The morning after the night before

I know it's a cliche and I know it is true, so why does it still occasionally surprise me when colleagues really come out of their shell when they get drunk? Of course as the company is paying everybody is going mad, including myself, with free booze. I know it's a school night but opportunities to get locked on sponsored alcohol are few and far between. People I hardly ever speak to, people that usually avoid me on the workfloor, people who can often hardly disguise their contempt for this foreign interloper with a better salary come over and slap me on the back. We laugh and make jokes.They tend to get very tactile when drunk, and being British this still freaks me out somewhat, so I decide to get drunk quickly; it's bad form to flinch when your boss taps you on the back of your upper thigh. I have about 4 conversations on my interlocutor's desires to speak English better, peppered with my usual jokes about not being able to speak Japanese at all, delivered in Japanese, and how if an idiot like me can speak English anyone can. This seems to be the norm for any evening with Japanese people.

Of course the next morning I regret it. I usually do. Though the nights have been getting colder today is a warm, sunny day; the worst kind of day to have a hangover. On my way to work I purchase the items for my survival kit; a bottle of Pocari Sweat, a glucose drink so sweet you can feel your teeth and eyes and brain rot as you drink it, but it packs a bit of a punch and takes over the role of coffee this morning. Also a chocolate bar of sorts. Again, sweetness and unhealthy crap, a perfect foodstuff for when I am feeling this way. I couldn't possibly imagine eating a Japanese style breakfast with the remains of God only knows how many glasses of red wine sloshing around my veins. I think I am actually still drunk. The chocolate was a compromise though; they have some excellent bakeries here that bake fairly outrageous buns, stuffed with sausages, curry, or both or many other things I usually don't eat for breakfast, but on mornings like these they are a great pick me up.

My colleagues have all reverted back to their normal selves. The golden rule of Japanese drunkenness is that you will not hold anything against anybody for acting the way they do when they are stiff as an owl. This, sadly, also includes all the friendly banter. One can't approach a colleague so easily and continue last night's conversation. It's as if they have two personalities, one fueled by alcohol and one by corporate obligation. Sadly, the golden rule also dictates that nobody will remember my grand gesture: the grand raffle prize I won last night and in a fit of drunken benevolence and acute quitter's guilt donated to the company for use by my soon to be ex-colleagues, as I already had one and didn't want to lug it around all night. A fine gesture I think you'll agree, but one I regretted almost instantly and again a little later in the evening when a colleague tells me he would have bought it off me and again this morning when I realise how nobody is going to mention anything about that drunken night ever again due to possibilities of embarrassment. At times like these I try to be pragmatic and tell myself "easy come, easy go", rather than dwell on my stupidity, as well I should.

The morning drags. As they don't like to pay people for doing nothing they won't ever tell someone to sit out their notice period at home yet still give the last month's wages, as has happily been the case whenever I quit a company back in the UK. No, I am sat here doing nonsense work that won't be of any use to anybody. Boredom is a brain killer so I throw myself on the task with more energy than my ragged soul ever thought he could muster today. If I can just keep focused it'll be going home time before I realise. Sadly, I don't remain focused.

I decide to go out for what I call my "bad Jew" lunch; a toasted bagel with both ham and melted cheese. A woman walks into the smoking area to hand coffees to the two older guys sitting near the window, one of whom gives me the involuntary gaijin stare, obviously mesmerised by the whiteness of my skin or enormity of my nose, or maybe the bags under my eyes. As the woman walks back out to get her own coffee she pulls a face and waves her hand in front of her nose. Why come into a smoking area and be disgusted by the smoke? It makes little sense to me. But later I feel a little bad for her as she sits with the two old geezers. She doesn't smoke and obviously has to mother these two guys and keep them company. But still... On the way back to the office I walk past a woman who looks Japanese but is dressed as an African queen. I half expect her to hand me a flyer for something but she's just playing with her phone and her perfume is much too potent.

Here I am, looking at the clock's minute hand slowly creeping forward in little jumpy motions. A few more hours until a much needed weekend, and then one more week of this before creative freedom. Being at the office has a real last day of school vibe about it these days.

Alice in Japan

Considering Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass is one of my top five most favourite books of all time* I was pleasantly surprised to accidentally stumble across this DeviantArt page by user "Apricot8585". Considering a large proportion of my readers are probably secretly or overtly Japanophile, I thought I'd share the link.

The page contains a few images that re imagine the story and characters of Alice as traditional Japanese characters in an awesome classical Japanese style. The images are bold and imaginative, not to mention beautiful; definitely worth checking out. The separate images' descriptions explain in further detail the how, what and why of the characters.

I have had to endure some terrible reinterpretations of one of my favourite books over time, like the predictably gothy American McGee game and the ludicrous vanilla version Disney thought was better than the original, but this is the first one that actually got to me, in a good way. Enjoy!

* FYI, the others being Haruki Murakami's "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle", Cervantes' "Don Quixote", James Joyce's "Ulysses" and Bret Easton Ellis' "American Psycho"

Tokyo Gameshow 2008

Here is a top tip for readers from abroad who want the real news on the Tokyo Gameshow: if the site you are reading news items from also features articles and posts on other "wacky" Japanese sights and activities the "reporters" have seen, like crazy bondage doll gift egg machines or weird trans-gender cosplay in Akihabara or, most tellingly, reports on "cool swag" the "reporter" picked up in Tokyo or at the show, well, then your "reporter" is way too enamoured by Japan to be able to give you an objective view and opinion on the products on display. They are not reporting on the show but walking around in a wide-eyed daze of excitement and geekiness, "omfg I'm in Japan!", which clearly clouds the mind that that weird, colourful stamp licking DS game is actually probably just a shit game, and not an amazing example of Japan's creativity or that the show itself is exciting or significant, which it really isn't.

I'm not being overly miserable here, I do "get" it. I was very much like that too when I first moved to Japan. The lights, the sights, the people, the madness, it was all a little overwhelming. But over time the sheen wears off and the truth outs, and those fantastic little toys I got then are now revealed to be cheap tat and the Tokyo Gameshow, for me once an amazing experience of Japan's video game industry's extravaganza, is well past its prime and diminishing more every year. This is not just my perception; it can be seen at the show itself, if you are unclouded by the otaku hype, once filling the entire Makuhari Messe twice a year and now barely filling up half of it once a year. It's glory days are over and its function, to inform and entertain, long since taken over by the internet, a much more convenient and comfortable way of getting your game-related news. For developers it remains an excuse to escape the desk for a day or two and to meet up with peers, do business and get drunk. For the consumer, though, it's in obvious decline.

Despite my traditional, yearly resolution to never go again, I went to the show this Friday, the second of the two business days. I avoid, at all cost, going on a public day, as the crowds are far less manageable on those days. I'm there to meet people and check out the competition, not to hustle and bustle and queue up for lengths of time to play a demo of a game I'm not really interested in. This year, again, only 2 of the big halls were in use, with half of a third dedicated to university booths and cheap curry stalls. That said, half of one of the main halls featured more business oriented booths, with representatives from several far corners of the world pimping their middleware or promoting their country as a game developers' haven. Several new technology stands could also be found, from a "mind reading" controller, which seemed interesting but was marred by a terrible demo game experience, and head-tracking helmets.

This left the rest for the usual suspects; Microsoft, Sony, Square, et all. The main focus of attention was, shock horror, stop the press, Monster Hunter, digital crack to the Japanese for some reason. Sizable lines were also seen at Biohazard 5 (Resident Evil 5) and whatever Square had in its walled off area. Level 5 went so far as to hide their entire stage area with a massive curtain for each show. This attitude, alongside the "no photos!" rules confuse me; is this not a PR/marketing event? Why force a useless and irritating sense of exclusivity upon it? Madness. Little Big Planet too had some attention and seemed to enthrall the visitors. What with the reveal of Sepiroth and old Snake sackboys it would seem the game is on its way to make a bit of a splash in Japan too. That said, you never really know, do you? Monster Hunter will outsell anything anyway.

