively for the Nintendo Wii by developer n-Space. The game is essentially a Survival Horror game more akin to Silent Hill than the current trends of games in the genre, more about the exploration and survival aspect then strict action/adventure and shooting combat. In fact, the look and the feel of the game is fairly old school. The original article can be found here.

http://wii.ign.com/articles/946/946492p1.html (Links won't work for some reason, sorry.)

http://wii.ign.com/dor/objects/14315298/winter/videos/Winter01.html (Video to the developer demo.)

The link here is a three minute video made by a twelve person development team from N-space, spending a six weeks back in the summer of 2007 to demo the game’s core gameplay elements. The premise is simple, starring as an EMT named Mia who is caught in a severe snowstorm in an old town. As you go through the town, the temperature drops and becomes an overarching enemy in it’s own right that can kill you if you’re not careful. It also can block off areas in the town by freezing doors and snowing in windows, hindering your progress. Enemies include rabid wolves that roam to get warm from the cold, and mysterious, deformed enemies similar to Silent Hill’s twisted creatures.

Interaction with the environment seems to be the core aspect of this game, as your character must rummage through cabinets, tables, dressers, and other various drawers to find items that may help you in your situation. Since your first goal is to survive the cold, doing things to sustain your warmth, such as lighting oil fires, starting cars and upping the temperature for a short period of time, even cutting open dead enemies and using their bodies as an extra coat. This also adds a mix of adventure gameplay into it, incorporating a “point and click” aspect to the control scheme and causing more interactivity with the environment.

Another interesting concept, not only from the video but also from the developer’s Ted Newman and president of n-Space, Dan O’Leary, was how combat would be done. It is also point and click, but the interactivity with items. Gestures with your hands need to be done correctly for some items, such as moving your hand sharply and swiftly to turn on a Flare, or shaking the Wiimote against your hand to put a light back on a dimming flashlight. Interactions with weapons can range from breaking planks to make sharp, pointed ends to it, or using hammers and knives to whack and stab enemies, similar to Condemned’s combat system, only in third person mode.

And graphically, the game was fairly advanced, pushing the Wii’s graphical limitations on such a small demo. The lighting effects in particular stand out, creating dynamic light and shadow’s to give the game a more atmospheric presentation.

With a lot of good points and with a fairly impressive, 3-minute video demo, you would think a game like Winter would already have a publisher, right? Well, you would be wrong. The sad truth is, Winter has been cancelled.

Oh sure, according to the developers there was a lot of praise for the design and the impressive gameplay elements, but they also thought the game was not marketable on the Wii because of it’s “adult” content. Despite the innovations made for the systems controls, any game that is not a “kids” game, according to the third party publishers, is too risky to play on the Wii. Another problem was the new IP for the game, making it more of a risk to market and advertise. This is not a new problem, but it is always a contributing factor to games when they get published and developed in the industry.

Personally, I find this to be a shame, because after looking at the concept art and viewing the demo they made, the game looks fairly impressive, even for a demo. Plus it has been a long while since there has been a fairly good Survival Horror game, since most of them have evolved into action shooters in the later years, from Silent Hill, Homecoming to the current looks of Resident Evil 5. It is not a bad trend, but it is sort of killing the point of Survival Horror games, something that has lasted since the early 1990’s with the original Alone in the Dark.

Plus it would be nice to have a game that you can justifiably say is good for the Wii. Thousands of party and mini-game clones aside, the Wii needs to expand its horizon’s a fair bit, from RPG’s to first person shooters. A game like Winter would be a great leap forward to capture a hardcore audience niche that is clamoring for more of it’s genre. In fact, an emerging, hardcore adult market is starting to manifest on the Wii, and that is thankfully due to SEGA.

SEGA is publishing two big name titles for the Wii coming out in 2009, The Conduit and Madworld. The Conduit is a custom made, first person shooter that has gorgeous presentation similar to Halo and Metroid’s Sci-Fi aesthetic, with extremely crisp graphics that rival the aforementioned games above. The game also supports online multi-player and split screen multi-player, which will no doubt be a major title for the Wii for the online crowds. Madworld is an action-adventure game stylized from the Frank Miller School of Design, with the three colors being black, white and red, and lots of over the top violence and stylized gameplay mechanics with the Wii controls. In fact, Nintendo has even defended Madworld and it’s over the top violence, stating that the console is a “system for everyone, even adult gamers.” According to a press release back in August on Mail Online.

So what does that mean? Well, it gives hope to a game like Winter, for one. Dan O’Leary has said if a publisher is interested in the game, he and his company will go back to it to complete the game for launch. In fact, the very existence of this game was only made known to the public when IGN reported on it yesterday, so it may get a second life from some publisher, maybe even SEGA, who seems to be giving the Hardcore market what it wants on the Wii.

