I'm at the hospital with one of my headaches. Some just don't react to medication and the stuff at the hospital works much better. My son is with me - the older boy: 12 going on 40. He stays to watch over me.

The nurse who is giving me medication asks what I do; I tell her; she asks about it because she has a son who would be interested (they always have a son that would be interested!) and I give her my card. Then it begins...

"But I won't let him play online at all. He can play whatever game he likes just not online." Hrm, ok, I'll let the "whatever" comment go for the moment.

I steel myself and reply. "Do you mean Xbox Live or PC games? What don't you let him play online?" I ask. My son is sitting next to me listening but bored. He's heard this conversation a few times.

"Oh, I won't let him play online at all. Especially those MOMO games. I'm too afraid of predators and he's only 13." *sigh* Yeah for the media.

I'm getting loopy because she's been pumping meds into my IV this entire time and I feel like I'm talking through cotton.

"Well... I wouldn't let him use voice on Xbox Live but you could let him play. Voice though - it's just too profane. But I can't think of any reason he couldn't play most MMOs online. He's just typing."

"Don't you worry about whether someone will ask to meet him at the park or something!!" It could be the meds or she could be shrill, I can't tell at this point. The room is spinning.

"Well, no. It's rather like being at the park, isn't it? I mean, you teach him if he befriends someone at the park and they ask him to come home with them he should say no or ask you first. It's the same online - teach him the skills he needs. Say no, or I have to ask my mom or report it to abuse or hit ignore... It's just like the park or school or anywhere, really."

She's looking at me sideways. I know I'm loopy and all but she is looking at me sideways. I don't know if I've gotten through to her.

Damn media blows everything out of proportion.

She starts to ask my son about his online experiences just as I pass out. At least I have nothing to worry about there.

Convergence is happening again/still/ad infinitum. Psychochild pointed me to a post on Slashdot last week about game reviews being broken; this post is based upon an editorial on Kotaku which discusses game reviews being broken primarily from the point of scoring and worth the money.

Gee, really? (Self-aggrandizement off.)

Convergence. While all of this yapping was occurring, I was noticing a few things myself:

After reviewing a game I adored and was particularly proud of the review, I sent the link to a friend. His response? (verbatim)

"i had a hard time getting into it. i dunno why. :( i kinda think being paid for reviews and being rushed on them is making gaming less enjoyable for me. i had to can the review for it since it wouldn't have been timely." What's timely? "2 weeks after release, though 1 is preferred. we have to rush with the reviews." (This site buys all of their titles retail; they receive nothing pre-launch.)

Nice.

Three PR companies were pushing particularly hard for PC previews. These were for games of medium-sized publishers and it is unlike any of the people at the companies to push like this. So I asked why?

PRRep: both IGN and GamesRadar have both said flat out they don't have the manpower to cover [said vendor's] games. this is a growing trend with PC games, by the way with titles that are not AAA or multiplatform releases. it's insanity
OpheleaLC: but there are so many of "me"
PRRep: unfortunately, no
OpheleaLC: what happened to the b-list sites? and honestly, my problem? they spend their advertising money on ign and gamesradar so that we struggle....
PRRep: a lot of the b-listers don't cover PC anymore
OpheleaLC: wow, that's insane and that explains why I have so much PC
PRRep: yep!

Nice, again. And not the first time I've heard this concern about PC titles. Not even the second or third…

GamersInfo.net makes it a point to cover children's titles - in homes with children. During the holiday season we are overwhelmed. But, something common with children's titles is you must ask for them. Why? Direct from the mouth of PR:

"Well, we don't really want a hard-core gaming site to give a good kid's game a bad review score, simply because they don't "get" the audience, KWIM? It likely won't have all the elements that hard-core gamers want, and therefore a perfectly great family game will get a bad score ;)"

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Until this editorial started brewing in this brain of mine, I’d carefully been avoiding public statements about the state of E3 this year. I have many reasons: I’ve not yet completed our coverage; this year was such a departure I am not comfortable making comparisons when I think the changes are still a work in progress; I think that much of what has been said has been said and said and said...

But, as I was doing research to fact check an article by a staff writer I encountered a small preview on a very large site – ok, the largest – that just made me stop. Literally stop.

I wondered. Where was the editor? This may take some explaining.

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I’m sitting here in the Phoenix Airport waiting for a flight to Minneapolis. This is my weekend to speak to the Indie Devs at the IMGDC about Community Management. Boy, are they in for it. I’m not going to be doing the usual “be polite, be respectful”; I plan to tell them to build tools from the beginning because “it’s a damn service, not just a game!” *sigh*

What I should be doing is catching up on some reviews. I have 3 kid’s DS games I need to review. Some are going on four weeks old.