And that, basically, was it. Another long, tiring and headache-inducing day with no surprises or flabbergastering. A new title was revealed here and there, with the obligatory 5 second, pre-rendered and uninformative teaser trailers, but there was nothing there that wasn't expected or known already. This Saturday and Sunday is time for the punters to check out there wares, which they'll do in droves, and to dress up and be photographed, but I am glad it's over for another year.

Never again. And this time I mean it.

See you there next year.

Little Big Whoop

I am not often given to hyperbole, as everyone knows, and it is hard for me to get excited about games these days. Well, I say that but we've had an amazing year or two of excellent releases, but still, I could not have predicted how a single, upcoming title would grab my attention the way it has.

Like so many hopefuls I signed up to the Little Big Planet beta a good few weeks back and like so many hopefuls I wasn't successful, but, as so many hopefuls, we got a second chance as they expanded the number of users recently. My key was actually delivered to me on the cusp of a night on the town. You can imagine how torn I was, having to choose between good food and booze with friends and a glimpse at the one title I am most hotly anticipating. As it happened the former option narrowly won out, but once I got home, drunk and satiated, I managed to download my LBP Beta and give it a good go. Or rather, I fumbled about, fell asleep in a drunken stumpour and woke up, hungover but excited, and gave it a second, non-blurry glance. And it's had its cute hooks in me ever since.

The style is, as is obvious, heart-meltingly cute. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's going to get some attention in Japan, if the squeals of delight my wife produced are anything to go by. Watching a random Japanese player dressed as a pink rabbit sackboy grab my little Shakespeare sackboy and drag him around, having me slap him away, pulling a toothy grin and doing the pointy hand dance made us both smile like a democrat watching a Sarah Palin interview. The wonderfully low-fi quality of the design is just so refreshing in the current pool of brown-gray and the obvious humour dotted around the place, from the World's Best Credits Sequence to the little sackboy emotion animations should guarantee those smarmy bastards at Media Molecule some kind of industry award, or a cuddle at the very least.

Thought all of this was known to me from watching, and rewatching, the many videos and presentations on-line, to the extent I pre-ordered it the very second I was able to do so, I had niggling doubts about the "2.0" nature of the game. Were the tools going to be robust enough, fun enough for your average user to create the content to make this game the hit it so obviously deserves to be? After the slightly disappointing display that was Spore, which had fantastic editors that in the end didn't sit well with the rest of the title, in my humble opinion, I was on the fence with this one. I honestly believed that user generated content was going to be a buzzword that wasn't going to survive the next fiscal year. But then, I also thought at the time the Sims was a ridiculous idea that was going to flop, so I've learned my lesson about jumping to conclusions.

After just a few days with the Beta, I found, I am having Tetris Dreams. The LBP editor is keeping from sleep, as I lie awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking of all the ways I could use the tools to make elaborate traps and levels. Though being bored, with nothing to do, at work as I sit out my notice isn't the most engaging activity anways, I find my daytime too is filled with daydreams of possibility and creativity. Seeing what amazing creations several users have made, and shared, in this mere beta stage I am astounded and daren't imagine what creations wait around the corner once the title is in full release. The editor, in short, is an amazing toy that just fires up my otherwise moribund creativity.

Still, I think I'll wait and see what happens before making any huge pronouncements on its success. It's obvious the tool allows the creative mind to do wonderful things, but it remains to be seen if your average, non-creative user with little time on his hands is going to use it. I think there will probably be a tiny percentage of users creating playable, fun levels for the vast majority to enjoy. But I also think that will be enough. And I'm sure some creative and dedicated LBP users can use the tools to create a game design portfolio that can help their way into an industry job; so vast are the options that truly creative brainfarts are executable within it and I can't wait to see what is going to be out there.

I am not so over-hyped as to notice the game itself isn't without fault. The idea of having to unlock "building blocks" before being able to use them in the editor seems a little onerous and the three layers of the game field are often a little hard to navigate. But compared to the tremendous fun I've had with the beta just these few days these are minor niggles. The fact I can't log into a server if my PS3's system language is set to anything other than Japanese should be considered a major bug, though, and one I am hoping Media Molecule will deal with.

At the moment there seems little hype for the game in Japan. I don't quite understand why Sony isn't pushing this game into everybody's faces; let's wait and see if they do something for this week's Tokyo Gameshow. I truly think Media Molecule has hit upon a style that could appeal to the Japanese consumer. Sackboy certainly has the looks to be the kind of mascot that can be plastered over all manner of product for advertising purposes. Damn, he's cute! Whether they are interested in the user-creation part of the game here remains to be seen, but I'll be very surprised if the title bombs in Japan. If it does I'm going to blame Sony marketing.

Of course, as Titan Quest shows us, a fantastic tool does not guarantee a success, and LBP's editor could overwhelm your average gamer. But it's powerful and playful enough to make me think there will be something special come the final version. I, personally, can't wait. For once the (western) media's hype and my own seem perfectly matched and the product, what's I've experienced of it, delivers in ways I could never have hoped.

I know, I know, this is basically nothing more than a pretty sycophantic love-letter to Media Molecule and their excellent game, but I don't get this excited that often, so take it as it comes.

I am Joe's utter lack of surprise

In the pre-Tokyo Gamehow press hype it is probably all over the internet by now but Nintendo have finally announced a new DS iteration, this time with larger screens, a thinner design, no GBA port, a camera and whatnot. Aside from the fact I had picked up this rumour a while back through some trusted sources*, this should really not come as any great surprise to anybody; it's the classic Nintendo Way(tm).

Looking at the new features, especially the camera and the funky software with which to manipulate your photographs, it seems to be aimed quite squarely at the DS's biggest market; Japanese women. It seems like a lot of fluffy fun and though technically not on par with other alternatives on the market, it does seem to get the "gee, this is fun" element right; Nintendo have long since given up on the specs race and have focused mainly on functionality and low manufacturing costs. And so far it's been a winning strategy. To this day the number of DSs I see in the wild outnumber the PSPs by a huge margin.

So if the DS follows the GBA redesign route we can see one more iteration of the DS before its demise, possibly a novelty version (GBA Micro?), and onto the DS2, whatever that may be. I expect the DS to survive for quite a while yet, and sales figures are still good. I still think they should release a Louis Vuitton themed DS. Personally I still like to see more Wii/DS connectivity and who knows, with this new version's better Wifi this may be on the cards. Being able to see my DS on my large TV would be great; it's the only way I ended up playing GBA games on the GBA Player for the Gamecube. Control will be an issue, though, but I'm sure some boffin somewhere will sort that out.

Obviously I don't need a DSi, but as a free agent it's more important than ever that I keep up to date with progress. That is, at least, the excuse I'll tell my wife, along with the promise she can take over my DS Lite, as she took over my DS when I bought that. It won't work, of course, but I can handle a few days of grumbling and exasperated head shaking . I mean, I can't buy every GBA iteration and then not buy every DS one, can I? That's not the mentality that made me a Club Nintendo platinum member.

* Sorry, I have no desire to be the new Surfergirl.

Shackles - part 2

Long time readers with a memory for the banal may remember a post I wrote back in February detailing the tedious process of applying for permanent residency, followed by a promise of a follow-up once the verdict was in.

So last week, on the same day I was able to make the decision to quit my job and having my XBox 360 delivered back home after a third but probably not final repair, I also received the pre-printed and hand-addressed, by myself, postcard telling me my presence was required at the immigration office and if I'd be so kind as to bring my passport, foreigner registration card and money.As they never, ever go into detail specifically, this could only mean I was approved and was asked to come pick up my permanent residency. Either that or I was being deported.

So with my heart in my throat I went to the immigration office and wouldn't you know it, I got my permanent residency! Huzzah! I'd like to think I meet some kind of minimum quality standard as a human being, but I guess it only really means I have paid my bills and taxes and have kept my nose clean, for as far as they've managed to ascertain, as well as reaching the minimum requirements of three years of marriage or work-related equivalents.

