Addiction and improvement

This post was prompted by David Wong's new article today on addiction over at Cracked. Let me start by saying I'm a big fan of Cracked, and particularly of David Wong's articles in particular. The format and style of these posts themselves shows I may read Cracked too much. But this particular article's ending disappointed me so hard I had to respond to it.

Hopefully that doesn't just mean I've been on the internet too long
[source]

The Article
See, a lot of Wong's other articles manage to bring you along as he weaves a big overarcing story of some large aspect of society, with just enough personality and self-awareness/humor to keep it entertaining and perhaps 'palatably preachy' and try to offer some hope or way out at the end. And today's on addiction is no different, except at the end.

Wong lays out his story/model/arguments about addiction (loosely defined) and its complex role in modern society and economy. To summarize, it focuses on how advances in understanding it and how to foster such responses, how businesses use that knowledge to make money, and how society is ok with it as long as it increases stability (even at the cost of individual freedom or agency). I can follow that, and it makes some sense. My issue is the downer conclusion it ends on, about how the economic and social incentives will make companies (and other organizations) keep using this knowledge about how to shape behavior to short circuit our reward systems; where Wong asserts people will stop trying to improve because they will have easier options for the same rewards. And oh gods, its so horrible... (slightly paraphrased)

To which I have to say "Bwah?"

You heard me! Bwah?!

 
My Bias and Problem
The thing is, when he starts talking about how to shape behavior, that is literally what I am working on, so the discussion is much less abstract for me. If you recall, I'm working on designing educational games. Specifically I'm coming from a psych background and trying to figure out how to apply what we know from cognitive psychology, combine it with game design theory, and learn from current commercial games in order to produce educational games that are both educationally effective and actually, you know, good games that are fun.

In Wong's model, part of my job is to be an "addiction expert" and figure out how to learn from psychology and other successful games so I can make new games that will hook players, but use that time to do something good for them, like teach them.

"Got math? Well do you? Cause I will SUCK YOUR D-"
"Ok, we may have gone too far..."

And thats my biggest problem with Wong's conclusion; it seems to overlook the potential of these methods to do good, and cast them solely as the downfall of society. It hits me like saying the internet, or TV, or any given technology that is largely being used poorly and having negative consequences is, in itself, bad and will be the end of society. Every time the technology being considered gets more powerful, that threat seems more plausible, but the thought behind it remains just as misguided.

I still think technology is inherently neutral, and can be used for good or bad ends. The standard dramatic example is that splitting the atom can be used to power cities or level them. But its true of technologies that aren't physical as well. The same kinds of superficial gamification that companies use to sell more products can be used to make online communities less toxic, for example.

Somehow previous efforts weren't super effective.

Wong is right to be concerned about the incentives in place for people in power to use new knowledge to maintain the status quo and reduce freedom for those not in power. That is a worrying system and set of implications.

However, I can't help but see the potential of applying this same knowledge to help people and empower them. To motivate them to exercise, learn, develop skills, work with others, and otherwise benefit. Sure, there will be that arms race among and with commercial products, but looking at video game design makes me optimistic about that. There, gamification is a big deal, but those who research such things know that superficial gamification, the basic addictive features most people think of, are only so effective .

A Possible Solution
I think Wong's fear suggests its own solution. Hes afraid that we've found how to short-circuit the reward pathway and it'll damage our progress; that people will be able to artificially get the same rewards from less effort so they'll stop improving themselves to get natural rewards.

So why not artificially reward self improvement as well?
To me the natural solution is to use this knowledge to reinforce natural responses and super charge that cycle. To compete with these incentives directly rather than just give up. Even if it leaves people the same as now, it would avert the dystopia hes afraid of.

...though it may look like someone else's prediction.

I know the downer may be just to get people's attention; to get them to actually care about this and think about things that they normally don't. But I can't help but object that he fails to mention the possible upsides. Since thats what I'm trying to work on, and all.


What do you think?
Is it all gloom and doom? Am I over optimistic?
Is it all worrying over nothing? Have I been on the internet too much?
Let me know in the comments.