Perhaps the most important point though it means that the stigma for “kiddy friendly” titles on the Wii will finally begin to fade away. I find it somewhat insulting that people assume the Wii system is a system for kids only. It has a lot of good games that appeal to adults, be it first party titles like Zelda and Mario, to 3 party titles like Red Steel and No More Heroes. Even games like De Blob, Boom Blox and Zack and Wiki, which appeal to all audience and are great games, prove that the Wii can be just like Microsoft and Sony’s big rig systems in their own way. It would also help justify the Wii as a console, since it is getting too much flak for the horrific shovelware syndrome that is plaguing the system and causing the hardcore gamers out there to shun it’s potential.

Today on Serebii.net I was browsing through they’re in-depth pokedex and I suddenly realized something, something that has not crossed my mind in years. Pokemon is pretty damn old now. Maybe not as ancient as most game franchises are, like Tetris, Pac-Man, Mario or Zelda, but it now has over ten years on their belts notched ever since the game graced the game boy back in 1997. And with the Pokemon remakes of Gold and Silver to be gracing the U.S in April,the franchise will finally reach over sixteen games in the normal series of the Pokemon RPG games, surpassing Final Fantasy and even Legend of Zelda.

For a franchise that has sold over 175 million units in a little over ten years, that is impressive in it’s own right. And let’s be serious for a second, almost everyone growing up in the late 1990’s played pokemon on the handheld, watched that still awful tv show on the WB, bought, traded and played the collectible card game (with two shiny rare Charizards that I once got $200 for one of them.) Hell, pokemanics who won’t be afraid to admit it can still name the exact statistics and strategies that you need to take down Mewtwo without the use of the Masterball.

But I digress. Over ten years old, Pokemon is still going strong on the handheld, and in Nintendo’s fold of cash in games. The series has spawned one of the cultural phenomenons of the past few years, and is still a benchmark for pop culture today. Where as phenomenons like Pogs and My Little Ponies have faded into pure obscurity, Pokemon is going strong after eleven years.

Why is that? Why is it that some random game that is offensively Japanese, is totally kid friendly, has more cute creatures than a pet shop and really has remained unchanged since the first game came out, still the number one seller on the handhelds? Also, why is it that a lot of the elder fans of the game shun their roots from it?

The first question is easy, and it has to do with appeal and gameplay design. The Pokemon’s appeal as a kid friendly title is part of it, but it is also the appeal of catching and collecting creatures to do battle with. That core game concept keeps players going back for more, to find rare and exclusive creatures to fill out a collection, and collecting the Pokemon is just one half of the rubrics cube. The second part, the gameplay design, and keeps those players hooked (even if they won’t admit it.) The game has very deep and well thought out strategic elements that have evolved over time to create one of the better strategy battle games on the market.

The limit of four attacks a Pokemon is pretty much put down into a science by most poke maniacs. They know what to use on whom with what attack, and who has the broadest chance of hitting an opponent. The games statistics are also highly detailed. Depending on the type of one’s Pokemon, the type of attack, attack strength, and if the attack is a physical or special attack, will calculate the damage you can do to an opponent. Likewise, defense and speed is categorized in the same fashion, all of which is coupled with a base statistic score that can range between 60-120, not to mention the augmenting effects of stat boosters and reducers.

Any given pokemaniac can sit down, calculate what is needed, and win a battle accordingly, which is why the game has such a broad appeal with a lot of age groups.  Hell, kids who have grown up with the game, on average, still play it today, because of the deep strategy elements in the game. Some of the biggest tournaments worldwide are in Pokemon, granted the rules are different somewhat depending on what tourney your participating in, but the competitive battle scene is really deep and engrossing.

And that is just the game itself. The card game has a great appeal as well, like Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh, and continues to pump out four sets a year with constant updates to the gameplay mechanics. Pokemon’s influence is not just in pop culture, but also in other venues all over the world. The Thanksgiving Day parade, the infamous ANA Boeing 747 with Pokemon inked on the sides, hell, a new protein was named after Pikachu by scientists early in 2008.The influence is totally widespread.

But still, there are those who have played the games, were engrossed into the statistical nature of the battle system, even religiously watched the anime every day through recordings and video releases, yet have shunned it as a phase, like it was something to grow out of. And I bet some people took it even further and did extreme things, like go see the Pokemon Live! Show or write Pokemon fan fiction where Ash and Misty are rocking the casaba. (Incidentally, I have a fanfiction on Serebii.net if you want to read it, it’s an original story so don’t worry too much about it.)  Yes, with every great fad there is a lot of excess, but when the fad is still going strong after all these years, perhaps it is time to embrace it once more. You can't just grow out of a game series you like. You can move on to better (or sometimes worse) games, but you will never stop loving a game from your past that you played, even with all of the flaws it may have or the image it presents to you.

