i’m on wired’s game|life today

Posted on By Wil

Wired.com’s game|life blog does a feature where they ask someone from the gaming community two questions, one about the gaming industry, and one about something that’s completely random.

Today, that person is me:

Do you think it is possible
videogames will ever achieve the sort of widespread and universal
acceptance of movies? What has to happen in order for a game console to
become as commonplace as a DVD player in the average home?

Wheaton: I think the greatest barrier that
videogames need to overcome is the cost. Anyone can get into a movie
for under $20. However, to play a videogame, you need to invest
hundreds of dollars in the system and anywhere from $20 to $60 for the
game. It’s a trade off, of course, because most movies are around 90 to
120 minutes while the games with great narrative storylines (Bioshock, GTA: San Andreas, Mass Effect) can last between 90 and 120 hours, and can be replayed differently many times.

There is also a fundamental difference between the movie and
videogame experience that can’t be overlooked. Movies are very passive
experiences: we sit down and hand over control to the filmmakers for a
little while. We have no say over what happens, and not a whole lot
more at stake than our money and our time.

Videogames, on the other hand, are by their very nature interactive
experiences that, among other things, test our reflexes and
problem-solving skills. With the advent of sandbox games, we can
explore entire worlds in ways that simply aren’t possible in movies,
and a good game gives us the opportunity to invest a great deal of time
and energy into it. I personally love that, but it’s clearly not for
everyone.

There’s more at game|life. If you check it out, I’d love to know what you think.

i’m kind of in love with magnatune

Posted on By Wil

When I was up until 2 in the morning reading The Last Colony, I wanted a little music to fill up the rest of the room. My friend Andrew (yes, that Andrew, who edits all my books. Say thank you to Andrew if you liked Happiest Days) turned me on to Magnatune dot Com a couple of years ago, and since I hadn’t been there in several months, I decided to check out their ambient music. As it turns out, ambient music is perfect for filling up a dark and quiet room while you read an awesome science fiction novel.

If you don’t know what Magnatune is, I’d like to do you a solid and spread the virus: Magnatune is not evil. It’s an online record label, owned by awesome people, who sell all kinds of music without any DRM at all. You can buy digital versions, or you can have them mail you a CD. Their artists don’t give up any of their publishing rights, and they get 50% of every sale. Did I mention that buyers get to choose how much they pay for something? Yeah, how awesome is that? You can pay as little as $5, or as much as $18. If you really like what you’ve bought, you can give it to three friends for free. Yes, for free, as in beer.

Everything in their catalog is Creative Commons, and non-commercial podcasters can license all of their music for free. This makes me happy because I’ve always thought it was profoundly stupid of the music industry to force podcasters — who could be providing their artists with thousands of dollars or more of free publicity — to pay idiotic licensing fees. They have an enormous range of artists from Classical to Jazz to Rock to all forms of Electronica. I don’t like everything in the catalog, but there’s so much in there, it wasn’t hard at all to find a lot of stuff I do like.

Examples: When I was reading The Last Colony, I listened to Trances-Drones by Robert Rich, because I freaking love dark ambient. In fact, back in the early 90s, my friend Dave and I DJ’d several dark ambient chillout rooms at after hours clubs. We were called feck. I was Frank Booth and he was Silent Bob. It was awesome.

Today, while I’ve been Propelling and breaking this story that I’m really excited to write, I’ve been listening to Knives to the Treble, by Burning Babylon, which is the fattest, smoothest, heaviest dub I’ve heard this side of King Tubby and Scientist. I liked it so much, I bought it for $10. Before the day is over, I’m likely to buy Stereo Mashup, because I lub me some dub style onna record, so pushit ovah now ya roughneck. Wheel i’ tup!

Uh. Sorry about that. It sounded boss in my head. (Boss? What the hell is wrong with me today?)

I agree with pretty much all of the philosophies behind the founding of Magnatune, both as a creator and as a publisher. I hope that WWdN readers will check out their artists, and share them with friends and family. You can preview every single song in their catalog, and even stream entire albums for free. If you’re looking for a place to start, check out the Magnatune Compliations. The 2006 SXSW compilation, the 2005 Red Hat Summit compilation, and the Electronica Compilation are all great starting points.   

Scalzi and the Hugo 2: Electric Boogaloo

Posted on By Wil

It’s not every day that I can say, "Hey, one of my friends is nominated for a Hugo."

It’s not every day that I can say, "Hey, one of my friends is nominated for a Hugo. Again."

It is, however, embarrassing to me that while I can now say, "Hey, one of my friends is nominated for a Hugo. Again," I never actually read the goddamn book that’s nominated, though I bought it on the day it was released, and consistently face it out when I see it in book stores.

So, yesterday, I set up a chair in the back yard, grabbed some iced tea, and started reading The Last Colony.

At 2 this morning, I finally forced myself to put the book down because I was too tired to comprehend it, and didn’t want to miss anything. I’m a little more than halfway through, I guess, and while I’ve wanted to do nothing more than blow off all my work for today and dive back into it, I’ve been responsible to the point of avoiding extended trips to the bathroom, whether I really have to go or not.

Oh, shut up. You’ve all done it, and if you haven’t done it, it’s because you don’t have kids who wouldn’t leave you alone to read unless you were making stinky with the door closed.