Film Adaptation is like Science Communication

That's the thought I had this morning, catching up on reactions and commentary from various places to David Goyer's recent comments. I mean, I was also revisiting the ongoing story that the reason DC can't seem to make good DC movies (that aren't Batman) while Marvel is doing gangbusters is that they don't respect, know, or know what to do with the characters.
Its an unfortunately well developed narrative at this point, with a history.



"You want me to write a scene where Braniac is razzalin' polar bears?" (source, image)

But this particular iteration hit me differently, because the bits about Martian Manhunter being goofy or needing to (essentially) be a completely new character to be in their movie  actually reminded me some questions I get about educational games and approaches. Not just because I'm self-centered, but because of the premises.
People ask "how do you make science interesting?" or how you "slip in" "stealth learning" into a design. They ask these questions where there's this tacit, implicit assumption science isn't interesting, and you have to "hide the learning" to appeal to kids.

And that assumption is just friggin' wrong.
Like super, super  w  r  o  n  g.
(And I don't mean that in an insulting way; it super easy to see the stigma attached to educational games and the history of poor quality, and assume it is because they are educational, rather than other factors.)

And rejecting that premise affects my work.
I made a biology game, and I know biology is interesting because I'm surrounded by biologists.
I'm surrounded by people who think its so interesting, they want to spend their whole lives studying it. People who tell me cool things about it all the time, and talk to each other about how to find out even more cool things about it.

So to me its not "How do I make biology interesting?"
Its "How do I show people how interesting biology is?"

Specifically, its usually how do I show them quickly and clearly, since a) what they've been seeing so far hasn't grabbed them and b) I don't have the years to go into it that the biologist have spent seeing how neat it is.

To do that the place you have to start is finding the core of why is this cool, why it matters, why should you care. You have to find those hooks within the foundations of what you're actually looking at, find those things the audience can connect with, and bring those out. You make those clear and get them on board, and from there you can build out wherever complex or crazy place you want to go, be it evolutionary biology or:



...and now that you've got how hes a child trying to prove himself to his parents,
and learning to deal with problems more maturely, as most people can relate to,
let me tell you about how he's a space god in a distant galaxy
who flies and shoots lightning....

If I start from the premise there is nothing valuable or appealing to the audience in the subject at all, that I have to add something completely new to get them to care...why am I even trying to do this other than to make money? And why would I think it would work, even then?
(Also; nothing the audience can relate to at all?
Is the story about friggin' Varelse? Try harder.)

Its self-defeating. If you don't think theres a reason to care the subject, even if there is one, you won't be trying to show it to the audience. And whatever you are getting them to care about isn't from the subject, so even if you do get the audience engaged, they're not engaging with that subject.
Even if its name is in the title, its gonna feel tacked on, arbitrary, and unimportant, because that's what you've communicated.
Its like games where you do the crappy "learning" bit to be allowed the reward of paying the "fun part". It communicates the enduring the learning part is work that you get rewarded for.



The term in some academic literature for this is "chocolate covered broccoli".
That being in peer reviewed journals makes me happy inside. image

Similarly, treating the title character as something you have to shoehorn into the movie you actually wanted to make (or think will sell) both tells new people the character is not interesting and tells fans you don't want their money; whatever they saw in the character is not what you're interested in, so they can just crawl back into their basements or whatever (because being fans makes them socially awkward and their dollars worth less than sex-having 'real people' dollars...somehow).

So yeah, to me the problem that a lot of educational games have is kind of the same problem DC has, and its why Marvel is kicking their ass.

And it comes to the forefront in comments like these where the people at DC explicitly don't think characters that have been around for 60+ years can be appealing. I highlight that number not because  history makes it good, but if a character has been around that long there's probably something distinct there to work with or people would have just forgotten about him. It also means theres a lot of work to draw on to find something you can use, before throwing up your hands that's its not doable.
I'm saying just looking at the surface of it and throwing it out as ridiculous is the easy (and stupid and less profitable) way out.

