Month: October 2006

http://www.gop.com/ currently has an advertisement running, in which Osama bin Laden features prominently. Quotes from him that talk about attacking the US are featured in the advertisement, whose central message is, “These are the stakes. Vote.” The objective is to scare Republican voters into actually making sure they vote Republican, but I ask you this:

Why is Osama bin Laden still free?

Democrats should be responding with an ad embracing this GOP buffoonery. Sure! Vote! I’m sure you’re not stupid enough to reelect the morons who’ve let OBL run free for the last five years, right? There’s no way you’d vote for a guy who said he “really isn’t all that concerned” about OBL, right? Right?

Ah, but I’m sure I’m going to be disappointed in the intelligence of the American public yet again. Still, naive as it is, I hold out some hope that at least some people will be able to connect the dots.

October 15, 2006

Kind of a Dick

So, one of the things that I’ve been thinking about recently is the relationship between getting the best work out of people in a work environment, and being an asshole.

The thing is, I can’t say that I have a particular relationship between those two factors in my experience – by and large, when I find someone I like, I work hard for them. When I think someone’s an asshole, I do my best to undermine them. Not intentionally, but it’s defintely some mental switch that flips, and the attitude changes to, “Oh, fuck this guy.” (I’ve never worked directly for a woman… wacky.)

But, that’s me. The thing is, on at least two of the things I’ve worked on, my boss has been incredibly nice, and the team has been almost unable to maximize its potential. To me, it was in both situations because the person in charge was somewhat conflict-averse, and unwilling to really put their foot down and say, “We *need* better than this.”

And so, it gets me to wondering – in the *real* world, how do you maximize the potential of a team? Obviously, in an ideal world, your team would consist of incredibly well-motivated individuals, driven to produce the best thing possible *just because they love it so much*. But really, that’s just not sustainable. So, what, then?

Of course I like working for nice bosses – but mostly becuase I’m internally motivated to do my best, make a name for myself, and move up in the world. That’s not a motivation *any* manager could give me. And it seems, in my experience, there’s a wide variety of motivation. Some people like a steady paycheck, come in on time, leave on time, and only ever give what is absolutely required of them. There are other people who appear to be singularly motivated to do as little as possible, as much of the time as they can.

So, there’s a variety of motivations. But I think one thing that’s become increasingly obvious is that inadvertently or not (advertently?) people tend towards the path of least resistance. That becomes clear watching people play games, it often becomes clear watching people work. The path of least resistance is *not* always the path of least work. Instead, it’s the path of least resistance relative to their internal expectations.

And you know what, with that, I totally lost my train of thought.

Basically, though, the question ends up as more or less something like this; Can you push someone to do more than they want to, and not come off as an asshole? For me, I get so frustrated that people’s standards don’t meet my own that I’m *unable* given my current social skill set, to express a desire for people to do more without actually getting angry at them. I get incredibly upset when I think a co-worker/teammate is slacking, particularly when I’m busting ass to do the best I can.

For me, in some sense, I don’t know how to push a person beyond what their internal motivation is willing to give without being a dick. Some people can, I suppose. But of those people, is the perception from the people that they’ve pushed that they’re assholes?

October 12, 2006

An Open Letter to the Best Buy in Emeryville, CA

Dear Sir or Madam:

This evening, October 12, 2006, I went to the Best Buy in Emeryville to purchase God Hand, for the Playstation 2, and Test Drive Unlimited, for the Xbox 360. I have been shopping at this store since it opened several years ago. I mention this to let you know that 1.) I am a regular customer, who purchases the bulk of his games at your store, and 2.) I have never had a problem with your representatives in the past.

I’ve noticed the change toward putting new release games in locked cabinets. While I presume that this is a measure taken to curb shoplifting, as a customer, it has created a problematic environment for several reasons:

1.) A customer cannot browse your games. Often, only the spines of the game, or the front covers are visible through the glass doors.
2.) It creates an unwelcoming environment. Obviously, this is somewhat subjective, but there is a stark difference in my perception, as a customer, of an environment where I can casually peruse the merchandise, and one where a representative is standing over my shoulder as I try to figure out what I would like to purchase.
3.) Because the cases are locked, the only way to gain access to them is to find a representative with a key.