We work really hard to cover children’s titles on this site. We work even harder to make sure there are children (of the appropriate ages) in the homes where the games are being covered. And you’d think the games would be a slam-dunk to cover. It’s just not the case. With the possible exception of MMOs, they’re the hardest titles to cover.

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I have ideas. Some of them come to fruition, some don't. It's like that with most people, I'm sure. But, I do have goals with this site. Someday, they'll become obvious, I hope. I'm working on a completing a long overdue communications degree. But I have obstacles. Yesterday, I found out that I had until midnight last night to produce an essay indicating why I had need, qualifications and would make a difference if someone gave me money.

I considered posting this on my personal blog, but it's relevant to the gaming industry as well. Because, I'm working on this degree not just for personal enrichment, but for this site and for this industry.

Tell me what you think. I'll get back to games, etc soon. Essay after the jump.

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This entry was posted on LiveJournal in my personal blog in November of last year and was the seed that germinated into the column you are now reading.

I'm in a bit of a conundrum. You see, I eventually plan to move this (this being my personal blog) to Ophelea.com. But I kept saying "I'll get it ready" for about 6 months. And there were these thoughts I kept wanting to get out of my head and as I rarely write on paper anymore I was at a loss as to where to place them. (This is not the conundrum, by the way.)

So, now I have this spot here on LiveJournal, with the Robots that cause the reaction, "Are robots really you?" I have no idea why they cause that reaction...

And I think there's maybe 3 people reading it? Assuming I've told that many...

The conclusion being that if I've told them about it they know me and what I do for a living.

This brings me to the conundrum. I just realized, I have two...conundrums, that is. Ok, the first. Do I write this as if there may be an actual stranger reading this? Or do I assume that only people who know me are? Wow, that would be sad. For now, I'll pretend random people have found these ruminations even though they're all of 5 days old.

The second conundrum and the point of the title is this: I manage a website known as GamersInfo.net. It's up there in the corner on the left (at least in this incarnation of the journal). We do game reviews, interviews, blah blah blah. I've been around games, books, movies - entertainment media for 15 years now. No, 17 years. Christ, I'm old.

Occasionally, or more than occasionally, I have thoughts on trends. For example, this year as I review children's games, I notice after a 2-year campaign of complaining vehemently that an E-rated game doesn't at all indicate whether the game is appropriate for a 6-10 year because children of that age vary GREATLY and who knows whether someone of age 7 can even read yet! Games finally say on the back (in eensy weensy little print) "Game requires basic reading ability to be enjoyed fully"

Score!

I should get to the conundrum.

I'm considering an Editor's Thoughts column on the site. We have several editors and they write well as a whole. And more often than not they have valid ideas.

Is this a worthy endeavor?

I haven't been able to write like I've wanted; it's been frustrating because there have been many thoughts swirling around this grey matter I call a brain. I'm preparing for the aforementioned trip to the UK; recovering from the holidays (the activity made me ill); and there was the press event I attended for CDV Games. I like CDV, they're good people. They're primarily a publisher so their games are often hit-or-miss but you can't fault them for not making an honest effort for each of their titles. I like publishers that are good to their developers, honest with them, and still hold to their contracts. More integrity like this in business - not just gaming - would make the world a better place.

It was at the press event in San Francisco that I spoke to two other members of the press about something that had been swirling in my head for a while. EA Games. They're a giant in this industry and have been for some time. I follow them as best I can. They send us an inordinate amount of press releases; of course, they publish an inordinate amount of games. But, they're not particularly forthcoming with product for reviews. Nor are they responsive to requests. (If a publisher reads this, a simple, "I'm sorry, but we can't provide you with that as this time" rather than complete silence goes a long ways towards a positive reputation with the press.)

I run a Tier 2 site. This means that we really don't rate their time. They want "quick and dirty" reviews that are all about the "shinies". I hate shinies; I want to talk about the game. That's ok, I really don't fault EA. It's becoming an (unfortunate) common trend with the larger publishers.

Anyways, I've been noticing that over the past three years or so of acquisitions, re-naming of said acquisitions and launch of product that EA's actual quality of games has steadily decreased to the mediocre. Mediocrity isn't bad in a start-up; it's the kiss of death in a multi-million dollar conglomerate. They pump out sequel after sequel with incremental improvements - or in the case of this year's sports line-up, removal of features - and fewer and fewer new IPs. When they do have a new IP, it's through acquisition and they re-brand the studio immediately.

