A necessity in any game writer’s arsenal.
Serious String
YouTube Quality: The Hack
YouTube Quality Puzzle Solved By A Blogger Who’s Not Me
YouTube video quality is a mysterious thing, especially since they run their own compression on (most? all?) video that’s been uploaded to the site.
Even more mysterious is how to get YouTube videos to default to high quality when you embed them on your own website.
Recently we were facing the YouTube quality conundrum for some new South by Southwest music videography that we posted up at the main Sparkleworks site. How do we get YouTube to default the video playback to high quality? We’d encoded the video to the perfect H.264 settings, so we were generally pleased with the high quality YouTube performance, but getting it to default to that quality setting was another issue.
Blogosphere to the rescue. This is excerpted from Jason Kottke’s excellent Kottke.org. Visit the original post to find out what Jason says about linking to high quality YouTube videos, defaulting your YouTube prefs to high quality, and saving high quality YouTube videos to your local digital smarmitude.
Embedding high quality YouTube videos:
The &fmt=18 trick doesn’t work here, but a similar trick does. For each of the URLs in the embeddable code that you get from YouTube, add &ap=%2526fmt%3D18 onto the end, like so:<object width=”425″ height=”344″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/MuqiGrWBRqE&hl=en&fs=1 &ap=%2526fmt%3D18“></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/MuqiGrWBRqE&hl=en&fs=1&ap=%2526fmt%3D18” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object>
If you want some high quality YouTube video, this is the sacred path. Tread lightly.
And now, in honor of Jason’s technical helping hand, I present you with some Bang Camaro from South by Southwest 2009, live from Lovejoy’s in Austin, Texas. Those Guitar Hero II fans out there will recognize this tune. The rest of you will probably still enjoy the sight of forty-seven amped-up lead singers on stage simultaneously:
All That Twitters Is Not Gold
God, I hate Twitter.
They say you either hate it or love it. I suppose it has its uses for deal-seekers (like myself) who enjoy the thrill of the hunt, in a Woot-Off kind of sense.
It’s South by Southwest here in Austin, TX, and the streets are filled with the usual LA transplants, here to share with their friends the social status they have from being backstage at the hottest shows. Too bad they’re so busy pushing little chiclet buttons on their phones that they can’t be bothered to pay attention to the music.
One of my clients is search engine optimization company Get Page One, where I do project management and content development. We often kick Twitter around as a topic of conversation. I understand that it lowers social barriers and allows you to keep tabs on celebs and powerful people. It’s Voyeurism 2.0. It’s public exhibitionism in 50 words or less. But in a pop-culture climate where I’m struggling to filter out the urgent from the important, Twitter is really the last kind of input that I want or need. I don’t care how many people are following you. Popularity contests sucked in high school; now they mean even less.
Twitter is blog-lite when I was already irritated by the frequent frothiness of blogs. Videogame writers are expected to be pretty froth-friendly, but ideally their work is closer to literature than to reality TV. If the medium is ever to aspire to being an art form, it needs to eschew froth. So far, comic books (Maus, Sandman, and yes, even the Watchmen movie) are a lot closer to reaching that status than videogames.
Boxing Games and Fight Night Round 4
Boxing games are back. Fight Night Round 4 has been announced with a ship date – actually, a ship season – of “Summer 2009.”
It’s good to see this boxing franchise making another run. There’s also leaked video on Youtube of an EA representative comparing FN4 and FN3, which I also found encouraging. I loved FN3 but it still had plenty of room for improvement. I think we still haven’t seen a true next-gen arcade-simulation of boxing, just very tantalizing and visually appealing boxing imitations.
Part of the problem is that boxing really involves the whole human body, like dancing. (Seen any good dancing videogames? EA, want to use the FN4 engine to make one?) Obviously, it’s a different scale than controlling a running back in a football game. The biggest disappointment is that the game is destined for the PS3 and Xbox 360. Of all the next gen platforms, you’d think the most natural fit for a boxing game would be on the Wii. However, motion detection on the Wii isn’t as precise as Nintendo would like you to think.
I think what we’d all like to see is a boxing game that captures true body movement- a lean of the shoulders, a flick of the hips, a tilt of the head – rather than a string of rote offensive and defensive boxing moves. Whether it comes in a boxing game, a brawler like Tekken or Street Fighter, or in the aforementioned dancing game, we all want more control and simpler controls.
One analog stick for punching was a cool idea, and revolutionary in its way (kudos to you, Kudo), but ultimately untenable. After all, that little stick had to do all the work of two arms. Being lefthanded, I found it especially perverse, and eventually joined my human boxing compadre in using the face buttons, a la Punch Out and time immemorial.