Item 3 is by far the most problematic of the bunch for me, and it led to the most unprofessional retail experience I have ever encountered at a store this evening. In the last few months, since your stores have begun locking games in display cases, I have found it incredibly difficult to find a representative to unlock the case. Often, this takes upwards of ten minutes, and requires me to run around the store and literally chase a blue-shirted representative down. They are often running from place to place themselves, which forces me to feel like I am both interrupting something they are doing, and look like an idiot running after someone who’s running away. It certainly doesn’t make them appear helpful, or available, and because now this is a *required step* in purchasing a new game, I have to engage in this ludicrous behaviour every time I wish to purchase a game from your store.

The apex of this occurred tonight. I wanted to get a game that is listed “in stock” on the Best Buy website (God Hand), but was not on the shelves, or in the display case. I also wanted to get a game that was in the display case, behind the locked doors (Test Drive Unlimited). After the usual five to ten minutes of waiting, I finally managed to find someone I could at least interrupt, to get their attention. they guided me towards another representative. I waited for this new representative to finish chatting casually with his friend, at which point I asked him about opening the case, and seeing if they had God Hand in stock.

He said he would check to see whether they had the game in stock, and to wait near the game case. I did so. Ten minutes later, I saw him chatting up a customer in the camera department. I walked over, and waited for him to finish with this customer, at which point, he said, “Uh… I should be helping you with something, right?” I repeated my request. This time, his response was that he “didn’t work in [that] department, and didn’t know where the guy that did was.”

So, apparently, I stood in front of the game case (with several other annoyed customers) for fifteen minutes so that your representative could tell me he had no idea what he was doing, and basically never intended to even look for the game that I had requested.

At this point, I was definitely getting annoyed.

I chased down and spoke with another representative, who then finally showed me the person who was *supposed* to be working in the game department. He pointed to “that guy,” who I then had to literally *run* after, to get his attention. I could not catch him before he disappeared into “the back,” from which he did not emerge for several minutes.

Finally, increasingly frustrated, I caught up with a woman, Christine, who of all the people I had talked to thus far, was the *only* person who was both attentive, understood my request, and actually got results. I mentioned the specific games I was looking for, and she went off to find “Andrew” (I believe – I may be mistaken as to the name). She told me that she would look for the game in the back, repeated the name to make sure she understood it, said she would get help, and told me to wait at the game case. She returned moments later with “Andrew,” told me he was manning the game section, and that he could help me. I thanked her, and proceeded to ask “Andrew” about God Hand, and Test Drive Unlimited.

He said he’d look in the back, and wandered off. I waited another fifteen minutes. At this point, I had been in the store nearly an hour, had talked to four people (three of which were a combination of entirely unhelpful, and in the case of two of the reps (Andrew, and the guy who ended up at the camera section) completely rude and unprofessional), and had nothing to show for it, except one girl (Christine) who had actually managed to get something done.

At this point, I was basically livid.

I work in the game industry. I make games for a living, yet I find myself completely unable to purchase a game that I can *SEE* a foot in front of me, behind a glass wall. I have been trying to buy this game, and one other, for an HOUR. I’ve been blown off by reps, I’ve had countless walk away from me as I’ve tried to ask for information.

Hands down, this is the worst retail experience I have *ever had*.

Disgusted, I walk to the exit. I’ve asked one of the reps for the store manager, but am told he’s interviewing staff, and is unavailable. So, I turn to the greeter, and tell him of the horrible time I’ve had trying to find this game, and that after several years of being a regular customer, I’m pretty sure I’m never shopping here again.

He is polite, and composed. By this time, I’m frustrated, but still trying to be polite. He offers to help, and I accept. He uses the intercom to ask about God Hand, and whether anyone has it. In fifteen seconds, he finds someone on the other end who can tell him that they don’t have it. I thank him and leave. I don’t even bother asking if he can open the game case, because at this point, I’m not giving Best Buy another cent of my money, and another moment of my time.

I buy a lot of games. I buy a lot of DVD’s. My money, from this moment on, will be going to stores that are not completely idiotically organized, designed to prevent their customers from actually purchasing the goods they’re selling. For Brick & Mortar stores, my future purchases will be going to the Circuit City in Emeryville, or I’ll wait for Amazon to ship stuff to me. It’s not like it would take any longer than the reps on the floor at your store tonight.

Yours,
A former customer

October 9, 2006

Update!