One annoying aspect of the permanent residency is that I am still forced to buy "re-entry permits" if I want to leave the country and, well, re-enter; "gaijin tax" they are derisively called by those who need them. An "unlimited" re-entry permit is valid until the end of your visa or a maximum of 3 years, so I will still have to go to the immigration office every three years to buy one. Luckily the process is quick and simple enough; a form, a 6000 Yen stamp and a new sticker in your passport, but still...an annoyance.

A handy tip for any readers wanting to follow suit: find a friendly immigration office. For this application I traveled a little further to a semi-local headquarters rather than my closer-by local branch office. At the latter the people tend to be a miserable bunch of unhelpful oiks, whereas at the former I found staff to be a lot more friendly and helpful. Whether this had any bearing on my application I have no clue, but it might've. When I first attempted to move from a work to a spouse visa we tried this head office where a woman was very helpful, gave us the forms and told us I'd have no problems getting the 3 year spouse visa, really. However, she pointed out, my work visa was still valid for a while so I might as well run that one out first, which I did. When we actually did apply for a spouse visa we went to the local branch office where they eventually gave me a 1 year spouse visa, twice. We then went to the headquarter office and got a 3 year spouse visa. This might have something to do with timing, it might not have, but for this permanent residency we went straight to the headquarters and got it, so it's worth considering asking local expats about their experiences at various offices. Sometimes it's worth the effort traveling a little further.

So here I am, an official "lifer". And with the many, highly appreciated well-wishes from my lovely readers following my last post, I have a feeling that finally, things are coming up Millhouse!

Alea iacta est!

"The die has been cast," Julius Caesar exclaimed, according to Plutarch, before crossing the Rubicon and plunging Rome into a civil war that would shape Western civilisation. And, in a move with exponentially less significance, it is also what I say now, as I have finally decided to lay down arms and hand in my resignation. After a long decade of working in video games development, the majority of which in Japan, I have found that reaching my full potential, the dreams I pursue, to create amazing art through hard work, dedication and study, to work on great games that bring many people joy, to work in a professional, streamlined working environment...are all pretty much impossible here, for a variety of reasons.

Some of these reasons point the finger of blame squarely at myself, of this I have no doubt. I don't for one moment believe I am the "misunderstood genius whom nobody listened to". I certainly could have done more to better my situation, but I gave up. Other reasons, though, are very much to do with the state of video game development in general, especially in Japan. These reasons I will mull over at length in an upcoming series of posts dedicated to the subject. But the end result is: I throw in the towel. I simply cannot ever do any good (enough) work as a wage slave in a Japanese company. I'm out.

To say I feel liberated is possibly somewhat of an understatement. In fact, this decision was made a while back but due to circumstances out of my hands I had to bide my time. One can imagine having this particular carrot dangled in front of me for months on end was a very rough and emotionally turbulent trek.

So what's next for me? Sadly, unlike the West, in Japan one usually works out their notice period to the last second. Having already had my reserves of motivation depleted it'll be a difficult last month, dragging myself to work. But after that, I've been looking into the possibility of doing some freelance work, indie projects, some other business ideas, doing some art for art's sake. I need to realign my spine and coax some life back into my joints by exercising, possibly swimming in one of the tiny local pools usually clogged by ancient women doing aquarobics. Learn to knit. Study something, possibly another language. Work through my backlog of unplayed games. Do a bit of traveling to see friends and family. But mostly, and foremost, I will have a sleep for a month orso.

Japanmanship will continue for as long as I have things to write about and spurious opinions to proclaim. Aside from the series of in-depth post-mortems I have planned I'll now be able to look a little more closer at typical Japanese games that usually don't make it to the West, as well as the many trial and tribulations of the freelancer or indie developer. Theoretically, aside from the post-mortems, the tone of the blog should take a turn for the optimistic, or, if things don't go well, the self-loathing, as I'll have noone to blame but myself.

Japanese devs aren't stupid

However frustrated I get sometimes it is good to know there are Japanese developers, of actual importance and status, who seemingly pretty much agree with me. It's a little confirmation that makes me glow on the inside and reminds me that, even though my tone may be condescending and bitter at times, I am not pulling all this out of my arse.

In an interview in Gamasutra, Platinum Games' Atsushi Inaba speaks frankly of the wide chasm between Western and Japanese games. What lends these comments particular weight, in my eyes, is that I personally consider Platinum Games' output to be of extraordinary quality, painting them as one of the top developers in Japan. Yet even Mr. Inaba concedes Japan is behind.

"And what I want Japanese creators to realize now is that they are now following the lead of the U.S. creators, and that we need to get to and then surpass those creators, with innovative games that sell in the West as well."

He points to one particular strength of Japanese developers, namely working well within tight technical limitations.

"Japan had always been good at taking advantage of what was available within the technology of the consoles that were available then, and worked best within the restrictions, while the West had always been great at going beyond what was available to them. So, going forward, I believe that Japan needs to be more creative, and go beyond what is given. "

It is true, from my observations, that Japanese developers generally don't cope well with the raw power and the expectations that come with that of the next generation systems, which, in conjunction with the huge sales figures, might explain why so many of them are looking at the Wii and the DS as primary platforms. Arguably, Japanese developers are doing amazing things on the DS, for example, pushing its limits both technically and creatively; this is one area where one could argue Japan is ahead of the West. The Wii, however, remains a Nintendo powerhouse, with plenty of cheap, substandard shovelware littering the shelves in Japanese stores too.

One thing Japan is still pretty strong in is, in my opinion, creative design. This is a country and market, though also blighted by sequels and cynical cash-ins, where one can still follow the, what I call, William S. Burroughs school of game design pitching. One can dream up a high-concept pitch, say "you play a mechanical fetishist penguin from the future who needs to save the world by slapping people's arses with a sword made out of handbags while avoiding FBI agents dressed as lolitas who want to use your brain to create a funky coat for the president's daughter, who is also a pink SUV", which would, in the West, get you escorted off the premises by security but, in Japan, might lead to nodding and chin stroking. When Mr. Inaba speaks of being more creative, I'm sure he means technically.

Just the fact that companies like Capcom and Platinum Games have come this this realisation and are working to remedy it is very comforting. Game Republic's Yoshiki Okamoto agrees but is a little more defeatist about it, thinking that the West is now so far ahead that it's almost impossible to catch up.

"Even if we thought about catching up with them now, they'd still be making progress."

He might be right, but it's not a lost cause. Things need to change and it seems they might. But as all things in Japan, the change will be slow and will require input from the outside. Readers of this blog may be interested to hear that Platinum Games are willing importers. theoretically at least, as Mr. Inaba mentions:

"Bayonetta is a very difficult game to develop, and if there are very capable developers and programmers in the West it would be great if they could come on board."

If haven't a clue how far they are prepared to go with this, as it'd require some extensive company-wide language training, relocation support and possibly a restructuring of development systems and salary structures, but eager readers know where to send their resumes. It should also be noted that Game Republic appear to also be gaijin-friendly. Don't focus too much on my fatalist bitter ramblings, but take some solace in the fact Japanese developers too are looking to fix things.

Strength in numbers

I had an interesting conversation with a friend and fellow foreign lifer here who pointed out the obvious I was already vaguely aware of but had not quite yet formulated into a thought: the more gaijin work at your office, the better. And this isn't coming from some kind of racist superiority complex, no.

There is a kind of foreigner in Japan who suffers from the commonly called "my Japan syndrome", for whom the mere sight of another foreigner breaks the illusion that the solitary life here can easily trick someone into: that you're somehow special and unique. And certainly, the fact Japan is so homogeneous and every white, long-nosed face sticks out in a crowd, you'll find interest, idolisation even, from many Japanese people who don't often come into contact with "your sort". If your dream of working in the Japanese game development industry is based on a love for very Japanese-y games, you may even think you'll want to work in a very Japanese company surrounded, exclusively if possible, by Japanese colleagues. There is no better way to immerse yourself, is there not?

