Low Cutoff 2013 Round-Up

This will be the last Low Cutoff post in 2013, and what a year it has been. Though Low Cutoff has archived posts that go back a few years, the site itself was launched little more than 12 months ago. With the addition of Blips, I've been publishing stories every weekday (with exceptions, of course), which has been a wonderful practice to maintain that both keeps me on top of current happenings, while also forcing me to write something everyday. Here are some of my favorite posts from 2013:

Unfit For Consumption
Ever-Present: Proteus (Mac) Review
Half-Tucked: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3) Review
Selfish Superhero: inFamous (PS3) Review
Blips: New Media Literacy
The Remake Impulse
Bonus Feature: Interview with Miasmata Designer, Bob Johnson
Blips: The ____(name) of ____(medium)
Retro Blips: Critical Void
Blips: A Gran ol' Time
Blips: Buyers Market
Blips: Antagonist Gamer
Blips: Press X to Rosebud
Blips: The Artist's Dilemma
Blips: The Ludonarrative Dumpster
Bonus Feature: Interview with Pippin Barr
Development Hell: Crypt Worlds (Mac) Review
Blips: The Age Of Games Is Upon Us
Gotcha!: An ARG Story
Blips: Hidden Fortress
Blips: Indulgence
Blips: Video Games: Legacy: Origins
Blips: Platform Exclusive

Additionally, my work also appeared on a few other sites. Here were my favorite freelance stories from 2013:

How the magic sounds of Proteus are making their way into the real world (Kill Screen)
Completely Hands-On (Unwinnable)
Twilight Crossfade (re/Action)
Inside the videogame version of the Marina Abramovic Institute (Kill Screen)
Real Simulation, False Prophecy (PopMatters)
The Stanley Parable Review: A Review of The Stanley Parable (Kill Screen)
How an artist turned Shadow of the Colossus into a rumination on chance (Kill Screen)
The PlayStation 4: A Review in Four Parts (Kill Screen)
The top 10 worst buzzwords of 2013 (Kill Screen)

As far as actual games go, I don't have a list of 10 games that were released this year, but I will mention a few that I played this year that I really enjoyed:

Miasmata
Proteus
The Stanley Parable
Pac-Man CE DX+
Crypt Worlds
Braid
WipeOut HD Fury
Gran Turismo 6
Money Idol Exchanger
Slave of God
SimCity 2000
World of Glue 

I'll be doing a "best music" list over on the old Gold Skulltulla blog, so keep a lookout for that. Otherwise, see you in 2014!

Blips: Shipping Out

Source: Who Built That Video Game?
Author: Michael Thomsen
Site: The New Yorker

If you've sat around for the credits on any video game with a big budget or from a large studio, you've probably noticed how long they seem to go –much longer than they used to. While maybe some have slowed the scroll, more often it's because a greater number of people is required to make these kinds of games than it used to take. As Michael Thomsen's recent New Yorker piece speaks to, this has lead the majority of video game companies to outsource at least one aspect of their development process. This means that some element of most games (probably art assets) was produced outside of the country where the game company is based because it's cheaper to do so. Why keep 20 artists on staff in California when you can pay for 20 artists in Malaysia for a fraction of the price?

Thomsen also points out that these low paying outsourced jobs can be economic opportunities for the laborers that acquire them, but as far as general corporate practice goes for the commissioning corporations, it's a race to the bottom. The video game industry has a difficult enough time providing decent labor conditions for their in-house staff, let alone the responsibility for conditions of workplaces on other continents. I certainly don't expect an industry with a reputation for "crunch" labor and a high rate of worker burn out to approach a dicey practice like outsourcing with careful oversight. I'd love to see the game industry get its own house in order first, but I fear that outsourcing might actually be seen as a solution to those domestic issues instead of a simple matter of expansion.

Blips: Derivative Works

Source: The Players-Authors Project
Author: Greg Lastowka
Site: Gamasutra (blog)

I realize I just railed against the use of "content" to describe video games, but the term can serve as valuable industry shorthand at times, even if I have to cringe a little when I say it. I'll keep the mentions to a minimum. I put in this disclaimer because I wanted to share Greg Lastowka's blog post on research he's done on what players are actually doing with "user-generated content" (UGC). This blanket term is used to cover everything from character customization to modding tools with wide spectrum of degrees in between. We've heard that allowing players more creative control in games is the way of the future, Minecraft being the recent blockbuster success story. But what about when players use those customization tools simply to make references to other games, skirting a fuzzy line between fair use and copyright infringement?