I am a pokemaniac and I’m not ashamed of it, and everyone else who loves the games from their youth should not be either. You may have moved on from the cuteness of Pokemon, but the core gameplay, the strategic merits that can be learned to help with cognitive thinking, still exist in the cartridges memory banks. You would be doing yourself a favor to play the adventures again, even if it’s just for nostalgia’s sake. I can guarantee, the inner pokemaniac in you won’t complain about it.

 
 Note: This was written back in May, 2008.
 
Over the past few years that has been a lot of talk about games are possibly taking a backseat in creativity, as sequels are constantly pumped out that become major productions for the respected developers. For me, this is a critical topic for the gaming industry to truely tackle on it's own, mainly due to the fact that the industry itself is suffering growing pains that the entertainment, theatre, and music industry have gone through. (or in some cases, still going through.) It seems like a three pointed problem, first is the effect of corporations and businesses and the relation it has with popular culture. The second is the age old debate on if games are art or not, and there are some interesting arguments and results both for and against that topic. Lastly, it falls on the changing face of technology itself, as the visual apperances of the games become more and more realistic. 
 

But to start this off, it would be simple to go in depth as much as possible for all three points. So perhaps the most detrimental, and at the same time the most helpful, is the influx of numerous pop culture references to games, and the use of corporations and big business becoming involved in the making of these games. First and foremost, business being involved in games has always been a symbiotic aspect as to what games are made. For better or for worse, there is probably nothing wrong with the control that the conglomerates have on developers, designers, writers and testers. In fact, without the financial support of corporations such as Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft or someone even like Capcom and Activision, most games might never see the light of day.

But recently there is a major trend going on in the industry, constant buyouts. The biggest buyout so far is Activision and Blizzard merging, liquidating Vivendi Studios, and forming the super corporation Activision Blizzard. While this news made most of us giddy that Warcraft and Guitar Hero are under one roof, with it comes a lot of problems that are starting to present themselves. First, from an economic standpoint, games are becoming costly to create, some more ambitious projects probably over the billion mark at times. Another interesting statistic is that typically only 5% of the games made per year are profitable, and of that 5%, your looking at blockbuster titles only bring in the cash each year for their studio, making it cost effective to stick with older I.P's.

Since development teams are also growing, formerly smaller teams are being subsidized, joining larger, more seasoned teams and therefore cost more money for power, maintenance of equipment, and pay.  Teams of five-ten developers now range to an average of 50-100. It is also still likely that developers would lose their jobs in the end, in particular if a game is left out of that 5% margin. Plus, games are canceled on a constant basis, over half of the ideas made for games are usually scrapped in pre-production stages, and another 10% are shut down near the end of completion, just due to costs alone.

These factors have been around all the time, but as the cost of making games goes up, so does the financial woes of the corporations themselves. Nintendo, for example, was extremely profitable in the 1980 to mid 1990's, and still generates profit from any game bearing a loveable mascot they call their own. What is also true, however, is that a lot of their revenue comes from sequel productions per system. In other words, Nintendo keeps itself in a surplus by generating sequels, or the next game in their series, and since so many of their flagship series have sequels too them, they rarely, if at all, change the formula they created.

Now it is interesting to note Nintendo, because many people see Nintendo getting away with this treatment, but the fact is everyone is. Any game made today, that is a resounding success, is usually based off some sequel from a previous success. Case en point, the Halo series and Call of Duty. Good games they may be, but they are also sequels with arguably little original content to them. Large corporate sponsors know this, because they wish to turn a profit, reaching that 5% that is in reality hard to achieve. Games that reviewers and gamers herald as innovative, original and awesome, such as Psychonauts, Shadow of the Colossus, Beyond Good And Evil, and even, arguably, Bioshock, all sell less than a sequel to Madden from the previous year.

Sequels are seen as the safe route, not changing a thing because it has worked before. A lot of corporate money and business practices focus on this in other industries as well, with mixed results. There is nothing shady about this aspect of the business though, I will leave that for Gerstmamn-gate, but it is just a fact of life for big, powerhouse businesses that are emerging from the growing gaming empires. That is the nature of the beast, in a sense, and there is nothing wrong with that, at least on paper.

With this though comes recognition as a true media of entertainment. Now a days it is not uncommon to see a really high budget commercial for games, or someone making fun of games, either in parody or for points. Hell, the problems with video games, be it the effects of violence or the possibly of pornography in games, has been hot topics in the news. Gamers themselves are now mainstream, with competitions of "world class gamers" congregating at the next tournament that would spring up for prize money, and major conventions such as PAX and TGC get major coverage on websites and internet feeds.