Well, it's not all piss and cakes. The Japanese system has its faults and problems, as does any, but I daresay we labour under some more egregious managerial fallacies that have either already been decimated in the West or have generally been decided as being a very bad idea. Not so Japan, where the old adage "but this is Japan!" is still the most commonly used excuse to not have to think about any troubling situations. I have had long and frustrating conversations with colleagues, usually over a cigarette or two, about their work ethics. "If you are so tired," I'd ask, "why not go home on time and take a good rest? That way you'll be more focused tomorrow!" And they'd nod and agree. And then they'd just go ahead and do what they always do: stay late because this is Japan. Whenever I come across interesting articles on technical issues, game design or tools I make a point of sending it in an email to interested parties, or rather to parties who should be interested, though they never make an effort to read them. When I am given neither autonomy nor direction over my work I pipe up and say it's a waste of everybody's time for me to create something and then change it later when they have ironed out all the issues. I try to lead by example, working solid hours, always coming in on time and trying to remain focused during the day. I try to inform colleagues of new games and the interesting things we could learn from them. I try to push for best practice approaches to problems. However....

I am the only foreigner in our part of the studio. Therefore, I am also the only one trying to bring about change, for the better, hopefully. I am the only one who comes in on time every morning, who leaves on time too. I am the only one who avoids unpaid overtime. I am the only one calling other disciplines to task when they make mistakes that directly impact my work flow. I am the only one who really tries to research games and techniques. I am, in short, the only one who wants change.

Now the main problem with this is that I don't, nor am able to, offer any real context to my proposals and ideas. I am just one man, and as such, in a communal country like Japan, can all too easily be dismissed. "This is Japan," they say "and we do things our way. You are just some weird foreigner." And well, I am, I guess. "JC comes in very early every morning," they think, "because he is just this weird foreigner who sticks to his contracted hours." or "Don't ask JC to come in on weekends, because he's weird and will say 'no'." However, had there been three or four or more of us, all doing these things, it wouldn't be represented as one man's insanity but as "the way things foreigners do it". If every morning, when people finally come in, there is a group of foreigners already hard at work, they will think, "wow, foreigners do it this way, huh?" rather than "ah, there's good old mad JC." A single person is a problem, a group of people is a movement.

The message of this post is twofold. Firstly, if you are keen to work in Japan you may be thinking you want to work in a Japanese company with a Japanese working environment. As a Westerner this is not a good environment to work in. I will go into more detail in the future but the Japanese system is inefficient and broken; one can witness this in the companies that are successful, which also appear to be the ones actively changing their approaches. Secondly, a single person cannot affect change, especially in Japan. For these reasons I highly recommend future ex-pats to investigate, even ask during interviews, how many foreigners are working at a studio before making any commitments. The more foreigners there are, the more chance there is that there isn't too Japanese a working mentality, that the studio has a future and that you won't end up too frustrated and overworked or that there is a real possibility of change for the better. By painting this as a Western vs. Japanese attitudes thing might come across as racist, foreign arrogance even, but from my experiences and observations it seems to be the case. Japanese developers too are slowly beginning to realise they dropped the ball, in development terms, quite a while ago, and some companies are actively making changes to emulate the more useful Western approaches to stay competitive. Having foreigners on board helps with that and it will help you, as a foreigner working at a Japanese company.

As for me, well, I have long given up trying to change things. As the solitary white guy here I am simply unable to. I can have frank discussions with my boss over a few drinks, where he vehemently agrees with me, even spurs me on, I can talk to exhausted colleagues who will agree that they are working so hard as to have become inefficient, I can try to lead by example, but in the end "this is Japan" and I am just the single odd one out. I am that single nail that sticks out. So I spend my days just doing exactly what I am asked to do and nothing more, while pondering the future I might have at this studio. Or not, as the case might probably be.

The Truth about games, apparently

Let's face it, television never lies. That is just one of those facts. And television, as well as other media, teaches us a lot about video games and video game development.

* * *

Video games are played almost exclusively by young boys who sit upright on pouffes a few inches away from a CRT television and hold their controllers up in front of them. All games can be played while mashing buttons and simultaneously holding conversations with the person standing behind you.

Though graphics have progressed, video game sound has hit its peak in the mid-80s. Even today sophisticated FPS games use bleeps and bloops for audio, incessantly.

The only genres in video games are sports and shooting.

A lot of games require text input, which must be delivered in perfect English grammar and must be sounded out by the player as he is typing.

Video game development studios are always housed in lush, modern buildings with a lot of space and cool, trendy lighting and technology. There are never any security measures for visiting friends, family, delivery boys or crime scene investigators who can waltz through the premises with impunity.

The boss's star employee in every company is the programming genius, with an I.Q. in the high 300s with matching sociopath tendencies. Or indeed homicidal tendencies. He always has his own office which is spacious and has many, many monitors and awards.

The best job in video game development is that of Quality Assurance, or "tester", but competition is hard. Only the most super-elite video game playing masters need apply, but they get compensated extremely well and everybody looks up to them.

Triple-A, next-gen, big name productions require a team of around 7 people with job titles as "gore designer" and "bullet programmer". It may look like they live in a frat-house like, spacious office, but this tiny band of heroes actually makes your games for you. Except those times when the rogue tester creates an entire game on his own to wow the boss with, at home, doing code, art and design, while being stoned most of the time.

Nobody in game development is older than 23. Producers and bosses may be older, but only if they are metrosexual and take care of themselves, like ex-surfer dudes with money. Developers themselves are pretty and handsome in bland GAP-model ways, but all female developers geek themselves up by wearing glasses.

The role of the producer is to come up with game ideas.

Video games that inspire murders can faithfully recreate the circumstances of the real-life murder and lead to revelations on the identity of the murderer.

Massively-multiplayer on-line worlds are run and kept up by one guy.

Browser games look identical in style and quality to the best console games and load up in seconds.

You can always tell if an artificial intelligence wants to kill you because it will ask you, using a bad speech synthesizer, if you want to play a game. Never play games with a computer that asks you to play with it out of the blue.

Game development is fun!

Episodic done right

I’ve dipped my toe in the episodic gaming world once or twice. The results were usually pleasant enough, if never overwhelming. The Sam & Max series, for example, were mostly fun but as games paled in comparison to the original and the art re-use was always a little too obvious. American McGee too is currently toying around with the concept with his Grimm series and Telltale are further building on the idea with Strongbad’s Cool Game for Attractive People. It’s all go, apparently. However, I was most pleasantly surprised by Insomniac’s Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty, released this week over the Playstation Network.

I have just spent a very fun few hours of a hang-over blighted Saturday playing through R&C:QFB and it was tremendous fun. Coming as it does on the heels of the full-priced Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction, it continues the story and play mechanics. Needless to say you’ll have to have enjoyed the latter before contemplating purchasing the former, but as it was undoubtedly a superb gaming experience it took me a mere 2 seconds to opt for the download.

I fully expect to see more of such “plus alpha” games appearing on PSN, it makes perfect sense. You reuse the tools, tech and assets that so many people have sweated over for so long and build a quicker, new game out of it of such high visual quality and presentational sheen it already stands head and shoulders over the competition in the download market. Development is quick and cheap, compared to the full game, and it keeps the fans warm for when the next instalment arrives, which, as by the unspoken rules of video game markets, must somehow require all new art and tech. It only took a few hours to complete, which is cheap at even half the price, but I was rewarded with a promise of more of the same this autumn, which I’ll lap up like a thirsty kitten when the time comes.

Insomniac really did deliver, in so many ways, even beyond the excellent craftsmanship of the game itself. We had a simultaneous release in Japan and the West, a very cheap price point pushing it nicely into the impulse buy sector, a fully localised game that sets its language to your system’s preferred choice as opposed to your IP, even in Japan, and, a commitment from the developers to deliver more, soon. Nothing is quite as good as feeling a little delicate one weekend, deciding there and then to buy a game, install it within minutes, play and finish it before the day is done.