Good to see Tyson in there, too. I definitely wished for his presence in FN3.
A Game Industry Funny
This game industry cartoon is written for the UK, but I think it translates pretty well. Sadly, it’s also pretty true. Acclaim had a studio in Austin that imploded. I almost took a job there.
The cartoon is “Crashlander,” and it’s worth a look. Click on the teaser below to visit the site and see the full cartoon.
Videogame Writing Influences TV?
EDGE Thinks Videogame Writing Is Affecting Television Plots
Rely on EDGE Magazine to throw out some interesting memes. Today I stumbled upon this thought – that some of the hot new television writing is actually becoming more like videogame writing. And not in a good way:
TV is yet another medium struggling to compete against interactive entertainment…. Even TV shows are becoming more like videogames, with a flat palette of two-dimensional characters moving progressively through random objectives, the odd big boss and perplexing, pointless plot twists. Heroes, Lost, Family Guy. Shit, shit, shit.
Family Guy Has Videogame Plots?
So those cocky Brits just compared your favorite TV show with human offal. But you have to admit that some of these modern ensemble television dramas aren’t TV shows in the classic mode.
Instead, they’re giant productions that will continue to throw out new characters, obstacles, and plot threads in a desperate and calculated effort to survive. It’s fully possible that, like the great red herring generator, Twin Peaks, there’s no overarching meta-narrative. I fear that they exist only to exist. When the concept wears thin and viewers turn elsewhere, these shows might just crumble and crash into the rocks without ever attempting to answer the questions that they raised in the first place.
Still, An Interesting Reversal
Sure, the videogame movie is a Hollywood staple as movie studios reveal again and again their timid business strategies. But it’s not every day that you see someone postulate that game writing is bleeding stylistically into other media, instead of vice versa. Some food for thought the next time you’re zoning out in front of the idiot box.
EGM Magazine is Dead
EGM Magazine Closed by Buyer
Well, EGM Magazine lovers… I feel guilty, although I probably shouldn’t.
On Jan. 7th, Ziff Davis announced that they’ve closed down the entire EGM magazine publishing operation, only days after my post criticizing the clipping problem they had on their Gears of War 2 cover.
Okay, I admit that there’s definitely zero correlation between my tiny knock (mostly aimed at the GoW 2 game artist, anyhow) and the shuttering of this game writing and analysis institution. Still, I feel a little bad for having thrown some flack in their direction at such a lousy stage of their lifespan.
Technically, Ziff* didn’t kick EGM and its many game writers to the curb. It was UGO Entertainment, a branch of Hearst, which bought EGM and promptly snuffed the mag and its antiquated print operation. Paper! Hmph! Who reads paper, anyhow?
Well, suckers, I do. I get sick of staring at a monitor for hours a day.
EGM and Vinyl
A decade ago, people couldn’t wait to unload their old records. Now collectors are pursuing lost vinyl treasures, USB turntables are in stock at every Best Buy, and DJs sweat buckets transporting milk crates of records from gig to gig.
We may be readying for a new era of e-ink where everything we read is digital and looks like paper. But that “paperless society” meme has clearly revealed itself to be the worst kind of marketing horseshit.
EGM Had Real Value
Also, Ziff and UGO are fools for trashing one of the game industry’s finest brands. We’re talking about EGM. Magazine, schmagazine, this is the last grand game review stalwart. We’re supposed to read Game Informer now? And after the dustup at Gamespot, how can we trust game websites?
Ask any marketing student or business professor. A brand is worth hard currency; it’s a name that carries weight and has been built into a reputable entity over decades of effort. I know newspapers and magazines are struggling to monetize their brands, but if you owned The New York Times, would you shut it down cold because you can’t figure out how to make a buck off it?
* Ziff does own the singular distinction of having deep-sixed the legendary CGW, which they first slapped with the moniker Games for Windows as a final insult.
Game artist: caught clipping
A game artist goofup
A game artist has a hard life.
You spend years – nay, a lifetime – honing your skills and craft. You sketch incessantly, driven by your passion for visual expression. You paint, you sculpt, you design, you draft.
After your traditional art training, you pick up the digital tools of creation. Your fingers are constantly molded to a mouse or a Wacom stylus. Your eyes grow bleary from texturing armies of space soldiers and modeling armories worth of fantasy broadswords. Day after day, night after night, you trudge into the office to tweak pixels to satisfy the lead game artist or please the whims of some publicity flack.