With all of this attention, a lot of games are left out in the cold. Halo 3 had an uncompromisable amount of commercials, TV spots, movie trailers, and radio ads promoting the hype the game had up until it's release, while games like Bioshock, a superior game in almost all categories, had one, maybe two 30 second spots on TV. Although the money gained for advertisements is usually by corporate sponsors, the entire point is that many games that are not considered mainstream get no attention what so ever. A perfect example would be the game Ico, from Sony Computer Entertainment.

Ico is a true example of this, because it had no advertising to go with the game, and when released in 2001, the same year  as Final Fantasy X and Metal Gear Solid 2, Sons Of Liberty, it received critical acclaim but sold roughly 700,000 copies worldwide. As we know, Ico was developer Team Ico's pet project, and has resulted in what many would consider a cult classic in video games, and rightfully so, for it's surrealist presentation and very artistic creativity. It is interesting to point out that Ico was better received then Final Fantasy X in the U.S,  yet FF X sold over 6 million copies world wide, showing numerous things about the establishment of franchises in the gaming industry.

The hype behind Final Fantasy X was enormous, yet the result was somewhat anti-climatic to some, and this is arguably the same for Halo, GTA, Guitar Hero, even Super Mario now a days. The hype created for the games kills the game more than graphical and controller problems, offering a safer, sometimes lackluster performance than the originality that the game may have shown in it's first outing. Let's face it, games that break into the pop culture and entertainment industry are usually great games that sell over a million copies, games that become part of the vernacular of the entire industry. The original games had something in them that made them better, and often times, the first sequel improved on those aspects, but after 3-4 games in a series, the magic begins to become stagnant.

In the end, Corporate expectations, mixed with the inclusion of popular culture, create an aura of "play it safe for the masses." It is very hard for anything, be it an independent movie, an obscure game, or an underground band, to break into the mainstream, but when it begins to stifle creativity is when the industry begins to crumble, unless something drastic is done. Games are like any other industry in this regard, with the same problems and hopefully new conclusions to remedy some of these problems. 
 
*Note, there were sources cited for this, but they have either disappeared or moved to Wikipedia, for some reason. Sorry about that.

Back in 1918, a group known as the Bolsheviks, lead by a man named Vladimir Lenin, stormed the capital of Russia, and in a bloody revolution, took control of the Russian Government. Lenin was a Marxist socialist who wanted to start over in Russia; but he died in 1924 and another man, Joseph Stalin took over. Stalin ran Russia down a dark path, creating the definition of a Totalitarianism state. Purges of people, murders and censorship, his corruption never helped Russia in the long run, he put the dream that Lenin had on a slope to destruction.

Although this history lesson is probably unwanted, the reason it is brought up is because you can make this parallel to almost any rise and fall story out there. From corrupt governments, shady religious groups, to right wing political parties, these stories all start out the same way, a chance for a change. That is something Acclaim wanted to do, change video games. Instead of a successful revolt, it became a story of ruin.

Acclaim began in 1987 as part of the original Activision team that broke away from Atari years earlier over a dispute of programmer recognition. Acclaim, hoping to top Activision, decided to create their own empire of video game franchises, and for the first few years it built up it's reserves by localizing oversea games from Japan, creating ports from the arcades, and letting external developers use there skills, like mercenaries in the army, to create video games. The most famous of these are Iguana Entertainment and LJN, both of which Acclaim would soon purchase.

By 1993, Acclaim had enough revenue to begin their dream of surpassing Activision. The success of ported games like Mortal Kombat and the NBA Jam series gave them a lot of revenue, and the company quickly grew, buying off other companies such as those mentioned above, and Sculpted Studios in 1995. They also purchased Valiant Comics, a fledgling but popular comic book series with it's own universe of heroes that were slanted towards a more graphic audience. Some of these heroes, most notably Turok and Shadowman, would later on become Acclaim's greatest hits as video games. To this day, Acclaim is one of the few video game makers to attempt to branch off into uncharted territory.

By 1997, however, Acclaim was gaining waning support for its industry. Arcade games were no longer big items in the U.S, so the ports they were used to making were slowly drying up. The comic book industry as a whole suffered a near economic collapse, causing their newest venue to collapse under pressure. To make matters worse, allegations of corruption and misdealing's began to cloud over the company. The biggest being the firing of over half the employers of Sculpted Studios.

In 1995, Acclaim gave Sculpted Studios a contract that stated that the employers would be given stock options and be able to stay with the new company. Two years later, Acclaim fired over half of the employers of Sculpted Studios, violating it's own written words. It even added more turmoil in the pot when Acclaim also wavered the options of severance packages; money after you are laid off that should hold you over. Essentially a buyout. If the employers took these packages, they couldn't sue Acclaim for anything. If they did not, they get the boot in the ass on the way out.