Yes, I may have just called the convoluted 2003 Hulk the easy way out
compared to the more straightforward 2008 model.
The irony's not lost on me. image

If you don't see anything appealing about the character other than recognition their name has and the spectacle they provide, those are going to be the truest parts of the movie, and thats usually not a good thing. Even if you try to give it depth beyond that, the fact you feel you need to make up deeper stuff means it won't "feel" like its that character to the people who are familiar with it. And that's the best case, assuming it works and isn't just terrible.

Of course if you make a story people can connect with
you don't even need name and spectacle.
And if you want to see how far characters and spectacle can get you,
just look at almost any Pixar film. image

Just to be clear, I'm not saying reboots, reimaginings, new ideas, and so on are bad or you need to be slavishly loyal to source material. I thought the Mandarin was great in Iron Man 3 and even in educational games there tends to be some tradeoffs in accuracy for vastly better gameplay. I'm saying, as other have said before, you have to be loyal to the concept. If you get the core of what a character is about, what they do, and why people connect to them, you can put them anywhere, anytime, and make it work. If you don't get it, it can look as awesome and iconic as ever and still be an existentially depressing level of bad. (Look DC, other people screw up, too!)

You can make money with a spectacle and a name. But you can build a beloved franchise with an actual character that people care about.
The same way you can make an "educational game" slapping quizzes into something fun, and try to sell it. But if you make a concept playable, and show students why they should care, they may actually learn something rather than just memorizing it.


So what do you think?
Now that its written out, I'm  aware how gloriously nerdy it is to see the parallel between how to explain science effectively to the person-on-the-street and how to translate a superhero (or sci-fi or other fantastical tale) into a movie that same hypothetical person-on-the-street would enjoy. Yet currently, both are huge opportunities, and still often mishandled.
Do you think its this failure to respect the subject behind the failures? Some other issue?
Something else behind the successes? (cause we've seen skilled, engaged people with lots of talent and resources hit and miss =P )
Let me know in the comments.

The ....Adventures of Walter Mitty?

Lets get literary for a this week (and a bit cinematic). Recently I saw the trailer for the new film adaptation of "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and want to talk about it. Now if you haven't heard of the original work, its a very prominent and influential short story about a unimpressive man doing errands for a nagging wife, but imagining himself as a dramatic hero in various ways. It was first published in 1939 and, perhaps closer to home, its clearly influenced things from Doug to Calvin and Hobbes to Scrubs.



Sort of the ur-escapist, daydreaming slacker.
(Pic is from the first movie version in 1947)

You can find the full text here (its only 2000 words, has aged well, and it'll only take a few minutes to read).

Actually I first heard of it years ago as a reference to Doug, which I was a big fan of growing up, when someone said he was "a young Walter Mitty" but I only finally read the actual Walter Mitty this year. I was impressed by how it very quickly and clearly painted the characters and Mitty's behavior, the transitions between fantasy and reality, and the variety of fantasies. Outside of the story though, its amazing how well it holds up today, and just how much its influenced things. In addition to the three listed, it has so many references (and feel free to point out more in comments)  and "mittyesque" is even in the dictionary.

Now why is that? What has this story touched on for years that still makes it relevant and relatable? This is an average guy, doing average things, feeling set upon by the world, but using fantasy to feel important, and even help with doing those mundane tasks (it does help him remember the puppy biscuits after all, even if he gets teased for it).

Importantly, he isn't the usual wish-fulfillment protagonist; its us wishing we were them.

That's a situation pretty much everyone has been in at some point, and arguably the mindset some people live in. Heck, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out more recent discussions of how much video games fall back on wish-fulfillment/power fantasies, for better or worse. I'm sure if were set today, Mitty could picture himself as a space marine.

I have no words.

So this is a really cool story from a themes and execution perspective. And actually its a great opportunity for a movie, because one of the tensions in making a movie is between having exciting, high stakes, over-the-top action, and having an intimate, small relatable human drama, right? Like one reason people said they liked the Avengers, was that you had big epic fights, but also small moments between characters. It tends to be hard to do both those things well, as many, many movies will tell you.



So allot focus on one or the other...

But Walter Mitty is tailormade for this. The whole point of the story is that he is an average guy dealing with mundane tasks, but in his mind hes doing big showy dramatic things that film loves, from air battles to court cases to doctoring (ok, maybe tv loves doctoring more than movies, but still).

