I've been experiencing an unusual amount of 'gaming frustration' lately... Now what I'm not referring to is the classic frustration of getting stuck at a certain part of a game or being 'fragged into oblivion' on some multiplayer online FPS... Even though that is frustrating as hell... I still remember trying to play Unreal Tournement online for the first time back when that was released... 
 
No, that's not what bothers me.  I don't know why it is, but for me - the act of simply playing games is no longer that appealing.   If it's a very good game, then I can sit and play it - but I tend to very quickly start analysing games without thinking, the core mechanics, the level design, the story-telling engine, the narrative structure, what innovative elements the game has brought to the industry... And then thinking how it could have been made better and what the developers right that made it good.
 
Now normally if you are a gamer, and you like to game - you can go work 9 am - 5pm come home, have some dinner, do your chores, pop out for a pint if you're so inclined then get back in time for a 3 hour gaming session every night and that will probably satisfy you - particularly if there's nothing happening at the weekend, it's tipping it down outside and you end up on an 8 hour extended gaming session on Sunday afternoon... 
 
That's not really floating my boat though... I've been feeling increasingly desperate not just to play, but to critique, create and write about games, gaming and video game culture... I've been following the inception of the Ginx TV channel with interest lately too - I think it's a positive sign of the times that a TV channel dedicated to gaming is even being considered.  The difficulty for Ginx is that their primary demographic of viewers is probably a bunch of people who have a TV, but use it for playing on their XBOX or PS3 more than watching Jeremy Kyle or Eastenders... You've got to produce a content that will lure people away from the activity your giving media coverage.  If it's sports or similar then it's easier - you can't really do sport all the time, most sports require going somewhere to do them, and there tends to be appropriate times, or you need a large group of people organised to do them... Gaming doesn't have that issue, got a console, got a TV, got electricity?  Then you can game.
 
I've been following the presenters competition with interest too, I've even entered myself, even though I'll openly admit I think mine is probably the weakest entry there... The trouble is speaking to a camera and coming across in the right 'positive' way while talking fluidly and naturally is a skill, and it's probably a skill that has to be nurtured.  Unfortunately this is also a skill which I don't have... 
 
Having said that, I don't particularly aspire to be 'face-on-camera' famous... For me, having to stand there and talk to a camera presents a small element of challenge.   I recently did some recording work for a website talking about games development, and that wasn't the easiest thing in the world today - to sound right and pace your speech so it's easy to listen to, to pitch your tone correctly so that you sound enthusiastic but serious enough that you sound like you know what you are talking about... Having said that - it was fun, although the half slot I talked for wasn't really long enough for the game I was talking about.  I didn't script it at all either, and in retrospect I could have maybe organised the talk better if I'd written a simple list of topics to cover in what order - then elaborated on the fly...
 
Some of the entries for the Presenters Competition are now very, very good... And the entrants have an air of professionalism and experience which I'm confident I could never emulate... Similarly some of the other entrants have shown some very impressive video editing skills and production abilities - for my poor entry I had to find some free software I could use and learn it on the fly... I might have another go... But probably not - I'm now finding the quality of certain entries to be too disheartening to think it's worth entering again...
 
In some respects I should be relatively happy, I have what most people would consider an interesting, well paid job, a secure career, wife, two kids, I built my own house... I earn enough money that my wife doesn't have to work... When I have a bit more time I could even venture back to my old pastime of Tae Kwon Do and try to earn that elusive 3rd Dan... Maybe even build a kit car (I want to Build a 600 BHP Ultima Can-Am) once I've built a garage to build it in...  Perhaps try to finish my OU degree ( I guess I'll do that whatever happens.)
 
Life should be good...
 
The trouble is I cannot feel content no matter how hard I would like to, to sit down and play games made by others, complete them, then play another one.  I'm passionate about game development, and I desperately want to influence the way games are created and percieved by the mainstream media.... However I'd have more chance of re-forming 'The Liability Crisis' and taking the Christmas No 1 slot with '2 Girls 1 Bed'than actually getting into a position where this is possible.  
 
The gaming industry is a fickle one to work in, Universities are now offering games development degrees and game design degrees, but these courses are NOT industry recognised.  The only real benefit you get from doing them that I can see is that you will build a portfolio of work that might prove you have some ability, possibly to the point where you can get an internship.
 
The trouble is, lots of young people want to work in games development these days, it's becoming a 'rock-star' job... And despite the fact that games are created to serve peoples desire for fun, they are probably the most difficult applications to develop. If a piece of office software does an invaluable task and there is only one piece of software available to do it, you will sell it en-mass regardless of bugs, glitches and poor graphics, people will tolerate a lot of issues for the right functionality.  A game has to be spot on, and even then it will get slated for the area's where it isn't spot on.  Unless you are massive, well respected games company like Blizzard, Bioware, Valve or similar... You are really going to have to produce something special to get back your development costs.  
 
Due to the current complexity of games, developing games is actually a lot more technically challenging than other types of software.  You can't develop a commercial game in Visual Basic or Java.  It need to run fast or it won't be tolerated - so you have to write it in something like C+ or C# if you are developing with Microsoft XNA for XBOX Live... You have to use the principles of object orientated programming and you need very polished, high quality character models, textures and sounds...  It really can't be buggy, if you write a game that has a bug that prevents people completing it and you don't patch it - then that game is going down in history...  You might need to buy a licence for a physics engine unless you intend to spend even more hours building your own... And that can cost a fortune...
 
Matt Smith coded Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy in his bedroom, on his own, drawing his own sprites... The guy who wrote the Atari 2600 version of ET the Extra Terrestrial was given 6 weeks to complete it from a concept and he worked on it alone (Possibly partly why it's broadly regarded as the worst game of all time.)
 
Games development has changed, and becoming a part of it, getting into such a position where you can influence it is becoming increasingly difficult.  It's maybe partly a good thing, it may improve the respectability and media presence of gaming - and the UK is a big exporter of games, if coding the next blockbuster game was outsourced to development teams in India or China then that would be another industry we've lost to a cheaper labour force and difficulty is one factor that keeps the UK ahead of the game...
 
Aspiring to be in a position where you can even have a voice, and influence games development is just frustrating... More frustrating than trying to beat 'Through the Fire and Flames' on Expert and probably more difficult...