I think this last part is the problem.

You see, the consumer doesn't often look at brand name, not really. But, if pushed hard enough, there is brand recognition. And EA has forced that. In the past, when they were building their "empire" it worked for them. However, now that the quality of their titles has slowly declined and fewer and fewer new titles are being produced the net effect is that "EA" is a problem. If they hadn't re-branded every single studio to the EA brand then the mediocrity of the titles would be diffuse and spread out over many different labels and EA wouldn't be the recognizable factor. What once was a strength is now a liability.

The writers I was talking to thought it would make a great editorial. I told them they couldn't steal my editorial! But...today I found this: Analyst: EA Brand Tarnished. Convergence is lovely.

And you know what? This isn't new. Vivendi/Universal used to be a powerhouse. But, a succession of poor games that they published (but were smart enough not to brand) was bringing them down. (VUGames had other issues to be sure but this was certainly a problem.) They owned the brand Sierra Games, a studio which they closed two years ago but still had rights to; no more VUG, hello Sierra! Many gamers have very fond memories of Sierra and this will only help them long term.

However I'm not sure EA "gets" it. N'Gai Croal of Newsweek is a respected reporter who I've followed since he joined the publication. He's published a 3-part interview with Larry Probst, CEO of EA and it's like the Giant who can't see the Lilliputians. The man is just out of touch.

I guess all this rambling is because I see this as worrying. Infrogrames bought the Atari name (which hasn't been owned by Atari since 1964) because Atari used to mean something. Now it means half-assed games. VUGames had to change their name. EA needs to wake up.

And yet, shouldn't the answer be to make better games? Stop sacrificing quality for quantity?

And if you're going to buy a studio, great - fund them! But allow them an identity of their own. Microsoft has historically left it's studios with their own identity. We in the consumerist press and the hardcore gaming enthusiast may know that it's not quite that simple but the majority of the people who truly matter - the people who BUY games, they look for names like Bungie, Rare, Ensemble (ok, maybe not Ensemble) but it's not Microsoft they're looking for unless it's Flight Sim.

There's a lesson in here to be learned somewhere...

Today "concise" eludes me.

I think that phrase is partial lyrics from a Dave Matthews song. No, I'm sure of it. *Googles which one not actually using Google but since it's now the verb* So Much To Say Well, whaddya know.

It's been a busy weekend/Monday in my nick of the woods. Or rather my corner of life. The launch for the Playstation3 went off horribly on Friday with riots and shootings and shortages and just general negativity. Sony has done a terrible job not just at providing product for the consumer but at managing expectations and marketing so that the consumer didn't have a "dog eat dog" mentality when trying to obtain one of the few units on the planet. It's disappointing but not unexpected that they tripped so badly. Actually, it's disappointing that it's not unexpected.

Then, on Sunday, Nintendo launched the Wii. I really like Nintendo because they take risks (but don't ever get me started on their PR company - even the giant IGN threatened to boycott coverage of them at one point because their PR company is so awful). They took a huge risk with the Wii and it payed off. Games can be games again, not movies. They're fun, innovative and they get you off the couch. My son boxed until he needed to wring his shirt out on Sunday.

I think what most impressed me were the people I waited with for 7 hours on Saturday at Wal-Mart. These were good people. Kind people. We'd talked about the horror of the PS3 launch and someone made the statement that they didn't think we had to worry about it with this crowd. I took him to mean that because it wasn't a large crowd there'd be no violence and made the statement that I didn't believe people waiting for a Wii would act in the same manner. He said that was what he'd meant, too.

You see, never, in any marketing I'd seen for the Wii was I made to feel like I "had" to have it or I'd be less of a gamer. That it was the "next best" thing. Only that it was something new, something fun. The choice was mine.

And never did I feel like it was this great new compilation of tools that was going to make my life easier. It was "just" a gaming system. Not a "music/video/dvd/mp3/mpg4/toaster/waffle iron/wash your car/solve world hunger" item. It's a game system. I like that. Keeps the price down, too. And lo and behold, it came with FUN games installed.

I've had a little time with the PS3 and I'll end up with one eventually - it is my job after all. I can't say that I won't enjoy the products that are produced for it, because ultimately the products are what matter. But, right now, I'm enjoying the machine. Odd that.

I was going to talk about Viva Pinata, writing too many reviews at once and people who don't appreciate your efforts, but I think this is enough for one entry. Back to the coal mines.