This is a premise and hook designed  to let you tell a story of small, mundane triumphs and setbacks in a way that is big and showy and eyecatching: its easy-mode for making a drama accessible and pulling in people who don't normally care for them. Now, it is a short story, so you have to draw it out somehow, maybe a bit more plot and a bit more character development. But you have to be careful how you do it.

"Have you met us?"

Ok, so with all that  lead up, lets look at the trailer I saw. Lots of people are saying this is a great or stunning trailer and they're right. The visuals are amazing, and the current trend of telling almost the whole story of the movie in the trailer is in full force, showing his dull life, call to adventure, and shift from dreaming about the world to going out and living in it. And that is a compelling message and story.

But I think its a waste of potential.

Oh come on! We didn't give him a gun or anything!

Ok, yes, I'm sure it will be good, and the message is good and the way is plays up the wonder of nature and power to change yourself are great. One of the contenders for my favorite film is American Beauty, because I am really into stories about reflecting on your life and trying to be who you want to be, so I'm into that. And getting out of your head and out doing things is a good message, too. But not everyone can go climb the Himalayas...which makes me feel like Mitty shouldn't either. Not in real life.

Here's where I see the wasted potential: Walter Mitty's whole story, originally, is about him using fantasy to escape his kinda depressing life. He clearly wanted to be bigger and more important than being nagged by his wife, running errands, buying puppy biscuits, and generally looked down on. The movie, as shown in this trailer, is taking that as a staring point of his life, and making the story of him stopping dreaming a going out and living it. They even have allusions to him having been  an exciting photographer (or partnered with someone who became one), and now is in a boring spot (or choose to be boring while his buddy went out "to live life!").

Hollywood loves that kind of story, but they've done that story before and they could've done something much rarer here. They could've taken Mitty on a journey, but reduced the scale of his real life triumphs and setbacks, of what he turns around to something much more common and less remarkable, but still made it feel epic, and still kept him dreaming. Rather than sending the message that you should get out of your head and living life, which is not bad, but has been done before, you could have the message that fantasy is fine, but you can use those fantasies to actually be better. You, sitting there right now. There's even a kernel of this in the original story; like I said, it helps him remember the puppy biscuits. So what would it look like if we developed that to expand the story?



I know adding space battles is the obvious choice, but I'm going somewhere with this.

Ok, so new story: even if we leave out a job, and focus on home life, taking away some common dramatic stakes, and putting it squarely outside what action audiences generally care about, there is still so much you can do, and with humor and action and relatability. You can even start directly from the story, where they're going on errands, hes completely disengaged with his wife, and hes bored and made fun of. Even at that low point of his arc, with the fast paced action and shifting perspective, you can take that boring trip and  make it exciting and funny (particularly with the transitions). 

But from there you can go to a different end point; we're not aiming for Mitty not having dreams and going to the greatest places on Earth, where few can ever go, but  to him having them less, and using them to help him stay in engaged in his life, and be a better person in normal day-to-day life. We can even take the same regular errands form that first scene, and revisit it later, but redo the fantasies:

• Driving is an ambulance, rather than a plane, and hes trying to go fast while not harming the patient.
• The gloves prompt him to be a spy, readying himself while carefully driving past sentries and blending in, obeying the foreign signs to not give himself away.
• Again, the courtroom could actually be later in the same case from the court fantasy in the first scene, and again he could use it to remember something
• During his bored stretch we could either show him more engaged and less resigned, such as actually talking to people, maybe talking to people pretending to be a schmoozing millionaire at a fancy party, or if not being social, maybe hes a brilliant general planning movements while in real life planning his day or work for later. Or it could show a closer connection to his wife, painting him as lover about to be reunited.
• And this time when his wife forgets something he could've gotten it while he was waiting, and they go.

