It shapes us

As I sit down and really think about what to type here I start to think about how someone could possibly react to everything that will be said here.  I should probably start at the beginning so it will make the sense that it makes to me.

I'm Josh and I'm a Game Designer.  Or at least I will be when I have some sort of finished product.  You see I'm currently "going" to school with DeVry Online for Game and Simulation Programming.  Lengthy but it means that I will have the knowledge and tools necessary to be apart of the creation side of the gaming industry.  Anyone who is likely reading this knows that I am a Store manager for Gamestop and am successful with the business. 

At the beginning of the year I felt as if nothing had really been changing throughout the year 2012.  I felt hollow from the lack of new and the lack of exciting.  In order here is what happened next:

1. My Assistant Manager hurt herself on the job and was out for multiple weeks.
2. I had surgery on my right hand to remove a mysterious mass in my hand which shackled that hand to no use for 2 weeks and minimal for 4. 
3. My store inventory was coming up which always seems insanely stressful
4. My Grandma passed away, This came away with a new feeling of loss I've never had.  My amazing boss moved my inventory to help with the timing issues that came up with this.
5. My mother has a heart attack days after.

Now this is just the month of January - It is now February and I feel exhausted.  I feel strong from getting through the month, but really what choice did I have there?  Now I really try my best not to exaggerate when it comes to something this real, but I felt as though I was crumbling under the weight of responsibility and emotion.  Even through the painkillers - which were great at killing pain and even better at killing productivity. 

However I learned.  I learned how to use more of my left hand, I learned who I could depend on and who I couldn't.  I learned that not everything ends up perfect.  I learned that time doesn't come back to you.  I want to create and I want to inspire, I wan to give some kid the same feelings I had when I had picked up Shining Force or Panzer Dragoon Saga for the first time. 

I don't think that I could truly convey the level of frustration that comes with each blow and the seemingly endless supply of mishaps and misfortunes that came my way.... I can't place it.  It feels like I'm pulling empty cargo right now and need to really figure out how I can make the future I want for me and those I care about. 

Given all the unfortunate events in my life, there are amazing things working for me that need to be shared.  I'm certified in NY state to sell life insurance and after seeing how it all really plays out with my grandmothers funeral, I feel strongly about it.

Bigger though is that I am apart of a New card game coming to market called ApocalypZe!!
I'm going to be helping the game creators and artist to market the game online and help arrange their Kickstarter.  In a nutshell - it is a zombie themed, survival horror CCG in which you try to outlast your opponent.  Every game tells it's own unique story.  You can choose from the military, police, civilians or bikers as survivors in the apocalypse.  The game is fantastic and I can't wait to show everyone the kickstarter when it goes live and even more so show you the game when it is successful and in card shops!


I have not kept on topic in this post and it looks more personal than I think it is, but what does everyone think?  Is life just crazy or is it a give and take?

9th grade written assignment!

 

 

So I made a Facebook post about who would want to see my work as a younger person and

Pardon the quality but I figured original format or nothing at all! 

Double click on em to see them in there original glory!

 

 

Well.... That was awkward

So according to blogger the last time I actually posted anything on here was in march.  Do you know what was in march?  If you have been reading this blog at the time or now... or ever really, you would know that mass effect 3 released and caused a great and many splashes in many gaming focused communities.  So that was 9 months ago.  So what brings me back today? hmmmm?

Well this and that.  Go ahead and check em out real quick - you'll need to know at least the basics to fully immerse yourself in my train of thought. 


Welcome back! Hope you didn't get lost on the internet for hours wondering how you got started down the rabbit hole in the first place, so you may be asking yourself what story and a video game cover have in common.  Or you may be really smart or smarmy and already have an answer.  So here where it gets interesting. 

The game cover is designed to give a consumer and idea of what they will get when they get home and open the game and start playing.  Just like any industry this means that there is pop, indie, and various other genres to appeal to.   Now imagine for a second you know nothing about a title in your hand except what the cover tells you.  Does it say action? Does it move you in ways you can't yet realize and does it make you wanna buy it?  For almost every cover art the answer is generally no.  I'm sure that there is market data out there that like to believe that suggestive colors and poses, types and sizes can affect the purchase habits of a consumer.  However most of the time a consumer falls into a couple different categories - either they know something about the game and what's in store for them, or they were told about it from a friend or an associate working there. 