I fully expect more companies to follow suit. Why spend years on creating a pipeline and assets only to never use them again? And indeed, many games could follow suit. There is of course the much touted extra content for Grand Theft Auto 4, though not owning the Xbox version nor a functioning Xbox, that will pass me by. Though not a full-priced game itself, PixelJunk Eden could easily add extra gardens to prolong the wonderful gameplay. Why not add an extra few hours of storyline to Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, using all the art assets and tech of the game but simply create some new areas and extra story?

If you want your fans to keep giving you money it’s extra games like Quest for Booty that give you the most bang for your buck, especially as a consumer, as opposed to paying for a few extra multiplayer maps or extra costumes, God forbid. Previously boxed games had a very short timeframe to sell, as sales would usually drop off significantly after the initial months. Using extra episodic content can keep money coming in on the back of that first initial development cycle. And even better, because such episodic extras are cheap and quick to produce, you’ll face less internet fury over “leeching the consumers dry” or “cynically reusing stuff from the previous game”. This is exactly what Quest for Booty does, and I feel in no way cheated!

As if the glass wasn’t half-full enough, I have to say that slowly PSN is shaping up to be what we all hoped it would be. Though I may have spent more money on full, boxed PS3 games, I have actually spent most time playing PSN titles, and that will certainly have an influence on my future purchases.

Oh boy, obon!

It's that time of year again where, amid the sweltering heat and numerous spectacular thunder storms Japan collectively goes on holiday. Though there are no national holidays this month most companies will graciously allow employees to cash in their holiday days, some even going so far as to actually give a few away, mandatory, though strangely almost never a full week's worth. I, too, have the pleasure of bumming off for a few days.

Obon has some history in Buddhism, so I am little interested in the theory behind it. It has something to do with dead people, I think. There will probably be some bon odori, fun little festivals where people dance in a large circle around a tent where some local will be banging the drums. These are nice events to hang out at, especially as they only come by once a year. Then we will have our local fireworks too where we'll be sitting on the grass getting drunk and hoping our bladder will hold out so as not to have to queue for the few public toilets before we all try to get back on the train home amongst the several thousand other attendees. The fireworks are good fun, though the trip home afterwards is always somewhat of a chore.

Mostly I am looking forward to the arse-end of the season, as I will be working a few days that week and, hopefully, most of Tokyo won't. That way I might be able to enjoy a commute without having the life squeezed out of me or being drenched in salaryman sweat. As with Golden Week in spring, Obon has the annoyance of being a regular holiday, so prices shoot up and holiday destinations are booked full weeks, months in advance. Very often developers elect to work through such holidays to accrue days off in lieu to spend a little after the season when prices are back to normal and availability won't be an issue. As I am saving my holiday days for a later, better use, I'll just take off the days I'm given and work the rest.

As my XBox's internal calendar is set to "Japanese" the console has, in anticipation of my approaching spare time, again refused to operate, sitting there with a green eye blinking, not doing much more and not even having the common decency to flash red. Especially this time I am annoyed as I was looking forward to some Braid and Castle Crashers, but Microsoft has willed it not to be. I am toying with the idea of having the machine fixed a third time, but I am a little afraid of the inevitable verbal aggression I'll need to display to the useless prongs at the help center. With this heat I don't know if I can muster the energy to shout them down to size, as they so richly deserve. Luckily Sony is there to pick up the pieces and I shouldn't wonder I will be spending my entire holiday playing PixelJunk Eden, which is a fine, fine game.

I had some plans to go out too, but this weather is still beating me down. Given the choice between a headachy day indoors underneath the air-conditioner or venturing outside in the blazing, stifling heat, the choice should be simple. I look forward too to my occasional excursions out on the balcony for a cigarette and listening to the noisy cicadas whirring up to deafening decibels, as well as having a good go at my drinks cabinet and trying out some new cocktail recipes. Which reminds me, I need to buy more vodka.

Piracy

We cannot change anything unless we accept it.
Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.
- Carl Jung

Software piracy is one of those perennial problems that just refuses to go away, no matter what we throw at it. On one extreme of the debate we have the lollards who proclaim "Piracy is EVIL! Pirates are SCUM!" and say it'll be the death of the industry, despite strong evidence to the contrary (i.e. the industry isn't dead). On the other extreme we find those pirates that seem to warp space and time itself, not to mention logic, to justify their behaviour with ludicrous claims, such as "games are too expensive, so I am right to pirate them" or "I wasn't going to buy it anyway". Obviously such dogmatic approaches are useless and, as with most things, truth and solutions can usually be found somewhere in between.

The way I see it, piracy is just another example of the economic and philosophical problem of free riding. On an individual level it is extremely hard to condemn piracy because if you can get something for free with ease and pretty much no fear of repercussions there is no way somebody could be convinced to part with his money anyway. Of course it is in the interest of the consumer to pay for the product, as that translate into profit for the publishers and developers who can use that money to create more of the products you enjoy, but the free rider problem recognises that short-term individual gains outweigh the long-term effects of the masses. If enough other people pay for the game anyway, it'll make up for you not doing so yourself. It's a little like paying taxes. For the individual there is plenty of reason not to pay your taxes, especially as so little money can't have much effect, positive or negative, on the whole nation, but people must nevertheless be made to pay taxes for the greater good. With games, we must find ways to compel people to pay for them, not just expect it.

Part of this problem I think lies in the perceived monetary value of digital data, i.e. none. Because video games have for so long relied on tangible media carriers, from cartridges to cassette tapes to discs, they have taken their place in society as a commodity, a tangible product. However, what makes the game is, to put it stupidly, a series of 0s and 1s that can be transferred easily on a media carrier of your choice and propagated without loss of quality.

I remember reading "Being Digital" and being struck by an anecdote wherein the author had to give the police an estimated value of the laptop that had been stolen. It has been years since reading the book, so apologies if I don't hit all the finer details. His conundrum was that beside the value of the laptop itself there should be an assigned value to the data on it, namely all his material, all the things he had written. But somehow this is difficult to do. As a society we still see digital data as intrinsically without value. It's just there, you can't touch it, you can't see it, it is worthless.

So when anti-piracy preachers shout out nonsensicals as "you wouldn't go to a shop and steal a DVD" they miss the fact that data isn't tangible. Software piracy isn't at all like going to a shop to shoplift a material item. It would be more like going to the shop with audio recording equipment and recording the music they are playing through the store's PA system to be enjoyed at home at a later date. This lack of a sense of value is not the reason people pirate software but it's the facilitator that makes it easy to justify to themselves. And as society becomes more and more plugged in, even if that is wireless, this is an issue that will need to be addressed. Data has a monetary value. People need to change their thinking to incorporate this philosophy.

So as software creators we need to find other ways to compel customers to purchase our goods, as opposed to simply copying them. How do we go about this?

DON'T try to appeal to or blame pirates
It simply doesn't work. It's a classic free rider symptom that it's difficult to compel someone to pay for something for the greater, long-term good if the alternative appeals so much more. Why pay for a game when it's "freely available"? Of course attacking the problem at the source doesn’t work either; every group of hackers or torrent website that closes down spawns several new ones to take its place. Stopping piracy this way is like nailing a jelly to the ceiling and bombarding all users, including the legitimate ones, with patronising adverts and tedious copy protections simply doesn’t work, as time has told us.

DO entice customers
One of the reasons I have more Gamecube, Wii, GBA and DS games on my shelf than anything else, apart from being a horrendous Nintendo fanboy of course, is because of the wonderful Club Nintendo. Even today I am much more likely to make an impulse buy of a Nintendo game simply because I know I will receive a code which turns into points with which I can get free, tangible gifts. Hell, I've even bought games I've only played once or twice just for such codes! In the old days I would much prefer to own a copy of Ultima than pirate it just so I could have the tea-towel map and excellent bestiaries.
If you can give extra value to your game by adding something only legitimate customers can receive you will still encounter piracy, of course, but at least you're giving something to your customers rather than punishing them with copy protections.