See, that way you can have a character doing mundane crap that people do everyday, (doing it twice even), and not only would it be engaging and exciting and entertaining both times, but it would even show character development and possibly be instructive. You'd of course want the real life people to react to Mitty differently too, to emphasize how hes changed; different body language responses, not making fun of him, his wife praising how better he is about little things, etc. But the point is you could take a very small scale story of personal improvement and make it a spectacle to draw in audiences; you can have the types of changes most people could actually make in their lives, and portray them in a very engaging way. In fact, portray them in the way they're used to getting all kinds of less helpful or realistic messages.



"You seem upset about something..."

Now, I'm not a film critic or literature buff, so why do I care so much about this adaptation?
Well, what I am is more of an educational designer, someone who tries to figure out how to make media or interactive systems that are fun and change the user for the better, through teaching skills or facts or mindsets. And that's why this adaptation  gets me: the version I outlined, contrasting the one they're going with, actually has  research to suggest just how helpful it can be in life.

Let me tell you about the Marshmallow Test.



Mmm, ok a film based on research almost lost me, but I'm back

The marshmallow test is a simple experiment that you may have heard of because it also produced some of the cutest videos of children to grace youtube. The way the original test works is this: you place a child in a room with a marshmallow on a plate. You tell them you're going to leave, and they can choose to eat the marshmallow, but if  they can wait until you come back without eating it, they can have 2 marshmallows. Those videos are adorable as you watch kids try everything they can to not eat that marshmallow.  But what exciting to a developmentalist is how performance on this test correlates to life success.

Bwah?

At its core, this is a task about delayed gratification; can you give up benefits now for greater benefits later.  Followups to the original marshmallow tests at Stanford found that kids who couldn't wait had lower SAT scores, higher BMI, more problems with drugs, and trouble paying attention. This makes perfect sense; If a kid has difficulty delaying gratification, or choosing long term benefits over short terms pleasure, you would expect them to have trouble doing unpleasant things (like studying) or inhibiting desires (like doing drugs). It also makes this a really exciting task to developmentalists, because its an early assessment of something that can impact so many areas over a person's life. (Which is why its also been covered by The New Yorker, Time, and Smithsonian). It even points to the importance of teaching children self control.

And that brings us back to Walter Mitty, because despite the state hes in in the short story, he might've been excellent at the marshmallow test. Let me explain: If you do versions of the test with different  time limits, or unending ones and see how long kids last, you can identify which kids are best at this task; which kids can really hold back and control themselves. You would think these kids have some kind of  "inner discipline" or "strong willpower" but when you ask them what kinds of strategies they used to not eat the marshmallow, to delay gratification, its appears something different is happening. You don't get things like "I tried really hard", you get responses like "I tried to pretend it wasn't there", "I told myself it was poison". What you get is kids using their imagination to make the task easier. Reframing the situation so its less demanding to delay gratification, to inhibit a response, to not eat the tasty, tasty marshmallow.

These kids are trying to use their imaginations, their fantasy worlds to help them achieve their real world goals. And research says the kids who are doing this, at least at this age, are fairing better later in life than those who aren't.

That is the kind of skill would be amazing to teach people, because of the potential benefits.
Conveying that kind of concept, in an engaging entertaining way, tends to be a monumental task.
But Walter Mitty, our man, seems tailormade for it.

He's just as surprised as you are.

And that's why it pains me to see him lumped in with all the "follow your dreams" stuff out there, rather than pioneering a new "use your dreams to achieve them" kind of message. Because when I say it seems like a waste, I'm not just saying I think this story and/or message would be more entertaining or unique take on the material; I'm saying I think there's a chance to try to make a piece of rich entertainment and artistry AND  maybe teach people something that could actually improve their lives.

And they're not doing that.

"What was that? I couldn't hear you over all this money and praise"

So what do you think:
Am I being too hard on Ben Stiller's new vehicle?
Is this message really needed or is there an even more interesting one I didn't think of?
Are you interested in hearing more about the marshmallow test?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

photo credit: Wikipedia, gratuitous space battles
(PS there is another marshmallow test, where teams of children tend to do better than teams of MBAs, so I hope I didn't confuse anyone, and maybe we can talk about that one another time)

How the collapse of AAA games would be good for women and marriages (and games)

Ok, that may be overstating it, but if you think about trends in the games industry and their consequences (both in the industry and for consumers) I think there could be some real opportunities ahead. Full disclosure: my background isn’t in business and I’m not really in the industry, but I follow industry news and commentators like other people follow sports and the things they’re saying are very interesting when taken together.