So the game informer article postulates that story is perhaps secondary to game play mechanics, that the way we dress up our mechanics shouldn't be the focus.  In various articles Mr. Miyamoto has said that the story is not important, that game play is the star of the show - check it here for his exact words.   So if one of the most famous people in game development history says that, maybe a budding game designer should re-evaluate how he looks at games.  I see them as an amalgamation of all art - trying to desperately put together all the needed aspects to drive someone to continue playing a title through pixels, colors, story, purpose, reward, programming and sound.  Perhaps I'm thinking too deeply about the actual conception of a title and should re-prioritize my view. 

Now how is cover art and story connected?  The cover really doesn't tell you as much you'd like about a game.  Halo 4 is a great example of what a cover art can and cannot tell you about a game.  Knowing nothing about the title you could tell its futuristic, it has guns and that you'll probably play as the machine dude on the cover.  A great many of you might actually say," Dude you haven't even scratched the surface of what this game is about!" Now what does the cover tell you about the story?  The same amount if not less, given that most people won't analyze a cover and will just a quickly move on to the next. 

The entirety of this post is dedicated to really one thing - That is covers and story don't tell us anything about the actual game mechanics, the thing that actually is compelling us to play it.  If a game controlled like crap and you felt less rewarded for your actions or didn't get what you were emotionally looking for out of it, then you stop playing.  So my question for anyone reading this is go look at your favorite game cover and tell me if it tell you what you need to know about the game mechanics or story - if so tell me in the comments I'd like to see it from your perception.

Since everyone is talking about it....

If you have been living under a rock - Mass Effect 3 has released this week and by all that is good in the world - It is an undertaking.

The sheer amount of planning and dedication and persistence that comes through in this game is uncanny.  Then to actually take a minute to think about it.  I mean really think about it.  Creating this massive universe and every mission and side mission and lore bit.  To top that off you have to start thinking about what you didn't see. 

I'll never see Ashley Williams in my game and what she could have been thought or said. 
I'll never see Kasumi and get that moment and scene with her. 
I'll never see what Femshep experiences in the way of choices for a romantic part of the game. Like there's a heavy curtain keeping me from seeing it.
I'll never see what really would have played out if I had let Udina die at the end of ME1.

This is literally a scratch on the mountain of items that could have been different in this game.  My experience is shaped by the choices I've made over the past 5 years and multiple playthroughs.  I know that I'll have some similar experiences to my friends and customers but it's those little moments in the game.  A line, a quip, an action that will make my experience more than memorable. 

This series has been wonderful over the past 5 years and through it all it even compels me to think outside of the game - what would Shepard do?  Now I realize that it's 'what would my Shepard do?'  How will those actions affect those around him and what can he do about it. 

I could talk about this series for hours and still not be bored with it.  But for now - I've taken my shore leave, back to stopping the reapers!

DLC and Opinions

So over the past week or so there have been a lot of rantings and ravings and over all complaints about the issue of DLC in the gaming industry.  So quick lesson here.

DLC stands for DownLoadable Content in which a consumer has the option to purchase more content for a game that they may happen to like playing.  This content doesn't affect the overall experience but could be and is usually a vehicle for one just to expand the nature of the game they are playing.  Like everything else in a money driven economy - You don't have to buy it if you don't want it.  For a bit more on the sordid history of this topic click here.


Mass Effect 3 (dropping next week BTW) has a collectors edition and inside this soon to be monument of a game is DLC called 'From Ashes" in which you go back to Eden Prime and pick up a Prothean team member.  Now this extra piece of content is also available for everyone to purchase separately from the main game for an extra $10.00.  So even if you didn't pre-order the CE or can get your hands on it next week you can still get one of the main draws - which is the DLC. 

So there are two sides to this issue. Ya ready?

Side normal - You don't have to buy this content. As it doesn't affect the main story.  Yes there's some spoilers there. Yes it costs money.  However if you don't want it then don't give Bioware/EA/digital content your money.

Side "Butt-hurt dweller" - How dare they release information about a game that I want to play so bad before it even gets here! How dare that tell me that they want money for their work! How dare they try to expand upon something I like enough to spend money on! I'm gonna say I'm boycotting this product but I'm a butt hurt dweller and can't not know what happens in this game!


In fairness a "Butt-hurt dweller" is really just worried about the integrity of the story and that they aren't being ripped off by being forced to purchase more content to actually get the full version of the story.  I've been hearing a lot of the above opinion and it saddens me that people are judging everything before they've truly spent any money. 