Sadly, the exclamation mark at the end of the heading there might have oversold the post. Nothing really Earth-shattering here. But, it was a crazy-ass weekend, so I fiugre I might as well write about it.

I guess I’ll start a little before the weekend. Work’s been pretty good. We’ve been chugging toward a deadline, and the work, as of early last week, looked pretty daunting. I’d have to almost double the content I was generating, and as a result, it looked like it’d be a week of long nights. I thought, the only way I’m going to get all this done is if I’m on fire, nonstop, from now ’till I leave Thursday night.

Well, I *was*. It was crazy. I had been averaging about 1.2 “conversations” a day for the preceding week, and to finish, I’d have to average about 2. On a really, really inspired day, I might get three done, but on an average day, ekeing out 1.5 of these things was challenging, since I’m writing them all from scratch – there’s really no slack for say, writer’s block. So, if you’re stuck, you’re stuck.

Fortunately, my ficticious character was talking to me last week, and I churned through the rest of her dialog at a rate of about 2.1 convos per day, which was pretty damn good.I wrapped her up on Thursday, and save for some minor edits, she’s done. It’s actually quite strange – it’s like I’ve spent a lot of time with this aspect of myself (she is like a female version of me in many ways), trying to find her “voice,” and figure out interesting things for her to talk about with the player. So, being done with her, I sort of put her into a little box, and shuffled her off into the recesses of my mind. Maybe I’ll see her again someday, but I doubt it.

I think she turned out ok – she’s quite different than the other characters in the game – her whole conversation *structure* is different, and it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out in practice. It’s a little less intensive on the “gameplay” front, but I think a lot more compelling as a character, with a more interesting story to tell. Hopefully, that’ll come across. We’ll see. We’ve got another few days of churning through content, then the review and revision process starts, where we all read as much of the game as possible (up ’till now, it’s been pretty segmented between the various designers) and try to identify the weak aspects and what’s necessary to make them better.

So, that’ll be fun, I hope. We’re done with the contractors, which is great – honestly, I hope I never have to ever work with most of them again. One wasn’t horrible, but that’s about the best I can manage.

Right – so, the point being, I actually didn’t have long nights last week, got everything done in a timely manner, and wasn’t all that stressed out. Who’d have thunk? Ei-Nyung & I took off Friday, and headed out to NYC on a redeye Thursday night. Perlick was nice enough to loan us his place on Friday to crash, which was just about the best thing ever. The weekend was absurd. We were (with the exception of the wedding, sleeping, and dinner Friday night) NEVER in a place for more than two hours. We drove from NYC to Philly, were up ’till 3 one night, and saw a *ridiculous* number of people.

Sorry to those we missed – the timing just didn’t work, and we barely made it to everywhere we needed to be.

I was really glad to see Pete, even if it was only for about 25 minutes at Penn Station.

We ate at WD-50 with Perlick, which was a really entertaining meal full of interesting (and even sometimes delicious) food and lively conversation. A great time.

The wedding was fun, mostly because I actually got to meet Ei-Nyung’s friends in a more … um… not unusual setting. I’m used to seeing them at weddings and such, but the actual wedding this time was relatively short, and was followed by like, 4 hours of karaoke, where we all just hung out. I sort of “got” the vibe, and was able to get everyone’s names and stories straightened out for the first time. I’ve met them all before at various places, but it was just one of those things where you meet a LOT of people at once, and things just got jumbled up. This time, I talked with, and spent enough time with them all that I think I’ve got it all figured out. It’s a good bunch, and I see what she sees in them, at least to the degree that an outsider can.

So, that was really good, and a lot of fun. I sang a song (Exit Music (for a film), by Radiohead) in front of ’em, so I guess I must have been at least sort of comfortable making an ass of myself…

Strangely, that was really fun, and I even think I “got” the appeal of karaoke this time, too, which is something that’s largely evaded me before – mostly because prior to this time, I’ve never actually really tried to *SING*. You know? I’ve been a few times, and mumbled tunelessly into the mike, never really “buying into it.” This time, I pretty well gave it my all. I totally blew the high note in the middle (if you know the song, you probably know the note. (the “Now” in “Now we are one, in everlasting peace…”) Totally flat. But I *went for it*, which is something I’ve never done before, and I was surprised by how …erm… exhilerating it was.