DON'T muck around with annoying copy protection
Copy protection will be hacked. No matter how clever your limited pool of programmers, there are a large number of highly talented hackers out there up to the challenge. The strategy is, of course, to at least try and prevent hacked copies of your game being available in the short period just after the game's release when boxed titles traditionally sell most. If you can have a copy protection system that will at least hold up for the first few weeks you'll have made the bulk of your sales. This is, however, harking back to an increasingly outdated economic model and we have only to look at the record industry to see what happens to businesses clasping to old models, refusing to embrace the new.
On top of that, you are punishing your legitimate customers with all manner of annoyances, from having to have the disc in the drive at all times, having to keep track of numerous codes and keys or even installing malignant software.

DO think of new business models
The brick and mortar, boxed copy version of the game is on its way out, we all hope. But it is exactly these lingering older models that require these Draconian copy protection systems. Downloading games is easy and convenient and, so far, not that expensive. They could in fact be sold cheaper as you are dealing with a different kind of distribution that requires fewer overheads. Korea has seen some success with free-to-play games that rely on advertising and micropayments for additional features for income. Q Entertainment was sadly lambasted for its innovative segregation of Lumines on XBLA, where aside from a basic game players could but the additional parts they wanted for a lower price and ignore those they weren’t interested in. Valve are seemingly building their own download network with Steam, as Sony has PSN and Microsoft has XBL, and Nintendo…well, Nintendo.
Many of these newer models seem at this moment in time more secure and, though not entirely piracy-proof, are a step in the right direction. Though I possibly have the know-how, or could at least acquire the know-how, to hack my systems and play pirated copies of downloadable games, the prices are so low as to be in the impulse-buy category and with the added convenience of instant access I have seen no reason to go through the bother of mucking up my system, especially as automatic system updates could easily negate all this hard work.
Just as iTunes set up a new business for digital music distribution while record companies were clasping at straws to keep the status quo, so are we seeing the gaming world change. With IP addresses, system serial numbers, credit card information and user accounts hopefully the annoying and costly problem of copy protection and piracy can be alleviated if not entirely circumvented.

DON'T keep harping on about the Evils of piracy
We know it's bad. We know studios have closed down ostensibly because of it, though how true that is remains questionable. We know some people like to bandy about words as "scum" and "thieves". Piracy is a fact of software development. Screaming about it won't change it. Changing our business models and the way we look at our customers just might help at least somewhat.

As far as I can tell piracy in Japan would seem to be similar to that in the West. I remember my very first visit to Japan and seeing small stalls on the streets of Akihabara selling “multi-game Gameboy carts”, but these days such blatant illegalities seem to have been replaced with more shady, backstreet affairs. The R4 was being openly sold in shops and has been netting increasing prices due to Nintendo’s legal threats.

All being said and done, there will always be people who refuse to pay for software. There are laws in place to punish these but the effort usually outweighs the rewards, and they know it. In the end all we can do is entice, not pressure, as many people as possible to pay for games legitimately in new ways and accept some people will just never remove that padlock from their wallets. Preaching the Evils of piracy is as constructive as a Japanese progress meeting and vastly oversimplifies the situation to the point of being actually damaging to the debate.

(250th post, hurray for me!)

Thank you for playing

Nintendo, along with several dozen other companies, have filed a suit at the Tokyo District Court, according to Kotaku, in their continued effort to halt the sales of the R4, a device which slots into a Nintendo DS cart slot and houses a microSD card onto which users can copy videos, photos, text files, homebrew software and, well, pirated DS games.

Nintendo's motives are entirely obvious and understandable. The R4 makes DS piracy easy and available, which is bad for business, and they control the platform. I presume that they have a strong legal case to make and that they'll probably win. However, I am personally quite sad about these developments.

Mostly it's down to the homebrew. Talented amateurs out there are elevating the DS from a gaming platform to a full-blown PDA with excellent scheduling and diary software, text readers and video players. These are all things Nintendo could have and should have released to further push the DS to the forefront of handheld devices. Nintendo has, quite rightly in some aspects, chosen to be a "simply games" company, focusing on fun and input schemes to bring gaming to a wider audience. Since the Gamecube have they stated that they are not interested in the number of triangles on screen or raw processing power and, considering the wild hotcake in a blaze success of the Wii and DS they certainly weren't wrong about that strategy.

Yet I feel the full potential of the DS remains locked. Very few eBook carts have been released (in Japan) and no good diary software has been made available for purchase. With the touch screen input and WiFi capabilities the DS is screaming to be more than "just a gaming console" and by and large, that is exactly what it has remained. Talking cookbooks and TV tuners aside, it could have been so much more.

So homebrew is not just picking up Nintendo's slack, it is also providing other excellent uses. A lot of amateurs and hobbyists have been creating their own titles, with varying degrees of success, giving them valuable experience in console game development. Others have ported with great love and care those older titles from other platforms for which the market is too small to make publishers care about. For all the crying and begging for DS ports of classic LucasArts adventures, for example, it has been left to the homebrew scene to create an amazing port of the SCUMMVM engine. Homebrew is a truly wonderful thing. But it is, of course, sadly diametrically opposed to Nintendo's licensing business.

But however much annoyed Nintendo might be with the hobbyists it's obviously the pirates that have them fuming. It's undeniable that the R4 facilitates piracy. A simple Google search will result in a long list of sites that offer roms for download and putting them on an R4 to play is extremely easy, even though some clever anti-piracy measures have been experimented with. Nintendo could find ways to force working anti-piracy measures into their games, at some cost no doubt, so inevitably the R4 must die.

This is a shame. I hope sincerely Nintendo will at least consider incorporating the better aspects that homebrew has brought us so far into whatever is next for the DS. While the R4 lasted it brought us some great things. It's a shame that that inevitably brought with it the piracy that will eventually get it suppressed.

Mad dogs and Englishmen

Regular readers may have noticed a dip in output and quality on this blog, and I am acutely aware of this. But this summer is hitting me harder than previous ones. When I first moved to Japan, as a podgy, pasty European, the first summer I experienced here was Hell. It's not just the heat but mostly the humidity. You have a cold shower and by the time you've dried off you're dripping with sweat again. I remember, either my first or second summer here, running for cover from shop to shop, enjoying the cold breeze of the air conditioners in between the hot blasts from the sun outside. I also remember visiting recruiters and going for interviews in my recruit suit with, stupidly, a light blue shirt which would be dark with sweat.

As I lost the inevitable weight so many seem to in Japan, and acclimatised somewhat, the summers became a little more bearable. The key was never to hurry and take things extremely slowly. Plus, of course, as a developer you need not worry about dress codes, so on extremely hot days shorts and sandals would ease the commute.

But for some reason this year I am having a hard time coping. I don't think it's particularly warmer or more humid than previous years, but possibly work related stresses and general malaise contribute to this overwhelming feeling of tiredness, a zombification of the mind and body. Though it is pleasant to sit in the coolness of an air conditioned room, it somehow makes my head heavy and my lungs raspier than usual. Sleeping with the thing on, an absolute necessity, causes restless sleep, for me at least.

It doesn't help that due to some genetic mishap, I think from my mother's side of the family, I have easily excitable sweat glands, though luckily not so much the odour issues that usually come with these. Or rather, the sudden availability of decent deodorants in Japan has helped me combat fishy funk. It all adds up to make the average daytime a dreary, sweaty, heavy headed chore, which makes my evenings lazy and without energy, in front of a fan or underneath the air conditioner. Dog days indeed.