My real point of view on this is that it's wonderful to have the option  to get the content that typically wouldn't be available except within a collectors edition.  If you want it - you can have it!  Now I don't need to truly pull my hair out looking for a collectors copy just because I don't wanna miss anything.  If I'm a consumer I feel like I should always have the option but that I should always have the ability to say that "I'll keep my money for something else that looks like its worth my time and money".

Power

I've been meaning to write this post ages ago as the thoughts had finally found an honest to goodness form.  Now this post has to do with many things and will not just focus on one or two things but the theme will be ever relevant.  Follow me here cuz this post is going to be riddled with tangents. 

Now have you ever thought about where power really comes from?  In this modern era of technology and politics it's a bit more vague then what our ancestors had dealt with.  In times before civilization and even when we had finally started em power was simply about strength.  Who was stronger? Who would win in a fight?  If you needed something you simply needed to be strong enough to take it.  Whether it be food or shelter. 

Fast forward a couple thousand years and then we start to truly frown on raw strength as a sign of power.  We begin to value real intelligence and the ability for people to learn to comprehend laws and why they exist.  Now power starts to shift from simply being able to claim a right to something to being able to figure out how to claim something minus the violence.  Now here's where things truly change:

Money.  Currency.  Trading. 

Now whenever any sort of exchange is made it sort of creates a tug of war between two people.  Each person is holding something the other wants yet negotiation is now taking place.  Negotiation is where the definition of power becomes more than blurry as now each person wields a certain amount of power over the other.  This post isn't going to be about that so we will visit it another time. 

In the above example we have a struggle and with that struggle we yield stress and therefore an emotional response.  Whether or not it's strong is not apart of this but there is always some sort of reaction.  In a transaction we will give in to someones desire to grab power from us. 

Think about your family and friends and loved ones.  Now think about all that you do for them on a daily basis and what they do for you.  Do you feel like everything is fair between everyone?  Do you feel like every equation is balanced according to your perception of them? 

More and more often i see people who are willing to yield their power to someone else due to emotional constraints.  People who are willing to give more than they can, or people who are willing make morally grey decisions based on the amount of power they yield.

 Now power at this point represents the ability to make decisions that make us happy with our lives.  From convincing yourself that your dead end job will get better or that your significant other will suddenly be different or that the bills will magically disappear.

Now why does anyone give up their power?  At the end of every day we need certain things to keep living.  Food, water, place to live and some form of social activity.  Why do people not even dare to wield their power? 

I can understand being afraid to make your own choices - for who wants to be actively responsible for fucking up their own life?  At the same time it was your own choice and not someone else.  We can all make claims to why have lost power but we can always make equal strides to try and gain that power back.  Without that ability life would suck and there would never be anything worthy of chronicling.  Many people seem to forget their own self worth as well as that everything passes with time.  Everything will change whether or not we want it to. 

Everyone should be glad to have what they do and never blame someone else for their mistakes.  No one is perfect and no one will ever wield power 100% responsibly.  We lose it because we don't respect it or don't respect the decisions we make with it. 

Power is part of what video games are so damn successful.  Without the power angle of games - even if we do or do not realize it - is a huge part of the appeal.  The ability to make a decision without actual consequences and yet can yield positive emotional results?  Sign me up too. 

On that note - To Star Wars: The Old Republic  I'm on the server Corellian Run with a Jedi Consular name Raikoh

1 Year and Perception

It's been more than a year since I started this - not knowing what i was going to write about and not knowing where this was going.  Yet here we are.  Between my sporadic postings and a year full of video game references and all the people I've met in between.  Lets also not forget plans to make and plans to break.  Hopefully I'll be able to announce something soon - just a matter of getting the details in order. 

On the School front I've been a student again for almost a year and a half.  It does not feel like that period of time.  Honestly the best part about having all my classes online is that i can take a real look at how I'm coming along.  Not just making mental notes and working my way around but actually seeing the progress that I'm making towards my goals.  It's awesome to login into class and see all the classes I've been apart of and all the people I'm made via school. 

Psychology is the new course I'm in now and I'm simply blown away by how much information truly exists on the topic.  Everything from the study of the how we perceive things ( one of my favorites) to how our minds and bodies process information (in which this only solidifies a stronger connection between my C++ studies and the way I think about interactivity).

I'm hoping that this next year will bring more to my life than ever before!  I can't wait to share it with the world!