Which is strange, ’cause I’ve performed in front of people before – clarinet stuff, piano stuff, saxophone, whatever – and I got that same nervous twitchiness, but singing is definitely a completely different feel than channelling that same emotion through an instrument. I’d like to give it another go, but the thing was that this karaoke place had a phenomenal selection of English songs. I don’t know of a comparable place in the Bay Area. Ah, well. And, of course, having said all this, I’m sure if I go again with friends from around here, I’ll just mumble tunelessly into the mic again. Alas.

Met another person we’d only previously met over the ‘net, and it was really good to associate a person with the “presence,” I guess might be how one would call it. One thing that I’ve found with everyone I’ve met through TGF is that there’s almost no adjustment time – the online friendship transfers instantly, and effortlessly into real life. I’ve met what, now, at least six people from TGF in real life, and they’ve all been really good people.

We saw my parents’ new place in Long Island, which was good – it’s a nice place that suits them, I think. Or will, at least, when they “tune it up” a bit. It’s a good size for them, I think – big enough that they can get distance when they need it, but small enough that it feels like a home. There are a lot of McMansions around them, but their place is surrounded by trees, and actually feels “homey.” It’s pretty cool. I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with it over the years, and hell, even just having an excuse to go visit every once in a while, and hang out with the East Coast folks more often.

It’ll be sad that they’ll undoubtedly finish their renovations well before us, but ah, well – they’ve got the space, money, and time. Good for them – they deserve it.

We went to the Met, which was really impressive. They had an exhibit that had a lot of Van Gogh, Picasso, Cezanne, and… um… dammit, Tahiti guy… forget his name. Rats. It was a lot of fun. There were a couple really interesting paintings, and it definitely reinforced, for me, that I enjoy Van Gogh’s paintings a lot. And that audio tours of museums are almost always a good bet.

Anyway – crazy-assed weekend. To everyone we saw, thanks for making the time, or helping us out. To the people we missed, or saw on really crunched schedules, sorry – we really wanted to spend (more) time with you, but couldn’t. Three days just wasn’t enough time for all the things we’d hoped to squeeze in. We’ll be back, and hopefully, we’ll catch up then.

Fun, exhausting, and damn, it’s good to be home.

On an unrelated note – if you love video games, you owe it to yourself to pick up Okami.

October 5, 2006

WARNING: EXPLICIT

The following link is pretty explicit. It’s ABC’s transcripts of Mark Foley’s IM conversations.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/BrianRoss/story?id=2509586&page=1

It’s worth reading, because to me, it makes a few things quite clear:

Mark Foley is clearly the “aggressor” here, and not the teenager. If, for some reason, you’re the kind of degenerate monster that thinks that that sort of thing matters.
These are not “overly friendly” IM’s. They’re explicitly sexual, without question.
Reading these definitely makes the GOP leadership, and the right-wing talking head morons like Hannity look like 1.) Complete morons, and 2.) Staunch defenders of pedophiles.

Having read this first hand, and knowing that the information is out there for people like Hannity or Hastert to read makes it clear, and quite obvious that these people have no concerns for decency, moral values, reasonableness, protection of children, or anything of the sort other than the lust for power. That’s it – cut and dried.

These transcripts should be spread as far and as wide as possible. Rural Republicans who vote based on some notion that these people are “moral” should read this transcript, and ask themselves if in the context of this information, and the actions of the GOP as a whole, if they can vote Republican in the coming election, and not go straight to hell.

October 4, 2006

Sony Must Hate Their Engineers

Sony must really hate their engineers.

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/immersion/hirai-rumble-possible-motion-sensing-a-strategic-choice-205056.php

Basically, the execs at Sony, when asked why they can’t implement rumble in their controllers is that the motion sensitivity would be disrupted by the vibration in the controller.

Now, anyone who’s been following this knows that the *real* reason that Sony doesn’t have rumble in their controllers is that they don’t want to pay Immersion, who they’re fighting in court because they violated one (or more) of their patents.

So, that’s fine – they’re contesting the infringement. But I guess that the execs at Sony are *so* loathe to mention this that they’re willing to throw their engineers in front of the bus, and make them look like *complete morons*.

I mean, it doesn’t take a whole brain to figure out that the frequency of rumble-related motion and gameplay-related motion are totally, totally different. There’s never, ever going to be any time when a player’s movement at ridiculously high frequency is ever going to matter in a game. It’s just not. You can block off reading motion on any frequency higher than X, and you’ll probably improve the experience overall, because you’ll eliminate meaningless noise, and wacky unintentional user input.