I don’t know what my endorsement is worth, but if you’ve read my blog long enough to have an idea of whether or not we like the same things, you should go get this book right away, though I’m guessing most of you already have, since I’m so late to the party on this one.

I loved all the books that John set in this universe: Old Man’s War, The Ghost Brigades, and The Sagan Diary. I love the characters, I love the setting, and I love how massively fun they all are to read. I love them so much, in fact, that I have the lettered versions from Subterranean Press. That’s a lot of love, my friends. The Last Colony had some very big shoes to fill, and it’s wearing them quite nicely. If you’re looking for an accessible, intelligent, well-paced series that won’t let you down in the flavor department, I urge you to check out these books. The cool thing? John wrote them so they all work together, but each one stands alone, like the farmer’s cheese, so you don’t have to commit yourself to them all to enjoy just one.

I would bet, however (if I were a betting man, which I sometimes kinda am) that after reading one of them, you will want to read them all, and you won’t be disappointed.

i made some funny

Posted on By Wil

My friends Greg and Kim are brilliant writers, and wonderfully creative
people. I met them at ACME, where I had the pleasure of performing
with them both, and writing with Kim.

Greg has a company called Mediocre Films ("They’re better than they sound") that has created some hilarious shorts, including Phone Call to God and Shoes. Kim is the executive producer on a web-based series called The Guild, which just won a YouTube award, (it will sit nicely on a shelf with the eleventy billion other awards they’ve won) and the two of them collaborate on the Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show.

Greg and Kim have a friend named
Ponce, who has Down syndrome. Ponce is an actor and a comedian, and
they worked together to come up with a series of comedic shorts they
could release on YouTube. They call it Retarded Policeman, and it’s
really, really funny.

Greg and Kim are doing with video and
sketch comedy what I’m doing with publishing: refusing to take the
traditional route to reach an audience, and having a lot of fun while
we do it. Greg and I have been trying to find a way to do a Mediocre
Film together for a long
time, so when Greg offered me a chance to work on Retarded Policeman, I
grabbed it.

I’m sure this will offend some people, but I want to
make it clear that nobody is exploiting or making fun of Ponce, or anyone who has Down syndrome. If that was the case, none of us would have done it. If
anything, it’s making fun of how arbitrary and, well, retarded police
stops can be. This episode makes a reference to Episode 4, which was
really funny until it wasn’t.

If you liked this, you should totally watch Episode 6, which I think is absolutely hilarious and the funniest one yet.

rock band gets more awesome

Posted on By Wil

Last week, Harmonix sent out a pretty major software update for Rock Band. Most of the gaming blogs I’ve read have focused on how great the new
online music store is, but have glossed over or completely ignored what I think is the real news in this update: Harmonix has address and fixed two issues that almost broke the game for many players.

When I wrote my Rock Band review for the Geek in Review last year, I said:

To unlock new venues, your band must amass a certain number of fans.
The number of fans you gain each gig is determined by the difficulty
level of each member of your band, so you reach “fan caps” where the
game comes to a halt until you can successfully play at a higher
difficulty level. For some players, this isn’t bad at all, and is a
good motivator to try harder levels. For casual players, though, it
totally sucks. I know plenty of people who love to play on Hard, but
have no interest in playing on Expert. The way I understand this,
unless Harmonix removes the fan cap (which I think they’ll have to do,
eventually) some people won’t ever be able to experience the entire
game. That’s just fucking retarded. Not everyone wants to play the game
on Hard or Expert settings, and preventing those people from enjoying
the game the same way Hard and Expert players do is stupid and wrong.

There is an even bigger problem, though, that almost breaks the game
for me: it’s infuriatingly repetitive in multiplayer career mode,
especially at the beginning. As you advance through different cities
and unlock new gigs, you’ll be faced with challenges, where the
audience randomly picks songs for you to play. The RNG that decides the
songs is thoroughly fucked, and frequently results in forcing you to
play the same song three times in 30 minutes. If it’s a song you love,
not such a big deal; but if it’s a song you hate – like Wanted, Dead or
Alive, for instance – you’re screwed. If you’re trying to introduce new players to the game who are used to
Guitar Hero’s “one and done” approach to playing songs, it can be a
massive turn off.

The new online store is great and all, but I don’t know why more gaming blogs and media haven’t made this front-page news: Harmonix has fixed the stupid fan cap, and they’ve made the game much less repetitive in World Tour mode.

Check it out:

Revised Fan Caps: To allow Easy, Medium, and Hard players to progress further in the Band World Tour, we’ve increased the number of fans that you can earn before hitting the cap. Easy players can now travel across the Atlantic, Medium players have a wider range of venues they can play at, and Hard players on the Xbox 360 are now able to unlock the “One Million Fans” achievement.

More diverse songs in Band World Tour: If you’ve ever cursed about having to play “Say it Ain’t So” or a Metallica track multiple times in the same hour, then you’ll be glad to know that we’ve tracked down and fixed the issues that triggered these very repetitive moments in Band World Tour.

Awesome and awesome. Thank you, Harmonix! I think my bands, Zombitis and Mr Snüggles, are about to hit the road again.