There isn't much going on in Japan, at least not in my monkeysphere. Apparently, in politics, communism seems to enjoy a little resurgence, though I doubt very much your average Japanese cares too much about socialist issues to turn the whole country red, even if the West were to allow it to happen. Personally I am increasingly annoyed by that one bald politician who seems too busy appearing on television shows and generally behaving like a talento than busying himself with whatever it is politicians are supposed to do. I have also been discussing the injustices of Japan's latest scandal, where a professional baseball player had a torrid affair with a mixed race television presenter; the single woman has had all her contracts canceled while the married man with one child is back playing baseball. I wonder if it's because she's a woman or because shes half not-Japanese that the fault seems to have been placed firmly at her feet for some reason. Maybe it's the fact this is the second time she's burnt herself on the same iron. Either way, it's a little silly, not to mention hypocritical of Japan's populace at large; infidelity is next to godliness in the Japanese dictionary, but that may be down to stroke-orders and other obtuse kanji-related issues.

My current choice of summer drink is the Moscow Mule, especially when, as the bartender and customer, I can make them with ever so slightly increasing ratios in favour of the vodka. I do yearn for Pimms though, but this is of course not available in Japan, at least not in the shops I've been searching. I suppose I could make it myself, though, but the ease of the Mule is too much of a draw.

In other news I watched merrily one day as a woman drove her car straight into and up onto the little wall that divides our office building from the parking spaces in front of it. It was quite a wallop and a nasty scrape as she backed up off the wall. She got out, seemingly unharmed and had a perfunctory yet panicky look at the front of the car before doing that half-run jog trot into the building. This further cemented by over-generalised and undeniably racist view that the Japanese aren't very good at driving. I've seen plenty of examples of this before, like the guy who couldn't park his car properly despite the fact he had a good 200 yards of empty sidewalk to play with or the many times I've been almost run over by cars storming out of driveways and side streets.

I literally can't wait for this summer to end, to make way for the much cooler and therefore much more enjoyable autumn, followed by the usual crisp and bright winter, my favourite season. An as usual I am not alone in this. Your average Japanese doesn't seem to fare much better than I, which is some consolation.

Well, this was a long, rambling and self-pitying, not to mention useless post, but that, I'm afraid is what life is like these days. Regular readers can rejoice in the promise I will be posting some things of more substance some time in the near future. I have a few posts in mind, but am as yet unable to bring these to fruition for a variety of reasons, lack of energy being the main culprit, all things considered.

Domestics Spotting

If there is one obvious flaw to the Japanese character it’s their refusal to lose their rags in public situations. Aside from the occasional commute-based freak-out and a fair amount of muttering to oneself, your average Japanese will avoid making a scene in public, so when it does happen, which it does occasionally, it’s worth rubbernecking.

As a “firefly”, a smoker banished by a non-smoking spouse to the balcony where he makes little fiery lights dance around with the tip of a burning stick of slow suicide, I am privy to a lot of gossip-worthy eavesdropping on my neighbours. There is one activity me and the wife like sharing out there, though, which is listening in on domestics. For some reason the apartment building opposite ours is rife with marital difficulties and on more than one occasion have we stood outside, enjoying the cool evening air and the many shouts and threats that drifted on it.

Two instances spring readily to mind. The first was a domestic quarrel, which we pinpointed to an apartment at our height, to the west, in the opposite building. In it, we gathered, a male was paying heavily for some dalliance, presumably, as a woman was screaming at the top of her lungs at him for a good hour orso. In a relentless tirade she screamed and cussed and swore at the guy in a high pitched, piercing shriek. Congreve was almost correct if only his line read “Nor Hell a Fury, like a Japanese woman scorn’d”, though, granted, that wouldn’t have scanned as well. If you want to experience pure, cold, naked terror it lies in the face of a Japanese woman in a rage. Japanese, as a language, has never sounded scarier and hormonal fury never looked as much like bleak obliteration as the time one peers into the eyes of a Japanese woman with a bone to pick. And in this instance too, though we neither of us doubted the guy had it coming to him, whatever it was he had done, we actually felt sorry for the poor sap as he sat there silent in this turbulent whirlwind of abuse. We tried to pick up words in the tirade, but it’s difficult when it’s screamed at such a high pitch. It involved money, uselessness, idiocy and the like. My guess was infidelity, though the wife suggested some theories revolving money and the possibility the man had been profligate in times of need. Once the storm had died down, we listened as we heard windows slide shut from various points between our two apartment buildings. We needed a sit down after that one.

More recently was an instance of mutual domestic squabbling. In an apartment in the opposite building, slightly higher, diagonally opposite of ours, a couple were fighting tooth and nail at extreme volumes. I was, in fact, in a back room when the wife informed me of the spectacle, and we both went to the balcony, drinks in hand, to listen. Again, it was hard to pick up words, but in instances like these “baka”, which is your catch-all word meaning anything from “you rotter” to “die in Hell”, was bandied about liberally. This time, however, the male side was represented in force. The man was equally vocal at his screaming wife indicating that there was probably more at stake here than a little marital slip. “Wakatte iru yo!” too was heard many times, which in polite conversation means something like “yeah, I know”, but in the context of arguments could mean “I’m not a gosh-darn idiot, you know!” This is priceless stuff most Japanese language schools sadly don’t teach. This exchange burnt out quicker due to its intensity. We heard a slam of a window and a continued but muffled shouting match which eventually died down as I had run out of vodka and the wife’s favourite television show was about to start.

As for your average Japanese male marriage is one long primrose path I am surprised we don’t hear these kinds of exchanges more often, but when we do, we always make a point of enjoying them together. Like the grunts of gorillas in the mist we share a nice moment together as these rare pieces of vocal evidence of Japan’s disintegrating peaceful society are borne aloft the barmy summer breezes.

Good Art Director! Have a Creme Egg!

Most visually creative people know this, a lot of consumers probably subconsciously understand this, but for most manager-types it is still a mystery: good art direction will always triumph over raw processing power. Good art direction is what made Mario Galaxy achieve a lot more on less horsepower than most games do on more powerful consoles. A strong visual design is key to most successful, visually speaking, games, and yet it is still in its infancy in our industry. All too often a style guide is a series of grunge textures and some RGB values for different shades of brown and gray and, if there was a pre-production period, a series of photos of real-life locations. But of course there are some games out there that get it right, in my humble opinion, and Japanmanship, I, hereby award the art directors responsible for the following visual feasts with a Creme Egg*!

Mirror's Edge
DICE's latest offering, only available as a gameplay trailer right now, slapped me in the face hard with its stark, simple yet nicely designed visuals. The heroine, a game designer's version of an ideal Asian girlfriend, runs around a clean, white city with nice blue shadows and aims at brightly coloured visual cues to perform her free-running tricks. The effect is beautiful. Any artist who hasn't secretly enjoyed a MentalRay rendering of an untextured scene with the "physical sky" option turned on is no real artist at heart. Blue shadows on a white environment just simply looks nice, and the bright reds and oranges really stand out. DICE must be congratulated for such a bold visual style in a genre that would seemingly have demanded, from the publisher's side, a gritty, real "urban" sprawl, with dirt and graffiti and rusty iron fences. Similarly, EA, so often and unfairly painted as the industry's S.P.E.C.T.R.E. super villain, should be patted on the back by going along with this vision. The game will have a lot to prove in the gameplay department, but I for one am interested simply for it daring to look different.

Diablo 3
Richer than Midas, Blizzard can afford good artists and art directors and the recent footage of the highly anticipated (by me included) Diablo 3 shows, yet again, that they are masters of a simple yet arresting visual style that doesn't rely on a billion polygons. The footage shows a very strong sense of colour and form, yet if you zoom in on the screenshots you'll find there isn't much there. The overall effect is a pleasant, coherent and readable environment that is very pleasing to the eye.
Of course, a vocal minority of idiots decided the art direction is pap, citing anything coloured more brightly than gray is simply unacceptable. I have the utmost confidence that Blizzard will ignore these dolts, as they should, and stick with this wonderful, fantastical and vibrant style that will help make Diablo 3 even more bleedin’ addictive than the time-sink predecessors I have wasted so much of my life on.