Or you’re rendering a cover shot for the art director of a major videogame industry magazine.
And then, dear game artist from the mega-AAA title Gears of War 2, you <ahem> goof it up royally and send the art director this shot of Gears of War hero Marcus Fenix ingesting a Locust drone…
through the side of his face.
This is a phenomenon known as clipping, if you’re new to the game design world. Two gameworld objects, one personal space. Happens a lot in even the best videogames. It’s tough to get complex interactions between animated objects without a few polys getting intersected here and there.
On the other hand, it’s not every day that you see the faces of two characters mashed through each other on the cover of a big gaming mag.
In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever seen it.
So… happy holidays, Mr. Gears Game Artist. I probably should’ve kept my mouth shut, and made your life a little easier. But I couldn’t believe what I saw, and I had to share at your expense.
Game design innovation… in today’s market?
I guess a few game designers were paying attention
The game design plaint that I most routinely dispense is doubtlessly one you’re familiar with. Game design is a dying craft. Publishers have forgotten what makes great games. Sequels are the spawn of Satan.
But maybe I was wrong.
A few fresh game design ideas are out and thriving
That’s right – I surveyed the market today using regression analysis and a four-variable study of the current holiday offerings, based on SKUs shipped, sales totals, sales velocity, and foreign distribution per capita. (Just kidding. Totally unscientific, but based on media coverage, advertising, and the ol’ sales chart.)
I have to commend publishers and developers for actually taking a few real game design risks. The primary success I see, of course, is the Nintendo Wii, which demonstrates that fresh game design starts with risky hardware and a canny knowledge of the gaming audience, its potential for growth, and most of all, that elusive forgotten factor called “fun.” Nintendo game designers understand that “fun” and “gigaflops per CPU clock cycle” are not necessarily tied at the hip.
Some games that are changing the ‘scape
I’m also encouraged by these titles. Maybe there’s hope.
Mirror’s Edge. Brilliant visual design and gameplay that might actually make something out of the rooftop-hopping game dynamic that went nowhere in Assassin’s Creed.
Little Big Planet. A fresh world, a world-building approach, and not a bullet in sight. Is it possible? Don’t get me wrong. I love shooters as much as the next game designer. I just want a balanced game concept diet, y’know?
Spore. Will Wright still marches to his own drummer. Certainly appeals to me more than the Sims.
Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Sure, once you saw the game design for DDR, you probably could’ve come up with the concept for these two. But did you? And c’mon, you have to admit that rockin’ the living room with your pals kicks the pants off Jenga.
The game sales chart still says “FAIL”
At the same time, the game designs that are dominating the sales chart are indeed largely sequels. Madden. (I know, it’s football season.) Mario Kart. GT. Other Mario games. Soulcalibur IV. Tiger Woods.
Still, I’m encouraged to see some fresh blood slowly being injected into the game design bloodstream. Without new ideas, the industry will die, or become trivialized and marginalized like comic books and (shudder) the sports card collectibles industry.
Maybe someday game design will be less of a craft and more of an art.
Ah, what the heck am I saying. Set your sights low. We might get some eye candy that engages a few different brain cells than last year’s game design crop. And that in itself is a revolution.
Do good.
Do Good Now
Do good while doing nothing? How about working on a cure for cancer while picking your nose? How many of you can do that? That’s what I’m doing today. I’m gonna do good while doing absolutely nothing.
Okay, to tell the truth, I’m going to do good by installing the World Community Grid applet. And yes, it will do its good work – solving a small share of giant computing problems like a cure for cancer – using my PC whenever I’m not using the CPU.
Other do-good-er tasks that the World Community Grid is tackling include mapping human proteomes, researching rice proteins to help farmers raise better crops, and finding ways to cure dengue fever and AIDS. Sponsored by IBM and a number of major unis, the World Community Grid is a fantastic, safe, free way for you to do good while sitting on your butt.
If you’re familiar with the SETI screensaver, you know the concept. Do good while doing nothing. Except, frankly, I think a cure for cancer is a helluva lot more likely, and will do more good, than discovering bug-eyed monsters from the Sci-Fi Channel.
Do Good at Work
If you’re an IT professional, at a game design contractor or elsewhere, you should see if you can get some of your execs or your CTO on board with this particular do-good opportunity. A large corporation or even a corporate department can have hundreds of idle computers at any given moment.
Those clock cycles could be doing good things instead of running around empty-headed. Idle hands are the devil’s playground! Get that silicon to do some good work!
How to Do Some Good with Your Idleness
Ok, here’s the link to the World Community Grid. Get out there and do some good.