This outrage led to a class action lawsuit against Acclaim, and as of 2007, the lawsuit is still unsettled. The lawsuit wants lost stocks to be returned to those fired, as well as compensation for an abrupt firing. Lastly, the lawsuit targets Acclaim CEO and founder Greg Fishbach, as well as executives Edmond Scantcis and Gerald Agoglia as specific men who should pay for their crimes. Fishbach was one of the original founders of Acclaim back in 1986. Originally from Activision, Fishbach decided to create his own empire in the cartridge industry, forming Acclaim with close friends and hiring young designers to begin his empire. Unfortunately, Fishbach was a poor executive, who commonly made ridiculous business decisions; such as giving away a 500-pound prize in the United Kingdom for the first five families who name their babies “Turok” in 2004.

Acclaim was a sinking ship in 1997. The company would have likely went bankrupt by 2000, but thanks to the smash hit’s “Turok” and “Shadowman”, Acclaim limped on like a wounded animal, earning enough revenue to survive longer in the now extremely competitive market of game publishing. Acclaim would actually create one of the best first person shooters ever created, “Turok 2: Seeds of Evil” in 1998. “Turok 2” would receive the highest honors for Acclaim, and is a true accomplishment in video games.

But the honeymoon would not last. After the jump to the next generation, Acclaim was plagued by poor video game sales and mediocre game titles like “Vexx” “Showdown, Legends of Wrestling” and “Dave Mirra’s BMX.” In fact, Dave Mirra even sued the company for creating “BMX XXX”, a game that the Acclaim developers changed, out of contract, to add topless models to stir up controversy, and in turn boost sales. The trick backfired, not only due to the lawsuit, but also due to the poor gameplay and lack of big chains, like Wal-Mart and Target, for selling the game.

Acclaim’s final nail in the coffin was their final Turok game, “Turok Evolution.” The game did nothing to change the series, but also never improved on anything. With cutting edge first person shooters in the market, such as “Half-Life” and “Halo”, now wowing gamers in the next generation, “Turok Evolution” could not catch up, and was a commercial failure. Marred by numerous lawsuits, poor business decisions, and by 2004, the writing was on the wall. Acclaim closed down numerous developer studios in the U.K and filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. By September, Acclaim filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy and the deed was finally done.

Now in heavy debt, Acclaim sold it's own name and brand for $100,000 to Howard Marks, who is ironically a former CEO of Activision. Marks would create Acclaim Games in 2006, a company that would launch free, self advertised MMORPG web games like "BOTS","2 Moons" and "9 Dragons". "BOTS", their first release, has already been a moderate success online, with fully customizable weaponry and chasis in a "Custom Robo" style game. A fourth game, "DANCE!" is also currently being produced.

Since all the products are free, multi-player online games, it is clear that Acclaim Games may have a new life under new leadership. Like Yeltsen in Russia, the change may be a bright future for the name Acclaim Games, although only time will tell, as the scars of the past will no doubt haunt the future of the new company. But with a mounting debt of nearly $100 million dollars and minor success in the MMO market, Acclaim will not be remembered for “Turok” or for splitting from Activision. Instead, the legacy of Acclaim is a simple tale of rise and ruin, where absolute power corrupts absolutely, and where the dreams of those who wanted to start anew crash and burn under the weight of corruption.

I feel like i'm watching the same movie too much now a days. What movie you ask? Why, none other than "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters." This was a DVD that I actually won in a contest recently off of another gaming website, one where I had the choice of picking this, or some video games. And let me tell you, I chose wisely!

The entire documentary is a quasi-comedic look at competitive classic arcade gaming as a guy named Steve tries to break the high score record on Donkey Kong, which is owned by a infamous gamer known as Billy Mitchell. Mitchell had numerous records before, one in Centipede, one in DK Jr, and he recently scored a perfect game in Pac-Man, and by perfect, I mean he ate every pellet, piece of fruit, and ghost for 226 levels without dying. Yeah, thats a feat.

While I won't spoil any of the movie to you guys, I will say this; it is a welcome trip down the memory lanes of yesteryear, and makes me reflect on my own, as an avid gamer from the late 80's and early 90's about my own triumphs and trials with games like this. Games like Asteroids, Missle Command, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders; these are simple, classic games that were low on graphics, short on sounds and restricted in movements, but above all else, they were fun to play.

Let's face it. Arcades in the United States are a relic now a days. Console games were great, and are frankly my choice of medium to begin with. We all, at the very least, have grown up with console games in our homes. But how many of us were arcade rats, scurrying to the nearest free machine of Galaga and Gauntlet? What about the archaic gun games, like Police Trainer and Virtua Cop, some of the first rail shooters in arcades. The graphics slowly, over time, became more complicated.