Castle Crashers
Real cartoon-style games often look, well, rubbish. They end up a hotchpotch of clunky 3D characters with exaggerated proportions that contrast badly with the webcomic-quality cutscenes; it’s all a bit sad. And then there is Castle Crashers.
I suppose this game shouldn’t be included on the list, as the art was created by a single person, so directing doesn’t come into it, strictly speaking. But the overall visual style of this game, apparently polished beyond Alien Hominid standards, is awesome. There is more life in those creatures than most normalmapped, high-poly characters we see and ignore so often in your average triple-A blockbuster.

Dyson
And on the complete opposite side of the spectrum I enjoy this little strategy game’s subdued simplicity. It shows that simple visuals can be beautiful, but more importantly, that they are functional. This is something we often forget, where visuals are overcomplicated and obstruct the actual experience of the game. Not so Dyson, which conjures up an entire universe, or asteroid belt at least, with the simplest of graphics. As artists with immense processing power at our behest, we often forget that less is, more often than not, more, much much more. This title proves that beyond any doubt.

I, for one, am growing weary of the supposed photo-realism or the high-contrast shadowing that make so many video games not only unplayable but, if we’re honest, ugly as sin. Good art direction isn’t easy, that is a fact, and it’s not always what the customer seems to want, sadly, but whenever there is real talent laying down a style, backed up by skilled artists to bring that vision to reality the effect is an amazing visual feast. It’s worth investing time and effort into. The titles mentioned above are just a few of the games I, as an artist, am excited about. So far only the last one is available to play, but I am highly anticipating the other titles and have already penciled them in on my “immediate impulse purchase” list.

* Creme Eggs not included!

Hey, teacher!

As our industry grows, which is does relentlessly, and matures, which it does grudgingly, obviously the workforce will grow in terms of needs, numbers and skills, and so it is not surprising that institutions will offer dedicated courses and degrees which, in turn, get to be scrutinised by the press in a recent bit of hooplah over the state of such affairs in Britain. This leads me to pondering the value of game-related degrees and a lot of chin-stroking on what I believe the industry needs. And I've come to the conclusion that the industry does not need game-related degrees.

As can be said for any industry, arguably, the skills you will rely on most in your career will be learned on the job, with a previous education only offering you a solid base to start your training from. The game industry is no different. Looking back at my own career I find that all the skills I possess and use nowadays I have learned while doing the job and my skill set when I joined the industry was laughably inept to deal with the issues I face in my day to day activities. Ask a banker, labourer or teacher and you'll probably find this to be a common thread. Experience is a far better teacher than any humanoid, but that doesn't of course mean education is useless - far from it. I studied in a vaguely related field, though still far removed from video games, and one of my most hated courses I find taught me things I, I reluctantly accept, still use today, in the form of colour theory and composition. What my education did well was to teach me the basics of the visual arts and the disciplines of production, scheduling, pre-production and the like. But with my degree in hand a young JC would in no way be ready to start a job as a games artist from the get-go. No, I was lucky enough to find a company who saw my potential and hired me. From that point on I've relied of colleagues, training, self-study and a bit of real-life working pressure to make me what I am today: a dried up husk of a shell of my former self. All joking aside, I am what I am in terms of competency in my job thanks to the job, with my education serving to add a sense of depth and grounding.

And this is an important issue, I think. Video games are still so immature, as an industry, with so much to learn and improve on that any study that bases its syllabus on the current state of the business is basically teaching "broken knowledge" or immaturity. If you teach a student how things are done now, they might be able to wrangle a job in the short term, but as an employee they'll form part of the problem, not the solution. What we need is versatile, well-grounded graduates who can think fast on their feet and, as much as I detest the phrase, "think outside of the box". With vastly exploding budgets, higher risks, shorter development times, growing impoverishment of the imagination and the difficulties of nurturing new IPs, how can a graduate help solve difficult issues like these if all they know is how to do their jobs in these circumstances? A game degree course as a supplement to a regular degree could be helpful in getting that first job, but as a substitute for a more general degree I'd say it's specialising too soon. There is a very good reason why the better environment artists I've worked with usually have an educational background in architecture.

From an art perspective, these are my thoughts on education:

- Communication
One skill that is often overlooked is the ability to communicate ideas effectively, not only between client and artist but also between artists within a team. Video game development is, by and large, a team-based endeavour and communication is paramount.
- Basic art sensibilities
I am shocked how little people understand about basic colour theory or composition, to the extent where it is applied correctly it jumps out at you as fantastic game art. We must learn from established arts when it comes to the emotive power of colours, the space they need to be read properly, the effect light and shadow have on directing the eye and much much more. These skills can all be learned during your average basic art degree without even thinking about video games.
- Working to tight budgets and deadlines
Having studied a subject that required expensive equipment I learned early on to schedule in time for the use of these often over-burdened devices. We got away with a lot by doing prep work on home computers before sending the data to the larger equipment at college to do the rendering, or we would sneakily hide in cupboards to be locked in overnight, illegally, so we could have an entire digital editing suite to ourselves for 10 glorious but tiring hours. Knowing the time limitations taught us to think things out ahead of time to make the actual process as quick and easy as possible. This seems to be a skill in short supply in our industry.
- How the software works
All you need to know is where the buttons are. Anybody, and I mean anybody, can learn to use Photoshop or Maya. To use them well requires a talent and skill you'll pick up over time, but you need to know what buttons do what, totally outside of the context of video game graphics. Maybe nowadays we are stuck with polygon modeling, but who knows what the future may bring? Teaching only polygonal modeling will short-change the students who will be unprepared for future developments in video game technology.
- Don’t focus on current-gen
As mentioned above, by the time you graduate and get your job video game technology will have advanced - no question. You may be able to model and texture one mean Unreal 3 character model but you'll be at a loss as to the latest developments. It's best to have a general grounding in the software and techniques than anything too specific. On top of that, each company has their own techniques, limitations and toolsets and everyone (everyone!) will have to learn new approaches when changing companies anyway.
- Don’t focus on game art
As a personal opinion, a lot of the video game art out there is ugly. They may be technically accomplished and display excellent craftsmanship, but still, a lot of it lacks visual gusto. Being able to rely on acquired art sensibilities from other media can only help give you and your project that unique visual flavour that will set it apart from the other Space Marines of Hell FPS clones out there.

Video game education is in its infancy. I'm sure it'll evolve into something quite useful but all reports state that that might not be quite the case yet. If my experience seeing game school graduates' work is anything to go by, I'd say it has a long way to go yet. Your more cynical observer may think these schools are merely profiting from the growing trend in youngsters wanting to work in video games, promising increased chances of employment, despite the evidence to the contrary, and offering a very naive syllabus by people with absolutely no actual development experience or clue. At this moment in time I would highly recommend people with an interest to find a general education in the rough field of their future expertise, rather than a specialised education for video game development.

This GameSetWatch article mentions Andrea Rubsenstein's continued adventures at the HAL game academy in Japan. And, of course, how could it not be, Japan is a slightly different beast in these matters. As a commenter pointed out, in most cases in Japan the prestige of the name of your alma mater is much more important than your actual skills. Video game development is slightly different in this, as actual skill is a requirement, or at least the potential for it, and as such, having "Tokyo University" on your resume might pique the interests of the potential employer, it is in no way a guarantee to employment, as it might be in, say, politics or banking.

In Ms. Rubenstein's situation I have actually little doubt it will increase her chances of employment. She is, afterall, a foreigner and a woman, which in Japan will raise many (irritating) concerns over suitability. Having been through a Japanese school not only will show Japanese language ability but also a slightly better understanding of the Japanese working system than we, as foreigners, are usually given credit for, so even though I have my question marks over the transferability of the skills taught, it would count as a proof of aptitude which would make her a more enticing prospect to employers - at least, it would assuage many of the usual concerns.

So in closing, the above is all personal opinion and video game specific degrees could, potentially, augment a regular degree but not, as of yet, replace them. But don’t quote me on that.