Well, this is where Lastowka's research comes in. He has a link to the full 160 page report in his blog, but I'll just be focusing on the highlights he summed up so nicely. First, consider the snap judgement that if you give someone a level editor, they'll just make World 1-1 from Super Mario Bros and be done with it. While that's not entirely untrue, that level and others like it don't represent the vast majority of user-made levels in a game like LitteBigPlanet. However, in many cases the most popular custom levels and characters tend to be referential in nature. Still, the referential slant of popular UGC would still fall under the umbrella or original, creative material, not piracy. Your fake World 1-1 isn't meant to be a stand-in for actual Super Mario Bros, but a similar experience translated through a different platform. Also interesting is how little the oft-lauded act of "remixing" actually occurs. This means that most use of co-opted intellectual property in UGC would have a hard time justifying itself as "fair use" under close scrutiny.

There's a lot more to the report, which I'd encourage checking out. What with all the recent YouTube issues when it comes to footage of video games, it's interesting to see research on how players use the tools that developers have provided in-game. OK, I only said "content" a few times; I can live with that.

Blips: Bad Words

Source: The top 10 worst buzzwords of 2013
Author: Dan Solberg
Site: Kill Screen

My list of horrible video game buzzwords from the past year is up on Kill Screen. Consider giving it a look. It was a fun list to make because it allowed me to write jokes about dumb PR phrases while also venting a bit about the ways certain industry terms are used outside of upper management corporate strategy meetings. Spoiler: "content" the my number 1 worst buzzword this year for exactly that reason. I guess people are averse to using "product" now; perhaps it references the market too directly? I don't know, but "content" is just "product" for Millenials.

The other buzzword I was considering including was a perennial favorite, "fun." In 2013, it felt like "fun" came under fire more than it had previously, thanks in large part to critical breakdowns of what the term actually means in the context of video games from Ian Bogost and Leigh Alexander. It's similar to the way "beauty" was tied to the value of art for a very long time. All of a sudden there were painters and sculptures creating works that were not conventionally beautiful, works that could be a bit uncomfortable to hang over the couch, yet they were incredible, moving works of art. The need for games to be "fun" is likewise a limiter on what's possible in the medium as well as potentially constraining of what "fun" can mean. This is not meant to condemn fun games (after all, who doesn't enjoy having fun?), but rather to acknowledge what's actually being said when the "fun" descriptor is thrown into the mix.

Blips: Boom and Bust

Source: The Glorious Lie of the Indie Bubble
Author: Ben Serviss
Site: Dashjump

The indie game bubble is a myth. The rising number of indie games being produced regularly does not reflect the marketplace that led to the crash in the 80s, and developer/writer Ben Serviss explains why that's the case in a recent post on his blog Dashjump. Problems arose in the 80s not just because of the tremendous glut of games being released, but because many of these games were low quality or were copycat designs that stirred confusion in the marketplace. There may be an expanding number of indie games being released now, but the bar for quality has also raised tremendously, which an impressive number of games are able to meet or surpass. Developers with game design degrees are pouring out of colleges and institutions like never before, which ensures that more indie devs know the basics of how to approach the practice. Game prices are down, and more people are able to get their hands on development tools than ever before.

However, the story's not all roses, as commenter Daniel Cook points out. The indie game space might not be a bubble, but that doesn't mean some of the market trends shouldn't be a bit concerning. Development costs for indie games are going up as more money is being spent on visuals to make games stand out in an increasingly crowded environment. This makes production less sustainable in the long term as it intensifies the need to have a "hit game" (not a statement of quality) simply to survive because there's less room for error. Previously underrepresented genre niches now has overflowing coffers of games for players to choose from to the point where that kind of gap-filling novelty doesn't go as far as it used to. Actually Cook's breakdown is an incredibly succinct post about the difference between development now and in the 80s and opportunities the near-future market may hold.

Either way you look at it though, it doesn't appear that video games are headed for another bust in the near future. I'm not saying it could never happen (Zynga and social games have had better years), but I think we can leave those particular alarms switch off for now. There are plenty of other issues worth concerning ourselves.