The games never did though. Playing a game of Berzerk today would be the same as playing it ten years ago, short, fast, furious and fun at the same time. Classic arcade games were simple pleasures when we were all younger. The famous, like Pac-Man and Galaga, to the not so famous, like Crystal Castles or Ladybug, touched numerous gamers for years, and still do. Even today, some thirty-somethings compete each year in classic arcade games, just for the fun, the thrill, and the competition. Hell, I  challenge any of you not to find a game of Pac-Man, Defender or Galaga in a local arcade, they were so fun and addicting, it is almost mandatory to have them in an arcade.

But I guess that is turning into nothing but memories now, as classic arcade games are ported, emulated, and removed from the very medium they belong in, quarter snatching machines that are unforgiving in their difficulty. Those thirty-somethings who play these classic games are a dying breed. New, young gamers around my age, the barely twenty-somethings, would be lucky if they even heard of Centipede or Missle Command, and it would even be rarer if you found someone who knew how to beat an obscure game like Berzerk or Depth Charge. Classic arcade games, and classic games in general, are now becoming the retro games of today's super power-shoot em up games and expansive MMORPG markets. They are around, but are played only when were bored or waiting for something to load.

But one thing that will never be captured again, however, is the camaraderie that accompanied classic arcade games. I remember years ago I was with a group of friends at a local Fun Station, playing a game of Defender and Hogans Alley in the corner of the arcade, as they had to make room for new machines like Dance Dance Revolution, which is now the most played arcade game in the world, and Time Crisis. While I love games like Time Crisis, I think my group of friends enjoyed the classics over the new age technology at that time, simply put because of the inspiring competition to out due each other in scoring.

I guess the simplicity of these games is what hooks people, and the competition that goes into learning it is even more admirable. Learning patterns, true hand-eye coordination and skill is something that is bred from classic games, and mastering these makes you a better gamer overall. I guess that is why those same thirty-somethings who love classic arcade games so much still play them to this day, for competition and for recreation.

In the end though, thinking of classic games like Donkey Kong should be fun. The simple pleasures they brought to us, and to the industry, are what makes them classics in their own right. These games, which many would consider retro now, are not retro in the sense that they are old and in fashion again. At least to me, and to perhaps everyone in "King of Kong," these games are still in style, and never will lose that edge to the higher polygon counts of arcade and console games. Simply put, arcade classics will never go away, and there is nothing like playing it in the darkened warehouse that holds arcade machines in long rows, waiting your turn to jerk a joystick and multi-tap two simple colored buttons as you rack up points destroying mushrooms, missles, spaceships, barrels, robots, bombs, or even ghosts. This is where this simple pleasure comes from, and nothing can take that from these ever important machines.

 
Why is it that every year, we have the soldiers of the console wars sling mud and abuses at each other in every forum on every website around the world? What causes this fervor of fanaticism for something that is as crazy as loving the game system that your favorite games come from?

I bet that in the past fans, who were by then young boys, said similar things when it was the Atari vs the world before 1984. Trivial things that are probably said too today. Once Nintendo takes over, it became Nintendo vs non-video game players. I once remember back in the 1st grade, when a kid asked me, "Why do you play Nintendo, it's so stupid! It's boring and I hate it and your dumb!"

Those are the exact words of a 6 year old. So even if you didn't play the games back then, you could still insult someone.

It seems like it escalated by the time the Playstation came in. Never mind the Genesis and the SNES, which is the real start of the console wars, because back then, it was not as vicious as it was now. Back then, it was more of a polite jabbing, I guess because the fans who grew up with Nintendo as the sole console they just ignored the emerging Sega contingent. But the Playstation was the real killer.

From 1996-2001, all I hear is "Playstation is awesome" or "Playstation rocks." And coming from a primarily Nintendo fan, it was hurtful to hear people badmouth my system, usually just to support what the held dear, or to give credence to the only console they ever played. In retrospect, it was probably kind of stupid to care, but as a boy-teenager it was common ground to make fun of the different system, especially when you were in support of another.

And then the media came into it. Thanks to the internet, forums became battlegrounds that were not for the feint of heart. Words like "stupid" were replaced with "fu*king sucks" and "it's a silly game" became "sh*tty game". The vernacular changed too. We had people using crazy abbreviations and a new internet language was born! Words like "becauz", "ROFL" ,"Roxxors", "haxor!", and even "cum on" became staples in the wars. Fresh ways to insult people got you brownie points, and smart comments backed up by evidence made you a general, one not to mess with in the forums.

The fanboyism just became another aspect of playing games. You will always have someone who doesn't agree with your taste in games and the insults will fly inevitably. The problem is, and many forums have caught on by now, is that most of these insults are the shallow, stupid ramblings of pre-teens who think they are being cool by copying the rants of the more sophisticated fanboys.
 