That, and Pelican made a motion sensing controller, with vibration, way back when, and their controllers are incredibly poorly made.

So, Sony’s basically saying that their “world class” engineers are incapable of doing something a mostly inept third party was doing several years ago? And that it’s a task that the solution is obvious to anyone who devotes even twenty seconds to think about that?

I know Sony’s execs don’t really care about their peons, but telling the world their engineering staff are complete morons doesn’t really seem like the best sort of morale boosting move at a time like this.

October 3, 2006

Car

Whoa. So, that’s the new Mondeo concept from Ford. For a Ford sedan, I’ve gotta say, that’s damned attractive. That thing, in a dark red, or black, or even white? Nice.

October 3, 2006

Ruminations

Wacky day at work today. A misunderstanding with my boss made me believe that he thought that I was running slow on the work I was doing. This made me really upset, because I’ve been basically doing the work of two people, faster than two people would have done it. I’m writing, from scratch, an entire character, picking up the slack for errors in the schedule by doing process work on other characters, and doing new, system-level scripting that few people, I think, are even capable of doing.

So, I spent the afternoon pretty pissed off.

I’d also heard that a friend had gotten a substantial raise, and was now making almost twice my salary. Congratulations to her! But, sad to say, this made me jealous, and on top of the misunderstanding, I felt like I was being paid pretty well shit for the work I was doing. Also, given that I’m making now EXACTLY what I was making in Sept. 2000, that means over the last six years, my salary has gone down proportional to inflation. That’s pretty depressing. So, again, I spent the afternoon in a pretty venomous funk.

The salary thing shouldn’t bother me. Logically, it doesn’t. I have a really good life. I live in a nice house, however much more work it needs – I mean, the remaining work consists of fixing one part of the roof, doing some interior cosmetic work, and remodelling an upstairs bathroom and the kitchen. Then, there’s exterior cosmetic work that’ll eventually need doing, some cement repair on the front yard’s retaining wall, steps, walkway around the house, and back patio. But once that’s done, this place will be a freakin’ PALACE. I mean, it’s huge. For two people, it’s more than twice the space that we could reasonably need. We comfortably house four people, and there’s a good room worth of space in the downstairs that we simply don’t use – not because it’s awkward or weird, but because we just don’t have any idea what to do with it, or the time to inhabit it, even if we did find a good use.

So, what am I wanting a bigger salary for? Between Ei-Nyung and I, we save a reasonable amount every month. We support her family. We live comfortably. I mean, I sure wouldn’t mind being able to afford some camera goodies and a Tesla, but if I made twice what I make now, I’m sure I’d be jonesing for some other ridiculous thing I can’t afford. Whatever. So, the salary thing – I can’t say I’m not jealous, and I can’t say I don’t feel underpaid for what I bring to the company, but things are what they are, and being bitter about that isn’t helping anyone.

I think the key, though, is that if I ever really want to get rich as a game designer, there’s no alternative to starting my own thing. That much is pretty clear. So, really, it’s just a matter of doing it. I don’t lack for confidence in ideas – I have absolutely no doubt that among the group of people I know, we have absolutely stellar ideas, and enough competance to execute them well. It’s just a matter of doing it.

In terms of the misunderstanding, a little bit before I left, I put my frustration into a calmly worded, very rational, and most importantly, short, e-mail, and sent it to my boss, who I also consider a friend. He turned around, and responded (we sit in adjacent cubes), telling me it was a misunderstanding, and that he has complete confidence in my work, and knows that I’m taking on a lot of stuff. So, that got resolved cleanly, and happily for all involved (I think).

The coming days are going to be tough – there’s a lot to do at work, and some of it is really going to depend on whether I can get the creative process revved up at the right time. There are some days when I’m on fire, and can crank out two or three units of progress in a day. Other days, maybe one. To hit the deadline, I’m basically going to have to be at maximum output four of the six working days remaining before the deadline – a feat that I find exceedingly unlikely. So, probably means longer hours, but it’s a little worrisome, because longer hours doesn’t ensure good work, for something like writing character dialog. We’ll see, though – it has to get done, so it’ll get done.

Then, this weekend, starting Friday, is a trip to NYC, to hang out with some friends, visit the parents on Long Island, and go to a wedding in Philly. Gonna be a hectic week…