Blips: Look Closely

Source: Two Games That Undermine The Concept Of Games
Author: Maddy Myers
Site: Paste

Maddy Myers really nails it with her recent piece for Paste about the institutional critique of The Stanley Parable and Antichamber. While other games like Hotline Miami and Spec Ops: The Line attempt to twist the expected campaign path back on the player, they do so at the player's expense. The curtain pulls back and the games accusingly ask, "why did you do that?" The Stanley Parable and Antichamber both satirize the role of the game developer instead, which actually further empowers players by allowing them abilities that would break most other games. In fact, "breaking" these games is part of the point. Myers begins her piece with a puzzle in Antichamber where continuing forward locks you in an endless loop, a metaphor for the typical gameplay loop that serves as a core element of game design. However, the only way to progress in the game is to break the loop and go back from where you came, a move that surprisingly leads somewhere totally new.

I haven't finished Anitchamber yet (a couple hours in), but I have a running theory that the game is about games as artworks, or rather, art as a game. This is in contrast to The Stanley Parable which is a game about games, which could be interpreted as art. Antichamber rewards astute perception, the sort that reveals hidden truths that require time and focus to unearth. The white cube space might as well be the "white cube" of the modern art gallery, the snarky puzzle hints on the walls the accompanying wall text. There's even a room in Antichamber full of sculptures in vitrines that reinforce the non-Euclidean nature of its world by appearing as different objects depending on the angle from which you're looking. How do you absorb an artwork, interpret it, and make it meaningful to you? For a painting, you look at it, study it, and live with it. The approach to Antichamber is only different insofar as the medium is different; ultimately what you're doing is the same.

Once I finish Antichamber, I'll flesh these ideas out more thoroughly (assuming I still feel the same by the end of it), but even now I can say that the game offers an opportunity to literally play with the idea of what games are and the spaces in which they can exist. That's a sophisticated level of institutional critique very few games approach, and fewer deliver.

Blips: She's a Robot

Source: GlaDos, The Stanley Parable, and the evil female AI
Author: Carli Velocci
Site: Kill Screen

This is a cool piece about gendered AI voices in video games by Cardi Velocci. It's no accident that Apple's Siri has a female voice since studies that Velocci sites show that people prefer to listen to a female voice over a male one. Also, as Velocci points out, listeners see the female voice as more comforting and conversational, while the male voice is more authoritative and direct. How much of those male robot associations are drawn from 2001: A Space Odyssey's HAL, is debatable, but it definitely seems to have set a precedent.

In games, the most famous robot voice is probably that of Portal's GlaDos, as performed by Ellen McLain. What's great about this casting is that GlaDos takes the assumptions about the female voice as a supplier of motherly assurance, and uses them against the player when her true nature as an authoritarian overlord is slowly revealed. GlaDos begins the game as no more than a glorified laboratory GPS, but gradually breaks "character" once you stop playing by the rules she's laid out for you.

When an update was available for my iPhone, I actually switched Siri to the newly available male voice, which is still called Siri. Inflection and tone plays a huge role in the way the voice comes off, and the male Siri voice sounds nothing like the menacing deadpan of HAL, but actually seems friendly and open to conversation. Mostly I just wanted a change of pace though, as so many robots have very similar sounding female voices and, for me, they've started to present as more robotic by association in such quantity. Maybe at some point we'll just go back to wanting our robots to sound like robots. I'd be into that.

Blips: Platform Exclusive

Source: If you love games, you should refuse to be called a "gamer"
Author: Simon Parkin
Site: New Statesman

In a new article for the New Statesman, Simon Parkin critically examines the term "gamer" and considers what it means to be a member of the "gaming community." It's a solid piece that gets at my own personal apprehension to using the word "gamer," and helped me better understand why I find the term uncomfortable. I found Parkin's most powerful point to be the way "gaming community" is thrown around, while no analogue exists in other pop culture media. There is no homogenous TV watching community or music listening community, but there are smaller groups that express dedication to specific shows, bands, and genres. "Gaming community" is a misnomer for "people who play games," which is, increasingly, everyone, thus stripping the original term of any significance.