"Well Bob, considering the player stats and design
history, this MMO looks like a big win for Bartle's model

of player behavior"

"...who are you and how did you get in here?"

Games makers big and small
So starting with the triple A games, theres been allot of buzz lately about the “failures” of some AAA games according to their makers that would’ve been great success for anyone else. This was the story for Tomb Raider and Resident Evil 6 and was covered nicely by the Jimquisition. To summarize, 1) companies try to make more impressive game to get higher sales, 2) so they invest more in games and create huge teams, 3) and with those huge production costs, the games need more sales to break even, and 4) to hit those sales goals the games have to appeal to the broadest audience. So companies making the biggest, shiniest games also make the least risky games they can, and need those big sales numbers to break even. Meaning they produce very pretty, but increasingly tired (cause new things are risky) games, and can be a loss even with millions of sales. And this can become a cycle where when they don't "flop" they reinvest in a bigger team for the next game, which has to be more broadly appealing and safe, until the "flop" is catastrophic.

"So according to these numbers, as long as everyone in the country
not working for this company buys a copy of
Generica: War of Battle this quarter, we'll be ok."

Now, thats the worst case when this cycle gets out of control. Its not what all big games are looking like, but it is pattern people are seeing, are worried about. Theres talk about  "unsustainable models" and other gloomy terminology. Some big companies are trying to avoid these issues there with additional revenue like microtransactions or making only franchises, but this story isn’t just about the big companies; at the other end of the budget spectrum, allot of exciting things are happening in the indie or smaller studio spaces at the same time. 

There’s been a building narrative about the rise of smaller game makers, from having more access to consumers with Steam (and other digital distribution) to being able to get funding from Kickstarter. Its been helped by indie hits like Minecraft, where a small group (or one person) makes something that’s way too risky for big companies but finds a huge audience and provides a massive return to its producers.

So there’s a stew of articles floating around about the flawed model of larger studios and the increasing relevance of “the indie scene” and smaller studios. This is great news for getting more interesting games, but I think the really interesting opportunity for smaller studios isn’t just in creative or technical risks, but cultural and institutional “risks”.

What does that even...oh right, I forgot the title of the post.

Current problems
The huge investments aren’t the only factor homogenizing games; at a more basic level the same kinds of people ("childless 31 year old white men") tend to be making games targeting the same audience (boys; see below) no matter what kind of game you’re trying to make. Now, that’s not good creatively, since diverse perspectives and approaches should produce more diverse and richer games, but its actually worse than it seems for two reasons: 1) In the linked article (which I highly recommend you read and will be riffing off of for the rest of this post) one thing you'll notice is that the issue isn’t just the exclusion of women, but the turnover rate. With few notable exceptions, if you want a stable life or family, you get out of the game industry rather than actually staying, so it lacks the benefits of having more experienced veterans. 2) The kinds of people being excluded from production and market targeting ARE MOST OF THE PEOPLE ACTUALLY PLAYING VIDEO GAMES.

What is wrong with you!?

 Sorry for the caps, but this boggles my mind every time I think about it. According to the ESA, the average age of a gamer is 30 and  45% of video gamers are women. Why why why is everyone still marketing to adolescent boys?

 

Don't give me that look; you are and you know it.
This horse is beaten enough.

I’m not saying that the non-inclusive culture in production isn’t at least as big an issue, and I’ll come back to that, but the aggressiveness of this particular stupidity gets me every time. It isn't doing something bad (both in terms of development of the medium and perceptions of it as juvenile) in order to make more money. I wouldn't like that but I'd understand it. This irritates me because it seems to be hurting everyone involved for no reason. (Yes, technically there may be historical reasons and inertia, but its persistence seems dumb). 

You even get stories about how standard focus tests don't include women though we just said they're 45% of the audience of video games in general. Setting aside larger moral issues, I don't understand this financially. Why discount that much of your potential audience, your potential paying customers? From soulless economics perspective its bad, and with a soul that cares about alienating others and stunting the medium, its even worse.