Some fanboys are also just crazier. at E3, the TGS, PAX, and other gaming expos, we have crazy dress-ups,  poor character acting, and sometimes they take it too seriously. We also get the sweaty nerds who try to point out ever single error that a game and system may have, annoying the common-folk at times with their superior knowledge and capacity to verbally spew that unwanted knowledge everywhere. These guys take fanboyism to a level that is somewhat unprecedented. It's ok to wear a Zelda t-shirt, or support Nintendo, but to dress up as Link and verbally attack anyone who doesn't agree that Ocarina of Time is the greatest game ever, well,  that's another story.

The console wars also heat up every time a new system comes in. And even before the system comes out, the fans think that the system walks on water and can do no wrong. Not true. Granted some systems are better than others, but that is based more on the tech specs and the calibur of games or control that comes with it. Which is what being a fanboy is. You become well versed in a subject so much, that you can have debates in a sophisticated matter that makes the debates more fun to engage in. It is one thing to say something sucks, but what smart fanboys do is prove their point. "The controls are not responsive because of this.."

This new level of fanboyism is actually emerging in today's console wars. Fans of the 360, Wii and PS3 are not just saying the other systems "suck" but they have evidence to prove it. This is what being a fan is in the end, proving your point, and your dominance, over the opposition. Football has great rivalry's, in the video game world, it's between Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. And we are all guilty of this as well. Not one of us can say we prefer one system over another for specific reasons. That makes us a fan. True, we can like the opposition, but we still slant towards another camp in the end.

So fanboys are something that will never go away, as long as the console wars continue to soldier troops in the battlefields. We have seen how good, how bad, and how ugly, these troops conduct themselves. It is a part of being a gamer to take the criticisms, in whatever form they may be. In the end though, when the next generation of gaming machines, and fanboys ushers in over the old generation, you are never left in the dust. Your battlefield just changes with the times.

Please note that I wrote this back in October 2007.

History is a funny thing. It never ends, it’s never predictable, and sometimes, the course of history can be traced to singular events in the timeline of the grand scheme of things. The ebb and flow of history just as strange, because it can change before it’s written, before it’s etched into the annals of manuscripts that scribe them down.

Video games, like all entertainment mediums, have their own history, and it has its ups and downs throughout their thirty years of existence. Looking back into the golden era of video games, which are considered two periods; the arcade revolution in the late seventies and late eighties, and the console boom after the infamous crash of 1984, one of the questions that I always ask myself is, what would happen if it turned out differently? What would video games be like if say, Nintendo never came to the United States? What if Atari ruled the virtual world? Why did Atari lose out in the end over the Japanese powerhouse known as the Famicom?

The Atari 2600 began in the late 1970’s as a push project to bring video games out of the arcades and into the home. Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari back in 1972, was trying to find the next big step in video entertainment after the mainstream success of Bushnell’s Pong. He spring boarded this by trying to gather extra funding for the system, and Nushnell’s big break came when the Time Warner Company purchased Atari for roughly $28 million, which brought enough revenue for the launch of the Atari 2600, known at the time as the Video Computer System (VCS), in 1977.

It is interesting to note that Nolan Bushnell would be eventually forced out of the company in 1978, and was replaced by Ray Kassar, who would be the head of the Atari company until 1984, ironically before the great crash that occurs that year. Kassar, who was a more strict and organized leader than Bushnell who was notorious for his laid back approach on leading, also shifted the focus of Atari’s funds from game development to marketing and sales.

Kassar’s decision to focus more on marketing may be a part of the reason for why the system was such a runaway success. Between 1977-1981, the Atari 2600 led all sales in the currently growing market of video games. This included systems like the Magnavox Odyssey2, Colecovision, the Mattel Intellivision, and the Vectrex system. Owning nearly 60% of the market share, and half of Time Warner’s income.

Kassar’s market focus was obviously not the only factor. The Atari 2600 had a slew of best selling games, mostly ports from the arcades. These included Space Invaders, Breakout, Donkey Kong and Pac-Man, which would become the biggest seller on the system. As well as that, great Atari exclusives, such as Adventure, Yar’s Revenge, and Pitfall made the system a popular success.

The technical aspects of the machine were cutting edge at the time, if not complex and difficult to develop games properly. The CPU was capable of 128 MB of RAM, using the MOS Technology 6507. The memory, which was a cut down version of current chip technology at the time, was expensive to produce. However, with this, the Atari 2600 was capable of a larger, 128 color palette that enhanced the graphics if used properly. To create a graphic on the screens, programmers had to scan and match the colors on the palette for each space the palette was needed. A touch sensitive joystick, a 12-button keyboard, a plastic paddle, and a driving controller made the Atari 2600 a diverse machine in terms of play control.