As an insider in the "gaming community," I know that the term is supposed to be taken as a label for people who play certain types of games: "real" games, "hardcore" games, or any other type of game that could not be labelled as "casual" or "social" or played in a web browser. The irony of the image above is that Pac-Man was a kind of casual game in itself, debuting in bars and other social contexts for adults and kids to play alike. Would people who enjoyed playing Pac-Man from time to time be considered "gamers," or does the label imply a more concerned dedication and time investment in the medium? These kinds of elitist barriers exist in other mediums, those that separate the "likers" from the "lovers" (moviegoer v. cinephile), but somehow the general term "gamer" has been turned into a label that leaves no room for those who have not dedicated part of their souls to video games.

To be a "gamer" is to make game playing critical part of your identity on the level of an occupation. Parkin slyly points out that people who read books (another non-homogenous group) don't typically refer to themselves as "readers." and likewise, "gamers" should cast aside the label that makes them sound like a singular group (a less than flattering one, at that). All kinds of people play games, but "gamer" doesn't encompass this idea. There's a reason labels like "girl gamer" and "gaymer" have surfaced in recent years, and it's because members of those groups looked at what makes a "gamer" and they didn't see themselves. I highly suggest checking out Tracey Lien's expose from last week to learn more about how the "gaming community" came to be identified as a boys club, and some of the problems that have stemmed as a result.

It's time "gamer" went to way of the outdated stereotype it represents, or else the term is in serious need of co-opting and repurposing to better serve the actual range of people who enjoy video games.

:image by SplitReason:

Blips: Little Shooter, Large Scale

Source: Resogun is shiny, but it is not new
Author: Dan Solberg
Site: Kill Screen

My PS4 launch coverage comes to a close with my review of the side-scrolling space shooter Resogun. There's a lot to like about the game, which takes plenty of cues from old arcade games and previous revivals of said arcade games. As someone who simply enjoys space shooters, Resogun is a well made one of those, but one that ultimately feels like it's drawing much of its praise from the void it's filling in the PS4 launch line-up. Would anyone care about Resogun if it were released 6 months from now? I'm sure it would find a niche audience, but there's nothing like essentially being a pack-in title for a new console to attract some eyeballs.

That said, most arcade revival successes are cases of right place, right time (in addition to being solid games, of course). Geometry Wars is the shining example here, not only debuting with the Xbox 360, but also essentially introducing players to a new downloadable "arcade" platform, which proved to be a huge hit. That said, Resogun doesn't quite match the perfect pitch that Geometry Wars achieved. And while Geometry Wars was certainly cool looking, it didn't come off as a game that was really pushing the new hardware. Resogun can feel like it's trying a bit too hard here, with it's explosions of infinite voxels, as if it's trying to prove that the game could only exist on a machine as capable as the PS4. Kudos to Resogun's developers for excelling under the weight of all of that pressure, but ultimately that game is punching above its weight class.

Blips: Free 2 Disagree

Source: Game Design: The Medium is the Message
Author: Jonathan Blow
Site: Creative Mornings

This video is a few weeks old, but worth checking out if you missed it the first time around. Game designer Jonathan Blow (Braid, The Witness) breaks down why free-to-play games are a regressive movement away from the medium as one of artistic expression. For the most part, I'm on board here. The convincing analogy Blow sets up is one with hour-long TV dramas in the 70s and 80s. These shows were formed around the commercial breaks and the promise of syndication. Acknowledging that every medium has creative constraints that need to be worked within, these old TV shows felt much more constrained than modern hour-long dramas on cable networks. There are games that do F2P in an ethical way, but regardless, it changes the form that the game takes and the relationship between developer and player.

I'm about to start playing Gran Turismo 6, and have just learned that it contains microtranactions for cars. This has shifted my desire to play the game as one of excitement, to one of "I hope it isn't gross." From what I've seen of Forza this year, I'm not super confident. And that's a real shame. I haven't played a Gran Turismo game since 3, back when I was in high school, and have been greatly anticipated jumping back in with GT6 ever since it was announced for PS3. Having played DiRT 3 earlier this year, I've seen how commercial intrusion can put a damper on what otherwise feels like a pretty fantastic experience. In DiRT 3, you could not earn gold medals on certain events without purchasing additional courses and races. The extra gameplay isn't "extra" when it interferes with what I've already paid for; it creates an artificial gate (made worse by being in a game that costs $60 upfront). I've got my fingers crossed that GT6's microtransactions are truly extra features that will only appeal to people who care way more about cars than I do.

I just hate playing games that feel like the real challenge isn't the puzzles or the enemies, but in figuring out how to get the most satisfaction for the least amount of money. Unfortunately, this is the mentality that F2P perpetuates, and it's very popular.