The generous interpretation is that its simple incompetence rather than maliciousness outdated prejudices.

Ok, we get it, its bad, moving on.

The bigger issue is the culture behind those kind of marketing and design decisions, though. A culture where 5% of the programmers and 10% of the designers are female . Where theres no time for family, and the average person leaves after 5 years for another industries (not job, but a different industry). And reportedly the workers' industry advocates don't actually advocate to actually help.
Maybe culture isn't the right word, but something like mindset or institutional expectations. Theres even stories from QA professionals who note the massive shift in environment between games companies and other software (spoiler: other software is a more stable gig).

Thats not a healthy work environment, and its not a good creative environment. 

Its especially bad when it even trickles down to the high school level, and crushes the dreams of female enthusiasts. That story breaks my heart. (After seeing bad cases of burnout in grad school, anytime someone's passion gets crushed out of them it tugs the heartstrings)

Sorry, its about to get more optimistic, I promise.

Ok, so as the links attest, all that badness has been covered other places (and I'm a fan of PAR). 

Putting it together

But how does this relate to the original trend for smaller developers? 

Because again, smaller projects can take more risks, and its important to make sure we're not just talking about creative risks here (though those are important too).

Because challenging these short-sighted, biased practices is seen as a risk. Part of the reason you see the difficulty in focus testing and stories like this (about how games with female protagonists get less marketing money and don't do as well commercially, but those two variables are confounded, confound it!) is because big companies and their investors see changes to those practices as risky. 

Women? I don't know about this.

Changing things at smaller companies or studios is easier (because theres less invested money at stake) and if they're successful, its more likely other small companies will change too. This is the opportunity I think is getting left out of the conversation about big companies and indies right now; its not just that indies have the freedom to take risks creatively, but have  the freedom to take risks organizationally.
The freedom to try to make things there better as well as to make better things. 

Its...so...beautiful....

Ok, maybe it wouldn't be that good, but it wouldn't take much to be better than it is currently.

And you can even see it in some places now: Indies with more diverse protagonists and perspectives. Those encouraging stories are coming out: like the people at Hawken being open and supportive about discussing gender, and places like Nine Dots trying to have a new model of making games without burnout, and allowing its people to have lives outside of work.

So in short, if there is a shift toward smaller budgets and smaller teams making games, it could set the stage for big improvements in how games are made, as well as the games themselves. There will always be a market for some AAA games, but hopefully if the current model for making them does start crashing, some great things could grow out of the wreckage.

Preferably great things that aren't poisonous.

Let me know what you make of all this in the comments.

photocredit: DarkangelX, buttercup festival, advancedaquarist

Red Alert 3 Sucks..for me

Gah! I hadn't really played a good RTS in a while and wanted to like RA3 for wacky units and fun action. And I enjoyed the feel of the Japanese mechs right up until it became blindingly obvious it punished my playstyle and rewarded more effort than I wanted to put in to playing it.

It has insectoid walkers with tesla turrets
and I still don't like it now! (It took allot of work, but RA3 managed it)

 

Mainly, it seems to heavily punish massing units and favors lots of hit and run raids. Not only do others use general powers to knockout any sizable force you mass and aren't moving, but a superweapon and general power seems to take out your base in one strike, even if you're otherwise doing fine.

Ok, maybe I just suck and to be fair that late in the game I should've had a second construction yard instead of just outposts, but still. I don't want like 2 tanks and stuff knocking things over and running off. I want a grand army of many mighty tanks rolling forward for an epic battle...

Worked in RA2; in RA3 satelites fall and crush all of them

...but if you try that here they get sucked into space or planes crash into them or whatever as the game laughs at you for having more than 4 of the same unit in a group in the same place as you wait to build more. That is, even rallying them in my well defended base they still get fragged. Also rocket angels are the only units that don't need others to protect them =P

If I wanted tactical strikes I'd do something squad based; why make a game about armies and not let you use an army rather than a strike force?

(tl;dr: RA 3 doesn't fit my playstyle)
Credit: 1st pic from westwood website video, 2nd from RA2