But what would lead to the machines demise? A lot of factors can be cited, but certain events definitely put the Atari 2600 onto the path of destruction. One of the most notorious problems with Atari, and the industry at the time, was that Kassar never let game developers receive credit for their creations. This angered numerous game makers, who felt they were shafted by not only a royalty standpoint, but also for recognition of their art. The most famous example is Activations own rebellion against Atari. Game developers began leaving Atari one by one, and formed the company in 1980, and sold their games out to not only Atari, but to eventually the Commodore 64 and the Colecovision. Successful games, such as Pitfall and River Raid, were released soon after on Atari, putting Activision on the map as one of the first third party publishers in video games. Kassar was enraged, and even sued Activision for insider trade secrets and stealing products from Atari. He even reduced himself to call the developers “prima donnas” for trying to get recognition for their work.

The problems continued with the release of sub-par ports of arcade games and poor first party games. The most cited example is E.T, The Extra Terrestrial, a game so bad, that over 6 million copies that were never sold sit in a landfill in New Mexico today. Kassar’s focus on marketing over quality was catching up to Atari, as the ports of games like Pac Man and Defender showed poor graphic qualities to the bigger, arcade counterparts. The lack of decent graphics was only the surface of the problem; another was the failing system sales. By 1982, the Atari was officially out of date, and the company released the Atari 5200, which was supposed to be the next-generation of gaming. Unfortunately the graphic quality was so similar to the 2600, and due to looser and unfriendly controls, the machine was a commercial failure. While the machine had some hits, such as Pitfall II and Dig Dug, it never captured the audiences.

All problems came to a head in 1983, when Kassar was in talks with Nintendo to bring their new system the Famicom, to America. The Famicom, or as we know it, the Nintendo Entertainment System, was a state of the art machine that produced detailed 8-bit graphics and was surprise success in the Japanese market. Kassar and Atari, who were losing millions of dollars at this point by the failure of the Atari 5200 and the lack of buyers for the staggering 2600, offered Nintendo to sell their machine in the U.S. The plan was to have Atari distribute the machine worldwide, and the contracts to sign it were to take place in the 1983 CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Chicago, Illinois.

So what happened to this deal? Coleco, the creators of the Colecovision, were showcasing their new system at that very CES, the ADAM computer system. As a demo, the used the now arcade classic, Donkey Kong, to show off the new play control and graphics. Coleco actually owned the rights (at the time) to Donkey Kong for the home consoles, while Atari acquired the computer rights recently in their interactions with Nintendo. Because of this detail, Kassar became furious with Nintendo, accusing them of double-dealing behind Atari’s back (which, in reality, was Coleco’s fault for overlooking that minor detail.) Kassar threatened to sue Nintendo for infringement rights, and to call off the deal they made.

As fate would have it, Kassar was ousted from Atari one month after the CES, for insider trading and unlawful business practices as cited reasons for expulsion. The man who ruled Atari with an Iron Fist was gone, and the company imploded immediately. Soon after, the deal with Nintendo was canceled, chiefly because Atari could no longer afford bringing the system to America, and crumbled under the avalanche that would be known as the crash of 1983, which was an overproduction of video game machines and game titles that nearly destroyed the market. Nintendo, in turn, waited one year later to fine tune their machine, before marketing it themselves worldwide.

Who knows how the video game world would have been if Nintendo was bought by Atari. Perhaps they would of caved in along with the rest due to the crash that followed the fail deal in 1983. Perhaps it was fate that Nintendo would carry the torch from 1985-1995, until the Sony Playstation took it for the next ten years. Maybe it was just the poor business practices over executives in an emerging market, who had no idea how to sell video games, but whatever the reasons may be, the sad history of Atari is one for the books. Now an independent developer of usually sub-par games, Atari was once the king of the mountain in video games, but will no longer compete for that title due in part to the failings of it’s bureaucratic leadership and lack of knowledge of the new medium.

Atari’s failings are just one example of how you should never induce the wrath of the fans as well, since the outcry for change was also a part of the reason of the crash in 1984.While the company attempted to make comebacks with a few more systems, such as the Atari Lynx and Jaguar, the company was unable to capture the magic they once had. Regardless, Atari’s history is a perfect blueprint on how to not run a video game company, and served it purpose for keeping games popular in the infancy years of the video game boom. Today, gamers remember Atari for their 2600 system, a system that had a lifespan of nearly eight years, brought some of the most memorable games from arcades into your home, and paved the way for the great gaming giants to come.

Well, here we go again.
 
I got a lot of old blog entries I can use, so expect a lot of updates every now and then. Most of them are over two years old, but the reason  I am posting them is to get them archived here, since I have done it for other sites already at this point.
 
So enjoy my ramblings as they come, expect maybe a post a day, or every other day. I won't go overboard for you all.