Blips: Toys For Boys

Source: No Girls Allowed
Author: Tracey Lien
Site: Polygon

Why does everyone think video games are for boys? That's the question Tracey Lien tackles in her latest article for Polygon. Whether or not games are for boys or girls is largely a perception issue, with marketing controlling the messages in a very calculated way. Lien dives into the history of gaming audiences, back in the pre-crash days. At that time, game companies weren't doing market research, and developers were just interested in making games that were fun to play in the locations where they knew people were playing them: bars and living rooms. Both of these locations have their fair share of girls and boys, men and women, and most games seemed to reflect this "general audience" targeting.

Post-crash, game companies like Nintendo were trying to be smarter about the way they did business and were looking to minimize risk, especially with a lapsed public trust in the quality of video games. First this involved marketing video games as toys, and later as for boys. Market research told game publishers that people were still willing to spend money on toys and than the majority of video game players were male. It became a matter of putting two and two together that lead to the image of video games as "toys for boys," because that's largely what was being produced and near exclusively the way games were being marketed.

However, it seems that tide turned with the success of the family-oriented Wii and the popularity of social and casual games on gender-agnostic platforms like smartphones and Facebook. Now the male-dominated public perception and publicity campaigns ring false and even defensive at times. Yet, here we sit with the continued understanding that games are for boys when near half of people who play video games are female. Somehow social and casual games always need those qualifiers to set them apart from the "real" games, a stance which itself is macho posturing. There's nothing wrong with making video games targeted at a male audience, but video games as a medium, are for everyone.

:image by David Saracino:

Blips: Just Play Miasmata Already

Source: The Island
Author Joel Goodwin
Site: Electron Dance

With year-end list season upon us, my thoughts once again return to the exploration/survival game Miasmata. It's my favorite game from the past year (though it technically came out at the end of 2012) and I can't recommend it enough. Over at Electron Dance, Joel Goodwin seems to harbor similar feelings for the game, though perhaps I'm more gushing with compliments. Regardless, he's stated that Miasmata was the game that meant the most to him this past year, and I'm right there with him.

I interviewed designer Bob Johnson about the game earlier this year, which was research for a piece in Kill Screen magazine Issue 7. I also wrote about Miasmata and Proteus for the short-lived re/Action website, going in depth into how both games express themselves through their day/night transitions. Miasmata is a game rich with mineable material for criticism and interpretation, but also offers satisfying mechanics to engage with in the moment. I remember playing it and thinking how much it felt like the perfect ambassador to bridge triple-A and indie audiences. It's gorgeous, and comes from a small team. It has action and also introspective exploration. It's not handhold-y, but it tells you enough upfront. Miasmata feels exquisitely balanced, which is amazing because what you're doing from one hour to the next can have such hard swings. It's a machine that doesn't look like it should work, but it does. Oh man, does it work.

:image by Avery Campbell:

Blips: Bad Boys

Source: Need for Speed Rivals turned me into a feckless asshole
Author: Dan Solberg
Site: Kill Screen

I lucked into playing Need for Speed Rivals on PS4. After several requests for a PS3 copy of the game fell on deaf ears over at publisher EA, I had resigned to not playing the game in advance of its release. However, when I picked up a PS4 for Kill Screen at Sony's review event, Rivals was among the games included in the package I received. This was surprising as well because everyone else seemed to walk away with a copy of Assassins Creed IV instead, which was part of the official list. Maybe they ran out of Assassins Creed; I don't know, but it was a pleasent convenience for me that I happened into a game that I was assigned to review instead of having to hunt one down later.

The link above is to my review of said driving game, which I found tremendously fun at times, but ultimately a game that undercuts itself. The cops and racers dynamic is imbalanced, and the multiplayer is too sparsely populated and difficult to communicate with other players. I felt a bit childish playing a cops and robbers game with such a juvenile storyline too. The PS4 launch in general carries this whole "toys for boys" vibe that is actually a little off-putting, both from the assumed gender roles angle and the aura of immaturity. I realize "play" is about letting loose and not necessarily acting your age all the time, but it's different when you can feel that targeted message beckoning you to do so.

That got a little dark, sorry. Check out my Need for Speed Rivals review for the full scoop on the game and why I compared its story to a Dadaist poem of Fred Durst lyrics.